16_jwe_1-2 foreword of editor-in-chief the journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (jwee) provided a consistent and effective framework to analyze how, female entrepreneurship development and education interact and make an impact on entrepreneurship development. it is currently in the category m52 because of the great number of quality papers, whose authors were the scientists from more than thirty countries, from all the continents. what gives the special quality to these papers is the fact that most of them are original scientific empirical research papers, and as such they give a special contribution to the issues addressed in the journal. i have to specially point out the fact that this scientific journal has extended its themes and has always focused on those themes which are prioritized because of their actuality. i expect for this trend to continue and for the issues of female entrepreneurship and education to continue to fascinate scientific and professional public, which will result in larger number of authors and papers. my special thanks go to dr olja munitlak ivanović who had a role of guest editor in the third part of this issue. february 25, 2016. editor-in-chief acad. prof. mirjana radović-marković, phd 14_jwe_3-4 statement from the editor-in-chief the concept of the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (jwe) is such that it gives the advantage to multidisciplinary approach to various subjects. it also emphasizes publishing of the scientific papers, which have an empirical and a research character. however, there is also the place in the journal for quality theoretical papers as well, reviews of the latest publications of national and international significance. examples of topics which illustrate the scope of the journal are provided below: � female nascent entrepreneurs � the environment for women’s entrepreneurship � corporate entrepreneurship and venturing entrepreneurial teams from gender perspectives, � the importance of women in the global labour force. � national and international policy, historical and cultural studies in female entrepreneurship � gender, minority and ethnic entrepreneurship � investment climate barriers to female-owned firms � men vs. women entrepreneurs � career choices and balance � women leaders � creativity and entrepreneurial thinking � enterprise and entrepreneurship education � policy options for strengthening the entrepreneurial competences of women � resourcing and managing innovation in entrepreneurial ventures � how to boost female entrepreneurship � case studies. the main text of a manuscript must be submitted as a word document (.doc). it is strongly recommended that you use the author submission guidelines to help you to prepare your submission to the journal. authors should submit their manuscripts online. we welcome manuscripts from academics, independent scholars, practitioners and students. 8th of october, 2014. editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković, academician 15_jwe_1-2 notes from the editor-in-chief jwe encourages multidisciplinary research because combining the approaches of two or more disciplines. therefore, in its content one can find most current topics which are being analyzed from the economic, psychological or other aspects. this journal is an international one, considering its international editorial staff and authors. it comes out twice a year in english and it is published by institute of economic sciences, belgrade. we ask authors to quote papers from our journal properly, as well as to send us the papers that have not been published yet. the responsibility for plagiarism is solely of the author. this is why we are introducing one new procedure this year – all authors, whose papers are being considered to be published, will fill in one form concerning the originality of the paper. we would like to express our gratitude to prof. dr neila holland from stratford university in the united states who accepted our invitation to be a guest editor. at last, we want to remind you to follow the author's guide and to send your papers to the e-mail jweoffice@ien.bg.ac.rs. editor-in-chief prof. mirjana radovic-markovic, phd, academician 17_jwe_3-4 udc: 338.486.3-055.2 338.487:339.13(497.11) jel: l26, o15 cobiss.sr-id: 253632524 original scientitic paper e-learning as a tool for empowering entrepreneurship mirjana radović marković1 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia dušan marković2 belgrade business school, belgrade, serbia vladimir simović3 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia zorica medić4 faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship, belgrade, serbia jovan zivadinović faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship, belgrade, serbia5 a b s t r a c t distance learning is a specific form of education which can be applied in many different areas in order to enable the improvement of the skills and competencies of the people who have decided to learn this way. the advantages of distance learning based on it are numerous and more than obvious. the question we are trying to address in this paper is whether e-learning can be used for 1 e-mail: mirjana.radovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 2 e-mail: dusanbps@gmail.com 3 e-mail: vladimir.simovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 4 e-mail: zorica.medic@vspep.edu.rs 5 e-mail: jovan.zivadinovic@vspep.edu.rs 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 65-72) empowering entrepreneurship. for that purpose, we have designed and conducted a research and the results of that research are presented in this paper. the overall conclusion is that e-learning programs specially designed for entrepreneurs can be used as a tool for empowering young people competencies in this area and especially in countries with inadequate system of formal education, like serbia. key words: e-learning, entrepreneurship, competencies, students introduction distance learning is not news anymore. it has been around for years now and many universities, schools and private companies are using all of the advantages that distance learning (e-learning) is offering in order to widespread their markets, offer more competitive programs to their students and learners and simply use all the advantages of the information technology in the learning process. there are many authors who are investigating the potential of distance learning in different areas of study. spatariu et al. addressed evaluating effective online instruction. graham et al., mccombs assessed the value of online courses in specific fields of study. draves, in its studies, emphasizes the benefits of providing online learning. the greatest advantage of using modern information and communication devices in education is reflected in learning from home, at its own pace where the material is presented by different methods, with the possibility of perceiving its own progress. recent research shows that the introduction of virtual environments into higher education has the potential to bring a positive change in the learning experience. our research is focusing on investigating the possibilities of distance learning application in the area of entrepreneurship. the studies carried out so far on the impact of education on entrepreneurship show a high level of connectivity. increasing the competencies of individuals encourages entrepreneurship and establishes an entrepreneurial culture on a wider scale. dynamic business environment requires a permanent increase in the educational level of entrepreneurs, and consequently to improve the educational process by adding alternative subjects that a participant can choose. radović-marković, m., et al., e-learning, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 65-72) 67 research methodology and questionnaire in order to investigate the student’s attitudes towards e-learning and its association with entrepreneurship we have designed a study which was conducted during 2012 in turkey and serbia, simultaneously. in turkey the respondents were the students of anadolu university, faculty of economics and in serbia the students of belgrade business school were introduced with the questionnaire. in total 405 participants from both countries were participating in a research, 205 from turkey and 200 from serbia respectively. the research included seven questions as follows: 1. do you intend to run your private business as soon as you graduate? a) yes b) no 2 why do you want to be an entrepreneur? a) this is the only way to get a job b) i can earn more than working for someone c) i have a good business idea i want to realize 3. do you have any role model among successful entrepreneurs? a) yes b) no 4. is formal education necessary for entrepreneurship? a) yes b) no 5. do you believe that distance learning would be a good solution for future young entrepreneurs? a) yes b) no 6. would you like to attend one of these distance learning programs? a) yes b) no 7. what would be the most important in selecting such a program, and ways of learning? a) acquisition of knowledge b) the faster and easier way to graduate c) flexibility in studying 68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 65-72) key findings as it can be seen in table 1. 29% of respondents in turkey are ready to start their own business as soon as they graduate. on the other side, the portion of the students in serbia willing to start their own private business after graduation is 90%. table1: readiness of the respondents in turkey and serbia to start their own business after graduation country readiness to start own business turkey 29% serbia 90% source: authors key question arising from the data presented in table 1 is why is there such a huge disproportion between undergraduates in turkey and serbia regarding this question. one of the reasonable explanations may be the fact that the students in serbia are far less introduced with all the challenges that start up projects bring along. the results of the second question regarding the student’s perception of the reasons to become an entrepreneur are presented in table 2. table 2: reasons that the respondents in turkey and serbia perceive as the most important in terms of becoming an entrepreneur country reasons to become entrepreneur turkey good business idea 50% serbia possibility to earn more 45% source: authors as it can be seen from table 2. the students in turkey perceive good business idea as the main reason to become an entrepreneur. one of the possible explanations of such result is developed entrepreneurial culture in this country supported by the educational system which promotes entrepreneurship. on the other side, the students from serbia observe the possibility to earn more as the key driver of becoming an entrepreneur. radović-marković, m., et al., e-learning, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 65-72) 69 regardless of the reasons it is very important that the students from both countries recognize the importance of entrepreneurship. the students attitudes regarding the existence of a role model among successful entrepreneurs are presented in table 3. table 3: the existence of a role model among successful entrepreneurs country yes no turkey 66% 34% serbia 42% 58% source: authors the fact that the students in turkey are more likely to have a role model among successful entrepreneurs can be attributed to the fact that the entrepreneurship has longer tradition in this country than in serbia. often, successful businesses in serbia are associated with some form of unethical government protection and corruption resulting in a fact that successful entrepreneurs are not perceived as successful, hardworking and intelligent people. the student’s attitudes towards the importance of formal education for entrepreneurship are presented in table 4. table 4: the importance of formal education for entrepreneurship country yes no turkey 57% 43% serbia 50% 50% source: authors in both cases, students recognize the formal education as important driver for the development of entrepreneurship. the system of formal education should provide students with necessary knowledge and skills for entrepreneurship. unfortunately, this is not the case in serbia at the moment and serious changes need to be undertaken in this area. one of the possible solutions for the aforementioned issue in serbia could be the distance learning programs in the area of entrepreneurship. student’s opinions regarding this option are presented in table 5. 70 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 65-72) table 5: distance learning programs in the area of entrepreneurship country yes no turkey 44% 56% serbia 40% 60% source: authors the fact that some students recognize the potential of distance learning programs in the area of entrepreneurship is very important, especially in terms of lifelong learning. it can be concluded that the existence of world known distance learning platforms contributed to the fact that young people recognize the potential of distance learning programs. data representing the students willingness to participate in distance learning programs are presented in table 6. table 6: willingness to participate in distance learning programs country yes no turkey 31% 69% serbia 80% 20% source: authors as it may be seen in table 6, the students in serbia are more willing to participate in distance learning programs than their peers in turkey. one of the possible explanations may be the fact that due to obvious lack of competences provided to students in serbia by the system of formal education, they are willing to try something new in terms of acquiring necessary skills and that distance learning programs are seen as good options to do so. in terms of motivation to enter distance learning program, the results presented in table 7 show that students in turkey perceive acquisition of knowledge as most important factor. on the other side, students in serbia think that flexibility in studying is the most important motive. once again, it is obvious that the students in serbia do not consider the acquisition of knowledge as the most important factor because of the fact the system of formal education is not perceived as being able to provide the acquisition of necessary skills and competences. radović-marković, m., et al., e-learning, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 65-72) 71 table 7: motivation factors to enter distance learning program motivation factor turkey serbia acquisition of knowledge 44% 25% the faster and easier way to graduate 29% 27% flexibility in studying 27% 48% source: authors conclusions the results presented in this paper point to the fact that the students from turkey and serbia recognize the importance of entrepreneurship and what is most important the significance of distance education programs in terms of acquiring skills and expertise necessary for entrepreneurs. the fact that students point of view in these two countries significantly differ regarding some dimensions of entrepreneurship points to the fact that the system of formal education in these two countries is different in terms of knowledge and skills provided to the students after graduation. students from serbia recognize the importance of entrepreneurship but on the other side are well aware of the fact that the system of formal education in serbia is not good enough and that some alternatives should arise, either in the form of informal education programs or in the form of distance learning programs. the results obtained from both countries suggest that distance learning programs have great potential in the area of entrepreneurship. the fact that over 40% of students in both countries recognize the potential of distance learning programs in terms of entrepreneurship is very important. in order to enable those programs to be successful they need to be carefully planned and designed, with clearly stated goals and outcomes. using modern technologies, the process of learning becomes more informative where learners access different types of information, using the methods that best suit them. this kind of education can be combined with the classical form of teaching, face to face. this combination provides them a lot of opportunities to learn more new things in a quite different environment. unfortunately, according to our key findings these opportunities are not exploited enough in serbia. 72 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 65-72) references [1] alexandru, s.; kendall, h.; lisa. b. (2004). “defining and measuring quality in online discussions“. the journal of interactive online learning, 2(4). [2] barbara, l. mccombs. assessing the role of educational technology in the teaching and learning process: a learner-centered perspective. the secretary’s conference on educational technology. (denver: university of denver research institute, 2000). retrieved october 27, 2013. [3] charles, g.; kursat, c.; byung-ro, l; joni, c. and thomas m. duffy. seven principles of effective teaching: a practical lens for evaluating online courses, technology source. (chapel hill: university of north carolina, 2001). retrieved october 20, 2013. available http://technologysource.org/article/seven_principles_of_effective_teaching/ [4] fotis, l; anastasios, d.; vassilios, v; (eds.). games and virtual worlds for serious applications. third international conference on games and virtual worlds for serious applications, (athens: ieee, 2011). [5] marvin, c. (1998). "distance education, individualization, and the demise of the university”. technology in society, 20: 318. [6] mirjana, r. m.; et al. fostering entrepreneurship in higher education through e-learning: a case study of serbia and turkey, edited by m. radovic markovic. in conference proceedings, employment, education, entrepreneurship (belgrade: faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship, 2012), p. 10-27 [7] mirjana, r. m. (2013). “female entrepreneurship: theoretical background“, journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, 1-2/2013:1-9. [8] william, d. teaching online. (river falls: lern books, 2002), p. 10-15. retrieved june 21, 2013 article history: received: 17 october, 2017 accepted: l december, 2017 17_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.336.5:004 371.331:004 jel: j16, l83 cobiss.sr-id 253633036 scientific review women entrepreneurship in function of improving tourist offer jelena čeperković1 ugostiteljsko-turistička škola sa domom učenika u vrnjačkoj banji marija šiljak2 ugostiteljsko-turistička škola sa domom učenika u vrnjačkoj banji marijana đurađević3 a b s t r a c t the aim of this paper is to try to highlight the importance of women entrepreneurship in function of longer stay of tourists in tourist destinations, that is, to answer the question – to what extent does women entrepreneurship participate in the tourist offer of serbian tourist destinations? in this paper, we will identify some of the women entrepreneurs that direct their business activities, among other things, towards the tourist market. also in this paper, we will try to determine the level of engagement of women entrepreneurs in the tourism industry and the ability to focus their activities more on the tourist market. one of the main problems of tourism in serbia is a modest tourist offer to domestic and especially foreign tourists. this problem is evident on the basis of the number of days that tourists spend in our tourist destinations. the data from the republic bureau of statistics show that tourists stayed in tourist areas by an average of 2.74 days, which is relatively small in comparison with the stay of tourists within the european union. 1 e-mail: jelena.ceperkovic@gmail.com 2 e-mail: marija.siljak@gmail.com. 3 e-mail: mdjuradjevic@gmail.com 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 73-83) key words: women entrepreneurs, tourist offer, tourist product introduction in the republic of serbia, there is legal and the institutional framework for understanding gender equality. this primarily refers to the constitution of the republic of serbia (2006), which as the highest legal act defines gender equality in serbia. then there is the anti-discrimination act (2009) which defines discrimination, but defines the principle of equality. serbia has established an independent state authority, the commissioner for equality who performs duties in accordance with the law on gender equality (2009). also, the labor law (2014) prohibits gender discrimination and guarantees the same salary for the same work or work of equal value. in terms of statistics, in recent years women are significantly more present in public life than before. the best proof is the fact of the number of women deputies in the national assembly. namely, they used to make 21.2% of the total number of deputies and today assembly has 32.8% of women, which is better than in many developed countries. the situation is similar at the local level, where the situation has improved significantly in favour of women. from the aspect of education, both women and men have equal access to education. more female students enter faculties, and graduate even greater number of females than before. females choose faculties in the areas of education, health and social welfare, arts and humanities, and social sciences. the census of 2011 showed that the population in serbia decreased by 4.15% compared to the previous census. on the other hand, the data of the republic bureau of statistics show that the percentage of women in the total population does not change, and it is about 51.3%. in december 2016 the number of employed persons was 2.027.000 while the number of unemployed persons in this period was 828.439 of which 358.792 were women. a disturbing fact is that one third of women, namely 111.897, had no qualification. these data indicate that the chance of the unemployed female population may well be in the tourism and hospitality industry, which is defined as a priority sector in the development strategy of the republic of serbia. especially, knowing that this sector demands "female occupations", including unskilled labour, given that there is a large number of unskilled women. čeperković, j., et al., women entrepreneurship, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 73-83) 75 in addition to employment in restaurants and travel agencies, the sector of tourism and hospitality offers the possibility of starting their own businesses in terms of expanding the range of tourism products and services with the aim of tourist consumption. tourism has a multiplied impact on consumption in the context of other activities (transport, retail, utilities, etc.). entrepreneurship is important for the tourism industry, especially if we know that there are plenty of opportunities to start own businesses that would complement the content of the value chain in the tourist destination. this primarily refers to entrepreneurship in the context of certain types of tourism, especially rural, events, religion, etc. in the context of starting their own business in the tourism industry, women are particularly preferred. it is said that it is known tourism has a "feminine principle", the feminine aspect, concept, beauty, creativity, events, emotions, laughter, etc., just like the "male principle" is linked to the sport. the tourist movement includes everyone, so there is no category of the population that cannot be included in the tourist movement, and space and destination are adapted to different categories of tourists. in tourism, labour force consists mostly of women. this is logical, given that tourists expect hospitality, courtesy, patience, adjusting to their desires and caprices. tourists expect a clean and tidy room, a comfortable bed, good food, the right drinks and fulfilling of almost all wishes. to meet all of these needs and desires of tourists, tourist operators must be patient hosts, friendly guides, workers with a lot of understanding. all these activities, by their nature, want and better fulfill women. women learn, study and find jobs in the tourism industry and through these occupations exhibit their "feminine principle". therefore, tourist destinations are spaces that are beautifully arranged, nice, pleasant and very attractive for tourists. but on the other side, a paradox or not, the four-fifths of managers in the tourism industry are men. maybe this is the thing that has survived for years, as men are considered the gender that decides, orders, punishes etc. defining women entrepreneurship the word entrepreneurship unites two words innovation and creativity, later known as the concept of "innovative economy" (schumpeter, 1942). more complete and today more acceptable definition of 76 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 73-83) entrepreneurship is that entrepreneurship is "a process that consists of creation of something new, which requires time and great effort, including psychological, financial, and other forms of risk, and in return receives material satisfaction " (hisrich, rd, 1986). according to ahmad seymour, entrepreneurs are people (business owners) who seek for creating value by establishing or expanding economic activity in the way of identifying and exploiting new products, markets and processes. entrepreneurial activity is enterprising human action focused on creating value by establishing or expanding economic activity by identifying and exploiting new products, markets and processes. entrepreneurship is a phenomenon associated to the entrepreneurial activity (ahmad, seymour, 2008). apart from the notions “an entrepreneur”, “entrepreneurship”, literature also recognizes terms “women entrepreneurs” and “female entrepreneurs”. one of many definitions of women entrepreneurs is the one that defines women entrepreneurs as those who own more than 50% of companies (not taking into account the manner in which they acquired the property), who are actively involved in the operations of the company as managers and who create jobs for themselves and for other persons. if the starting point is the fact that this definition is the most accurate for the purpose of research, it is possible to define 8 criteria that should be fulfilled by women entrepreneurs (avolio b., 2011): 1) women must have more than 50% stake in the company, regardless the manner in which the property was acquired; 2) the company must employ at least two people, in order to differentiate it from a self-employed women and it is considered that recruitment of others in their own companies is a relevant characteristic of entrepreneurial activities; 3) women should have an important role in the operations of the company at the time of conducting the research; 4) women must work full-time in the company which differs them from those entrepreneurs who occasionally perform some work for the company; 5) women must achieve most of their revenue from the companies they manage, which separate them from those who work part-time and are not completely dedicated to companies; čeperković, j., et al., women entrepreneurship, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 73-83) 77 6) it is necessary for women to be in the company for at least two years, in order to separate them from the category of those who are not committed completely to a firm; 7) the company must have been operating for at least two years formally, as to distinguish the short-term and long-term perspectives of the company's founding; 8) the company must formally exist at the time of researching and taking the sample (registered, settled tax liabilities, paying salaries, etc.). in serbia, the only official definition of the entrepreneur is in the law on private entrepreneurs (official gazette srs 54/89, 9/90, official gazette rs 19/91, 46/91, 31/93, 39/93, 53/93, 67/93, 48/94, 53/95, 35/2002, 101/2005). according to this definition "the entrepreneur is a person who, for gaining profit, opens a firm and independently performs its activities" (article 1), where the firm can be a workshop, office, bureau, service, agency, studio, pension, pharmacy, clinic and similar (article 3). in serbia, there is not an official definition of women's entrepreneurship nor a system of regular monitoring of entrepreneurship by gender of entrepreneurs. the absence of such systematic, gender-sensitive monitoring, prevents profiling of adequate measures to promote women's entrepreneurship and comparison with the eu countries and region (avlijaš, s. et al. 2012). characteristics of women entrepreneurship lately, people have been talking more and more about the phenomenon called women entrepreneurship. this is the kind of entrepreneurship where a woman is a person who starts to produce, innovate, take risks, create jobs and generate profit. while during the seventies of the last century the percentage of female entrepreneurs was significantly low, almost negligible around 5%, today this percentage is significant in the total number of entrepreneurs and up to one-third of the total business in the world is run by women. the number of women turning to entrepreneurial activities on a daily basis significantly increases and this trend has swept equally all countries regardless the level of their development. however, compared to the past, there have been changes that have caused differences in the factors that influence decision making. the main characteristic of women entrepreneurs is creation of jobs, profit making and self-employment. if we 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 73-83) compare male and female business, we find noticeable significant differences that are reflected as follows: − women’s business is smaller by the range, which leads to a smaller number of employees and a smaller profit; − the motive for starting women’s business in most cases is self – employment; − starting women’s business in most cases is focused on the service activities; − women’s business does not have the intensity of growth that male business does (women's business conference 2012). mostly stereotypes that accompany the ability of women and the belief to be less successful are even today arguments that go in favour of men's business, because "a successful entrepreneur" mostly refers to men. the most common motives that drive women to start their own business are (knežević, s. p. 7-10, 2013): − the innovative drive, − the economic necessity, − independence, − the need for achievement, − stories about success from the region, − the only chance to get a job, − independence at work − they do not have a better choice for the job, − the desire for a better salary, − business opportunity not to be missed, − impossibility for promotion at work. on the other hand, women entrepreneurs are faced with specific problems. if we compare men and women in business, once again we can detect some specific differences that characterize women, these are primarily the lack of necessary knowledge and experience to start a business, women have less confidence, women have less access to finance and professional associations. čeperković, j., et al., women entrepreneurship, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 73-83) 79 schematic representation 1: specific problems of women entrepreneurship surveys and studies show that female entrepreneurs have limited market access, they are mainly focused on the domestic, local area. few women entrepreneurs managed to enter the international market, especially in comparison with the male in similar economies. the reasons lie in the limited opportunities for travel, the lack of information on export needs and demand, competition, supply conditions, etc. and the desire to enter the export market next challenge for the administrative procedures related to export (grozdanić, r. 2016). in our conditions, women’s entrepreneurship usually starts "out of necessity" unemployment, low income, the need to support the families, poverty, but it is not, and should not be the only survival strategy. the current situation is not in favor of women entrepreneurs and does not encourage the development of women's entrepreneurship. women entrepreneurs in the tourism offer women's entrepreneurship is gaining significant role in the domestic and international economic scene and represents a significant potential for economic development of a country. in developed countries, women have special stimulus and support for the development of their own businesses. in addition to the policy applied, which protects women against discrimination specific problem male domination in business fear of risk low education level lack of information family problems 80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 73-83) and inequality, in these countries operate a number of organizations and associations that deal with the issue of women and provide them with various forms of support (vukmirović, n. p. 16, 2005). tourism is in the field of service activities. services being the subject of exchange have their market value, and in that sense, are divided into: − services for preservation of physical health; − services for spiritual values; − services for tangible and intangible assets; − services for the safety of people and property (ivanović, s. p.63, 2014). a tourist product includes services from several segments: accommodation, transport, catering services, entertainment and so on. an integral part of the tourist product is also the infrastructure, cultural institutions, events and similar. tourist consumption for a one trip starts at the place of permanent residence from which tourists move. this expenditure relates to the purchase of products that are necessary for a tourist trip, then continues to a lesser extent during the journey and ends up in a tourist town. the highest consumption is realized in a tourist town, on board and extra services products as well as services. in this series of sites where tourists begin and end tourist consumption there is the possibility to start a small own business. entrepreneurship is the driving force of any form of economy, but its importance stands out especially in tourism, because in this industry human labour is crucial in creating quality of tourist service (ivanović, s. p.65, 2014). depending on the type of tourism that is developed or the type of tourism the destination is generally known after (religious, rural, health, city tourism, etc.) the entrepreneurial activity is developing in the field of hospitality, agriculture and other activities that enable the stay of tourists in one destination. in destinations where religious tourism plays a dominant role, starting the own business is mainly focused on handicraft techniques for creating religious and other souvenirs, organizing various exhibitions, marketing activities at the destination level, organizing tours and other visits, organizing events and happenings that are crucial for gathering the large number of believers. for the development of entrepreneurship at the destination level, the key role belongs to a destination management organization. coordinated activities of management should establish the partnership and business čeperković, j., et al., women entrepreneurship, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 73-83) 81 cooperation between institutions and other entities in the area, so they all work together and offer tourists an integrated tourist product. women’s entrepreneurship is particularly significant in rural tourism. a rural tourist household in the context of entrepreneurship is a small familyowned company that provides a complete tourist product for guests tourists. accompanying services and products that tourists can buy and prepare with the hosts are: food for winter, dried herbs, various souvenirs and so on. and what is specific to this entrepreneurial activity is starting a business without having qualifications. by combining the villagers it is possible to achieve an increasing volume, the greater number of tourist arrivals. what women in rural areas need for development of tourism are financial resources for starting a business, because at the beginning of the investment, these resources must be significant as to satisfy the legal minimum on one side and wishes and needs of tourists on the other. lack of financial resources directly creates a lack of space and equipment to run the business. women entrepreneurs lack the knowledge for starting and functioning of the organization, knowledge of a clear goal and purpose of the organization, and there is high mutual distrust, disappointment and discouragement. and what is basically the problem in these businesses is lack of recognition of the need for merging and joint market. no matter what form of tourism it is, women entrepreneurs can complete the additional services. women-owners of small businesses, with their products and services which they make available to tourists will make a heterogeneous tourist offer. products that are offered, made by skillful hands of women, are usually unique, original and typical for a particular tourist destination. serbian tourist destinations have their own specific features that identify them. so women in vojvodina belong to various associations that offer the market handicrafts resulting from the canvas, embroidery, wool, thread, glass, brushwood and plastic. all these products are original and are made mostly by traditional methods of production. in šumadija, women mainly produce ceramic products at the rural tourist household, deal with production of food for winter according to traditional recipes and the like. also, women are often members of various associations that throughout the year have activities aimed at the promotion of handicrafts, cottage industry, but also the promotion of products from these activities for the purpose of sales and profit. 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 73-83) one of the activities of women entrepreneurs association is organization of events that can be offered as a tourist attraction of a destination. the aim of such activities is to offer tourists visitors of a tourist town, handicrafts products as souvenirs, which is the only material goods that tourists carry from the tourist town. on the other hand, such events bring together a large number of participants from different regions that generate tourist consumption in the place where these events are held. options to increase the degree of heterogeneity of the tourist offer are large, since only a heterogeneous tourist offer can keep tourists at a tourist destination. this primarily refers to the tourist consumption. it is necessary to be careful about the tourist offer, as to make the right offer at the right time. such tourist offer is in favour of women, because apart from their nature to care about someone, they have a stroke, the desire and the will to meet the increasingly demanding requirements of tourists. conclusion it is an undeniable fact that women entrepreneurs can significantly affect improvement of economy in one country. their entrepreneurial activities and starting their own businesses contribute primarily to selfemployment, then the employment of others, their business is very often directed to the rare or authentic products. the recruitment process means a permanent employment. the contribution of women entrepreneurs can be great with great benefits in the field of service activities, primarily of special forms of tourism. however, women entrepreneurship should be given support, as follows: 1. build institutions that would help women entrepreneurship, 2. develop training programs for women entrepreneurs, so that the program is standard, but also flexible, to reconcile the needs of women, 3. provide financial support, 4. provide special incentives through the legal institutional frameworks, 5. with adequate measures of state policy continuously encourage female entrepreneurship. when talking about the mechanism to support female entrepreneurship, it refers to the (knežević, s., p. 24, 2013): − funds for the development of women entrepreneurship, čeperković, j., et al., women entrepreneurship, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 73-83) 83 − special credit lines, − business incubators for women, − empowering women entrepreneurs, − definition of tax incentives and − the promotion of successful entrepreneurs. references [1] ahmad, n., seymour, r. 2008. “defining entrepeneurial activity, definitions supporting frameworks for data collection, oecd statistics working papers, [2] avijaš, s. i dr. 2012. najvažniji nalazi i preporuke iz studije o preduzetništvu u srbiji i rodne analize odabranih državnih mera za podršku preduzetništva. un women, beograd [3] avolio, b. e. 2011. “a methodological problem associated with researching women entrepreneurs.” journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, [4] grozdanović, r. 2014. žensko preduzetništvo. privredna komora srbije. [5] hisrich, robert d., ed., 1986. “entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and venture capital”: the foundations of economic renaissance, iv konferencija ženskog preduzetništva. [6] ivanović, s. 2014. management challenges on family farms in republic of serbia, agriculture, belgrade, [7] knežević, s. 2013. “žensko preduzetništvo“, centar za razvoj karijere, zemun. [8] schumpeter, j. 1942. “capitalism socialism and democracy”, london and new york. [9] united nations economic comission for europe, 2002. women's entrepreneurship in eastern europe and cis countries, united nations, geneva. [10] vukmirović, n. 2005. „modeli podrške razvoju ženskog preduzetništva“, originalni naučni članak udk 331.1-0.55.2:334.722.2. article history: received: 2 april, 2017 accepted: 5 december 2017 16_jwe_3-4_finalna_ver udk: 005.32:331.101.3-055.2 jel: l26, b54 cobiss.sr-id: 227961868 original scientific paper investigating women’s attitudes towards gender gap, employment and achieving social positions case study: women between 20-30 and 5060 years old barjesteh sarah1 islamic azad university, department of social sciences, science and research branch, tehran, iran a b s t r a c t women who constitute half of the society have lower social and economic positions compared to men. employment, social functions, higher educations, and other positions that ignore women are examples of this inequality. in the meanwhile, women’s attitudes towards this inequality have particular importance, because in the case of accepting this inequality and internalizing it, they themselves instigate this inequality and will internalize it. so far, in many aspects of the society, these intellectual sediments have caused women’s retardation from many social aspects. therefore, the present study aimed to investigate women’s (particularly women of tehran) attitudes towards gender-social inequalities against women as well as gender gap in employment and achieving social and economic positions. due to the vast area of tehran and lack of possibility to make samples from all areas, the city was divided into three northern, southern, and central parts and in each area, the available streets were identified and numbered. then, by regular random sampling, several streets were selected and census was 1 email: s.barjesteh@srbiau.ac.ir barjesteh, s., case study, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 66-78) 67 done. in this study, women were from two age groups of 20-30 and 50-60 years old. after survey and fulfillment of researcher-made questionnaires, data were analyzed in spss. key words: age, gender inequality, social-economic positions, gender socialization, gender stereotypes, subjective concepts introduction famous authors and scientists have pointed to inequalities between women and men. a quick look at this issue simply shows that most of the important political positions are captured by men. it means that men can establish rules regarding their power. of course, this power is tangible in other contexts as well (hyde, 2001: p. 48). in all societies, there is a kind of work sharing regarding gender. it means some works are specific to women. according to okkli (2001), gender-based work sharing is created by the society and is not related to natural differences between men and women. it means that businesses became known as masculine and feminine (aboot and wallas, 2002: p. 172). according to a study on a number of female and male students, the results showed that despite equal having iq, most of males have gained work positions in the future and most of the females became household (hyde, 2001: p. 129). fang et al. (2016) analyzed the means and ends of its practices and villagers' attitudes and behaviours in response to them based on a comparison of a failed case (village a) and a successful case (village b) in changchun city. women are imagined in a way where are naturally dedicated to household chores and caring and men are considered in general context to earn money as an employer. so that by now, women for success in business world, should adopt there rules (aboot and wallas, 2002: p. 174). both men and women believe that work is less important for women and due to the responsibilities that men have, they should earn more revenue compared to women and to have higher job security (aboot and wallas, 2002: p. 172). women are almost seen in lower level jobs while men have higher job positions. women almost work part-time while a large number of men have full-time jobs. as a result, women will not have job conditions like men (aboot and wallas, 2002: p. 187). women earn less than men. full-time 68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 66-78) wage of women is much lower than men. however, the major reason for these differences is the job separation that allocates different jobs to men and women and even in similar jobs, women are placed at lower levels (aboot and wallas, 2002: p. 190). for women, it is more likely to have low income jobs (aboot and wallas, 2002: p. 191). ahl and nelson (2015) compared the positioning of women entrepreneurs through entrepreneurship policy over two decades (1989–2012) in sweden and the united states. men take jobs that need technical proficiency and woman take semitechnical or simpler jobs with lower wages. women’s employment in lower levers is relatively easy and their job promotion is difficult. in family life, men make obstacles on women’s progresses instead of encouraging them. one of the major factors that affect women’s carrier is the masculine concept that implies for women, job is after childbearing (gidenz, 1995: p. 191). patriarchal tradition emphasis on motherhood and household roles has always led to the lack of house work and their informal jobs in gross national product contexts while women functions can contain advantages for themselves (self-confidence, relative financial independence, job socialization, participation in formal production organization), family (children’s socialization and changing the patriarchal atmosphere in the family), and society (growth of equality and realization of civil society) (mohammadi asl, 2002: p. 163). job inequalities for women regarding employment, wage, and promotion to higher levels are among the cases that necessitate the inequality issue in employment context and the achievement of social positions. review of literature famous authors and scientists have pointed to inequalities between women and men. a quick look at this issue simply shows that most of the important political positions are captured by men. it means that men can establish rule regarding their power. of course, this power is tangible in other contexts as well (hyde, 2001: p. 48). in all societies, there is a kind of work sharing regarding gender. it means some works are specific to women. according to okkli (2001), gender-based work sharing is created by the society and is not related to natural differences between men and women. it means that businesses became known a masculine and feminine (aboot and wallas, 2002: p. 172). barjesteh, s., case study, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 66-78) 69 oaks (2003) examined how antiabortion advocates since the late 1990s have promoted an “antiabortion, pro-motherhood” message in response to trends that they identify as indicating that irish reproduction has “gone awry”. according to a study on a number of female and male students, the results showed that despite equal having iq, most of males have gained work positions in the future and most of the females became household (hyde, 2001: p. 129). factors such as interest and exposure, spaces and places occupied, access to resources and attitudinal factors were influential in shaping their feminism (kiely and leane, 2014). women are imagined in a way where are naturally dedicated to household chores and caring and men are considered in general context to earn money as an employer. so that by now, women for success on business world, should adopt there rules (aboot and wallas, 2002: p. 174). both men and women believe that work is less important for women and due to the responsibilities that men have, they should earn more revenue compared to women and to have higher job security (aboot and wallas, 2002: p. 172). women are almost seen in lower level jobs while men have higher job positions. women almost work part-time while a large number of men have full-time jobs. as a result, women will not have job conditions like men (aboot and wallas, 2002: p. 187). women earn less than men. full-time wage of women is much lower than men. however, the major reason for these differences is the jobs separation that allocates different jobs to men and women and even in similar jobs, women are placed at lower levels (aboot and wallas, 2002: p. 190). for women, it is more likely to have low income jobs (aboot and wallas, 2002: p. 191). men take jobs that need technical proficiency and woman take semitechnical or simpler jobs with lower wages. women’s employment in lower levers is relatively easy and their job promotion is difficult. in family life, men make obstacles on women’s progresses instead of encouraging them. one of the major factors that affect women’s carrier is the masculine concept that implies for women, job is after childbearing (gidenz, 1995: p. 191). patriarchal tradition emphasis on motherhood and household roles has always led to the lack of house work and their informal jobs in gross national product contexts while women functions can contain advantages for themselves (self-confidence, relative financial independence, job socialization, participation in formal production organization), family 70 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 66-78) (children’s socialization and changing the patriarchal atmosphere in the family), and society (growth of equality and realization of civil society) (mohammadi asl, 2002: p. 163). job inequalities for women regarding employment, wage, and promotion to higher levels are among the cases that necessitate the inequality issue in employment context and the achievement of social positions. methodology the present study is among non-experimental studies (descriptive) that at descriptive level, investigated the attitudes towards gender gap among young and elderly women. in this study, the survey method has been used. therefore, in this method, through setting a questionnaire, the required data were collected. the sample of this study consisted of women at the age range of 20-30 and 50-60 years old of tehran that due to vast area of tehran and lack of possibility to make samples from all areas, the city was divided into three northern, southern, and central parts and in each area, the available streets were identified and numbered. then, by regular random sampling, several streets were selected and census was done. in this regard, areas 1, 11, and 19 were selected and by referring to iran’s statistics center site and based on statistics census of 2006, the total number of 16-26 and 46-56 years old women of these three areas was 12201 that by 2010, these age ranges changed into 20-30 and 50-60 years old. therefore, to estimate the number of samples in this study, cochran formula was used: )1(.. )1(.. 22 2 pptdn pptn n −+ − = where n is the sample size, n is the total number of sample, t2 is tstudent where the significance level is lower than 0/05, d2 is approximation in parameter estimation that is 0/052, p is the probability for the existence of trait and (1-p) is the probability for lack of trait existence and by considering the numbers in the present study, the sample size will be as follow: barjesteh, s., case study, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 66-78) 71 ( ) ( ) ( )5.015.0962.1052.012201 5.015.0962.112201 −∗+∗ −∗∗ =n the data collection tool in this study was a questionnaire that was used to determine the validity of the measurement tool from content validity and through interview with the 35 professors of social science and communication sciences as well as master’s students, the necessary changes were done. to confirm reliability, cronbach’s alpha was used. the results of cronbach’s alpha (79%) showed that the questionnaire has high reliability. to analyze the data, spss was used. findings hypothesis 1: there is a relationship between women’s age and their attitudes towards gender gap. table 1: the relationship between age distribution and attitudes towards gender gap total attitudes towards gender gap age group high low 245 160 85 number 20-30 100 65.3 34.7 percentage 128 74 54 number 50-60 100 8/57 42.2 percentage 373 234 139 number total 100 62.7 37.3 percentage x2=2.019, tau b=-0.74 sig=0.159 according to table (1), it can be inferred that with increased age from 20-30 to 50-60, the gender gap in women’s attitudes towards employment and social-economic positions decreases. however, this trend is low. for statistical inference of this relationship, we consider chi-square and kido test where the low value of chi-square states low difference between two age groups. from the negative value, we understand the reverse and weak relationship. but what demands attention us the significance where 0.159 states the significance of this relationship. therefore, the first hypothesis is rejected. 72 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 66-78) hypothesis 2: there is a significant relationship between marital status and women’s attitudes towards gender gap. to prove the veracity of this relationship, table (2) states the relationship between these two variables. table 2: the relationship between marital status and attitudes towards gender gap total attitudes towards gender gap age group high low 174 122 52 number single 100 70.1 29.9 percentage 199 112 87 number married 100 56.3 43.7 percentage 373 234 139 number total 100 62.7 37.3 percentage according to the above table, it can be inferred that attitudes towards gender gap is higher in single women while more than 70% of single women have attitudes towards high gender gap. this level in married women decreases to 56%. also, those theories that were pointed out in the literature emphasize this point that married women, despite more involvement in family, usually have less gender attitude compared to those single women who are only involved in job environment without serious responsibility in family. to prove the statistical relationship, independent ttest was used. table 3: t-test, the relationship between marital status and attitudes towards gender gap number variance sd mean gender gap married high low 174 0.4980 0.4591 1.7011 70.1 29.9 single 199 0.4954 0.4937 1.5628 56.3 43.7 married 373 sig=0.006 t=2.788 62.7 37.3 total what can be inferred from t-test results, is the significant difference between two groups and t-value that states the correlation between two variables and the significant relationship due to numerical value of sig=0/006. therefore, this hypothesis is confirmed. barjesteh, s., case study, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 66-78) 73 hypothesis 3: there is a significant relationship between women’s employment and their attitudes towards gender gap. according to the theoretical studies that were stated in the second part, this relationship is a direct relationship. it means that it is expected after the employment, the women’s gender gap attitudes decreases while it seems that in job environment, and witnessing inequalities, the attitudes get enhanced. to express this relationship, in table (4), to variables of interest were evaluated. table 4: the relationship between women’s employment and their attitudes towards gender gap total attitudes towards gender gap job status high low 101 45 56 number household 100 44.6 55.4 percentage 272 189 83 number employed 100 69.5 35.5 percentage 373 234 139 number total 100 62.7 37.3 percentage x2=19.581, tau b=0.229, sig=0.000 according to the table (4), it can be inferred that household women have lower gender gap compared to employed women and the highest frequency is related to low gender gap. but in employed women, the frequency is mostly related to high gender gap that confirms the correspondence with the theories. for the statistical test, we used kido test where the numerical value of chi-square is high and expresses the significance of this correlation. the average value of tau b points to the weakness of the relationship and lack of error shows the significance of this relationship. according to these results, it can be stated that the hypothesis is confirmed and there is a significant relationship between these variables. hypothesis 4: there is a significant relationship between socialeconomic positions and attitudes towards gender gap. 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 66-78) table 5: the relationship between social-economic positions and attitudes towards gender gap total attitudes towards gender gap social-economic gap high low 93 65 28 number lower class 100 69.9 30.1 percentage 125 81 44 number average class 100 64.8 35.2 percentage 155 88 67 number higher class 100 56.8 43.2 percentage 373 234 139 number total 100 62.7 37.3 percentage x2=4.622, tau c=-0.116, sig=0.03 although all three social classes show higher gender attitude, with increased social class of women and benefiting from better social-economic situations, the frequencies of these attitudes decreases. to evaluate this relationship, we used tau c coefficient because the independent variable has been evaluated in three classes. the numerical value of chi-square is weak in this relationship and the tau c value is negative and weak that show the weak statistical relationship between two variables and their reverse relationship. of course, the significant relationship is acceptable due to the low statistical error from 5% and this relationship is significant. therefore, the fourth hypothesis is confirmed. hypothesis 5: there is a significant relationship between women gender socialization and attitudes towards gender gap. table 6: the relationship between gender socialization and attitudes towards gender gap total attitudes towards gender gap gender socialization high low 204 96 108 number low 100 47.1 52.9 percentage 169 138 31 number high 100 81.7 19.3 percentage 373 234 139 number total 100 62.7 37.3 percentage barjesteh, s., case study, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 66-78) 75 x2= 47.236, tau b=0.356, sig=0.000 in the above table, women who have lower socialization have lower gender gap that with increased gender socialization, the attitudes towards gender gap increases. to explain the statistical relationship, kido test was used where chi-square and tau b show good statistical relationship and the significant relationship is confirmed. therefore, the fifth hypothesis is confirmed. hypothesis 6: there is a significant relationship between gender stereotypes and attitudes towards gender gap. in this regard, with increased gender stereotypes that include women’s thoughts about the obstacles in business market and positions, the gender gap is affected and with increased stereotypical thoughts, and as a result, the attitudes towards gender gap increases. table 7: the relationship between gender stereotypes and attitudes towards gender gap total attitudes towards gender gap gender stereotypes high low 148 79 69 number low 100 4/53 46.6 percentage 225 155 70 number high 100 68.9 31.1 percentage 373 234 139 number total 100 62.7 37.3 percentage x2= 9.187, tau b=0.157, sig=0.000 in order to investigate this relationship, the variables were evaluated in table (7). in this table, the attitudes towards gender gap is low in women with thought stereotypes where with increased stereotypical thoughts, the attitudes towards gender gap increases from 53% to 69%. therefore, with increased gender stereotypes in women, the gender gap increases. for statistical inference of this relationship, kido test and tau b correlation coefficient were used where the chi-square was at average level and the relationship was weak. this relationship is significant and therefore, the research hypothesis is confirmed. 76 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 66-78) hypothesis 7: there is a significant relationship between women’s mental concepts and attitudes towards gender gap. table 8: relationship between women’s mental concept and attitudes towards gender gap total attitudes towards gender gap mental concepts high low 145 83 62 number low 100 57.2 42.8 percentage 228 151 77 number high 100 66.2 33.8 percentage 373 234 139 number total 100 62.7 37.3 percentage x2=3.062, tau b=0.091, sig=0.082 this hypothesis means that with increased mental concept scores, the attitudes towards gender gap increases; because, with better understanding of abilities, women can understand their roles in social contexts. to investigate and explain this hypothesis, we prepared table (8). in this table, it is observed that in women with low mental concepts, the higher frequency of gender gap belongs to higher gender gap and this gap increases with increased mental concepts of women from 57% to 62%. although this level undergoes a little change, indicates coordinated change of these variables. conclusion the present study aimed to investigate women’s (20-30 and 50-60 years old) attitudes towards gender gap and achieving social positions. data were analyzed in spss. the results showed that there is not any relationship between women’s age and attitudes towards gender gap. but the marital status, employment, social-economic positions, socialization, gender stereotypes, and mental concepts are related to gender gap. references [1] aboot, p. 2001. women socialization. translated by eraghi, tehran. barjesteh, s., case study, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 66-78) 77 [2] afshari, sh. 2001. “gender separation of iran’s market.” journal of women studies. 6th year, 2. 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[30] pirahari, nayyereh. 2004. women’s employment and national development. babolsar: faculty of leeters and humanities. [31] sabzi, kh. 1998. women’s socialization. tehran. tebyan publications. [32] saei, a. 2002. statistical analysis in social sciences. kian mehr publications. [33] saroukhani, b. 1991. social science encyclopedia. tehran. [34] seyyedan, f. 2001. stereotypical trends about women. [35] shadloo, sh. 2001. the role of culture in balancing gender trends in social life. conference on women empowerment. tehran. [36] shaditalab, g. 2002. development and challenges of iranian women. tehran, center of women participations. article history: received: 30 september, 2016 accepted: 29 october, 2016 15_jwe_1-2 preface welcome to the special edition of the journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (jwe). i am excited about this edition for a couple of reasons. first, the quality of the articles highlights the various innovative ways women owned businesses are successfully dealing with the current economic changes, especially after the great world recession of 2007-2009. their business concepts and venture creation processes are more competitive than ever. secondly, the women’s stories and insights on their businesses, displayed in the studies showcased in this edition, help to ‘slay the sacred cow’, in the words of roger von oech in his work on creativity and innovation. “sacred cows’ are ideas that are never challenged and are perpetuated, even though they no longer work. women business are ‘slaying the sacred cows’ of gender inequality and stereotyping in entrepreneurship. this jwe issue proves just that. women are continuously launching new enterprises in all industries and are greatly contributing to the wealth of global markets. although specific socio cultural dimensions still greatly impact on their businesses ventures, these dimensions have been positively related to the women’s “images of success” of their businesses. i am certain that you will find this special edition informative and fascinating. enjoy it! dr. neila a. holland stratford university, usa guest editor, journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education 18_jwe_3-4 doi: 10.28934/jwee18.34.pp60-72 jel: g21, j16, b54 original scientific paper women entrepreneurship in serbia – potentials and constraints olivera jovanović1 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia milena lazić2 belgrade banking academy, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t in today’s modern society, entrepreneurship is considered to be the driver of economic and social development and the important source of competitive advantage. with that regard and taking into account the empirically proven positive relationship between the gender equality and the level of sustainable economic and social development, the subject of this paper is the assessment of the position of women entrepreneurs in serbia. the main objective is to identify business and environmental barriers with which female entrepreneurs are confronted. the results of conducted research suggest that there exists a huge potential for the development of women entrepreneurship in serbia. the women entrepreneurs in serbia are confronted to significant barriers in their everyday business activities especially taking into account the difficulties in accessing the necessary information about potential markets and technology and even the potential sources for their financing. at the same time they are facing with family care activities and other social norms within the community in which they live. the results are useable for creating supportive and encouraging environment for entrepreneurship in serbia, especially for women-owned enterprises during business development. 1 address: 12 zmaj jovina str, e-mail: olivera.jovanovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 2 address: 12 zmaj jovina str, e-mail: milena.lazic@bba.edu.rs jovanović, o., et al., entrepreneurship in serbia, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 60-72) 61 key words: women entrepreneurship, gender equality, financial performances, business barriers, competitiveness, serbia introduction in today’s modern society, entrepreneurship is considered to be the driver of economic and social development and the important source of competitive advantage. due to its characteristics, easy adaptation to market changes, adoption of modern trends and creation of jobs in structural changes of economy, entrepreneurship is identified as very important factor of the equal regional development of transition countries. also, well-being of society is achieved through reducing unemployment rate and regional differences. globalization, internationalization and current technological progress are features of todays’ environment. they create significant changes in the modern business activities (vukmirović, 2005). the competitiveness of enterprises in high competitive markets can be improved applying new technology into their business. entrepreneurs, together with small and medium enterprises have difficulties in business improvement due to luck of financial funds. this factor is considered to be major barrier for their higher competitiveness even if they have good product quality or interesting business ideas (đuričin, pantić, 2015). modern business environment also includes intensively cooperation between countries so the degree of internationalization is increasing in last decades. chronically poor competitiveness of serbian market during the global economic crisis has become a basic weakness of serbian economy (domazet, stošić, 2013). however, governmental institutional support is very important for export activities, not only for large companies but also for small and medium entities and entrepreneurs. parallel with these trends, changes in entrepreneurship are noticed in almost all developing countries. the most significant one is increasing in total share of women in domestic and international entrepreneurship. those changes are become very important in last ten years. women's entrepreneurship is factor for the development of overall transitional economies, together with small and medium enterprises sector. it can lead to the reduction of unemployment, the establishment of businesses in new spheres, the implementation of new technologies and the development of entrepreneurship sector. women’s entrepreneurship is also important for real gdp growth, decreasing of unemployment rates, regional and rural development, important for all transition and developing countries which also includes re62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 60-72) public of serbia. this paper examines characteristics of this kind of business entities in serbia, their motivation for business and obstacles that they are facing with. the main objective of this paper is to identify business and environmental barriers which female entrepreneurs are confronted with. also, one of the aims is to provide information about programs of institutional support which will be useful for them. taking into account the empirically proven positive relationship between the gender equality and the level of sustainable economic and social development, the subject of this paper is the assessment of the position of women entrepreneurs in serbia. women entrepreneurship in serbialiterature review besides the contribution to the economic development, the importance of women entrepreneurship is also reflected in numerous researches carried out in recent years in the southeast europe region (see countries) as well as in republic of serbia. the aims and the topics varies across surveys, but the objects for most of them are similarresearchers were interested in identifying women entrepreneurship advantages over other types of organizations, as well as in their potentials and opportunities for further development and contribution to the national economy. because serbia is a see country where agriculture is one of the leading sectors in contribution to the economic growth (measured by increase in real gdp), special attention is dedicated to the development of entrepreneurship in this field of the national economy. particularly interesting is the position of women in overall society, especially in the countryside and in the less development regions of serbia, which is in line with the hypothesis about importance of female entrepreneurship in balancing between different regional developments. those types of entities are also significant for improving of women positions in society, especially in business. cvijanović at al. conduct a survey analysis during 2010 about the possibilities of launching female agribusiness among women in rural areas in serbia. results showed that interest for developing agribusiness entrepreneurship existed, not only for women who are unemployed but also for those one who already have jobs, mainly related to agriculture. most of them were willing to continue to further education about start up activities and take advices about specific issues in agribusiness, because their knowledge about agribusiness and entrepreneurship were very low. jovanović, o., et al., entrepreneurship in serbia, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 60-72) 63 also, one of the several interesting research in serbia conducted in last decade is designed by maksimović at al. during 2014 and 2015. survey results showed the connection between economic development, gender equality and rural development. republic of serbia has significant disproportion between the degrees of rural area development and most of women is not related to agribusiness activities. their jobs are identified as unofficial even if they have own farms, because payments are not official registered at the statistical office. another problem in agrarian sector is manly related to impact of tradition and educational structure between inhabitants in the rural area. women want to start their own business but they need governmental support in education programs, business development as well as promotion and marketing. agriculture is important sector for national economy, organizing of organic production is activity which leads to high profits and high export activities and it is convenient for women who want to start their own business (jovanović at al., 2018). special attention in researches among see countries is dedicated to financing entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprises through governmental and nongovernmental programs. from 2010, policy makers in republic of serbia implement "programs to support the development of entrepreneurs and smes in the republic of serbia". 2016 was “year of entrepreneurship” which conducted several very important programs for development women entrepreneurs. scientific paper by đuričin and pantić in 2015 investigated factors for the development of micro-financing due to specific characteristics of women's entrepreneurship in serbia. one of the conclusions is about hypothesis confirmation due to opening 97,000 new jobs for women if micro-financing support is intensively increasing. table 1: the impact of microcredits on the growth of women's employment year 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 female 978.107 994.107 1.016.107 1.043.107 1.074.107 new female jobs 16.000 22.000 27.000 31.000 source: đurićin, pantić, jwee, vol 2015, no 1-2, 50-66 balaban et al. suggest that the financial sector has very important role for the development of entrepreneurship, pointing to the different possibilities of cheaper funding development of guidelines for small and medium enterprises, but in other hand in some cases financial sector has negative 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 60-72) impact for growing through expensive sources of financing of development (balaban et al, 2016). innovations have become not only an important determinant of a company’s successful development but also their requirement. innovative enterprises can be considered as the key driver of competitiveness, increased productivity, employment and overall economic development (prljić et al., 2016). according survey which was conduct in 2014 (pantić, 2014), innovations leads to increase in prosperity of community. entrepreneur innovations can increase their net profit (profit after taxes) and share in the national market. compared to other kind of entities, entrepreneurs can be faster in implementing of innovation but the luck of financial funds (and very often the luck of knowledge) can be obstacles for their competitiveness. results in the study „women entrepreneurship in serbia, 2012“ show that the business started by women is generally smaller in compare to business started by men in all low and middle income countries. women are facing with difficulties like credit access, market information, potentials market access in business activities so implementing of innovation is not so fast compared to business leading by men. at the same time, women taking into account care for families and facing with social norms within the community in which they live. but, apart from the role in stimulating the growth of economic development, the private sector (together with entrepreneurs) contributes to creating new jobs and improving living standards. therefore, it is absolutely necessary to engage women in business activities, because benefits from ideas and potentials that women can bring to the labor market are huge. methodology this section contains general description of methodological approach used in this paper. in order to adequately analyze the position of women entrepreneurs in serbia, specifically focusing on the conditions of business environment and barriers to doing business, in addition to standard desk research method and the analysis and comparison of secondary data, the case study method was also conducted. consequently, combination of qualitative and quantitative research techniques was used in order to provide more comprehensive research results. with that regard, five in-depth interviews with selected women entrepreneurs in serbia were conveyed in period march may 2018. the sample jovanović, o., et al., entrepreneurship in serbia, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 60-72) 65 was constructed in accordance to ranking list provided by the association of business women of serbia (http://poslovnezene.org.rs) where top ten women entrepreneurs in serbia for 2017 were listed. the main tool used in the survey was questionnaire specially designed in accordance with the aim and the objectives of the research. regarding that, the questionnaire used for the purpose of this survey was semi structured and consisted of three parts. within the first group of questions, general information about level of education and basic characteristics of the company owned by women entrepreneurs in serbia has been collected. the second group of questions was conceived to provide an insight into the business performances of these companies, while the third group of questions dealt with the analysis of the barriers which women entrepreneurs in serbia were facing in their everyday business. before the start of the survey, the questionnaire was sent to the group of selected researchers of the institute of the economic sciences in belgrade to ensure the logical sequence of the questions as well as the clarity of each question. after that, the questionnaire was redesigned in accordance with the inputs obtained. this method aimed to improve the quality of data generated as well as to avoid potential defects within the survey. in-depth interviews present useful method to collect rich, descriptive data about people’s behaviors, attitudes and perceptions. face-to-face method allows the reading of body language for the purpose of adding higher level of understanding the answer of the respondents. finally, the data collected was coded and analyzed using spss, statistical software specially designed for the purpose of social sciences surveys. the research analyses used in this paper were predominantly based on descriptive statistics using cross tabulation techniques. the survey results this part of the study provides quantitative results of the case study analysis conducted with five most successful women entrepreneurs in serbia according to the ranking list provided by the association of business women in serbia. the section is divided into three parts. the first part consists of general information about women entrepreneurs which were involved in the research. the second part contains data related to the business performances of the company owned by women entrepreneurs in serbia, while in the third 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 60-72) part the basic obstacles that these women face in their everyday business activities are listed. the majority of the respondents (60%) reported financial gain as the main motive for starting their own business, which was followed by unwillingness to work for others (20%) and unemployment (20%) with the same frequency (figure 1). the reported results correspond to other surveys which conclude that the most female entrepreneurs in developing economies are motivated to start their business out of necessity, reflect lack of employment alternatives or dissatisfaction with existing employment (radovićmarković, achakpa, 2018). figure 1: the main motivation for starting the business source: authors' autonomous work based on data obtained through conducted in-depth interviews figure 2: the source of start-up capital source: authors' autonomous work based on data obtained through conducted in-depth interviews jovanović, o., et al., entrepreneurship in serbia, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 60-72) 67 in order to start their own business, all of the respondents conveyed by the research used their own, private capital; a large number of them (60%) also used loans from friends and families, as well as bank loans. distribution of respondents' answers to this question is shown in figure 2. furthermore, the structure of borrowed capital of women entrepreneurs in serbia implied their dominant financing by banks, followed by relatives and friends. in addition, grants from the state / international financial organizations have also been used in business financing, but to a much lesser extent due to complicated administrative procedures. when it comes to innovations, all of the respondents considered that introducing innovations into business is of crucial importance when it comes to the increase of market share of the company. in other words around, business innovations were assessed to be the engine of further growth and development of the company. with that regard, in figure 3 it is presented that 60% of respondents have been introducing innovations into their business processes periodically, while 40 % do that on continuous basis. innovation for women in enterprises can be found in aftermarket services, which can be especially interesting in the domestic market (domazet et al. 2018). figure 3: introduction of innovation into business processes source: authors' autonomous work based on data obtained through conducted in-depth interviews when it comes to business performances, interestingly all of the surveyed women entrepreneurs in serbia have stated that their sales level have increased in comparison to previous year approximately in the range from 10 to 20%. according to the respondents’ answers, this is a result of in68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 60-72) creased investment in promotional activities, employees training programs, as well as stronger state support for the development of women entrepreneurship in serbia in the past few years (figure 4). figure 4. three main reasons for better business performances in current period source: authors' autonomous work based on data obtained through conducted in-depth interviews all respondents claimed that they were offering their clients the possibility of deferred payment. 60% of them stated that the deadline for deferred payment amounts to 30 days, while the remaining 40% led to the deadline for deferred payment of up to 60 days. figure 5: deferred payment options for clients source: authors' autonomous work based on data obtained through conducted in-depth interviews jovanović, o., et al., entrepreneurship in serbia, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 60-72) 69 when it comes to the barriers that women entrepreneurs in serbia face in their everyday business, the following answers have been most commonly highlighted (figure 6): − lack of information (60%) − unfair competition (60%) − negative attitudes of the environment towards women entrepreneurs (20%) − difficult access to finance (20%) − lack of support from the family (20%) figure 6: barriers that women entrepreneurs in serbia continuously face in their business source: authors' autonomous work based on data obtained through conducted in-depth interviews in the end, main observations of surveyed five out of ten most successful women entrepreneurs in serbia upon current issues in the field are listed: − 80% of respondents believe that the position of women entrepreneurs in serbia is not at a satisfactory level and that there is a great potential for improving the position of women entrepreneurs in business. − only 20% of the respondents consider that the business environment in serbia is suitable for the implementation and development of women's entrepreneurship. − most of the surveyed women entrepreneurs believe that significant development programs for women entrepreneurship have emerged in the last five years in the form of incentive financial resources, 70 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 60-72) possibilities for using subsidies, more favorable borrowing from banks, organizing events for connecting entrepreneurs and sharing experiences. − almost all of the respondents agreed with the view that fairs / conferences / organized gatherings etc. represent very important factors for improving the business performances. on the other hand, despite that conclusion they are not able to attend such meetings frequently due to their family obligations. key findings all research with the topic of entrepreneurship over the years conducted in serbia over the years, confirmed the importance of women entrepreneurship for the development of the economy and for improving the position of women in society. this research provides a detailed insight into women entrepreneurs in serbia through analyzes of depth interviews of several entities in the ownership of women. while the findings also provide an interesting conception of the current status of the company in the ownership of women, the report also includes advice for future research on the topic. one of the main goals of this report is the construction of support to policy makers that will stimulate a developing environment for women entrepreneurship in serbia. results can help in creating good policies for increasing the share of women in business. according the fact that access to external sources of financing has been identified as barrier for development, the authors of this paper believes that this segment needs to be improved in the future. in the forthcoming period it is necessary to create new mechanisms of financial support in order to make financial resources available to women entrepreneurs. one of the recommendations should be creating environment for establishing private investment funds as well as improving banking sector in providing financial services to women entrepreneurs. conclusion besides standard desk research method and the analysis and comparison of secondary data, the survey method interview was conducted with the aim of collecting additional information. the questionnaire used for the purposes of this research consists of three parts. within the first group of jovanović, o., et al., entrepreneurship in serbia, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 60-72) 71 questions, general information about the level of education and basic characteristics of the company owned by women entrepreneurs in serbia has been collected. the second group of questions was conceived to provide an insight into the business performances of these companies, while the third group dealt with the analysis of the barriers which women entrepreneurs in serbia were facing in their everyday business. the results of conducted research suggest that there exists a huge potential for the development of women entrepreneurship in serbia. the women entrepreneurs in serbia are confronted to significant barriers in their everyday business activities especially taking into account the difficulties in accessing the necessary information about potential markets and technology and even the potential sources for their financing. at the same time they are facing with family care activities and other social norms within the community in which they live. acknowledgements this paper is a result of research projects under the codes 179015 (challenges and prospects of structural changes in serbia: strategic directions for economic development and harmonization with eu requirements), and 31005 (modern biotechnological approach to solving the problem of drought in agriculture of serbia) financed by the ministry of science and technological development of the republic of serbia references [1] babović, m. 2012. polazna studija o preduzetništvu žena u srbiji. beograd, program ujedinjenih nacija za razvoj. [2] balaban m., župljanin s., ivanović p. 2016. source of finance for entrepreneurship development. economic analysis, vol. 49, no 1-2, institute of economic sciences, belgrade. pp. 48-58 [3] cvijanović j. i saradnici. 2011. “istraživanje zainteresovanosti žena za preduzetništvo u agrobiznisu”, ekonomika poljoprivrede, godina 58, br. 1, str. 67 [4] domazet, i., stošić, i. 2013. “strengthening the competitiveness of serbian economy and the corporate market restructuring”, economic analysis, vol. 46, no 3-4, pp. 108-124. 72 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 60-72) [5] domazet, i., stošić, i., lazić m. 2018. “competitive relations in the aftersales market of major home appliances in serbia”, economic analysis, vol. 51, no 1/2, pp. 47-59. 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[9] maksimović g., otović s., demirović d., vermezović t. 2016. “a review investigating agrarian female entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia”, ekonomika poljoprivrede, godina 63, br. 1, str. 29-46 [10] pantić o. 2015. uloga sektora mspp u strukturnim promenama poljoprivrede republike srbije, strukturne promene u srbiji – dosadašnji rezultati i perspektive. institut ekonomskih nauka, beograd, pp. 331-345 [11] prljić k., mijalković j., prljić s. 2016. innovation analysis of the sector of small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurs (smes) in the republic of serbia. economic analysis, vol. 49, no 3-4, institute of economic sciences, belgrade. pp. 81-96 [12] radović-marković m., achakpa p. 2018. employment woman through entrepreneurship development and education in developing countries. journal of women entrepreneurship and education (jwee), no. 1-2/2018, institute of economic sciences, belgrade. pp. 17-30 [13] “žensko preduzetništvo analiza poslovanja na kosovu”, 2017. rinvest institute, priština u saradnji sa usaid. article history: received: 24 november, 2018 accepted: 3 december, 2018 microsoft word 09_jwe_1-2.doc factors affecting performance of women entrepreneurs ena-mary ibeh * * ma student in usa since 2008 a r t i c l e i n f o article history: received 15 february 2009 accepted 27 march 2009 jel: b54, l26, j7 k e y w o r d s: entrepreneurship, business strategy, informal sector, women, developed countries, developing countries a b s t r a c t entrepreneurship is the assumption of risk and responsibility in designing and implementing a business strategy or starting a business. it is common in all societies and is usually embarked upon by choice or as a last resort in economic hardship. entrepreneurship is usually part of the informal sector in both developed and developing countries and the success rate of gender in this arm of business is dependent on a variety of factors. there are similarities in gender performance between different economies but also stark differences in their cultural and socioeconomic environment. introduction background to entrepreneurship and the informal sector the informal sector (is) is the portion of a country that lies outside of any formal regulatory environment and activities are rarely reflected in official statistics on economic activity. is covers a wide range of labour journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 39-50 40 market activities that combine two groups of different nature.1 on one hand, the informal sector is formed by the coping behaviour of individuals and families in economic environments where earning opportunities are scarce. on the other hand, the informal sector is a product of rational behaviour of entrepreneurs that desire to escape state regulations (the world bank group 2007). the majority of informal economy workers are women thus policies and developments affecting the informal economy have a gendered effect. poverty traps women in multiple layers of discrimination and hinders their ability to claim their rights. not only do women bear a disproportionate burden of the world's poverty, but in some cases, globalization has widened the gap, with women losing more than their share of jobs, benefits and labour rights.2 for countries to successfully achieve the mdgs by 2015, they must tackle mdg #3, because gender equality and women empowerment in society is essential in addressing environmental, economic and societal problems and the exclusion of gender in policy creation can seriously damage the efficacy of the mdg implementation. gender entrepreneurship in developed and developing countries the is plays an important and controversial role by reducing unemployment and underemployment but in many cases jobs are low-paid and job security is poor. size of the is varies from 4-6% in developed countries to >50% in developing countries. is size and role in the economy increases during economic downturn and periods of economic adjustment and transition (world bank group 2007). the ilo international symposium on the informal sector in 1999 proposed that the informal sector workforce can be categorised into three broad groups namely: ─ owner-employers of micro-enterprises, which employ a few paid workers; 1 ibeh, e.m. (2007) difference between informal sector in developing, developed and economies in transition. in mirjana radovic (ed.) gender and informal economy: case of africa, developing, developed and transition countries (p 62). 2 unifem/gender issues/women, poverty & economics ena-mary ibeh / jwe 1-2 (2009) 39-50 41 ─ ownaccount workers, who work alone or with the help of unpaid workers and, ─ dependent workers, paid or unpaid (the world bank group 2007). on an international scale, women-owned firms comprise 25-33% of businesses in the formal economy and according to the u.s. census bureau of 2001, women are starting businesses at unprecedented rates and the majority are married with children3. women are active in micro and small-scale enterprises (mses) but they face particular problems and challenges in developing their businesses. in addition to those problems faced by all small-scale entrepreneurs, it is commonly asserted that women frequently face gender bias in the socio-economic environment in which they operate. they face additional or at least different social, cultural, educational and technological challenges than men when it comes to establishing and developing their enterprises, and accessing economic resources (mayoux, 2001). furthermore, it is recognized that women in most societies carry the added burden of family and domestic responsibilities, and this has a limiting impact upon their ability to generate income outside of the home. these problems are usually endemic in developing economies which often lack gender-sensitive policies and possess highly gendered sectors, dominated solely by males. on the contrary, this does not seem to be the case in developed economies. there are five theoretical perspectives explaining gender entrepreneurial performance and these are: ─ motivations and goals ─ social learning (entrepreneurial socialisation) ─ network affiliation (contacts and membership in organisations) ─ human capital (educational level, business skills). ─ environmental influences (location, sectoral participation and socio-political variables). (source: lerner and hisrich (1997)) another perspective exists as a contributing factor to gender entrepreneurship where it is prevalent in the developed world. this factor is ethnicity, and how it affects gender entrepreneurship in black america. ethnicity can be defined as an affiliation resulting from racial or cultural 3 in journal of small business management, vol. 41 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 39-50 42 ties.4 america is a nation richly diverse in ethnicities and it can boast of possessing every major nationality and tongue. out of these, african-americans constitute a large part of the society due to their long and well documented fight for equality from the slave trade to the civil rights era. as of july 1, 2007, african-americans make up 40.7million (13.5%)5 of a total us population of 303,824,6406 and yet their conditions, although vastly improved over the centuries, have remained relatively similar to pre-civil rights era in terms of urban poverty and unemployment. they own 5% of american companies but receive <0.5% of the revenue and face fewer opportunities and more challenges than other american ethnicities.7 this is because not many companies embrace supplier diversity and make it a point to purchase from african-american entrepreneurs. also there is an unspoken ‘perception of incompetence’8 bias that works against black businesses as they are incorrectly assumed to possess lower professional standards. until this perception changes, black businesses will continue to face a bleak future in the business world. in the united states, black-owned businesses are 20% more likely to fail within their first four years than white-owned businesses are. blackowned businesses also tend to start with less capital, and are four times more likely to be denied credit than white-owned firms. in addition, african-americans are less likely to benefit from the multigenerational family and social ties that so often lead to business partnerships among white-owned firms in this country.9 in these times of recession, socially marginalised groups of society are feeling the crunch, none more than the african-american society. in the best of times, many african american communities are forced to tolerate levels of unemployment unseen in other ethnic communities and in 2007, their unemployment rate was 8.3% and it is expected to rise as the recession continues. gender entrepreneurial response to joblessness is usually swift as the women long ago found a way to combat long-term 4 the freedictionary.com 5 infoplease: african americans by the numbers: from the us census bureau. 6 cia factbook 7 charity guide: african-american entrepreneurs 8 ibid 9 ibid ena-mary ibeh / jwe 1-2 (2009) 39-50 43 unemployment by engaging themselves in the personal services sector of the informal economy, such as running beauty salons. in addition, black women are starting businesses at a faster rate in america which is surprisingly in contrast with their ethnicity as a historical limiting factor. there are 917,000 female-owned firms in america and 95,000 are black-owned compared to 200,000 hispanic-owned and 319,000 asian-owned.10 businesses owned by women are the fastest-growing sector of new ventures. nearly half of all privately held firms in 2004 were at least 50% owned by women, according to the national foundation for women business owners. between 1997 and 2004, the number of businesses owned by women grew by almost 20%, compared with only a 9% increase overall. but even in these favourable climes, studies have shown that women receive less funding than men from investors-but that is because they ask for it less, the majority preferring to borrow from friends and family11. in the uk, the prince’s trust, a charity organisation set up by the prince of wales, is dedicated to helping young people between ages 14-30 by giving them practical and financial support through business programmes, development awards and community cash awards at very low interest rates (the prince’s trust). although not gender-specific, many of the benefiting individuals are young single women with small children and they have set up lucrative business enterprises countrywide. the trust has gone a long way in addressing unemployment and social exclusion of poor and non-formally trained individuals, especially female. in israel, research carried out by lerner and hisrich on the effects of these perspectives on gender showed that network affiliation, motivation, human capital, and environmental factors affected different aspects of performance, whereas social learning had no significant effect on performance outcomes. network affiliation was significantly related to profitability, and the use of outside advisors also was related to revenue. in contrast, participation in multiple networks was negatively related to revenue, income, and size of the business. although israeli women are highly educated (51% possess degrees), analyses of human capital variables showed mixed results. consistent with 10 us census bureau 2009 statistical abstract 11 journal of business venturing, vol.22, issue 4 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 39-50 44 prior research findings, previous experience in the industry had a direct and significant effect on performance whereas previous salaried employment and involvement in the creation of a business were significantly correlated with sales and number of employees. the age of the women’s children was significantly related to profitability as majority of female israeli entrepreneurs are married and became entrepreneurs after their children were grown. in developing countries, women’s limited networks reinforce their isolation as entrepreneurs and reduce their scope and opportunities for building personal and business know-how and accessing other physical and financial assets. in nigeria for example, micro-finance and community banks are present to aid small and medium-scale enterprises (smes) and mses but these entities charge such exorbitant interest rates and demand expensive collateral that many prefer to borrow from family than risk repossession in the event of any potential repayment default. most middle-class women in developing sub-saharan african countries engage in ‘suitcase trade’ whereby they travel to america, europe and asia to purchase clothes, fabrics and household items for sale back in their respective countries. this trade is either done wholly or is used to supplement unreliable income from the formal sector and capital raised is usually from personal savings or family contributions12 and repayments are not always instantaneous because of the culture of buying on credit and owing for those purchases. socio-cultural issues play a part in limiting gender entrepreneurship amongst these middle-class women because although most are educated to high-school or university levels, they are usually regarded with suspicion if they engage in entrepreneurship without the presence of their spouses and very many are offered no credit, when they do ask for it, initially and are asked to return with their spouses for approval. bangladesh is one of the world’s poorest nations and gender entrepreneurship there is no easy task as women possess little education and scant business skills. nevertheless, many social and operational constraints continue to restrict women from starting and running economic enterprises. gender based problems are severe for women entrepreneurs 12 ibeh, e.m. (2007) difference between informal sector in developing, developed and economies in transition. in mirjana radovic (ed.) gender and informal economy: case of africa, developing, developed and transition countries (p 62). ena-mary ibeh / jwe 1-2 (2009) 39-50 45 where social customs and norms influence their choice of trades, mobility, support and costs of operations13. the gender-based constraints faced by women relate to legal, social, financial, market, infrastructure, information and management capacity. banks and other financial institutions generally prefer large enterprise clients because of the lower transaction costs and greater availability of collateral. smes also fall outside the reach of both microfinance and institutional schemes, and are thus compelled to depend more on informal sources of funds at much higher interest rates. since women entrepreneurs mainly concentrate on smes, they are relatively more adversely affected14. the bureaucratic impediments disproportionately affect women-run businesses. some trades owned by women are to operate within specific times as clients are also women. inadequate infrastructure has an additional impact on women entrepreneurs as their mobility and operations are dependent on specific time due to security, family and/or religious considerations. women entrepreneurs are likely to suffer more than other businesses from the poor quality of energy supply, as they lack resources to make independent provision for alternative energy supplies and due to security considerations women have to incur higher costs for transportation for procurement and marketing15. bangladesh is also home to the nobel prize-winning grameen bank. founded in 1976 by professor mohammed yunus, it was initially launched as an action research project to examine the possibility of designing a credit delivery system to provide banking services targeted at the rural poor in the village of jobra. today it is present in 83,566 villages. grameen bank is owned by the rural poor whom it serves and borrowers of the bank own 90% of its shares, while the remaining 10% is owned by the government16. grameen bank methodology is the reverse of conventional banking because it is collateral-free, and where conventional banking is owned by the rich, generally men, grameen bank is owned by poor women. microcredit loans are focused on the poorest of the poor with loan conditionality particularly suited to them which include very small loans given without any collateral, loans repayable in weekly installments spread 13 asian development bank 14 ibid 15 ibid 16 grameen bank journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 39-50 46 over a year and eligibility for a subsequent loan depends upon repayment of first loan, amongst others. as the general credit programme gathers momentum and the borrowers become familiar with credit discipline, other loan programmes are introduced to meet growing socio-economic development needs of the clientele. besides housing, such programmes include: 1. credit for building sanitary latrines. 2. credit for installation of tube-wells that supply drinking water and irrigation for kitchen gardens. 3. credit for seasonal cultivation to buy agricultural inputs. 4. loan for leasing equipment / machinery, for example, cell phones. 5. finance projects undertaken by the entire family of a seasoned borrower. (source: grameen bank) the total number of borrowers is 7.67 million and 97% of them are women17. grameen bank has helped in lifting women out of the clutches of extreme poverty into self-sustainability and these women have become equal breadwinners in their families, either supplementing their spouse’s income or in most cases, earning more than their spouses. in turn, it becomes a cause and effect situation because these uneducated mothers pay for their daughters’ education (as very few poor families educate the girl-child) as they refuse to let them live the same lives as they have. women are the vanguard of entrepreneurial activity in the developing world and they engage mostly in enterprises like petty trading, fruits and vegetable vending, mobile canteens and mobile phone recharge cards vending. in the case of nigeria, indigenous and multinational telecoms companies present in the country aid gender entrepreneurship by providing the equipment and accessories, at affordable rates, necessary for business start-up. in the developed world, gender entrepreneurship can be split into ethnicity, as many ethnic nationalities run businesses focusing on the vending of certain items or services to members of their own ethnic community. this may be out of choice but is usually done to combat a 17 ibid ena-mary ibeh / jwe 1-2 (2009) 39-50 47 period of unemployment, thus turning out to become a permanent source of income. performance factors affecting gender in africa the global economic meltdown has been making headline news for months now and while a lot has been heard about financial troubles in large auto companies and multi-national corporations, gender impacts of this crisis has been scarce reported in the media. in both developing and developed countries, many women have taken the role of primary breadwinner as the men have become redundant as a result of the crisis. this is the case in africa, where the aforementioned theoretical perspectives also affect gender but in varying ways to their counterparts in developed countries and these are: 1. women are poor, have few if any of their own assets, and have limited means of accessing such resources from others. women entrepreneurs usually start enterprises with minimal assets – be they social, human, financial, physical or natural. 2. women have low levels of formal education at best, but are more likely to have had no formal education, to be illiterate and in general have limited human assets. generally women’s levels of education are lower than men’s and the few girls who are educated are steered towards subjects preparing them for reproductive and domestic life rather than entrepreneurship. 3. women have limited or no experience of formal employment and business. previous studies have shown women in enterprise as having limited business and managerial experience prior to start-up. this is derived from the fact that they are concentrated in lower paid, lower status employment (both formal and informal) that does not support and enable them to build skills through experience. 4. women have limited business-related networks. this factor is closely associated with their lack of formal employment and business experience, together with constraints placed on their mobility and ability to interact with other business people (mostly men) arising from culture/religion and motherhood responsibilities. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 39-50 48 5. women are not positively motivated towards business ownership. the reason for this negative attitude is that women have generally embarked into business by default. they have started enterprises when no other options were available to them in order to alleviate their poverty, rather than purposely pursing business ownership by choice. (source: mayoux 2001) in addition, women’s enterprises are frequently in sectors or of a scale that are not counted, or deemed worthy of tracking by researchers. hence women tend to be shown as under-represented as owners in the mse sector (zewde 2002). this is the picture of women entrepreneurs that currently exists for africa and it is skewed because most government industry data collection programmes rarely categorise their data according to sex thus stereotyping african gender entrepreneurs as poor and illiterate. most african countries with high levels of university trained individuals (both men and women) are largely liberal when it comes to women-run businesses but credit facilities are not. even still, most women are financed by their wealthy spouses in business start-up. for example, the major successfully womenrun and owned businesses in nigeria are restaurant franchises which are spread countrywide, beauty salons, clothing stores and supermarkets and they have high profit turnovers as their main clientele are women with high disposable income. conclusion it is interesting to note that the african development bank at its annual meeting in addis ababa, ethiopia in june 2003, held its first workshop on african women entrepreneurs (awe), and placed the emphasis clearly on growth-oriented women entrepreneurs, thus helping to shake off the less entrepreneurial images18. however, the above negative profiles tend to be the dominant stereotypes of african female entrepreneurs that emerge from research, based largely on information from independent studies and other african demographic studies profiling gender entrepreneurship. in conclusion, the difference between gender performance in both developing and developed countries is the presence of network affiliation 18 series on women’s entrepreneurship development and gender equality wedge ena-mary ibeh / jwe 1-2 (2009) 39-50 49 and the possession of human capital. entrepreneurship is “necessitydriven” in developing economies but “opportunity-driven” in developed economies where there are soft loans and credit facilities for business startup; but the fact still remains that women in all economies remain somewhat marginalised in embarking into business. references asian development bank (2009) second national women sme entrepreneurial conference 2008. retrieved february 11th, 2009, from http://www.adb.org/documents/speeches/2008/sp2008005.asp becker-blease, j.r. and sohl, j.e. (2006) do women-owned businesses have equal access to angel capital? journal of business venturing, vol 22, issue 4. elsevier inc [online]. available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science (retrieved february 11th, 2009). charity guide (2006-07) support african-american entrepreneurs: buy from blackowned businesses. retrieved february 11th, 2009, from http://www.charityguide.org/diversity/ cia (2008) us population. retrieved february 11th, 2009, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html grameen bank (2008) a short history of grameen bank. retrieved february 11th, 2009, from http://www.grameeninfo.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24&itemid=127 ibeh, e.m. (2007) difference between informal sector in developing, developed and economies in transition. in mirjana radovic (ed.) gender and informal economy: case of africa, developing, developed and transition countries (p 62). infoplease (2007) african-american by the numbers. retrieved february 11th, 2009, from http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmcensus1.html lerner, m., brush, c., and hisrich, r. (1997) israeli women entrepreneurs: an examination of factors affecting performance. journal of business venturing, vol 12, issue 4. science direct [online]. available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science (retrieved january 31st, 2009). mayoux, linda (2001): “jobs, gender and small enterprises: getting the policy environment right”, ifp/seed-wedge working paper no. 15, ilo, geneva. in series on women’s entrepreneurship development and gender equality — wedge (2004) the challenges of growing small businesses: insights from women entrepreneurs in africa, seed working paper no.47. retrieved february 11th, 2009, from http://www.ilo.org/dyn/empent/docs/f756421966/wp47-2004.pdf schindehutte, m., morris, m. and brennan, c. (2003) entrepreneurs and motherhood: impacts on their children in south africa and the united states. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 39-50 50 journal of small business management, vol.41. questia [online]. available at http://www.questia.com/googlescholar.qst?docid=5000607439 (retrieved february 11th, 2009) series on women’s entrepreneurship development and gender equality — wedge (2004) the challenges of growing small businesses: insights from women entrepreneurs in africa, seed working paper no.47. retrieved february 11th, 2009, from http://www.ilo.org/dyn/empent/docs/f756421966/wp47-2004.pdf the free dictionary (2009) ethnicity. retrieved february 11th, 2009, from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ethnicity the world bank group (2007) concept of the informal sector. retrieved february 11th, 2009, from http://www.web.worldbank.org unifem: gender issues: women, poverty and economics. reducing women’s poverty and exclusion. retrieved february 11th, 2009, from http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/women_poverty_economics/at_a_glance.p hp us census bureau 2009 statistical abstract (2009) business enterprise: women and minority-owned businesses. retrieved february 11th, 2009, from http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/business_enterprise/women_and_m inorityowned_businesses.html zewde & associates (2002), jobs, gender and small enterprises in africa: women entrepreneurs in ethiopia. a preliminary report, geneva: ilo, ifp/seed-wedge, october. in series on women’s entrepreneurship development and gender equality — wedge (2004) the challenges of growing small businesses: insights from women entrepreneurs in africa, seed working paper no.47. retrieved february 11th, 2009, from http://www.ilo.org/dyn/empent/docs/f756421966/wp47-2004.pdf microsoft word 10_jwe_1-2.doc the word of editor-in-chief majority of this volume’s materials are prepared for a conference "economic prospects in the second decade of the 21st century how to get out of the crisis – which will be held on 14-15th april 2010 at institute of economic sciences and belgrade banking academy in belgrade. women are more directly exposed as employees and business owners to the impact of the current economic crisis than ever before. women’s earnings have become increasingly important to the family economy and the impact on families of women’s job losses and business failures is greater than in previous recessions. because that, it should be paid more attention to women and entrepreneurship as well as to the sort of self employment that attracts women, to starting or growing micro or small enterprises and to social enterprise. namely, women’s entrepreneurship can make a particularly strong contribution to the economic well-being of the family and communities, poverty reduction and women’s empowerment. this volume contains ten articles covering a wide range of topics as follow: business environment, business knowledge, social entrepreneurship, social changes and their impact on women, motivation for small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, job formation through self-employment and small-business creation and so forth. the editorial board deeply appreciates the contributions of all who submit manuscripts to the journal. i am extremely proud of our reviewers and staff, and feel that the editorial process is professionally undertaken. the journal’s editorial staff continues to welcome your comments and reactions on the issue. once again, thank you. editor-in-chief professor mirjana radović-marković, phd microsoft word 10_jwe_1-2.doc udc: 330.541 jel: m21, o11 original scientific paper comparison of the business environment quality in countries v4 and serbia* kočišová kristina**, tartaľová alena, technical university in košice, faculty of economic, slovak republic a b s t r a c t this paper presents the latest results for indices measuring the business environment quality in countries v4 (the czech republic, hungary, poland and slovakia) and serbia. we use for mutual comparison four indices corruption perception index (cpi), aggregate governance indicators (agi), capture index, opacity index. all indicators are based on subjective data obtained through surveys. according to these results, the quality of business environment in hungary is perceived as the best, followed by czech republic and poland with almost the same results. we have found little lagging in slovakia, but the larger lagging in serbia. kew words: business environment quality, corruption perception index (cpi), aggregate governance indicators (agi), capture index, opacity index introduction the quality of business environment is a crucial element for the enterprise development. a favourable business environment is an essential prerequisite for long-term competitiveness and growth of any market economy. it’s an environment in which the state encourages and protects * the paper is supported by the project “strengthening the educational and scientific collaboration among faculties of economics within v4 and countries of south eastern europe”, visegrad strategic program no. 30810004-ivf ** address: nemcovej 32, 040 01 košice, slovak republic, e-mail: kristina.kocisova@tuke.sk journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 18 competition, creates clear and stable rules, effectively ensures compliance for all market participants, minimizing administrative burdens and requirements to entrepreneurs. small and medium-sized enterprises play a significant and essential role in all countries with a market economy. they also have extraordinary significance in the development of the economy in countries v4 and serbia, for creating new jobs and in regional development. however, small and medium-sized enterprises are to an increased extent sensitive to the quality of the business environment. ([2], [4], [8]) in last few years the numbers of organizations that are carrying out the measurement of quality of the business environment construct various indexes to measure quality of the business environment. in this paper we would like to make a comparison of the four indices – corruption perception index (cpi), aggregate governance indicators (agi), capture index, opacity index. corruption perception index (cpi) the corruption perception index (cpi) measures the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world. transparency international (ti) has chosen a clear and focused definition of the term: corruption is operationally defined as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. ti further differentiates between "according to rule" corruption and "against the rule" corruption. facilitation payments, where a bribe is paid to receive preferential treatment for something that the bribe receiver is required to do by law, constitute the former. the latter, on the other hand, is a bribe paid to obtain services the bribe receiver is prohibited from providing. the cpi is a composite index, derived from several existing indicators and surveys. the cpi is a "survey of surveys", based on 13 different expert and business surveys. the indicator included in the cpi must fulfil three criteria: must allow a comparison for the different countries, must measure the overall level of corruption, the data must not be older than three years. the composition of cpi varies every year, therefore is not appropriate to compare indexes over the time. also we cannot compare indices between countries because each survey uses different methodologies and data of various characters. for further the exact definition of corruption varies in different countries. despite these radović-marković, m., unemployment, employment, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 19 deficiencies, we will move to the presentation of results of cpi in the year 2009 for countries v4 – slovakia, czech republic, poland and hungary and serbia. the corruption perceptions index (cpi) table shows a country's ranking and score, the number of surveys used to determine the score, and the confidence range of the scoring. it ranks countries on a zero to ten scale, with a score of zero representing very high corruption. the higher value of the index is the better. table 1: the cpi results for the year 2009 for the v4 countries and serbia rank country cpi 2009 surveys used confidence range 46 hungary 5,1 8 4,6 5,7 49 poland 5 8 4,5 5,5 52 czech republic 4,9 8 4,3 5,6 56 slovakia 4,5 8 4,1 4,9 83 serbia 3,5 6 3,3 3,9 source: transparency international, www.transparency.org the rank shows how one country compares to others included in the index. the cpi score indicates the perceived level of public-sector corruption in a country/territory. the surveys used column indicates how many surveys were relied upon to determine the score for that country. the confidence range indicates the reliability of the cpi scores and tells us that allowing for a margin of error, we can be 90% confident that the true score for this country lies within this range. from the table 1 is evident the rank of the visegrad countries and serbia. according to this table, hungary gives the impression of the lead, but we look to the last column “confidence range”, we see that the confidence interval for the hungary is overlayed by the confidence interval for the poland. the 90% confidence interval of poland overlay the confidence interval for the hungary, poland and slovakia. the 90% confidence interval for serbia lagging behind the others. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 20 figure 1: 90% confidence intervals for cpi source: author’s elaboration from the data in the table 1 table 2: cpi results in 1998-2009 country c p i 19 98 c p i 19 99 c p i 20 00 c p i 20 01 c p i 20 02 c p i 20 03 c p i 20 04 c p i 20 05 c p i 20 06 c p i 20 07 c p i 20 08 c p i 20 09 slovakia 3,9 3,7 3,5 3,7 3,7 3,7 4 4,3 4,7 4,9 5 4,5 czech republic 4,8 4,6 4,3 3,9 3,7 3,9 4,2 4,3 4,8 5,2 5,2 4,9 poland 4,6 4,2 4,1 4,1 4 3,6 3,5 3,4 3,7 4,2 4,6 5 hungary 5 5,2 5,2 5,3 4,9 4,8 4,8 5 5,2 5,3 5,1 5,1 serbia (before 2006 serbia and montenegro) 3 3,4 3,4 3,5 source: transparency international, www.transparency.org in the table 2, there are the results for the cpi index from the year 1998 to 2009. only for serbia we have cpi for 2006-2009, before it was serbia and montenegro. slovakia achieved the worst score from the year 2006, it seems that the situation in slovakia is worse, also score in the czech republic decrease. the scores have increasing tendency in poland and serbia. hungary reached the same score, so the level of corruption doesn’t change to better from the year 2007. radović-marković, m., unemployment, employment, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 21 figure 2: comparison of the v4 countries and serbia in 2006-2009 despite its lack of cpi is very effective at promoting a transparent and open environment. through this index, transparency international encourages debate on corruption in the media and in governmental and scientific agencies. the worldwide governance indicators (wgi) project in 1999 the world bank institute presented the worldwide governance (wgi) project, which reports aggregate and individual governance indicators for 212 countries and territories over the period 1996–2008, for six dimensions of governance: voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence/terrorism, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. the indicators are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 35 separate data sources constructed by 33 different organizations from around the world. we define governance broadly as the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. this includes the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 22 the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them. the six dimensions of governance corresponding to this definition that we measure are: 1. voice and accountability (va) – capturing perceptions of the extent to which a country's citizens are able to participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a free media. 2. political stability and absence of violence (pv) – capturing perceptions of the likelihood that the government will be destabilized or overthrown by unconstitutional or violent means, including politicallymotivated violence and terrorism. 3. government effectiveness (ge) – capturing perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies. 4. regulatory quality (rq) – capturing perceptions of the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development. 5. rule of law (rl) – capturing perceptions of the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence. 6. control of corruption (cc) – capturing perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as "capture" of the state by elites and private interests. the aggregate governance indicators (agi) combine the views of a large number of enterprises, citizen and expert survey respondents in industrial and developing countries. the individual data sources underlying the aggregate indicators are drawn from a diverse variety of survey institutes, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations. these aggregate indicators are weighted averages of the underlying data, with weights reflecting the precision of the individual data sources. to construct aggregate indicators from individual the statistical methodology known as an unobserved components model is used. crucially this methodology also generates margins of error for the estimates of governance for each country, which need to be taken into radović-marković, m., unemployment, employment, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 23 account when making comparisons of governance across countries and over time.([1] , kaufmann et al., 2009) in the tables 3-8 we summaries the results of agi for the visegrad countries and serbia, for the years 2007 and 2008. the indices are scaled from -2,5 (the worst) to +2,5 (the best). from the results could be concluded, that in the voice and accountability, political stability, governance effectiveness and the rule of law the czech republic achieved the best results and for the regulatory quality and the control of corruption, hungary achieved the best results. very similar results in all dimensions obtained poland and slovakia. also by agi (like by cpi) serbia is lagging behind the others countries. these results cannot be regarded as a clear comparison between countries as evidenced by the large standard deviation. the recommendation of the authors of the agi (see [1]kaufmann et al., 2009) is to use confidence intervals instead point estimates. to obtain 90% confidence interval, under the assumption of normal distribution we use formula: [point estimate] [1.64.standard deviation]. table 3: voice and accountability, comparison across selected countries percentile rank governance score country sources year (0-100) (-2.5 to +2.5) standard error 13 2008 82.2 +1.02 0.13 czech republic 12 2007 77.4 +1.00 0.13 13 2008 78.4 +1.00 0.13 hungary 11 2007 82.7 +1.06 0.14 14 2008 72.6 +0.86 0.13 poland 12 2007 72.1 +0.80 0.13 13 2008 54.8 +0.19 0.13 serbia 11 2007 55.3 +0.25 0.13 11 2008 75.0 +0.89 0.14 slovakia 10 2007 75.5 +0.93 0.14 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 24 table 4: political stability, comparison across selected countries percentile rank governance score country sources year (0-100) (-2.5 to +2.5) standard error 11 2008 78.9 +0.93 0.20 czech republic 11 2007 78.4 +0.84 0.20 11 2008 67.9 +0.59 0.20 hungary 11 2007 68.3 +0.63 0.20 11 2008 73.7 +0.79 0.20 poland 11 2007 65.9 +0.56 0.20 8 2008 28,2 -0.50 0.23 serbia 8 2007 22,6 -0.71 0.22 10 2008 78.5 +0.92 0.21 slovakia 10 2007 79.8 +0.86 0.21 table 5: government effectiveness, comparison across selected countries percentile rank governance score country sources year (0-100) (-2.5 to +2.5) standard error 13 2008 82.5 +1.07 0.17 czech republic 14 2007 80.6 +0.98 0.17 13 2008 73.0 +0.66 0.17 hungary 14 2007 75.4 +0.73 0.17 13 2008 68.2 +0.48 0.17 poland 14 2007 67.8 +0.38 0.17 10 2008 47.9 -0.28 0.20 serbia 11 2007 45.5 -0.33 0.19 12 2008 77.3 +0.76 0.18 slovakia 13 2007 73.0 +0.64 0.17 radović-marković, m., unemployment, employment, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 25 table 6: regulatory quality, comparison across selected countries percentile rank governance score country sources year (0-100) (-2.5 to +2.5) standard error 13 2008 82.1 +1.09 0.16 czech republic 13 2007 80.1 +0.97 0.17 13 2008 87.9 +1.26 0.16 hungary 13 2007 86.4 +1.15 0.17 13 2008 73.9 +0.77 0.16 poland 13 2007 72.3 +0.72 0.17 11 2008 47.3 -0.21 0.17 serbia 10 2007 40.8 -0.33 0.18 12 2008 84.5 +1.14 0.16 slovakia 12 2007 81.1 +0.98 0.17 table 7: rule of law, comparison across selected countrie percentile rank governance score country sources year (0-100) (-2.5 to +2.5) standard error 17 2008 77.0 +0.85 0.12 czech republic 17 2007 73.3 +0.76 0.13 18 2008 76.1 +0.82 0.12 hungary 17 2007 73.8 +0.77 0.13 18 2008 65.1 +0.49 0.12 poland 17 2007 59.0 +0.31 0.13 15 2008 41.1 -0.46 0.14 serbia 14 2007 39.5 -0.53 0.15 16 2008 67.0 +0.52 0.13 slovakia 16 2007 60.5 +0.35 0.13 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 26 table 8: control of corruption, comparison across selected countries percentile rank governance score country sources year (0-100) (-2.5 to +2.5) standard error 15 2008 66.7 +0.37 0.12 czech republic 15 2007 65.2 +0.28 0.11 16 2008 72.5 +0.55 0.12 hungary 14 2007 72.5 +0.49 0.11 16 2008 67.6 +0.38 0.12 poland 15 2007 61.8 +0.18 0.11 13 2008 53.1 -0.16 0.14 serbia 13 2007 47.8 -0.39 0.13 13 2008 68.6 +0.43 0.13 slovakia 13 2007 65.7 +0.31 0.12 on the basis of point estimates, we could compare the evolution of agi over time. according to agi, czech republic and poland achieved the increase of the index in all dimensions. there was a statistically significant decrease of hungary, serbia and slovakia in voice and accountability and political stability, also there was a decrease of hungary and serbia in governance effectiveness. slovakia raise up the scores in all dimensions expect voice and accountability and political stability. all of the compared countries has increasing tendency in regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption. summary results for the year 2008 are in the radar charts in figure 3. thus further from the centre of the better. so we can summarize the best results achieved czech republic and hungary. whereas agi (like the cpi) is the composite index is accused by the diversity of resources. the authors of agi also explicitly report the margins of error accompanying each country estimate. these reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring governance using any kind of data. they find that even after taking margins of error into account, the wgi permit meaningful cross-country comparisons as well as monitoring progress over time. although agi is suitable for comparing countries with similar characteristics as the visegrad countries and serbia. ([1], kaufmann et al., 2009) radović-marković, m., unemployment, employment, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 27 figure 3: graphical summary of the results of agi for the year 2008, where 1voice and accountability, 2political stability and absence of violence, 3government effectiveness, 4regulatory quality, 5rule of law, 6control of corruption. czech republic hungary slovakia poland serbia journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 28 capture index the capture index is the result of the cooperation between world bank and european bank for reconstruction and development. the analysis of capture, corruption and influence is based on data from the business environment and enterprise performance survey which took place in 1999 across 22 transition economies. the survey was conducted on the basis of face-to-face interviews with high level firm managers or owners. the survey included questions to measure three types of interaction between the firm and state: – administrative corruption – measure of administrative corruption is based on a survey questions about the amount of bribes paid by enterprises as a share of annual revenues. – state capture – is composed as a arithmetic average of six components, which represent six types of activities which have direct impact on business of researched firms [7]: • the sale of parliamentary votes on laws to private interests, • the sale of presidential decrees to private interests, • central bank mishandling of funds, • the sale of court decisions in criminal cases, • the sale of court decisions in commercial cases, • illicit contributions paid by private interests to political parties and election campaigns. – influence – the measure of influence is based on the firm´s own assessment of their capacity to affect the content of laws, rules, regulations or decrees emanating from various state institutions that would have a substantial impact on their business. [7] the results from survey in v4 countries (serbia wasn’t involved into the survey) can be seen in following table. radović-marković, m., unemployment, employment, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 29 table 9: components of capture index in v4 countries country administrative corruption state capture influence czech republic 2,5 11 low 8 hungary 1,7 7 low 3 poland 1,6 12 low 3 slovak republic 2,5 24 high 4 source: prepared by authors under [7] the column administrative corruption presents unweighted country averages of the cumulative bribes paid by firms in administrative corruption. the result suggest difference in level of administrative corruption across v4 countries ranging from 1,6 per cent of annual revenues in poland to 2,5 per cent in czech and slovak republic. the next column represents the component „state capture“. as we can see, the low capture group includes: czech republic, hungary and poland. according the survey slovak republic belongs between the high capture economies. in slovak republic 24 per cent of surveyed firms reported a significant impact of state on their business. the last column influence represents the share of influential firms as a percentage of the sample in each country. as we can see, influential firms make up a small minority of firms in v4 countries, though there is still considerable variation across countries, from 3 per cent in case of hungary and poland to 8 in case of czech republic. as we can see, the results aren’t very favorable in all v4 countries, but we assume better results if the same survey takes place today. opacity index according the material published by milken institute in cooperation with pricewaterhousecooper (pwc) the opacity is defined as “lack of clear, accurate, formal, easily discernible, and widely accepted business practices. “ pwc launches first global index that measures the impact of business, economic, legal and ethical opacity on the cost of capital in 35 countries around the world. this index focuses on business and economic risks. compared to other analyses that examine country risks by journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 30 summarizing the opinion of academics, analysts, former governmental officials, and media, the opacity index is based fully on empirical observations. the opacity index is a measure of a five components, which can be together spell as clear. there are: corruption, legal system inadequacies, economic enforcement policies, accounting standards and corporate governance, and regulation. a high score on the opacity index indicates higher level of opacity in each of these areas. information from the index can be useful for companies and businesses as they make decisions, compute future costs, and forecast risk. knowing the risks in the country can be helpful for firms making direct and portfolio investment decisions. from a governmental perspective the index provides useful information too. for government leaders make it easier to tailor policies that will make their country a more appealing place to do business. this way the country can better understand how they can become more competitive by becoming more transparent and by making their institutions more effective. the latest data about the obtained level of index can be seen in following table: table10: opacity index in selected countries c l e a r opacity score country rank country 20 08 20 09 20 08 20 09 20 08 20 09 20 08 20 09 20 08 20 09 20 08 20 09 20 08 20 09 czech republic 49 49 40 40 47 36 4 3 19 19 32 29 25 22 hungary 51 51 34 34 38 37 13 13 13 12 30 30 22 25 poland 54 52 38 34 53 45 13 13 20 17 35 32 29 27 source: [5], [6] radović-marković, m., unemployment, employment, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 31 figure 4: components of opacity index 2009 in selected countries the figure 4 presents components of opacity index in selected countries in 2009. as we can see in component corruption the level of opacity was approximately the same in all evaluated countries. in component legal system inadequacies the level of opacity was the same in poland and hungary, in czech republic the level of opacity was higher. component economic enforcement policies had the best result in czech republic, then in hungary and the last was poland. in component accounting standards and corporate governance the level of opacity was the same in poland and hungary, in czech republic the level of opacity was lower. the level of opacity in component regulation was the lowest in hungary, then in poland and the highest was in czech republic. in overall point of view we can see that the level of opacity was in 2009 the lowest in czech republic, higher level of opacity was in hungary and the worst result was in poland. in case of czech republic we can see the improvement, the positive movement from 25th to 22nd place. positive movement is also in case of poland. the negative movement can be seen in case of hungary, which fallen down from 22nd to 25th place. according the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 32 obtained data we can see, that slovak republic and serbia weren’t involved into the research. conclusion in this paper we have reported on the latest results for four indices measuring the business environment quality – corruption perception index (cpi), aggregate governance indicators (agi), capture index, and opacity index. we have described what this indicators measure and compare results in the four visegrad countries (the czech republic, hungary, poland and slovakia) and serbia. all indicators are based on subjective data obtained through surveys. we also try to discuss about some advantages and disadvantages of the respective methodological approaches. although the indices are known worldwide, by for example cpi and agi are composite indices; they accused the diversity of resources. nevertheless, the indices reveal almost the same patterns for all compared countries. the quality of business environment in hungary is perceived as the best, followed by czech republic and poland with almost the same results. we have found little lagging in slovakia, but the larger lagging in serbia. but as we can see from the results there always exist fields, where countries could improve their scores. references [1] kaufmann, d. – kraay, a.mastruzzi, m.: governance matters viii, aggregate and individual governance indicators 1996–2008 available on http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1424591 [2] kočišová, k.: the competitiveness on national level: mutual comparison of v4 countries and serbia, in: journal of scientific works, faculty of management, czestochowa technical university, no.17, 2009 [3] korner, p. – kundra, z. – vychodil, o.: měření kvality podnikatelského prostředí ve střední evropě, finance a úvěr, 52, no.12, 2002, issn [4] nadsme. stav malého a stredného podnikania 2007. narmsp, bratislava, 2008. [5] opacity index 2007-2008: measuring global business risks, santa monica: milken institute, 2008, available on: http://www.milkeninstitute.org/pdf/2008opacityindex.pdf [6] 2009 opacity index: measuring global risks, santa monica: milken institute, 2009, available on: htp://www.kurtzmangroup.com/pdf/instituteopacityindex_apr8.pdf radović-marković, m., unemployment, employment, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 17-33) 33 [7] hellman, j.s., jones, g., kaufmann, d. 2000. seize the state, seize the day: state capture, corruption, and influence in transition. world bank, european bank of reconstruction and development. available on: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=240555&rec=1&srcabs=3869 04 [8] tartaľová, a. : the development and state of the sme sector in slovakia, in: journal of scientific works, faculty of management, czestochowa technical university, no.17, 2009 received: 15 january 2010 article history: accepted: 3 march 2010 18_jwee_1-2 doi: 10.28934/jwee18.12.pp54-67 professional paper assessment of digital skills in serbia with focus on gender gap aleksandra bradić-martinović1 jelena banović2 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t the world is constantly changing creating a new environment. one of the main factors in this process is the digital transformation which requires adjustment of skills, institutions, processes and business models. the european commission started to cope with this topic in last twenty years and today their activities are according to the “europe 2020 strategy.” enhancement of digital skills is one of the priority. serbia also makes an effort in this area and policymakers already adopted several documents and policies. the main issue is a lack of scientific research that cover the subject – ex ante and ex-post analysis of adopted policies. we consider this subject very important having in mind that the digital skills become one of the basic element for the national growth and competitiveness. this paper presents findings on the existing level of digital skills of the workforce in serbia, with focus on the gender gap. findings are based on a standardized survey conducted during september 2017, within the pilot study research. results show that the level of digital skills is serbia is lagging behind the eu average and that the level of digital skills of serbian women is lower than men. key words: digital literacy, digital skills, digital divide, gender gap, serbia, indicator, eu, public policy 1 zmaj jovina 12, 11000 belgrade, serbia, e-mail: abmartinovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 2 zmaj jovina 12, 11000 belgrade, serbia, e-mail: jelena.banovic@ien.bg.ac.rs bradić-martinović, et al., digital skills in serbia, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 54-67) 55 introduction within the traditional economy, developed and developing countries differed in their ability to access and dispose of raw materials, physical capital (machines, factories, roads) and human capital (educated workforce) which are necessary for economic development. the world of the twentyfirst century is constantly changing, dominantly through technology innovations. however, within the new economy, there is a polarization between the developed and the developing countries on access to ideas, knowledge and modern ict. kolaković, mariković & stefanović (2009) pointed out that “depending on the level of development, countries are facing challenges of the effective and efficient use of digital resources, with more or less success”. developing countries promote digital transformation, but the leaders in this process are aware that one of the main preconditions for the accomplishment of this goal is the ability of the population to use technology successfully, i.e. to have necessary digital literacy and skills. radović-marković et al. (2017) even narrow this issue and confirm that “dynamic business environment requires a permanent increase in the educational level of entrepreneurs”. the digital skills, in the context of this paper, can be observed through dual lenses. first is the general level of digital skills within the workforce and the second is issues of the digital gender gap, as a reason for digital divide and skills mismatch in the labour market, which gained significance in the last ten years. for example, data show (zhao, 2016) that there are 200 million online men in the world more than women. zhao states that “closing the digital gender divide is a pressing concern”. radović-marković (2011) conclude that women need to focus more on learning “21st-century skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration”. the european commission (ec) responded on these topics and adopted a new “digital education action plan” in january 2018. among eight key competencies, this document includes digital and entrepreneurship skills. it states (european commission, 2018) that 90% of future jobs will require digital skills, 44% of europeans are lack of these skills, less than 20% of ict professionals are women and that more than 48,000 schools are lack of internet connection. the plan foresees the following priorities: improvement within digital technology in the area of education; adjustment of digital skills and competencies for the digital transformation and improvement of education based on data analysis and foreseen. the ec founds that digital literacy is also necessary for life-long learning. 56 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 54-67) beside the action plan, ec (2015) also implements “digital single market strategy” and “skills agenda for europe” (2016) which promotes the enhancement of digital skills. one of the latest document published by ec (2018) is a report study on “women in the digital age” which “identifies key factors and trends in the participation of women in ict and its dynamics and analyses the practices enabling women's participation in the digital world”. serbia is also aware of the significance of the digitalization and its impact on the society and economy. the first steps in this area were made a few years ago when gopa consultants and the european association for the education of adults (eaea) supported the project “second chance”. one of the main objectives of the project was “establishing a system of functional elementary adult education in serbia, which is accessible and adaptable to the needs of adult learners, focused on life skills and competencies and based upon lifelong learning” (adult education society, 2010). as a follow-up activity, aleksić et al. (2013) published “general standards for the basic education of adults – digital literacy”. in accordance with the the strategy for education development in serbia until 2020 (official gazette rs, no. 107/2012) which recognizes the importance and the role of new technologies for improving the education system and the guidelines for improving the role information and communication technologies in education that the national education council adopted in december 2013, the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic serbia announces the digital competences framework – teacher for a digital age (2017). this document provides new insights to current initiatives in several areas: incessant investments in ict infrastructure, reform of educational programs and adjusting curricula to a new circumstance, development of selfevaluation framework, mitigation of digital divide, and so forth. this paper aims to show the position of serbia among other european countries based on the results of digital skills indicator published by eurostat and to open a particularly important topic – digital gender gap, based on the pilot study research of women in serbia. literature review digital literacy and digital skills are not synonyms. gui & argentin (2011) proposes that digital skills can be understood as the technical bradić-martinović, et al., digital skills in serbia, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 54-67) 57 knowledge that enables the use of computers and other related devices. individuals with digital skills can create files, receive and send emails as a result of following routine steps. digital literacy is a broader concept and implies digital skills, but also the ability to understand, evaluate and reuse information. digital literacy, similar to general literacy, provides “the personal capability for the achievement of valued outputs in life, especially in the modern digital economy” (chetty et al., 2017) and to “participate in the emerging knowledge society of the twenty-first century” (khateeb, 2017). it is also important to highlight that digital competence person understand different information, know how to recognize good and inadequate sources of information, and to connect different sources. according to covelo (2010), this field is not standardized. on a global level, it is a lack of unique definitions or measures for the current state of development of this phenomena. besides that, the problem is undefined domain of research – pedagogical or functional and validity of selfreporting. martin & grudziecki (2006) propose three levels of digital literacy. the lowest level is digital competence, the second is digital usage, and the third is digital transformation. each level covers specific personal engagement, from technical skills to innovation and creativity, as presented in figure 1. figure 1: levels of digital literacy source: martin & grudzeicki (2006) ainley, schulz & fraillon (2016) present four cross-country assessments of digital and ict literacy skills: 58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 54-67) − iea international computer and literacy study (icils); − program for international student assessment (pisa) digital reading assessment; − assessment and teaching of 21st century skills (at21cs), and − program for the international assessment of adult competencies (piaac). they conclude that the differences between these approaches are not significant and that would not be challenging to propose global indicator or index for assessment of digital literacy. scientists in serbia have begun to deal more with the phenomena of digital literacy in the last decade, but the research is rare and nonsystematic. one of the most valuable empirical studies of serbian society is „digital literacy of employers and students in serbia“, provided by lakić et al. (2012) which covered 733 employers and 344 students. this research is a step further because it is based on eurostat methodology and its results are comparable with other eu countries. digital literacy can be observed as a homogeneous phenomenon, but it can also be analyzed in relation to gender, race, employment status, etc. in this paper, we put emphasis on the gender dimension of digital skills. hilbert (2011) shows that from early 1990s women is lagging behind men and the technology was male dominant. the situation started to change in new millennium and women started to use technology in developed and developing countries. the gender gap becomes narrower, but it still remains. hafkin & huyer (2007) share the same conclusions, but highlight the lack of data for women in ict, especially for developing countries and that the official statistics lack gender dimension. few studies (jones, johnson-yale, millermaier & seoane perez, 2009; gunkel, 2003) shows that male respondents in the survey spend more time online than female respondents. bimber’s (2000) findings confirm stated conclusions. today, this issue is still in focus of policymakers. in march 2018 european parliament – policy department for citizen’s rights and constitutional affair published a study “the underlying causes of the digital gender gap and possible solutions for enhanced digital inclusion of women and girls” (2018). this study aimed to find the factors which influence women to have an unequal position regarding access to digital technology. bradić-martinović, et al., digital skills in serbia, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 54-67) 59 methodology and data in this paper, we applied the methodology proposed by eurostat for the statistics on the information society. in the year 2002 european commission started to implement annual information society survey – ict usage in households and by individuals. the questionnaire covers the following areas: − access to selected ic technologies (data collected at the household level); − use of computers, location, the frequency of use, activities (data collected at the individual level); − use of the internet (data collected at the individual level); − internet commerce (data collected at the individual level); − e-skills; the mobile use of the internet ubiquitous connectivity; cloud computing, e-government; trust and security. through the years ec changed and improved the content of the survey to meet new conditions and regulation in this, very dynamic area. all eu countries, with a few candidate countries (serbia, montenegro, macedonia and turkey) are covered with the survey. for eu countries data series cover the period 2003-2017, while serbia joined the research in 2006. based on the survey results, eurostat publishes the data for individuals’ level of computer skills (isoc_sk_cskl_i) for the period 20032014, individuals’ level of internet skills (isoc_sk_iskl_i) for the period 2005-2013 and individuals’ level of digital skills (isoc_sk_dskl_i) for the period 2015-2017. to enable easier monitoring this phenomenon and comparison of data between countries, dg connect and the eurostat information society working group created a new comprehensive digital skills (ds) indicator. the ds indicator consists of four dimensions, information skills, communication skills, problem solving skills and software skills for content manipulation. information skills include the ability to copy or move files and folders, to save files on internet cloud spot, to obtain information from websites published by public authority, to find market information for goods or services and to seek information about health and wellbeing. the definition in digicomp 2.1 states that the person with information skills can 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 54-67) “identify, locate, retrieve, store, organize and analyze digital information, judging its relevance and purpose” (carretero, vuorikari & punie, 2017). communication skills include the ability to send and receive e-mails, to participate in e-social networks, to make telephone or video calls over the internet and to upload self-created content and to share it on the website. the definition in digicomp 2.1 states that the person with communication skills can “communicate in digital environments, share resources through online tools, link with others and collaborate through digital tools, interact with and participate in communities and networks, cross-cultural awareness” (ibid). problem-solving skills are consisting of two parts, problem-solving and familiarity with online services. problem-solving skills include the ability to transfer files between computers or other devices, to install software applications and to changing software settings, including operating systems (os) and security programs. familiarity with online services includes the ability to purchase online, to sell online, and to use online learning resources and e-banking. the definition in digicomp 2.1 states that the person with problem-solving skills can: “identify digital needs and resources, make informed decisions as to which are the most appropriate digital tools according to the purpose” (ibid). software skills for content manipulation also consist of two parts, basic and above basic skills. basic skills include the ability to use software for word processing, spreadsheet, edit photos, video or audio files, while above basic skills include the ability to create presentation or document integrating text, pictures, tables or charts, to use advanced functions of spreadsheet to organize and analyze data (sorting, filtering, using formulas, creating charts) and to write a code in a programming language. the definition in digicomp 2.1 states that the person with problem-solving skills can: “identify digital needs and resources, make informed decisions as to which are the most appropriate digital tools according to the purpose” (ibid). dimensions of ds indicator, presented above, are covered by several questions in the questionnaire “ict usage in households and by individuals” and valued by scheme presented in “methodological introduction” (http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id =14342). finally, the results of individual indicators combine into digital skills indicator. bradić-martinović, et al., digital skills in serbia, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 54-67) 61 following the eu example, for this pilot research, we construct similar questionnaire which covers all areas necessary for calculating each part of the main indicator with ds indicator, as a final result. results the data has been collected by standardizing face-to-face interview in september 2017 on a sample of 200 respondents age 16-64. we obtain 164 completed questionnaires. the sample consists of 53% of female and 47% of male respondents. for an age range, we use oecd range proposal, and our sample has the following structure, 6% are in range 15-24, 71% are in range 25-54 and the rest 23% are in range 55-64. among respondents, 31% is unemployed, while 69% are in some form of employment. the level of education is presented in figure 1. figure 1: the education structure of the respondents source: own survey the 57% of respondents use the computers in their working places, while the rest do not. based on the answers and according to the eu methodology we calculate frequencies for each dimension of ds indicator. the results for the first dimension – information skills are presented in table 1. 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 54-67) table 1: information skills frequency level all respondents women men survey eurostat no skills 32.2 32.0 40.0 23.1 basic skills 7.3 9.0 5.6 15.4 above basic skills 60.5 59.0 54.4 71.5 source: author’s calculation the first column of table 1 contains the results for the whole survey, while the third and the fourth column contain separate results for female and male respondents. the values in the second column are calculated by the eurostat and presented in their database (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat /data/database). the presented results show the difference between women and men – 40% of women do not have any information skills, in comparison to 23.1% of men. the difference exists within other categories in favor of men. table 2: communication skills frequency level all respondents women men survey eurostat no skills 32.8 38.0 40.5 25.1 basic skills 16.5 13.0 14.1 19.6 above basic skills 50.7 49.0 45.4 55.3 source: author’s calculation the similar results are for the communication skills, with a note that the percent of women with basic skills is higher than in the previous case. table 3: problem solving skills frequency level all respondents women men survey eurostat no skills 38.7 44.0 44.8 41.3 basic skills 15.9 20.0 19.3 15.4 above basic skills 45.4 36.0 35.9 43.3 source: author’s calculation bradić-martinović, et al., digital skills in serbia, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 54-67) 63 for the dimension of problem solving skills, the results show that the difference between women and man is reduced. the number of women with basic problem solving skills is higher than man, while the number of men with above basic skills is slightly higher. table 4: software skills frequency level all respondents women men survey eurostat no skills 57.5 58.0 60.9 54.2 basic skills 15.7 15.0 18.5 12.8 above basic skills 26.8 27.0 20.6 33.0 source: author’s calculation the last dimension software skills are considered to be most demanding. at the level of the whole sample, it is noticeable the rapid growth in the number of respondents without any skills, almost 60%. the number of women with basic software skills is also higher, while the results are in favor of man for the above basic skills level. table 5: digital skills indicator frequency level all respondents women men survey eurostat no skills 22.2 17.3 33.1 22.3 low skills 26.8 25.5 29.5 24.4 basic skills 24.4 26.0 14.1 23.7 above basic skills 26.6 31.2 23.2 29.5 * www.digital-agenda-data.eu source: author’s calculation finally, table 5 contains the values for digital skills indicator. this indicator recognizes four levels (the low skills is additional level). the presented values confirm previous results – the higher percentage of women in serbia do not have any digital skills or have low skills. conclusion in this paper, we report findings of a pilot survey study conducted in serbia based on standardized questionnaires on a purposive sample, aimed 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 54-67) to shed light on the existing level of digital skills of working population in serbia, with focus on the gender gap. we analyzed digital skills grouped into four dimensions comprised of the survey – information skills, communication skills, problem solving skills and software skills. results of the survey show that the overall level of digital skills of the workforce in serbia, measured by eurostat’s’ digital skills indicator, have much space for improvement. almost half of the respondents (49%) have low digital skills or do not have any skills at all. nevertheless, values for serbia do not deviate significantly from eu average (17.3% in eu do not have digital skills, 25.5% have low skills, 26% have basic skills and 31.2% have above basic skills), but in some eu countries, the situation is much better. for example, in norway only 2.9% do not have any digital skills, in luxembourg, 11.7% have low skills, in the czech republic, 35.8% have basic skills, and again in luxembourg, 55.3% have above basic skills. we also show the existence of gender gap in digital skills or digital divide among working population in serbia. the calculation for women shows that 62.6% of respondents do not have any digital skills or have low skills, while 37.3% have basic and above basic skills. the calculation for men show that 46.7% of respondents do not have any or have low skills, while 53.2% have basic and above basic skills, and these results are in line with eu average. these results point to the conclusion that policymakers in serbia should have in mind these differences and adjust the policies to support women education in the field of digital knowledge. empowering women and increasing their digital literacy would have impact on decrease of the gender gap in serbia, increase of female entrepreneurs and reduction of poverty. acknowledgements this paper is a result of research projects under the code 179015 (challenges and prospects of structural changes in serbia: strategic directions for economic development and harmonization with eu requirements) and 47009 (european integrations and socio-economic changes in the economy of serbia on the way to the eu) financed by the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic of serbia. bradić-martinović, et al., digital skills in serbia, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 54-67) 65 limitations of the study 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[26] zhao, houlin. 2016. “encouraging more women and girls in ict, how can we close gender gap”. itu news magazine. geneva, switzerland. article history: received: 15 april, 2018 accepted: 16 june, 2018 16_jwe_3-4_finalna_ver udk: 005.322-055:316.46 005.6:371.11(669) 005.941 jel: j24, l26, j13 cobiss.sr-id: 227965196 original scientific paper school plant utilization and entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary scholl students in akoko zonal education area of ondo state, nigeria alimi olatunji sabitu1 adekunle ajasin university, department of educational management, akungba-akoko, ondo state, nigeria a b s t r a c t entrepreneurial skill acquisition is a major innovation of the new national policy on education. it is believed that skill acquisition is an antidote to secondary school students’ graduate unemployment. this study was designed to investigate the relationship between school plant utilization and entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students in akoko zonal education area (zea) of ondo state. five hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. eight secondary schools were selected in akoko zea, ondo state through simple random sampling technique. two sets of instruments: a set of questionnaire on school plant utilization and students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition was designed for the study. data were analyzed using pearson product moment correlation (ppmc) and multiple regressions. all hypotheses were tested at a significant level of 0.05. the study revealed that there is a low but positive relationship between school plant utilization and entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students. it was also revealed that utilization of basic amenities, school site, school 1 olatunji.alimi@aaua.edu.ng, drtunjialimi@gmail.com, +2348061137511 128 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) plant, library, laboratory and utilization of classrooms have no joint influence on entrepreneurial skill acquisition among the students. however, each of the variables made significant contribution to the prediction of entrepreneurial skill acquisition. the utilization of library facilities has the highest predictor (60%), while the least is utilization of basic amenities (18%) it was recommended among others that school libraries should be enriched by governments at all levels and other stakeholders in order to achieve higher levels of entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students. key words: entrepreneurial skills, plant utilization, secondary school students, ondo state, pearson product moment correlation (ppmc), and multiple regression introduction entrepreneurship education seeks to provide students with the knowledge, skills and motivation to encourage entrepreneurial success in a variety of settings (onu, 2013). it provides students with the knowledge, skills and motivation to encourage entrepreneurial success in a variety of settings (ojeifo, 2013, wikipedia 2015). opportunities for the emergence of entrepreneurship skills can be enhanced through structures and practices existing in the educational sector including the secondary school level. entrepreneurial action requires that a profit opportunity exists; that someone is alert enough to spot the opportunity and recognize it; and that the individual is willing to act on the opportunity once it is spotted (holcombe 2012). it is with the above background that robert and scott (1997) listed the following content areas of entrepreneurship education: self – confidence (confidence building, independent, individualistic, optimistic, leadership, dynamic); originality (innovative, creative, resourceful, initiative, versatile, knowledgeable); people – oriented (gets along well with others, flexible, responsive to suggestions/criticism); task – resultoriented (need for achievement, profit oriented, persistent, perseverance, determined and hard working, drive, energy); failure – oriented (foresight, perceptive); and risk taking (risk taking ability, likes challenges. education is the aggregate of all the processes by which a child or young adult develop his abilities, attitudes and other forms of behaviour which are of positive value to the society in which he lives. education is a cumulative process starting from the bottom; each brick in a firm position alimi, o.s., school plant utilization, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) 129 before being built (akande 2006). the above gave birth to the formal education in defined places, for example, schools instead of the traditional education which did not use specialized buildings to carry out its training. a farmer, for instance, already has a field where the theory and practice are imparted while the goldsmith also has the kiln for good smelting. schools are established for the purpose of teaching and learning (alimi 2004). school plant and facilities are essential for the convenience of teachers and learners that are there. according to ntukidem (2002) the phrase, school plant refers to a comprehensive term which includes school buildings, school ground, school equipments, school furniture, apparatus and tools. school plant is vital in the acquisition of basic skills, knowledge and attitudes which might enable the individual not only to improve the quality of his life but also to actualize his or her abilities. taylor (2012) found out that the use of education facilities will ignite the interest of students and encourage their involvement. the availability of a laboratory and technology workshops do compliment the teachers’ efforts in the teaching of sciences and technical subjects. therefore, for learning experience to be understood they must be practically handled. similarly, adaralegbe (2002) noted that without these facilities, students’ exposure will be limited and the manifestation of their talents as required for entrepreneurial skill acquisition, hampered. teachers today however believe that learning should consist of pleasurable activities for the learners, while appealing to students’ senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. in order for the teacher to appeal to all the senses above, they would need school facilities. such facilities include well-laid out classrooms, laboratories, libraries and halls for interacting with the students. in the case of practical’s subjects like physical education and agricultural science, they need laboratories. a good classroom is a base for all types of work. it is an art gallery, a museum, workshop, display centre exhibition area and sales window for education. an active classroom produces a lively class. the importance of school plant utilization therefore cannot be easily dismissed with a wave of the hand. realistically, no good teaching and learning can take place in the absence of good buildings which provide shelter for students and staff. corroborating these, ajayi (2007) maintained that high level of students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition may not be guaranteed where instructional space such as classrooms, libraries, technical workshop and laboratories are lacking. according to ibitoye (2003), school 130 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) buildings must be planned to accommodate such factors as the aims and objectives of the educational system, the grade level to be accommodated, the expected enrolment capacity and the school population growth. school site refers to the geographical location on which the school is planted. it includes the lawns, school paths, football field, lawn-tennis court, flower beds, palm and citrus plots and school garden, school farm and trees. school site must enable optimum utilization of the resources for educational activities. according to castadi (2006), in selecting a school site, the soil must be considered in terms of structural stability and adequate bearing capacity in relation to the building foundation design. he further asserted that the school building and the site upon which it is located should provide an environment that is conducive to effective learning and free from health hazards. statement of the problem several efforts have been made to develop entrepreneurial skills among secondary school students. the latest edition includes the teaching of some practical core subjects that is thought to be associated with skill acquisition. in addition, school plants are put in place to stimulate the acquisition of these skills in the learners. be as it may, it seems these school plant accumulation and utilization are not yielding the expected results in entrepreneurial skill acquisition, and that observation reveals that secondary school students could not acquire entrepreneurial skills because of insufficient school plant. it could also be reasoned that adequacy of plants does not guarantee plant utilization. so, this study was set to examine the relationship between school plant utilization and students entrepreneurial skill acquisition in akoko zea of ondo state. purpose of the study the main purpose of this study is to determine the degree to which the utilization of school plant such as school site, school buildings and other instructional facilities influence entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students in akoko zea of ondo state. specifically, it is aimed to establish the relationship between utilization of (i) classrooms (ii) libraries, (iii) laboratories, and (iv) school amenities and entrepreneurial alimi, o.s., school plant utilization, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) 131 skill acquisition among secondary school students in akoko zea of ondo state. hypothesis i. there is no significant relationship between utilization of classrooms and entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students in akoko zea of ondo state. ii. there is no significant relationship between utilization of libraries and entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students in akoko zea of ondo state. iii. there is no significant relationship between utilization of laboratories and entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students in akoko zea of ondo state. iv. there is no significant relationship between utilization of school basic amenities and entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students in akoko zea of ondo state. v. there is no significant influence of utilization of basic amenities, school site, school plant, school library, and classrooms on entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students. scope and limitations of the study the study covers school plant utilization and entrepreneurial skill acquisition among senior secondary school students in akoko zea of ondo state. the skills under investigation were confidence, originality, innovativeness, creativity, resourcefulness, initiative, profit oriented, persistence, perseverance, determined and hard working, foresight, risk taking ability. research design a descriptive survey design was adopted. a set of research instrument was used in order to gather data or information that were analyzed, summarized and interpreted along certain lines of thought for the pursuit of a specific purpose or study which include the subject of this study. 132 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) population the target population for this study is the entire public senior secondary students in akoko zea of ondo state. there are four local government areas in the zone. sample and sampling technique two local government areas were randomly sampled. eight schools were randomly sampled out of the twenty five public secondary schools in the area in such a way that two out of the eight public secondary schools from akoko south east local government area, and six out of the seventeen public secondary schools from akoko south west local government area. the sampled schools’ vice principals were the respondents to the instrument designed for the study. instrumentation the instruments used for gathering data consisted of a set of self developed questionnaire tagged “school plant utilization and entrepreneurial skill acquisition” which consisted of two parts. part a of the questionnaire sought for information on the plant availability and utilization. here, the quantity available, capacity and actual usage were requested to complete this part. part b requested the respondents to rate how much of the following are demonstrated on a five point scale by students in the school: confidence, originality, innovativeness, creativity, resourcefulness, initiative, profit oriented, persistence, perseverance, determined and hard working, foresight, risk taking ability. validity of the instrument the content validity of the instrument was determined by colleagues in the department of educational management, adekunle ajasin university akungba akoko, who examined the research questions along side with each of the instrument items in order to determine whether the instrument measured what it was intended to measure. alimi, o.s., school plant utilization, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) 133 reliability of instrument test retest method was used in order to ascertain the accuracy, constituency, trust worthiness and stability of the instrument. the pilot study was done in three schools in owo local government area of ondo state with an interval of two weeks and on the same samples. the score obtained was 0.79. thus, the study was adjudged to be good and reliable for the investigation. administration of instrument the researcher personally visited the sampled schools and sought for the cooperation of the principals and teachers in the schools after which the instruments were administered. the completed questioners were collected on the same day of visit. data analysis technique all relevant data to the study collected on school plant utilization and entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students in akoko zea of ondo state were analyzed using pearson product moment correlation and multiple regression. the time utilization rate (tur), the space utilization rate (sur) and the total or global utilization rate (gur) were used to measure the utilization of school plants. the hypothesis was tested at the significance level of 0.05. test of research hypothesis hypothesis 1: there is no significant relationship between classroom utilization and secondary school students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition in akoko zea of ondo state 134 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) table 1: relationship between utilization of classrooms and entrepreneurial skill acquisition variables n mean sd df r-cal r-tab p utilization of classroom 8 79.96 17.39 6 0.19 0.71 > 0.05 entrepreneurial skill acquisition 8 4.19 6.09 *<0.05; n=8 as shown in table 1, there is a very low but positive r-cal of 0.19 relationships between utilization of classroom and academics performance of secondary school students. table 1 further shows the r-cal of 0.19 and r-tab of 0.71 since r-cal < rtab, hypothesis 1 is accepted. this showed that there is no significant relationship between utilization of classroom and entrepreneurial skill acquisition [r (6) = 0.19; p>0.05]. this implies that utilization of classroom does not significantly influence the entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students in akoko zea of ondo state. hypothesis 2: there is no significant relationship between school utilization of classroom and secondary school students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition in akoko table 2: relationship between utilization of library and students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition variables n mean sd df r-cal r-tab p utilization of classroom 8 57.37 21.88 6 0.57 0.71 > 0.05 entrepreneurial skill acquisition 8 4.19 6.09 *<0.05; n=8 the r-cal has shown in table 2 is 0.57. this is a positive but moderate relationship. hence the relationship between utilization of library and secondary school students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition is moderate. a further test of the hypothesis however shows the r-tab of 0.71 and rcal of 0.57. since r-cal < r-tab. hypothesis 2 is upheld. that is, there is no alimi, o.s., school plant utilization, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) 135 significant relationship between utilization of library and secondary school students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition in akoko zea of ondo state. hypothesis 3: there is no significant relationship between utilization of laboratory and secondary school students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition in akoko zea of ondo state. table 3: relationship between utilization of laboratory and students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition variables n mean sd df r-cal r-tab p utilization of classroom 8 95.63 36.48 6 0.57 0.71 > 0.05 entrepreneurial skill acquisition 8 4.19 6.09 *<0.05; n=8 table 3 shows the r-cal of 0.57. this is a moderate relationship between utilization of laboratory and the entrepreneurial skill acquisition in akoko zea, ondo state. table 3 further shows the r-cal of 0.57 and r-tab of 0.707. since r-cal < r-tab, the hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between utilization of library and entrepreneurial skill acquisition is upheld.[r (6) = .57; p>0.05]. this implies that utilization of laboratory does not significantly contribute to entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students’ in akoko zea, ondo state. hypothesis 4: there is no significant relationship between utilization of basic amenities and secondary school students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition in akoko zea, ondo state. table 4: relationship between utilization of school amenities and students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition variables n mean sd df r-cal r-tab p utilization of classroom 8 87.13 12.53 6 0.39 0.71 > 0.05 entrepreneurial skill acquisition 8 4.19 6.09 *<0.05; n=8 136 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) it is revealed in table 4 that the r-cal is 0.39. this shows there is a low relationship between utilization of school amenities and secondary school students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition. the r-cal and r-tab as shown in table 4 are 0.39 and 0.707 respectively. since r-cal < r-tab, the hypothesis that, there is no significant relationship between basic amenities and entrepreneurial skill acquisition in accepted [r (6) = .39; p>0.05]. this implies that the utilization of basic amenities in the secondary schools do not contribute to entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students in akoko zea, ondo state. hypothesis 5: there is no significant influence of utilization of basic amenities, school site, school plant, school library, and classrooms on entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students. table 5: influence of utilization of basic amenities, school site, school plant, school library, and classrooms on entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students. r = .962 r2 = .926 adjusted r square = .481 model sum of squares df mean square f sig. regression 241.14 6 40.19 2.08 .49(a) residual 19.29 1 19.29 total 260.43 predictors (constant) plant utilization, utilization of classroom, school site, utilization of library, utilization of laboratory, and basic amenities. there is no significant influence of school plants utilization on students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students [f = 2.08, p<0.05]. this implies that basic amenities, school site, plant utilization, utilization of library, utilization of laboratory and utilization of classroom have no joint influence on entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students in akoko zea, ondo state. the r square value of 0.962 which indicates that 96.2% of the variance is accounted for in the model which is strongly fit. the independent variables accounts for 3.8% of the variance in the dependent variable. thus the regression model is robust. alimi, o.s., school plant utilization, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) 137 table 6: summary of simple regression showing the influence of the utilization of basic amenities, school site, school plant, school library, and classrooms on entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig. β std. error beta b std. error (constant) 7.02 20.25 0.35 0.79 plant utilization 0.03 0.06 0.15 0.48 0.72 utilization of classroom 0.09 0.14 0.25 0.61 0.65 school site 0.10 0.17 0.21 0.60 0.66 utilization of library 0.17 0.10 0.60 1.7 0.35 utilization of laboratory -0.01 0.07 -0.02 -0.07 0.96 basic amenities -0.25 0.09 -0.82 -2.54 0.24 the result in table 6 indicated that plant utilization (β = .03, p>0.05) had no significantly predicted influence on students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition. this implies that plant utilization had no predicted influence on students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition in secondary school. utilization of classroom (β = .09, p>0.05) had no significant predicted influence on students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition. school site utilization (β = .10, p>0.05) had no significant predicted influence on students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition. utilization of library (β = .17, p>0.05) had no significant predicted influence on students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition. utilization of laboratory (β = -01, p>0.05) had no significant predicted influence on students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition. school basic amenities (β = -.25, p>0.05) had no significant predicted influence on students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition. it further reveals that each of the variables individually made significant contribution to the prediction of entrepreneurial skill acquisition. plant utilization has (15%) significant contribution to the prediction of entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students. utilization of classroom 138 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) has (25%) significant contribution to the performance of students. school site has (21%) significant contribution to the prediction of entrepreneurial skill acquisition and utilization of library (60%) has the highest predictor to the entrepreneurial skill acquisition among student while the utilization of basic amenities has the least predictor to the entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students. discussion of findings this study revealed that there is a low but positive relationship between school plant and entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students but the relationship is not statistically significant one would expect that if school plants are properly planned in terms of location and structure it will translate to better entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students. the finding has however proved this wrong. it must be emphasized that school plant may not significantly enhance students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition if the teachers are not doing the needful. the result of this study supports the findings of oyekanmi (1996) and ayodele (2000) while it contradicts that of adebayo (2004) and yusuf (2001) who found a significant relationship between school plants planning and students’ learning outcomes. this result also revealed that utilization of classrooms has a low but positive relationship with entrepreneurial skill acquisition in akoko zea, ondo state. again, this relationship is not statistically significant. classroom only provide the shelter for both teachers and students. if the required positive interaction in terms of teaching methodology is not adopted in even the best of classrooms, appropriate learning may not take place and consequently, students’ performance may still be low. the study agrees with that of kennedy (1999) and stricherz (2000) that instructional space planning such as classrooms, laboratory, library and technical workshop design influence students’ learning outcomes. however, the result showed that poor classrooms planning, laboratories planning, technical workshop planning and library planning may have negative effect on students’ learning outcomes while a school with better classroom planning, laboratories planning, technical workshop planning and library planning may enhance better students’ learning outcomes. this project goes beyond planning. it is more of plant utilization. the study further revealed that library and laboratory facilities’ utilization have moderate relationships with entrepreneurial skill alimi, o.s., school plant utilization, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) 139 acquisition. however, these relationships are not statistically significant. it must be underscored that utilization of laboratory may not imply a strong entrepreneurial skill acquisition, if there are not enough positive engagements in them like it is probably the case in most of the schools under investigation where science teachers were found to be inadequate. the finding contradicts that of bajah (1979) and fuller (1986) who found significant relationship between utilization of laboratories and entrepreneurial skill acquisitions of students. in addition, study revealed a moderate relationship between the utilization of basic amenities and secondary school students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition. this relationship is however not statistically significant. it is expected that basic amenities such as electricity, pipe-borne water would enhance better teaching and learning process in the school system., but the findings has proved otherwise. this implies that utilization of basic amenities may not guarantee a very strong students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students. it further shows that basic amenities are not strongly linked with teaching and learning activities. hence, it may not significantly influence entrepreneurial skill acquisitions among secondary school students in akoko zea, ondo state. summary the study was conducted in eight (8) selected secondary schools in akoko land. the study revealed that there is low but positive relationship between school plant utilization and secondary school students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition in akoko zea, ondo state. these relationships were not found to be statistically significant. it further reveals that each of the variables individually contribute significantly to the prediction of entrepreneurial skill acquisition, plant utilization has (15%) significant contribution to the prediction of entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students. utilization of classroom has (25%) significant contribution to the entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students. school site has (21%) significant contribution to the prediction of entrepreneurial skill acquisition and the utilization of library (60%) has the highest predictor to the entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students while the utilization of basic amenities has the least predictor to the entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students. 140 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) conclusion it is concluded that school plant utilization influence moderately, the entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary school students in akoko zea, ondo state. in fact each of the variables under investigation individually contributes significantly to the prediction of entrepreneurial skill acquisition. the seemingly low relationships perhaps indicate that there are other factors such as job commitment, administrative effectiveness better motivation of teachers and students which might probably contribute largely and significantly to secondary school students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition. where there are school plants and there is not enough job commitment by teachers and other important factors are lacking, improved learning outcome, including entrepreneurial skill acquisition, might not be plausible. recommendations it is recommended that school libraries should be enriched by governments at all levels and other stakeholders in order to achieve higher levels of entrepreneurial skill acquisition among students. government should motivate teachers in various schools in order for job commitment. the principals should make sure that both teachers and students who are under him or her are adequately motivated. efforts to teach entrepreneurial education should be more intensified. the involvement of community resources, including personnel may be helpful. references [1] adaralegbe, a. 2002. secondary education in nigeria. ife. ile-ife university press. [2] adebayo, f.a. 2004. “toward effective management of examination malpractices in nigerian schools.” journal of contemporary issues in education, 2(1): 175-184. [3] ajayi, i. a. 2007. issues in school management. lagos: bolabay publications. [4] akande, j. 2006. management in nigeria modern education in nigeria. unpublished masters’ thesis university of ibadan. ibadan. alimi, o.s., school plant utilization, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) 141 [5] alimi, o. s. 2004. “appraisal of the adequacy of available school plant for primary education in ayedade local government area of osun state.” educational thought, 4(1): 64-69. [6] ayodele, j. b. 2000. school size, class size and teacher quality as correlates of internal efficiency in primary schools in ondo state, nigeria. phd thesis, unpublished. ibadan: university of ibadan. [7] bajah, s. t. 1979. “correlates of students extrinsic school environment factors with level of attainment in chemistry.” journal of stan, 18(1): 10-11. [8] castadi, a. k. 2006. higher school class rank and entrepreneurial skill acquisition in colleges desertion materials. ilorin. unpublished masters’ thesis ilorin. [9] fuller, b. 1986. raising school quality in developing countries. what investment boost learning. washington dc: world bank project. [10] holcombe, r. g. 2012. political entrepreneurship and the democratic allocation of economic resources. retrieved september 17, 2012 from http://www.mises.org/pdf/asc/holcombe6.pdf. [11] ibitoye, s. a. 2003. relationship among school size, resource utilization and school effectiveness in ilorin local government area, kwara state. unpublished, m. ed. thesis, university of ilorin. [12] kennedy, m. 1999. “making an impact.” american school and university, 72(1): 16-17. [13] ntudikem, a. o. 2002. the relationship between school factors and students entrepreneurial skill acquisition in bida emirate secondary schools, niger state. stingfield publisher. [14] ojeifo, s. a. 2013. “entrepreneurship education in nigeria. a panacea for youth unemployment.” journal of education and practice, 4(6): 61-67. [15] onu, a. j. c. 2013. “stimulating entrepreneurship in educational institutions in nigeria.” european scientific journal, 9(25): 38-48. [16] oyekanmi. 1996. ”school days are here again with high fees.” the guardian, october 29: 26. [17] robert, e. n. & scott, d. j. 1997. “entrepreneurship education as a strategic approach to economic growth in kenya.” journal of industrial teacher education, 35(1): 7-21. [18] stricherz, m. 2000. “bricks and mortar boards.” education week, 20(14): 30-32 [19] taylor, p. s. 2012. resource for learning. great britain, watson and vinel publication ltd. [20] wikipedia. 2015. entrepreneurship education. retrieved on 13 07 2015 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/entrepreneurship_education 142 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 127-142) [21] yusuf, m. a. 2001. correlates of students’ entrepreneurial skill acquisition in ekiti state secondary schools. m. ed. thesis, unpublished, university of ado-ekiti, nigeria. article history: received: 11 may, 2016 accepted: 16 august, 2016 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.pp58-75 jel: o3, a2, d63, e24, h5 original scientific paper 3bthe effects of digitalization and skills on women’s labor market inclusionserbian gap study boris jevtić1 1f1 university union, belgrade, serbia, computing faculty raf, belgrade, serbia] milos vucekovic12 f2 singidunum university, belgrade, serbia svetlana tasić1 3f3 belgrade business and arts academy of applied studies, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t in this paper, women's social inclusion in the labor market as a long-lasting employment problem is researched under the new digitalization requirements. furthermore, the importance of the factors is explored, including those connected to the digital knowledge and skills of women (wdks) and the institutional support of digitalization (dis), for women's inclusion in the labor market (wlmi) and employment in a digital age. using the likert scale instrument for 15 claims within the specified variables of the study conducted in serbia in 2022, 224 women participated in the research and rated the influence. findings showed that the knowledge, digital skills, and competencies of girls and women (wdks) are strongly correlated with their social inclusion in the labor market (wlmi). the impact of the dis, institutional measures, and policies as a set of digital infrastructure, networks, and low-level adjustments for the digitization process's development is also important as a part of national digital ecosystem development. 1 e-mail: boris.jevtic@digit-star.com 2 corresponding author, e-mail: milosvu@gmail.com 3 e-mail: ceceatasic1@gmail.com boris jevtić, milos vucekovic, svetlana tasić 59 these findings contribute to the literature on digitization and new knowledge development, the sdg goals on gender divide and equality, and further feminist economics scientific works. keywords: digitalization, education, digital skills, sustainability, institutional support, sdgs introduction this research focuses on the labor market opportunities that arise from digitalization in the new normal. covid-19 has significantly changed the working patterns in europe and serbia in favor of home-based and flexible jobs on the platform. the platform or gig economy via applications includes crowdsourcing and on-demand work. ilo has published several studies on non-standard employment, agency work, and temporary and dependent self-employment, with discussions on open issues of employment relationships and hidden employment relationships (mckinsey global institute, 2015; 2017; ilo, 2016; wef, 2016a; 2016c; bertrand, 2011; un women, 2005). many studies of platform work assume that atypical employment relationships involving casual, daily, or seasonal contracts are not covered or are covered only to a limited extent by traditional employment protections (nambisan, wright, & feldman, 2019; nambisan, siegel, & kenney, 2018; balsmeier& woerter, 2019; ahlstrom, 2020). platform female workers are usually legally treated as self-employed, and many eu countries have modernized labor law and made the labor market more flexible by modifying common law (leahy & wilson, 2014; radović-marković, kočović & grozdanić, 2013; radović-marković, grozdanić & jevtić, 2017). the paper also respects the sdgs concerning sustainable employment of women and gender equality (worthington, 2014), which are connected to: − economic benefits of women, sdg 5 − unemployment and wages of women, sdg 8 − gender-sensitive policies addressing environmental sustainability challenges (sdg 12–17) based on the literature (jacobides, cennamo, & gawer, 2018; frenken et al., 2020; hinings, gegenhuber, & greenwood, 2018; brynjolfsson & 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 58-75) mcafee, 2014; faik, barrett, & oborn, 2020), the authors defined the further research question (rq) for this study as “are digital skills and knowledge of women (wdsk) and institutional support for digitalization development (dis) significantly impacting the labor market inclusion of women (wlmi)?” in selecting digital job opportunities for women, the authors include the sdg pillars of sustainability, equality issues, and the increase of women's employment rates faster than men's by the end of the decade (diesendorf, 2000; dunphy, 2000; eu treaty for equality promotion by 2030). both traditional and modern industries can be considered the demand side of the labor market for female employment in the digital era (sorgner et al., 2017; acemoglu & autor, 2011; popović & jevtić, 2020; mitić et al., 2020; 2020a; grozdanić, radović-marković & vučić, 2008). the paper is structured through the introduction, the case study gap, the materials and methods with the main findings, the conclusions, and the references used in the study. serbian gap analysis the number of employed persons in serbia decreased to 2,888,700 in 2022 from 2,942,000 in 2021 (sors, 2023) (figure 1). the labor force participation rate in serbia remained unchanged at 55.80 percent in 2022. figure 1: the trend of employment/unemployment rates (in %), population 2017-2022. source: sors (2020) https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/g2023/pdfe/g20231047.pdf https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/g2023/pdfe/g20231047.pdf boris jevtić, milos vucekovic, svetlana tasić 61 the number of unemployed persons in serbia decreased to 427.15 thousand in december 2022 from 428.96 thousand in november 2022 (table 1). table 1: serbia, some indicators of labor market trend, 2022 2022 changes relative to the previous year (in 000) (in 000) % population 15+* 5769.8 -68.5 -1.2 1. active 3179.8 -54.3 -1.7 1.1 employed 2888.7 -28.7 -1.0 1.1.1 formally employed 2519.2 0.4 0.0 1.1.2 informally employed 369.5 -29.1 -7.3 2. unemployed 291.1 -25.6 -8.1 3. outside the labor force* 2590.0 -14.2 -0.5 source: statistical release on labour force survey for the fourth quarter 2022 available at: http://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/g2023/xls/g20231047.xlsx. female unemployment in serbia was reported at 11% in 2021, according to the world bank development indicators (figure 2). although the youth unemployment rate in serbia decreased from 25.40 percent in the third quarter of 2022 to 24.30 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, it is still very high. figure 2: the female unemployment rate for serbia, 2014-2021. source: sors, 2022. available at: g20231047.pdf (stat.gov.rs) http://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/g2023/xls/g20231047.xlsx https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/g2023/pdfe/g20231047.pdf 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 58-75) the reason for taking this country for the gap study lay in the fact that serbia is among the ten economies in the world by the number of freelancers in terms of population. about 100,000 freelancers were employed, mostly equally men and women, in 2021. according to sors (2022), most freelancers work for foreign companies, and most of them did not sign any contract, and if they did, such a document is not recognized in the serbian legal system as the platform company is not recognized as an employer. furthermore, the research found the following insights: − more men are working in the technology sector than women. − men are mostly better paid than women. − women usually offer language courses, translation, textile design, writing, fashion, and similar services over online platforms (vučeković et al., 2021). − the number of women joining the "gig" economy is growing, and the feedback is usually positive. − freelancing is the main source of revenue for many women, as the gross value of such income is double the average gross wage in serbia. in the time of the digital transformation of work in serbia, legal structures were not changed and adapted to new circumstances of employment and new work patterns. stronger labor and social protection regulatory rules have to be developed, and policymakers in serbia would have to work to shape the transformation of regulations. concerning the ict sector in serbia, its impact on economic and social influence on new business models is expanding, and it can be said that the industry opportunities are growing each year with more support from the national ecosystem (špiler et al., 2023). illustrative could be the positions of serbia among 144 other countries in: − 125th in firm-level technology absorption, 134th in the extent of staff training, 131st in capacity for innovation in ict, 97th in b-c use of the internet, 86th in business-to-business ict usage, 101st in fdi and technology transfer, and 107th in access to basic services by icts, ict use, and government efficiency; − 72nd in technology readiness; internet access in schools, 89th; internet bandwidth, 88th; fixed internet, 46th; mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 people, 55th position. boris jevtić, milos vucekovic, svetlana tasić 63 − but in terms of labor market efficiency, serbia is in the lower positions: the country's capacity to retain and attract talent is low, ranking 79th in women in the labor force in ratio to men, 68th in pay and productivity, with 46% of knowledge-intensive jobs in the workforce, and 80th out of 144 in hiring and firing practices. − 65% of individuals using the internet have digital skills (more men); 68% use virtual social networks; in the e-participation index, 78th position (wef, 2022). methods and materials this research is part of a wider investigation by authors across serbia about the success triggers of female employment opportunities and barriers in the age of new technologies. to answer the research question, an empirical analysis was conducted in serbia in 2022, which included 224 unemployed female participants (t. 2). one main and two auxiliary hypotheses are defined in the hypothetical research model given in figure 3. figure 3: hypothetical research model research variables are: 1. independent variable: digital competencies and skills of women (wdsc) , 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 58-75) 2. independent variables: institutional support of digitalization development (ddis), and one 3. dependent variable: labor market inclusion of women (wlmi) the main hypothesis of the research defined based on the literature review is that h0 = digital knowledge and skills of women (wdkc), and institutional support for digitalization development (dis) significantly impacts the labor market inclusion of women (wlmi), or 𝐻𝐻0 = c is not impacted by a and b. 𝐻𝐻𝑟𝑟 = c is impacted by a and b. two auxiliary hypotheses are also defined as follows: 𝐻𝐻1= a does not impact c. 𝐻𝐻𝑟𝑟1= a impacts c. 𝐻𝐻2= b does not impact c. 𝐻𝐻𝑟𝑟2 =b impacts c. a mixed-methods research design was adopted, with the online quantitative data collected through 15 claims to identify the participants’ attitudes and correlation and regression analysis realized in sas jmp 17. the sample includes women and girls from all over the country. in terms of demographic characteristics, 33.93% of participants are between the ages of 18 and 24, and 29.91% are between the ages of 25 and 40, which makes up the majority of the sample (young people, 63.84% of the total number). most have secondary and high education levels: 168 girls and women (65.00%). employment status shows that 89 participants are temporally employed, 78 are not employed, and 43 lost their jobs because of being laid off (technological decline, job reduction, company closing), which makes 54.02% of women unemployed for both reasons. 6.25% of participants were employed on full-time contracts in various industries (table 2). boris jevtić, milos vucekovic, svetlana tasić 65 table 2: sample characteristics respondents age range n column % (18-24) 76 33.93% (25-40) 67 29.91% (41-50) 55 24.55% (51-65) 26 11.61% all 224 100.00% education level n column % primary 33 14.73% secondary school 123 54.91% high education 45 20.09% without education 23 10.27% all 224 100.00% social status/employment n column % not employed 78 34.82% temporally employed 89 39.73% laid off technological decline, job reduction, company closing 43 19.20% full employed 14 6.25% all 224 100.00% research findings the defined impact of 3 variables is analyzed through 15 further claims: claims a. independent variable, digital knowledge and skills of women (abbr. wdks) a11 helping women with new job opportunities, helping companies in digital positions provision to women, and helping sdgs goals fulfillment. a12 digital skills' literacy (skills gaps and shortages) of women working online on a platform, freelancing a13 investing in the professional learning and capabilities in basic knowledge and new technologies of women a14 entrepreneurship training, mentoring, and support for selfemployment a15 education and mentoring for entrepreneurs claims b. independent variable, institutional support for digitalization development (abbr. wdis) b11 gender-sensitive legislation for social inclusion of women 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 58-75) b12 government bodies coordination policy for the promotion of wdis b13 inclusive supply chains & linkages, public procurement targeting women entrepreneurs. b14 women and girls’ better approach to technology infrastructure, the internet, and networks. b15 legislation and administration adjustments to digital platforms development and women’s digital work opportunities claims c. dependent variable, labor market inclusion of women (abbr. wlmi) c11 employment/reemployment (public enterprises and institutions) c12 employment/reemployment in smes, businesses, ict firms c13 self-employment, technology entrepreneurship, online outsourcing c14 working online over the platform, freelancing c15 informal work, micro work the standard deviation and mean scores for the respondents' attitudes toward the stated claims within the variables are given in tables 3 and 4. table 3: factors and values for the (a, b & c) a mean std dev a11 4.21875 0.8789548676 a12 4.5267857143 0.7452067631 a13 3.9866071429 1.1063611859 a14 4.3616071429 0.7801052632 a15 4.3214285714 0.8386866277 b mean std dev b11 4.2678571429 0.8882102007 b12 4.28125 0.8398196742 b13 4.4017857143 0.8413082001 b14 4.3258928571 0.9113382006 b15 4.7142857143 0.6271663289 c mean std dev c11 4.4955357143 0.6828965469 c12 4.2321428571 0.9515825182 c13 4.4642857143 0.9320267845 c14 4.1071428571 1.1431774055 c15 4.5401785714 0.7624553 boris jevtić, milos vucekovic, svetlana tasić 67 table 4: factors and values for the (a, b & c) mean std dev a 4.2830357 0.7217801 b 4.3982143 0.6198484 c 4.3678571 0.6046478 variable (ac) correlation analysis the hypothetical model of a & c is given in the further figure. figure 4: hypothetical model (a & c) the coefficient of determination value is 0.548503. it showcases that the (c) variable can be described by 54.85% of the (a) variable. also, 0.74061 is the coefficient of correlation between two variables, which means a strong relationship between them (figure 5). figure 5: (a & c) hypothetical model contribution sizes/standard (up) and non-standard (down) [f (1, 222) = 269.6979, p <0.0001] statistical significance assessment is given in (table 5). 68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 58-75) table 5: (a & c) variables anova source df sum of squares mean square f ratio model 1 44.718688 44.7187 269.6979 error 222 36.809884 0.1658 prob > f c. total 223 81.528571 <0.0001 according to the findings, the first hypothesis h1 = a does not impact c cannot be confirmed (the alternative one is accepted, ha1: that a impacts c). 4.2830357 is the mean score for the a variable. the multiple regression equation reads (formula 1): 𝐶𝐶 = 1.7105676 + 0.620422 ∙ 𝐴𝐴 (1) (a & c) diagram is presented in further figure (6). figure 6: diagram for a & c variables (bc) variable correlations the hypothetical research model (bc), composed by one independent (b) variable, and (c) dependent one (figure 7). boris jevtić, milos vucekovic, svetlana tasić 69 figure 7: theoretical system model (b & c) the coefficient of determination is 0.478716, and the variable (c) is 47.87% described by the (b) variable. 0.691893 is found as a value of the coefficient of correlation between the variables, showing a weaker relationship (figure 8). figure 8: (b & c) system model contribution sizesstandard (up) and nonstandard (down) [f (1, 222) = 203.8714, p <0.0001] is statistical importance, presented in table 6. table 6: (b & c) variables anova source df sum of squares mean square f ratio model 1 39.029019 39.0290 203.8714 error 222 42.499553 0.1914 prob > f c. total 223 81.528571 <0.0001 according to the findings, he=b does not impact c, so that can be accepted as alternative hypothesis ha2: that b impacts c. the mean score for the (b) is 4.39282143. a multiple regression equation, based on the given data, can be defined, and it reads (2): 70 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 58-75) 𝐶𝐶 = 1.3993898 + 0.6749256 ∙ 𝐵𝐵 (2) figure 9: the regression equation diagram (b & c) is presented. (a, b & c) variable multiple correlations the hypothetical research model (abc) is shown in figure 3. 0.612228 presents the determination indicator, meaning that with 61.22% (c), it can be closer defined by two variables, ab. by analyzing the variables abc together, a strong correlation is found. among a and c, the correlation is the highest, 0.7406. the largest variance size is 0.519, and it is the size of the a variable. the smallest variance of 0.382 is found for the dependent variable (c). figure 10: (a, b & c) system model standard contribution sizes [f (2, 221) = 174, 4616, p <0.0001] is the assessment of statistical significance, presented in the further table. boris jevtić, milos vucekovic, svetlana tasić 71 table 7: (a, b & c) anova source df sum of squares mean square f ratio model 2 49.914109 24.9571 174.4616 error 221 31.614462 0.1431 prob > f c. total 223 81.528571 <0.0001 source: authors according to the findings, the main hypothesis cannot be confirmed (h0: a and b do not impact c), and the alternative one, ha: a and b impact c, can be accepted. figure 11 presents the non-standard contribution values set system model. a positive correlation between variables (a) and (b) was found. the 0.502397 is the variable (a) with the highest impact on (c). variable (b) has a lower impact of 0.347089. the 0.686 is found as the mean value of the impact of the deviations of two variables (a) and (b) from their respective means. figure 11: (a, b & c) system model a multiple regression equation is formulated, and it reads (3): 𝐶𝐶 = 1.0761355 + 0.4208663 ∙ 𝐴𝐴 + 0.3385774 ∙ 𝐵𝐵 (3) the (a, b & c) multiple regression equation diagrams are given in (figure 12). 72 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 58-75) figure 12: (a, b & c) variables multiple regression equation diagrams conclusion the inclusion of women in the serbian labor market depends on educational factors, digital capabilities, skills, and government support with labor laws and other regulations. the main hypothesis is supported by the correlation analysis provided in the paper. to support educational efforts in serbia, investing in training and reskilling opportunities for women, mid-career, or those returning to the workplace is needed and recommended (radović-marković et al., 2022). it would mean that the country subsidized transition costs for selected occupations and sectors, increased transparency on labor demand trends, and launched informational campaigns targeting women (grozdanić, radović-marković & jevtić, 2013). to address labor mobility constraints, women need support in balancing family care and work obligations, and finally, they need help reducing stereotypes about gendered occupations. positive movements are found with institutional support for nurturing changes in digital transformation, as they provide an open platform for the sustainability of women's employment in the global workforce. the research also showcased the levels of the digital divide and social inclusion issues (sdgs) in the "gig" economy. furthermore, the paper's results contribute to the current literature regarding women's human and labor rights, education, flexible work patterns, and the digital transformation of work. boris jevtić, milos vucekovic, svetlana tasić 73 references [1] ausubel, lawrence m. 1997. 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"digitization and sustainability", in: state of the world, island press, washington, dc, 2014: 53–62, https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-542-7_5. article history: received: march 30th, 2022 accepted: may 10th, 2023 http://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/g2023/xls/g20231047.xlsx http://reports.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2016/women-and-work-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/ http://reports.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2016/women-and-work-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/ https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-542-7_5 microsoft word 09_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 305-055.2 (662.6) jel: b54, j47, n37 scientific paper gender equity in nigeria’s educational system: a necessity for socio-economic development abari ayodeji olasunkanni*, lagos state university, depertment of educational management, ojo-lagos, nigeria muhammed mubashir olayiwola babatunde, lagos state university, depertment of educational management, ojo-lagos, nigeria gbenu jide pius, lagos state university, depertment of educational management, ojo-lagos, nigeria a b s t r a c t this paper is devoted to education of women as a key precondition for improving family health as well as the socio-economic status of the entire country. education empowers women to participate in decision-making in the society and thus gives them the opportunity to make positive decision affecting their lives. since the situation in the country is such that favours men as against women, efforts should be made by governments at all levels to educate and encourage the girl child through their parents on the need to go to school by introducing various policy measures. the authors suggested some of the measures that can be adopted to national education policy which should include free education for girls, lower grades for girls as against that of men, more hostels for girls to remove them from household chores, legislation against forced marriages as practiced in some parts of the northern country, bursaries and scholarships should be given to girls especially those on science, technical and engineering programmes kew words: women, education, labour force, gender imbalance, selfemployment, developing countries, nigeria * e-mail: ayodejiabari@yahoo.com journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 70 introduction equity as defined by hornby (2000: 389) refers to “fairness and justice” implying that inequity is unfairness and injustice. there is indeed high discrimination against women in the world generally and in particular developing countries in virtually all fields of human endeavour. a number of studies have found out that the socialization of children remains traditionally sex-typed, even when mothers are employed outside the home, there is an early and strong socialization in terms of work segregation by sex. according to white and brinkerhoff (1981: 41) for example, women’s employment “sinks their daughters even deeper into domestic role and the older children get, the more stereotypical become their work assignments”. the 2006 international women’s day brought alarming messages from latin american delegates about the growing rate of ‘femicide’ in their countries. in guatemala according to lakkshmanan (2006: 58) for instance, “housewives, teenagers and college students have disappeared and later been found naked, disemboweled, sexually mutilated, beheaded and dumped in abandoned lot. similar stories have come from brazil, colombia, peru and mexico”. thus, gender is one of the universal dimensions on which status differences are based. women have always had lower status than men, although the extent of the gap between the sexes varies across cultures and time. chitins (1993: 78) on her studies in india found out that women were well represented in all professions in the country although access to higher education was often restricted for girls who live in rural areas and in towns without colleges or universities. in indonesia, setiadarma (1993: 96) discovered that in the 16 – 29 years age group, only one out of fifteen women (or 7%) was in higher education and that participation rates of women were particularly low in science and technology. concerned about the rate of entry of women into higher education, alele – williams (1993: 52) tried to find the causes. education of women is a key to improved family health as well as the socio-economic status of the entire country. education empowers women to participate in decision-making in the society and thus gives them the opportunity to make positive decision affecting their lives. the situation described above concerning women is not different in nigeria, perhaps worse. sex inequality is deeply embedded in nigerian culture to the extent that in reality, both men and women themselves have deeply internalized the belief in the appropriateness of the latter’s abari, a.o., et al.,gender equity in nigeria's education, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 71 deference and subordination. groups outside the family (e.g. peers, friends, community organizations, work structures, the government, etc) tend to support and encouraged gender inequality and reinforce men’s and women’s ‘innate’ inferiority and responsibility to serve others. it is therefore no more a piece of news that there is a high discrimination against women the entire world over and in particular in nigeria because the culture encourages it. what is a piece of news however is that the discrimination is also felt in the field of education in favour of men especially at the university level in nigeria. the traditional cultural setting of the country compounds the academic situation of nigerian women. the nigerian society perceives the female learners not to be suitable for the rigours of academics and also to be weaker than their male counterparts. they are viewed as inferior species of human beings that do not worth any serious educational investment. traditionally, women are expected to depend on their husbands for their daily needs, hence most parents prefer training the male children. poverty is another major factor that militates against educating the female child. nigeria’s is one of the poorest countries of the world with an annual per capita income of $320 as against that of usa which is $10,945 (world bank, 2005: 43). in line with this gloomy picture, unesco (1990: 14) says, “nigeria is also one of the countries identified as accounting for 75.2% of the world’s illiterate”, a view corroborated by ezinwa (1990: 23) on the account that “nigeria as at 1990 ranks 5th among the ten most illiterate countries in the world”. even though earlier researches have established that investments in female education increases both the family and national productivity, and thus income, generally little attention is paid to female education in nigeria. as a result of high discrimination against women in the entire world, which is well pronounced in the education sector, the focus of the paper is therefore to examine the level of lopsidedness in male – female enrolment in nigerian educational system, bring out the socio-economic implications of educating then girl child and suggest how the lopsidedness can be corrected or improved most importantly because this is one of targets of the millennium development goals (mdgs). need to promote gender equality in nigeria the global poverty report (2002: 46) which was the outcome of the millennium summit held in september 2000 in new york, united states journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 72 of america had as one of its goals the promotion of gender equality and women empowerment and the year 2005 was proposed as the target date preferably for elimination of gender disparity in primary and secondary education, and at all levels of education by 2015. indicators set for the attainment of this goal also aim at measuring progress towards ensuring that more women become literate, have a voice and representation in public policy and representation in public policy and decision – making process including improved job prospects. it is emphasized that gender equality is not only a desirable outcome but also a crucial input for a country’s ability to reach all other development goals. the report therefore resolves to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women as an effective way to fight the impact of poverty, hunger diseases, control population, growth and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable. in the expression of the report united nations declared, “there is no time to lose, if we are to reach the millennium development goals by the target of 2015. only by investing in the worlds of women can we expect to get there”. indeed nigerian women had suffered a lot of deprivation according to oladunni (2004: 65). in her words: poverty is prevalent among them. the worst case exists in the northern nigeria where urgent assistance is required to address the situation. unemployment is rife among the female gender, consequently, they are worse off as a result of education leading to illiteracy, early marriage, low birth weight, hunger and other deprivation. these vices assist the vicious circle of poverty among the women generally. nigerian laws are gender neutral, yet evidence abound that much is not being done in favour of women regarding education generally and in particular at the university level. in support for the education of women, emunemu annd ayeni (2003: 102) assert that: in the personal sphere, education enhances a woman’s self – confidence and sense of capacity. in the public sphere, it increases her income – earning potential and development… the education of women is perhaps the most crucial factor in reducing fertility levels and infant mortality and in promoting the overall well – being of the family. it is believed that investing in girls and women is a sine qua non for the achievement of sustainable development and that educating girls and women delivers the highest return of any development input. according to unesco (1993: 48), “each additional year a young girl stays in school translates into a 10 to 20% increase in wages”. abari, a.o., et al.,gender equity in nigeria's education, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 73 according to emunemu and ayeni (2003: 102), “studies in india confirm that women who had completed high school earned one and half times more than those without education and women with technical training earned three times more than illiterate women. this is to say that education enhances women’s productivity level and should be encouraged. disparity level of male/female education in nigeria according shobowale (2002: 59), female education in nigeria progressed slowly between 1842 (when formal education was first introduced in nigeria) and the end of the colonial era and advanced more rapidly during the decade of the 60’s and 70’s. in nigeria, there were 37, 43, and 44 women per 100 males for the year 1970, 1980, 1985 respectively at the primary school level. at the secondary school level, there were 32 females per 100 males in 1970, 35 per 100 in 1980, 43 per 100 in 1985 and 1990. the tertiary enrolment shows 15 females per 100 males in 1970, 21 per 100 in 1980, 27 per 100 in 1985 and 1990. the situation is even more pronounced in science-based courses generally in sub –sahara africa with the mean enrolment put at 20 females per 100 males (world bank, 1988). according to unesco (1990: 14), “male post-secondary enrolment in developing countries outnumbered that of females by a factor to one”. the trend in africa was revealed to be worse because more men than women had access to higher education by a factor to of almost three times. this poor enrolment of women in higher education according to shobowale (2002: 59) “automatically led to women’s under-representation in professional and leadership positions”. statistics from federal office of statistics (1995: 8) shows that enrolment figures in the formal sector favour boys than girls right from primary school which is put at 40% against 60% (in favour of boys). consequently, according to shobowale (2002: 60), “the higher the educational level, the more the disparity”. it has also been established that male – female disparities are very pronounced in the 16 – 24 year age group where the population of males (51%) enrolled in school is almost twice that of females which is put at approximately 27%. at the tertiary level, total female enrolment and graduate output in the university was 27.1% while that of polytechnics was about 1.5% (federal office of statistics, 1995). table 1 shows enrolment of students at the primary, postprimary and university levels in nigeria by sex as given by national journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 74 bureau of statistics (2005: 10) from 2001 – 2005 which in actual fact was in favour of men. table 1: enrolment into primary, post-primary and universities by sex in nigeria from 2001-2005 primary post-primary universities years male female male female male female 2001 10,805,722 8,457,812 3,241,566 2,286,818 231,633 127,125 2002 11,070,610 8,791,072 3,713,864 2,578,310 274,131 170,818 2003 14,433,764 11,338,280 4,063,475 3,107,829 373,778 232,326 2004 11,141,614 8,895,866 3,077,911 2,310,823 492,874 234,534 2005 11,712,479 9,239,339 3,079,832 2,342,779 466,159 258,697 source: national bureau of statistics (2005) figure 1: primary school enrolment from 2001-2005 abari, a.o., et al.,gender equity in nigeria's education, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 75 figure 2: post-primary school enrolment from 2001-2005 figure 3: enrolments into universities in nigeria by sex from 2001-2005 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 76 table 1 shows enrolment into primary, post-primary and universities in nigeria for a period of five years (2001-2005) and represented by figures 1, 2 and 3 respectively for the three levels. this picture paints nigerian women at a disadvantage in terms of access to education for the three levels considered. in terms of application into nigerian universities, the situation is still the same with men having perhaps undue advantage over the women, after all, recent statistics from nigerian population commission shows that both sexes are almost at par. why then should there be stunning wide disparity between the two sexes within the educational set-up? table 2 shows the total number of applications into nigerian universities for five years from 2001-2005. table 2: applications into nigerian universities from 2001-2005 applications years male female 2001 743,725 312,892 2002 538,827 382,423 2003 525,564 382,487 2004 446,285 323,871 2005 438,378 323,603 source: national bureau of statistics (2005) fig. 4: applications into nigerian universities from 2001-2005 abari, a.o., et al.,gender equity in nigeria's education, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 77 in the same vein statistics on graduate output by bachelor’s degree, post-graduate diploma, master’s degree and doctorate degree from 20012005 still favours men against women as shown by table 3 and depicted by figures 5, 6, 7 and 8. table 3: graduate output by bachelor’s degree, postgraduate diploma, master’s degree and doctorate degree from 2001-2005 bachelor’s degree postgraduate diploma master’s degree doctorate years male female male female male female male female 2001 29,782 18,009 7,573 2,516 7,714 3,106 543 147 2002 35,989 22,316 5,060 1,707 10,994 4,157 578 143 2003 41,252 29,109 3,471 1,939 10,748 3,308 553 199 2004 30,105 20,314 3,762 1,833 8,529 3,963 577 217 2005 15,327 10,715 3,162 1,489 6,352 2,033 336 92 source: national bureau of statistics (2005) figure 5: graduate output by bachelor’s degree from 2001-2005 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 78 figure 6: graduate output by postgraduate diploma from 2001-2005 figure 7: graduate output by master’s degree abari, a.o., et al.,gender equity in nigeria's education, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 79 figure 8: graduate output by doctorate labour force: women at a disadvantage the fact that women are at a disadvantage in admission and enrolment exercises in nigeria is a piece of evidence to the fact that gaining equal advantage with men in the labour market especially at the university graduate level is unrealistic. indeed, higher education labour force seems to be the prerogative of men especially at its management level. this is to say that the gender imbalance in female school enrolments at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels had inevitably affected the number of women that move up to management level both in academic and administrative centers. this is true of general paid employment in the country as attested to by the statistics given below. apart from self-employment where the average percentage distribution favours women as against men, all other forms of employment (government, parastatal, private business, and private persons, i.e. households) considered from the angle of regular employment and casually employed, the advantage was towards men. this is an indication of higher journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 80 access to various opportunities by men in nigeria as encouraged by the society. ironically, women seem to be self-employed more than men implying that majority of them more often than not are found at home. this is not encouraging considering the socio-economic relevance of women in the society. table 4: percentage distribution of the working population by employer, sex and employment status (2005) government parastatal private business private persons total activities m al e f em al e m al e f em al e m al e f em al e m al e f em al e m al e f em al e regular employee 98.6 98.6 85.9 76.8 19.2 11.1 1.8 1.0 17.8 8.8 casually employed 0.6 0.5 4.1 3.5 4.9 1.6 3.0 0.8 3.1 0.9 selfemployed 0.7 0.9 8.9 16.9 72.3 82.2 83.9 78.5 70.9 74.8 source: national bureau of statistics (2005) a major constraint against the participation of girls in education is the real and perceived lack of labour market opportunities as supported by table 4. it is generally recognized that men have a wider range of choice with regard to jobs due to labour market segregation even in a context of shrinking formal sector markets in the country. equity in education: a necessity for national socio-economic development the implications of educating the girl child can be seen in the numerous advantages or relevance stated earlier. in the area of politics for instance which has been dominated by men for decades, plain level ground can be provided for them and more women in politics means that women’s interest can be brought to the fore. at home, a highly educated mother stands the chance of training her children in a desired way and keeps a abari, a.o., et al.,gender equity in nigeria's education, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 81 manageable family. whatever job an educated woman is involved in, there is always a difference. such a woman also stands the chance of getting a good job with fat salary which improves the economic status of the family. at the societal level, enlightened women can form various associations and clubs from where their voices can be heard at the national level and their problems addressed. as schooling improves, the mother’s knowledge and use of health practices also improves. it is through sound education had by women that they can be involved in policy formulation especially on matters affecting them. these are some of the few benefits accruing to women when properly educated, hence the need to provide a plain level ground for women and men in all situations. suggested measures to improve female education − gender disparity can be removed in access, progression and accomplishment at all levels of the education system. − penalties can be introduced and enforced against school pupils, teachers and other educational personnel engaging in sexual harassment and making school girls pregnant. − there could be effective legislation which will make it a punishable offence as done in some states in the country for parents and guardians who withdraw children from school prematurely. − girls can continue to be admitted to schools at all levels with lower grades than boys. − more boarding places could be created for girls to allow them concentrate on their studies at reduced costs if not free. − there could be special bursary schemes for girls especially those on science, technical and engineering programmes. − girls who were forced out of schools prematurely or who were pregnant along the line could be readmitted. − guidance and counseling programmes that will address the socio-cultural problems which may hinder the progress of girls in education could be introduced and strengthened. − female teacher trainees in sciences, mathematics and technical subjects should be enhanced and encouraged. − the government can work with ministries, ngos, community leaders on the need to influence parents/guardians to release journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 82 girls from domestic chores in order for them to have time to study. conclusion education should be seen as the right of all and sundry in nigeria which must be offered to them. since the situation in the country is such that favours men as against women, efforts should be made by governments at all levels to educate and encourage the girl child through their parents on the need to go to school by introducing various policy measures. some of the measures that can be adopted include free education for girls, lower grades for girls as against that of men, more hostels for girls to remove them from household chores, legislation against forced marriages as practiced in some parts of the northern country, bursaries and scholarships should be given to girls especially those on science, technical and engineering programmes. it is by doing this that the hope of taking the nation to the next developmental level (economically, socially, morally, culturally and politically) can be guaranteed, after all, where have the men taken the country to since all these years? references benavot, a. (1989). “education, gender and economic development: a crossnational study. sociology of education, 62: 14 – 32. benavot, a. and riddle, p. (1988). “the expansion of primary education, 1870 – 1940: trends and issues”. sociology of education, 61: 191 – 210. cxhitnis, s. (1993). “the place of women in the management of higher education in india. in women in higher education management. unesco and commonwealth secretariat with the participation of idrc and ifuw. emunemu, b. o. and ayeni, a. o. (2003). “the social benefits of educating girls and women in nigeria”. in j. b. babalola and s. o. adedeji: contemporary issues in educational management – a book of honour. ibadan: university of ibadan. ezenwa, s. c. (1990). literacy: nigeria among world’s ten”. education today, 1: 8 – 14. federal office of statistics (1995), lagos. filmer, d. and pritchett, l. (1999). “the effect of household wealth on educational attainment: evidence from 35 countries”. population and development review. 25: 85 – 120. abari, a.o., et al.,gender equity in nigeria's education, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 83 ghorayshi, p. (1993). “gender disparity in education: a challenge for development”. international journal of contemporary sociology, 30: 199 – 215. global poverty report (2002). achieving the millennium development goal in africa: progress, prospect and policy implications. unesco hornby, a. s. (20000. oxford advanced learner’s english. london, oxford kaka, h. j. (1998). “equalization of educational opportunity for sexes in nigeria: socio – economic and political implications. in equalization of educational opportunity in nigeria. the nigeria academy of education. lakshmanan, i. (2006). boston calibe. http://www.trinity.edu/mkearl/gender.html larson, b. (1991). conversion to greater freedom? women, church and social change in north – western tanzania under colonial rule. doctoral dissertation, uppsala. meyer, j. w., ramirez, f. o., soysal, y. n. (1992). “world expansion of mass education, 1870 – 1980”. sociology of education, 65: 128 – 149. nigeria bureau of statistics (2005), abuja. oladunni, e. b. i. (2004). “the millennium development goals (mdgs): prospects of attainment and challenges for nigeria. the bullion, cbn, 28: 35 setiadarma, m. (1998). “indonesian women in higher education management”. women in higher education management, unesco. shobowale, s. m. o. (2002). “disparity in access to higher education: constraints on women in management”. new dimensions in educational development, ojo: faculty of education, lasu. unesco (1990) unesco (2004). unesco institute of statistics. millennium development goals. available online at http://www.uis.unsco.org unesco/unicef (1993). educating girls and women in africa. working paper for the pan – african conference in the education of girls, burkina faso, 28th march – 1st april. white, l. k. and brinkerhoff, d. b. (1981). “wives, employment, household behaviours and sex role attitudes”. social forces, 60: 160 – 161. wils, a. and goujon, a. (1998). “diffusion in education in six world regions, 1960 – 90”. population and development review, 24: 357 – 368. world bank (1988), washington, d. c. world bank. world bank report: a better investment climate for everyone. new york: world oxford university press. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 84 gender inequality questionnaire this questionnaire is designed to solicit information on problems encountered by women/ladies in terms of gaining admission into universities. every information given will be treated in strict confidentiality. section a (personal characteristics) university ……………………………………………………….. faculty …………………………………………………………… department ……………………………………………………… programme of study ……………………………………………… year of study 100l 1 200l 2 300l 3 400l 4 500l 5 600l 6 700l 7 others 8 specify ………………………………………………….. age last birthday 15 – 19 1 20 – 24 2 25 – 29 3 30 – 34 4 35 – 39 5 40 and above 6 father’s highest level of occupation no schooling 1 quaranic 2 adult literacy 3 primary 4 secondary 5 tertiary/post secondary 6 don’t know 7 father’s type of job farming 1 trading 2 labourer/cleaner/artisan, etc 3 low level professionals/typists/ clerks 4 abari, a.o., et al.,gender equity in nigeria's education, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 85 middle level professional: teacher/nurse, etc 5 high level: doctor/tertiary lecturer/judge/lawyer 6 section b (mode of admission) university matriculation examination (ume) 1 direct entry 2 none of the above 3 if 3, specify among the following remedial studies 1 basic studies 2 pre-degree studies 3 other (specify) 4 did you influence your admission? yes 1 no 2 if yes, was it because you are a female? yes 1 no 2 what special action (if any) was taken on your behalf to influence your admission? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… section c (admission experience) did you find gaining admission into the university difficult? yes 1 no 2 do you think, in your opinion that your admission into the university was made difficult because you are female? yes 1 no 2 how many times did you attempt jamb before you got admitted? once 1 twice 2 thrice 3 more than three times 4 never attempted jamb 5 if you attempted more than once before you gained admission, was it because you were not extremely brilliant or brilliant? yes 1 no 2 how will you rate your level of brilliance? journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 86 extremely brilliant 1 brilliant 2 average 3 below average 4 section d (university admission policy for female students) are you aware of any university admission policy in favour of female students in your school? yes 1 no 2 what is the nature of the policy? .............................................................................. ................................................................................................................................... in your opinion, do you think women/ladies should not be at par with their male counterpart in terms of admission exercise? yes 1 no 2 if there is any university admission policy, how effective is it? very effective 1 effective 2 not effective 3 what do you think can be done to improve on the university admission policy? put in more resources 1 improve on the personnel in charge of implementation 2 create more awareness 3 make more rules for implementation 4 other 5 specify…………………………………………………………………… do you believe women/ladies do not have access to university education as their male counterparts? yes 1 no 2 women/ladies’ inability to have increased/equal access to university education like their male counterparts is as a result of any or combination of the following factors cultural beliefs 1 parental educational background 2 parental financial status 3 discrimination against women by the university in terms of admission 4 others 5 specify ………………………………………………………………….. abari, a.o., et al.,gender equity in nigeria's education, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 69-87) 87 suggest ways of increasing access to university education by women…………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… received: 15 july 2009 article history: accepted: 15 august 2009 microsoft word 10_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 347.156-055.2(560) jel: b54; j16 professional paper social changes and their impact on women in turkey and its membership to the eu yildirim kemal a b s t r a c t the aim of this paper is to reflect gender,discrimination and human rights in turkey, most of the women in turkey face setbacks with regard to education, employment and public representation. the illiteracy rate for women in turkey is nearly twenty percent, while female employment is under thirty percent. in addition, women are poorly represented in the political sector, and only four percent of parliamentary seats are occupied by women. on the other hand gender discrimination and violence against women are a widespread problem throughout turkey. in a recommendation on turkey’s accession to the european union, the european commission noted that discrimination and violence against women, including honor killings, remains a major problem.on the other hand, honor killings are another widespread violation of women's human rights together with sexual assault which is a serious problem in the country. kew words: gender, discrimination, human rights, turkey introduction in the history of the turkish republic, there have been two periods when major improvements were made to the status of women. one was the 1920s, the early years of the republic, when mustafa kemal ataturk outlawed polygamy and abolished islamic courts in favour of secular institutions. this first period of reforms is well known and celebrated in turkey. the second major reform era has been the period since 2001. reforms to the turkish civil code havegranted women and men equal yildirim, k., social changes, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 81 rights in marriage, divorce and property ownership. a new penal code treats female sexuality for the first time as a matter of individual rights, rather than family honour.amendments to the turkish constitution oblige the turkish state to take all necessary measures to promote gender equality. family courts have been established, employment laws amended and there are new programmes to tackle domestic violence and improve access to education for girls. these are the most radical changes to the legal status of turkish women in 80 years. as a result, for the first time in its history, turkey has the legal framework of a post-patriarchal society.the reforms of the 1920s were carried out by an authoritarian oneparty regime. women were given the right to vote at a time when there were no free elections. generations of turkish women were taught to be grateful for ataturk’s gift of freedom and equality. however, legal inequality of men and women remained in place in turkey throughout the 20th century, long after it was abolished in the rest of europe. the reforms of the last few years have come about in a very different way from those of the 1920s. they were the result of a very effective campaign by a broad-based women’s movement, triggering a wide-ranging national debate. the current akp government proved willing to work constructively with civil society and the main opposition party chp. this open and participatory process produced the most liberal penal code in turkish history. it represents a significant maturing in turkish democracy. the theoretical core of gender equality there are some who fear that turkey may be turning its back on its secular traditions. some of the loudest voices come from kemalist women, who insist that the rise of ‘political islam’ represents an acute threat to the rights and freedoms of turkish women. there have even been calls for restrictions to turkish democracy, to protect women’s rights. yet such an ‘authoritarian feminism’ is out of touch with the reality of contemporary turkey and the achievements of recent years. turkey has a long road ahead of it in narrowing its gender gap. in a recent international study, turkey ranked an embarrassing 105th of 115 countries – far behind the worstranking eu member. improving gender equality will involve tackling a series of deeply entrenched problems, from improving access to education in rural regions to removing the institutional and social barriers to women’s participation in the workforce. elections in july this year will test journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 82 the commitment of turkey’s political parties to increasing the number of women in parliament. it is these issues which deserve to be at the centre of the current political debate in turkey. and it is only the maturing and further development of turkish democracy that holds out the promise of a genuine liberation of turkish women. “pay attention to every corner of the world, we are at the eve of a revolution. be assured, this revolution is not going to be bloody and savage like a man’s revolution.” today’s feminists are implacably opposed to any social roles being determined by sex. feminists assert the absolute and unqualified equality of men and women, not withstanding anatomical differences. they deny that there is any inherent biological distinction between men and women on the basis of sex which determines that the wife should be the housewife and mother and the husband the breadwinner and authoritarian head of the family. they believe that women should take just as active role in sexual intercourse as men and not be passive. they demand the abolition of institutional marriage, home and family, asset complete female sexual freedom and that the upbringing should be a public responsibility. they insist that all women should be given the right to complete control over their reproductive lives. they are demanding that all restrictions must be lifted from laws governing contraception so that devices can be publicly advertised and available over the druggist counter to any women regardless of her age and marital status and purchasable without a doctor’s prescription. all laws restricting abortion should be removed and that women have a legal right to abortion at any stage of pregnancy. abortions should not only be available at demand but should be supplied free by the state to any women who wants one so that the poor can take full advantage of facility the new islamic feminist paradigm began to surface a decade and a half ago simultaneously in old muslim societies in parts of africa and asia and in newer communities in europe and north america. i give three examples. in iran, immediately post-khomeini, muslim women, along with some male clerics, associated with the then new paper zanan, as muslims and citizens of an islamic republic called, in the name of islam, for the practice of women's rights they found being infringed upon or rolled back, grounding their arguments in their readings of the qur'an as the virtual constitution of the republic. yildirim, k., social changes, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 83 in south africa, muslim women and men, who had engaged as south africans in one of history's fiercest battles for human dignity and justice, in the immediate postapartheid period focussed their attention upon questions of justice, and especially gender justice, within their own muslim community. having been shunted around and cordoned off, conscientised (to use the expression from the struggle) south african muslims were sensitive to issues of access to space and the injustices and indignities attendant upon selective use of space and mandatory cordoning off of some human beings (on the basis of physical attributes) from "preferred others." these sensitised south african muslims fought equal access to mosque/communal space for all muslims, women and men alike. in north america, women in immigrant (especially the secondgeneration) and convert communities turned to the qur'an as a guide to life in new complex environments in which they did not have ready-made lifetemplates as muslims. patriarchal patterns of life in the villages and cities from which first-generation muslim immigrants had come, which they tried to re-impose on women as islamic, jarred in their new environments. convert women in western societies were faced with a painful contradiction between what they understood to be qur'anic ideals of justice and equality and various patriarchal notions and practices urged upon them as novices by self-appointed custodians of islam. islamic feminism is an inter-islamic phenomenon produced by muslims at various locations around the globe. there is no east/west fault line. we cannot speak of islamic feminism and the west. islamic feminism, like islam today, is in the west as it is in the east. muslim detractors allege that "the west" has foisted feminism, first secular and now islamic, upon muslims to the detriment of islam and society. muslim proponents, on the other hand, hold that islamic feminism promotes the enjoyment of social justice within the umma while it will also contribute to the creation of a more pluralistic and socially just west where all insan will be treated equal whatever their ethnic, religious, and gender affiliations. the triumph of islamic feminism will also be part of the enhancement of social justice and equality in the african and asian societies where muslims live. turning to the older muslim societies in africa and asia, islamic feminism appeared first in countries where (patriarchal) islamism got its earliest start, countries which had a large and expanding educated and professional female middleclass, and countries with a history of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 84 homegrown feminist thought and activism. islamic feminism appeared on terrain prepared by muslim women's earlier secular feminisms that were an amalgam of islamic modernist, secular nationalist, and humanitarian (later human rights) discourses. islamic feminism gave paramount attention to the islamic modernist strand of secular feminism and, through engaging in new qur'anic hermeneutic work, articulated an islamic doctrine of the full equality of women and men across the public/ private spectrum. as such, it was more radical than the secular feminisms that had accepted the notion of gender complimentarity, not gender equality, within the sphere of the family. the theoretical core of islamic feminism continues to be grounded in qur'anic interpretation or tafsir. the central focus remains the explication of gender equality in islam. there is increased evidence of the application of islamic feminist theory in practice. this is seen in the revision of the moroccan mudawwana or civil code, now the most gender-egalitarian sharia -grounded civil code. it is also evident in the new draft revision of the family code in indonesia, devised by a commission of religious scholars (half of whom are women) appointed within the ministry of justice. another example of the application of gender-just interpretation of islam is found in the arguments marshaled, through a dynamic investigation of fiqh (jurisprudence), that led to the acquittal of two nigerian women accused of adultery and condemned to death under the new hudud (criminal laws) instituted in their northern nigerian states while their partners were never held accountable. gender and dress codes despite the taboo status of sex and sexuality in many muslim societies, some quranic scholars have argued that the quran itself discusses these subjects openly and positively, and that islam is one of the most sexually accepting of the major world religions (safra project, 2009) there is debate over the interpretations of the quranic verses that have been cited to outlaw homosexuality , principally the verse relating to the story of lot (see qur'an verses: 11:69-83, 29:28-35). quranic verses appear to relate specifically to male homosexuality. contemporary interpreters and campaigning organisations are working to reinterpret texts to allow for a wider spectrum of sexual relationships, including yildirim, k., social changes, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 85 homosexual and bisexual but there is much resistance from the mainstream muslim community. another issue that concerns muslim women is the dress code expected of them. in some countries such as afghanistan and saudi arabia they are expected to wear the all-covering burqa or abaya; in others, such as tunisia and turkey they are forbidden to wear even the headscarf (often known as the hijab) in public buildings. there is mixed opinion among muslim feminists over extremes of externally imposed control. however, a number of islamic feminists, including fadela amara and hedi mhenni support bans on hijab, for various reasons.the veil is the visible symbol of the subjugation of women, and therefore has no place in the mixed, secular spaces of france's public school system.when some feminists began defending the headscarf on the grounds of "tradition", amara saw red. "it's not tradition, it's archaic! french feminists are totally contradictory. when algerian women fought against wearing the headscarf in algeria, french feminists supported them. but when it's some young girl in a french suburb school, they don't. they define liberty and equality according to what colour your skin is. it's nothing more than neocolonialism. (guardian ,2006) . violance against women in turkey the united nations defines violence against women as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life. there are many forms of violence against women, including sexual, physical, or emotional abuse by an intimate partner; physical or sexual abuse by family members or others; sexual harassment and abuse by authority figures (such as teachers, police officers or employers); trafficking for forced labour or sex; and such traditional practices as forced or child marriages, dowry-related violence; and honour killings, when women are murdered in the name of family honour. systematic sexual abuse in conflict situations is another form of violence against women. turkey ratified the convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (hereinafter, the convention against torture) on 2 august 1988. upon ratification turkey journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 86 recognized the competence of the committee against torture to receive and process individual communications under articles 21 and 22 of the convention against torture. turkey is a state party to the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. in general recommendation 19, the committee on the elimination of discrimination against women concluded that gender-based violence, including torture, is a form of discrimination against women as defined under article 1 of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. turkey ratified the optional protocol to the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women on 29 october 2002. additionally, turkey ratified the convention on the rights of the child in 9 september 1994. on 15 august 2000, turkey signed the international covenant on civil and political rights and the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, neither convention has yet been ratified. under article 90 of the turkish constitution, international treaties duly ratified, have the force of law, and can be invoked in turkish courts. at the regional level, turkey is a member of the council of europe, ratified the european convention on human rights in 1954, and is seeking membership in the european union. in order to fulfil the commitments incumbent on members of the council of europe and to satisfy the membership criteria for accession to the european union, turkey has ratified a number of regional human rights treaties including the european convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms and the european convention for the prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. on january 15, 2003, turkey signed protocol no. 6 to the european convention on human rights prohibiting capital punishment in peacetime. at the national level, article 17 of the turkish constitution prohibits “torture and ill-treatment incompatible with human dignity.” article 243 of turkey’s penal code criminalizes torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by state officials. on november 22, 2001 the turkish legislature passed comprehensive legislative bill designed to promote gender equality in civil legislation. civil code which came into effect on january 1, 2002. prior to the reforms of 2002, the turkish civil code had seen few changes since its adoption in 1926 modeled on the swiss civil code of that time. since the 1950s, women’s rights groups in turkey have struggled to reform the code yildirim, k., social changes, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 87 and have argued that women’s legally subordinate position in the family has contributed to continuing and serious violations of women’s human rights.3 in 1994, a government commission was formed to prepare a draft of the new civil code and many women’s groups began an intense lobbying effort to push through the reforms. in 2001, the entire reform process was almost derailed by the nationalists and islamists in parliament who objected to a measure giving women equal division of marital assets in case of divorce. the religious conservatives and nationalists argued that the equal division of property acquired during marriage would “change the family from a matrimonial union to corporation, destroy love and affection in the family and increase the rate of divorce and consequently ruin turkish society.”4 thanks to the efforts of more than 126 women’s groups, the objections of the islamists and nationalists were surmounted and the reforms were passed in the form of 1030 new articles covering important amendments to family law. under the old civil code the husband enjoyed a position of absolute legal supremacy in the family, with the legally sanctioned authority to make choices over domicile, children, and property. this approach has been abandoned in favor of one that defines the family as a union based on equal partnership. this new concept is also reflected in the language of the new civil code. the terms “wife” and “husband” have been replaced by the term “spouse(s).” moreover, the language of the code has been considerably simplified and out-of-date legalistic terminology has been replaced with comprehensible, modern terms, making the law more accessible to everyone. several noteworthy changes to the code reflect the new approach to gender equality: 1) the husband is no longer the head of the family; spouses are equal partners, jointly running the matrimonial union with equal decision-making powers; 2) spouses have equal rights over the family abode; 3) spouses have equal rights over property acquired during marriage; 4) spouses have equal representative powers; 5) the concept of “illegitimacy” formerly used to designate children born out of wedlock has been abolished; custody of children born outside marriage lies with the mother.5 the new civil code has also raised the legal minimum age for marriage to 18 (it was formerly 15 for women and 17 for men), gives the same inheritance rights to children born outside the marriage, gives single parents the right to adopt children, and gives women the right to retain their maiden names when hyphenated with that of their spouses. while the reform of the turkish civil code constitutes a step forward in terms of establishing gender equality in turkey it is nevertheless evident that reforms in the legal domain alone are not sufficient to prevent gender journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 88 discrimination and violations of women’s rights. in turkey, women’s lives continue to be shaped by a multiplicity of traditional practices which violate existing laws, including early and forced marriages, polygamous marriages, honour crimes, virginity testing and restrictions on women’s freedom of movement. in the eastern and south-eastern regions of turkey 16.3% of women living in the region were married under age 15.6 one in ten women live in polygamous marriages, although the practice of polygamy was banned already under the civil code of 1926.7 more than half of the women (50.8%) in that region were married without their consent although consent of both parties is a precondition for marriage under turkish law.8 violations of the new code are not limited to the rural south east of turkey. in january 2001, shortly after the new code went into effect the turkish media published a story of a “school in the europeanized west of the country where more than 20 girls aged between 10 and 13 had been married off in exchange for a bride price (turkey country report, 2006).it is thus evident that the turkish government must take further proactive steps to insure that the provisions of the new code are enforced and respected by the authorities and that violations of the code are effectively prosecuted. domestic violence is common and there are no specific laws addressing the issue, nor any adequate protection for the victims. incidents of domestic violence are rarely reported or even talked about publicly. according to arab beliefs, woman is a symbol of man's honor (namus) and it is the duty of the male guardian to protect his honor. socalled honour crimes, whereby a woman is punished or even killed by male family members for having put “shame” on the family honour, are also prevalent. the suspicion alone of a woman’s wrong-doing is often enough for her to be subject to violence in the name of honour. migrant women (saudi arabia has a large expatriate population), often working as domestic helpers, represent a particularly vulnerable group and their living conditions are sometimes slave-like and include physical suppression. women, as well as men, may be subject to harassment by the country’s religious police, the mutawwain; torture and physical punishments, often without having their case presented in court.(oecd 2006). yildirim, k., social changes, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 89 turkey's possible future membership to the eu turkey's possible future membership to the eu.--which would make it the only predominantly muslim member nation as well as the largest of all eu. members in population--has already caused serious tension in the current member states. germany, one of the original eu members and home to the largest turkish population within the eu, has voiced concern over a number of issues, including immigration, if turkey were to join. turkish membership was also a major issue when france voted against the eu.'s new constitution last month, in effect rejecting the document that set out the future of the union.though no date is set for turkey's entry into the now25 member union, talks first began last december.the eu.'s executive body, the european commission, is next set to meet turkish officials to open negotiations for accession oct. 3. during that process, which some say could take as long as 10 years, turkey will have to implement legal changes across the board to join the eu. in the european union at the level of the european commission the principle of gender equality, called gender mainstreaming, has been introduced in all areas of activities and policy. the term "gender mainstreaming" is the key and it has been accepted for the implementation of policies of gender equality in the eu member states, that, according to the definition of the council of europe means reorganization, improvement, development and evaluation of political processes in a way that the perspective of gender equality is included in all policies at all levels and degrees, by the actors involved in political decision-making (handalić, 2009). the resolution, approved by the european parliament, was a first look at women's rights in turkey and will serve as a foundation for the commission's negotiations. the parliament has called on the commission to make women's rights a priority during the negotiations. the european parliament has no legal authority but, as the only democratically elected arm of the eu., it issues opinions in the form of resolutions to be considered by the european commission and the eu. member states. few studies have been completed on the various areas of women's rights in turkey, which makes analyzing the situation there difficult. now, the parliament is asking the eu. to fund and undertake social research journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 90 projects in order to fill the gaps in information from rural education to the violence against women. this information, used alongside the annual monitoring by the parliament of turkey's progress towards achieving women's rights, will be used as one of the tests for the country's long-sought-after wish to join the eu. the parliament also stresses an increase in women's participation in politics. at the moment, only 4.4 percent of national legislative positions are held by women and only 1 percent on the local level, the women's committee said in the report. "this report has to be seen as an appeal to the turkish government to recognize that women in turkey face severe problems in their everyday lives, in the family, in society, in the workforce and in the political sphere," the resolution said. "a lot has been done on paper, but this now needs to be put into practice." parliamentarians said changes to turkey's penal code that went into force june 1--criminalizing marital rape and honor killings, including accomplices in honor killings--are a good start towards harmonizing turkey's policies with the eu. but the parliament says issues such as access to education, the work force and political office--as well as protection from domestic violence-must all be addressed before turkey can join the eu. "the report calls for turkey's progress in the field of women's rights to be monitored on a yearly basis," said dutch member of european parliament emine bozkurt who was the lead author of the report. bozkurt, who is half turkish and speaks turkish fluently, will travel to turkey in september to discuss the report with women's organizations, the national government and others."the european parliament has spoken, now the ball is in the court of turkey," she said. "what is essential now is that the new laws are implemented and are seen to be implemented. conclusions and recommendations omct welcomes turkey’s ratification of major international and regional human rights treaties, including mechanisms that facilitate individual complaints procedures. omct is also encouraged by the passage of new laws in turkey aimed at meeting the human rights yildirim, k., social changes, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 91 requirements for membership in the european union, including laws specifically designed to improve the status of women. in particular, the constitution and the civil code provides for equality between women and men. however, the penal code still contains discriminatory provisions against women. omct is deeply concerned by the lack of opportunity for turkish women to make decisions in the political, economic and cultural contexts as this has serious implications for the advancement of women and the full enjoyment of their fundamental rights. specifically, the unequal gender power relations created by discrimination in education, employment and in political life renders women vulnerable to violence, both in the domestic and the community sphere. omct would recommend that the government take extensive steps to promote equality of women and men through education and awareness raising campaigns. omct further suggests that affirmative action programs be instituted in both political and organizational settings to ensure women’s participation at political and economic levels. despite the many new laws that have been passed, the government has not fully lived up to its obligation to enforce the laws that protect women’s rights, particularly with regard to laws concerning traditional practices such as polygamy, forced marriage, honour crimes, and virginity testing.as effective implementation of laws is central to any effort to promote and protect women’s rights, omct would urge the government of turkey to raise awareness about existing laws protecting women’s rights and the harms associated with these traditional practices, institute mechanisms to encourage women to report violations of their rights, establish protections for women who report violations of their rights, and train police and judicial personnel, and any other government official having contact with women whose rights have been abused, to handle cases of violations of women’s rights with gender sensitivity. omct notes that the structure of the turkish criminal code places women’s sexuality under the control of the family. while other forms of violence are considered under the title “felonies against individuals,” rape and other forms of sexual violence are classified as “felonies against public decency and family order.” moreover, in this section, several articles refer to the virginity of victims as a constitutive element of the crime. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 92 although the turkish criminal code does not explicitly provide for a defence based on honour, several provisions of the code contain defences that are regularly used in order for the perpetrators of crimes committed in the name of honour to receive reduced sentences. finally, omct would insist upon the need for the government to fully implement all of the provisions of the standards and recommendations of the committee against torture, the special rapporteur on torture, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions,the european committee on the prevention of torture, the convention for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, the beijing rules and platform for action and the declaration on the elimination of violence against women as these instruments provide detailed protection for women against violence in the family, in the community and at the hands of state officials. the terms islamic feminism and islamic feminists are now more widely accepted. islamic feminism is also part of the philosophy and politics of the movement of progressive islam. the term progressive islam first appeared in south africa in the 1990s. two years ago the progressive muslim union was formed in the united states and recently the progressive british muslims group was launched in london at the house of commons. islamic feminism and progressive islam are trans/nationally organised. the first international conference on islamic feminism, held last fall in barcelona, drew participants from old and new muslim societies. muslim women are moving beyond passive knowledge of religion by engaging in ijtihad (independent investigation of religious sources) and becoming new authorities. in my historical investigation of muslim women's early (secular) feminisms it was clear that islam was salient in their gender thinking and activism. in the early decades of secular feminism (the late 19th and early 20th centuries), observation confirms that women as islamic feminists remain committed to elaborating and living a genderegalitarian islam that they understand to be at the very core of the religion -a notion radical at the time of revelation and still radical today.l guess islamic feminism understands many hadiths are taken out of context; some hadiths are weak and may be shaky. so people and scholars may read and re-analyse them. as to the maturing turkish democracy, l also believe that turkey's problems have not ended, and the current government in power so called akp (development and justice party of turkey) will have to work hard to yildirim, k., social changes, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 80-93) 93 meet its new challenges. however , it needs to simultaneously bridge the divide between the demands of kurdish nationalists and the positions of hardliners, and assure liberals that their lifestyles will not be overshadowed by the empowered conservative classes. the new parliament carries the potential either to mend social fault-lines or to further polarise. from the other hand, some also believe that turkish democracy has matured in recent years. thus europe may also need more sophisticated templates to analyze the changes ongoing in the country. and, judging from the miscalculations of the opposition, so do the turks themselves. references [1] eu regular report on turkey’s progress towards accession, 2002 [2] handalić. m, the position of female entrepreneurs in the european union and transition countries, journal of women`s entrepreneurship and education, no. 1-2, 2009. [3] oecd (2006), the gender, institutions and development database, www.oecd.org/dev/gender/gid. [4] safra project essay on islam and sexuality, http/www.quardian.co.uk/world/2006jul/17/francepoliticalphilosophyandsociet y [5] women for women’s human rights, the new legal status of women in turkey, april, 2002. [6] the economist intelligence unit, turkey country report, november, 2002. received: 10 february 2010 article history: accepted: 5 october 2010 18_jwe_3-4 doi: 10.28934/jwee18.34.pp45-59 scientific review gender responsive budgeting in the local self-government in the republic of serbia zvonko brnjas1 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia mihajlo đukić2 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t gender equality and gender non-discrimination issues belong to the set of basic principles of human rights being a very relevant research topic in many developed countries worldwide. to the large extent, this issue is becoming increasingly important in less developed economies including the republic of serbia. in this paper, the focus will be on one specific aspect of gender equality – gender sensitive or gender responsive budgeting in the local self-government units. considering that economic equality is almost always a pre-condition for any other equality, success in incorporating the gender equality concept into the budgetting process might determine the nature of relationship between the genders. this also (as the most frequent manifestation of these relationships) includes the position of women in local communities. special attention in the paper will be paid to development and functioning of the institutional mechanisms for the achivement of gender equality, as well as specifics of gender responsive budgeting in the local selfgovernments in serbia. key words: gender responsive budgeting, institutional mechanisms for gender responsive budgeting, budget development process, budget monitoring 1 full professor, e-mail: zvonko.brnjas@ien.bg.ac.rs 2 research associate, e-mail: mihajlo.djukic@ien.bg.ac.rs 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 45-59) concept of gender responsive budgeting – theoretical considerations gender responsive budgeting (grb) refers to applying the concept of gender equality within the process of development and implementation of local budgets. it is related to the analysis of the effects of budget revenues redistribution on life of men and women in local communities. this approach aims at establishing budget development procedures to match the needs of both men and women as local citizens, rather than developing separate budgets for each group. gsb is therefore strategic approach of allocation of assets for the purpose of implementation different policies, measures and programmes that might improve gender equality and support existing rich potentials in order to improve quality of everyday life. it tackles the issues of equal access to the resources, equal participation in decision making as well as benefits resulting from the use of local resources. applying grb might have positive effects on local development and economic development in general. in that context, grb represents significant incentive for development of certain economic sectors as well as economic activity and entrepreneurship in general, including direct and indirect consequences of its application in creating favourable institutional and business environment. primary responsibility lies on local self-governments and other state institutions that should, through their policies, support application of the grb and gender equality concept. development of women entrenepreneurship for example, directly depends on readiness of the state to support favourable environment by facilitating solid access to the sources of funding, providing infrastructure support and simplyfing business regulation and procedures (agrawal, 2017). in addition to institutional preconditions, adequate forms of training and education could be other supporting measures to influence progress in this field in serbia. on the example of women in rural areas in serbia, munitlak-ivanović states that creating business incubators and establishing special funds would create better conditions for more dynamic economic activity of this, particularly vulnerable, population (munitlak ivanović, 2016). creating conditions for gender equality and equal treatment of men and women can activate additional developmental potentials in particular sectors of the economy. čeperković et al. indicate positive effects that the application of gender equality concept has on the development of the sector of tourism (čeperković et al. 2017). brnjas, z., et al., gender responsive, jwee (2018, no. 3-4-2, 45-59) 47 institutional mechanisms of achieving gender equality in local self-governments in serbia3 in line with the adoption of the law on gender equality4 in december 2009, establishment of the institutional mechanisms for gender equality (commissions, councils, persons of gender equality) in the units of local self-government (lsg) in the republic of serbia became mandatory. depending on the statutes of the lsg and local administrative decisions, there have been established entities within the local assembly (local legislative authority) or the local government (local executive authority). the composition of these bodies is different. the members were sometimes elected from the roster of the local assembly members or regular citizens and associations, while sometimes the composition is mixed including both. institutional mechanisms for gender equality in serbian lsg are mainly formed within the local assemblies, rarely within the local government. this trend could be identified as one of the causes of systemic obstacles in the implementation of gender equality policy at the local level in serbia. the lack of institutional mechanisms for gender equality at the executive level or their insufficient capacity lead to the lack of effective tools for gender policy implementation within local administration itself, as well as unrealistic expectations for the local assembly, often outside their regular mandates. typical for the most of local municipalities in serbia is that the establishment of mechanisms for gender equality meets only the formal regulatory requirements and is not followed up by providing the necessary conditions for their work. working conditions are, to the certain extent, limited by low technical capacities. they are also characterised by lack of resources available to other bodies, especially in local assemblies. the most important obstacle is related to the inexistence of formal procedures that could enable bodies in charge for gender equality to be involved in decision-making process. additionally, important systemic deficiency refers to the lack of coop 3 "institutional mechanisms for gender equality" is the term that, in a broader sense, determines the organizational body (entity) at all levels of government dealing with the position of women's position in a society. in this paper, attention has been paid to these mechanisms at the local level. 4 law on gender equality ("official gazete", no. 104/2009) 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 45-59) eration with other administrative bodies and institutions as well as the users of the budget funds. in general, it is not enough developed awareness and understanding that the area of gender equality is not a sector itself, but a cross-cutting issue influencing all other sectoral policies, programs and measures adopted at the level of local self-government. for that reason, cooperation between gender equality bodies and all other state institutions at the local level is indispensable in order to adequately incorporate the principles of gender equality into the system of local policies. to achive this goal, usually no additional budget funds are needed, and the favourable results could be achieved with the existing resources, fairly distributed within the planned programs and measures. in practice, institutional mechanisms for gender equality are either invisible or considered separately without formalized horizontal cooperation. activities related to gender equality are usually personalized, being conducted on a voluntary basis. eventual personal changes affect that the process is always starting from the very beginning. moreover, development of the local budgets and the decision-making process is still not sufficiently transparent, and citizens as well as the civil sector and media are often not adequately involved/consulted. most of the activities that are of particular importance for the everyday life of citizens at the local level have been performed under the level of local municipality. it is therefore important for the local bodies to recognize the importance of incorporating the principles of gender equality into their programs, policies and measures funded from local government budgets. within this process, it is crucial to include institutional mechanisms for gender equality in the process of planning, creating and decision-making in different sectors. effective implementation of the mechanisms along with adequate local policies will contribute to the local development through applying the basic tools integrating gender equality into policies, namely gender statistics, gender budgeting and gender analysis. establishment of the cooperation between the mechanisms for gender equality and other local self-government institutions the issue of gender equality is not the issue of one sector. it involves all segments of a society and affects almost all local government competencies and policies. empirical findings suggest that the lsg practice in serbia in this domain is not adequate and that in areas where coordination between brnjas, z., et al., gender responsive, jwee (2018, no. 3-4-2, 45-59) 49 the various sectors is essential, such as employment policy for example, objectives have not been achieved. collaboration must be developed in a systematical manner, through dialogue between different bodies, keeping in mind how to achieve the best result, with the efficient use of resources, clear procedures and with the minimum level of bureaucracy. there are several possible ways of cooperation between gender equality mechanisms and other entities at the local level. they include the exchange of information, consultation, dialogue, participation in decision-making and share of responsibility. institutional mechanisms for gender equality should prepare action plans and establish cooperation with other local government units. the following table outlines potential ways of cooperation. table 1: forms of co-operation between gender equality mechanisms and other entities forms of cooperation between gender equality mechanisms and other local entities ways of cooperation formalised cooperation exchange of information information as an input information as an output meetings, informal discussions and publications memorandum on cooperation and exchange of information, defined number and date of annual meetings. consultation listening and speaking workshops, public hearings, advisory bodies and working groups submission of reports and inquiries for opinion/feedback. dialogue dialogue, conferences initiation of formal dialogue on specific issue to be tackled by the local community. decision-making participation delegation, local councils, consulting activities delegation of tasks to the local mechanism (i.e. local mechanism could analyse gender aspects in the field of agricultural policy within local development strategy/programme). share of responsibility joint management, partnerships, contracts joint development and implementation of specific programme (i.e. prevention of violence or economic empowerment) by which gender equality mechanism has defined responsibilities (preparation of reports or share of information to the public/state institutions, etc.) creation of joint teams working together on specific topics (establishment of a team for gender responsive budgeting). 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 45-59) cooperation starts with the exchange of information as basic, the simplest and the least demanding form of cooperation. at this level, it is ensured that the actors in decision-making processes are equally informed. in the next step, the lsg bodies demonstrate their willingness to consult gender equality mechanisms on all issues that they can contribute in a relevant way, especially the ones that explicitly refer to gender equality. after consulting (opinion issue), we can move to a higher level of cooperation by establishing a dialogue in which the opinions and attitudes on concrete issues are exchanged in a critical and constructive manner. finally, the most demanding and complex forms of co-operation relate to joint adoption, and then to joint implementation of decisions, as well as monitoring of their effects in gender-related segments. types of gender responsive budget iniatives there are various gender responsive initiatives that could be raised by the local gender equality mechanisms or civil society organisations. choosing one or couple of similar gender responsive budget initiatives to be raised depend on the mechanisms for gender equality and defined set of priorities. in that context, it is important to know the capacities of the local mechanism for the particular engagement and disposable resources. it should be underlined that the ultimate goal should be to create systemic solution and specific formal actions of the decision makers. the basic types of budget initiatives as well as the main goals and the most important sources of these initiatives are presented in table 2. table 2: types of gender responsive budget initiatives name and description of grb initiative goals of grb initiative source of grb initiative and pre-conditions enabling participation of citizens in the process of local budget development. identify important issues and support their solution; incorporate the needs and priorities of citizens into funding priorities; obtain bi-directional communication between citizens and representatives of local self-government regarding the budget process; make the process of creatthis is a good example of mobilising the local community. local community is becoming interested in local budgets, thus opening space for future budget initiatives. it is good if this initiative could be among the first initiatives and certainly part of the broader budget discussion, as well as to be com brnjas, z., et al., gender responsive, jwee (2018, no. 3-4-2, 45-59) 51 name and description of grb initiative goals of grb initiative source of grb initiative and pre-conditions ing and making the budget more transparent; stimulate the responsibility of local self-government towards citizens. bined with other gender budgeting initiatives. implementation of the principle of gender equality in the creation, adoption and implementation of the local self-government budget and support in this process through the development of appropriate methodology. when creating, adopting and implementing the budget, apply analytical tools that will incorporate the principles of gender equality into budget allocations with an aim to improve the status of women and improve gender equality. this initiative assumes that local self-governments possess the necessary knowledge, information and tools for its realization. if they do not, then creating these assumptions should be a part of the initiative. creating systemic prerequisites for gender budgeting initiatives. envisage resources to create the assumptions for the application of genderresponsive budgeting in work of the local selfgovernment: statistics classified by gender, determination of needs of citizens, education on gender equality this initiative can be implemented independently or within other gender budgetinginitiatives. integrating gender equality into programs, program activities or projects planned by budget users and defining gender sensitive goals, activities and indicators. embed the gender perspective within the program proposals. this initiative requires that we have knowledge of gender differences and problems. professional support for budget users is essential during the process. reallocation of funds within a specific item or budget items: programs, program activities or projects that have already been approved for funding. change the pattern of spending funds within one or more programs, program activities, or projects. to initiate this type of change, it is necessary to conduct the analysis and collect relevant data (for example, gender analysis of program / program activity and / or projects financed from the local budgets). 52 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 45-59) name and description of grb initiative goals of grb initiative source of grb initiative and pre-conditions introducing a new item or budget item: new program, program activity, or project. envisage the budget funds for something that has not been funded already (i.e. gender mainstreaming). this initiative could be based on analyses and indicators that local self-government does not fulfill obligations arising from different regulations. the mian phases in the process of establishing gender responsive local budgets there are three key phases through which the budget process should go through to establish a gender-responsive budget (grb) in the local selfgovernments (lsgs): − planning and data collection − an analysis completed by making appropriate conclusions and − adopting the final conclusions figure 1: key phases of gender-responsive budgeting process in lsgs planning the grb initiatives and collecting data this phase represents the most important step in the gender analysis of the budget. the first step should be a detailed introduction to the budget process, i.e. understanding how the budget is created, adopted and executed, and the identification of the necessary documentary basis necessary for the analysis. in addition, the aim of this phase is to define the subject of the analysis and how to use the results (conclusions and recommendations) of the analysis. when defining what will be analyzed, it is determined what will be the subject of the analysis, what information is necessary, where these data will be sought and in which way, which actors are important and in what phase they should be involved in the process. brnjas, z., et al., gender responsive, jwee (2018, no. 3-4-2, 45-59) 53 gender analysis defining the subject and the objectives of the analysis from the very beginning of the budget gender analysis, the most important question is what needs to be analyzed? although almost any issue within the competence of local self-government can be viewed from the point of view of gender equality, not all the issues are equally important, i.e. of the equal priority for women and men in the local community, nor will their resolution have an equal impact on the quality of their daily lives. options can be set in the following way: − identifying areas and programs where we well know the problems and needs to determine if these needs are met, how and what are the effects on the target group (for example: employment, entrepreneurship, violence against women, decision making, education, health, rural development, agriculture, etc.). − identifying the programs on which the largest portion of funds have been spent and the ongoing funding by local governments to determine whether women and men have equal opportunities and benefits from financing (for example, subsidies to agriculture or the economy, sports financing, subsidies in education scholarships, etc., social services or one-time assistance for socially vulnerable groups), and what are the effects on users and beneficiaries − performing overall budget analysis in order to determine how funds from the local budget are spent, what are the priorities visible in the budget, which strategic documents are basis for the budget adoption, whether the budget process (its creation, adoption and implementation) is transparent? − choose all above mentioned options at the same time. in selecting areas of particular relevance to gender equality, analysts should primarily rely on documents such as analyzes and strategic documents, action plans that exist in a particular area at a local, regional or state level. in addition to these documents, statistical data, analyzes and studies should be used to indicate specific problems faced by women and men, or needs of certain groups of women and men (for example: employment / unemployment, education and choice of occupations, social inclusion, etc.). publications and existing body of research on gender issues and knowledge and experience of civil society are of special importance. 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 45-59) in addition to determining the subject of analysis, it is equally important to ask what is to be achieved, i.e. which are the basic objectives of the analysis. the budget analysis process is often considering the effects of budget funding on men and women and providing specific conclusions, and recommendations. recommendations can go in the direction of: − improvement of the existing programs in the form in which they are being implemented; − improvement of the existing programs with the aim of achieving or promoting gender equality; − cancelling the program because they did not show expected results; − suggesting new funding programs aimed at achieving or promoting gender equality and addressing specific community issues when determining the subject of the analysis, it is necessary to determine the objectives of the analysis from a specific angle of gender equality. for example, this can be the following: − to determine the representation of women and men, for example among beneficiaries of certain programs, i.e. whether funds are equally accessible to both; − to determine how funds and other resources are distributed among women and men who are beneficiaries of a particular program; − to determine the effects of the spent funds in relation to the planned goals; − to determine whether the needs of the target group are met; − to determine whether and which changes are needed; − to determine the impact on gender equality. data collection plan and determining data sources after defining the subject of gender analysis and its objectives, it is necessary to collect necessary data. gender analysis is based on data classified by sex, and by gender statistics. one of the biggest challenges of each grb initiative is the lack of or inaccessibility of gender-disaggregated data at the level of local self-government. if we do not have data on users of the funded programs sorted by sex, we cannot carry out a gender analysis. it is sometimes necessary to literally count users from the various lists. that is why the most common key recommendations of almost every grb initiative in serbia are aimed at ensuring that gender-disaggregated data is col brnjas, z., et al., gender responsive, jwee (2018, no. 3-4-2, 45-59) 55 lected and processed at the local level. specifically, it is supported by gender equality law (article 40), which explicitly requires statistical records. mapping the key actors and determining attitudes towards them the next step in the process is mapping key actors and defining the form of cooperation with them. when mapping actors, attention should be paid to all three basic steps of grb. the actors can be: institutions at all levels, local self-government bodies, councilors, non-governmental organizations, research institutes and faculties, media, local communities, other mechanisms for gender equality, individuals (i.e. experts) and others. it is necessary to create a list of actors and determine in which of the above phases / steps they are needed and what type of relationship is necessary to establish with them. different expectations can be expected from different actors. some of them need to be informed; the other expects to be consulted, especially when it comes to fixing problems and defining the priorities or providing support for the visibility of the community's grb initiatives. it is useful at this stage to introduce the actors with planning activities and objectives of the budget process in order to timely determine expectations involving them from the very beginning in deciding about the goals of gender analysis. conclusions and recommendations of gender analysis as soon as the first phase is completed, data processing and gender analysis can start. gender analysis refers to processing and analyzing data related to gender. it is supposed to analyze the effects of measures and activities of planned programs, policies and projects on men and women. gender analysis aims to help in identifying the gender patterns. the observed gender pattern does not always represent a problem. therefore, it is important to define whether the observed gender pattern is a problem and maintain and/or produce inequality, and if the answer is yes, in what way; what are the causes and what are the consequences of the current situation? in order to be able to perform gender analysis, it is necessary to know the aspects of gender equality in the field of interest. gender responsive budgeting is not just a matter of allocating resources, but also meeting the needs of women and men, bearing in mind the aspects of gender equality. obtained data are not of great importance if the needs and characteristics of the target group are not sufficiently determined. in other words, obtained data represent only the first phase in searching for the answer on the different questions, such are: what are the reasons behind the current data 56 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 45-59) and relationships pattern? therefore, at this stage, the process needs to be reversed in order to collect additional data, or to confirm or reject the original observations. when it comes to evaluating the effects of analyzed budget items on users, it may be important to maintain focus groups or individual interviews with users. findings from the focus groups and the interviews are used as additional argumentation in the analysis. regardless of the amount of useful information collected, it is important to stress that the report will include only those facts for which detailed elaboration has been provided, that are related to the subject, goals and important aspects of the gender equality analysis. budget analyses should be completed with concrete and practical recommendations. defining recommendations as a basis for the successfull lobbying influenceing changes in the next budget year is time consuming process. recommendations should be concrete, feasible and measurable including what should be done and why, who should do it and how, (i. e. how to do it). the recommendations related to a specific problem for which the budget funds are required, and for which the local community does not deal with, should contain the following elements: − description of the problem − defining priorities − measure / program / policy for problem solving − key players in the implementation of the measure / policy − expected results − allocation of funds in the budget − argumentation on the benefits for local government of the proposed allocation recommendations for introducing gender aspects into the budget items should include the following elements: − the result of gender analysis, i.e. the conclusion on the effects analyzed by the budget allocation on women and men and the consequences of the current situation on the quality of everyday life of women and men from the perspective of gender equality as well as the local community itself (access to services, resources, satisfaction of needs, development, etc.). brnjas, z., et al., gender responsive, jwee (2018, no. 3-4-2, 45-59) 57 − concrete targeted recommendations for change with an explanation of the envisaged effects of the proposed change on the position of women/men, as well as benefits for the local community as a whole advocacy for adoption of recommendations and monitoring advocating or lobbying activity is aimed at influencing decisionmaking through direct or indirect communication with specific decisionmakers. when it comes to lobbying, we are actually referring to direct or indirect impact on a particular person. lobbying is, therefore, activity (or more activities) that affects a particular person or persons who have the power influence desired change. lobbying is an important part of public advocacy. public advocacy aims at systemic changes achieved through social action, from recognizing the problem to community mobilization, addressing it by involving citizens, the media and various stakeholders, to lobbying towards specific decision-makers. conclusion the issue of gender-responsive budgeting is a very important aspect of gender equality in general. without creating the economic basis for gender equality, it is difficult to expect that this issue, which is considered as one of the most important segments of human rights, will be resolved in an appropriate way in any society. following the adoption of the law on gender equality law in 2009, some progress in this field has been made in serbia, including the one at the level of local self-governments. the focus of the paper was on the analysis of the establishment and functioning of special bodies, institutional mechanisms for gender equality at the level of local self-government. the research has shown that the mechanisms for gender equality in local governments in serbia face numerous obstacles within their work, such as the insufficient importance paid to the issue of gender equality, insufficient visibility of these bodies in the structure of local selfgovernments, the abandonment of the responsibility of lsgs for their work or in cooperating with them, as well as the lack of measures to provide sufficient resources for their basic functioning, as well as resources that the local self-government allocate for programs, measures and policies that would contribute to the promotion of gender equality. 58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 45-59) in order to successfully overcome these obstacles in the following period, it is necessary to apply a set of policies and concrete measures. one of the most relevant areas is related to fostering a process of gender-responsive or sensitive budgeting at the local level. the precondition for this is the establishment of appropriate forms of cooperation between gender equality mechanisms and other entities in the lsgs, the initiation of a series of gender-responsive budget initiatives, and the establishment of an effective procedure for their implementation, monitoring and evaluation. acknowledgements this paper is a part of research projects: 179015 (challenges and prospects of structural changes in serbia: strategic directions for economic development and harmonization with eu requirements) and 47009 (european integrations and social and economic changes in serbian economy on the way to the eu), financed by the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic of serbia. references [1] agrawal, reena, (2017). contributions made by women entrepreneurs in augmenting socio-regional-economic growth of emerging market economy. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, (1-2), 87100. [2] aquis – osce: rodna ravnopravnost, osce misija u srbiji i crnoj gori, odeljenje za demokratizaciju, beograd, 2005 [3] čeperković, jelena; šiljak, marija; đuradjević, marijana. women entrepreneurship in function of improving tourist offer. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 2017, 3-4: 73-83. [4] dokmanović mirjana, rodna ravnopravnost i javna politika, ženski centar za demokratiju i ljudska prava, subotica, 2002. [5] đurić kuzmanović, tatjana, ka rodnom budžetiranju, ženske studije i istraživanja i futura publikacije, novi sad, 2007 [6] evropska povelja o rodnoj ravnopravnosti na lokalnom nivou, stalna konferencija gradova i opština, beograd, 2009. [7] oebs, institucionalni mehanizmi za postizanje rodne ravnopravnosti, beograd, 2005. [8] izveštaj: opštinska lica za rodnu ravnopravnost u republici srbiji, osce, mission to serbia, 31. decembar 2008. brnjas, z., et al., gender responsive, jwee (2018, no. 3-4-2, 45-59) 59 [9] izveštavanje po konvenciji o eliminaciji svih oblika diskriminacije nad ženama, pokrajinski zavod za ravnopravnost polova, novi sad, 2007. [10] konvencija o eliminisanju svih oblika diskriminacije žena, republika srbija, ministarstvo rada i socijalne politike, uprava za rodnu ravnopravnost, beograd, novembar 2008 [11] munitlak ivanović, olja. possibilities for development of female entrepreneurship in the rural areas. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 2016, 1-2: 79-96. [12] nacionalna strategija za poboljšanje položaja žena i unapređivanje ravnopravnosti polova (2009-2015), ministarstvo rada i socijalne politike, uprava za rodnu ravnopravnost, službeni glasnik rs, br. 55/05, 71/05ispravka, 101/07 i 65/08. [13] pojmovnik rodne terminologije – prema standardima europske unije, centar za ženske studije, uredila rada borić, zagreb, 2007 [14] putevi ostvarivanja rodne ravnopravnosti i jednakih mogućnosti – od ideje do prakse, priručnik za službenike i organe lokalnih samouprava zadužene za ravnopravnost polova, savet za ravnopravnost polova vlade republike srbije, oebs misija u srbiji, beograd, 2007 [15] uvođenje principa jednakosti i ravnopravnosti polova na lokalnom nivou vlasti, priručnik za institucionalne mehanizme u lokalnoj upravi, helsinški parlament građana, banja luka, 2007 [16] zakon o izborima za jedinice lokalne samouprave, službeni glasnik rs br. 129/2007 [17] zakon o izboru narodnih poslanika, službeni glasnik rs br. 35/2000 [18] zakon o ravnopravnosti plova, službeni glasnik rs br.104/2009 [19] zakon o zaštitniku građana, službeni glasnik br. 54/2007 article history: received: 9 november, 2018 accepted: 10 december, 2018 15_jwe_1-2 udk: 005.591.1:005.342-055.2(497.11) 005.412:336.77 jel: g21, j16, b54 cobiss.sr-id: 215910412 original scientific paper the development of micro-crediting as a factor of promoting women's entrepreneurship in serbia1 đuričin sonja2, pantić olivera institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t subject of research presented in this paper includes factors which are conditioning the need for the development of micro-financing due to specific funding of women's entrepreneurship in serbia. this paper aims to, in the current socio-economic environment, indicate the importance of the development of microcrediting in the process of development of women's entrepreneurship in serbia. the importance of micro-crediting is primarily in reducing market gap between supply and demand for microcredit by women entrepreneur, its contribution to increasing the number of employed women and improving their socio-economic status. the survey results indicate the fact that the creation of conditions for the development of micro-finance institutions in the period 2014-2017 will have effects on increase in the supply of micro-credits for women entrepreneurs in the amount of 8%, 41%, 1 this paper is a result of research projects under the codes 179015 (challenges and prospects of structural changes in serbia: strategic directions for economic development and harmonization with eu requirements), and 47009 (european integrations and social and economic changes in serbian economy on the way to the eu) financed by the ministry of science and technological development of the republic of serbia 2 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, 12 zmaj jovina str, email: sonja.djuricin@ien.bg.ac.rs journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) 51 68% and 82% respectively, opening of 97 thousand new jobs for women and improve their socio-economic status. key words: micro-financing, micro-crediting, women's entrepreneurship, smes, employment, poverty, socio-economic status introduction the first forms of micro-crediting were recorded in the grameen bank in bangladesh, which was founded in 1976 by muhammad yunus. he received the nobel prize for contibution to the economic development and help miliions of poor. micro-credit represents the kind of financial services that have developed as a consequence of the absence of possibility of using the funds of commercial banks by poor individuals, who have the ambition to develop their entrepreneurial ideas. micro-credit is only part of the financial services sector, which is called micro-financing. micro-financing also include micro-savings, micro-insurance, money transfers etc. in the republic of serbia, which in last decades had inadequate socioeconomic development, micro-financing, especially micro-crediting has multiple meanings. in this paper, the importance of the development of micro-finance institutions, especially micro-crediting, is observed in terms of its contribution to the advancement of women's entrepreneurship. improving women's entrepreneurship is observed through market gap between supply and demand for micro-credit, increasing the number of employed women and improving their socio-economic status in society. during this research we used the definition according which women entrepreneurs include those who possess ownership of any shares of the company and manage them as the executive director or member of the management body. for this study data are used from a presentation market impact assessment: introduction of non-deposit-taking micro-finance institution in serbia (doiciu, 2014) and the national statistical office of serbia. the research is based on data from the period from 2010 till 2014 year and estimates for the period from 2015 till 2017 year. for the purposes of identifying the importance of the development of micro-crediting for the promotion of women's entrepreneurship, the content of this paper is structured in three parts. this paper first analyzed the existing model of micro-credit initiators and its further development, then identified the specifics of funding women's entrepreneurship and finally 52 đuričin, s., et al., the development of micro-crediting, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) quantified the importance of the development of micro-crediting for development of women's entrepreneurship. the existing model of micro-crediting and initiators of its further development in serbia, micro-crediting services are provided through microfinance institutions (microfinance institutions mf) and national development support programs. micro-finance institutions business activity of micro-finance institutions is limited by the current national banking regulations which do not provide for a possibility for any other type of financial institution, other than bank, to receive savings deposits and perform lending to economy. microfinance institutions carry out their activities through banks, giving them available funds on commission. banks disburse loans, while microfinance institutions perform duties of finding clients, technical processing of applications, monitoring and control of the proper use of loans. the fact that micro-crediting has been developed as a result of lack of the possibility to use the funds of commercial banks by poor individuals with the ambition to develop their entrepreneurial ideas, leads to the conclusion that the work of micro-finance institutions in serbia is characterized by a number of disadvantages: − micro-loans from the aspect of banks are viewed as consumer loans that must be secured with 122% of the capital, − any internal change in the business of bankleads its partner to new negotiations on cooperation between two organizations, − high operating costs, − complex administrative procedures, etc. national development support programs – micro-crediting through the national development support programs aims to develop an entrepreneurial spirit and encourage self-employment in the republic of serbia. the fact that national development support programs of the government of the republic of serbia represent by far the largest share of financial support to small and medium-sized enterprises, registered farmers, households and unemployed is unacceptable in the current macroeconomic circumstances for at least two sets of reasons: journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) 53 a) problems related to the current package of government support measures (usaid, 2012: 15): − less than one-third of smes have been successful in obtaining government support, − programs are not sufficiently integrated or linked to a unified strategy to facilitate sustainable access to sources of funding, − disadvantages in terms of transparency, provision of services and communication with smes, − heavy dependence on direct crediting and subsidies, although these are often the most expensive and least efficient forms of support, − since serbia has a large number of commercial banks, there is already an infrastructure for the provision of loans which might be more appropriate for providing support, risk-sharing and higher financial leverage than the limited government funds; b) providing financial support for encouragement of self-employment and entrepreneurial spirit mainly from the budget of the republic of serbia whose deficit has growing trend, is unsustainable in the long run. micro-crediting through micro-finance institutions and national development support programs is characterized by a number of disadvantages that, in the prevailing macroeconomic circumstances, give rise to the need for further development of the financial services sector. factors that induce a need for further development and improvement of micro-financing in serbia can be divided into three groups: a) the declining trend in the basic macroeconomic indicators and the growth of poverty, b) limited ability to use external sources of financing in the early stage of development of smes and c) insufficient awareness of this type of financial services among potential users. the downward trend in the basic macroeconomic indicators and the growth of poverty. in the last ten years, serbia recorded 1,65% lower value of gdp than the average value of gdp per capita achieved at the level of the western balkan countries and approximately three times lower value than the average of eu countries. according to the data for the first three quarters of 2014, the republic of serbia re-enters into the phase of recession and in the third quarter of 2014 recorded weakening of economic 54 đuričin, s., et al., the development of micro-crediting, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) activity with real gdp decline of -3.6%. the absence of possibility to establish a sustainable economic growth is partly caused by the absence of the foreign trade surplus. the reasons for permanent recording of the foreign trade deficit in serbia should be sought in the economic isolation due to which the country lost all foreign markets, full deindustrialization and inadequately implemented privatization due to which factories have been closed and industries that were once major exporters are now destroyed, insufficient inflow of fdi and the lack of competitiveness of domestic products and services beraha & đuričin. 2011: 295). macroeconomic instability conditioned by a decrease in economic and foreign trade activity was further deepened by the growth of public debt. the effects of the global economic crisis and unfinished transition process have given rise to the growth of public debt from 28.3% of gdp in 2008 to 67.9% of gdp in the third quarter of 2014. the limited borrowing capacity and republic budget deficit in the first quarter of 2014 amounted to 8.1% of gdp have given rise to the need for implementation of austerity measures. the austerity measures that already in the third quarter of 2014 contributed to the reduction of the budget deficit, on the other hand can deepen the longstanding crisis that exists in the labor market. in the period before and after 2000, the serbian labor market is characterized by high unemployment and low incomes of employed persons. in the period between 2005 and 2010 the unemployment rate had a downward trend and recorded the value below 20%. however, this trend cannot be assessed as positive because the reduction in the unemployment rate did not occur only due to employment of unemployed labor force but it was largely related to their transition into the category of inactive persons (đuričin. 2011: 304). after 2012, with a slight decline, the percentage of inactive persons remains at a high level and the drop in the unemployment rate, taking into account the decline in economic activity, cannot be assessed as an improvement in the labor market conditions especially if we take into account the structure of unemployed persons, the average income level of employees and minimum average labor cost per hour, which currently stands at 1.02 euros. high unemployment rate, low labor cost and overall macroeconomic situation have resulted in growth of poverty rate in serbia. the poverty rate measured by the percentage of the population living below the national poverty line in 2010 amounted to as much as 9.2%. according to the latest available data, the world bank in serbia 0.2% and 0.6% of the population lives on less than $ 1.25 a day or $ 2 a day respectively. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) 55 • insufficient awareness of this type of financial services among potential users. the absence of a legal framework on micro-financing and the current model of its operation caused insufficient distribution and awareness of smes of the conditions and opportunities of micro-crediting. in serbia, 36% of surveyed smes are completely unfamiliar with the concept of micro-financing, 20% are largely unaware, 29% of respondents are partially or not familiar, 10% are generally familiar, and only 5% is fully familiar (eric et al., 2012: 138). • limited ability to use external sources of funding in the early stages of development of smes. strengthening of the private sector especially smes, is part of the transition process of serbian economy. in the last ten years, sme sector participates with 99.8% in average in total number of enterprises of the republic of serbia this sector generates 65.1% of employment, 65.4% of turnover, 55.8% of gva, 51.5% of exports and 60.2% of imports of non-financial sectors and represents 33.0% of gdp in serbia. although it dominates in the total number of enterprises, data on business demographics indicate a lower rate of new enterprises and increasingly higher rate of closings of smes. compared to 2006, in 2012 the rate of new enterprises decreased by 10.3%, while the rate of closings increased by 1.9%. smes are facing numerous difficulties in its effort to ensure the survival, growth and development. aspects of business which would ensure the improvement of safer conditions for the development of business activities relate primarily to the provision of the necessary sources of financing, debt collection, growth in demand, market competition, and technical and technological development. according to the survey conducted by the ministry of economy and regional development and the national agency for regional development, financial support is deemed essential for the survival, growth and development with 43% of respondents and necessary but not essential with 37%. financial support is mostly not essential or is not essential in the opinion of 11% and 5% of respondents respectively. according to the survey, conducted by the institute of economic sciences and the chamber of commerce of serbia in 2012, bank loans are used by 60% of smes. leasing is used by 18% of smes and loans of state funds and institutions by 15% of the companies. loans from friends and relatives are used by 7% and funds from the guarantee funds by 1% of smes. loans from commercial banks enterprises commonly use for financing investments, working capital 56 đuričin, s., et al., the development of micro-crediting, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) and inventory, and leasing to acquire new equipment. the problems that arise in the case of financing smes through loans can be divided into two groups (eric, et al., 2012: 92 and 47): a) problems that banks face when granting loans research results show that 37% of surveyed banks highlight a client overindebtedness as the main problem, 23% stated the risk of placement, 13% inadequate system of debt collection and inadequate collateral, 7% lack of information among clients, 3% frequent changes in activities of clients and their insufficient education. b) problems that companies face when using loans 45% of smes out of total number of respondents stated that their biggest problem when using bank loans represents a high interest rate, 26% loan collateral, 11% high banking charges, 9% slow and long lasting application processing/loan approval procedures, 7% limited amount of loan and 2% lack of information. the difficulties that arise in the case of obtaining external funding particularly affect smes which are at the beginning of its life cycle as well as individuals that are not financially strong but have the ambition to develop their entrepreneurial ideas and their own business. the difficulties are especially pronounced in the case when woman is the founder and owner of the company for the reason that providing sources of financing in female entrepreneurship has its own specific features. specific features of providing sources for financing of women's entrepreneurship the fact that the highest percentage of smes in serbia rely on banks when obtaining external funding especially threatens the survival of women's entrepreneurship. business policy of banks in serbia does not favor clients by gender which is why they do not offer separate credit lines intended for women's entrepreneurship (union of employers of serbia, 2013: 29). obtaining various collaterals that banks set as a condition for placement of their funds is difficult because only the small percentage of private property is owned by women. although women entrepreneurs in the total number of active companies and activities in serbia participates with 26%, which is much below the european average of 33%, the highest percentage is concentrated in urban journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) 57 areas. according to the results of research on the position of women in rural areas conducted by "secons" development initiative group: − 84% of women do not own land, − 74% of women have the status of auxiliary household member who is not paid for the work she performs, − 93% of women do not have pension insurance, − 17% of women do not have health insurance. given the small percentage of the assets they have in their possession only a small number of women entrepreneurs is able to use loans launched by banks under the following market conditions (eric, et al., 2012: 101): − interest rate the average interest rate of loans in dinars and loans with foreign currency clause in eur for entrepreneurs are ranging from 22.25 to 24.62% and 9.55-16.67%, respectively, in the case of sme are ranging from 14.68-17.75% and 6.69-7.97% respectively; − collaterals the most commonly used security instruments in the practice are blank bills with the clause ”without protest”, pledge on movable property, real estate mortgage, insurance policy assigned in favor of the bank, purpose-specific term deposit, etc. besides the amount of available financial resources, initiation, growth and development of female entrepreneurship, inter alia, is also determined by the availability of the following resources (babović, 2012): − knowledge and skills information on how to start their own business 15% and 57% of women entrepreneurs respectively gained through the formal school system and university education, while 23% of them attended certain educational programs in which they gained knowledge about starting their own business; − social contacts and communication social contacts that are a key resource for start-up businesses was owned by 59% of women, of which most of them, before founding their own businesses, worked in managerial positions; − economic resources while starting their own businesses-one third of women used the family money, a smaller number of them used own savings, while the lowest number of them was able to provide funds through various forms of borrowing. 58 đuričin, s., et al., the development of micro-crediting, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) table 1: women entrepreneurs by source of funds invested in the business beginnings source of funds % of female respondents family money 33.6 own savings 28.2 loans from family / friends 12.8 gift from family / friends 7.9 redundancy from previous work 2.3 funds from investors 1.1 loans from commercial banks under market conditions 3.5 micro-credits from micro-finance institutions 0.5 support programs of the government institution 7.1 other 3.0 source: secons baseline study on women's entrepreneurship in serbia, 2011: 73 if only formal external sources of financing are observed the use of national development support programs in the process of starting one's own business holds an important share of 7.1%. besides the fact that the use of funds from the budget of the republic of serbia for financing entrepreneurial business activity is not sustainable in the long run, it is also limited in terms of availability of resources of female entrepreneurship. for example, the development fund of the republic of serbia approves longterm loans for women entrepreneurs i.e. business companies whose directors and founders are women with at least a 51% of share. loans are granted for construction, upgrade, reconstruction, renovation and repair of office space, manufacturing and industrial facilities or for purchase of new or used equipment. the maximum amount of loan for financing women's entrepreneurship is rsd 5 million, a minimum amount is rsd 500 thousand. loans are issued with a maturity of 5 years (with a grace period of 12 months), repayment is done every three months, interest rate is 2% per annum if guarantee is a collateral or avalised bill of commercial bank, in other cases 3% per annum with the application of foreign currency clause. the government of the republic of serbia should take an important role in creating an environment in which survival, growth and development of microfinance institutions will be possible, but not the only option in the process of obtaining funds of uncreditworthy entities. another example of good practice, the government of the republic of serbia should provide macroeconomic stability and create an environment for the development of journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) 59 profitable microcredit providers that provide services to clients without the need for providing additional resources from donors or government subsidies. experience shows that private providers of microcredits are much more effective than the state ones, and that the profit model of microcrediting is superior to the non-profit models (gies, 2010: 83). the development of a legal framework that would provide an opportunity for non-depository institutions to perform services of non-bank crediting in serbia would facilitate the attraction of foreign direct investment, enable job creation and encourage the strengthening of the entrepreneurial spirit. microcrediting as a factor of promoting women's entrepreneurship according to financial situation of women in the republic of serbia, their possibilities to use bank loans and current goverment programs of support, the development of microfinance institutions and micro-credit line is imperative. the development of microfinance institutions have a great importance if we take into account the fact that the current use of microcredit for the purposes of starting business activities of women does not exceed 0.5%. influence of the development of micro-credit on promotion of women's entrepreneurship in serbia has been considered from the aspect of reducing market gap between supply and demand for micro-credits in women’s entrepreneurship, reducing the number of unemployed women and improving their socio-economic status. reducing the market gap between supply and demand for microcredits by women entrepreneurs – estimation of the reducing market gap between supply and demand for micro-credits by women entrepreneurs is started from the existing data on demand, supply, current and expected market gap in the field of micro-crediting of the sme sector in the republic of serbia in the period from 2014 till 2017 year. existing data on demand, supply, current and expected market gap in the field of micro-crediting of the entire sme sector in the republic of serbia in the period from 2014 till 2017 represent a part of results of project „the usaid business enabling project in serbia“. results are shown in table no 2. 60 đuričin, s., et al., the development of micro-crediting, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) table 2: estimated data of supply, demand and market gap for microcredit for smes in the republic of serbia, 2014-2017 period of time 2014. 2015. 2016. 2017. demand for microcredit (eur mil/year) 307 324 350 385 supply of microcredits (eur mil/year) 139 140 146 152 total number of microcredit applications per year ('000 of loans) 148 156 169 185 market gap estimation (%) 55 57 58 61 expected decrease of the market gap (%) 51 39 30 28 source: doiciu, 2014 the values of supply, demand and market gap for micro-credits at the level of female entrepreneurship were calculated based on the known values of these indicators in the entire sme sector and the fact that women entrepreneurs in the total number of active companies in serbia participates with 26%. starting from the fact that women entrepreneurs in the total number of active companies in serbia participates with 26%: − demand for micro-credits for women in the period 2014-2017 was estimated at 80, 84, 91 and 100 million, respectively, and − supply of micro-credits for women in the period 2014-2017 was estimated at 36, 36, 38 and 40 million, respectively. table 3: estimated data of supply, demand and market gap for microcredit for women entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia, 2014-2017 period of time 2014. 2015. 2016. 2017. demand for microcredit (eur mil/year) 80 84 91 100 total number of microcredit applications per year ('000 of loans) 38 41 44 48 supply of microcredits (eur mil/year) 36 36 38 40 market gap estimation % 55 57 58 61 expected decrease of the market gap 51 39 30 28 supply of microcredits in case of reduction of market gap with unchanged demand (eur mil/year) 39 51 64 72 increase in supply (%) 8 41 68 82 source: independent calculations by the authors journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) 61 starting from the data that decrease of the market gap in the period from 2014 till 2017 is expected if conditions for the development of microfinance institutions are improved, and if that decrease is accounted for 51%, 39%, 30% and 28% respectively, increasing the supply of microcredits for women entrepreneurs can be estimated if amount of demand is unchanged. this results indicate that in the case of improving the environment for the development of microfinance institutions, supply of micro-credits in the field of women's entrepreneurship in period 2014-2017 year could be increased by 8%, 41%, 68% and 82%, in relation to the current supply, respectively. graph 1: supply of micro-credit for women enterprises before and after the improvement of conditions for the development of mfi source: independent presentation by the author • increasing the number of employed women – when assessing the possibilities of increasing the number of employed women, we have started from these facts: − if an adequate legal framework on microfinance in the period 2014-2017 can be defined, 39, 53, 65 and 73 thousand new jobs will be created (maria, doiciu, 2014: 23) and − women participated with 42% in total employment of the republic of serbia in the last four years. 62 đuričin, s., et al., the development of micro-crediting, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) table 4: assessment of increasing the number of employed women in thousands period of time 2014. 2015. 2016. 2017. ∑ total number of jobs created and sustained 39 53 65 73 230 female jobs (42% of total) 16 22 27 31 97 male jobs (58% of total) 23 31 38 42 133 source: doiciu, 2014: 23 and independent calculations by the authors the results show that in the case of defining an adequate microfinance legal framework, according the fact that women participated with 42% (in the average) in total employment in the last four years, 97 thousands new jobs can be opened in the period from 2014 till 2017. in the period 20142017, observed by year, 16, 22, 27 and 31 thousand new jobs will be created, respectively, if goverment in future define adequate legal framework on micro-finace. improving the women's socio-economic status – employing of women's human resources and development of instruments and ways to encourage their greater participation in business activities are main factors for balanced economic development and improvement of socio-economic status of women in society. in addition to the direct involvement of women in a market economy, improving their socio-economic status also requests continuous trainings and education. only 0.5% of women entrepreneurs using micro-credits as a source of financing their business and only 5% of respondents in sme sector are familiar with the concept of micro-crediting (erić, et al., 2012: 138). this facts points out the need for the implementation of permanent education about micro-finance services. education for women about the importance and opportunities of microcredit is contributed with higher opportunities for realizing their entrepreneurial ideas. often, for this kind of ideas don't exist interest for financing from commercial banks. increasing the supply of microcredit and job creation for women would directly affect the improvement of their socio-economic status in society. opening new workplaces through the reduction of the gap between supply and demand for micro-credits by entrepreneurs will directly have an impact on reducing the differences between the sexes in employment, and consequently the income levels and economic status of women in society. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) 63 table 5: employed persons by gender, republic of serbia, 2010-2013 period of time 2010. 2011. 2012. 2013. total 2.396.244 2.253.209 2.228.343 2.310.718 female 1.023.482 948.215 935.486 978.107 male 1.372.761 1.304.994 1.292.857 1.332.611 source: statistical officeof the republic of serbia according to available data from the statistical office of the republic of serbia, women in total employment in the last four years participated with 42% (average). assuming that new jobs for women will be created due to the definition of an adequate micro-finance legal framework, the total number of employed women in the period 2014-2017 would increase. table 6: the impact of microcredits on the growth of women's employment period of time 2013. 2014. 2015. 2016. 2017. female 978.107 994.107 1.016.107 1.043.107 1.074.107 new female jobs 16.000 22.000 27.000 31.000 source: independent calculations by the authors estimated rise in female employment in the period 2014-2017 will be 1.64%, 2.21%, 2.66% and 2.97% respectively. graph 2: growth of women´s employment source: independent presentation by the authors 64 đuričin, s., et al., the development of micro-crediting, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) the growth of female employment as a result of the opening of new jobs and introduction of an micro-finance legal framework would directly affect on improvement of their socio-economic position. conclusion the decreasing trend of main macroeconomic indicators and growth of poverty led to the growth of importance of improving the existing model of micro-crediting in serbia. establishment of an adeqaute micro-finance legal framework and creating conditions for the development of profitable providers of micro-credits will have directly impact on improving overall smes sector. providers of micro-credits are characterized as profitable because they servicing clients without providing funds from donors or govermental subsidies. according concept of women’s entrepreneurship, the definition of an adequate legal framework for the development of micro-finance institutions would contribute to reducing the gap between supply and demand for microcredit by entrepreneurs, growth of women’s employment and improving women’s socio-economic status. the research results show that improving of environment for the development of micro-finance institutions in the period 2014-2017 year could affect: a) growth of micro-credit supply in the field of women's entrepreneurship by 8%, 41%, 68% and 82% respectively; b) the opening of 16, 22, 27 and 31 thousand new jobs for women respectively; c) increase the total number of employed women by 1.64%, 2.21%, 2.66% and 2.97% respectively. opening new workplaces through the reduction of the gap between supply and demand for micro-credits by entrepreneurs will directly have an impact on reducing the differences between the sexes in employment, and consequently the income levels and economic status of women in society. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) 65 references [1] babović, m. 2012. polazna studija o preduzetništvu žena u srbiji. belgrade, program ujedinjenih nacija za razvoj. [2] babović, m. 2012. prepreke i potencijali preduzetništva žena u srbiji, skraćeni izveštaj na osnovu polazne studije o preduzetništvu žena u srbiji. belgrade, program ujedinjenih nacija za razvoj. [3] beraha, i. and đuričin, s.2011. stanje srpske privrede u poređenju sa bivšim republikama dvadeset godina nakon raspada sfrj, 20 godina od razbijanja sfrj, belgrade, institute of comparative law. [4] doiciu, m. 2014. ppt: market impact assessment: introduction of nondeposit-taking micro-finance institution in serbia, presented at the workshop microfinance for smes. 13. – 14. november 2014 bucharest, business enabling project in serbia, usaid. [5] đuričin, s. 2011. tranzicija i kretanje zaposlenosti u javnom i privatnom sektoru, aktivne mere na tržištu rada i pitanja zaposlenosti, belgrade, institute of economic sciences. [6] erić d. et al. 2012. finansiranje malih i srednjih preduzeća u srbiji, belgrade, institute of economic sciences, chamber of commerce and industry of serbia. [7] gies, d. 2010. mikrokreditiranje u srbiji: da li je (zaista) potrebno?, kvartalni monitor 22, beograd, fond za razvoj ekonomske nauke (fren) [8] statistical office of the republic of serbia. 2010-2014. statistical yearbook of the republic of serbiaseveral years, belgrade, statistical officeof the republic of serbia. [9] unija poslodavaca srbije. 2013. procena okruženja za žensko preduzetništvo u republici srbiji, belgrade, unija poslodavaca srbije [10] usaid. 2012. finansiranje rasta malih i srednjih preduzeća, knjiga preporuka namenjena vladi republike srbije, beograd, www.konkretno.rs/preduzimljivo 66 đuričin, s., et al., the development of micro-crediting, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 50-66) razvoj mikrokreditiranja kao faktor unapređenja ženskog preduzetništva u republici srbiji a p s t r a k t predmet istraživanja u ovom radu obuhvata faktore koji uslovljavaju potrebu za razvojem mikrokreditiranja i specifičnosti finansiranja ženskog preduzetništva u republici srbiji. rad ima za cilj da, u postojećim društveno-ekonomskim uslovima poslovanja, ukaže na značaj razvoja mikrokreditiranja u postupku razvoja ženskog preduzetništva u republici srbiji. značaj mikrokreditiranja se pre svega posmatra s aspekta smanjenja tržišnog jaza koji postoji između ponude i tražnje za mikrokreditima od strane preduzenica, njegovog doprinosa povećanju broja zaposlenih žena i poboljšanju njihovog socio-ekonomskog statusa. rezultati istraživanja ukazuju na činjenicu da bi stvaranje uslova za razvoj mikrofinansijkih institucija u periodu 2014-2017. godine uticalo na povećanje ponude mikrokredita za žensko preduzetništvo u iznosu od 8%, 41%, 68% i 82% respektivno, otvaranje 97 hiljada novih radnih mesta za žene i poboljšanje njihovog socio-ekonomskog statusa. ključne reči: mikrofinansiranje, mikro-krediti, žensko preduzetništvo, mspp, zaposlenost, siromaštvo, socio-ekonomski status article history: received: 19 february, 2015 accepted: 2 april, 2015 16_jwe_3-4_finalna_ver udk: 005.32:331.1-055.2(497.11) 338.48-44(497.11-22) jel: b54, l26 cobiss.sr-id: 227960588 scientifi paper significance of rural tourism for female entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia radović gordana1 “poljoprovrednik”, novi sad, serbia radović-marković mirjana institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t the aim of this paper is to emphasise economic significance of rural tourism for female entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia. the authors consider that rural tourism development could incite female entrepreneurship development as well as that this development could be the factor of rural tourism development in the republic of serbia. direct economic effects of female entrepreneurship which was created in rural tourism and activities relating to it are women’s securing of extra profit in rural areas, i.e. their economic empowerment. furthermore, rural tourism and female entrepreneurship development would prevent depopulation or rural areas and enable more balanced development of rural areas and regions in the republic of serbia. key words: rural tourism, development, female entrepreneurship, republic of serbia 1 e-mail: gordana.radovic09@gmail.com 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) introduction rural tourism is a type of tourism including all tourism activities which can be performed in rural areas. demonja d. and ruzic p. (2010), as well as pancic-kombol t. (2000) consider that the term „rural tourism is used in the cases when rural culture is a key component of the offered tourism product. therefore, according to the above mentioned definitions, rural tourism cannot be separated from rural area. analysis of the available international and domestic literature shows that there is no unique definition of rural area which is accepted worldwide. this is why the definition of the organization for economic cooperation and development (oecd) has been accepted in the european union, with the aim of forming a common criterion of rurality. according to this definition, rural areas, at local level, are those areas whose population density is less than 150 residents per km². as per this criterion, republic of serbia is a dominantly rural area taking that rural areas make 85% of its territory. mitchell m. and hall d. (2005) point out that rural tourism is one of most intensive industries in terms of job opportunities, which represents a potential contribution for creation of new jobs and economic development of rural areas. according to the quoted authors, it is often the most important element in development strategies for rural areas. radovic g. (2015) considers that rural tourism affects the increase of entrepreneurial activities, especially female entrepreneursip, due to the fact that this type of tourism employs mostly women. pejanovic r. (2013) analyzes the connection between rural tourism development and entrepreneurship and concludes that rural tourism development can be observed in two ways, on one side tourism is a result of entrepreneurial activities directed to attraction of tourists, and on the other hand, increased number of tourists in rural areas affects increased demand for tourist services, which affects the increase of entrepreneurial activities at local level.“ hisrich r. d. (1986) regards that entrepreneurship is a process consisting of creation of new values, which takes time and big effort, wherein psychological, financial and other types of risk are taken over and material satisfaction got in return. according to the european commission (commission of the european communities, 2003), entrepreneurship is a multidimensional activity, i.e. it has both economic and social characteristics as well as many other significant characteristics. development of entrepreneurship is commonly associated with development of small business entities. in this respect, small business act – sba radović, g., et al., significance of rural tourism, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) 5 defining female entrepreneurship as development priority was adopted at the level of the european union in 2008. female entrepreneurship is not developed enough in the republic of serbia. it started to develop in the nineties of the twentieth century as a result of the need for securing the existence of displaced families from the territory of former republics of the socialist federal republic of yugoslavia (sfry). more intense development of female entrepreneurship has been recorded since 2000. it is the result of an active financial support of international organizations, cheap start-up loans granted by domestic financial institutions as well as of numerous educational programs. popovićpantic s. (2014) points out that two categories of female entrepreneurs overlapped in the republic of serbia in the last two decades. the fist category consists of the women who became entrepreneurs out of necessity (in order to secure the existence) and the second category consists of those women who see their chance in entrepreneurship, i.e. the possibility of making progress. female entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia is related to development of small and medium-sized enterprises. radovicmarkovic m. (2014) considers that in the last decade serbia recognised that the sme sector is of key importance for economic development. in this context, the macroeconomic framework for the period from 2012-2016 was focused on a radical improvement of the business milieu in serbia. also, radovic-markovic m. et al. (2014a) considers that, despite certain improvements, however, the sme development neither had such a favourable trend nor did it result in improving entrepreneurial activities in a desired manner, due to the recession that hit the national economy (beginning with 2008). radovic-markovic m. and radovic g. (2016) conclude that the effects of recession delayed the work on finding solutions for the major problems in the sme development in serbia. the aim of this paper is to highlight economic significance of rural tourism for female entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia. rural tourism is a labor-intensive activity, employing mostly women. therefore, it has big influence on women’s employment and selfemployment in this type of tourism, as well as in the activities related to it. both method of analysis and synthesis and comparative method have been used in this paper. 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) economic significance of rural tourism rural tourism has economic, social and political significance. boyne s. (2005) considers that economic significance of rural tourism reflects in its influence on: (a) increase in welfare, i.e. economic development of localeconomic community and region; (b) increase of local population’s life standard; (c) social changes in everyday life of the local population. according to the world tourism organization, the biggest economic significance of rural tourism is that this activity helps to eliminate poverty („tourism helps poverty elimination“). roberts l. and hall d. (2003) conclude that economic significance of rural tourism is manifested in the development and diversification of rural economy, especially in its revitalization and reorganization which results in better quality of life of the local population. according to the above mentioned authors, tourist flows can be a generator of extra income on the farm, such as income from traditional crafts and other service sectors. rural tourism offers possibilities to achieve economic valorization of specificities of unused and abandoned houses, characteristic space, culture and overall offer, as well as of production of food of good quality. rural tourism also enables market valorization of cultural heritage and its symbols, nature and identity of rural areas. development strategy should be based on ecological, economic and social sustainability. djekic s. and vucic s. (2003) point out that economic significance of rural tourism at micro level, i.e. significance for local economic community can be described by the term „care“, which implies: (1) job creation (create new jobs); (2) new business attraction (attract new business); (3) retaining of existing companies (retain existing firms); (4) expansion of existing companies (expand existing firms). jing x. (2006) considers that rural tourism generates direct and indirect job possibilities at the level of local community and enables proper distribution of economic, social and cultural benefits to local population. however, roberts l. and hall d. (2003) point out that rural tourism can be relatively „sensitive“ element of rural development due to the fact that: (a) investments, establishment of new enterprises and employment can be limited due to small turnover in tourism; (b) rural tourism requires many skills in order to be successful, rural entrepreneurs who usually don’t have specific qualifications needed for tourism deal with this type of tourism; (c) radović, g., et al., significance of rural tourism, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) 7 rural tourism includes many micro enterprises; (d) tourist season is usually short, which means that income has to be generated, i.e. ’’capital obtained“ within a short period. rural tourism enables valorization of women’s work in the farms as well as creation of new jobs and their employment, i.e. self-employment through female entrepreneurship development. female entrepreneurship development is possible within the activities comprised in rural tourism (hospitality, accommodation), as well as within the activities whose development is causally connected with rural tourism. these are, primarily, old crafts, homecraft (making handicrafts), trade, processing of agricultural products etc. economic effects of female entrepreneurship which has been created in rural tourism and activities relating to it are women’s securing of extra profit in rural areas, i.e. their economic empowerment. furthermore, rural tourism and female entrepreneurship development would prevent depopulation of rural areas and contribute to more balanced development of rural areas and regions in the republic of serbia. rural tourism development there are no official data on the number of registered farm households dealing with rural tourism on the territory of the republic of serbia. according to assessments of the local tourism organizations, serbia has 10.567 beds in rural households and it is anticipated that 32.747 more beds could be used for the needs of this type of tourism. also, it has been estimated that the income amounting to 10 billion dinars was generated in 2010, which makes 16% of the total direct tourism contribution to gross domestic product for serbia in 2010, amounting to 62 billion dinars. rural tourism demand is characterized by big seasonal variations. the average occupancy of accommodation capacities in rural tourism is only 4%, while it is 21% in other types of tourism. (program of sustainable rural tourism development in the republic of serbia, 2011). national association “serbian rural tourism” has the most complete database of rural tourism services in the republic of serbia. this association was established in 2002 by rural tourism service providers and it is a representative of the republic of serbia in the european federation of rural tourism (eurogites). it has been estimated that the national association „serbian rural tourism“ has records about and monitors work in more than 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) 80% of rural tourist households, which had about 200 thousand overnight stays in 2013 and 180 thousand of overnight stays in 2014. also, according to this source, rural tourism was present in 89 municipalities of the republic of serbia and there were 877 categorized accommodations. according to statistical data shown in the study conducted by the authors bogdanov n. and babovic m. (2014), rural tourism is not present enough in non-agricultural activities which are performed in rural areas. concretely, the average representation of tourism in other profitable activities on farms on the territory of the republic of serbia is only 0.66%. speaking of regions, this representation is biggest on the territory of autonomous province (ap) vojvodina – 1.11%, in the region of sumadija and western serbia 0.67 % and in the region of south and eastern serbia and in belgrade region 0.48%. based on the stated data, it can be concluded that rural tourism is not developed enough in the republic of serbia. in spite of good resource base and sufficient number of categorized accommodations, there is continuous income decline resulting partially from the actual economic crisis. also, insufficient representation of rural tourism within non-agricultural activities which can be performed in rural areas is observed. this statement of underdevelopment can be found in the reports of international experts as well. for example, bartlet t. (2006) considers that there are possibilities for greater development of rural tourism in the republic of serbia. rural tourism development would enable reduction of “mortality rate of a serbian village”, as 1200 villages are dying out according to the population census from 2011. the reason of depopulation of rural areas in the republic of serbia is their underdevelopment and increasing poverty rate. rural tourism development would enable female entrepreneurship development as well. this development could be the result of creation of additional services and differentiated products in order to satisfy tourism demand, but also in order to create tourism demand. also, innovative tourist services, which could contribute to development of rural tourism, may be created through female entrepreneurship. therefore, female entrepreneurship development could be development factor of rural tourism in the republic of serbia as well. radović, g., et al., significance of rural tourism, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) 9 development potentials in order to develop rural tourism and female entrepreneurship related to this activity, adequate resources are required. significant resources for rural tourism development are natural, human, social, physical and financial resources. human resources are primary for female entrepreneurship development. for estimation of human resources in terms of their significance for rural tourism and female entrepreneurship development, it is necessary to observe the following indicators: (a) percentage of women in the total number of working rural population; (b) women’s unemployment rate in rural areas; (c) age of unemployed women in rural areas; (d) level of education of the unemployed women in rural areas. table 1: percentage of women in the total number of working rural population in the republic of serbia in 2014 and 2015 rural population working population in 2014 working population in 2015 percentage of women in the total number of working rural population (%) 2014 2015 women 870 064 905 776 48.24 48.00 men 933 681 980 984 51.76 52.00 total: 1 803 745 1 886 760 100.00 100.00 source: labour source survey 2014 and 2015, statistical office of the republic of serbia, belgrade, pages 13 and 18 percentage of women in the total number of working rural population – based on the data shown in the table, it can be concluded that women comprise almost half (about 48%) of the total number of working population in rural areas. it is obvious that total number of working rural population increased for 5% in 2015 in relation to 2014, of which 4% of women and 5% of men. the above mentioned data can be interpreted as the influx of people in rural areas due to migrations from urban areas. this is also a good prerequisite for female entrepreneurship development in rural tourism and activities relating to it. 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) table 2: women's unemployment rate in rural areas in the republic of serbia in 2014 and 2015 rural population working rural population in 2014 working rural population in 2015 women's unemployment rate 19.2 % 17.8% men's unemployment rate 16.2 % 15.0% average unemployment rate: 17.4% 16.1% source: labour source survey 2014 and 2015, statistical office of the republic of serbia, belgrade, pp. 15-18 women's unemployment rate in rural areas – based on the data shown in the table 2, it can be seen that women's unemployment rate in 2014 and 2015 was higher than the men's unemployment rate, as well as the average unemployment rate in rural areas. this suggests that there is working rural population in rural areas of the republic of serbia which is a potential resource for female entrepreneurship development in rural tourism and activities relating to it. table 3: age of unemployed women in rural areas of the republic of serbia in 2014 and 2015 age unemployed women in 2014 unemployed women in 2015 15-24 17 139 19.6% 19 409 22.9% 25-34 25 972 29.6% 26 911 31.7% 35-44 22 744 26.0% 18 252 21.5% 45-54 17 424 19.8% 15 724 18.6% 55-64 4 377 5.0% 4 494 5.3% total: 87 656 100% 84 790 100% source: labour source survey 2014 and 2015, statistical office of the republic of serbia, belgrade, p. 51 age of unemployed women in rural areas – based on the data shown in the table 3, it can be concluded that the biggest percent of unemployed women in 2014 and 2015 is of the most productive working age (25-54 years), which represents a significant potential for development of both female entrepreneurship and rural tourism. radović, g., et al., significance of rural tourism, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) 11 table 4: level of education of the unemployed women in rural areas of the republic of serbia in 2014 and 2015 level of education unemployed women in 2014 unemployed women in 2015 primary school 21 178 24.4% 16 342 19.3% secondary school 54 047 62.3% 55 202 65.3% college/faculty 11 597 13.3% 12 975 15.4% total: 86 822 100% 84 519 100% source: labour source survey 2014 and 2015, statistical office of the republic of serbia, belgrade, p. 51 level of education of the unemployed women in rural areas – based on the data shown in the table 4, it can be concluded that, in 2014 and 2015, most women in rural areas of the republic of serbia had secondary education. in 2014, 13.3% of women in rural areas had high education and in 2015 this number increased to 15.4%. these indicators represent a good resource base for female entrepreneurship and rural tourism as educated population as well as continuous training and education for these activities are required for their development. based on the conducted analysis of human resource potentials, it can be concluded by the method of synthesis that there are unemployed women with satisfactory level of education in rural areas of the republic of serbia who are capable of work and who are of the age convenient for entrepreneurship development in rural tourism and activities relating to it. natural, social, physical and financial resources are required for rural tourism development. natural resources which are significant for rural tourism development in the republic of serbia are: natural attractions, relatively clean air, water and soil in terms of ecology, moderate climate, flora and fauna, thermal waters etc. social resources significant for rural tourism development include: rich cultural and historical heritage, preserved rural characteristics, folklore, traditional handicrafts and gastronomy, treasury of folk customs, old crafts and events which are held in rural areas. physical resources which are significant for rural tourism development are: preserved traditional rural architecture, cultural and historical monuments, museums, galleries, libraries and other institutions of culture in rural areas as well as religious buildings. also, physical resources include 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) public infrastructure and tourist signalization of insufficient quality and quantity. it can be concluded that the republic of serbia has natural, human, social and physical resources and that rural tourism can contribute to their valorization in the market. radovic g. (2015) regards that, for this purpose, it is necessary to provide the required financial resources for each of the above mentioned resources in order to use them for rural tourism development, i.e. „that financial resources are one of the biggest restrictions to rural tourism development in the republic of serbia.“ development restrictions in addition to the lack of financial resources, i.e. their inadequacy in terms of quantity and quality, a restriction to rural tourism development in the republic of serbia is also the lack of development strategy. we are of the opinion that the republic of serbia should adopt a special strategy for rural tourism development, having in mind the effect of this activity on diversification and development of rural economies as well as taking into account that, according to the criteria of the organization for economic cooperation and development, the republic of serbia is a dominantly rural area. numerous problems caused by bureaucratic obstacles and subjective and objective reasons are also one of the restrictions to rural tourism development. radovic g. (2013) observes the following problems in rural tourism development in the republic of serbia: (a) absence of the register of rural tourism service providers and defined standards; (b) lack of association of rural tourism service providers as well as lack of their education; (c) insufficient offer of tourism services; (d) underdeveloped infrastructure and tourist signalization; (e) incompatibility of the number of entities dealing with rural tourism which is provided by law and their actual number; (f) undeveloped tourism agency, i.e. insufficient engagement of tourist agencies in promotion and sale of the rural tourism product. primary restriction to female entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia is the lack of strategy which is directly and exclusively related to female entrepreneurship development. in this respect, the republic of serbia should follow the example of its neighbouring countries, primarily montenegro and republic of srpska, which adopted these development acts. radović, g., et al., significance of rural tourism, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) 13 national strategy for advancement of women and promotion of gender equality, action plan for implementation of the national strategy for advancement of women and promotion of gender equality in the period from 2010 to 2015 as well as national strategy for employment for the period from 2011 to 2020 indicate the significance of female entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia. significance of entrepreneurship development is also indicated in the strategy for support of small and middle-sized enterprises, entrepreneurship and competition for the period from 2015 to 2020. problems related to female entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia are listed in the study conducted by serbian association of employers (2013). according to conclusions from this study, which is the result of the conducted research, it is necessary to improve institutional framework for female entrepreneurship. this implies better connection between ministries and other institutions as well as preparation of the strategy and action plans for female entrepreneurship development. legal reform is also needed, especially labor law reform, in order to promote female entrepreneurship adequately as well as to make entrepreneurship education and training available for women. for female entrepreneurship development favorable methods of financing and awareness of financial support by the state (subsidies) are needed. furthermore, more researches on female entrepreneurship are required as well as adjustment of statistical data to gender sensitivity. on the first conference of the forum for female entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia, which was held on march 30, 2015 in belgrade, a platform for female entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia was adopted. priority assignments required for female entrepreneurship development were defined within the platform. these are: formulating of long-term public policy, defining of strategy and action plan, adopting of systemic measures for improvement of business environment, education and female entrepreneurship promotion. 14 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) table 5: gender, status and region of members and regularly employed persons on the farm in 2012 region farm owners (%) managers (%) family members and cousins (%) regular employees on the farm (%) women men women men women men women men republic of serbia 17.3 82.7 15.9 84.1 62.9 37.1 14.8 85.2 belgrade 14.4 85.6 16.4 83.6 63.7 36.3 14.9 85.1 vojvodina 18.7 81.3 13.5 86.5 61.6 38.4 10.9 89.1 sumadija and western serbia 16.0 84.0 17.1 82.9 64.0 36.0 21.3 78.7 south and eastern serbia 18.6 81.4 15.6 84.4 61.9 38.1 26.0 74.0 k&m - source: bogdanov, babovic 2014, p. 47 there are great possibilities, but also limitations for female entrepreneurship development in the so-called „green economy“. petrovic n. (2016) considers that „green economy offers new possibilities for women, but there is a possibility that they will be deprived from the potential benefits arising from the green economy especially in developing countries, unless the governments act and initiate structural reforms which will reduce gender inequality in labor markets. female entrepreneurship development in rural areas is hindered as women are neither property owners nor farm owners in most cases, which results in their difficult access to financial resources (table 5). based on the data shown in the table 5, it can be seen that only 17.3% of women in rural areas of the republic of serbia are farm owners. of the total number of women in rural areas in ap vojvodina, 18.7% of women are farm owners, 18.6% in the region of south and eastern serbia and only 16.0% in the region of sumadija and western serbia. restrictions to female entrepreneurship development in rural areas are also traditional view of women in the society, absence of strong female entrepreneur associations which would protect common interests and absence of adequate advisory bodies for female entrepreneurship development etc. according to some studies, only 1% of the total number of female entrepreneurs deals with agribusiness. (ekapija, 2016) radović, g., et al., significance of rural tourism, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) 15 table 6: professional status of employed women of the age between 15 and 64 in rural areas professional status 2014 2015 entrepreneurs (non-employers) 61 214 16.6% 48 719 12.4% entrepreneurs (employers) 5 273 1.4% 5 505 1.4% employed women 192 838 52.2% 229 014 58.5% members of family 110 297 29.8% 108 232 27.7% total: 369 623 100.0% 391 471 100% source: labour source survey 2014 and 2015, statistical office of the republic of serbia, belgrade, pages 31 and 33 avolio b. (2011) mentions criteria that should be met by a female entrepreneur. according to the quoted author, a female entrepreneur should have more than 50% ownership in the company, work for minimum two years on a full-time basis in the company and generate majority of her revenues on this basis. also, the company should employ at least two workers and operate for minimum two years. based on the data shown in the table 6, it can be concluded that only 1.4% of the employed women in rural areas of the republic of serbia employs people and therefore they can be regarded as entrepreneurs according to the criteria stated in the previous paragraph by the quoted author. 16.6% of the total number of employed women in rural areas were non-employers in 2015, while this percentage was 12.4% in 2014. female entrepreneurship development in rural areas of the republic of serbia is also limited due to financial resources inaccessibility. in this respect, there are positive examples in ap vojvodina, where guarantee fund of ap vojvodina issues special guarantees for female entrepreneurship development. guarantees are issued to female entrepreneurs and women being establishers of small enterprises which operate less than three years for getting of loans intended for financing of equipment purchase. guarantee fund of ap vojvodina also issues guarantees to unemployed women on the territory of ap vojvodina for getting of loans for financing of start-up programs. 16 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) conclusion and recommendations there is a causal relation between rural tourism development and female entrepreneurship development in rural areas: rural tourism development enables female entrepreneurship development and vice versa. rural tourism enables valorization of women’ work in rural households and creation of new jobs and their employment, i.e. self-employment through female entrepreneurship development. female entrepreneurship development is possible within the activities comprised in rural tourism (hospitality, accommodation) as well as activities relating to it. these are, primarily, old crafts, homecraft (making handicrafts), trade, processing of agricultural products etc. female entrepreneurship development is also required for creation of new tourism services which are the imperative for development of modern rural tourism offer. economic effects of female entrepreneurship which is created in rural tourism and activities relating to it are women’s securing of extra profit, i.e. their economic empowerment. furthermore, rural tourism and female entrepreneurship development prevent depopulation of rural areas and enable more balanced development of rural areas and regions in the republic of serbia. for the purpose of rural tourism and female entrepreneurship development it is necessary to adopt development strategies and action plans and systemic measures for improvement of business environment. within the incentive measures, state support in terms of incentive grant for starting of female entrepreneurship in rural tourism, favourable financial resources (establishment of the specialized agricultural bank, microloan organizations) and beneficial fiscal policy for companies owned by women in the first five years since establishment of these companies are especially significant. measures of economic and fiscal policy should be especially favourable for the companies which are members of a female entrepreneur association in order to encourage their merging. merging is especially significant for applying for the funds granted by european funds and enabling of stronger negotiation with business banks or governmental institutions. for rural tourism and female entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia, the state should show its support by providing free education and promotion of female entrepreneurship in rural tourism as well as by offering advisory services. radović, g., et al., significance of rural tourism, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 3-19) 17 references [1] akcioni plan za sprovođenje nacionalne strategije za poboljšanje položaja žena i unapređenje rodne ravnopravnosti za period 2010-2015. godina, službeni glasnik republike srbije broj 67/2010. 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[33] unija poslodavaca srbije 2013. procena okruženja za žensko preduzetništvo u republici srbiji. beograd. article history: received: 15 september, 2016 accepted: 29 october, 2016 17_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.32:331.101.3-055.2(540) 005.961:005.914.3(540) jel: j16, l26 cobiss.sr-id: 253625356 original scientific paper formative factors for entrepreneurial motivation of women entrepreneurs of jammu and kashmir in india: a case of binary logistic saif siddiqui1 centre for management studies, jamia millia islamia-central university, new delhi sumaira jan2 centre for management studies, jamia millia islamia-central university, new delhi a b s t r a c t various dimensions of entrepreneurship are being explored, among women and men, of both developing and developed nations. innovative entrepreneurship has acquired an indispensable place in the regional development of the nations, but subsistence entrepreneurship is widespread in developing nations like india. it is even prevalent, where innovative entrepreneurship is not common. hence, the determinants of entrepreneurial motivation also vary at both levels of entrepreneurship. this study uses binary logistic regression to explore the impact of various independent variables on the motivation of the 405 women entrepreneurs of the state of jammu & kashmir in india. the empirical analysis reveals that only eight out of fifteen variables used are significant in motivating women entrepreneurs. 1 e-mail: drsaifsiddiqui@gmail.com 2 e-mail: sumairajannn@gmail.com siddiqui, s., et al., a case of binary logistic modeling, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) 29 hence, we propose a model to incorporate insignificant factors, innovativeness and risk-taking into the formative factors of entrepreneurial motivation to upgrade the scenario of entrepreneurship from mere subsistence to innovative so as to ensure regional development. key words: entrepreneurship, motivation, women, determinants, binary logistic introduction and literature review introduction the importance of entrepreneurship in the growth and development of economies has been established by a growing body of researchers (bayineni, 2005), while relationship between the rate of entrepreneurial activity and the economic development in any country can be seen in some other studies (koelinger and thurik, 2012). researchers propose that in order to better understand the impact of entrepreneurship on growth and development it is indispensable to understand the factors, which determine entrepreneurship. various determinants of entrepreneurship can also be found in the work of blanchflower (2004), arenius and minniti (2005) etc. we argue that what determines entrepreneurship is the motivation, which drives individuals to take decisions related to their enterprises. in the success of small businesses, the majority of theoretical models, proposed for studying entrepreneurial performance, have enlisted entrepreneurial motivation as the core factor (blawatt, 1995; herron and robbinson, 1993; oosterbeek, 2010). a comprehensive list of entrepreneurial motivation factors has been given by the researchers like robichaud, mcgraw and alain (2001); manimala (1998); terjesen and szeb (2008), kihlstrom and laffont (1979) etc. which are considered to be determining factors. this list broadly characterizes the factors into (a) personal characteristics, (b) cultural variables and (c) institutional variables. also, creating and maintaining a business is a result of numerous decisions taken by the entrepreneur at different stages. it is not an event but a process where determinants of entrepreneurship are not the same at different levels (grilo and thurik, 2008; davidsson and wiklund (2006); 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) reynolds and curtin (2007). it means that different factors motivate entrepreneurs differently at various stages of their entrepreneurial life cycle. for instance before external institutional factors come into play, it is the individual characteristics which determine his/her capacity and capability to start and remain in a particular business establishment. it could be the individuals’ age, gender, educational qualification, income, occupation of father and other internal driving forces. motivating factors among indian entrepreneurs can be seen in the studies of kishore (2012), vijaya and kamalanabhan (1998) etc. in a nation like india, where the development of women is considered equally important for the regional development, it becomes indispensable to understand their contribution in the economy. what motivates her to start a business and remain in it, what motivates her to take various decisions related to her enterprise, how their competency as an entrepreneur can be increased, etc. are pertinent questions. therefore, the present study is taken to understand women entrepreneurs’ motivational factors as to determine her level of entrepreneurship in the state of jammu and kashmir in india. this study focuses on demographic, economic and personal characteristics. literature review morales, gracia & dobon (2009) proposed a model which suggests the motivating factors of entrepreneurs in academic domain. these include: personal factors, factors in social environment, institutional factors, factors related to entrepreneurial opportunity etc. this model was tested on 152 spanish academic entrepreneurs. the results of this study suggest that entrepreneurial opportunity has nothing to do with entrepreneurial motivation but holds great importance in case of academic entrepreneurs. scientific knowledge was also found to be highly significant in case of entrepreneurial activity in academia. sanchez and sahuquillo (2012) in their study discuss that newly created ventures lead to dynamism in an economy and create new employment opportunities for many. this makes them of great interest to the researchers and economic thinkers. they propose that this formation of a new enterprise is typically a resultant of many decisions that the entrepreneur takes based on certain personal and environmental forces. the study believes that it is this motivation which determines the future success and growth of any enterprise. based on a sample of 101 siddiqui, s., et al., a case of binary logistic modeling, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) 31 spanish entrepreneurs, this study discusses the motivational factors of entrepreneurs driving him/her to start and operate a venture. the results of this study propose that money and being one’s own boss do not seem to significantly influence individuals’ motivation level. robichaud, mcgraw and alain (2001) in their study propose that in small businesses entrepreneurial motivation is the most determining factor for the success of their enterprise. this study proposes an instrument for measuring the level of entrepreneurial motivation with great reliability and content, construct and predictive validity. krishna (2013) in his study discusses the role which the motivation plays in determining the level of entrepreneurial activity in an entrepreneur. he believes that motivation determines the personality of an individual which determines his inclination to take various decisions regarding the venture. this study was limited to 80 small scale units in ethiopia. motivating factors found by this study include: to continue family business, to create employment opportunity for others, giving shape to ones ideas etc. shane, locke and collins (2003) proposed a study which discusses the various motivational factors based on the already available literature including desire for independence, need for achievement, vision, passion, risk-taking etc. the study proposes that the motivation has a great impact on the entrepreneurial process and the decisions taken by the entrepreneurs. the study proposes a model to explain the same. eijdenberg and masurel (2013) in their study on entrepreneurial motivation in least developed countries explain that unlike other studies, the push and pull factors of motivation are not mutually exclusive. it proposes that in ldcs’ pull factors are more important than the push factors and the later also plays only a minor role for entrepreneurs. it proposes that entrepreneurial motivation is a more combined and nuanced construct. laura and robbie (2006) proposed a study which discusses that small and medium enterprises have become very important in respect of the rural economies in scottish scenario. the study is based on responses from 399 scottish smes’. motivated to firm growth is depicted as a minority in the study. those who inherit business are least ambition towards growth of their enterprise as per this study. solesvik (2013) in a study based on 321 students from three universities across ukraine proposed that the individuals who participate in the various entrepreneurial programmes tend to portray higher entrepreneurial motivation and hence are more likely to become entrepreneurs in their future. this relationship between entrepreneurial intention and motivation was however found to be moderated by the individual attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behaviours. taormina 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) and lao (2007) proposed a study based on 337 chinese respondents which were divided into three groups: people who want to start a business, people who are planning to start one and those who have already started one. the results revealed that both psychological factors as well as environmental forces are significant in determining the level of entrepreneurship in an individual. for successful entrepreneurs, the forces in business environment were found to be more determining than the psychological ones while as in case of potential entrepreneurs the psychological factors showed more impact. mitchell (2004) in her study proposes the differences in the motivating factors among male and female entrepreneurs. this study was conducted among 101 male and female entrepreneurs in south africa. motivation scale and open ended interviews were used to collect responses. the results revealed that both men and women were primarily motivated by the need for independence, need for material things and need for achievement. the need to contribute to the society was not found to be a significant motivating factor. male entrepreneurs were more motivated by the need to provide family security, while women were more motivated by the need to keep learning and the need for more money to survive. blais and toulouse (1990) proposed a study on entrepreneurial motivation based on a sample of 2,278 entrepreneurs and 1,733 non-entrepreneurs in 14 countries across 4 continents. the results of this study explain that entrepreneurial behaviour is more determined by a favourable socio-economic and political environment rather than on cultural values. they found common motivating variables among different nations as: independence, achievement, recognition, money and communitarianism. segal, borgia and schoenfeld (2005) in a study on 114 undergraduate students at florida gulf coast university proposed that tolerance for risk, perceived feasibility and net desirability significantly predict the individual’s intention to be an entrepreneur in the future. a new model of entrepreneurial motivation is also presented in the study. vijaya and kamalanabhan (1998) in their study propose that personality characteristics and motivation which were earlier used interchangeably in india need to be separated. a scale to measure entrepreneurial motivation is presented in this study. this study uses a sample of 195 potential women entrepreneurs and proposes five different core motivating factors including: entrepreneurial core motivations, work core, social core, individual core and the economic core motivations. upon reviewing the relevant literature, significant studies were found on entrepreneurial motivation and its various aspects in global and indian scenario. siddiqui, s., et al., a case of binary logistic modeling, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) 33 the review of literature has helped in the identification of the variables which could possibly be motivating women entrepreneurs. the variables considered include: 1. age: decisions taken by an entrepreneur vary with her age. this can be seen from the work of blanchflower (2004), arrenius and minniti (2006) etc. 2. education level: although the relationship between the education level of an entrepreneur and the entrepreneurial activity is inconclusive, still many researchers found a positive relationship between the two including bates (1998), bates and servon (2000) etc. 3. income level: this is suggested in the work of evans and jovanovic (1989), terjesen and szeb (2008), kihlstrom and laffont (1979) etc. 4. occupation of father, husband and brother: researchers like fairlie and robb (2007), hout and rosen (2000) etc. have proposed this as one of the determining factors of entrepreneurship. 5. other factors including: to be a leader; to exploit innate talent and potential in a profession; to attain high social status; to do something creative/innovative; to be independent; to do something that others usually don’t; to make effective use of my risk taking ability; to help people by providing them employment; to get over shortage of money for me and my family were retrieved from the researches of robichaud, mcgraw and alain (2001); manimala (1998); mitchell (2004) etc. research gap in some states of india, unemployment is higher and gdp is lower than in other states. for instance, as per ministry of statistics and programme implementation, the annual gdp of jammu & kashmir in year 2014-15 was rs. 87,921 crores which is one of the lowest in any indian states. its unemployment rate as per 4th annual employment unemployment survey report by ministry of labour and employment in 2013-14 was 4.9% which is one of the highest in india. for these states, including jammu & kashmir, entrepreneurship is the cure. upon reviewing the literature on what motivates entrepreneurs, it was 34 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) found that most of the empirical work is undertaken in developed economies. emerging nations like india are lesser explored. highly insignificant work is done on women entrepreneurial motivation in the state of jammu & kashmir. the usage of binomial logistic regression to identify the impact of various individual characteristics, perceptions, attitudes etc. on women entrepreneurial motivation is completely absent from the literature there. this gave the rationale for conducting this type of study. data and methodology research objectives research objectives are presented as under: 1. to study the impact of various personal, economic and demographic characteristics on the women entrepreneurial motivation in the state of jammu & kashmir. 2. to study the relationship between the various individual motivational characteristics among women entrepreneurs in the state of jammu & kashmir. 3. to develop a theoretical model of regional development by enhancing the entrepreneurial motivation among women entrepreneurs in the state of jammu & kashmir. variables broadly there are two types of variables under study. a complete list along with their encoding is given in table 1. table 1: list of variables variable type variable name coding dependent variable do you feel highly motivated? (binary response) var1 independent variables age var2 education var3 income var4 occupation of father var5 occupation of husband var6 occupation of brother var7 siddiqui, s., et al., a case of binary logistic modeling, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) 35 variable type variable name coding be a leader var8 exploit innate talent and potential in a profession var9 attain high social status var10 do something innovative var11 be independent var12 do something that others usually don’t var13 make effective use of my risk taking ability var14 help people by providing them employment var15 get over shortage of money for me and my family var16 source: compiled by the authors data, methodology and results data the data used in this study have been collected through a structured questionnaire, which was circulated among 450 women entrepreneurs in the state of jammu & kashmir in india and out of these we were able to get only 405 back. so the final analysis is based on data collected in the form of these 405 questionnaires. the sample was derived from the total number of women entrepreneurs currently operational in the state which is 10,700 (population for the current study) as per latest report published by the ministry of commerce and industries, j & k, 2014. using the standard formula for calculation of a sample size at a 95% confidence level and confidence interval 5, we obtained a sample size of 384. this was the lower limit for the sample size but we were able to take more responses and extended it to 405. the primary survey was done from november 2016 to march 2017. the entrepreneurs were selected from the list provided by jammu kashmir entrepreneurship development institute (jkedi), using random numbers generated through microsoft excel. they were asked varied questions with the purpose to collect information on their attitudes, aspirations and other motivational characteristics. these women entrepreneurs are operating from one of the twenty-two districts of the state including srinagar, jammu, kupwara, kargil, reasi, poonch, udhampur, anantnag, pulwama etc. 36 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) the report of ministry of commerce and industries, 2014 provides that 96.7% women entrepreneurs in the state are from kashmir valley, 2.8% are from jammu region and rest 0.5% belongs to leh/ladakh region. we also distributed our sample as per the proportions given. methodology econometric analysis of the effect of different independent variables on the dependent variable has been done. a binomial logistic regression model has been estimated. maximum likelihood estimations are used to calculate the logit coefficients which indicate the changes in the log odds of the dependent variable and pseudo r2 have been put forward. results and discussion results are presented as follows: the preliminary investigation of the data revealed that most of the women entrepreneurs (87.9 %) in the state of jammu & kashmir are highly motivated towards their enterprise. just a small number of women entrepreneurs (12.1 %) were found to have low level of motivation towards their venture. but because of some personal reasons like shortage of money, they were just continuing with it. the variable encoding is presented below: table 2: dependent variable encoding original value internal value no. of respondents % age yes 1 356 87.9 no 0 49 12.1 total 405 100 source: compiled by the authors correlation matrix a co-relationship matrix for the variables is presented in table 3. none of the correlations was found to be high. between motivation and attaining high social status, correlation of magnitude .5 is seen which is maximum in the data available. this suggests that there is no multicollinearity in the data. the complete results are shown in tables 4 and 5. t a b le 3 : c o rr el a ti o n t a bl e p er so n c or re la ti on va r1 va r2 va r3 va r4 va r5 va r6 va r7 va r8 va r9 v ar 10 v ar 11 v ar 12 v ar 13 v ar 14 v ar 15 v ar 16 va r1 1 va r2 -. 24 3 ** 1 va r3 -. 08 0 -. 02 2 1 va r4 .1 65 ** .1 26 * -. 27 7 ** 1 va r5 -. 18 4 ** . 03 7 .1 89 ** .1 92 ** 1 va r6 -. 02 2 .0 27 .0 08 -. 15 5 ** -. 05 9 1 va r7 -. 00 9 -. 02 8 -. 07 0 -. 07 0 -. 04 5 .1 88 ** 1 va r8 -. 11 8 * -. 13 4 ** .0 54 -. 05 4 .0 23 -. 09 3 .0 86 1 va r9 .0 05 -. 08 7 -. 06 1 .1 30 ** .1 01 * -. 07 2 .0 08 . 01 0 1 va r1 0 .5 10 ** -. 20 4 ** -. 04 7 -. 01 1 -. 10 7 * .0 50 .0 99 * -. 05 6 -. 09 * 1 va r1 1 .0 31 -. 13 0 ** -. 04 4 .0 00 -. 05 8 .0 81 .1 81 ** -. 06 3 .0 92 .1 26 * 1 va r1 2 .4 49 ** -. 06 4 -. 04 5 .2 01 ** .1 18 * -. 06 0 . 00 9 -. 01 5 .1 58 ** .2 06 ** .1 18 * 1 va r1 3 .0 85 -. 06 4 -. 00 7 -. 11 9 * -. 04 6 .0 57 -. 01 7 .0 28 -. 01 2 . 05 4 -. 01 8 .0 32 1 va r1 4 .0 37 .0 67 -. 17 9 ** .2 57 ** .1 84 ** -. 02 0 . 05 8 -. 13 7 ** .2 68 ** .0 62 .1 90 ** .0 71 -. 06 9 1 va r1 5 .4 44 ** -. 03 3 -. 11 7 * .1 07 * -. 09 0 .0 44 .0 14 -. 07 8 .0 86 .2 16 ** .0 94 .3 16 ** .0 50 .0 56 1 va r1 6 .4 85 ** -. 17 4 ** .0 07 .0 35 -. 07 5 -. 07 2 .0 40 . 02 0 .0 20 .2 22 ** .0 12 .1 26 * .0 70 -. 03 9 .1 77 ** 1 n ot es : ** co rr el at io n i s si gn if ic an t at t h e 0 .0 1 l ev el ( 2 -t ai le d ). * co rr el at io n i s si gn if ic an t at 0 .0 5 l ev el ( 2 -t ai le d ) s o u rc e: c o m p il ed b y th e au th o rs 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) model diagnostics model diagnostics are presented in tables iv and v. explanatory statistics regarding the model are depicted in table iv. the main results of this study are shown in tablet v. 98% of the responses have been predicted correctly as per the model statistics. the coefficient of determination (r2) for the study is between 0.4480.859 (44.8%85.9%). results of tablet 5 suggest var4 (income), var10 (attain high social status), var12 (be independent), var 15(help people by providing them employment) and var16 (get over shortage of money for me and my family) as the most important predictors of motivation among the women entrepreneurs of the state of jammu and kashmir in india. while var2 (age), var5 (occupation of father), var 8 (be a leader) and var11 (do something creative) are the least important ones. tablet 4: model diagnostics diagnostic measure value model chi-square (df) 240.983(15) block chi-square (df) 240.983(15) -2 log likelihood 57.816 cox and snell r2 0.448 nagelkerke r2 0.859 overall % correct prediction 98.0 source: compiled by the authors upon further analysis we found that independent variables including: age, income, occupation of father, being a leader, attaining high social status, being independent, helping people by providing them employment and getting over shortage of money for me and my family have a significant relationship with the motivation of women entrepreneurs under study. it means that variation in these eight variables leads to a significant variation in the motivation of women entrepreneurs in the state of jammu & kashmir in india. siddiqui, s., et al., a case of binary logistic modeling, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) 39 table 5: regression results: dependent variable (do you feel highly motivated? var1) variables b s.e. wald df sig. exp(b) var2 -1.265* .527 5.753 1 .016 .282 var3 .155 .929 .028 1 .868 1.167 var4 1.350* .634 4.542 1 .033 3.859 var5 -1.247* .521 5.738 1 .017 .287 var6 .235 .366 .412 1 .521 1.265 var7 -.006 .394 .000 1 .989 .995 var8 -1.315* .567 5.387 1 .020 .268 var9 -.168 .227 .545 1 .460 .846 var10 2.259* .534 17.875 1 .000 9.576 var11 -.407 .262 2.412 1 .120 .666 var12 1.216* .329 13.643 1 .000 3.375 var13 .428 .408 1.098 1 .295 1.533 var14 -.267 .307 .760 1 .383 .765 var15 1.095* .290 14.239 1 .000 2.988 var16 1.928* .518 13.878 1 .000 6.878 constant -7.674 5.681 1.825 1 .177 .000 *significant at 99 percent confidence interval source: compiled by the authors the detailed analysis reveals that motivation of women entrepreneurs decreases with each additional year of age. the overall coefficient of age shows a negative but significant relationship with the motivation of women entrepreneurs indicating that motivation is the highest in the early years of age and decreases thereafter. this can be attributed to the fact that with age women tend to settle for less rather than aiming more. same (overall negative significant coefficient) was found in case of var 5 (occupation of father) and var 8 (be a leader). it means that women tend to choose their entrepreneurial career which is in congruence with the path followed by their guardian (father). the reason for negative significant coefficient for the variable, being a leader, can be attributed to the fact that as women seek to gain leadership insights it is mostly in pursuit of power. so when this power hunger increases, their motivation to remain focussed towards their venture/work decreases. talking about current study it was mostly perceived in political terms, so its impact was negatively reported. however, positive significant coefficients were found in case of var 4(income), var10 (attaining high social status), var12 (being independent), var 15 (helping 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) people by providing them employment) and var16 (getting over shortage of money for me and my family). as income increases, motivation of women entrepreneurs towards their venture increases about four fold. also, getting over shortage of money for me and my family is seen as one more significantly motivating factor. it means that with good financial incentives and returns, women entrepreneurs tend to get more focussed towards their venture. it implies that women entrepreneurs if given more financial incentives in their venture will work whole heartedly towards its growth and maintenance. women entrepreneurs perceive their venture as an opportunity to be independent along with providing employment opportunities to others. doing something to raise their social status, get independent and help others by providing employment opportunities is what motivates women entrepreneurs of the state of jammu & kashmir. the results clearly imply that the motivation of women entrepreneurs increases nine fold with their tendency to attain higher social status, six times with money and three fold with getting independent. rest of other variables education (var3), occupation of husband (var6), occupation of brother (var7), exploit innate talent and potential in a profession (var9), do something innovative (var11), do something that others usually don’t (var13) and make effective use of my risk taking capability (var 14) are insignificant as per this study. conclusion and implications of the study the analysis revealed that there are some significant relationships between the motivation of women entrepreneurs and their personal characteristics, attitudes and perceptions. variables including their age, income, occupation of father, and tendency to be a leader, attaining high social status, being independent, getting over shortage of money for me and my family and helping others through employment, impact their motivation. the rest of the variables included in the study, proved to be insignificant. it is seen that their motivation level is high, but variables like innovativeness and risk-taking are found to be insignificant. they seem to be tableting subsistence entrepreneurship, where as innovative entrepreneurship can increase their contribution in overall economic and regional development of the state. siddiqui, s., et al., a case of binary logistic modeling, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) 41 therefore, we propose a model to incorporate innovativeness and risktaking into the formative factors of entrepreneurial motivation. with this subsistence entrepreneurship will upgrade to innovative entrepreneurship, thereby ensuring the regional development/economic development of the state. this model could be used by government and other agencies to enhance the overall economic condition of the state by making the path of women entrepreneurs straightforward. the model is presented below in figure i: source: compiled by authors limitations of the study as this study is survey based, a representative sample is required. the appropriate sample has been taken, but a much larger sample size would give better results. the findings of the study are based on the expressed opinions of the respondents which are subjected to normal errors inherent in human nature. 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 28-44) references [1] arenius, pia., and minniti, maria. 2005. “perceptual variables and nascent entrepreneurship”. small business economics, 24(3): 233-247. 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[31] vijaya, venkateshwaran., and kamalanabhan, thomas. 1998. “a scale to assess entrepreneurial motivation”. journal of entrepreneurship, 7(2): 183-198. article history: received: 3 may, 2017 accepted: 2l october, 2017 microsoft word 11_jwe_1-2 udc: 005;331/02:12 jel: b54; l26; j64 scientific review paper a methodological problem associated with researching women entrepreneurs avolio beatrice e.*, centrum católica. lima, peru a b s t r a c t this article highlights one of the most significant methodological problems of researching women entrepreneurs and understanding the female entrepreneurial experience, which is related to the definition of what is a women entrepreneur. the article outlines the state of research on women entrepreneurs, presents the diverse definitions used in research, conceptualizes the different aspects related to the definition of a woman entrepreneur, and proposes future directions for developing research on women as entrepreneurs. key words: women entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial activity, employment, self employment, methodological problem introduction as a result of the acknowledgement that enterprise creation is related to economic growth and employment, major efforts have been carried out throughout the world during the past few decades to stimulate the generation of entrepreneurial activity (weeks & seiler, 2001). entrepreneurship normally refers to the activities associated with being an entrepreneur (harpercollins, 2003) and although it is a relatively recent area of research, has been one of the fields of research that has expanded the most. specifically, since 1970, there has been a growing interest in the entrepreneurial activity of women in the world as a result of the great *  academic director centrum católica, jr. daniel alomía robles 125 urbanización los álamos de monterrico – surco, lima – peru, e-mail: bavolio@pucp.edu.pe   journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 9-25) 10 growth in business start-ups by women, and based on the assumption that women encounter difficulties in starting and operating a business that are different from those faced by men (neider, 1987). women entrepreneurs have been identified as a “major force for innovation and job creation” (orhan & scott, 2001, p. 232). even though entrepreneurship has become one of the fastest growing fields of research over the past decades, there is no single generally accepted definition of its meaning, and the term has been used in many research studies with varying variety of definitions. the problem becomes more complex when dealing with research that is conducted in different languages and in different contexts, where there might not be a direct translation for the terms used. for example, there is no agreement on the translation of the term entrepreneurship into spanish. some use espíritu empresarial (harpercollins, 2005), empresarialidad (argentina), emprendedorismo (brazil and works carried out by the inter-american development bank) (united states agency of international development [usaid], 2005) or emprendimiento (perú). this confusion regarding terms often leads to the inability to compare different research studies about women entrepreneurs, and thus hinders the understanding of women’s entrepreneurial activities throughout the world. given the importance of a common and precise definition of what is a woman entrepreneur, the goal of this article is to present the diverse definitions used in previous studies, as well as to conceptualize the different aspects related to the definition of a woman entrepreneur. criteria used to define a women entrepreneur in women entrepreneurship studies, there is no single generallyaccepted definition of what an entrepreneur is. the definition of a woman entrepreneur varies from one research study to the other, and the various studies of entrepreneurs, specifically women entrepreneurs, do not exhaustively analyze the different criteria related to the definition of a woman entrepreneur. these criteria are (figure 1): (a) what is the percentage of ownership of a company that women must control in order for the company to be considered womenowned? some studies establish that women should own at least avolio, b., jwe (2011, no.1-2, 9-25) 11 50% of the company for it to be considered a women-owned enterprise, while other studies do not make that distinction. (b) how do the studies take into account the amount of "women entrepreneurs in the shadows," including wives and partners of entrepreneurs who participate in the management of the enterprise even though their names do not appear as owners? (c) should research on women entrepreneurs consider only those companies founded by women or should they also consider companies that have been acquired by women? some studies consider that the term entrepreneur applies only to people who start new enterprises, while other studies consider that the term entrepreneur refers to the owners of companies, without distinguishing the way ownership was obtained (purchase, inheritance or founding). (d) should research on women entrepreneurs include self-employment or must women be able to generate employment for others in order to be considered entrepreneurs? some studies find that the term entrepreneur refers only to employers, while others consider selfemployment a business itself. (e) should research on women entrepreneurs take into account the fact that they are actively involved in business management or can women entrepreneurs simply be the owners of a company without being connected to the management of the company? some studies consider that the term entrepreneur only refers to the owners of a company, making no distinction about the management of the enterprise, while other studies consider that the entrepreneur, in addition to having ownership of the company, should also be involved in managing it. (f) should research on women entrepreneurs take into account the goals of the company? some studies consider that the term entrepreneur should only be applied to people whose goals are to obtain profits and make their businesses grow, and exclude the owners of small businesses created with the main objective of achieving personal goals and fulfilling family needs; while other studies make no distinction between them. (g) should research on women entrepreneurs consider only the formal sector of the economy or also include the informal sector? journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 9-25) 12 figure 1: criteria to define a women entrepreneur research on women entrepreneurs the research conducted on women entrepreneurs is quite extensive in developed countries, especially in the united states, canada and the united kingdom, but there is not much knowledge of women and their enterprises in latin america. specific studies have been conducted, however, of women entrepreneurs in france, singapore, russia, ireland, puerto rico, china, turkey, hungary, south africa, israel, poland, germany, india, lithuania, greece and australia. in order to analyze the main trends emerging from these studies, articles have been classified according to gartner’s (1985) conceptual framework for the creation of new enterprises: namely the concepts regarding the individual, the environment, the organization and the processes. figure 2 shows the map of the literature and presents the main trends that have arisen from the research on women entrepreneurs and their enterprises. the individual aspects refer to the person involved in creating the new organization and include demographic information, background, motivation, working and educational experiences, as well as psychological avolio, b., jwe (2011, no.1-2, 9-25) 13 aspects. the organization refers to the type of enterprise created, which includes its strategy, organizational characteristics, the type of enterprise, structure and the problems faced. the process considers the actions taken by the entrepreneur to start up the enterprise, and includes the identification of opportunities, the search for resources, the construction of the organization, the administration of the enterprise, and the response to the environment. environment refers to the situation affecting and influencing the organization, and includes legal, political, governmental, sector and technological aspects (gartner, 1985). most studies on women entrepreneurs were focused on the individual. the initial studies were devoted to learning about the background and organizational characteristics of women’s enterprises. however, most recent studies consider wider research on the problems faced by women entrepreneurs, their administrative practices, perceptions of women as administrators, their abilities for achieving success, gender differences, conflicts between their enterprise and family roles, and the vision they have for their enterprises. methodologically, most studies are based on surveys and case studies, which are mainly descriptive and use available samples since there are no databases on women entrepreneurs, and they frequently do not associate research with theory. other methodological issues include the lack of instrument validation, the existence of a sole source of information, a tendency to generalize behaviour and characteristics among different types of women (women who create new enterprises, women who take charge of the family business, and differences in age, industries and size) (brush, 1992). despite all these issues, such studies have produced knowledge upon which theories of women entrepreneurial activity are based and are being further developed. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 9-25) 14 figure 1: a literature map of studies on women entrepreneurs and their enterprises main trends some general definitions of terms: entrepreneurship, entrepreneur, enterprise, organization, business, manager, employer, enterprising, self-employment the term entrepreneurship is defined as: “the state of being an entrepreneur or the activities associated with being an entrepreneur” (harpercollins, 2003). there is no agreement on the translation of the term entrepreneurship into spanish. some studies use espíritu empresarial (harpercollins, 2005), empresarialidad is used in argentina, while emprendedorismo is used in brazil ((united states agency of international development [usaid], 2005). the term entrepreneur comes from the french verb entreprendre, which means “undertake” (harper, 2001). the concept appeared for the first time in 1437, in the french dictionnaire de la langue française and it was associated with the adventurers who travelled in search of opportunities or with men in military expeditions (landstrom, 1999). at a basic level, an entrepreneur is defined as “someone who starts their own business, especially when this involves risks” (cambridge individual “the person involved in the organization” motivation motives to start an enterprise executive women who leave their corporations to become entrepreneurs background demographic characteristics family background educational background working and business experience entrepreneurial characteristics personality managerial/administrative skills nature of the business: sector, type, size of the business, capital resources environment “situation that influences the new organization” situational problems specific barriers faced by women entrepreneurs process “the actions the individual take to start the business” business performance organization “the type of enterprise created” role conflicts perceptions on women as entrepreneurs differences and similarities between men entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs administrative practices: administrative style, vision, strategies, conduct with other entrepreneurs female and male perspectives in the process of starting the new enterprise business problems avolio, b., jwe (2011, no.1-2, 9-25) 15 university press, 2008); “a person who owns and runs a business not necessarily a new, small, growing or successful business” (oxford university press, 1998). the term empresario is equivalent to the english term entrepreneur (harpercollins, 2005) or as: “titular propietario o directivo de una industria, negocio o empresa” (real academia española, 2001) [owner or member of the board of directors of an industry, business or enterprise]. from an economic perspective, the entrepreneur is related to a certain degree of risk and is defined as “a person who risks capital and other resources in the hope of substantial financial gain” (oxford university press, 1998). from a sociological perspective, an entrepreneur is defined as an innovative individual: “…entrepreneurship, as defined, essentially, consists in doing things that are not generally done in ordinary course of business routine” (schumpeter, 1934, p. 254). the term enterprise is defined as: “an organization, especially a business, or a difficult and important plan, especially one that will earn money” (cambridge university press, 2008). the term enterprise translated into spanish is empresa (harpercollins, 2005), defined as: “unidad de organización dedicada a actividades industriales, mercantiles o de prestación de servicios con fines lucrativos” (real academia española, 2001) [organizational unit dedicated to industrial, mercantile or service activities with profit-making ends]. an organización [organization] is an: “asociación de personas reguladas por un conjunto de normas en función de determinados fines” (real academia española, 2001) [association of persons governed by a set of rules that are based on specific ends]. the term business refers to: “the activity of buying and selling goods and services, or a particular company that does this, or work you do to earn money” (cambridge university press, 2008). the term negocio translated into spanish is business (harpercollins, 2005) and is defined as: “aquello que es objeto o materia de una ocupación lucrativa” (real academia española, 2001) [the object or matter of a profitable occupation], without necessarily implying an organization. the terms enterprise and business are sometimes use interchangably, but they are not the same. the term enterprise, (empresa in spanish) refers to organizations dedicated to industrial, commercial or service activities with profit-making ends; and the term business (negocio in spanish) refers to that which is the object of a profitable occupation, without necessarily implying an organization. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 9-25) 16 the term manager is defined as: “to be responsible for controlling or organizing someone or something, especially a business” (cambridge university press, 2008). the spanish term gerente or administrador is equivalent to the english term manager (harpercollins, 2005) and is defined as: “persona que lleva la gestión administrativa de una empresa o institución” (real academia española, 2001) [person who manages the administration of an enterprise or institution]. the term employer is defined as: “a person or organization that employs people” (cambridge university press, 2008). the spanish term empleador is equivalent to the english term employer (harpercollins, 2005). the term enterprising is defined as: “doing new and difficult things, especially things that will make money” (cambridge university press, 2008); the spanish term emprendedor is equivalent to the english term enterprising (harpercollins, 2003), such as the person: “que emprende con resolución acciones dificultosas o azarosas” (real academia española, 2001) [who resolutely starts difficult or risky actions]. according to the definition, the term enterprising does not necessarily imply that the initiative has consolidated into the creation of an enterprise. the term enterprising is used in the minniti et al. (2005) studies, who calculate the total entrepreneurial activity rate and define enterprising as “any attempt of new businesses or creation of new enterprises, such as selfemployment, reorganization of a business, or the expansion of an already existing business by an individual, group of individuals or an already established enterprise” (serida et al., 2005, p.5). self-employment is defined as: “not working for an employer but finding work for yourself” (cambridge university press, 2008), which does not necessarily mean being the owners of an enterprise (smithhunter, 2003, p. 14). the spanish term autoempleado is equivalent to the english term self-employment (harpercollins, 2003), definitions used in research on women entrepreneurs the term women entrepreneur is difficult to define as there is no accepted definition in the academic sector or in the common language. entrepreneurship, as an area of study, has been researched by experts from several disciplines, including sociology, psychology and economics, each avolio, b., jwe (2011, no.1-2, 9-25) 17 with a different definition. academic writings use a variety of definitions for women entrepreneurs. some consider women entrepreneurs as: (a) only women who establish new enterprises (bennett & dann, 2000; hisrich & brush, 1986; inman, 2000; schwartz, 1976, smith-hunter, 2003), while others refer to enterprise owners, without taking into account how they obtained ownership of them (aidis, 2002; izyumov & razumnova, 2000); (b) only women who are employers (hisrich & fulop, 1994; inman, 2000; smith-hunter, 2003) while others include selfemployment as an entrepreneurial activity (aidis, 2002; izyumov & razumnova, 2000; voeten, 2002a); (c) women who not only own, but also manage their enterprises (aidis, 2002; inman, 2000; lee-gosselin & grise, 1990), while others emphasize only ownership without taking into account the person who manages the business operations or has an important administrative role (bennett & dann, 2000); (d) women who establish a business in order to obtain profits and growth (bennett & dann, 2000), excluding proprietors of small business, who are defined as “… those who establish and administrate a business with the main objective of achieving personal goals; where the business is the main source of income and consumes most of their time and resources, and where the proprietor sees the business as an extension of their own personality and related to their family needs” (carland et. al., 1984, p. 358). schwartz (1976) defined the entrepreneur as “an innovative individual that creates and builds a business that did not exist before” (p. 47). schwartz (1976) also defined an entrepreneur as “an innovative individual who creates and builds a business from nonexistence” (p. 47), which implies that an entrepreneur creates a new enterprise. hisrich and brush (1986) defined an entrepreneur as the person who “creates something different of value, dedicating the necessary time and effort, taking the financial, psychological and social risks, and receiving the monetary rewards and personal satisfaction” (p. 4). according to these definitions, entrepreneur can only refer, strictu sensu, to a person who founds an enterprise or business. from a wider perspective, it can refer to the ownership of enterprises, regardless of the way such ownership was obtained (founding, purchase, inheritance) journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 9-25) 18 (hisrich & brush, 1986). according to cooper and dunkelberg (1981), a person may also have become an enterprise owner in one of several ways: (a) by founding an enterprise; (b) by purchasing the enterprise from a person outside the family; (c) by family succession, including the purchase of the enterprise from a family member; or (d) by promotion or incorporation into the enterprise by the owners. the foundation of an enterprise implies taking personal risks and the capacity to innovate when conceiving and creating a business, and taking the initiative to establish something new. the purchase of an enterprise also implies taking risks and requires the initiative to find and agree to buy an enterprise, however, it requires less creativity and vision than detecting opportunities or obtaining the necessary resources to create an enterprise. to become the owner of an enterprise through inheritance, promotion or incorporation into the enterprise, implies even less personal risk (even though the obligation, reputation and other personal aspects may be involved), and does not require the innovation needed to obtain the necessary resources to create an enterprise (even though it may require a lot of inventiveness to expand an already existing enterprise). lee-gosselin and grisé (1990) studied women entrepreneurs in canada and they operationalized the term women entrepreneur according to the following criteria: they must own at least 1% of the enterprise, be responsible for at least one managerial function (marketing, accounting, human resources or other) and work in the enterprise. inman (2000) studied afro-american women entrepreneurs in the united states and considered the following criteria: women should own more than 51% of the business, have less than 500 employees, have founded the business (excluding purchasing or inheriting enterprises), administer their business, work full time in the enterprise and receive the greater part of their income from the enterprise. bennett and dann (2000) define entrepreneur as “a person who has established the enterprise as a new venture, where growth is intended, for the prime reason of generating profit and achieving personal satisfaction” (p. 78). to operationalize this definition, they divide the term into three parts: create a new enterprise, guide it towards growth, and motivation. according to izyumov and razumnova (2000), any business in russia is an entrepreneurial adventure due to the lack of financial and legal infrastructure and to the associated personal risk. therefore, these authors use without distinction the terms micro-enterprise, small business, selfavolio, b., jwe (2011, no.1-2, 9-25) 19 employment and entrepreneur, given that in transitional economies such as russia’s, the distinction among these terms is unclear. aidis (2002) argues that the concept of entrepreneur is connected with an innovative behaviour, a situation that may not be present in enterprises at a particular moment in time, and that is difficult to prove; the term business proprietor was preferred in the study, i.e., individuals that have their own businesses and that are actively involved in their operation. this definition does not take into account how proprietorship was obtained, or distinguish between employer and self-employed (selfemployment considers the owner to be the only worker). an interesting approach is the one used in vietnam as part of the project training for women in micro and small enterprises, phase 2 (voeten, 2002a), which distinguishes women entrepreneurs from those involved in commercial activities in order to survive. the document developed a set of criteria to classify women’s entrepreneurial activities: whether or not it is a women’s enterprise; whether women were pushed or pulled to the enterprise; whether or not women would leave the enterprise if they were offered a permanent job; whether or not the enterprise is formally established; whether or not they are ready to pay for training in administrative matters; whether or not they wish to expand their enterprises; whether they hire personnel; whether they take risks or reinvest in their enterprises; whether or not the enterprise and personal finances are separated; whether or nor the business has some kind of accounting record. the analysis of smith-hunter (2003) was conducted according to the dimensions of the proprietor of a small business, and separated the concepts of administrator, entrepreneur, self-employed and employee. for steinhoff and burgess (1989), the entrepreneur is the “person who organizes, runs and takes the risks involved in operating a business” (p. 14). for stoner and freeman (1992) a manager is “someone who has formal authority to play a series of impersonal, informational and decisionmaking roles in a particular unit” (p. 13). for smith-hunter (2003), an entrepreneur is associated with the creation of a new business and they may choose whether or not to administer it. if they choose not to administer it, the entrepreneur will only act as an investor. the self-employed are persons who work for themselves [not working for an employer but working for himself] (cambridge university press, 2008). under this concept, even when the proprietor of the business journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 9-25) 20 is regarded as self-employed, a self-employed individual is not necessarily the owner of a business. to be considered as the proprietor of a business, such business must be established as an enterprise, i.e., an organization that pursues certain ends. individuals who work for themselves and who have not constituted an enterprise are self-employed, but they are not proprietors of a business (smith-hunter, 2003). the employee aspect is closely linked to the enterprise aspect. an employee is a ”persona que desempeña un destino o empleo” (real academia española, 2001) [person who carries out an assignment or job]. while the owners of some enterprises take their income from the business' profits, others choose to assign themselves a salary for their job, turning themselves into employees. taking these dimensions into account, smith-hunter (2003) considers that enterprise proprietors run their businesses as administrators; they risk, invest and create their businesses as entrepreneurs; they employ themselves and, in many cases, they are also employees in their own business when they assign a salary to themselves. "this multi-dimensional view of the small business owner is extremely important because it allows us to look at the complex nature of the various dimensions of the small business proprietor” (smith-hunter, 2003, p. 16). proposal for the definition of women entrepreneur the following is a definition of a women entrepreneur being proposed for use in future research: women entrepreneurs include women (who) own 50% or more of a formal enterprise (regardless of how they obtained the ownership), who are actively involved in their operation as managers or administrators, and who generate employment for themselves and for other people. to operationalize this proposed definition, and based on previous studies (bennett & dann, 2000; inman, 2000; lee-gosselin & grisé, 1990; voeten, 2002a), it has been divided into eight criteria that must be fulfilled in order for the person to be considered a woman entrepreneur. the criteria are: a) a woman must hold 50% or more of the ownership of the business (shares, voting participation or entrepreneurial activity as an individual), regardless of the way the ownership was avolio, b., jwe (2011, no.1-2, 9-25) 21 obtained. this criteria has been established to separate an enterprise that is owned by women. b) the business must have more than two employees, to differentiate a women entrepreneur from a self-employed woman and because hiring personnel is an important step in the entrepreneurial activity. c) a woman must have an important administrative role in the enterprise at the time of the study. d) a woman must work full-time in the enterprise; this differentiates women entrepreneurs from those who do business occasionally. e) a woman must receive most of her income from the enterprise; this differentiates a part-time opportunity from a full-time commitment to the business. f) a woman must be linked to the enterprise for a minimum of two years, to ensure her having a strong commitment to her enterprise. g) the businesses must have been operating formally for two years or more, in order to differentiate short-term opportunities from a long-term commitment to the business; h) the enterprise must be operating formally at the time of the study. the term formal refers to the legal and tax aspects of the business, that is to say, enterprises that are considered legal are those that have legal economic activity, that function as companies or individuals with entrepreneurial activity, and that comply with most of their fiscal obligations, even if that does not necessarily mean that all their employees are formally hired and that the entirety of their sales is formally declared to the tax authorities. the enterprise’s formality can be expressed through the incorporation of a company (by-laws) or through the entrepreneurial activity as an individual (income tax, municipal licence to operate or bills of sale). the proposed definition of women entrepreneurs takes several types of entrepreneurs into account: women who are business owners and run their businesses as administrators; those who take risks, invest and create businesses as entrepreneurs; women who are self-employed but also generate employment for other people and who are also employees in their own business. the definition makes no distinction of the way in which ownership was obtained, nor does it differentiate the women whose goal is journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 9-25) 22 to obtain profit and make their own business grow from owners of small businesses created mainly to achieve personal goals and fulfil family needs. the proposed definition considers women whose enterprises have been operating formally for a minimum of two years, which can be taken as a measure of commitment to the enterprise, regardless of the financial results obtained. it considers enterprises where women are actively involved in an important administrative role through full-time dedication, that is to say, working as managers or administrators of their enterprises, as “someone who has formal authority to play a series of impersonal, informational and decision-making roles over a particular unit” (smithhunter, 2003, p. 13). finally, it considers enterprises from which women receive the largest part of their income, in order to distinguish women entrepreneurs from those who do business occasionally. questions to be posed in order to determine that a candidate for study meets the criteria for the definition of an entrepreneur are shown in table no. 1. table 1: criteria to define a women entrepreneur information question sources of evidence p1 participation of the woman in ownership is it a women-owned enterprise (50% of ownership or more)? if it is a legal entity, verify in legal documents. if operating as an individual, verify in tax returns or from a declaration by an interviewee. p2 formal activities do you operate your business formally? expressed in the articles of incorporation, tax returns, consolidated tax record, tax documents such as bills of sales or invoices, and/or municipal operating licence. p3 employees in the business p3 a do you have any employees? p3 b how many employees? verified by observation by the researcher and/or declaration of the interviewee. p4 time of operation of the business how long has your business been established? expressed by advertising material, rental documents, tax returns or declaration of the interviewee. avolio, b., jwe (2011, no.1-2, 9-25) 23 p5 role of the woman in the enterprise does the woman have a vital role in the administration of her business? verified by observation of the researcher. p6 dedication to the enterprise do you work full time in your enterprise? verified by observation of the researcher and/or declaration of the interviewee. p7 main source of income is this business your main source of income? declaration of the interviewee. p8 time in the business how long have you been the proprietor and conductor of the business? declaration of the interviewee. conclusions the lack of knowledge of entrepreneurial activity represents an obstacle to understanding the phenomenon of women entrepreneurs. increasing knowledge on women’s entrepreneurial activity in the world will help us to understand the phenomenon and facilitate the implementation of support programs to help promote the creation of enterprises by women and to develop a favourable environment for entrepreneurial activity. research to date has not yielded comparative results that can be applied across different global contexts and as a result, the lack of a single generally accepted definition of women entrepreneurs in academic literature that includes equivalent terms in different languages has become a major obstacle to an understanding of this phenomenon. this article proposes a single standard definition of woman entrepreneur that takes into account the different aspects of what it is to be a woman entrepreneur. references [1] aidis, r. (2002). why less? the gendered aspects of smalland medium-sized enterprise ownership under economic transition. working paper. retrieved on december 15, 2005, from tinbergen institute amsterdam in http://www.tinbergen.nl journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 9-25) 24 [2] bennett, r., & dann, s. (2000). the changing experience of australian female entrepreneurs. australian female entrepreneurs, 7(2), 75-83. [3] brush, c., (1992). research on women business owners: past trends, a new perspective and future directions. entrepreneurship theory and practice, 16, 530. [4] cambridge university press (2008). cambridge advanced learner's dictionary. retrieved on january 2, 2008 de http://dictionary.cambridge.org [5] carland, j.w., hoy, f., boulton, w., & carland, j.c. (1984). differentiating entrepreneurs from small business owners: a conceptualization. academy of management review, 9(2), 354-359. [6] cooper, a., & dunkelberg, w. (1981). a new look at business entry. en vesper, k.h. (ed.), frontiers of entrepreneurship research (pp. 1-20). wellesley, ma: babson college center for entrepreneurship. [7] gartner, w. (1985). a conceptual framework for describing the phenomenon of new venture creation. the academy of management review, 10(4), 696-706. [8] harper, d. (2001). online etymology dictionary. retrieved on december 2, 2007 from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php [9] harpercollins (2003). collins cobuild english dictionary for advanced learners (8th ed.). retrieved on december 2, 2007 from http://diccionario.reverso.net [10] harpercollins (2005). collins spanish dictionary (4th ed.). retrieved on december 2, 2007 from http://diccionario.reverso.net [11] hisrich, r., & brush, c. (1986). the woman entrepreneur: starting, financing and managing a successful new business. toronto, canada: lexington books, d. c. heath and company. [12] hisrich, r., & fulop, g. (1994). the role of women entrepreneurs in hungary’s transition economy. international studies of management & organization, 24(4), 100-118. [13] inman, k. (2000). women´s resources in business start-up, a study of black and white women entrepreneurs. new york: garland publishing. [14] izyumov, a., & razumnova, i. (2000). women entrepreneurs in russia: learning to survive the market. journal of developmental entrepreneurship, 5(1), 1-19. [15] landstrom, h. (1999). the roots of entrepreneurship research. journal of entrepreneurship, 2(2), 9-21. [16] lee-gosselin, h., & grisé, j. (1990, april/may). are women owner-managers challenging our definitions of entrepreneurship? an in-depth survey. journal of business ethics, 9(4), 423-433. [17] minniti, m., arenius, p., & langowitz, n. (2005). global entrepreneurship monitor: 2004 report on women and entrepreneurship. retrieved on january 10, 2006 from http://www.gemconsortium.org//download.asp?id=478 [18] neider, l. (1987). a preliminary investigation of female entrepreneurs in florida. journal of small business management, 25(3), 22-28. avolio, b., jwe (2011, no.1-2, 9-25) 25 [19] orhan, m., & scott, d. (2001). why women enter into entrepreneurship: an exploratory model. journal of management review, 16(5/6), 232-242. [20] oxford university press (1998). dictionary of sociology. 2nd edition. retrieved on december 2, 2007 from http://www.oup.co.uk/ [21] schumpeter, j. (1934). the theory of economic development. translated by r. opie. cambridge, harvard university press. [22] schwartz, e. (1976). entrepreneurship: a new female frontier. journal of contemporary business, 5(1), 47-76. [23] serida, j., borda, a., nakamatsu, k., morales, o., & yamakama, p. (2005). global entrepreneurship monitor: peru 2004–2005. lima, perú: ediciones esan. [24] smith-hunter, a. (2003). diversity and entrepreneurship. new york: university press of america. [25] united states agency of international development. (2005). diagnóstico y recomendaciones para mejorar los programas y servicios de apoyo a las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas (mipymes) en el perú. lima, perú: proyecto crecer. [26] voeten, j. (2002a, febrero). criteria to define women entrepreneurs who own and manage micro and small enterprises: working paper 1 in the framework of the project “training for women in micro and small enterprises, phase 2 (twmse2)”. maastricht, the netherlands: maastricht school of management. [27] weeks, j., & seiler, d. (2001). women’s entrepreneurship in latin america: an exploration of current knowledge. retrieved on december 10, 2003 from interamerican development bank from web: http://www.iadb.org/publications/ article history: received: 17 march 2011 accepted: 12 april 2011 14_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.411; 005.32-055.2; 005.511:[004.78:316.77 jel: l26, d54, d85 cobiss.sr-id: 211195148 original scientific research the influence of social network dynamism on business start-up activity: a longitudinal examination of female nascent entrepreneurs redd tammi colleen1 ramapo college of new jersey, mahwah, nj, u.s. a b s t r a c t social networking theory suggests that social networks are dynamic over time. this study examines this dynamism in the context of nascent entrepreneurship. hypotheses tested in previous literature are re-tested to build a foundation for newly hypothesized relationships between changes in social network composition and their effects on business outcomes. the replicated hypotheses from past literature regarding gender influences on social network orientation are confirmed and results show that entrepreneurs who experience changes in social network orientation over time were more likely to have successful business outcomes and were less likely to abandon entrepreneurial efforts. implications for future research are also discussed. key words: female entrepreneurship, social networks, venture creation introduction there is extensive literature regarding differences in social networking for male and female nascent entrepreneurs (renzulli, aldrich, & moody, 1 corresponding author: tammi c. redd, ramapo college of new jersey, anisfield school of business, 505 ramapo valley road, mahwah, nj 07430, e-mail: tredd@ramapo.edu redd, t.c., the influence of social network, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 22-36) 23 2000; greve & salaff, 2003; bruni, gherardi & poggio, 2004). in addition to identifying the difference between male and female social networks, there have also been studies which have focused on the role of social networks in the entrepreneurship process of transitioning from idea conception to gestation (katz & gartner, 1988; reynolds & miller, 1992); while others have maintained focus on the acquisition of resources through social network contacts (shane & venkataraman, 2000; aldrich & zimmer, 1986). an aspect often overlooked in the entrepreneurship literature is the idea that social networks are not static in nature it has already been established that gender has an effect on the type and composition of the nascent entrepreneur’s social network. however, it is important to consider the social networks created by these entrepreneurs may be dynamic in nature, constantly evolving over time; which may have an influence over business outcome. most often in past studies the social networks of nascent entrepreneurs have been examined using cross-sectional data collection techniques (sequeira, mueller & mcgee, 2007). this research addresses whether changing social network orientation during the nascent stages of entrepreneurship has an influence on business outcome. this research question has never been addressed using a longitudinal stand point and addressing it in this way extends the literature by illustrating the role of network dynamism in determining a nascent entrepreneur’s business outcome. the purpose of this study is to examine how the types of relationships used within the social networking process change over time, giving a better understanding of the resource acquisition process and its influence on the success of launching an entrepreneurial venture. to achieve this objective the remainder of the paper is organized as follows. first, a brief summary of past literature pertaining to the social networking process of nascent entrepreneurs and its key elements will be presented. two previously developed hypotheses will be tested to confirm results found in past studies that have focused on gender differences in social network formation. next, newly formulated hypotheses to test for changes in social network orientation over time and possible influence on nascent entrepreneurial business outcome will be presented (see figure 1). finally, the results of the study along with implications for future research are suggested based on the findings of the study. 24 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 22-36) theory development according to social network theory the contacts maintained within a social network have value in terms of the resources they offer as well as their performance (caniels and romijn, 2008). through the networking process entrepreneurs bond and bridge relationships (decarolis & saparito, 2006) that enable them to access necessary resources which cannot be accessed through any other means (aldrich & martinez, 2001). although the initial creation of social capital at this level is just as important for both male and female entrepreneurs, creation of social networks occur very differently for male and female entrepreneurs (stoloff, glanville, & bienestock, 1999; wellman, 1992; salaff & greve, 2004). gender and network orientation: homogeneity vs. heterogeneity social networks that contain multiple contacts from various different functional backgrounds tend to provide nascent entrepreneurs with greater access to a variety of instrumental resources. this prevents the entrepreneur from being exposed to the information redundancy that is apparent in more homogeneous social networks which lack numerous information sources (lin, cook, & burt, 2001). verheul, van stel and thurik (2006), found that the barriers to entry for female entrepreneurs are very closely related to limitations dealing with the family. many females have duties and responsibilities in the home and have the responsibility of most child-rearing activities which can limit them from being in contact with key individuals (dunbar & spoors, 1995). this may cause many female entrepreneurs to only work toward their new venture on a part-time basis, negatively affecting their capability in creating instrumental network connections. social networks formed by women consist mostly of family or kin, and thus are referred to as homogeneous (renzulli et. al, 2000). the social networks of males, on the other hand have been found to be more heterogeneous, and therefore consisting of more weak ties in addition to the established strong ties of family and kin possessed by female entrepreneurs (moore, 1990). there are many possible reasons why this may be, however the main reason addressed in the entrepreneurship literature is family responsibility (skinner, 2001; menzies, diochon, & gasse, 2004). other barriers faced by women are those also related to social networking such as lack of financial support, credibility and status (bruni et. al, 2004). redd, t.c., the influence of social network, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 22-36) 25 hypothesis 1. in the beginning of the venture creation process female entrepreneurs have more family members in their social network than male entrepreneurs. it has also been suggested in the literature that social networks leading to successful business outcomes are those that maintain a balanced level of strong ties and weak ties (greve & salaff, 2003). the strength of these ties is determined by relationship characteristics such as intensity, time, and reciprocity according to decarolis and saparito (2006). strong ties are defined as family members; those with whom you have a very strong relationship and contact more frequently (aldrich, elam & reese, 1995). as discussed earlier, the social networks of female entrepreneurs are mostly composed of family and kin who create relationships based on strong ties. scott (1998) defined kin to include the parents, in-laws, and spouses while weak ties consist of friends, co-workers and any acquaintances outside of the family. although most weak ties are casual acquaintances, they are still very important to the entrepreneur’s social network (levin & cross, 2004) because they often give the nascent entrepreneur access to different resources that may not be supplied by the strong ties of family members (gargiulo & benassi, 2000). as suggested earlier, the social networks of male entrepreneurs contain more weak ties, thus giving access to more information sources and instrumental resources. hypothesis 2. in the beginning of the venture creation process male entrepreneurs have more non-family contacts in their social networks than female entrepreneurs. hypothesis 3. nascent entrepreneurs who maintain both strong and weak ties in their social network increase the likelihood of participating in startup activities. in the social networking literature networks are seen as dynamic in nature and change over time. each contact within a social network offers specific resources that are needed at different times throughout the venture creation process. these contacts are called upon when the sources they provide are appropriate (doreian & stokman, 1997). social networks also evolve over time and as a result the network composition can be adjusted in order to accommodate the ever changing needs of the nascent entrepreneur. the nascent entrepreneur will create and sever ties within the network as necessary in order to acquire the necessary resources at any specific time (granovetter, 1985; kossinets & watts, 2006). 26 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 22-36) social networks provide access to advice, introduction to other contacts, financial backing, and access to services, among other sources of support (decarolis et. al, 2006). nascent entrepreneurs need to have access to several of these resources in order to successfully launch their intended business ventures. according to the entrepreneurship literature, female entrepreneurs face many barriers in acquiring resources to start a business due to limited network connections in comparison to men. women tend to rely more on family members in their social network, whereas men tend to expand their network beyond the family (renzulli, aldrich, & moody, 2000). it is suggested that this may be because women have less opportunity outside of family duties to make connections with established business individuals who may possess information, knowledge, skills and abilities that an entrepreneur may benefit from in the nascent stage of creating a business venture (greve and salaff, 2003; bruni, gherardi, and poggio, 2004). certainly many women have overcome these barriers, thus it must be posited that females are able to overcome these barriers by allowing their social networks to evolve over time. hypothesis 4. in the later stages of the venture creation process, female entrepreneurs have a higher quantity of non-family support sources than in the beginning stages. hypothesis 5. nascent entrepreneurs who alter their social network orientation over time increase the likelihood of participating in start-up activities. methodology sample the sample consists of nascent entrepreneurs, identified as those actively involved in the venture creation process by the panel study for entrepreneurial dynamics ii (psedii) for the 2005 cohort. the psedii is currently one of the largest and richest set of longitudinal data that were collected for the purpose of studying nascent entrepreneurship and venture creation. starting in 2005 several waves of telephone screening and interviews in addition to mailed surveys had been carried out and the effort resulted in a sample of 1,216 nascent entrepreneurs who were not only interested in going into business for themselves, but also were actively participating in activities to launch a business venture. the data was carefully collected and redd, t.c., the influence of social network, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 22-36) 27 organized by wave and have been made publicly available through the psed i and psedii data sets. reliability & validity in this particular study only cases that reported information regarding the use of relationships in furthering their business ventures and reported complete information for two different points in time (time 1 and time 2) were included in this study, making the sample size 683. these specific cases were selected because they reported information regarding relationships with team members on entrepreneurial teams, help or support received from friends, family, and other contacts as well as the status of their entrepreneurial venture. of the 683 cases used in this study 327 were male while 356 females. this proportion of males and females is consistent with the u.s. census gender population estimates for 2007 (u.s. census bureau, 2007). measures when using secondary data, content validity is always a concern. in the case of this particular study, each of the variables of interest is unidimensional and cannot be measured by a multi-item scale (houston, 2004). the variables used in this study are measured by questions, which if asked in different ways, will not change the meaning of the question. for example one question on the survey instrument reads: “how is team member #1 related to team member #2?” the responses available are (1) spouse or partner, (2) family member other than spouse, (3) business associate, or (4) stranger until start-up. if this question were rephrased, it may read: “how is team member #2 related to team member #1?” changing the question would not alter the information collected from the respondent. in other words, there are not a larger number of measurement items that could be used to evaluate this variable. since we cannot rely on multiple single indicators of the variables used in this particular study, using measures such as cronbach’s alpha or cfa tests for uni-dimensionality are not appropriate to assess reliability (houston, 2004). however, we can look at the data collection procedures to give a general idea of the reliability of the measurement items used. the psed instrument was designed so that the questions used were unambiguous. if the questions and responses can be interpreted with certainty, the tendency for error decreases greatly which in turn promotes reliability. in 28 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 22-36) addition, with the release of the data for public use, the administrators for the panel study also introduced a user’s manual which included the coding schemas used and a copy of the questionnaire. the psed manual created by gartner, shaver & carter (2004) gives detailed instructions in order to mitigate errors in measurement and interpretation as suggested in kerlinger and lee (2000). it is also suggested by kerlinger et al. (2000) that “measuring instruments should always be administered under standard, well-controlled, and similar conditions” (p.659). the data included in the psed was collected consistently across the entire sample. the data were collected through a single survey research organization, using the same method at each instance and repeated at the same time intervals for each case. this standardization of procedure allowed for the reduction of error in measurement and data collection, thus improves reliability. reynolds and curtin (2007) explain that the purpose of collecting the psed data was to examine the profiles of individuals considered to be nascent entrepreneurs, the activities involved in the entrepreneurship process, and to examine which types of activities lead to specific business outcomes. the hypotheses examined in this study certainly fall into the scope of the original goals for the psed data collection which lends support to the validity of this study. data transformation it was necessary to transform variables from the data set in order to make them appropriate for the statistical analysis. for example, in order to analyze friend and family relationships among network members, all relationship types were re-coded to 1=related and 0=not related. this allowed for the calculation of totals for each type of relationship in the social network at both time 1 (t1) and time 2 (t2) where appropriate. time 1 refers to the social networking information reported by the respondents during the first interview. time 2 refers to the same information reported in the respondent’s last interview. in addition to the data transformations, it was necessary to create a new variable to represent whether there were any observed changes in network orientation. for this analysis the relationship data described above were compared for both t1 and t2 in order to form comparisons of social network orientation and to determine whether any network changes had occurred between t1 and t2. the changes in network orientation variable was coded for each case as 0=no change and 1=change (for example, changing redd, t.c., the influence of social network, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 22-36) 29 from a homogeneous network orientation to a more heterogeneous network orientation would be coded as 1). results the hypotheses were tested using the chi-square test of independence in order to determine (1) whether female entrepreneurs have more family members in their social networks than males at t1 and (2) whether male entrepreneurs have more non-family support sources than female entrepreneurs at t1. these analyses were conducted in order to test the hypotheses of past literature which have been conducted on cross-sectional data. a chisquare test was also used to find whether there is a significant difference in network composition for nascent entrepreneurs between t1 and t2. this test was conducted in order to address the main premise of this research which is to determine if the social networks of nascent entrepreneurs are dynamic in nature. to further examine whether changes in social network orientation have an effect on business outcome, the results of the chi-square tests discussed above were examined in order to categorize the participants based on business outcome. business outcomes were reported in the data set as 1=running business, 2=start-up active and 3=abandoning efforts. cross tabs analysis was used to determine which entrepreneurs with changes in social network orientation resulted in each type of business outcome. in testing hypothesis 1, a significant difference was found between male and female entrepreneurs in the number of family members included in the social network at t1. further examination using crosstabs analysis shows that females have a higher proportion of family members in their social network, lending support to hypothesis 1. hypothesis 2 also had a significant chi-square result, suggesting that there is a significant difference between male and female entrepreneurs in the number of non-family support sources included in the social network at t1. the crosstabs analysis for this test revealed that males have a higher proportion of non-family support sources in their social network, lending support to 2. the results of both of these hypotheses are consistent with the results of the cross-sectional studies conducted on nascent entrepreneurs thus far in the field. hypothesis 4 tested whether there is a significant difference for female entrepreneurs in the number of non-family support sources included in the social network between t1 and t2. the chi-square results were significant and further analysis confirmed that the proportion of non-family support 30 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 22-36) sources for female entrepreneurs had increased since t1, giving support to hypothesis 4. in order to test hypothesis 3 the network orientation information from t2 was examined to calculate the number of strong and weak ties for each nascent entrepreneur, which in turn, allowed for the cases to be categorized into the three business outcome classifications bases on the types of ties possessed at t2. cross tabs analysis determined that those nascent entrepreneurs who possessed a combination of both strong and weak ties were more likely to be categorized as still participating in business start-up activities. using the results of the chi-square tests from hypothesis 3 in conjunction with cross tabs analysis it was determined that nascent entrepreneurs who experienced a change in social network orientation since t1 were more likely to be participating in start-up activities. these results lend support to both hypotheses 3 and 5, suggesting the importance of a combination of strong and weak ties along with the ability to alter social network orientation are crucial features of the nascent entrepreneur’s social network. discussion in beginning a business venture, nascent entrepreneurs need to gain access to advice, contacts, and business resources. the nascent stage of entrepreneurship is the period of time and the series of events leading up to the official launch of a business venture. it encompasses the recognition of an idea or opportunity and the steps taken to act on the intentions of starting a business (aldrich & martinez, 2001). during this stage entrepreneurs seek out valuable information and resources that are pertinent to the launch of a successful business. the key to accessing these resources is the creation of a social network that is flexible to change which will allow for the acquisition of the knowledge, skills, financial support, and the physical resources necessary in successfully working toward the launch of a business venture. the results of this study have confirmed the finding of previous crosssectional studies pertaining to social networking for nascent entrepreneurs (aldrich et al., 1995; bruni et al., 2004). using a sample from the psed data set, this study confirmed that the social networks of male and female nascent entrepreneurs differ in orientation. more importantly, to build on past studies on this topic, the results of this study show that nascent entrepreneurs who maintain both strong and weak ties are more likely to be classified as start-up active. in addition, those who experience changes in social redd, t.c., the influence of social network, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 22-36) 31 network orientation are more likely to remain engaged in business start-up activities. another contribution of this study is the use of longitudinal data to examine this phenomenon. over time, nascent entrepreneurs are able to accumulate instrumental resources that are crucial to the launch of a new business (hansen, 2001). social networking is the creation and maintenance of the connections that can supply these crucial resources (aldrich & martinez, 2001). an entrepreneur may be very creative, innovative or be an expert in their field, but they may not possess all of the knowledge, skills and abilities required to start a new business (decarolis & saparito, 2006). through social networking, entrepreneurs are able to gain access to and obtain necessary resources that would otherwise be unavailable to them (aldrich & martinez, 2001). through creating new ties, nascent entrepreneurs are able to gain access to information about new markets, where to locate their businesses, information concerning cutting edge products and services. most importantly, social networks are dynamic in nature and the contacts within a network can be called upon whenever the resources they supply are most valuable. these activities that are nascent in nature are crucial in determining the outcome or an entrepreneur’s venture creation intentions. implications for future research this research is an extension of knowledge regarding the female social networking process of nascent entrepreneurs and suggests implications for future research. in much of the literature, as mentioned earlier, we see that there is a difference in the social networks of male and female entrepreneurs. however the literature still lacks detailed studies of social network dynamism for female entrepreneurs. this needs to be examined further in the context of the nascent entrepreneur. first, we need to further examine the effect of changes in social network orientation of female entrepreneurs and their relation to business outcomes. for instance, do changes in social network orientation necessarily lead to the acquisition of different types of support that were not available initially? second, research should assess reasons for disconnect from the social network and how this affects resource acquisition. analyzing the types of relationships which are developed and continued, or even discontinued for that matter, would allow us to better understand which types of support are appreciated most by the female entrepreneur. third, future research must address the possible hidden agenda of strong ties vs. weak ties. we need to examine exactly where family and 32 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 22-36) friends fit into the classification of strong and weak ties: (1) do all family members necessarily constitute strong ties? (2) is it possible for friends to represent stronger ties than family members? (3) is there a difference in the types of support provided by ties of different strengths? finally, future studies can be done to determine whether a higher composition of non-family support sources in the social network constitute more provided help in the form of resources. limitations as can be expected with any research that uses secondary data, this study is not without limitations. it is of a concern that important data may have been lost for the cases that decided not to participate in the second data collection. this is a common challenge faced by most longitudinal data collections. also, those participants who reported that their business has officially launched can no longer be considered “nascent” entrepreneurs, for they have reached a higher level of the venture creation process. a final concern, the $25 gift awarded to each participant for each instance of participation in the panel study may also have caused response bias in the data, based on participation just for the sake of receiving the reward. conclusion this study makes a contribution to the literature in two ways. first, the study introduces the concept of change in social network orientation in venture creation, and second it examines social network orientation in terms of gender using longitudinal data. the findings of this study give us a more detailed illustration of the role of social networks in the nascent entrepreneurial process. the study was conducted with hopes of making a contribution to the study of nascent entrepreneurship by introducing the dimension of network dynamics and its possible effects on business outcomes in the venture creation process. the results of the cross-sectional studies from the past were confirmed and the findings from this study lead us to research questions for the future. support was found for previous studies, maintaining that the social networks of male nascent entrepreneurs contain more contacts outside of the family; that is, having a higher composition of non-family support sources. a significant difference was also found in the orientation of female entrepreneurs’ social networks over time, confirming that social redd, t.c., the influence of social network, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 22-36) 33 network characteristics are dynamic in nature. finally, this study suggests that entrepreneurs who maintain an even level of strong and weak ties by changing network orientation over time have better chances of successfully remaining engaged in business start-up activities as opposed to abandoning venture creation efforts. references [1] aldrich, h., martinez, m.a. 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[36] yin, l.c (2003). „do traditional values still exist in chinese societies?“ asia europe journal, 10: 43-59. appendix a figure 1: research model observed change in network orientation gender network orientation: homogeneous vs. heterogeneous business outcome h1 h2 h3 h4 h5 36 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 22-36) uticaj dinamizma socijalnih mreža na biznis „startup“ aktivnosti: longitudinalno ispitivanje žena preduzetnika u nastajanju a p s t r a k t teorija društvenih mreža sugeriše da one postaju dinamične tokom vremena. ova studija ispituje dinamizam u kontekstu preduzetništva u nastajanju. hipoteze testirane u prethodnoj literaturi su ponovo testirani u cilju izgradnje temelja za nove hipoteze vezane za odnose između promena u sastavu socijalnih mreža i njihovih efekata na poslovne rezultate. korišćene hipoteze iz prethodne literature, koje se odnose na uticaje pola na orijentaciju prema društvenim mrežama, su potvrđene. rrezultati pokazuju da među preduzetnicima koji su iskusili promene u u odnosu na društvene mreže tokom vremena pokazuju da je bilo više preduzetnika koji su imali uspešne poslovne rezultate od onih koji su odustajali od preduzetničkih napora. ključne reči: žensko preduzetništvo,društvene mreže, poduhvat stvaranja article history: received: 1 september, 2014 accepted: 25 october, 2014 16_jwe_1-2 udk: 005.32:331.1-055.2(497.11) 005.963.1 jel: l26, b54 cobiss.sr-id: 222329868 original scientific paper training as the indicator of female entrepreneurship development, and training needs analysis1 semenčenko dušica2, popović-pantić sanja, živković lazar university of belgrade, institute “mihajlo pupin”, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t the paper elaborates the strategic need to support entrepreneurship and women entrepreneurs in particular, highlighting the need for an organized approach towards development of the professional and managerial capacities of small and medium enterprises (smes) in serbia, with a special focus on women owned enterprises. first part of the paper deals with the women entrepreneurship (we) importance rationale, following the presentation of the newest eu policies regarding women entrepreneurship development based on small business act (sba). sba is a set of ten policy principles which form the framework for policies explicitly aimed at the support of sme’s, both at individual (national) levels as well as in the eu. among the 10 sba principles, indicators of measuring female entreprenurship (we indicators) are involved in the first one: create an environment in which entrepreneurs and family businesses can thrive and entrepreneurship is rewarded (sba, 2008). education and training of we, as one of the four indicators, is elaborated further on. therefore, the methodology of the 1 research presented in this paper was supported by the ministry of education, science and technology development of the republic of serbia, under the projects: reg. no. iii 47005, tr 36005, 2011-2015. 2 phd, scientific associate, institute “mihajlo pupin”, 11060 belgrade, volgina 15, dusica.semencenko@pupin.rs semenčenko s., et al., training as the indicator, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) 19 training needs assessment (tna)is elaborated, as well as the analysis of the conducted tna survey results. special focus is given to business performance, information and networking and human resources and training. key words: training, indicators, entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurs introduction through the long-lasting endeavours of the eu in catching up and overcoming their economic rivals (competitors) such as usa and japan, the necessity for supporting entrepreneurship and small businesses as a significant source of job creation, business dynamism and innovation has crystallized. europe did not utterly use their entrepreneurial potentials in startup businesses as well as in self-employment. there are less selfemployed women than men in europe, also fewer women than men start new businesses, establish their own enterprises, or have ambition to do that. women in general choose for their startup businesses sectors such as retail or services, which are often characterized as less important for economic development and knowledge economy. another important distinction is that women have less ambitions regarding business growth. according to recent literature, the recognition of the capacity of women entrepreneurs in global community is no longer a matter of debate (radović-marković m, 2013). support for entrepreneurship and smes development can be multiple and can come from different sides: systemic support from the central or local governments, from supranational and international organizations, financial or nonfinancial (semenčenko d, popović-pantić s, 2014). nonfinancial support besides legislative, administrative rules, taxation laws, mostly refers to consulting services and knowledge and skills improvement through different kinds of training. accessibility of information on available programs of study and training is one of the prerequisites for successful cooperation between smes and suppliers of training, whether they are private or governmental institutions and programs, or non-governmental projects. in order to create links between these stakeholders, it is important to encourage the free flow of information from one to the other. in definition of strategic documents objectives’, such as national strategy on smes, programs, action plans, which, as the main aim, have the increase of competitiveness of enterprises, the first step is improvement of enterprises capacities, and review of their employees’ real needs when it 20 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) comes to education, training and skills development. first of all, it is important to define the priorities of training needs, because in this way we can contribute to finding appropriate training programs for companies, to assist the development of national policies, to have a positive impact on the competitiveness of products and services in domestic and foreign markets, as well as to contribute to increasing the efficiency of the enterprises themselves (o’regan, n, at al, 2010). however, without appropriate analysis and feedback information from the smes sector it is very difficult to prepare strategic document, as well as to develop program and projects which will deal with these issues. this also applies to women entrepreneurs’ training needs assessment (tna). women’s entrepreneurship in a small business act the european commission (ec) set up the encouragement of more women to start their own companies as one of the priorities in sme development policy. behind this approach, there is a statistics which indicates that women constitute 52% of the total european population, however, only 34.4% of the eu women are self-employed and 30% of them are start-up entrepreneurs. it is also stated that female creativity and entrepreneurial potential are an under-exploited pool of talent and accordingly, source of economic growth and jobs that should be further developed (ec, 2012). however, the main challenge of the policy makers that came up several years ago, was how to measure the level of women’s entrepreneurship development. therefore, a set of, so-called, women’s entrepreneurship (we) indicators has been developed, within the small business act (sba). this was because the sba’s first principle “create an environment in which entrepreneurs and family businesses can thrive and entrepreneurship is rewarded” (sba, 2008) refers to the women’s entrepreneurship. in order to put this principle into practice, the commission invited member states to be focused on the entrepreneurial learning and to support mostly women entrepreneurs. we indicators, the so-called istanbul indicators (seecel, 1-2014), were approved by ipa countries, national sba coordinators and dg enterprise and industry in madrid on 1. june 2010. under the sba assessment, we indicators were used for the first time in the 2011, and were published in 2012. in constructing we indicators under the sba, fivestep approach to policy assessment was maintained (seecel, 1-2014). semenčenko s., et al., training as the indicator, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) 21 apart from measurement, five-step approach enabled countries that were involved in the action, to determine the next steps to improve performance. the second generation of we indicators encompasses the following indicators: policy and data for women’s entrepreneurship, training for women’s entrepreneurship, improved access to finance for women entrepreneurs, networking and good practice. table 1: scores for sub-dimension 1.2: women’s entrepreneurship alb. bh hrv. kos. mak. mol. mne. srb. tur. policy support framework for promotion of women’s entrepreneurship 2.50 3.00 3.00 1.50 1.50 3.00 3.00 3.00 2.50 training for women’s entrepreneurship 1.50 1.50 2.50 1.00 2.50 n/a 1.50 2.00 2.50 financing for women’s entrepreneurship 3.00 2.50 3.50 1.50 1.50 n/a 2.50 2.50 2.50 networking forwomen’s entrepreneurship 3.00 1.00 4.00 2.50 2.50 n/a 3.00 3.00 2.50 overall weighted average for 1.2 2.50 2.00 3.25 1.75 2.00 n/a 2.50 2.50 2.25 source: oecd, 2012: sme policy index: western balkans and turkey 2012: progress in the implementation of the sba for europe, oecd publishing the results of the assessment regarding women’s entrepreneurship show that the training provision is underdeveloped across the region. also, access to finance has been stressed as the area where improvements should be made. policy framework should be improved as well in the most of the observed countries, and it indicates the overall political, social and economic conditions for positioning of women’s entrepreneurship as a part of economic mainstream. networking is considered in terms of its contribution to advocacy and policy. it seems that its average grade is among the highest (only policy support indicator has higher average grade), although this indicator varies considerably across the pre-accession region. training needs assessment methodology according to eu small business act (sba, 2008), lack of harmonization of skills will be one of priorities for addressing the agenda of the eu in the future period, as confirmed by eu 2020 strategy. by applying 22 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) certain tna methodology, the gap between supply and demand in the training market in the future could be bridged, because the sme policy will be defined on the basis of data and information coming directly from entrepreneurs and businesses will find what they need on the training market more easily. training is an educational process. people can acquire new information, learn again and enhance existing knowledge and skills, and more importantly during that process, they have the time to rethink and reflect on how the newly-learned can help them improve efficiency at work. effective training conveys relevant and useful information which gives participants information and develops skills and behaviours that can be transferred at workplace. the aim of the training is to create an impact that lasts even after completion of the training. the focus is on creating concrete steps and actions that concentrate the attention of participants in training on the use of new skills and ideas in the work they do. training can be aimed at developing the skills of both individuals and groups. the purpose of a needs assessment is to answer some familiar questions: why, who how, what and when (barbazette, j, 2006). the purpose of the training needs assessment is to identify the required performance and the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to fulfill the job requirements. following the definitions of each type of needs assessment is the common needs analysis term. the assessment should be engaged in research of resources necessary for: meeting the mission of the organization, improving productivity, quality assurance of products and services. it also identifies the gap between existing and required performance. when difference exists, the causes and reasons for this gap are investigated, as well as methods for its bridging and/ or elimination. complete needs assessment also considers the consequences of ignoring the existence of the gap. the result of tna is not expressed in the form of a policy or program, but as a database that defines the measured training needs of investigated groups. this database provides the basis for the development of training and curriculum. tna as a process often includes: an overview of the current state of training, task analysis (new modified system), identification of gaps (which proceeds to training), assessment of training options, training cost-benefit analysis. tna is most commonly used as part of the process of system development. due to the close connection between the design of the system semenčenko s., et al., training as the indicator, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) 23 and the training itself, tna and the process of creating a system are performed simultaneously. the first review of smes needs for business support services in serbia was conducted in 2011 within the icip project (gfa, 2011). intention was to assess smes needs for organized and integrated business support services (consulting services and training) since the beneficiaries of the research results were the ministry of economy and regional development and the national agency for regional development (nard). research has shown that the most important factor influencing the decision to purchase certain services is "legal obligation”, which presents relatively low level of re-use of certain training. according to this study, the main sources of information are clients / customers, followed by: internet, competitors, suppliers and exhibitions / fairs. the formal / official sources of information are generally marked with low grade of importance (including government agencies, nard, academic institutions, chambers of commerce, private consultants). the awareness of the availability of training varies from very high level of training for beginners (start-up) (74.22%) to low levels of participation in research and development projects (47.86%). the second research was the tna of smes in south eastern europe (see), done by seecel (seecel, 2013).this survey is the first tna conducted for the see region as a whole, including the serbian companies in analyses as well. results are of limited comparability, the first reason is that this survey was not gender-disaggregated, and the second is because the sample of respondents from serbia was smaller than it was expected and smaller than samples from other countries. the next study and research done by nard (tns media gallup, 2013) was gender disaggregated. the main objective of this research was to "obtain reliable analytical basis for proposing incentive policy that has been in operation for faster growth and development of the sme sector", while one of the specific objectives was to explore the need for non-financial services. the study included 25550 companies, of which 32.8% were smes owned by women. training needs assessment of women entrepreneurs training needs assessment of women entrepreneurs in the south east europe (see) region (western balkans, turkey and moldova) was conducted in 2013, within the first phase of the project women 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) entrepreneurship – a job creation engine for south east europe (seecel, 2-2014). the overall objective of the project was to improve women's entrepreneurship through the combined efforts of the government and the private sector, while the specific objectives of the project were: a) promotion of best practices in women's entrepreneurship in accordance with sba eu, and b) capacity building of national and regional networks and associations of entrepreneurs. the purpose of the project was, on one hand to create a framework for policies to support entrepreneurs in starting or improving their best practices, and on the other hand to strengthen networks and associations of women entrepreneurs, and enable them to support women entrepreneurs and to better represent their interest. nine countries from the see region were involved in this survey, with intentions of coordinator to collect at least 200 questionnaires from each country. by the end, a total of 1856 completed surveys were used in data analysis. the sample consisted of women who were owners / co-owners of the company, and who in the same time run the company3. an additional criterion was the period of company’s existence on the market which should not be less than 3 years. the methodology was based on a questionnaire designed for tna and adjusted to the demands of research related to the specific population that was analyzed by applying the likert scale. the questionnaire covered five areas: 1. general information about the company, 2. networking and business partnerships, 3. information about business, 4. access to finance, 5. human resources and training. the survey was conducted online between february and may 2013. comparative analysis of the whole sample has been done by seecel (seecel, 2-2014). association of business women in serbia carried out this research in serbia. database which was created upon the response of the serbian part of the sample is the basis for our analysis. response rate in serbia was satisfactory, i.e. slightly higher than planned –in total 203 valid questionnaires were obtained. for the purpose of this paper, analysis of data obtained from the sample of serbian respondents, was done using statistical package for the social sciences (spss). the following statistical methods were applied: descriptive analysis, chi-square test, one-way and two-way anova descriptive analysis was applied as a qualitative part of methodology. 3 more about definition of women entrepreneurship see in (radović-marković, m. 2013), (piacentini, m. 2013) and (popović-pantić, s. 2014). semenčenko s., et al., training as the indicator, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) 25 in this paper, more attention will be addressed to data concerning company's operations, information and networking and human resources and training itself. doing business information obtained by applying the seecel’s tna methodology, provide deeper insight not only into the specific needs of women owned companies, into the demographic profile of the sample and current state of business, skills and tools which they use in their businesses performance. the size of enterprises from the sample corresponds to the general indicators of women's entrepreneurship in serbia when it comes to smes (babović m, 2012), namely a maximum of 65% of companies are in the micro category (1-9 employees), small 25% (10-49), a medium-sized 10.3%. the majority of women entrepreneurs from serbia, participating in the survey (77%), are high educated and / or with master's degree and phd, which is approximately the case in the whole sample in southeastern europe 72.2%, while 49% of employees are of secondary education profile. the largest number of survey participants is at age group of 35-39 and/or 45 – 49. women in the category of 55 years and more are engaged in the manufacturing industry (17%), sales and trading (14%), professional and other service activities (11%) and health sector (11%). on the other hand, young women entrepreneurs are active in sales and trade (22%), professional and other service activities (15%), arts, entertainment and recreation (13%) and manufacturing (12%). women younger than 29 years had the smallest share in the whole sample and almost with the same percentage were women over the age of 60. serbian women entrepreneurs started their businesses in order to become independent (36%) or to take advantage of the business benefits (30%). this data goes along the data for overall see sample where 33% of women started their own business in order to become independent, while 27% wanted to take advantage of the business benefits. nard research also confirms this fact (at their sample of women entrepreneurs). companies generally are not export-oriented less than 30% have clients abroad. the share of the domestic market in total revenue is 87%. about 61% of women entrepreneurs estimated the state of their business as good, and only 6% of them barely survive. this is also confirmed by research conducted by nard, when it comes to women 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) entrepreneurs, who, in most of the cases, evaluated their business positively in the previous period (66%). there is no significant difference in relation to the assessment which is given by men about their businesses performance. women-owned companies in see emphasize that the increase in competition, the need to improve the quality, access to finance capital markets, and attitudes and relation towards work are the most important areas with the greatest impact on business operations. the same order of priorities is in serbia, with the exception of the fourth factor where serbian entrepreneurs emphasize reducing demand for products or services instead of attitudes and relation towards work. the eight working hypotheses are defined in this research paper, with the aim to examine influence of the specific factors to the variables in the four relevant fields of tna focusing on: business performance, information and networking and human resources and training. h1. the business functioning is affected by areas with impact on enterprise. this hypothesis is trying to determine whether specific problematic areas influence the current performance of the company. there are19 problematic are as identified by methodology4 that may affect the company. the mean value of the significance of these areas that has rated by owner/manager of the company was on a scale from 1 to 4. the significance of the aforementioned problematic areas is generally similar, regardless the current financial situation of the company. a statistically significant difference exists in area: government regulations changes. the companies that have “excellent” financial results have significantly fewer problems with changes in government regulations compared to companies that have assessed financial situation as “good” or “not so good”. information and networking when it comes to information about the possibility of financial support to smes, 60% of the serbian women owned companies are partly informed 4 technological changes, innovative product/service development, change in production or market needs, decrease in production/service request, increase of production costs, poor or no marketing, change in marketing methodology, access to finance and capital, need to improve quality, increase of customer/consumer complains, government regulations changes, increase of competition, meeting international standards, attitudes and working behavior of employees, shortage of skilled work forcecompetent and experienced employees, increase of industrial accidents, administrative problems, adaptation to environmental factors, change of top management. semenčenko s., et al., training as the indicator, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) 27 about funding opportunities, and 24% are not informed at all. the most relevant information in the area of financing they obtained through media 26% and from women's business associations 23%. as to using the alternative financial instruments, 40% do not use them at all. among those who used them, bank guarantees (29%) and leasing (10%) are the most common. h2: which sources of information for access to finance enterprise uses depend on sufficiency of available information regarding the access to finance. we assume that companies which have insufficient information for access to finance use different sources of information compared to companies that have enough information about financing. table 4 shows the percentage share of using 5 types of sources of information about financing. results of chi-square analysis showed that there is significant difference between companies regarding the use of sources of information. owners/managers of enterprises who consider to have insufficient information to access finance, use significantly less business associations and chambers as sources of information (table 2). table 2: use of sources of information for access to finance by companies sources of information for access to finance enterprise use sufficient information available regarding the access to finance sig. yes no partly media 60.60 73.50 57.90 0.161 business associations and chambers 57.60 24.50 51.20 *0.002 women business associations 66.70 51.00 55.40 0.361 newsletter and subscriptions 48.50 49.00 31.40 0.054 financial institutions dissemination materials 45.50 28.60 43.00 0.172 according to research done by nard even fewer respondents, slightly less than half, are only partly informed about the state support programs, only a quarter of the respondents has enough information about them, and there is almost the same percentage of those who are not informed. women entrepreneurs are usually, significantly more than men, informed through media (television, newspapers, radio), and then by the internet. women entrepreneur networks are major sources of knowledge about women’s entrepreneurship and are a valuable tool for its development and 28 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) promotion (m. piacentini, 2013). on the whole see sample most common business networking tools are direct contacts. in contrast to entrepreneurs in serbia where the investigation through media is the most common form of networking, at the see average, this mean it is the least used one. there is a significant statistical correlation between size of enterprises and networking tools. the networking tools commonly used by women entrepreneurs in serbia are: 1. research through media, 2. direct contacts, and 3. membership in chambers of commerce and associations. in the near future, more entrepreneurs would like to use: 1. membership in the associations of businesswomen and 2. recommendations of the existing networks . h3. different size companies chose different tools for networking. hypothesis 3 assumes that different size companies choses the different instruments of cooperation and networking. the table 3 presents percentage share in use of different collaboration instruments by different size companies. it can be concluded that there is an obvious difference in the use of instruments for cooperation according to the size of company. a statistically significant difference is shown in the use of the following instruments: membership in chambers/business associations; participation in business forums/conferences/fairs; direct contacts; recommendations through existing network. anlysis of variance in the whole see sample, also indicate that at the p<0.05 level there are significant statistical differences in the distribution of networking methods used, according to sme size [f(2,1855=39.694, p=0.000]. micro firms (1-9 employees) significantly less use membership in business associations, forums, exhibitions as well as recommendations through existing networks compared to small and medium enterprises. one of conclusions could be –as more the company is experienced and bigger firm is, the easier and better approach is approach to the institutions which provide tools/instruments for networking and collaboration. h4. companies of different size have a different attitude toward becoming a mentor of a startup owned / managed by a woman or a potential women entrepreneur. the main premise of this hypothesis is that the attitude toward becoming a mentor of a startup owned / managed by a woman, differs significantly depending on the companies’ size. results of chi-square test showed that the attitude towards mentoring other companies does not differ between firms of different sizes. therefore, hypothesis 4 is not confirmed. semenčenko s., et al., training as the indicator, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) 29 table 3: tools/instruments for creation of networking and collaboration by different size companies tools/instruments for creation of networking and collaboration number of employees sig. 1-9 10-49 50-99 100-250 percentage share in use of different collaboration instruments membership in chambers/business associations 42.70 60.80 57.10 85.70 *0.030 participation in business forums/conferences/fairs 48.90 56.90 71.40 100 *0.026 direct contacts 77.10 64.70 100 100 *0.016 recommendations through existing network 37.40 41.20 78.60 100 *0.000 media search 35.90 29.40 50.00 42.90 0.515 membership in women entrepreneurs business association/initiative 55.00 66.70 57.10 85.70 0.240 women entreprenerus who have been involved in international women’s initiatives have demonstrated a significantly higher interest in mentoring other women in entreprenerurial activities; participation in these initiatives helped them to raise their awareness of the importance of the mentoring process. on the other hand, this group of entrepreneurs would be more willing to mentor a start-up company if this service was paid, compared to those who were not involved in such initiatives. the highest interest in mentoring women start-up entreprenurs free of charge was shown by women entrepreneurs in serbia – 28% (seecel, 2-2014). training only 25% of women entrepreneurs were trained for start-ups before entering into the entrepreneurial world. women entrepreneurs which organized some kind of training for their employees make that by combining their internal resources (employees with specific skills) and paid services training, consultants, seminars and other. according to the research conducted at the representative sample of women entrepreneurs from serbia, the most important reasons for undertaking training are: 1. increase of the quality of services and products, 2. expansion of business, 3. keeping up with new technologies and trends. organizers of training that they choose are usually private consultants. they 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) would almost never choose secondary schools, and very rarely universities and government institutions. the most important training topics are in correlation with profession of the owner and they are: 1. human resources, 2. internationalization of business, 3. state stimulus measures and laws. organizational advantages gained through previous trainings that contributed to the company are: 1. received useful and applicable information, 2. improved the quality, 3. business cooperation and new partnerships. figure 1: the most preferable fields of interest for training according to women entrepreneurs in serbia only 12% of smes in serbia have an annual budget dedicated to training with average amount of 9.9% of total revenue. even 79% of companies in serbia fund training from their own resources. this is why they probably have kept the investment in human resource development at the same level for the last 3 years. h5. the level of importance of training, education and skill improvement in the near future is related to the personal characteristics of owner/manager (age, level of education). in the fifth hypothesis, we try to determine whether the personal characteristics, age and level of education of owners/managers of the companies are related to the perception of the semenčenko s., et al., training as the indicator, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) 31 importance of training in the near future. results of anova showed a statistically significant difference in the perception of the importance of training in the field of leading and motivating. the owners/managers of companies who have a university bachelor degree give a significantly greater importance to training in the field of leading and motivating compared to the owners/managers who have a secondary education. administrative knowledge and skills trainings are more important to young owners/managers up to age of 34 than to owners/managers who are older than 55 years. the difference between owners/managers according to the age is significant only in the training related to the administrative skills. other functional areas of training don’t show statistically significant differences. the most preferable functional areas of training, education and improvement of skills in the near future which should be taken into consideration (figure 1) are: 1. organization and management, 2. information and skills, 3. presentation skills, 4. consumer oriented services. this finding represented the first input for the next stage of the project women entrepreneurship a job creation engine for south east europe, referring to the creation of the training modules and curricula around the region. h6. different sized companies have different requirements regarding training needs. the basic premise of the sixth hypothesis is that the size of the company influences the different training needs. in order to determine this assumption, anova was conducted. according to value significance, we can conclude that this hypothesis is not approved. consequently, the choice of areas of training is not determined by the size of the company. h7. the current financial situation of the company determines managers/owners attitude regarding the needs for training. in hypothesis 7, it was tested an assumption that the current financial situation in the company affects the attitude of owners/managers on the importance of specific areas of training. anova results showed that the owners/managers of sme companies that have a positive profit trend in the last three years give significantly higher importance to the management training and language courses in comparison to owners/managers of companies in which profits decreasing or stagnate. it is interesting that training in finance and accounting is more important for companies that have a positive or negative trend in profit than for companies that have profits without changes. 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) h8. reasons for organizing the training are related to the current financial situation. the reasons for organizing the training can be different and mainly occur due to the internal identified needs for acquiring new knowledge and skills. however, trainings require new financial investments and the current financial situation in the company may affect the possible reasons for organizing the training. the starting assumption of the hypothesis 8 is that the current financial situation influences the decision of the owner/manager of the company on the reasons for organizing the training. anova results in table 4 shows that there are significant differences in the reasons for organizing the training between firms with increasing profit trend and the firms which profit is without changes. companies with increasing profit trend give significantly higher importance to the almost all reasons for organizing the training: 1. remaining in business, 2. catching up with new technologies, 3. expanding the business, 4. increasing the quality of services or product, 5. improving the company image and 6.improving the skills of new employees. table 4: difference in perception of reasons for organizing training, according to profit trend in the last three years reasons for organizing the training mean value of importance according to profit trend in the last three years sig. increasing decreasing without changes remain in business 3.04 2.8 2.69 *0.021 catch up with new technologies and trends 3.2 2.93 2.84 *0.022 expand the business 3.39 3.03 2.99 *0.003 increase the quality of services or product 3.43 3.17 3.02 *0.003 improve the company image 3.23 2.93 2.69 *0.000 learn about the new government/legal requirements 2.69 2.8 2.46 0.115 improve the skills of new employees 3.22 2.73 2.73 *0.000 discussion and conclusions after testing hypotheses, our concluding observations lead us in to the two main directions: semenčenko s., et al., training as the indicator, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) 33 1. women owned smes with positive trends in running their businesses have lower perception of problematic areas. however, they are more capable in networking and information adoption, and more eager to acquire new knowledge: − the companies that have ”excellent“ financial results have significantly fewer problems with changes in government regulations. − companies with increasing profit trend give significantly higher importance to the almost all reasons for organizing the training. − sme companies that have a positive profit trend in the last three years give significantly higher importance to the management training and language courses in comparison to owners/managers of companies in which profits decrease or stagnate, − training in finance and accounting is more important for companies that have a positive or negative trend in profit than for companies that have profits without changes. − the owners/managers of companies who have a university bachelor degree give a significantly greater importance to training in the field of leading and motivating compared to the owners/managers who have a secondary education. 2. women entrepreneurs who have less developed businesses are less self-confident and/or have less possibility to acquire information and knowledge and to approach new networks. more experienced and bigger firm is easier and better approach is to the institutions which serve as a tools or instruments for networking and collaboration: − the companies claimed to have insufficient information about financing significantly less are likely to use business associations and chambers of commerce as a source of information. − there is an obvious difference in the use of instruments for cooperation. micro firms significantly less use membership in business associations, forums, exhibitions as well as recommendations through existing networks compared to small and medium enterprises. as presented in this paper, research in training needs, is a valuable source of information, with significant data about many aspects of current state of training as indicator of female entrepreneurship, in specific 34 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) country/region. in the same time it provides us with databases that enable the creation of policies in the field of entrepreneurship support. according to our investigation, particular attention should be given to the adequate and timely information to smes. smes in serbia rely heavily on informal channels, in their efforts to obtain information and in networking. that is a challenge for providers of business services, private and public equally, to be closer to the companies and to respond in the right way according to their needs. capacities of many potential providers of education are underused, particularly formal education institutions such as universities or secondary schools. training needs assessment studies, and other studies deal with nonfinancial support to business development and strengthening the capacity of smes are precious source of data and ideas for strategies and programs in the field of women’s entrepreneurship. strengthening the capacity of smes and improving the skills of human resources, should not be left to ad hoc organized trainings. education and training system need to become flexible and to correspond exactly to the needs of the labor market, i.e. enterprise needs. consequently, it is necessary to establish a mechanism at the national level that would systematically deal with many obstacles that smes face in their operations, particularly those of women-owned firms. this certainly must be carried out combined with the progress in the accession to the european union, and in adherence to the already accepted commitments from key eu documents such as the small business act. also, the time frame for each of the desired changes should be established in order to create an enabling and supportive environment for business in serbia. references [1] babović, m. 2012. polazna studija o preduzetništvu žena u srbiji. beograd 2012. program ujedinjenih nacija za razvoj. [2] barbazette, j. 2006. training needs assessment: methods, tools, and techniques, isbn: 978-0-7879-7525-8, (pfeiffer), wiley, san francisco, 2006 [3] ec, 2008. communication from the commission to the council, the ep, the european economic and social committee and the committee of the regions. think small first. a small business act for europe (sec(2008)2102), brussels, ec, c2012, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/ lexuriserv/ lexuriserv.do?uri=com:2008:0394:fin:en:pdf semenčenko s., et al., training as the indicator, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) 35 [4] european commission, 2012. report on the results of public consultation on the entrepreneurship 2020 action plan, http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/files/entrepreneurship-2020/finalreport-pub-cons-entr2020-ap_en.pdf [5] g.f.a, 2011. assessment of innovation and competitiveness support programmes in serbia, icip, eu funded project, beneficiary: ministry of economy and regional development, may 2011. [6] o’regan, n, stainer, l, sims, m. 2010. “training in smes and its relationship to profitability.” international journal of human resources development and management, 10.2010, 2: 166-181. [7] piacentini, m. 2013. women entrepreneurs in the oecd: key evidence and policy challenges, oecd social, employment and migration working papers no. 147, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5k43bvtkmb8v-en [8] popović-pantić, s. 2014. "programsko rodno budžetiranje u srbiji – pouke i izazovi.” poslovna ekonomija, god. viii, br. 2/2014. [9] radović-marković, m. 2013. “female entrepreneurship: theoretical approaches.” journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 12/2013. [10] seecel, 1-2014. women entrepreneurs indicators: developing 2nd generation, south east european centre for entrepreneurial learning, zagreb. [11] seecel, 2013. enerprenerurial learning. training needs analyzes for smes western balkans and turkey experience. heder, e., &bobić, m. (ed.), zagreb, 2013. [12] seecel, 2-2014. women entrepreneurs’ training needs analyzes – a systematic approach in the western balkans, turkey and moldavia, ed. heder, e. &bobić, m., zagreb [13] semenčenko, d, popović-pantić, s. 2014. sistemski pristup organizovanju obuka za preduzetnice, xli simpozijum o operacionimistraživanjima: sym-op-is 2014 divčibare, srbija, 2014. saobraćajni fakultet u beogradu, isbn 978-86-7395-325-0, str. 192-198 [14] tns medium gallup, novembar 2013. istraživanje o stanju, potrebama i problemima malih i srednjih preduzeća i preduzetnika (мspp) u srbiji u 2013. godini – kvantitativno terensko istraživanje, izveštaj pripremljen za potrebe narr. 36 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 18-36) obuka kao indikator razvoja ženskog preduzetništva i analiza potreba za obukom a p s t r a k t u radu se razmatra strateška potreba za podrškom preduzetništvu, posebno ženama preduzetnicama, naglašavajući neophodnost organizovanog pristupa u razvoju stručnih i upravljačkih kapaciteta malih i srednjih preduzeća (msp) u srbiji, sa posebnim fokusom na preduzeća koje vode žene. prvi deo rada je posvećen obrazloženju značaja ženskog preduzetništva, i prikazu najnovijih politika eu u vezi sa razvojem ženskog preduzetništva. zakon o malim preduzećima eu (sba) je skup deset principa koji formiraju okvir za politike naročito usmerene na podršku msp, kako na individualnom (nacionalnom) nivou tako i na nivou eu. indikatori za merenje napretka ženskog preduzetništva uključeni su u prvi princip: stvaranje okruženja u kojem će preduzetnici i porodična preduzeća moći da prosperiraju i da preduzetništvo bude isplativo (sba, 2008). u nastavku se bavimo metodologijom procene potreba preduzetnica a obukom (tna). sledeća poglavlja su posvećena analizi i rezultata istraživanja u kojem smo se bavili procenom potreba preduzetnica za obukom, sa posebnim osvrtom na: stanje njihovog poslovanja, informisanost, umrežavanje, ljudske resurse i obuku. ključne reči: obuka, indikatori, preduzetništvo, žensko preduzetništvo. article history: received: 2 december, 2015 accepted: 25 january, 2016 16_jwe_1-2 udk: 005.342-055.2(497.11) 338.43(497.11) 305-051.1/.2 jel: l26, b54 cobiss.sr-id: 222331916 position paper possibilities for development of female entrepreneurship in the rural areas munitlak ivanović olja1 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t the aim of this paper is to analyse the status of women in the rural areas of serbia. from 2007 to 2013 several surveys and other studies have been carried out. unfortunately, these studies made by different authors and/or donors lead to almost the same conclusion that the status of women in rural areas of serbia is very unsatisfactory. having in mind that the greatest number of farms is located in the vojvodina region, the emphasis of this paper is on women in this area. the status of women in the society coincides to the position of women in the countryside. female entrepreneurs are very rare in our society and among all other thing their decision to start a business depends on their level of education and partly on the funds for the realization of entrepreneurial ideas. women living in the rural areas lack the awareness and the willingness to start an independent business. although serbia has signed various international conventions that commit to the gender equality, strategies adopted on the national or regional (vojvodina) level did not experience embodiment in the practice. definitely, this affects the reluctance of women to engage in entrepreneurial activities and the number of female entrepreneurs has decreased between the two surveys conducted in 2003 and 2007. in order to improve this situation there is a need for various 1 email: olja.ivanovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) forms of education and training for women, depending on their preferences, age, level of education and other factors. however, there is a small number of women who are willing to engage in entrepreneurship in the rural areas. potential female entrepreneurs cannot be left to fight the market alone, it is necessary to create business incubators where they will receive help in decision-making and establish special guarantee funds. we used different research methods: desk research, analysis of survey previously conducted on a representative sample of female entrepreneurs and managers and qualitative research. the importance of this paper is reflected in the fact that number of surveys with the same theme of female entrepreneurship performed by various authors and donors in different time periods were analysed and compared and they point out to the altered behaviour of female entrepreneurs and managers. namely, the female entrepreneurship in serbia is in a worse position today than it was before 2007. key words: entrepreneurship, gender equality, rural development, female entrepreneurs, social development, sustainable society, population of woman in the rural areas introduction entrepreneurship is one of the major characteristic of modern business that directly affects economic growth and therefore female entrepreneurship is especially interesting field of research (gill & ganesh, 2007). up to the 80s of 20 century, the phenomenon of female entrepreneurship as a actuality of the modern era received little attention (weeks & seiler, 2001). regardless of gender identity, universal determinants influence entrepreneurial behaviour such as the characteristics of the economic structure that has the same effect on the willingness to start business or to make entrepreneurial decision (aidis et al. 2007). the fact that male entrepreneurship is considerably more prevalent in commercial structures points out to the “asymmetry” of universal factors and gender inequality when it comes to entrepreneurship. female entrepreneurship is still closely linked with the family duties that are considered as women's obligation, despite the trend to establish a system of family values, so called, “responsible parenting” where both women and men have an equal role (penezić, 2009: 414-423). the motives that drive women into entrepreneurial venture can be understood as (buvač 1990): “the need for independence; desire to control own working hours; a business opportunity that is identified on the basis of past business experience; desire for active participation and proving in social life; the need to prove and demonstrate munitlak ivanović, o., opportunities for rural, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) 81 own values to the partner (especially in areas where entrepreneurship is “male activity”) and frequent discrimination of women business skills, who are primarily perceived as housewives." studies conducted in serbia in 2011 and 2014 (babovic, 2014: 48-62) “show the decrease in the number of independent female entrepreneurs”. the data indicate that these are predominantly middle-aged women. this study also showed the difference between female managers and female entrepreneurs, based on the level of their education or ownership. female entrepreneurs tend to have a high school, while female manager have graduated degree. female entrepreneurs are mostly owners or co-owners and general managers of the company, while female managers are in the top managerial positions, but do not have ownership. female managers in addition to basic professional knowledge also have the additional skills: they know foreign languages, have computer skills, use computers, have driving licence, while female entrepreneurs, especially those that have begun to engage in entrepreneurship after 2011, have knowledge of the specific craft skills. female entrepreneurs usually manage micro-businesses, do not have the tradition of entrepreneurship in the family, operate in the local markets for various services and often started their business “out of necessity” or due to the inability to find a job in the labour market (radović marković, 2015). female entrepreneurs are mostly represented in the belgrade region and in the region of šumadija and western serbia (babovic, 2014: 48-62). even from these data we can conclude that although there are a number of different rural female organizations and associations, unfortunately entrepreneurial spirit in vojvodina is much lower than in central serbia. having in mind that rural female entrepreneurship in vojvodina is neglected and it is at a low level, we concentrated to explore this phenomenon in this research. literature overview female entrepreneurship is an area that has become interesting to the theoreticians at the end of the twentieth century (weeks & seiler, 2001), since entrepreneurship, as any other newer business area, is considered “male” activity. this “asymmetry” that is dominant in the literature and in real-life was considered to be completely natural for a long time (penezić, 2009: 414-423) because women have household responsibilities. self82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) awareness in women and the development of society led to the higher participation of woman in the business activities and consequently in entrepreneurship (buvač, 1990). the author of this paper has gained the impression that in our literature this issue is mainly analysed by female authors, as can be seen in this chapter or by checking the references. several surveys have repeatedly been carried out, in order to create a realistic picture of the number and the position of female entrepreneurs in serbia, (blagojevic, 2010; babović & lukovic, 2008; babovic, 2014; blagojevjić houston 2013). these studies have shown that women opt for micro-business that they usually engage in entrepreneurship “out of necessity” or due to the impossibility to find a job in the labour market (radović marković, 2015). certain authors even distinguish between female managers and female entrepreneurs, where the basis for the division is ownership and the level of education (babović, 2014), which means that the “necessity and compulsion” may not be a requirement for starting entrepreneurial ventures. surveys and theoretical studies have shown that the situation of women who want to engage in entrepreneurial work in the rural area is more difficult (blagojevic, 2010; babović & lukovic, 2008; blagojevic houston, 2013). international law and the documents used as a theoretical basis for practical action on gender equality such as the cedaw convention that our country signed and that protect women especially in rural areas, unfortunately, do not give results in practice (http://www.region.vojvodina.gov.rs). national strategy for improving and promoting gender equality in the republic of serbia for the 2009-2015 as the document that serves as the basis for the operation in practice usually did not gave results (http://www.gendernet.rs/). fifty percent of the women in the rural area are solely engaged in the agricultural activities and by the development of technology and consciousness different rural female associations are being created and internet sites have been established (blagojevic, 2008; http://www.zenenaselu.org/; http: //www.region.vojvodina .gov.rs; http://www.gendernet.rs/) theoretical research and the real life, unfortunately, suggest that serbia is in the group of less developed countries http://www.ssfindex.com/, and that the index of a sustainable society could be higher in many areas. regardless of how the wealth and the welfare of society or individuals is measures and what modern indicator are used (munitlak ivanović, 2005; munitlak ivanović, 2012; munitlak ivanovic et al., 2014), the average munitlak ivanović, o., opportunities for rural, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) 83 citizen of serbia lives a relatively difficult life, but the situation of women in the rural areas, especially those that run or are engaged in entrepreneurial activities is more difficult and their number is decreasing (marija babović, 2014). the wealth of the society and social development as a prerequisite for fender equality according to majority economic theoretician gross domestic product gdp is the most common macroeconomic indicator of social development and social wealth. this indicator, created in the thirties of xx century, traditionally quantifies the wealth of society, aggregated or per capita inhabitants'. however, there is the question regarding the methodology of measuring economic and all other forms of wealth in a society (munitlak ivanovic et al., 2014). meanwhile, practitioners sought to find different ways to measure the wealth of a society or economic and social development. basically, gdp does not measure non-monetized effect and that is the quality of life. the so-called “well-being that goes beyond gdp” refers to other social aspects of economic activity (munitlak ivanović, 2012: 49-62). un terminology introduces the term “human development” that is related to the quality of life at the micro level and at the level of the family, but also at the level of gender equality. this is the reason why inadequately informed individuals identify the concepts of “sustainable development” and ecology, but they do not recognize other subsystems of the concept of “sustainable development”: economic and social subsystem that includes the issue of gender equality (munitlak ivanović, 2005: 87-116). as we can see the economic growth itself is not, nor should it be, a goal, because if it does not show the quality of life of the population of both genders at the micro level, this indicator has no purpose. as an attempt to expand the gdp per capita index, the organization “redefining progress” created the indicator genuine progress indicator -gpi as an alternative to gdp (anielski, 2001). it is interesting that the gpi was in the stage of stagnation in the territory of the usa in the seventies of the xx century until 2004, while the gdp had a trend of growth in this period. in order to analyse the state of human development, human development index hdi includes more indicators than gdp, since in addition to income it evaluates the health of the population, education, the 84 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) freedom of activity and expression, the quality of environment, the adult literacy rate, the life expectancy at birth and the real gross national product per capita (munitlak ivanović, 2005: 42-44). however, neither the hdi is not an indicator of absolute level of the human development, but it allows comparisons between countries according to the performance in achieving a certain level of development. the important fact for this paper is also the development of other indicators that measure gender inequality: since 1995 gender-related development index gdi and the gender empowerment measure – gem were developed. the difference between the hdi and gdi are that gdi takes into account the differences between men and women, and it has a declining value if gender differences are growing and vice versa. on the other hand, the gem index explores the intensity of progress of women status in political and economic spheres of life. at the beginning of twentieth century there was a need for finding new indicators and so-called “measurement revolution” happened (blagojevjić houston, 2013: 29-33). economists and sociologists hold the position that it is necessary to create different indicators to measure the development that take into the account the value and condition of happiness, well-being and the whole concept of sustainable development. sustainable society foundation proposed and presented an index that measures the quality of life and sustainability, but also takes into the account gender equality. sustainable prosperity is measured by the index of a sustainable society ssi. this index is used to measure the quality of the society sustainability in 90% of the world population and it is applied in 151 countries and is regularly monitored since 2006. figure 1 represents global values of the factors rated on a scale from 1 to 10. analysed factors are indicative because they show the development of dimensions that can be and should be measured. the outer circle of the chart represents a full sustainability and maximum value of 10, while the inner circle of the network indicates the lowest value of 1, and thus shows where there is a lack of sustainability. munitlak ivanović, o., opportunities for rural, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) 85 figure 1: sustainable society index for 2014 an average value source: http://www.ssfindex.com/ssi2014/wp-content/uploads/pdf/ssi2014.pdf according to the non-profit organization that conducts these research in serbia since 2006, the ssi values are represented at the figure 2. figure 2: sustainable society index for 2014 average values in serbia source: http://www.ssfindex.com/ 86 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) figure 2 shows that the value of organic farming is equal to 0 and that the value of the gender equality is equal to 7. since the area of organic farming is practically non-existent according to the index, the value of the gender equality is not satisfactory, and the value of sufficient food has a maximum value of 10, there is the question of the status of women in the rural areas, in other words there is the question of the role of women in rural entrepreneurship. the institutional framework the current state the united nations campaign introduced in 2008 declared the 15th october as the international day of rural women. this contributed to the growth of visibility and importance of the role of women in the rural entrepreneurial development. since 2009, this day is celebrated in ap vojvodina. this united nations campaign has prompted a variety of activities at the provincial level. provincial secretariat for economy, employment and gender equality and the gender equality institute had a huge contribution in this movement and its activities. these institutions have set the goal of promoting the potential of rural women, encouraging their active approach to development of entrepreneurship, networking in various organizations, in order to increase their employment opportunities. practice has shown that these efforts are not even enough because women in the rural area remain marginalized groups, whose resources and potentials are neither recognized nor exploited. generally speaking, the position of women in society as a whole, is dependent on the status of women in the rural areas and by their possibility to engage in entrepreneurship. however, in this case we must take into account that the life of women in the rural areas is burdened with additional features of their everyday life: customs, culture and other social, demographic and economic issues. international law and documents related to gender equality (eg. cedaw convention), give special attention to the women living in the rural areas. according to the article 14 of this convention, participating states are obliged to improve the position women in the rural areas. other international documents such as the millennium development goals that government of serbia adopted in 2006 also point out to the fact that there cannot be rural development, if women and their potential are not included in the strategy and policy at all levels. however, such policies should be adapted to the economic and social context of the position of women on a munitlak ivanović, o., opportunities for rural, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) 87 case-by-case basis, where there is an emphasis on the rural areas and on the development of female entrepreneurship of women living in the rural areas. as it was aware of these limitations and deficiencies of own efforts to improve the situation of women in the rural area, the government of ap vojvodina decided to take additional action in order to include the needs of these marginalized groups into the provincial policies and programs. accordingly, the regional bureau for gender equality began to conduct various researches in 2007 to gain a realistic picture of the life and status of women in vojvodina. data on the female rural organizations have been collected in the first survey in 2007. in 2009 more extensive research was conducted that covered other aspects of daily life of women in the rural areas and thus provided data on the demographic structure of women in the rural areas, their needs and capabilities, as well as data on the socioeconomic situation of the observed population. the purpose of the research was to exploit potential and resources of women from the rural areas and to make them visible from marginalized and unrecognized category. the government of ap vojvodina has adopted the strategy and action plan to improve the economic status of rural women in vojvodina in 2013. this enabled financial support and initial activities to assist women in the rural areas in the further emancipation, entrepreneurship and participation in policy-making for rural development from the local to the provincial level. however in a very important document -ap vojvodina development programme 2014-2020. (http://www.region.vojvodina.gov.rs)only 11 main directions of development were defined. the position of women in agriculture or any other area was not considered and their capabilities were not built into the program development, as well as mechanisms for the realization of gender equality. in areas relating to ecology, agro-activities, entrepreneurship, demographics and social development, the position of women was not specifically considered. at the state level, during 2009 the government of the republic of serbia adopted the national strategy for improving the position of women and promoting gender equality for the period 2009-2015 (http://www.gendernet.rs/). although the goals of the strategy were set ambitious: increasing the participation of women in decision-making processes and the achievement of gender equality; improving the economic situation of women and achieving gender equality; achieving gender equality in education; improving the health of women and promoting gender equality in health policy; preventing and combating violence against women 88 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) and improvement of the protection of victims and the elimination of gender stereotypes in the media and the promotion of gender equality, little has been implemented in practice. economic empowerment of women was not realized due to the generally poor economic situation. in this situation when compared to men, women are the first to lose their jobs. gender equality is achieved only where this is regulated by law, such as share of women in parliament (30%). unfortunately, women's health has not been improved. if we look at only one female malignant disease, cervical cancer, the official data are devastating. on average each day in serbia four women are diagnosed and one woman dies from this malignant but treatable disease (zavod za javno zdravlje sombor, 2013). there is still no adequate law, which in real terms and in practice protects women victims of violence. safe houses are shortterm and temporary solution. in this respect, the mortality rate of women is extremely high, because one in three women is a victim of domestic violence. in times of economic crisis, this kind of violence is growing but the responsible state authorities have no funds to explore this dangerous social phenomenon, so accurate data on the number of vulnerable women and children does not exist. when looking at the success of the national strategy for improving the position of women and promoting gender equality for the period 2009-2015, the conclusion is that only few objectives were implemented in the practice. in addition to the chronic lack of money, due to the economic problems, substantial lack of interest in resolving the issue of the status of women is dominantly present, although formally speaking, because of the eu requests it exists. the status of women in rural areas of vojvodina this part of the paper analyses the results of surveys and publications that are directly or indirectly related to the projects funded from the budget of ap vojvodina and the institute for gender equality. the central theme of the projects was the status of women in the rural areas of vojvodina and development of the strategy for improving the position of women in rural vojvodina, taking into account gender sensitivity in serbian agriculture, with a goal to create recommendations and to improve the status of women (blagojevic, 2010; babović & lukovic, 2008; blagojevic houston, 2013). the survey was conducted in 2009 on the territory of ap vojvodina with the sample of 794 women from developed and developing municipalities munitlak ivanović, o., opportunities for rural, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) 89 (blagojevic, 2010). extended survey from 2013 referred to the republic of serbia, including the ap vovjodina and the sample consisted of men and women (blagojevic houston, 2013; babović, 2014). basically, since 2013 data did not changed significantly and there were no subsequent surveys. given the fact that the agricultural areas are mainly in vojvodina, the paper emphasizes gender (in) equality of these territories. the rural population of women in the territory of vojvodina is similar to urban population of women according to their socio-demographic characteristics. here, we primarily consider the level of education, age, the structure of household and family. engaging in farming is not the main difference between these two groups of women, but the place of living is. there is an apparent tendency to turn the countryside into the primary residence and not into the place of entrepreneurial activity. middle-aged female rural population or women who have lost their jobs are willing to accept all the innovations and knowledge. in this sense it is necessary to offer training programs as well as measures to encourage women to engage in entrepreneurship and self-employment in agriculture. the role of women in rural areas is primarily the result of the role and the status of women in a society as a whole. factors that are of great importance to the status of women are: the state of agriculture as an economic sector, the demographic situation characteristic for the rural population, the environmental situation of the rural areas, the economic processes that have a negative impact on agricultural production, the position of the rural areas compared to urban areas, the level of development and adoption of technological change. the role of the state is of great importance, because strategies concerning the equalization of gender rights could improve the role of women in the rural areas. in practice, the state rarely implements adopted strategies. women are generally disadvantaged and are often left out of the planning process and strategy implementation at all levels. the status of women in the rural areas is even worse. level of education is low and therefore the access to all resources is difficult. their visibility in society is poor and possibilities to influence the social and economic changes are minimal. research conducted in 2009 between women aged 20 to 60 years showed that the largest number of respondents (more than 60%) had secondary school and less than 15% of women had completed high school or college (blagojevic, 2010). this indicates to the tendency that women 90 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) who acquire higher education have no desire to return to the rural areas. this lack of interest of young women to live in the rural areas is an indicator of their position. women are the majority of the rural population and they are mainly engaged in the process of food production and are dedicated to the health of all members of family. if we take this fact into consideration, we can conclude that they would be interested to a much higher extent to production of ecological and organic food. analyse of the employment of women from the rural areas shows that less than 50% are formally employed. 8.3% of them are actively involved in agriculture while 37.6% do not participate in these activities. this refers to the fact that women who are formally employed are not active in agriculture due to the household duties and we cannot consider them for engaging in this activities (http://www.zenenaselu.org/). unemployed women constitute 40% of rural women population and half of them is active in agriculture. although 2/3 of women in the rural areas with the lowest levels of education do not have employment, only half of them is active in agriculture. this data indicate that even when they are unemployed, women generally do not turn to agriculture as a source of income. also, we can hardly speak about the entrepreneurial ambitions, which is probably due to the low level of education, lack of ideas or funding. regarding the problem of additional education and training, more than ¾ of women in the rural areas did not attend training or courses after completing their education. the highest need for additional education is identified in women with the highest level of education (more than 50%), while only 7,6% of women with the lowest level of education expressed the need for additional training and education. it is interesting that the majority of them is not interested in any form of additional training. women with secondary education who have not completed courses stated that they would engage in additional training in the future. above all, they are interested in a training for improvement of computer skills (over 50%) and for the english language course. this indicates that the propensity to self-employment is in a relation to the degree of education, but that it does not apply to agricultural activity. this is evident from the data that women are almost indifferent to courses in the field of managing household and cooperative. under these conditions it is difficult to expect that the entrepreneurial spirit of women in the area of agricultural activities will develop soon (http://www.zenenaselu.org/). munitlak ivanović, o., opportunities for rural, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) 91 the most authoritative and the worst indicator of the status of women in the rural areas is their property portfolio. in most cases (61%) they do not own or co-own the property in which they live. it is alarming that farms are usually not registered to women and that 4/5 of respondents do not possess ownership of the property. data from the treasury (ministry of finance rs) show that only 26% of the total number of registered farms in vojvodina is owned by women (http://www.zenenaselu.org/). basically it could be said that the life of women in rural areas of vojvodina is characterized by: − gender property inequalities in the rural area of vojvodina are very prominent, whereby farms are not registered to women in most cases − women often do not make decisions about agricultural production, although they are included in the production − although they are interested in the existence of cooperatives, women in the rural areas of vojvodina do not show intention not need to engage in entrepreneurial activity − a significant number of women do not have health insurance nor individually contribute to the retirement fund − women generally do not make financial decisions on the farm and have limited access to financial resources. the only form of social protection for them is often child benefit. − taking care of children, the elderly and households were entirely left to the women − traditional manner and lifestyle is still expressed, which includes a strong patriarchal relations. if women spend their free time in a passive way, renewing energy for agricultural and domestic activities for the next day, with the patriarchal system of values, one can hardly expect any changes, especially changes pertaining to entrepreneurship. the first and most important change must occur in the minds of these women about the possibility of their autonomous and active approach to work and life. for this, in addition to written policies, concrete help of society and the family environment is needed. 92 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) conclusion entrepreneurship as one of the main characteristics of modern business has a direct impact on economic growth. female entrepreneurship, as a cross-cultural phenomenon, is particularly interesting phenomenon that received adequate attention at the end of the twentieth century. although there are universal determinants that act on entrepreneurial behaviour regardless of gender identity, the fact is that male entrepreneurship is considerably more prevalent in commercial structures. female entrepreneurship is still directly related to family responsibilities. there are specific motives that “give a strong boost” to women in starting business. these motives include financial and other forms of independence above all, but also a desire for control over their free and working hours, business opportunity on the basis of past business experience, the desire to prove their value in society, discrimination of women business skills, job loss and many others drivers. when it comes to measuring social wealth, and thus the wealth of all members of society, regardless of gender, gdp is the most common but not the best choice as an indicator of welfare in a society. this is a macroeconomic indicator, which essentially does not give information about the life of individuals at micro level. since it was developed a relatively long time ago, traditionally it quantifies the wealth of society. a much more comprehensive indicators that measure all forms of (non) material wealth of society were created more recently. the growth of the sustainable development concept has influenced on the creation of the indicator beyond gdp, and following this indicator a number of new indicators appeared: the genuine progress indicator gpi, human development index hdi and many other, because during the xxi century analysis on this topic was intensified. indicators for measuring gender inequality gender-related development index gdi and gender empowerment measure gem were developed back in the 1995. several studies pointed out to the unfavourable position of women in the rural areas, regardless of whether analysis was conducted on the territory of republic of serbia as a whole or on the territory of ap vojvodina. the survey results together with other research indicated that the emergence of new female entrepreneurs is not expected in the near future regarding agricultural production. traditional and patriarchal way of life, the lack of education, absence from additional courses, lack of own financial resources, the primary concern of the household, absence in decision making process munitlak ivanović, o., opportunities for rural, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) 93 about the farms, lack of ownership and similar facts only amplified the need for changes in this area . it is clear that at this moment we cannot talk about gender equality in the rural areas in serbia or in vojvodina. to improve this situation it is necessary to take a series of measures. the existing institutional framework either is not implemented or is not adequate and it has not given satisfactory results. in respect to this, it should be considered to create inter-sectoral body or a part of a ministry (e.g. the ministry of agriculture or the ministry of labour and social policy) that will deal with these issues and will encouraged the registration of farms and property to women, especially if men of the farm are permanently employed. it is necessary to adopt the law on gender equality and mechanisms to support the development of women's cooperatives. as everything starts from self-awareness of the possibilities for progression, there is a need to initiate various forms of women education, depending on preferences, age, level of education and similar. this way the impact on raising knowledge about the importance of ownership of real estate will be achieved. although a small number of women is willing to engage in entrepreneurship in the rural areas, these potential female entrepreneurs should not be left to themselves, but they should be motivated by forming a business incubator for women and by providing them and incorporating them into various guarantee funds. acknolidgment: this paper is a part of research projects numbers 47009 (european integrations and social and economic changes in serbian economy on the way to the eu) and 179015 (challenges and prospects of structural changes in serbia: strategic directions for economic development and harmonization with eu requirements), financed by the ministry of science and technological development of the republic of serbia. references [1] aidis, r., welter, f., smallbone, d. & isakova, n. 2007. “female entrepreneurship in transition economies: the case of lithuania and ukraine.” feminist economics, 13(2), 157-183. [2] anielski, m. 2001. measuring the sustainability of nations: the genuine progress indicator system of sustainable wellbeing accounts. the fourth biennial conference of the canadian society for ecological economics: ecological sustainability of the global market place, montreal, quebec. 94 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) [3] a new paradigm for a thriving worlds. 2015. north atlantic books. retrieved from january 2016. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1583949208/ref=as_li_tl?camp=1789&creative =9325&creativeasin=1583949208&link [4] babović, m. 2014. “rodni aspekti pristupa ekonomskim resursima u procesima teritorizacije: istraživanje u zlatiborskom regionu.” sociološki pregled, xlviii(3): 353-381. [5] babović, m., luković, o. 2008. žene na selu kao pomažući članovi poljoprivrednog domaćinstva: položaj, uloge i socijalna prava. beograd, dedraplast. [6] babović, m. 2014. položaj žena u biznis sektoru u srbiji. beograd: ministarstvo za rad, zapošljavanje, boračka i socijalna pitanja. [7] blagojević, m. 2008. seoske ženske organizacije u vojvodini: „međutim, meni se najviše sviđa ono što pokušavamo da uradimo nešto dobro“. studija, novi sad: pokrajinski zavod za ravnopravnost polova. [8] blagojević hjuston, m. 2013. rodni baromenar u srbiji: razvoj i svakovnevni život. beograd: program ujedinjenih nacija za razvoj. [9] blagojević, m. 2010. žene na selu u vojvodini: svakodnevni život i ruralni razvoj, rezultati anketnog istraživanja. novi sad: pokrajinski zavod za ravnopravnost polova. [10] buvač, d. 1990. ekonomika sa srcem. zagreb: august cesarec. [11] gill, r., ganesh, s. 2007. “empowerment, constraint, and the entrepreneurial self: a study of white women entrepreneurs.” journal of applied communication research, 35(3): 268–293. [12] munitlak ivanović, o. 2012. “beyond gdp vs. gdp – savremene tendancije u merenju nivoa ekonomskog razvoja zemlje.” poslovna ekonomija, 6(2): 49-62. [13] munitlak ivanović, o., raspopović, n., mitić, p., jovanović. l. 2014. “kvantifikacija bogatstva društva u smislu održive privrede.” ecologica, 71(1): 165168. [14] munitlak ivanović, o. 2005. ekološki aspekti održivog razvoja – međunarodna i regionalna komparacija. phd diss. univerzitet u novom sadu. [15] nacionalna strategija za poboljšanje položaja žena i unapređivanje rodne ravnopravnosti u periodu 2009-2015. godine 2005. retrieved from january 2016 http://www.gendernet.rs/files/dokumenta/domaci/nacionalna_strategija_cir.pdf [16] penezić, n. d. 2009. preduzetništvo – savremeni pristup, sremska kamenica: univerzitet edukons, 414-423. [17] program razvoja ap vojvodine 2014-2020. 2014. retrieved from january 2016. http://www.region.vojvodina.gov.rs/upload/program_razvoja_ap_vojvodine_2014_ 2020_3891.pdf 2009. [18] radović-marković, m. 2015. female entrepreneurship in transition economies – trends and challenges. palgrave macmillan, uk, 9-30. [19] sustainable society foundation. 2014. retrieved from january 2016. http://www.ssfindex.com/ [20] sustainable society index – ssi 2014. 2014. sustainable society index 2014 – world averages. retrieved from january 2016. http://www.ssfindex.com/ssi2014/wp-content/uploads/pdf/ssi2014.pdf munitlak ivanović, o., opportunities for rural, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) 95 [21] weeks, j., seiler, d. 2001. women’s entrepreneurship in latin america: an exploration of current knowledge. inter-american development bank. retrieved from january 2016. http://www.iadb.org/publications/ [22] zavod za javno zdravlje sombor. 2013. retrieved from january 2016. http://www.zzjzsombor.org/2013/01/17/20-26-januar-2013-vii [23] žene na selu: istraživanja. 2014. retrieved from january 2016. www.zenenaselu.org mogućnosti razvoja ruralnog ženskog preduzetništva a p s t r a k t cilj rada je bio je da se analizira položaj žena u ruralnom području srbije. anketna i druga istraživanja su vršena više puta od 2007 do 2013. godine. ove studije različitih autora i donatora, na žalost su dalje manje-više istu sliku: položaj žena u ruralnom području srbije je u veoma lošem stanju. kako se seoska gazdinstva mahom nalaze na teritoriji vojvodine, i u radu je dat akcenat na žene iz ovog područja. položaj žena u društvu se preslikava na položaj žena na selu. veoma su retke žene koje se bave preduzetništvom. to je jednim delom u zavisnosti od stepena obrazovanja a drugim delom u zavisnosti od posedovanja finansijskih sredstava za realizaciju preduzetničke ideje. uočen je nedostatak svesti i volje za pokretanjem samostalnog biznisa kod žena koje žive u ruralnom području. iako je srbija potpisnik različitih međunarodnih konvencija, koje je obavezuju na ravnopravnost polova, strategije donešene na nivou srbije ili vojvodine nisu doživele svoje otelotvorenje u praksi.to svakako utiče na nespremnost žena da se upuste u preduzetnički pokušaj, a broj preduzetnica između dva anketna istraživanja (2007. i 2003. godine) se smanjio. da bi se situacija poboljšala nužno postoji potreba različitim oblicima edukacije žena u zavisnosti od sklonosti, godina, stepena obrazovanja i slično. ipak postoji mali broj žena koji je spreman da se u ruralnom području upusti u preduzetništvo. potencijalne preduzetnice ne treba pustiti da se same bore, nego je potrebno formirati biznis inkubatore za žene odnosno, obezbediti im pristup odlučivanju i formirati specijalne garancijske fondove. korišćene metode istraživanja su: desk istraživanja, analiza anketa koje su ranije urađene na reprezentativnom uzorku preduzetnica i menažerki i kvalitativno istraživanje. kako je u radu je upoređeno više anketa sa istom temom, urađenih od strane različith autora i fondova, u različitim vremenskim periodima, značaj rada je što je na jednom mestu ukazao na razlike u promeni ponašanja preduzetnica i menadžerki u prostoru i vremenu, odnosno ukazao je na promenu u ženskom preduzetništvu u različitim uslovima. naime, žensko preduzetništvo u srbiji se nalazi u lošijoj poziciji danas, nego pre 2007. godine. 96 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 79-96) ključne reči: preduzetništvo, rodna ravnopravnost, ruralni razvoj, preduzetnice, društveni razvoj, održivo društvo, seoska populacija žena article history: received: 15 january, 2016 accepted: 20 february, 2016 18_jwee_1-2 doi: 10.28934/jwee18.12.pp68-85 original scientific paper training intentions and skills needs in the private sector companies in serbia kosovka ognjenović1 institute of economis sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t this paper provides an analysis of the private sector companies’ training intentions and an assessment of the occupational and skills needs in the serbian labour market. a substantial part of the analysis was carried out using the employers survey data as well as data from other relevant sources. the main results of this analysis indicated the net employment growth. a rising demand was primarily revealed in the occupational classes encompassing services, craft and related trade workers, followed by professionals and skilled blue colour workers ranked as the second and third ones. a significant deficit was identified in the group of occupation-specific skills and wider competencies. the companies’ training intentions signalled to the permanent need for the enhancement of present and future employees’ skills. some shortcomings of the available data sources are emphasized, and directions for future research are proposed. key words: employers survey, demand, labour market, skills needs, training intentions introduction the debate about occupations and skills shortages in the transition countries arises due to belief that the new or privatized stateand socially 1 address: zmaj jovina 12, 11000 belgrade, serbia, e-mai: kosovka.ognjenovic@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381 11 2638-820 ognjenović, k., training intentions and skills, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) 69 owned companies require new skills that will increase the business productivity of the companies and led to the improvement of competitiveness of the countries. some empirical studies confirmed that previous work experience was not a significant explanatory factor of workers’ wages because new organizational and business concepts require different compositions of skills in the labour market. in other words, the skills were considered as a constraining factor of the private business growth implying that lowand unskilled workers were the first whose jobs were destroyed (commander and kollo, 2008; brixiova, et al., 2009). in the developed economies the practice of the improvement of the workforce skills through (vocational) training was well established. different phases of the training provision were in place. firstly, it was considered that the companies are obliged to provide the training (acemoglu and pischke, 1998). then, with the improvement of the educational attainment of the workforce, the general opinion was that new labour market entrants should possess not only required occupations but also adequate skills (ellis, 2003). in this respect, educational and training providers become the important partners of the companies. they helped the employers in recognizing the skills shortages and were in a position to get feedback on the use of skills in the companies. especially, it was important for european economies to recognize what skills should be upgraded in order to improve innovation-led competitiveness (neirotti and paolucci, 2013). as a response to this approach, many incentives were in place. in the western balkan countries identifying skills shortages and anticipation of skills needs (mostly from a short-term perspective) has been adopted as a part of good practice that existed in the developed countries (bejaković and mrnjavac, 2014). the reason for the shortage of adequate skills was the slow change of educational policies in response to structural unemployment as well as the lack of coordination in the implementation of educational and employment policies (bartlett, 2013). serbia established the employers survey in 2011 as a tool for the labour market skills needs identification. the information collected by this survey is used for planning some general and specific training upon the request of known employers within the framework of active labour market policies. this paper is organized in the following sections. the next section considers data and methods used in order to response to the main research questions. the next part of the paper focuses on the analysis of skills needs and companies’ training intentions. the paper ends with main conclusions. 70 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) data and methods various methodologies for the assessment of skills needs are in use in the european and regional labour markets (cedefop, 2015; bartlett et al., 2016). however, all these methods employ questionnaire surveys as tools for data collection. table 1 summarizes several methodological approaches that are recently used in serbia and other european countries for the assessment of present and future skills needs, skills deficits, difficulties filling job vacancies and employee training needs. the focus is on management and human resource specialists when such surveys are carried out in the companies. sometimes surveys target employees in order to record their experiences regarding the use of skills acquired during the process of education and training, self-assessment of skills deficits or the training needs necessary to boost efficacy in response to jobs requirements. they usually provide a basis for medium-term projections of skills needs, serve to identify obsolete skills and occupations, as well as how the employers are satisfied with the skills of higher (and secondary) education graduates. all this should serve as a reliable guide to future students, education and training providers, employers and employees to getting them know what direction future labour market needs will evolve. serbia uses the employers survey established by the national employment service (nes) in 2011. this survey uses the answers of the representative sample of private companies with 10 and more employees to provide the nes with necessary information on short-term needs for occupations, the preferred level of education and required skills. the survey does not use any weighting scheme which can be considered as a shortcoming, but it avoids overrepresentation of micro companies because they are excluded from the sample. similar instruments are in use in other western balkan countries (bartlett, 2013). in this paper, the nes employers survey data for 2014 and 2017 are analyzed. additionally, several other data sources are used, such as the labour force survey (lfs) data, as well as other data collected as part of independent researches published in the series of reports. in particular, the goal of the analysis is: t a b le 1 : m et h o d o lo g y fo r sk il ls n ee d s a ss es sm en t in t h e e u a n d w es te rn b a lk a n c o u n tr ie s s u rv ey s am p le u n it in st ru m en ts f re q u en cy c ou n tr y p ro je ct io n y ea r e m p lo ye rs s ur ve y c o m p an ie s (1 0 a nd m o re em p lo ye es ) q ue st io n na ir e (p ap er -a nd p en ci l) a n nu al s er b ia s ho rt -t er m s in ce 2 0 1 1 e ur o p ea n c o m p an y s ur ve y e st ab li sh m en ts em p lo ye rs an d e m p lo ye e re p re se nt at iv es q ue st io n na ir e (t el ep ho ne ) e ve ry f o ur ye ar s 2 7 e u m s a nd c ro at ia , m ac ed o ni a, ic el an d , m o nt en eg ro a nd t ur ke y m ed iu m -t er m s in ce 2 0 0 4 f la sh e ur o b ar o m et er s ur ve y c o m p an ie s (5 0 a nd m o re em p lo ye es ) q ue st io n na ir e (t el ep ho ne ) o cc as io na l 2 8 e u m s a nd n o rw ay , ic el an d a nd t ur ke y m ed iu m -t er m (g ra d ua te re cr ui tm en t) 2 0 1 0 g ra d ua te s ur ve y e m p lo ye rs s ur ve y f o cu s gr o up s h ig he r ed uc at io n gr ad ua te s (s in ce 2 0 1 0 ) c o m p an ie s (e m p lo yi ng g ra d ua te s) k ey s ta ke ho ld er s q ue st io n na ir e (o nli ne ) q ue st io n na ir e (o nli ne a nd te le p ho ne ) in te rv ie w s w it h ke y st ak eh o ld er s o cc as io na l 6 w es te rn b al ka n co un tr ie s m ed iu m -t er m (g ra d ua te re cr ui tm en t) 2 0 1 5 s o u rc e: s el f co m p il a ti o n b a se d o n c ed ef op ( 2 0 1 5 ), b a rt le tt e t a l. ( 2 0 1 6 ), a nd n e s ( 2 0 1 5, 2 0 1 8 ). 72 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) − to identify the skills the employers expect the job candidates (and present employees) should possess in order to respond to jobs requirements, and if possible reveal skills deficits; − to determine the changes that were characteristics of the labour market supply and demand from at least two perspectives: time dynamics and regional comparisons; − to identify the possible range of training the employers expect to provide to their employees, i.e. companies training intentions. skill needs analysis and training intentions characteristics of the workforce the workforce has been smoothly increasing over the 2014-2017 period (table 2). the increase in the workforce has been more pronounced among women as depicted by the growth rate of 3.9 percentage points, while male workforce has barely increased by 1.1 percentage points. the largest increase in the active population of the age 15 years and over is recorded among higher educated individuals. those who graduated from colleges and universities in a larger percentage entered the labour market – an increase of 10.9 percentage points was recorded – while people with low educational attainment rather leave the labour market as shown by a negative rate of 2.8 percentage points. this is not unusual given the better educational structure of new entrants and the possible retirement of older workers whose education matched the previous economic system. these trends are the result of increasing activity of the population 15 years and older. comparing the years 2017 and 2014, the inactive population dropped by more than 6%; almost the same tendencies characterized the male (-6.3%) and female (-6.4%) inactive population. however, when total population and, in particular, the working age population (15-64) is observed, a declining trend is notable. serbia follows similar pattern as most of the western balkan countries (except albania and kosovo) which lose, on average, 1.4% of the working-age population (1564) per year (world bank and wiiw, 2018). ognjenović, k., training intentions and skills, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) 73 table 2: workforce, male and female employment rates in 2014 and 2017, by educational attainment (15+) panel a l ev el o f ed u ca ti on 2014 2017 all women all women w or k fo rc e, i n th ou sa n d e m p lo ym en t ra te , % w or k fo rc e, i n th ou sa n d e m p lo ym en t ra te , % w or k fo rc e, i n th ou sa n d e m p lo ym en t ra te , % w or k fo rc e, i n th ou sa n d e m p lo ym en t ra te , % low 579.2 24.9 254.5 18.2 562.9 28.2 252.0 21.1 medium 1849.6 46.5 726.2 38.8 1859.2 51.3 743.2 43.8 high 728.4 58.2 399.8 58.3 807.7 63.1 439.0 62.7 total 3157.2 41.7 1380.5 34.8 3229.8 46.7 1434.2 39.7 panel b level of education 2014 2017 men men workforce, in thousand employment rate, % workforce, in thousand employment rate, % low 324.7 35.0 310.9 39.0 medium 1123.4 53.0 1116.0 57.8 high 328.7 58.1 368.6 63.7 total 1776.7 49.1 1795.5 54.2 source: sors, labour force survey for 2014 and 2017. note: low=isced 0-2, medium=isced 3-4, high= isced 5-8. the rising activity of the workforce has largely shifted to employment. the level of employment rose by 9.8% in 2017 compared to 2014, while the number of employed women and men increased by 11.9% and 8.3%, respectively. at the same time, the number of unemployed persons dropped by 29.0% changing the labour market status – enter the employment or leave the workforce. when employment rates are observed by the educational breakdown, it can be noticed that higher employment rates are recorded for all levels of education (table 2). however, the more pronounced shift is notable among those with higher education whose employment rate increased by 4.9 percentage points to 63.1% in 2017. the 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) employment rate was higher among high educated men by one percentage point (table 2, panel a), when compared with their female counterparts (table 2, panel b). in the western balkan countries, the employment rose by 3.9% on average in 2016, which is below the respective rate for serbia of 4.3% (population aged 15-64 years). the employment growth in serbia was primarily led by the sectors of industry and services. lfs data for serbia exhibited higher employment rates at all levels of education comparing to the western balkan countries average. respective employment rates for those with low education in serbia and the western balkan countries were 37.3% and 34.1%, while for high educated individuals employment rates were 72.5% and 70.0%, respectively (world bank and wiiw, 2018). the educational structure of employees is better in serbia than in the comparing western balkan countries, only the economy of montenegro employs more high-skilled workers, in relative terms, than serbian economy. employment flows and occupational skills demand many jobs were destroyed over the period of intensive structural reforms in serbia. after the influence of recent economic and financial crisis, serbian economy recovered and continued to create new jobs (government of the republic of serbia, 2018a, 2018b). comparing the years 2017 and 2014, job creation rates were almost doubled, but also the number of destroyed jobs was higher by 3.7 percentage points in 2017 than in 2014 (table 3). the dynamics of job creation and job destruction resulted in the net employment rate of 3.0% in 2017. it should be pointed out that these estimates reflect the employers’ views and that they present the private sector employers’ estimates based on the actual situation in companies with ten and more employees. given the representativeness of the private sector companies in the sample and the consecutive character of the nes employers survey, the indicators presented in table 3 should provide reliable directions of employment flows in the serbian labour market. table 3 provides data about job flows and net employment rates at the level of the economic sector, company size and region. the largest number of job openings was characteristic of the sector of services, but also this sector closed more jobs on average than the sectors of industry and agriculture. rising employment rates over the observed period revealed that both the expansion and replacement demand contributed to new jobs ognjenović, k., training intentions and skills, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) 75 creation.1 smalland medium-sized companies show similar patterns when the proportions of jobs created and destroyed are observed, resulting in the net employment rates of 5.4% and 4.8% in the years 2014 and 2017, respectively. on the other hand, large-sized companies destroyed more jobs than they could have created in both years. however, the absolute value of the magnitude of the net employment rate was significantly lower in 2017 than in 2014, leaving the place for the potential growth of the employment in the sector of big employers. belgrade’s region creates more jobs than any other region in serbia. this region also destroys many more jobs than other regions. however, the difference between created and destroyed jobs results in a strong positive net employment rate. unlike the vojvodina region, where the change in net employment rates between two years was the smallest, šumadija and western serbia as well as southern and eastern serbia regions recorded the largest positive shifts in net employment rates. table 3: job creation, destruction, and net employment rates by economic sector, size and region (%) job creation job destruction net employment rate 2014 2017 2014 2017 2014 2017 economic sector agriculture 7.4 13.7 10.9 10.2 -3.5 3.5 industry 7.7 12.8 10.3 9.8 -2.6 3.0 services 7.7 17.9 5.7 14.9 2.0 3.0 company size small 12.7 16.2 7.3 11.4 5.4 4.8 medium 8.1 16.5 7.0 11.0 1.1 5.5 large 5.5 12.3 9.0 12.7 -3.5 -0.4 region belgrade 7.7 20.2 7.0 16.0 0.7 4.2 vojvodina 8.1 15.3 7.1 12.6 1.0 2.7 šumadija and western serbia 7.3 12.9 8.8 8.5 -1.5 4.4 1 the employers survey that was carried out in the period 2011-2013 was tailored in a way that the expansion demand could have been distinguished from the replacement demand (bošković et al., 2010). the survey in use since 2014 onwards does not allow for this possibility. 76 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) job creation job destruction net employment rate 2014 2017 2014 2017 2014 2017 southern and eastern serbia 8.6 11.7 8.5 9.1 0.1 2.6 kosovo and metohija … … … … … … total 7.7 14.8 8.1 11.8 -0.4 3.0 source: self-calculation based on the nes employers survey for 2014 and 2017. note: just a few companies from kosovo and metohija region participated in the employers survey. (…) stands for an unreliable estimate. the negative influence of economic and financial crisis on employment growth was more pronounced in the serbian labour market than in the labour markets of remaining countries of the western balkans. the two other countries with significant loss of jobs were bosnia and herzegovina and montenegro, while, for example, the labour markets in albania and macedonia were more resilient to the prolonged effects of the crisis. since 2012 the trends have changed, and the serbian labour market has led the regional employment growth with the 2016-2012 change in net job creation that exceeded 15% (oruč and bartlett, 2018). these findings are in line with the previous results of the nes employers survey for serbia. the demand for occupations has not been changed that much in 2017 compared to 2014 (figure 1). the largest occupational needs are identified in the occupational class that encompasses services, sales, craft and related trade workers – the employers report that the expected number of new jobs for respective occupations will increase to 37.2% in 2017. this group primarily includes occupations acquired in secondary general and vocational schools. professionals and plant and machine operators, and assemblers are the second and third ranked occupational classes among most needed by the private sector companies. the private sector demand for every of these occupational classes exceeds 5000 individuals per year.2 however, the demand for individual occupations varies across years. elementary occupations are also reported as needed in the labour market. the demand for low-skilled workers was estimated at nearly 14.0% in 2017. 2 the answers in the nes employers survey are not weighted. however, the sample of the companies with ten and more employees is representative at a level of economic sector, company size and region. ognjenović, k., training intentions and skills, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) 77 when low and intermediate demand is observed, the differences in the employers’ expectations were not pronounced between the years 2014 and 2017. managers and skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers were identified as occupations which demand would not exceed 1000 new jobs per year.3 intermediate level of demand was expected for high-skilled technicians and associate professionals, as well as for medium-skilled clerical support workers. figure1: companies expectations about new job openings by occupation (in %) source: self-calculation based on the nes employers survey for 2014 and 2017. note: the intervals {[–1000]; [1001-5000]; [5001–]} stand for up to 1000, between 1000 and 5000, and more than 5000 employees. given the poll of the unemployed and new graduates who enter the labour market every year, it is obvious that educational and training institutions should more closely tie their enrolment and other policies with the labour market needs. studying the supply and demand of higher education graduates in the serbian labour market, uvalić and bartlett (2016) find that the educational system produces more graduates than the labour market needs. the main reason lies in the fact that the dynamics of new jobs creation is slow when compared with the supply of graduates generated by 3 see the previous footnote. 0.6 0.4 8.8 14.7 6.4 8.0 5.8 5.9 36.6 37.2 11.3 16.0 0.7 1.0 16.8 13.6 13.1 3.1 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 -1000 1001-5000 5001-1000 1001-5000 50012 01 4 2 01 7 other occupations elementary skilled agricultural plant and machine services, craft clerical technicians professionals 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) the educational system. based on the projections for the period 2015-2018, the authors identified the shortage of graduates of only two fields of studies, including social sciences, journalism and information, and natural sciences, mathematics and statistics. the largest surplus of potential job candidates was identified in the fields of engineering4, manufacturing and construction, and business, administration and law.5 these results partly match the findings based on the nes employers survey that indicates that occupations related to the occupational classes professionals and technicians compose more than one-fifth of the private sector companies’ annual needs for workers. the private sector employers are more concerned about wider competencies and abilities of the potential job candidates than about their professional and transferable knowledge and skills.6 for example, in the 2017 employers survey wider competencies and personal characteristics were reported as most desirable exceeding the transferable knowledge and skills by almost double (nes, 2018). however, in 2014 transferable knowledge and skills were more frequently reported by the employers exceeding the requirements for specific professional knowledge and skills by more than twice (nes, 2015). 4 probably not all studies in the fields of engineering and information and communication technologies contribute to the surplus supply of graduates. for example, there are ictbased occupations where identified demand significantly exceeds the supply of graduates. the higher education institutions in serbia changed their enrolment policies, based on labour market requirements (government of the republic of serbia, 2018a). 5 similarly, the regional labour market of the western balkans may expect a significant shortage of the supply of individuals who graduated in the field of natural sciences, mathematics and statistics, while, opposite the huge surplus can be expected in the supply of graduates who finished their studies in the field of business, administration and law (bartlett et al., 2016). 6 the taxonomy of skills used in the nes employers survey differs, for example, from the one used in the survey of adult skills (oecd, 2016). the ‘employability’ and ‘personal’ skills can be matched with the key competencies in the following way: ‘cognitive competencies’ include literacy, problem solving, learning, numeracy, ‘intra and interpersonal competencies’ are equal to collaboration with others, learning stile, and organization and planning propensity, while ‘technological competencies’ include ict use in the workplace and everyday life (oecd, 2016, p. 98). this approach identifies the most important life and work skills that are signalled by the employers as well. ognjenović, k., training intentions and skills, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) 79 table 4: most frequently required skills and competencies ranked by the employers competencies and skills rank 2014 2017 professional knowledge and skills technical and technological 1 1 social and humanistic 2 2 artistic 3 4 medical 4 3 transferable knowledge and skills ict 1 2 different types of permits 2 1 foreign languages 3 3 safety and protection at work 4 4 wider competencies and personal characteristics propensity to work with things/products 1 3 accuracy and precision 2 2 preference to the fast pace 3 4 communication 4 1 source: self-calculation based on the nes employers survey for 2014 and 2017. changes in prioritizing skills of future employees are part of the global tendencies (cedefop, 2015). given the rising employment in the services sector, besides some occupation-specific skills needed to boost efficiency in the workplace, it is desirable for employees to master a wider range of competencies and abilities. occupation-specific skills, ict-based skills, skills which usage require some type of permits and certificates, communication skills and abilities are the skills almost every employer expects from their employees. table 4 presents the four best ranked groups of skills in terms of their frequency in the employers’ requirements. in the first group of occupation-specific skills, almost no change was recorded in 2017. in the group of transferable skills possession of permits and certificates was more important than ict-based skills, while among wider competencies communication skills were best ranked followed by accuracy and precision in performing tasks. 80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) recruitment of employees and training intentions the way companies recruit new staff is likely to differ depending on the size class, potential cooperation with the educational institutions and recruitment agencies, geographical location, etc. how the companies are successful in finding adequate staff can be estimated by the number of job openings, reported difficulties (such as occupational and skills deficits and mismatches) and the average time needed to fill positions. table 5: reported difficulties to find workers with required skills by sector, size and region (in %) 2014 2017 economic sector agriculture 2.8 2.8 industry 59.6 59.8 services 37.6 37.4 company size small 59.9 71.0 medium 28.2 21.8 large 11.9 7.2 region belgrade 16.4 13.4 vojvodina 26.5 37.6 šumadija and western serbia 35.9 33.1 southern and eastern serbia 21.2 15.9 kosovo and metohija 0.0 0.1 total 100.0 100.0 source: self-calculation based on the nes employers survey for 2014 and 2017. more than 29% of the companies were found to have difficulty filling job vacancies in 2017, and the number of these companies has increased since 2014. table 5 shows that difficulties to find workers with the required skills are mainly reported by the companies operating in the sector of industry, employing up to 50 workers, as well as geographically located in the regions of vojvodina and šumadija and western serbia. no changes were registered depending on the economic sector in 2017; however, it seems that small-sized companies have more difficulties with recruitment of new employees than the mediumand large-sized ones. also, the number of ognjenović, k., training intentions and skills, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) 81 companies with rising difficulties has been identified in vojvodina, while in all other regions the opposite trend was registered. additional analysis would probably reveal that these difficulties may result from sector specificity of the companies within this region. table 6: reasons why job vacancies are not filled by occupation (in %) occupational group o cc u p at io n i n d em an d n o su ch o cc u p at io n i n th e ed u ca ti on s ys te m in ad eq u at e le ve l of ed u ca ti on l ac k o f k n ow le d ge a n d sk il ls l ac k o f w or k in g ex p er ie n ce in ad eq u at e w or k in g co n d it io n s o th er r ea so n s managers 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 0.4 0.0 0.0 professionals 22.0 3.7 17.4 16.2 20.6 16.1 11.1 technicians and associate professionals 4.5 6.2 3.0 7.6 7.2 6.5 8.2 clerical support workers 0.8 1.2 0.8 4.4 4.6 3.2 4.0 services, sales, craft and related trade workers 56.5 68.9 66.7 57.0 52.0 45.2 46.8 skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 0.1 1.6 0.0 plant and machine operators, and assemblers 14.0 18.0 9.8 11.6 13.5 16.1 12.5 elementary occupations 2.1 1.2 2.3 2.2 1.2 9.7 16.7 other occupations 0.2 0.6 0.0 0.2 0.3 1.6 0.7 source: self-calculation based on the nes employers survey for 2017. as table 6 depicts, most difficulties filling job vacancies are related to three groups of occupations, including high-skilled professionals, mediumskilled services and related workers, as well as skilled plant and machine operators and assemblers. for the first group, most difficulties appear due to excess demand and lack of previous work experience of potential job candidates. an inadequate supply of job applicants for the positions that would be filled by services, sales, craft and related trade workers most likely appear due to such educational profile does not exist in the system or because job applicants do not have required level of education. given that this occupational group is very heterogeneous the companies experienced many difficulties to find workers of required qualifications and skills. problems to fill job vacancies with plant and machine operators and assemblers are mainly related to the situation that a particular job needs a 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) worker of specific profile usually not recognized by the educational and training system or because job candidates are not satisfied with offered working conditions. these findings indicate that the companies are not always ready to invest in training of (future) employees to prepare them for jobs. there are various reasons for this. this is mostly due to lack of finance, time or staff available for in-company coaching, or because some employers are of the opinion that well-trained workers have more opportunities as, for example, bargaining for better working conditions or higher wages that could be offered by other companies (ognjenović, 2015; semenčenko et al., 2016). according to findings of the nes employers survey, the employers are able to recognize the training needs at the level of the company. however, the missing part of this survey is the assessment of needs of employees to complete the training needs analysis and provide some valuable inputs for the educational and training institutions. also, the information on how the skills acquired during the process of education and training are used in the companies is missing. intentions of the companies to provide specialized training to their employees are usually related to the needs arising from the obligation that an employee must possess certain permits and certificates in order to perform a job, or it is some type of training for medium-skilled employees. the improvement of transferable knowledge and skills is achieved most often through training in foreign languages and ict, while wider competencies and personal characteristics imply improved skills in communication, abilities and engagement in the workplace. the companies in serbia allocate scarce resources to training. for example, ognjenović (2015) found the share of investments allocated to on-the-job training as insignificant, while semenčenko et al. (2016) concluded that only 12% of smalland medium-sized companies allocate a certain part of the annual budget to some training of employees. in the european environment, on the other hand, about 20% of the companies provide on-the-job training to all employees, and only 13.0% of them do not provide training at all (eurofound, 2015). conclusion this paper provides an analysis of the private sector companies’ training intentions and an assessment of the occupational and skills needs in the serbian labour market, using the nes employers survey data as well as ognjenović, k., training intentions and skills, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) 83 data from other relevant sources. the results pointed out that since 2012 the serbian labour market has exhibited the highest net employment rates among the western balkan countries. a rising demand was primarily revealed in the occupational classes encompassing services, craft and related trade workers, followed by professionals and skilled blue colour workers ranked as the second and third ones among those the employers expect to employ within a one-year projection horizon. likewise, a significant deficit was identified in the group of occupation-specific skills and wider competencies. somewhat less than one-third of the companies have difficulties to fill job positions and this situation deteriorated when compared with the reference year. even though the companies allocate scarce resources to training, their training intentions signalled to the permanent need for the enhancement of present and future employees’ skills. this leads to the conclusion that training propensity depends on a number of organizational and other factors. there are several more issues that should be addressed in future research. for example, future research should be focused on what new occupations appeared in the period between two researches (not recognized by education and training providers), but also what occupations are likely to become obsolete. then, how the employers are satisfied with the skills of first job seekers, and how their skills are used in the companies. how the taxonomy of skills can be reformulated to make it more relevant for the requirements of modern economies. another issue is how to increase the responsiveness of educational and training institutions, employers and employees when substantial skills deficits are identified. also, the shortcomings of the available data sources revealed in this paper need to be carefully analyzed before considering the possibility of amending the existing methodology for assessing skills needs. acknowledgements this paper is a result of research projects under the code 179015 (challenges and prospects of structural changes in serbia: strategic directions for economic development and harmonization with eu requirements) and 47009 (european integrations and social and economic changes in serbian economy on the way to the eu) financed by the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic of serbia. 84 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 68-85) references [1] acemoglu, daron, and jorn-steffen pischke. 1998. 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[23] world bank/wiiw. 2018. western balkans labor market trends 2018. vienna: see jobs gateway research study, march, 2018. https://www.seejobsgateway.net/sites/job_gateway/files/western%20balkan s%20labor%20market%20trends%202018.pdf (accessed may 15, 2018) article history: received: 17 may, 2018 accepted: 18 june, 2018 microsoft word 10_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 005 jel: b54; l26 scientific research paper public support and inter-firm collaborations in women-owned firms bojica ana maria*, fuentes maria del mar, albacete sáez carlos, university of granada, spain a b s t r a c t this study goes beyond the descriptive analyses of women entrepreneur’s networks, and advances the idea of interdependency between the different types of relationships they build. it emphasizes that developing ties with support institutions can reinforce and legitimate them in the interactions with peers organisations. the results of the research on a sample of spanish women-owned business reveal that as the level of support obtained through the relationships with public entities increases, the average social interaction with clients and collaborators and the quality of relationships with collaborators increases. further, we suggest that purposeful management of inter-organisational relationships can represent a valid instrument for overcoming lack of legitimacy and gender barriers. kew words: gender, inter-organisational relationships, women-owned business. introduction the debate around the existence of gender differences in the creation and management of firms and whether these differences are due to structural barriers or to socialization into masculine and feminine roles has formed the central axis of research on women’s entrepreneurship. nevertheless, there is an increasing number of studies proposing that * address: universidad de granada, facultad de ciencias económicas y empresariales, campus de la cartuja s/n, 18071, granada; e-mail: abojica@ugr.es bojica, a.m., et al., public support and inter-firm, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 28-46) 29 gendered processes are implicit to organisational structures and that viewing entrepreneurship itself as a gendered activity would provide useful insights on women’s entrepreneurship (patricia lewis 2006; kiran mirchandani 1999). if the studies that tackle the perspective of gender directly focus on explaining differences, the causes of these differences (discrimination or socialization), and ways of overcoming them, is it also necessary to continue advancing knowledge of this group of entrepreneurs and their businesses. anna de bruin, candida brush and friederike welter (2007) point out the shifting focus of attention, from studies that compare men and women to studies that compare samples of women to each other, thus raising the question, “what can we learn about entrepreneurial activity in general by studying women entrepreneurs?” research on women-owned business has underlined that the quantity and quality of the external relationships of the firm with its environment are critical for being successful (sara carter, susan anderson and eleanor shaw 2001). as the nature of the relationships that firms develop influences the extent to which they can access resources and the processes of acquiring these resources (andrew inkpen and eric tsang 2005; oana branzei and ilan vertinsky 2006), the necessity to overcome the initial theoretical discussions based on one generic kind of network and to examine in detail the characteristics of different types of ties and the interactions between them becomes imperative (inkpen and tsang 2005). responding to these calls for research and following choonwoo lee, kyungmook lee and johannes pennings (2001), our study establishes two kinds of relationships that women-owned firms develop: support relationships and peer-to-peer relationships. in the first category, we include relationships with public and private institutions and banks that provide access to resources such as financing or public recognition, thus constituting a support network. the second category includes collaborations of a different kind with other firms such as clients, providers, competitors, based on an explicit exchange of resources and constituting a network of peers. we analyse the interdependencies between these two kinds of relationships in a sample of businesses created by women, thus emphasizing the way in which firms can use relationships with one category of actors to improve their access to other actors and the resources they hold. our main aim is to explore the question of the extent to which firms gain legitimacy in the relationships with their clients and journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 28-46) 30 collaborators by developing support relationships with public institutions and private organisations. in addition, we propose that advancing knowledge on these issues allows us to describe the reach of the support policies and acknowledge their importance for women entrepreneurs. this analysis has important implications for women entrepreneurs and policy makers’ practice. for women entrepreneurs it offers insights on the conscious management of support relationships in order to develop and intensify peer-to-peer relationships. for policy makers it draws the attention on the important role they play in legitimating women-owned business and the benefits these firms can harvest. the study is structured as it follows: we devote the first section to a brief review of the literature on the external relationships of firms created by women, focusing on the two kinds of relationships introduced above and the connections between them. after, the paper provides an explanation of the study developed, the results and the main conclusions. literature review relationships with support entities relationships with support entities include those with all of the public and private entities that offer resources such as financing, reputation or advising. this category includes relationships with financial entities, institutions, foundations, publications, commercial organisations, etc. we will first review the existing literature on the financial support obtained by women-owned business and after focus on the social and legitimating support. of all the studies on entrepreneurs and gender, the topic of the woman entrepreneur’s access to financing is the most sophisticated and mature. it has been developed in greatest depth in terms of cumulative research, although it also remains the area most marked by lack of explanatory theories (carter, anderson and shaw 2001). beginning in the 1980s, new firms with high growth potential and great needs for capital found an increase in sources of financing. in spite of this apparent abundance, the proportion of capital attracted by women entrepreneurs’ firms has been much lower than the number and potency that these firms represent in the economy (patricia greene et al. 1999). bojica, a.m., et al., public support and inter-firm, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 28-46) 31 susan marlow and dean patton (2005) argue that the restrictions on women’s access to financing are part of a wider system of disadvantages in which women are affected by stereotyped thinking that portrays them as inferior to men. they stress that access to financing constitutes a challenge for many entrepreneurs, but it seems that women experience additional disadvantages associated with gender, a fact that limits their capacity to accumulate savings and generate attractive histories for formal financiers and capital risk societies. the literature review on this topic poses two important conclusions for our work. first, that almost all of these studies employ only financial indicators of the entrepreneurial performance, ignoring that performance is a multidimensional construct (balaji chakravarthy 1986). this dominant perspective on performance places women-owned firms as low-performing compared to their male counterparts and less attractive for receiving support and recognition from the financial institutions, as they are located mainly in low-growth economic sectors and women’s criteria for performance is recognized to go beyond the financial results, to a more holistic perspective of the organization as a social entity. secondly, that the majority of the research treating the subject of finance, networks and gender focuses on the role that networks play in accessing financial resources and its consequences for subsequent performance, ignoring that the relationships with financing entities may influence other variables than performance, as for example the relationships with peers. regarding the relationships with other public and private organisations, previous studies have shown that generally, government agencies or foundations exercise a significant influence on the networks of firms (bill mcevily and akbar zaheer 1999). walter powell (1990) offers numerous examples of how culture or local social organisations have been critical for explaining the formation of inter-organisational networks in the u.s. as well as in other countries. studies of the structures of relationships between firms in east asia from an institutional perspective have emphasized differences related to cultural, political and historical context (lisa keister 2001). yet, the research that considered the institutional aspects of networks focused mainly on the interventionist role of institutions and private entities in fostering the development of networks (keith provan and brinton milward 2001). this literature doesn’t make a case for women entrepreneurs networks and the lack of research on women entrepreneurs’ relationships with institutions, represents another example journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 28-46) 32 of the problems of legitimacy generated by the tendency to conceptualise the entrepreneurial act as “masculine” (pernilla nilsson 1997; lewis 2006). institutional theory highlights that an organisation has more possibilities for survival if it obtains legitimacy, social support and approval from the entities in the institutional arena. such external legitimacy raises the status of the organisation in the community, facilitating the acquisition of resources. when certain visible relationships are interpreted as signs of quality that confer status on a firm, the price of the products and services seems to increase (joel podolny 1993; 1994). likewise, relationships with institutions seem to diminish the disadvantage of being a small business (joel baum and christine oliver 1991). baum and oliver (1991) also find that the firms which develop relationships with institutions show a significant advantage for survival that increases with the competitive intensity. this advantage also depends on the characteristics of the organisation that has established the relationships and the legitimacy of the relationships themselves. relationships with peers in the category of relationships with peers, we have included different kinds of inter-organisational collaboration with clients, providers, competitors and other firms. several authors have shown that interorganisational relationships such as strategic alliances and long-term relationships with clients and providers are important paths of access to information, resources, markets and technologies (ranjay gulati, nitin nohria and akbar zaheer 2000). inter-organisational networks offer a wide variety of knowledge and benefits for survival, innovation and performance; but issues of competition, information control and trust between the members make the effective construction of networks a highly complex topic (daniel brass et al. 2004). most studies of women entrepreneurs that treat the question of relationships with peers focus on analysing access to financial resources through these entities (john becker-blease and jeffrey sohl 2007; richard harrison and colin mason 2007) or on how relationships that women establish differ from those established by men (stan cromie and sue birley 1992; ritch sorenson, cathleen folker and keith brigham 2008). very few studies analyse in depth the relationships that women-owned bojica, a.m., et al., public support and inter-firm, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 28-46) 33 firms establish with their clients, their providers or competitors, the way in which these relationships support the development of the business by offering access to resources, the discovery of new and valuable clients and collaborators, or the accumulation of social capital, knowledge of the market and new business opportunities. these issues are the subject of a deeper and wider analysis in the general literature on entrepreneurs and social networks. in this sense, previous research emphasizes that the social interaction that takes place in collaborative relationships as well as the quality of these ties provide several benefits for the interacting firms (joel baum, tony calabrese and brian silverman 2000; helena yli-renko, erkko autio and harry sapienza 2001). social interaction goes one step beyond the stipulated interactions for a formal relationship between two firms. some authors have stressed that social interactions are developed over time in dyadic relationships, as the actors come to know and trust each other (andrea larson 1992; peter smith ring and andrew van de ven 1994). the benefits of a strong social interaction are reflected by the increased intensity in the exchange of information and knowledge acquisition (larson 1992; yli-renko, autio and sapienza 2001). intense social interaction with clients also strengthens a firm’s ability to recognize and evaluate relevant external information in order to transform it into specialized information and know-how, providing understanding of the operations that clients perform and by extension a more effective way of communicating with them (jeffrey dyer and harbir singh 1998). these elements influence positively the quality of relationships with clients. by intensifying the frequency and depth of information exchange, social interaction enables knowledge of the reciprocal expectations of the actors involved, development of common norms and objectives in the relationship, and an increase in the trust between parties, all of which are fundamental coordinates of a high-quality relationship (janine nahapiet and sumantra ghoshal 1998). the quality of the ties with clients is a very important factor in the acquisition of resources through these relationships (yli-renko, autio and sapienza 2001). dyer and singh (1998) have stressed the need for informal norms of reciprocity and trust as mechanisms for governing the interorganisational relationships that facilitate collaboration between firms and knowledge sharing. norms of reciprocity and trust give firms the control and freedom necessary to exchange a wide range of resources, take risks with each other, innovate, and share information freely (larson 1992). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 28-46) 34 given the befits of building quality relationships and developing intense social interactions with clients and collaborators, firms should focus on the factors that stimulate these elements and devote efforts to enhance their effect. interdependencies between the relationships developed prior studies have shown that in conditions of uncertainty a firms’ previous relationships are an important decision factor. these studies analyse such elements as the number of previous alliances between partners (ranjay gulati 1995). their results support our premise that firms’ relationships with support organisations such as public and private financing and non-financing entities can constitute an important calling card for the firms in other bilateral relationships due to the latter’s much more public content. they become a guarantee of trust for accessing more knowledge of the partner and for increasing the network of contacts. given that networks can offer information on the behaviour of others, it is reasonable to expect that the presence of third parties (such as support entities) can motivate collaboration between two or more firms. various studies have shown that relationships with symbols of legitimacy, such as prestigious public and private entities, affect the survival of firms (baum and oliver 1991). these relationships can grant special benefits in markets where the results are difficult to evaluate directly (brass et al. 2004). they can also benefit actors whom some general perception places at a disadvantage with respect to others, as is the case for firms created by women. toby stuart, ha hoang and ralph hybels (1999) find that when faced with uncertainty concerning the quality of new firms, third parties base their reasoning on the reputation of these firms’ business partners. more specifically, the support of government agencies and other organisations seems to become a competitive advantage for firms that receive it. based on these results, we can deduce that if a firm develops a good reputation through relationships with financial, public and private institutions and receives public recognition from them would be supported for intensifying the social interaction with its peers and raise the benefits of quality inter-organisational relationships. consequently, the firm will have access to more resources, while also gaining support to diversify and widen its partner network (yli-renko, autio and sapienza 2001). bojica, a.m., et al., public support and inter-firm, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 28-46) 35 obtaining financing from banks and public institutions for a business project is both a critical resource and a promise of success, but being called “promising” by prestigious public and private entities is a guarantee for a current or potential business partners. this support confers legitimacy on the firm, and positively affects a firm’s relationships with its peers. the study the previous literature review reveals the need to analyse the extent to which women-owned businesses that show good relationships with support entities (in terms of obtaining financing and public recognition of their performance) have: − greater levels of social interaction with their clients than other firms that receive less support. − greater levels of social interaction with their collaborators than other firms that receive less support. − higher-quality relationships with their clients than do other firms that receive less support. − higher-quality relationships with their collaborators than do other firms that receive less support. in the empirical analysis, we have taken a sample of the population of spanish firms started by women registered on www.e-empresarias.net. this web is a service provided by the program of entrepreneurial support for women, promoted by the women’s institute and the national council of chambers of commerce. this service seeks to bring new technologies to women entrepreneurs and businesswomen, offer them free advice and create a network between them. women can sign up at www.e-empresarias.net if they have been admitted to the program of entrepreneurial support and wish to complement the face-to-face advising provided by their chamber of commerce with this on-line service. however, any woman who wishes to join may form part of the network of users of the program for entrepreneurial support for women. this is a national program that is developed in all regions and provinces of spain. the data were collected from june to november 2006, through an email questionnaire sent to all of the women registered on www.eempresarias.net. the message sent with the survey explained that the study was directed to women entrepreneurs and described the research goals. of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 28-46) 36 the 3136 questionnaires sent, approximately 20 percent were returned because the email address was not valid. the 118 questionnaires received correspond to a 4.7 percent response rate, a rate close to the average of 6 percent for mail surveys in other studies (eren ozgen and robert baron 2007). after the incomplete questionnaires were eliminated, the number of surveys used in the study was 111. the descriptive analysis of the sample showed that 80 percent of the women surveyed had some university education and 61.2 percent of the women entrepreneurs had more than five years of experience in the activity they developed. the business was a personal initiative for 71.2 percent of the women surveyed and a group initiative for 22.7 percent; only 5.5 percent inherited the business. as to motivations for starting a business, the analysis of the multiple responses shows that 22.6 percent of the women started a business because they perceived a business opportunity, 18 percent for independence in their work, 37.7 percent as a personal challenge, 9.4% percent as an alternative to being employed by someone else and the same percent for necessity, because of the difficulty to find a job. as to the firms’ characteristics, 68.1 percent had been functioning for less than 5 years and 88 percent less than 10 years. most of these firms were small, 93.7 percent having fewer than 10 employees. as to the sector of activity, the firms were concentrated primarily in the service sector and to a lesser degree in the sectors of commerce, construction and manufacturing industry. measurement of variables relationships with support entities. to measure the independent variable relationships with support entities, we used a 5-item scale of 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree), adapted according to the measure used by lee, lee and pennings (2001) for relationships with sponsors. the items refer to the extent to which the firm has received financial support from public and private finance organisations for projects that it undertakes alone or in collaboration with other firms, the extent to which these organisms have recognized the firm publicly as promising, and the extent to which the firm has received public recognition in general. relationships with peers. in the group of peers, we distinguish both at conceptual and operative effects between clients and other collaborators, bojica, a.m., et al., public support and inter-firm, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 28-46) 37 since clients have a special status among collaborators in general and have been treated separately in the previous literature on networks. we measure two dimensions of these relationships, social interaction and quality, adapting them to the scales used by yli-renko, autio and sapienza (2001). quality of relationships with clients. to measure the quality of relationships with clients, we asked the respondents to evaluate six items on a 7-point scale (1=totally disagree; 7=totally agree). the items refer to the degree to which relationships with clients show that: neither party tries to take advantage of the other if it has the opportunity; both parties try to avoid making requirements that can damage the relationship; promises made by both sides are kept, and knowledge of the market and information concerning needs and tendencies in the market are obtained through these relationships. quality of relationships with collaborators. we measured this variable in a similar way to the previous one, but used four items referring to the following conditions: neither party tries to take advantage of the other if it has the opportunity; both parties try to avoid making requirements that can damage the relationship; and both parties keep promises made reciprocally. social interaction with peers (clients and collaborators). as in the case of quality of relationships, we distinguished between clients and other collaborators. in both cases, we used a 7-point scale (1=totally disagree; 7=totally agree). for measuring social interaction with clients, we used four items to show the closeness of relationships with clients, personal knowledge of the clients and the transmission of informal work knowledge through these relationships. to measure social interaction with collaborators, we used two items relevant to the closeness in relationships and personal knowledge of collaborators. we performed an analysis of reliability in order to evaluate the internal consistency of the scales used, assuming that their elements are combined additively. table 1 shows the cronbach’s alpha values for the five variables employed. in all cases, the values are higher than 0.7, thus showing a good level of reliability (joseph hair et al. 2008). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 28-46) 38 table 1: viability analysis and descriptive statistics. variables nº of ítems cronbach’s alfa means sd relationships with support entities 5 0.840 3.60 1.79 quality of the relationships with clients 6 0.734 5.94 0.74 quality of the relationships with collaborators 4 0.890 6.06 1.05 social interaction with clients 4 0.723 5.56 1.13 social interaction with collaborators 2 0.791 5.83 1.32 results the first step in our analysis was to check for the existence of women socio-demographical characteristics and firm characteristics that might condition the perceived level of support. we considered the following variables: woman’s age, marital status, level of education, motivation, percentage of capital owned and the firm industry. the results are shown in table 2 and 3. they reflect no statistically significant differences in the perceived level of support with respect to the analysed variables. nevertheless, we can observe higher level of perceived support in the case of divorced women and when the main motivation for starting a business was the discovery of a business opportunity (table 2). the perceived level of support is also greater when the owned percentage of capital is less than 100 and in less traditional industries for women as constructions (table 3). bojica, a.m., et al., public support and inter-firm, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 28-46) 39 table 2: perceived level of support differences depending on social and demographic characteristics and motivations of women entrepreneurs. category n means significance age 0.668 (n.s.) 20-30 years old 15 3.41 30-40 years old 54 3.81 40-50 years old 33 3.34 more than 50 years old 6 3.60 marital status 0.689 (n.s.) single 32 3.61 married 48 3.49 divorced 15 4.07 other 12 3.31 education 0.917 (n.s) master and phd 42 3.59 bachelor 43 3.63 secondary 7 3.14 professional training 14 3.47 motivation discovered opportunity 24 4.14 independence 19 3.33 economic necessities 10 3.38 personal challenge 40 3.58 an alternative to being an employee 10 3.21 others 3 3.60 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 28-46) 40 table 3: perceived level of support differences depending on characteristics of women-owned business. category n means significance property 0.183 (n.s.) shared property 22 4.03 50% ownership 36 3.75 100% ownership 42 3.22 industry 0.452 (n.s.) stockbreeding, agriculture, extraction 1 1.00 manufacturing 6 3.73 constructions 7 4.02 commmerce y repairing 9 3.34 education 9 4.13 health and veterinary activities, social service. 9 2.86 social activities and community service 12 3.28 real estate and renting activities, business services 36 3.52 others 15 4.32 in order to analyse if the support relationships improve the peer-topeer relationships, we classified the sample into two groups, distinguishing between low-level support relationships (point values of less than 4) and normal and high support relationships (point values greater than or equal to 4). the research proposes that the women-owned firms that develop stronger relationships with support entities (in terms of obtaining financing and public recognition for their performance) exhibit higher levels of social interaction and higher-quality relationships with their clients and collaborators. table 4 shows the results of the analysis of variance. the significance level of the f-test in the table is 0.016 for social interaction with clients, 0.004 for social interaction with collaborators, 0.021 for quality of relationships with collaborators, and 0.288 for quality of relationships with clients. this confirms that there are significant differences in the intensity of social interaction with clients and collaborators and in the quality of relationships with collaborators but not in the quality of relationships with clients with respect to the support bojica, a.m., et al., public support and inter-firm, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 28-46) 41 received. the data for the measurements reveals the structure of these differences: as the level of support obtained through the relationships with support entities increases, the average social interaction with clients and collaborators and the quality of relationships with collaborators increases. table 4: differences in relationships with peers betteen women’s firms. relationships with peers low-level of support mediumhigh level of support significance quality of the relationships with clients 5.87 6.03 0.288 social interaction with clients 5.34 5.89 0.016* quality of the relationships with collaborators 5.86 6.34 0.021* social interaction with collaborators 5.53 6.27 0.004** * p< .05; ** p <.01 discussion and conclusions the current work advances knowledge of inter-organisational relationships in firms created by women, tackling little-explored topics both in this specific area and in the wider area of entrepreneurial networks: the influence of one kind of relationship on another. it also emphasizes the richness of this line of research and its almost unexplored possibilities for future studies. few studies analyse in depth the relationships at the level of the organisation for firms started by women. there seems to be a focus on the social relationships of the women entrepreneurs and the gender composition of the networks in which they participate (sue birley 1985; peter rosa, sara carter and daphne hamilton 1996), neglecting the way these relationships are used to achieve organisational goals and the interactions that might exist between different kinds of ties. as opposed to previous studies that analysed the effects of the institutional support adopting an interventionist point of view, we analyse the role that relationships with institutions and financial entities play in the everyday life of the firm, without taking into account the actions that institutions journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 28-46) 42 develop specifically for the purpose of stimulating the cooperation between firms. there has been a lot of evidence that the economic action is embedded in the social context that it occurs (brian uzzi 1997). the social constructions generated along the time around the concept of gender seem to have played an important role in the perception of women-owned business as less performing, undermining the access of this kind of firms to resources, and especially to financial resources. despite the lack of convergence in results regarding these aspects, the polemics around them have positioned women-owned firms in a disadvantageous situation as a business partner. it seems that some of the clues to this situation are lying in the same social context: support relationships can enable the womenowned firms as a trustful business partner in the eyes of the clients and others collaborators, as they positively influence the social interaction and the quality of these relationships. firms that receive formal recognition or formal support from public or private institutions are practically recommended by these institutions as they invest resources in those organisations. this way they attract others companies´ interest which is translated into a deeper social interaction and a deeper involvement. various authors have called attention to the lack of studies that consider the value of different kinds of relationships (ranjay gulati and james westphal 1999; ha hoang and bostjan antoncic 2003) and the need for examining the interactions between various dimensions of the networks and relationships (inkpen and tsang 2005). the study performed aims to advance in this direction, analysing the variation of relationships with peers with respect to the relationships with support entities, focusing specifically on the way in which the quality of the relationship with clients (an element that corresponds to the governing dimension of the relation, cf. hoang and antoncic (2003)) and the social interaction with clients (an element that corresponds to the content dimension of the relation, cf. hoang and antoncic (2003)) are influenced by the relationships with support entities. the results obtained show that the legitimacy conferred by working with public and private support organisms and the prestige of achieving some formal recognition from them lead clients and collaborators to intensify their social interaction with the firm. however, we found no differences in the case of quality of relationship with clients. this can be bojica, a.m., et al., public support and inter-firm, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 28-46) 43 explained by the fact that, due to the content and the nature of the relationship itself and the special status that the clients occupy among other peers, the quality of relationships with clients depends first on other factors, such as the products and services that they receive, contractual conditions negotiated, etc., more than on the support and legitimacy that their partners receive from public and private entities. conversely, relationships with other peers, where different priorities do not intervene as in the case of clients, can be strengthened by the fact that the firm receives support from public and private organisms. the study finds no statistically significant differences in support relationships regarding certain characteristics of women entrepreneurs and their businesses, which suggests that the perceived level of support doesn’t depend on these variables. nevertheless, the results reflect greater levels of perceived support depending on the marital status or the industry where the firm is located, indicating the need to study in depth these issues in future studies. we consider the present work to have significant implications for practice – both for the support entities and for women entrepreneurs. for support entities, the results of this study call the attention to the very important role that these entities can play in legitimating women-owned firms in their interactions with other actors in the market. table 4 points out the low levels of support women-owned firms benefit. the creation of prizes and public recognition actions for these firms, based on other kinds of results than exclusively the financial ones or the creation of special grants can represent an important support instrument. much of the literature on women’s entrepreneurship has emphasized the need to draw on more diverse kinds of indicators than the financial ones, in order to have a holistic image of women-owned business performance. there is an imperative need for the policy makers to acknowledge that the outcomes of a firm go beyond its financial performance and have to meet the needs of all its stakeholders and accomplish its aim as a social organisation. formal recognition of other kinds of performance can change the present perceptions of women-owned businesses as less performing than their male counterparts and legitimate them in the peer-to-peer exchange relationships. for women entrepreneurs, this study stresses that developing strong relationships with prestigious public and private entities can be used to open the doors to more intense interaction with their clients and journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 28-46) 44 collaborators, while also seeming to 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[39] yli-renko, helena, autio, erkko, and harry. j. sapienza. 2001. “social capital, knowledge acquisition and knowledge exploitation in young technology-based firms.” strategic management journal, 22: 587-613. received: 15 july 2010 article history: accepted: 30 august 2010 15_jwe_1-2 udk: 332.871(689.1) jel: b52, j cobiss.sr-id: 215912204 original scientific paper the informal striving to formalize operations for survival: the example of two women housing cooperatives in harare, zimbabwe innocent chirisa1 university of zimbabwe, faculty of social studies, zimbabwe a b s t r a c t this paper seeks to examine and analyze the tension between formal institutions and informal institutions assessing explanatory factors regarding successful access to housing by the urban poor in zimbabwe. the paper provides an anecdotal assessment on issues of the state opening up space for non-state actors, and, how these housing cooperatives have strived to formalize their operations while others have used party politics for development and ‘survival’. a literature review and case study of selected women housing cooperatives in harare (tashinga and joshua nkomo), was guided by the following research question: is the success of the housing co-operatives mostly a function of patronage or that of a formalized structure that allows for transparency and accountability? key words: institutions, housing cooperatives, patronage, clientilism, power, gender, policy 1 ichirisa@sociol.uz.ac.zw 106 innocent, c., the example of two women housing, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) introduction this paper draws its argument from both literature review and case studies of two selected women housing cooperatives in harare – tashinga and joshua nkomo heights. the paper is essentially a study on the politicization of housing access and the quality of services stemming from the shift in regime types and the creation of space for non-state actors to enter the fold of housing provision. it advances the argument that non-state actors in housing provision are not at all politically neutral; most of the times, they ride on politics to have their agenda fulfilled. a primary question that this study seeks to answer is: do housing cooperatives, as formalized structures facilitate greater access, especially for the economically disadvantaged like the majority of urban women? how political neutral are the cooperatives as non-state actors? to try and answer these questions, first the paper engages literature, gets into an overview about zimbabwe and then harare and then details of the two cooperatives mentioned. after this, comes a discussion of the issues and finally conclusion overall, the zimbabwean housing delivery in recent times has been a cacophony of experiences with the government, local authorities, and private land developers and housing cooperatives trying to address the divergent interests of different urban citizens (mashoko, 2012). there has been a realization that the state cannot go it alone hence the need to open up space for more actors, especially self-help initiatives. the matter has also been tackled in several major government policy initiatives, for example the draft national housing policy of 1999 which ultimately became the new national housing policy launched beginning of 2013. a number of housing cooperatives by the urban poor who cannot afford houses through normal and formal channels have emerged. housing cooperatives are filling the void that has resulted from the failure of the state to satisfy the housing needs of the urban population (mashoko, 2012. this has offered greater access to shelter and services by the poor and women in particular. however, housing cooperatives has been used by zanu pf as a tool for championing so-called ‘development-frombelow’. the national backlog has ballooned to over a million housing units of with harare, the capital city, having the greatest need. in 2003 national housing program was launched in response to the then national backlog of housing units of 162,000 which was tittering behind an annual production rate of 15,000 and 20,000. some housing cooperatives have emerged by journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) 107 patronage. they have usually produced poor quality housing which, in the long-term, may be detrimental in terms of meeting basic urban standards like provision of water and sewer before erection of buildings. in recent times, substandard housing in harare, as in most cities of the developing world, has been produced in the pretext of incremental housing which in most cases lacks in basic sanitation and water provision posing a public health threat to the inhabitants (share, 2012). a critical review on formal versus informal structures in access to housing the provision of housing often needs state support in order to protect the less-privileged members of society including women, the disabled and children. however, legal requirements in place, costs and lack of transparency often make formal housing too expensive for the aforementioned groups (chirisa & munzwa, 2008). technical experts involved in designing and implementing policies are often devoid of understanding of either the economic situations or perceptions and assumptions of marginalized and less-privileged groups, often resulting in delays and absence of services to these groups. the success of informal systems is perceived to depend of the poor’s compliance with existing standards. without compliance self-help housing schemes tend to be timeconsuming, marginal and exploitative (de wit & berner, 2009), at the same times grossly hampered by inadequate access to secure land (hossain & moore, 2002). gentrification has often been cited as having an exclusionary effect on the urban poor. in the urban gentrification literature (for example, brueckner & selod, 2008), the poor are always at the mercy of government or the wealth that can ‘forcibly push’ or ‘buy them out’, respectively. when forced out of the place of their choice for habitat, the poor either find themselves in the inner city, squalid and unhealthy or the peri-urban – poorly serviced and unhealthy too. the peri-urban is the place outside the official city boundary and has semi-rural traits. peri-urban settling implies urban sprawl of which urban expansion generally means that rural land is being ‘eaten up’ to give way for the city. sometimes this means loss of revenue and other resources to the rural local authority hence the rural reluctantly ‘transfers’ its land to the city. politicians often hijack the process for political gain and use this to present a case where they appear to be helping the poor. in that way, patronage and clientilism creep in. 108 innocent, c., the example of two women housing, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) there is recognition that housing provision in urban areas particularly in developing countries remains a challenge. rapid urbanization in most of these countries (due to rural to urban migration and natural increase) is the principal explanation to this. most governments have failed to clear housing backlogs hence the opening to public-private partnerships and communitybased organization too. this liberalization of space stemming largely from inability to address the question of poverty is one reason why informal settlements have sprouted in most of these cities (cross, 2006). africa’s urban landscape, like its asian and latin american counterparts, has become highly informalized of which cross (2006) has defined this informalization as a process by which the poor evades laid down formal rules to produce their desired outcomes. informal land delivery systems imply that the poor are seeking social legitimacy (cross, 2006) by harnessing on social capital of the people they know are connected to the formal systems. normally these people are the elites and politicians leading or seeking to lead them. formal institutions tend to have high legal requirements as a matter of protocol but in most cases lack in coordination and transparency, tending to be slow and bureaucratic in delivery (wilt & berner, 2009). as argued by cross (2006) and de wit and berner (2009), informal institutions are prone to abuse by elites and politicians who in turn also want to gain political mileage by pretending to represent the lessprivileged of society. usually, within informal institutions there is embedded political patronage. thus, the urban poor can be hamstrung to the diktats of the few elites who have partial access to formal institutions and thrive by clientelism or vote buying (desai, 2008). the usually outcome of this kind of political participation is poor service delivery. politicians in africa normally try to entrench or forge patron-client relationships with the urban poor populations being loyalists to their diktats. although, formal institutions tend to guarantee greater security in terms of tenure and protection from evictions or demolitions, their potency lies in their ability to maintain principles of good governance transparency, coordination and the responsiveness to the needs of the urban populations. tshikoshi (2009) has questionedunresponsive, unaccountable and corrupt governance institutions are recipe for failure of plans and programs usually meant for make better the lives of the poor. while the private sector can provide infrastructure services, the poor usually fail to capture this benefit given their inability to afford. both the formal and informal institutions can play an important role journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) 109 in the provision of urban infrastructure and services as long as their complementary roles are realized. the politics and governance of cooperative housing in zimbabwe in 1980, a government headed by black zimbabweans largely adopting a socialist approach to governance (paradza, 2010). in this approach, the state was the major provider of public basic services, housing included. such a terrain meant little involvement of the non-state actors (voluntary, community and private sector actors) in addressing the human needs. however, in no time rapid urbanization induced resource constraints a development which saw construction houses for urban areas becoming a mammoth task for the state on its own. nevertheless, in the early years of independence, efforts by non-state actors were not usually well received by the state. in 1991, a number of homeless families were evicted from mbare and other strategic places of harare to porta farm because her highness, the queen of england and wales, elizabeth ii was coming to official open the 1991 commonwealth heads of government meeting (chogm) in the city. their eviction was with speed and done in the spirit of ‘gentrifying’ the urban space. again, in 1995, the veteran nationalist leader and leader of zanu ndonga, reverend ndabaningi sithole settled some homeless urban dwellers of harare on his churu farm2 and allowed them to build structures and stay. the zanu pf government ‘rubbished’ this move as a ploy by sithole to get votes by clientilism. it deployed the army and police to fight such ‘a coup plot’. it must be noted that in all these cases, it was women and children hit the hardest as they had to brace with the hassle of carrying goods and being shifted up and about. in 2000, zimbabwe embarked on a fast-track land reform program (ftlrp). the same program provided an opportunity for land reorganization and redistribution, mainly in the rural areas. yet, spatial changes also did occur to most urban areas in which it became possible for the homeless to claim land for housing construction, which formal channels of land banking and incorporation had failed to deliver (moyo, 2000; 2011). households that had been struggling to have housing land took opportunity 2 the farm was some few kilometers away from the city. 110 innocent, c., the example of two women housing, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) to capitalize on the land seizure process and quite a number managed to acquire peri-urban plots some being spearheaded by emerging housing cooperatives (murowe & chirisa, 2006). this might point to a convergence of somewhat two diametrically opposite agendas – rural demand for land for farming and urban demand for land for housing (marongwe, 2003). a group of elites (politicians) spearheaded the formation of housing cooperatives that became the hope of the homeless to get housing (marongwe, 2003; toriro, 2006; 2007). the institutional set-up for housing delivery current problems besetting housing delivery in zimbabwe include especially finance, infrastructure provision and land. in recent times, the country is on record having very expensive mortgages against a background of the majority of the urban citizens failing to fit in the bracket of those who can afford. the institutional set-up is highly bureaucratic and inhibitive to progressive housing development. overall, non-state actors in the housing sector include private, for-profit companies, as well as voluntary associations that are focused on shelter provision. the co-operative societies act chapter 24:05, the by-laws and the cooperative development policy of 2005 are the legal instruments used by cooperatives in administering their affairs.3 at the same time, the proposed land developers bill seeks to protect the interests of co-operative members. when adopted, it will help in providing guidelines on how to develop the land. the other instrument is the labor relations act (1985) which is helpful in the regulation of the secretariat’s conduct. the zimbabwe national association of housing co-operatives (zinahco), the apex body for housing co-operatives in zimbabwe.4 3 cooperatives in zimbabwe are self-administered institutions; legal and autonomous entities with powers to select their own administrative bodies, for example, composition of the management and supervisory committees. 4 zinahco represents over 150 co-operatives with over 7,200 members throughout the country. the organization was formed in 1993 and registered on 2001 under the cooperative societies act chapter 24:05. governed by a board committee, its programs are implemented by the secretariat with specialized skills in town planning, land surveying, civil engineering, to name these few. it helps with the training for income-generating projects and loan management and construction hence developing ther capacity and journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) 111 characterizing housing cooperative operations and institutions in zimbabwe the average size of a co-operative is around 50 members. however the membership ranges from 10 members to 400 members. housing development is typically incrementally. in most cases, a co-operative purchases land and building materials then constructs the houses for its members. different modes apply in the construction of the houses, usually with some combination of self-help and small builders, and in some cases, larger builders taking on some or the entire project. co-operatives can access land that is already serviced and with title deeds from the local authorities.5 nevertheless, they can do the servicing and the house development at the same time in those instances when they get un-serviced stands. housing cooperatives and the politics of survival by zanu pf cooperatives in zimbabwe in have faced serious politicization. the government has sought, among other things, to enhance housing cooperatives. for instance, the daily news of 29 november 2012, through its reporter, kachembere (2012:1) observes how the government, through a revised national housing policy was seeking, among other things “… to promote housing cooperatives, improve networking and stakeholder coordination and as well as create a database in the housing delivery program”. this follows years of economic doldrums and dysfunctionality in many state institutions. zanu pf has pushed the cooperative agenda immensely. seeing this gap, communities have coaxed the party to act in their plea for land to build by suggesting that they will vote it to power. during run-up to elections, the state always embrace cooperatives/informal settlements, but then reject them in others instances especially if the votes turn out to be out favor with the party, especially zanu pf. this variation in state responses puts both the voters and the state in limbo. they always find they are in need of each other albeit informally and in cheating of each ensuring the sustainability of programs of the cooperatives. moreover, it provides loans to member housing co-operatives to build core houses gradually for each of their members. 5 servicing the land involves engineering designs, roads and water systems hence the housing cooperatives must allocate financial resources that could otherwise be used to build more houses. 112 innocent, c., the example of two women housing, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) other. this is really interesting in terms of the central state, local government and cooperative roles at various points in the housing process. for example in the period running up to the july 31, 2013 harmonized elections, zanu pf organized urban residents around cooperatives, a development which is credited to its ability to secure urban seats after more than a decade of failure to do so hence losing to its rival, the mdc. the case of harare harare has, for example, 2,050 registered co-operatives housing cooperatives in the city vary immensely in terms of their origins and history, the internal dynamics of cooperation (including gender and employment status of the members) and interaction with outside players (including politicians and potential funders). these factors may explain the differential success rates these cooperatives have. recently it has been noted of how “…large open spaces where urban farming used to thrive in tafara, mabvuku, mufakose, epworth and hatcliffe, have been taken up by housing cooperatives and informal sector businesses” (matonho, 2012:4). this is part of the urban footprint debate of which urban land generally is a highly contested factor. as of 2012, most stands6 in harare’s high-density areas “… cost an average of us50 cents per square meter” (share, 2012). the majority of the home seekers are civil servants are civil servants earning us$300 a month hence do not qualify for mortgage bonds. mortgage loans at most financial lending institutions attract a 15 percent interest repaid over 10 years. one such financial institution is the first banking corporation (fbc), which has housing units in such places of harare as glaudina, waterfalls, helensvale and philadelphia. a good number of houses in these places require a deposit of us$17 000 and a us$900 monthly payment for the agreed years. failure to service the mortgage payments results in the “…bank repossessing the house or stand. the stand or house would be resold for the bank to recoup its money” (share, 2012). the majority high and middle-income earners can 6a stand is a lot or plot, usually created through layout planning and subdivision (or consolidation) of land. on this lot, a housing structure is built. there are three basic types of stands in zimbabwe – high-density stand (averaging 250 square meters), mediumdensity (averaging 450 square meters) and low-density stand (usually between 800 and 2000 square meters). journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) 113 afford houses and residential stands through loans from banks and lending institutions at an arranged interest rate which can be up to 25 years. in keeping with the non-access to housing finance is the issue of the housing backlog. harare has more than 40 000 residents on its housing waiting list (though they could be more who have not registered). delays in securing a stand have resulted in some losing faith and pulling out of the register. in recent times, loans for housing in harare, have been pegged housing in medium and low-density between us$5 000 and us$90 000 a price range making it impossible for the ordinary person to own a stand or a house. this private sector strategy is available only to the wealthier class or formal sector employees. since the majority of low-income earners cannot afford this. the development justifies the rise of housing cooperatives as a selfhelp housing strategy in the city. during the period between 1999 and 2008, housing cooperatives managed to build 2,351 houses. more than 40 000 cooperative members were resident on more than 11,479 stands in harare as at 2012. consequently, many have turned to housing cooperatives, which have become a national urban phenomenon. many cooperatives have emerged in the peri-urban zone of harare in rural districts that borders the city goromonzi, mazowe, zvimba and seke. the city of harare has demanded that certain ‘urban standards’ be first achieved before it can take responsibility of the peri-urban settlements (toriro, 2007). failure to achieve that has seen the incorporation of periurban settlement largely by cooperatives into the city. housing cooperatives sell plots at intrinsic value. this has seen a ‘stands’ rush’ with numerous people joining housing cooperatives (share, 2012). the city of harare has demanded that certain ‘urban standards’ be first achieved before it can take responsibility of the peri-urban settlements. their incorporation into urban harare remains undone. this idea is on seeking to cut costs such as rent on those building. with respect to hatcliffe, the peri-urban settlers who were uprooted from porta farm, churu farm as well as dzivarasekwa benefited from the housing savings’ schemes. in hatcliffe, cbos have embraced all sorts of innovations including alternative technology for conventional water and sewer systems like sky loos. however, those sections of the community that have managed to install the conventional water and sewer pipes, they remain dry and boreholes and conventional sewer pipes have been proposed. the then ministry of national housing and social amenities accepted cbos in the provision of low-income houses through an incremental approach with some cbos lobbying for in situ building. 114 innocent, c., the example of two women housing, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) a comparison of two housing cooperatives in harare generally, co-operative based housing projects in harare are spontaneous and most of them revolutionary. from a spatial planning point of view, the execution of housing development is ad hoc with no or minimum co-ordination. housing development by cooperatives can take more than 20 years for members access their ‘house’. in the forthcoming paragraphs, the main outcomes in different cooperatives are assessed by way of comparison of two cooperatives in the city. the analysis seeks to measure the level of success. in each cooperative examining the number of houses constructed, level of access by the poor especially participation by women. the different influencing factors are highlighted. tashinga housing cooperative has managed to pay for the construction of the sewer, road reticulation and storm water drain projects from the savings. joshua nkomo cooperative have failed to do so. on the other hand joshua nkomo cooperative have managed to build core house to its members but looking closely one can note that the houses are not even enough to cater for every member of the cooperatives. moreover, the same housing cooperatives have pounced on this opportunity to milk the desperate urban poor. new members as will be noted in the case of joshua nkomo have taken over the cooperatives and reportedly old members are complaining that they are not ‘patriotic’ are not following the core values of the cooperatives thereby increased rate of corruption. it has of become a cash cow for cooperatives leaders at the expense of development. also as evident from both cooperatives, members are mandated to pay monthly subscriptions in the hope that the money will be channeled towards servicing and building of houses. however, corruptive tendencies seem to be stalling progress of these cooperatives. tashinga housing cooperative tashinga housing cooperative is a community-based cooperative in dzivarasekwa that was formed formed by domestic workers employed in malbereign low-density suburb in 1988. at its formation, it had 224 members of which 162 (72%) were women. a study by chirisa and munzwa in 2008 revealed how, (at the time of that study), most of the members were involved in informal activities (selling fruits, vegetables and clothes). reasons for doing this they explained, as the derisory wages they were receiving from their employers. the founder of the cooperative, miss journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) 115 eneasia kuchidzemhanduha been its chairperson to date. the management committee of the committee (at the time of the 2008 study) comprised only three women out of the nine that as elected representatives. since 1988, the chairperson’s salary was z$300 per month and was insufficient to acquire housing. given this situation, she decided to mobilize people in a similar situation with the view to form a cooperative and pool resources. they approached the local authority to provide them with land. members agreed to set a ceiling on the number of people who could become members as a strategy to manage the processes of building houses and allocating the core houses finished. members legible as co-operators had to be residents from malbereign and homeless. the joining fee was z$2 and the monthly subscription was z$125 payable by all members. tashinga acquired land at a cost of z$1,720,000 on which 224 stands of 300 square meters each were allocated to each member. this amount was raised entirely from the cooperative’s savings (munzwa, 1999). the cooperative was guided by its set of byelaws including regular attendance by members to general meetings (held at the beginning of every month), fining those who did not attend and forfeiture of membership if members missed three consecutive meetings without cause. besides doing its own internal arrangements for survival and taking establishing its foothold in housing provision, tashinga also relied on the then may. kuchidzemhandu has explained, “for us to make it, it was not easy. there were fights we had to make especially regarding land access thanks to the then mayor chikwavaire. he had an ear to listen to our story and to work with us. he was our guarantor of what we did later after we got land from the city council. we went to him for support and advice often.” (chirisa and munzwa 2008:24). in addition, tashinga appointed housing people of zimbabwe (hpz) as its project manager. it made significant strides in the acquisition and developing its land. hpz signed the service agreement because the cooperative, through its management committee was empowered to do so. further, hpz assisted in getting engineers to produce the engineering drawings and bills of quantity for the major services needed (including sewerage and water sanitation, roads and storm drains). the level of organization was high at every stage of payment made to the contractor. tashinga managed to pay for the construction of the sewer, road reticulation 116 innocent, c., the example of two women housing, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) and storm water drain projects from the savings it made within a six-year period. hpz drew the cooperative plans for a fee. in 1995, the total costs payable by the cooperative including sewer installation costs, at the obtaining rate of inflation of 30%, totaled z$34 840. the total amount of the project was going to total z$46 0003 200, with funds availed in the first year (munzwa, 1999). an application made to cabs for a loan, was successful through the help of hpz. upon receiving the offer letter, the cooperative decided to retreat and go the savings route. by 1997, tashinga had built 35 core houses at the cost of z$3,000,000. the finished houses were let to the members at a cost of z$340 per month per unit. by the end of 1997 the cooperative was collecting z$57,820 per month from monthly contributions of z$205 per member per month plus z$340 per month per unit from the 35 core houses. the house construction stage was not going to be as smooth as the other stages as the savings had run out. the survey by chirisa and munzwa (2008) further revealed that 180 of the 224 houses had been constructed, albeit, at different stages 30%of the houses were complete, 20% had 4-6 rooms completed, 30% of the completed houses had been taken over by members who built through loans or savings from children helping parents as they were now employed. title deeds could only be given to owners after all the houses were completed. five percent (5%) of the original members had pulled out. the majority of the finished houses belonged to the late comers who had taken over from the members who had withdrawn. some old members complained that these new members did not have the interests of the cooperative at heart. this case shows the shortchanging on progress that resulted due to the management of the cooperatives refusing assistance by ‘external organizations’ albeit to the detriment of the development strides. in addition, the internal dynamics of the cooperative indicates the politics and strife that exist where members are new and ‘stigmatized’ as out of touch with the allegiance to the cooperative philosophy. joshua nkomo heights housing cooperative joshua nkomo heights is found in kambuzuma, south west of harare cbd (mupondi, 2003). having been allocated land it subdivided it and gave stands to its members. this was on a farm invaded by war veterans soon after independence. member named their cooperative in honor of the late vice-president of zimbabwe, comrade joshua nkomo. the principal aim of the setting the cooperative was to provide space to women in their pursuit journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) 117 towards acquiring housing (though it also had male members). women had been noted as excluded in the existing housing schemes owing to patriarchy and institutionalized discrimination against them. within its structures, joshua nkomo adopted transparency as a core value. in 2003, joshua nkomo had 2500 stands of varying sizes (of between 300 square meters and 500 hundred square meters). each member was entitled to pay a monthly subscription of between z$3500 (about us$17.60 then) and z$5000 (about us$25 then) depending on the size of the stand allocated to him or her. those members working within the cooperative arranged to guarantee that the monthly subscription was paid at the end of each month. others paid by sweat equity, which involved using their labor in molding bricks for the cooperative. mupondi (2003) has established that both the men and women were involved in brick molding, working on an average of eight hours per day leaving them with no free time to do anything else let alone to get a little extra earning to use for their upkeep. because of this concerted effort in putting together financial and labor, material resources were mobilized and core houses of two rooms per family were built. some ready houses were immediately availed to members on the queue. first preference was given to those paid-up members, in terms of monthly subscriptions. despite their efforts to produce the required deposits and producing their identification particulars, most women could not readily access the houses. such a case reveals the politics of gender imbalance in which some cooperatives are hijacked by men. one female respondent in mupondi’s study argued that, “it is all because women lack in self-confidence and mutual respect. that is why, even when one woman decides to contest for the seat of a councilor, most women would rather not support the woman but men. it is our fault. we give men a lot of leadership chances” (mupondi, 2003:46). though the cooperative began with women, at the end, in terms of stands’ allocations, of the 190 members, only 50 women had benefited. most women in the cooperative ‘retreated behind their husbands’ fearing that whatever the case might be men would eventually take over the project that began primarily as a women project. male corruption was becoming viral and this saw the selection of a committee composed of both males and females representatives to create a code of conduct. nevertheless, the women formed a club to help boost their income to pay monthly subscriptions. among the club activities were fundraisings and sponsored walks. 118 innocent, c., the example of two women housing, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) discussion and policy implications the critical component that can be learnt also from the two cooperatives studied in this paper is their involvement of women in housing development. although questions can be raised as to who benefits more but their involvement is a critical issue to note. this is vital because development policies in zimbabwe be it spatial, social or economic are largely gender insensitive as they are biased towards men. women are mostly forgotten and seen as peripheral or tangential beings when it comes to development priorities. housing in zimbabwe has not been addressed holistically and little attention has been given to women's housing needs. key shelter problems experienced by women have always included access to land, the cost and financing of housing, meeting eligibility requirements, access to information, procedures and regulations, lack of skills, time and self-confidence, and unsuitable house designs. as noted from joshua nkomo, women are often discriminated with respect to their rights to land, and legal changes may be needed to give women responsible for households the right to title to land in their own names, to allocate plots to couples in their joint names, and to ensure that widows, divorcees and deserted women retain rights to land and/or a share in the proceeds of its sale. even participation is very critical for them. women often lack access to information about the availability of land, housing construction materials and credit. tashinga housing cooperative seems to have been more organized as in the course of their operation acquired project managers in the name of housing people of zimbabwe. this was a noble as project managers helped them source loans to finance their housing activities. in addition, project managers come with a lot of technical expertise which cooperatives lack in their set-ups. whilst, on the other hand joshua nkomo housing cooperative adopted transparency as a core value/principle, evidence on the ground paints a distinct picture as corruption among male members is reported. more so, the cooperatives seem to lack a proper management structure that is accountable to stand beneficiaries. largely this is caused by lack of a legal framework for good corporate governance of co-operatives. as a result many end up being compromised projects with some dissatisfaction on the part of the beneficiaries. co-operatives are not companies neither are they non-profit making entities. they are there to serve the needs of the society i.e. the quest to own a house. also evident from both case studies is the unity of purpose within them. although there are some extreme case of journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) 119 corruption being reported, there organization and sense of cooperation is highly evident. furthermore, whereas tashinga was formed by a group of domestic workers seeking accommodation in 1988; joshua nkomo was formed by a group of war veterans soon after independence. it was war vets invading land and banking more on a zanu pf ticket. in terms of composition tashinga initially had 72% of women as members whilst joshua nkomo began with women, at the end, in terms of stands’ allocations, of the 190 members, only 50 women had benefited culminating to 26%. most women in the cooperative retreated behind their husbands fearing that whatever the case might be men would eventually take over the project that began primarily as a women project. use of political leaders has been noted in joshua nkomo cooperative where the formation was buy war vets who largely claim that they fought for the country’s liberation struggle and therefore, have the right to land. more so, the use of the name joshua nkomo speaks more of who the cooperative is linked to. this has led to quite a number of cooperative in zimbabwe forming and naming cooperatives after liberation war heroes. the sole reason is politicizing these housing cooperative for enrichment and political vote buy purposes whilst quality of services provided is suffering on the other hand. conclusion housing cooperatives have marked the dawning of a new era in the lives of the urban poor in zimbabwean cities today. this paper explored the possible measurements of this success. in terms of numbers of houses built, gender composition of the cooperatives or the quality of the habits and services developed. this paper examined and analyzed that there was no tension as such between formal institutions and informal institutions regarding women participating in the two cooperatives. both housing cooperatives have assessed have strived to formalize their operations for them to be recognized officially. tashinga peripherally sought the assistance of mayor chikwavaire while joshua nkomo heights used party politics for its initial development and even survival. both cooperatives managed to build houses and support infrastructure but over a long period of time. it is observed that success of the two housing co-operatives has variedly been function of patronage. the formal institutions have been very useful in giving direction to both cooperatives on the basis of transparency and 120 innocent, c., the example of two women housing, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) accountability. no doubt that urban land and infrastructure for housing are clearly ‘political goods’ even for ‘vote-buying’ and getting loyalty of the poor but in both cases this has not been clearly defined as so. indeed, the cooperatives learnt the secret of working closely with the incumbent ward councilor and mayor of the city as demonstrated in this paper. the success of a cooperative is function of balancing between managing politics while adhering to set standards by the formal institutions. references [1] chirisa, i. and killian, m. 2008. “collective collateralisation, group democracy and the urban marginalised communities in zimbabwe: a case of tashinga housing co-operative in harare”. local governance development journal 2(1): 12-28. [2] cross, c. 2006. “attacking urban poverty with housing: towards more effective land markets.” urban landmark position paper 2, paper prepared for urban land seminar south africa, johannesburg. [3] de wilt, j. and berner, e. 2009. “progressive patronage? municipalities, ngos, cbos and limits to slum dwellers’ empowerment”. development change 40(5): 927-947. [4] desai, r. 2010. “the political economy of urban poverty in developing countries, thesis, issues, and an agenda for research”, working paper 20, wolfensohn: wolfensohn center for development. [5] hossain, n.and moore, m. 2002. “arguing for the poor: elites and poverty in developing countries”, ids working paper 148, sussex: institute of development studies. [6] kachembere, j. 2012. “govt passes revised housing policy”. harare: the daily new, thursday, 29 november 2012. [7] marongwe, n. 2003. “the fast track resettlement and urban development nexus: the case for harare”. paper presented at the symposium on delivering land and securing rural livelihoods: post independence land reform and resettlement in zimbabwe, mont clair, nyanga, 26-28 march 2003. [8] mashoko, .s.g. 2012. “the role of low-income urban housing delivery schemes in curbing the housing problem in the city of mutare, zimbabwe”. journal of sustainable development in africa 14(1): 202-216. [9] matonho, t. 2012. “housing schemes affect urban farming”. retrieved 5 january 2013 from the world wide web: http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk, . [10] moyo, s. 2000. “the political economy of land redistribution in the 1990s”. in land reform in zimbabwe: constraints and prospects, ed. t.a.s. bowyer-bower and colin stoneman. london: stoneman, ashgate. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) 121 [11] moyo, s. 2011. “three decades of land reform in zimbabwe”. the journal of peasant.studies 38(3): 493-531. [12] mupondi, s.c. 2003. “an analysis of the women of joshua m. nkomo heights in their attempts to acquire housing and strategies that have been adopted in redressing the constraints: case of joshua mquabukonkomo heights low income housing co-operative in kambuzuma, 2002-2003”, harare: unpublished dissertation, department of rural and urban planning, university of zimbabwe. [13] owusu, g.and robert l., afutu-k. 2010. “poor urban communities and municipal interface in ghana: a case study of accra and sekondi-takoradi metropolis.” african studies quarterly 12: 1-16. [14] share, f. 2012. “home seekers scramble for co-operatives”, the herald, 12 november 2012, harare: zimpapers. [15] tshikoshi, v. 2009. “the challenges of eradicating informal settlements in south africa by 2014: the case of seraleng sustainable human settlement, rustenburg, local municipality north west province”. johannesburg: unpublished thesis, faculty of engineering and built environment of university of the witwatersrand. snage neformalnog sektora u formalizovanju delovanja radi opstanka: primer dve ženske stambene zadruge u harareu, zimbabve a p s t r a k t ovaj rad ima za cilj da ispita i analizira tenziju između formalnih i neformalnih institucija, procenjujući faktore koji objašnjavaju uspešan pristup naseljavanju od strane siromašnog stanovništva u zimbabveu. u radu se daje anegdotska procena vezano za pitanja otvaranja od strane države prostora za nedržavne aktere, i kako su ove stambene zadruge nastojale da ozvaniče svoje poslovanje, dok su drugi koristili stranačku politiku za razvoj i „opstanak“. pregled literature i studija slučaja odabranih ženskih stambenih zadruga u harareu (tashinga i joshua nkomo) su vođeni sledećim istraživačkim pitanjem: da li je uspeh stambenih zadruga prevashodno funkcija pokroviteljstva ili činjenice da formalizovane strukture omogućavaju transparentnost i odgovornost u procesu naseljavanja. 122 innocent, c., the example of two women housing, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 105-122) ključne reči: institucije, stambene zadruge, pokroviteljstvo, klijentelizam, moć, pol, politika article history: received: 12 october, 2014 accepted: 10 march, 2015 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.pp146-165 jel: f2, l26, o3 original scientific paper 8bfactors influencing the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market: a comprehensive analysis s soubhagya laxmi2 5f1 rai university, symbiosis institute of health sciences, pune, symbiosis international (deemed) university, faculty of management, pune, india saikat gochhait26 f2 symbiosis institute of digital and telecom management, symbiosis international (deemed) university, faculty of management, pune, india a b s t r a c t currently, women are widely recognized as successful entrepreneurs because of their strong desire, qualities, and abilities in order to drive robust economic development in their respective countries. in light of women’s significant contribution to economic development in india, the study investigated factors that affect women entrepreneurs' success. as part of the data collection process, 181 sme chambers of india were contacted, and structured questionnaires were distributed to them. it consists of the development of a conceptual model and the use of spss and amos software for the analysis of the data. a number of factors contribute to the success of women-owned enterprises on the international market, including internal factors such as achievement, risk-taking, and technology adaptation and external factors such as economics and socio-culture. the study recommends that the small and medium enterprises chamber of india, policymakers, and practitioners support women entrepreneurs by providing an array of incentives and supports related to those internal and external factors. we 1 e-mail: s.soubhagyalaxmi@sihspune.org 2 corresponding author, e-mail: saikat.gochhait@sidtm.edu.in s soubhagya laxmi. saikat gochhait 147 investigated some internal factors like technology adaptation that are still almost untouched in india after the post-pandemic pandemic. numerous studies have examined different factors' effects on women's entrepreneurial success. in addition to adding empirical evidence to the existing literature, the current study contributes to the existing literature. keywords: women, entrepreneurial success, risk-taking, need for achievement, economic factors, socio-cultural factors, technology adaptation, globalization introduction the percentage of women entrepreneurs in every area of the globe has increased over time (owalla & al ghafri, 2020). as a result, study into female business owners has become a global phenomenon (tundui & tundui, 2021). women's entrepreneurship is particularly praised in developing nations because of its stronger impact on household welfare, job creation, and economic progress (tundui & tundui, 2020). women's entrepreneurship is widely recognized as a powerful tool for alleviating poverty and strengthening families all around the world. in a similar manner, it is believed that successful female entrepreneurs help advance gender equality (tundui & tundui, 2021). the gender gap in entrepreneurship, however, has narrowed on a number of fronts. first, between 2014 and 2016, there was a 10% increase in female entrepreneurship, which helped close the gender gap in entrepreneurship by 5%. (tea). as of right now, "women are more active than men in the field of entrepreneurship." research interest in the field of women’s entrepreneurship has grown in tandem with the steady increase in the number of women who operate their own firms (rosenbaum, 2023). it is no coincidence that the globalization of markets has led to an increase in interest in international entrepreneurship and has contributed to the development of new interdisciplinary research areas in the field of international entrepreneurship (turunen & nummela, 2017). this research aims to fill the gap in our understanding of womenowned businesses in different states of india to build a gendered growth model and highlight the key aspects of business development relevant to women-owned businesses in areas such as jaipur, odisha, karnataka, telangana, and tamil nadu. the research gap is answered by two research questions: rq1: what criteria most determine the success of women 148journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 146-165) entrepreneurs in international expansion? rq2: what are the benefits of having access to capital and other financial resources when starting a business abroad for women entrepreneurs? based on this question, the study focuses on exploring the factors that determine the growth of women-owned businesses in a developing economy in order to present the determinants of growth that affect women-owned businesses in a developing economy. the study is based on the model of brush et al. (2009). literature review women entrepreneurs and internalization women entrepreneurs are an integral part of the business world, and their contributions are invaluable. according to schumpeter (2020), women entrepreneurs are essentially people who are innovative, proactive, or willing to engage in entrepreneurial activities. according to the literature, there is a considerable amount of research on entrepreneurship, accounting for about 10% of studies on the subject (noor et al., 2022). in the fields of business and finance, successful entrepreneurship refers to asset returns, revenue, earnings, employee growth, and non-pension benefits measures such as personal growth and performance (noor et al., 2022). in contrast, dhaliwal (2000) noted that an entrepreneur's success can be measured by the economic values she perceives, the amount of revenue she generates, or the leadership role she provides for her family. internal factors and external factors and the success of women entrepreneurs in the international marketplace the internal and external factors that drive the business and attract entrepreneurs are divided into push and pull factors depicted by dawson and henley (2012). sullivan and meek (2012) define individual factors as the characteristics and circumstances of the entrepreneur as opposed to those related to their environment. in this study, we analyzed 108 articles to identify women's entrepreneurial stages and success stories. in addition, we identified internal and external factors that contributed to the success of their business in the global marketplace and summarized these factors and their impact on the different stages of entrepreneurship. in the existing literature, success is generally described as an operationally undefined dependent variable whose attributes can be assessed by several indicators s soubhagya laxmi. saikat gochhait 149 and categorized into two dimensions (cabrera et al., 2017). firstly, corporate performance is the quantitative variable, and lastly, the qualitative variable is the entrepreneur's perception of success in her business. control factors and women entrepreneurs’ success in the international market women entrepreneurs' working status and level of education were considered as control variables to avoid false findings from this study (khan et al., 2021). in previous studies, women's status was found to affect business performance in the international market. usually, educated women make good investment decisions that positively affect business performance (khan et al., 2021). theoretical framework through an analysis of the upper management theory underlying this study, we aim to determine if there is a positive influence on women's entrepreneurial success journey. according to (hambrick & mason, 1984), upper management behavioral patterns significantly influence business performances in the export market. in this study, it was shown that technological adaptation, risk-taking aptitude, and internal motivation are important factors that influence the performance of the businesses owned by women. the past study suggests that executive characteristics have a significant impact on the success of women-owned businesses (werkman, & ansari, 2017). according to upper-echelon theory, corporate success is primarily determined by internal factors (need for performance, risk-taking, and adoption of new technologies), but also by external factors (economics and culture) depicted in table 1. 150journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 146-165) table 1: main variable’s meaning s/no variables meaning references 1 needs for achievement moderately successful or maximally satisfying activities have a moderate chance of success. zeffane, 2013; mcclelland, 1961 2 risk-taking risk-taking behavior of managers, i.e., the likelihood of costly failure when they make large resource commitments. miller & friesen, 1982 3 new technology adoption changing the way people live, work, and conduct business through technology facilitates business sustainability as it alters both economic and social life. abed, 2021 4 economic factors the value of a business or investment depends on a number of fundamental factors, including internal financing and external market conditions. wube,2010 5 sociocultural factors the success of women entrepreneurs is influenced by social and cultural factors. wube, 2010 hypotheses development need for achievement and the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market according to bayogun, balogun, and onyencho (2017), it is the desire to succeed or excel in one's career, in contract jayeoba, sholesi, and lawal (2013) define it as a motivating factor for success in business for the long run in the international market and an indicator of the need to improve in one's desire to achieve great things in life and business. similarly, achievement readiness is associated with traits such as the ability to handle difficult tasks, take up responsibility and focus on business success (rauch & frese, 2007). physiologically, there are three types of achievement motivation (mcclelland, 1988) that people use: achievement motivation, power motivation, and affiliation motivation. dewi, bundu and tahmir (2016) argue that top managers should focus on developing their skills such https://innovation-entrepreneurship.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s13731-021-00145-9#ref-cr100 https://innovation-entrepreneurship.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s13731-021-00145-9#ref-cr57 https://innovation-entrepreneurship.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s13731-021-00145-9#ref-cr98 https://innovation-entrepreneurship.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s13731-021-00145-9#ref-cr98 s soubhagya laxmi. saikat gochhait 151 as problem-solving, decision-making, and communication. they also emphasize the importance of building relationships with the people they work with and understanding the organizational culture. they also recommend setting clear goals, delegating tasks and keeping up to date with industry trends. as a result, women-led smes play a key role in the global economy (akter et al., 2019) h1a: the need for achievement has a significant positive impact on the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market. risk-taking and the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market according to zhang and cain (2017), not everyone is inspired by an entrepreneur's success story, mainly because they are willing to take a higher risk to start their own business. therefore, previous literature assumes that entrepreneurs definitely tend to take risks (rizwan et al., 2020), which is consistent with other studies. due to the persistence of this idea, some debates have arisen, claiming that entrepreneurs can also take risks (rizwan et al., 2020). the academic literature states that female ceos can take risks in an uncertain situation, which has a significant impact on the performance and success of the company. risk-taking leads entrepreneurs to achieve higher market share (danso et al., 2016; muindi et al., 2022). globally, the increase in the percentage of women-owned businesses may indicate a shift in cultural values related to women and entrepreneurship that is occurring around the world today (gimenez et al., 2022). another possible indication is that women are accessing government and other support systems in increasing numbers to become entrepreneurs in the international marketplace. this could lead to more women starting their own businesses in different countries (gimenez et al., 2022). h1b: risk-taking has a significant and positive impact on the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market. 152journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 146-165) new technology adaptation and successful women entrepreneurs in the international market the globalization of technology has led to the development of information technology (it), which can help women entrepreneurs to be present in the international market by bridging geographical and social distances and creating a competitive advantage through the interaction of technical and social systems. the it industry offers tremendous market opportunities, and women are considered the primary beneficiaries of these market opportunities, although women-led businesses are often constrained by the limited resources they have (orser et al., 2019). it enables women to contribute significantly on both economic and social levels, as it is one of the most effective tools at their disposal (mivehchi, 2019). h1c: new technology adaptation has a significant and positive impact on the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market. international market success and economic factors for women entrepreneurs women's contribution to the private sector economy is strikingly different from that of their male counterparts. this is despite the fact that women in many developing countries, such as india, cannot easily obtain credit for their entrepreneurial ventures (sabiha et al., 2022). the success of a business is also influenced by external factors such as political, economic and environmental factors. a lack of funding to develop and implement innovative strategies is a major barrier for smes in the context of women (radzi, nor, & ali, 2017). according to lindvert, patel, and wincent (2017), the success of women entrepreneurs can be affected by the fluctuation of political and economic systems. as a result, women may have better access to market information, be able to work more flexible hours and have more opportunities to work remotely. the limited geographic reach of program implementers and limited time constraints for women entrepreneurs can be overcome through training, savings programs, peer networks, and communication with mentors or role models through social media or other internet platforms (gochhait et al., 2018). this hypothesis is based on the literature mentioned above: s soubhagya laxmi. saikat gochhait 153 h1d: economic factors significantly and positively impact the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market. socio-cultural factors and the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market poggesi, mari, and de vita (2016) identify social, cultural, and family factors as key determinants of success for women entrepreneurs in islamic countries. due to the importance of socio-cultural factors for the shaping and influencing of women's entrepreneurial career choices, roomi et al. (2018) concluded. as a result of social networks, businesses gain inspiration and support (mehtap et al., 2017). in order for women to be able to participate in global trade activities, they must bear the burden of caretaking and time management. furthermore, they can also act as a source of information and knowledge sharing. lastly, they can be used as a medium to access finance and capital (gochhait et al., 2018). h1e: socio-cultural factors significantly and positively impact the success of women entrepreneurs in the international marketplace. results from the measurement model according to table 2, it must be noted that the skewness and kurtosis of the data are used to assess the normality of the data. the results of the study are within the acceptable range of ± 2, which means that the observed variables are within a normal range (khan & ghufran, 2018). in addition, cain, zhang, and yuan (2017) proposed a web-based software program for calculating the mardia coefficient called "http://webpower.psychstat.org/models/kurtosis", which is crucial to ensure that the data are as normal as possible since the data were collected from top female managers. this result is higher than the mardia coefficient (mardia, 1970) for skewness and kurtosis, respectively, with a p value of 0.05. since the data are not normally distributed, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected. 154journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 146-165) table 2: results of the demographic survey detailed description amount of frequency percentage accumulated marital status unmarried 85 46.96 married 96 53.03 working status full-time position 137 75.69 part-time position 44 24.30 education level +2 and less 28 15.47 graduate degree 63 34.80 master’s degree 49 27.07 ms/mphil degree 32 17.67 phd 9 4.97 no of employees between 20 to 50 67 37.02 between 51 to 100 52 28.73 between 101 to 150 27 14.91 between 151to 200 23 12.71 between 201 to 250 12 6.63 total 181 100 the tolerance value of the model is greater than 0.10. multicollinearity appears to not be a problem in this model, as depicted in table 3 (hair et al., 2010). table 3: means, standard deviations, and normality wei mta mnfa mrt mef mscf mean 3.74 3.72 3.67 3.37 3.77 3.78 std. deviation 0.37 0.28 0.40 0.35 0.36 0.31 vif – 1.490 1.565 1.340 1.225 1.141 tolerance – 0.671 0.281 0.299 0.449 0.467 skewness – 0.355 – 0.308 – 0.064 – 0.106 – 0.849 – 0.084 kurtosis 0.336 0.022 0.235 0.216 1.905 0.102 validation of the model through confirmatory factor analysis with amos. significant loadings were found for all items with factor loadings greater than 0.7 (p=0.001). whether a construct is valid can be determined by taking the square root of all error factors and dividing by the average number of factors. table 5 shows the square root results from ave to s soubhagya laxmi. saikat gochhait 155 determine discriminant validity based on the results in table 4. it can be concluded from table 5 that all constructs have convergent validity above 0.50 (khan, 2019). a discriminant validity value of greater than 0.70 is determined by hair et al. (2010a) based on their discriminant validity results. the composite reliability also shows that each construct has its own internal structure. the results are presented in table 5, and it can be seen that the reliability of all constructs is greater than 0.70, which is considered reliable according to nunnally and bernstein (1994). when we first tested the fitness results of our model, the results did not meet our expectations. to find out why, we checked the model change index (mi) and found that the model elements were redundant, indicating that the model contained redundant variables. at this point, we realized that the model contained redundant variables. in the second round, the results of the model are well adjusted after removing problematic elements from the model to make the second round more accurate. table 4: skewness and kurtosis of multivariate data by maridia b z p-value skewness 1369.007 73,013.76393 0 kurtosis 3080.545 87.85812 0 table 5: validity, reliability, and standardization of factor loadings contracts estimated ave c.r women entrepreneur success in the international market (wei) in the last three years, the company has experienced an increase in revenues and profits in the export market. 0.899** 0.51 0.77 developing new products and processes is not possible for my business. 0.885** the business i own and operate will not be able to survive and continue for a long time. 0.417* employing local nationals is part of my social responsibility. 0.820** the products and services i offer are of high quality. 0.485** 156journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 146-165) contracts estimated ave c.r business profits are reinvested more than 50%. 0.974* i tend to increase my company's profits. 0.546** there was an increase in the number of employees at my company. 0.920** in the last three years, sales and profitability have increased. 0.944** technology adaptation (ta inadequate funds for technology adoption 0.737** 0.50 0.70 a lack of access for women to technology networks 0.717** smaller businesses led by women tend to have fewer resources for adopting it. 0.743* it is estimated that women are underrepresented in stem fields. 0.611** associations and organizations for women do not discuss it adoption enough. 0.623** my team workers need to adopt new technologies. 0.714** needs for achievement (nfa) whether i'm alone or with someone, i always do my best. 0.832** 0.67 0.87 my past performance is always something i strive to improve. 0.874* in order for me to achieve my goals, they must be clear and challenging. 0.815** every minute counts to me in general. 0.891** in order to achieve as much as i can, i often put pressure on myself. 0.927** risk-taking (rt) making major decisions seems to be something we do rather conservatively. 0.686** 0.51 0.72 when the expected returns are certain, we tend to support the project. 0.701** as a general rule, operations have followed well-tested methods. 0.904** there is generally a high level of risk associated with our operations. 0.595** economic factors (ef) the product i offer is not competitively priced for my business 0.533** 0.49 0.71 s soubhagya laxmi. saikat gochhait 157 contracts estimated ave c.r for my business, it's hard to find qualified workers 0.926* in my organization, accurate records of sales and expenses are maintained 0.533** banks and other lending institutions provide me with satisfactory financial facilities 0.839** socio-cultural factors (scf) as a result of society's culture and traditions, i suffer from gender discrimination a great deal 0.651** 0.64 0.82 in order for my business to grow, i need support from strong ties (spouse, parents, friends, relatives). 0.889** there is a business owned by my parents. 0.938** significant at * p less than .005; ** p less than 0.001 correlation in this study, the pearson correlation function of spss software was used to analyze the relationship between confidence in using technology and the success of women entrepreneurs. the success of women entrepreneurs is significantly correlated with technology adaptation (r = 0.39, p= 0.05). a significant relationship exists between the need for achievement of female entrepreneurs and their success in the international market (r = 0.30, p= 0.001), while the willingness to take risks is only slightly correlated with success in the international market (r = 0.01, p= 0.43). a significant positive correlation (r = 0.41, p = 0.001) can be found between socio-cultural factors and economic factors for female entrepreneurs (table 6). table 7 shows only the relationship between predictors and responses, as there are no influencing factors in the present model. consequently, our results show that women entrepreneurs' success is positively and significantly influenced by their need to achieve (beta = 0.25, p value greater than 0.05); thus, in the context of indian women entrepreneurs, women managers seem motivated and determined to achieve their goals. if women entrepreneurs increase their motivation to achieve their goals by 1%, their success in the international market can be increased by 25%. women entrepreneurs succeed in international markets when they take significant and positive risks (beta = 0.29, p value greater than 0.00). making smart decisions (e.g., financial or investment decisions) can help 158journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 146-165) women entrepreneurs develop their businesses to the point of long-term success. this means that their business success increases by 29% for every 1% more risky decisions. table 6: the correlation and reliability of data factors items 1 2 3 4 5 6 women entrepreneur success in international market 9 (0.77) technology adaptation 6 0.38a (0.70) needs for achievement 5 0.28b 0.558b (0.87) risk-taking 4 0.43a 0.504a 0.831a (0.72) economic factor 4 0.51b 0.180a 0.183a 0.238b (0.71) socio-cultural factors 3 0.41a 0.077a 0.143b 0.161a 0.725b (0.82) statistically significant at 0.05 level: statistically significant at 0.01 the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market is also positively correlated with self-confidence in the use of technology (beta = 0.64, p value greater than 0.05). it is beneficial for the performance and long-term success of the companies if the women entrepreneurs are very tech-savvy, as they can deal with uncertainty without getting depressed. the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market increases by 64% for every 1% increase in confidence with greater use of technology. economic factors are also significantly and positively correlated with the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market (beta = 0.24, p value greater than 0.05). the impact of these external factors on women entrepreneurs is significant, as each 1% increase in external factors leads to a 24% decrease in their success in the international market. economic factors are also significantly and positively correlated with the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market (beta = 0.24, p value greater than 0.05). when the business environment, e.g., political, environmental, or financial, is not uncertain, businesses can easily achieve their goals. the impact of these external factors on women entrepreneurs is significant because every 1% increase in external factors leads to a 24% decrease in their success in the international market. s soubhagya laxmi. saikat gochhait 159 our research model with r2 = 0.189 shows that 19% of the success of women entrepreneurs can be attributed to these factors related to internal and external. table 7: multiple regression model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig. r2 δr2 b se beta process 1 working status 0.172 0.034 0.133 2.239 0.025 level of education 0.157 0.157 0.235 4.193 0.000 0.015 0.015 process 2 working status 0.173 0.034 0.134 2.673 0.015 education level 0.158 0.037 0.236 4.287 0.000 needs for achievement 0.254 0.057 0.271 4.509 0.000 risk-taking 0.288 0.031 0.437 3.313 0.005 technology adaptation 0.645 0.062 0.482 7.878 0.000 economic factors 0.243 0.069 0.253 3.516 0.002 sociocultural factors 0.339 0.037 0.497 8.927 0.000 0.190 0.174 several factors play a role: performance, technology adaptation, risk tolerance, economic and sociological importance. discussion and conclusion the success of women entrepreneurs in india can be attributed to internal factors such as risk-taking, technology adaptation, and the need for achievement, as well as external factors such as economic and socio-cultural factors. in the present study, the success of women entrepreneurs was significantly influenced by the "need for achievement" factor. we found that 160journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 146-165) highly motivated women entrepreneurs can be successful in accordance with previous studies (ehman et al., 2017). the results of our study suggest that motivated women entrepreneurs have a higher chance of success. a recent middle eastern study by bastian, sidani and el amine (2018) revealed that motivation plays a crucial role in achieving business goals. as a result, our h1a is supported by alignment with previous studies. the study found a strong correlation between women's entrepreneurial success and risk-taking. this confirms previous research (meroño-cerdan, lopez-nicolas, & molina-castillo, 2018), indicating that hesitancy in international markets can affect business performance. compared to panno et al. (2018), new firms take greater risks than traditional firms. in support of h1b, our results are consistent with a previous study showing that female entrepreneurs who are risk-averse are less likely to succeed. thus, our results suggest that technology adaptation both positively and significantly influences the success of women entrepreneurs in emerging markets in decision-making. based on the results of this study, we conclude that women entrepreneurs who work in an indian context and adapt to new technologies are significantly more likely to succeed and perform well on international markets, which supports the findings of our study h1c that internal and external factors influence women entrepreneurs' success. accordingly, we find that financial support plays a crucial role in the success of small and medium enterprises (radzi et al., 2017), which has been shown in previous studies in developed economies. and the importance of political influence in networking with customers and suppliers has been emphasized by lindvert et al. (2017). based on this previous literature, we hypothesize that external factors are a key determinant of women entrepreneurs' success in emerging markets. as a result, our h1d is supported by alignment with previous studies. furthermore, we found that socio-cultural factors affect women's entrepreneurial success significantly. we found that social and cultural factors contribute significantly to the success of women entrepreneurs, which is in line with previous studies (arasti et al., 2012; poggesi et al., 2016). as a result, our h1e is supported by alignment with previous studies. limitation and future direction it is important to point out that our study also has some limitations, as all studies have certain drawbacks. future researchers can conduct similar s soubhagya laxmi. saikat gochhait 161 studies on a national scale, taking into account geological and cultural differences, to obtain more comprehensive results. researchers should adopt a mixed methods approach when studying women entrepreneurs in developed countries. women entrepreneurs face numerous challenges in developed countries, such as access to capital, lack of business networks, and gender biases. however, there are also opportunities for them, such as access to education and mentorship, government support and grants, and the growth of online marketplaces. insights into the unique challenges that women entrepreneurs face are also gained by studying them in different socioeconomic contexts. acknowledgments symbiosis international deemed university funded the research project. the authors also thank the sme chamber of india for their support. references [1] abed, s. s. 2021. 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"entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial performance among female entrepreneurs: empirical evidence from kenya". journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, 3-4: 7-26. article history: received: may 19th, 2023  accepted: july 17th, 2023   https://studycrumb.com/alphabetize publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office journal secretary marija antonijević, ma institute of economic sciences, belgrade confidence and character: the future of women’s entrepreneurship education? factors influencing the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market: a comprehensive analysis the sustainability analysis of women-owned businesses examined through the impact of selected variables on dimensionsof innovation capacity female entrepreneurship in the creative economy gender aspects of social intelligence management in the context of entrepreneurial and civic engagement gendered aspect of entrepreneurial orientation: the role of mindfulness the effects of digitalization and skills on women’s labor market inclusionserbian gap study improving business performance through entrepreneurship orientation and management capacity for women entrepreneurs the application of strategic foresight in women's entrepreneurship development publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia mark pruett0f discussion women’s lower self-efficacy affects intentions, but education can have an influence barriers, especially intrinsic ones, matter to women faculty may misperceive student interest and views implications and conclusions building psychological strengths addressing women’s views on intrinsic motives and barriers understanding students better an idea from military schools: focus on confidence and personal character references aidin salamzadeh1f haniye rezaei2f morteza hadizadeh3f naveed yasin4f golnoush ansari5f introduction literature review women's entrepreneurship women's networks sexism sustainable business educability strategic foresight methodology findings and data analysis conclusion and suggestions acknowledgments references fauziah umar6f abdul rahman kadir7f andi reni8f rianda ridho thaha9f romi setiawan10f introduction literature review business performance entrepreneual orientation management capacity participants and data collection result analysis of respondent characteristics descriptive analysis path analysis assessment of total, direct, and indirect effects discussion conclusion theoretical implications practical and policy makers implications limitations and suggestions for further research references boris jevtić11f milos vucekovic12f svetlana tasić13f introduction serbian gap analysis methods and materials research findings variable (ac) correlation analysis (a, b & c) variable multiple correlations conclusion references deepti prakash14f meenakshi bisla15f twinkle arora16f introduction literature review research methodology reliability and validity data analysis conclusion and implications future research references daniela palaščáková17f ihor liadskyi18f inna senko19f introduction literature review data and methods results and discussion conclusion acknowledgment references dunja babović20f milica kočović de santo21f introduction exploring entrepreneurship concepts based on selected types: female, social and creative female entrepreneurship – theory bases, streams and findings cultural and creative entrepreneurship theory bases, streams and findings conclusion references sanja popović-pantić22f snežana kirin23f ivana vučetić introduction methodology sample description conclusion references s soubhagya laxmi25f saikat gochhait26f introduction literature review women entrepreneurs and internalization internal factors and external factors and the success of women entrepreneurs in the international marketplace control factors and women entrepreneurs’ success in the international market theoretical framework hypotheses development need for achievement and the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market risk-taking and the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market new technology adaptation and successful women entrepreneurs in the international market international market success and economic factors for women entrepreneurs socio-cultural factors and the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market results from the measurement model correlation discussion and conclusion limitation and future direction acknowledgments references 17_jwe_1-2 notes from the editor-in-chief the jwee appears to be growing in stature as the number of manuscripts submitted has been steadily increasing. it comes out twice a year in english and it is published by institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia. we are grateful to all authors who have sent us quality papers, which passed the peer reviews and were published in our journal. we also expect that in the future we will get original scientific papers of even higher quality and in a larger number. all publications in the journal are in english language. authors whose first language is not english should make sure their manuscript is written in idiomatic english before submission. at last,we want to remind you to follow the author's guide. on behalf of our editorial board, we appreciate your interest in the jwee and look forward to hearing from you soon. 9th of may, 2017. editor-in-chief acad. prof. mirjana radović-marković, phd 15_jwe_3-4 udk: 005.961:005.914.3 334.722-055.2(595) cobiss.sr-id 219393548 scientific review entrepreneurship and smes in malaysia: need to nurture women entrepreneurship bushra usman1, buang nor aishah binti faculty of education, university kebangsaan malaysia. bangi, malaysia yousaf sh. usman graduate school of business, university kebangsaan malaysia. bangi, malaysia and hailey college of banking and finance, university of the punjab. lahore, pakistan a b s t r a c t this paper sheds light on the importance of entrepreneurship phenomenon and the role of smes in entrepreneurship. based on the existing body of knowledge, it aims at highlighting the need to promulgate neglected women entrepreneurship phenomenon in malaysia. for this, it glances through the literature regarding smes and entrepreneurship developments around the world and in malaysia. it also presents the role casted by the malaysian government in fostering entrepreneurship through promoting and inculcating smes, providing a big thrust to economy through their innovation. however, it is described that despite of all its developments a yet to be explored phenomenon of women entrepreneurship is still standing silently in the queue waiting for its turn to be acknowledged fully. it is therefore suggested to invite more researches on women entrepreneurship specifically in malaysia to explore its importance and as such draw attention of policy makers and stakeholders to incubate and flourish this phenomenon. key words: women entrepreneurship, sme’s, economic development 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) marvels of entrepreneurship entrepreneurship phenomenon has been inviting interest of politicians, policy makers, social scientists and other stake holders (gartner 1988; bruyat & julien 2001; segal et al. 2005; reynolds 2000). one of the vivid reasons is that it helps in improving economic development of the region (reynolds 2000). furthermore, it has been helping in exploring human potential through the creation of self-employment and producing employment opportunities (hindle 2000; maritz 2006; timmons et al. 2009; wiklund et al. 2011). moreover, it aids in eliminating regional disparities and causes economic gain (agupusi 2007; dhamodharan &sundari 2011). its importance has been admitted by many researchers like acs et al. (2003), casson (2003), fiet (2001), baron(2002), minniti et al. (2008) etc and has flourished a lot in recent past decades. entrepreneurs combine technological and organizational innovation in making products and services better (schumpeter 1911). furthermore, wiklund et al. (2011) emphasizes that entrepreneurship phenomenon can be used to create a better world. this review paper aimed to highlight the importance of entrepreneurship phenomenon, role of smes, developments of entrepreneurship and smes around the globe and specifically in malaysia. it also aimed at showing how women entrepreneurship phenomenon has been neglected in malaysia. in order to achieve this aim, the literature reviewing method has been utilized. the reason to adopt this particular method is to provide readers with the proper understanding of the importance of entrepreneurship phenomenon and its miracles. further, it offered a clear insight on the developments with respect to smes and entrepreneurship around globe and specifically in malaysia. this then permitted highlighting the neglected phenomenon of women entrepreneurship in malaysia. finally, it helped researchers to put forth their pleading for revising strategies on promoting women entrepreneurship phenomenon to achieve broader gains. this paper begins with the marvels of entrepreneurship phenomenon and its importance. it further approaches the connectivity of smes and entrepreneurship. moving forward, the paper discusses the role of smes across globe and their development in malaysia. it further casts a look on the share of smes in gdp and employment. by then it presents some highlights of the development programs offered by the government of malaysia. at the end, in the conclusion section, it pithily discusses what is the ignored left over, the missing part and suggests flourishing this bushra, et al. entrepreneurship and smes in malaysia, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) 79 neglected women entrepreneurship phenomenon on a broader scale to make the economy more competent and resilient. smes and entrepreneurship “the crucial barometer of economic wellbeing largely depends on the continuous creation of new and small firms in all sectors of the economy by all segments of the society.” (small business association, 1998, usa). dynamic business environments bring about rapid changes and crucially demands to be innovative which is also the true spirit of entrepreneurship (khandwalla 1977; miller & friesen 1982; naman & slevin 1993; schumpeter 1934). dynamism and its tackling are more vivid in case of small firms as compared to large firms which somehow may be sluggish in responding due to their larger structural limitations (markman 2007 in the psychology of entrepreneurship). however, small and medium sized enterprises play with these chances of opportunity through innovation and play significant role in the country’s economy. for instance, markatou (2012) agrees that greek smes are the innovation generators and are the principal contributors of granted patents. furthermore, it was found that these smes were actively participating in contributing to economy and were good exporters. this simply shows that the small firms display the spirit of innovation which is also essential for entrepreneurship. nonetheless, this is an open reality that smes, around the world, have changed the face of the economies across the globe (djordjević et al. 2012). smes are quicker responders of change and innovatively meet challenges and different demands. in this way, they come up with innovative varieties and satisfy needs and thus may cope up obsolescence rapidly and effectively than the larger firms. however, on the other side of the mirror we can see a bitter picture of truth that these smes face more obstacles than the larger firms (ahmad 2007); also, their rate of failure is bigger than large firms (storey 1994); are more affected by the environmental fluctuations (man & lau 2005; khandwalla 1977; miller & friesen 1982) causing low customer base and comparatively less market share than the larger firms (stokes 2006). however, smes that are found to be better responders of change bear less obsolescence chances in terms of their products/ services and or processes. such smes are comparatively more successful and accelerate their survival chances (markatou 2012). 80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) smes across the globe smes have comparatively less market share and are generally selfgoverning organizational bodies, usually managed by their owners or partner owners. moreover, the forms of smes could be sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation or any other legal form. also, generally these smes could be micro, small and or medium sized enterprises. however, they are popular for their potential to grow economies and improving gdp and gnp and making the world better resilient. it is evident from us bureau of census, 2010 that approximately 50% of private non-agricultural gdp had been contributed by smes during last decade and are also responsible for 98% of the total share of the exports. captivatingly, majorities had less than 20 employees yet are found to be the gigantic innovation providers. the us government has been relieving smes through cutting more taxes and also leveraging them through more incentives. moreover, the us hugely supports smes’ trade contribution inside and outside of the country. according to us export fact sheet, 89% of firms exporting goods to colombia were small and medium-sized enterprises (smes) (us export fact sheet 2013). across whole europe, smes economic contribution cannot be negated as they are the major source of innovation, jobs creation and economic wellbeing. in order to improve their contribution, a budget of €2.5 billion was fixed for improving entrepreneurship during the period of 2014 to 2020 in europe by the european commission in 2011(enterprise europe network, european commission). according to the european commission recommendation smes are the firms with less than 250 personals; eur 50 million annual turnovers / balance sheet with not exceeding eur 43 million. furthermore 92.2% enterprises in eu-27 were micro enterprises, 6.5% were small and medium were only 1.1% which evidently portrays that usually the ventures are launched as micro and rarely grow up and convert them into small and medium and especially large firms. consequently, the importance of this sector rests intact as only 0.2% was the part of the large firms (eurostat 2013). in canada, 98% businesses had 1-99 employees in 2012. smes’ gdp contribution was 25%-41%; employed 7.7 million individuals and 78% of private jobs. smes contributed 41% in exports; 14% smes were women owned and 18% were equally shared by men and women (industry canada, government of canada, key small business statistics, 2013). furthermore, united kingdom registers 99.6% smes share in the economy which is but bushra, et al. entrepreneurship and smes in malaysia, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) 81 less than other 99.8% of eu economies. however, it could be due to the more significant contribution of large firms. besides, they account for one fifth of the employment and value addition in uk, employ 5.9 persons on average as compared to 4.2 persons on average of european union (sba fact sheet 2010/2011, european commission). russia has also recorded increased growth of smes however, sme employment, because of the restructuring of sme sector, faced decline (european commission 2012/2013). france also makes up 99.8% share of smes. germany registers 99.6% smes share in the economy which seems logical as in germany the micro sector is skewed towards high side. additionally, every fifth of the eu enterprises was reported to be a german one and on average employs three more persons than the average eu firm in 2010 (sba fact sheet 2010/2011). interestingly, brazil showed divergent better trends in smes’ performance as compared to eu-27 as 2% increase in value added for the year 2008-2009 and 40% in 2009-2010. also, a 5% yearly increase since 2008 is seen in number (european commission: annual report on european smes 2012/2013). indian smes continuously show an increasing trend as 1.7% in 2008/2009 and 2.4% in 2010/2011. further, sme employment rose to 3.4% in 2010/2011which formerly was registered as 2.4% in 2008/2009. generally speaking, economic crises could not prevent economies to grow through these economic generators (smes) (european commission: annual report on european smes 2012/2013). apec (asiapacific economic cooperation) is also positively affected by these smes which make up 90% of total businesses. these offer employment to the 60% of the workforce and contribute 30% in the exports (hung et al. 2004; koe & majid 2013). asia also recorded an extremely good share of smes in the countries like china 99.7%, pakistan 90%, hong kong 98%, malaysia 99.2% and singapore 90% respectively in their economies and contributed considerably in the employment generation (acca report 2010). according to the organization for economic co-operation and development (oecd), smes which make up more than 95% of businesses have been contributing 60% of private sector employment (lukács 2005). republic of korea is improving its sme sector since1970s. colombia’s success is also attributed to the fast growth of the manufacturing sme sector. furthermore, in columbia, smes contribute 36% to all jobs and 63% to the industrial jobs (lukács 2005). furthermore, taiwan and hong kong also rely heavily on smes. remarkably, in general, there is found a 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) consensus on the significance of smes for economic development, employment generation, and innovation production and thus are deemed as the backbone of economies. it is thus obvious that smes mostly frame up 99.7% of businesses across the globe and the rest 0.30% is shared by large organizations. these smes contribute 80% of economic activity and employment. although, sme share varies across globe yet, in any ways, it does not diminish its importance. smes’ development in malaysia “sme” has been demarcated differently by countries according to their prescribed guidelines and the definition covers sales or assets and headcounts. in, european union smes are the firms with less than 250 persons and an annual turnover not exceeding 50 million euro, and/or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding from 43 million euro (extract of article 2 of the annex of recommendation 2003/361/ec). according to the inter-american development bank definition smes should have a maximum of 100 employees; less than $3 million in revenue. further, world bank suggests a maximum of 300 employees, $15 million in assets and $15 million in annual revenue (gibson &vaart2008). this shows that sme's could have 200/250/300… 500 employees around the world according to the countries’ own preset criterions. certainly, a standard definition is a significant requirement to identify smes across sectors by size and tasks. it aids in effective policy implementation and helps keep up a proper check and balance on their performance and output. thus, malaysia also tracks a set of guidelines suggested by national sme development council (nsdc). nsdc is the chief authority to plan the national policies with respect to the development of smes. however, in july 2013, a new definition was authorized and presented as such that an sme would be deliberated as one fulfilling any one of the set standards; sales turnover or full-time employees whichever is lower. sales turnover should not exceed rm 50 million or the number of full time employees should not be more than 200 in case of manufacturing. however, in case of services and other sectors, sales turnover should not exceed rm 20 million or the number of full time employees should not be more than 75. additionally, sales turnover should be less than rm 300,000 or the number of full time employees should be less than 5 full time employees for micro enterprises across all sectors. in addition, sales bushra, et al. entrepreneurship and smes in malaysia, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) 83 turnover should be from rm 300,000 to less than rm15 million or the number of full time employees should be from 5-less than 75 full time employees for manufacturing related enterprises to be categorized as under small firms. however, in case of services and other sectors’ enterprises to be categorized as under small firms, sales turnover should be from rm 300,000 to less than rm 3 million or the number of full time employees should be from 5 full time employees to less than 30. additionally, sales turnover should be from rm 15to rm50 million, or, the number of full time employees should be from 75 full time employees to 200 for manufacturing related enterprises to be categorized as under medium sized firms. however, in case of services and other sectors’ enterprises to be categorized as under medium sized firms, sales turnover should be from rm 3 million to not exceeding rm 20 million or the number of full time employees should be from 30 full time employees to not exceeding 75. it is also important that the businesses satisfying any one of the set standards across the diverse operational sizes would be considered as smes and the smaller size will be applicable to categorize the firm’s size. government has provided full support to smes. this is mirrored through the pronouncement that if a firm comes under microenterprises in terms of sales turnover but in terms of employment falls under the category of ‘small’ would be considered as a microenterprise. this seems to be a sort of government facilitation provided to the enterprises. furthermore, it is reported that 97.3% businesses are smes in malaysia (economic census report, dept. of statistics, malaysia 2011). majority of them are though in the wholesale and retail trade, restaurants, accommodation, manufacturing and food. moreover, 93.8% out of total manufacturing companies were smes (smidec, 2002). these smes produced 27.3% of total output and 25.8% to value-added which is likely to rise to 50% of total production in the manufacturing sector by 2020. providentially, malaysia is turning itself into an industrialized economy through strategies like import substitution, industrialization and exporting, thus, emerging among global competitors (ching 2004). government of malaysia has grasped the importance of smes and started thriving them through various incentives and support programs apparent from 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th malaysian plans; and second industrial master plan (imp2), (government of malaysia 2001; miti 2005). 84 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) smes’ gdp contribution in malaysia smes always played an important role in the economic stability of malaysia even during financial crises and helped economy in becoming resilient against unforeseen events. according to the secretariat national sme development council (2008), 87% of smes in malaysia reside in service sector. additionally, in 1976, its gdp share was reported as 38.3% which rose in 2005 to 58.2%. in addition, the manufacturing sector share also upgraded from 22.1% in 1976 to 31.6% in 2005 (aris 2007). according to the department of statistics, smes showed an average growth of 7.8% (2005-08) compared to 4.9% (20002004). furthermore, as actually based on the facts and figures provided by the sme annual report 2013/2014, it has been assessed that the sme gdp growth for the year 2014 is likely to be projected on a sustained growth of 5.5%-6.4% as to be noted it had been recorded as on 6.3% in the year 2013 and 6% in year 2012 (sme annual report 2013/14). additionally, sme share to gdp rose from 29.4% (2005) to 31.4% (2008); also, 32.5% (2011) and 32.7% (2012). moreover, sme gdp growth has progressively superseded the growth of the overall economy (sme annual report 2012/13; sme annual report 2013/2014). furthermore, key smes’ growth contributory sector credit remained with the services sector (arham 2014). its gdp share increased to 61.7% in 2012 whereas manufacturing sector accounted for 24.1%, agriculture 10%, construction 2.8% and mining and quarrying registered 0.2%. according to sme corp., smes registered a peak gdp growth rate of 10.3% in 2007 but then started showing a declining trend due to global financial crisis since 2008 and the situation went serious in 2009 (sme annual report 2012/13). therefore many support programs were sprung by sme corp. to get rid of the crises effects on smes. furthermore, 53% from the rm15.6 billion were disbursed to 56,000 smes as at end-december 2009 and 76% of the funds were approved. obviously, the establishment of nsdc, the strategy makings, result based approach and their appropriate executions played critical roles in its development. for the year 2012, smes mostly presented a thriving development and off course good contribution in gdp as compared to overall gdp growth as smes gdp growth was registered at 6% in comparison with overall gdp growth of 5.6%, (department of statistics, malaysia in sme annual report 2012/13). bushra, et al. entrepreneurship and smes in malaysia, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) 85 sme’s employment contribution in malaysia smes also registered an exceeded employment growth rate (6.4%), (6.3% in year 2013) as compared to the large firms’ employment rate (6%) in 2012 and 5.4 % in 2013(persistent with that of year 2011). similarly, the sme contribution in employment also increased from 57.1% (2010) to 57.4% (2012) and 57.5% in year 2013 (sme annual report 2012/13; sme annual report 2013/14). however, export impact is comparatively little which should be elevated. additionally, essential government procedures and policies are adopted accordingly. sme development programs in malaysia sme master plan (2012) is deliberated as ‘game changer’. it is aimed to speed up the growth speed of smes in malaysia. it has plotted the sme plan till 2020 and aims to make malaysia a high income economy. according to sme annual report (2012/13) presented by national sme development council, 139 programs worth rm7.1 billion were employed, in the year 2012, by government bodies to assist more than 430,000 smes. these programs included access to financing 29%, human capital development 22% and market access and innovation and technology adoption 21%. innovation and technology adoption were considered as the most important determinant of sme performance by the sme master plan and thus were primarily focused in sme development programs in 2012. ministry of human resources (mohr), through its agencies, on the direction of malaysian government launched 30 programs to develop human capital and enhance entrepreneurial skills and 42,725 malaysian smes took benefit from them. other ministries and agencies also conducted programs like that of sme mentoring program executed by miti through sme corp; small projects under the social development programme conducted through jabatankebajikan am, kota kinabalu; the entrepreneurship development for orang asli community conducted through jabatankemajuan orang asli (jakoa) under the ministry of rural and regional development (mrrd) and so on and so forth. in addition, the sme need for market access was also focused by the government and 29 programs amounting rm 91.3 million were launched in 2012 and thereby 28,100 smes participated. furthermore, government in 86 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) the same year worked hard in the area of infrastructure and implemented 10 diverse programs and 3,932 smes took benefit. moreover, sme development programs were continued in the year 2013 like 2012 along with new programs and were fairly employed by numerous ministries and government agencies. these outcome based programs focused on the highlighted six areas of the sme master plan and stress was given on programs’ implementation and results’ tracing. the year 2013 also exhibited government commitment with smes and is manifested from the launch of 154 programs amounting to rm18.4 billion. out of total, 139 programs in 2013 (with monetary obligation of rm9.9 billion) were government owned. however, government, in collaboration with private sector, also aimed at implementing 15 programs amounting rm8.5 billion. this was a remarkable altruistic step to strengthen smes so that the promise with the nation and the dream of becoming a ‘high income nation’ by 2020 could be kept alive and necessary steps could be taken for timely realization of the dream. in order to overcome the hurdles, the government devoted an increase of three times amount i.e. rm400 million, compared to the prior year. this action was taken to implement 25 programs to cater 5,736 smes in the focus area of innovation and technology. government further allocated rm139.9 to develop and enhance entrepreneurial and their employees’ human capital to cater market changing demands and launched 28 programs to help creating value. almost 42,081 smes were projected to take part in those programs. in addition, like 2012, government continued to allocate financial aid to help smes getting better market access and assigned rm78.7 million; launched 20 programs for helping 45,212 smes (especially in export sector). furthermore, government continued strengthening infrastructure in the 2013 as well and aimed to assist smes through 14 programs amounting rm 92.2 million and set to assist 1074 smes.the year 2014 also showed government commitment with smes and is demonstrated from the launch of 133 programs amounting to rm7 billion to benefit 484,000 smes. here 26% are for human capital development, 23% for market access, 19% for innovation and technology adoption and 10% for infrastructure. altogether 154 are implemented programs in year 2014 with financial commitment of rm 13.3 billion. bushra, et al. entrepreneurship and smes in malaysia, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) 87 conclusion candidly speaking, in countries like malaysia, smes offer effective means for income distribution and economic development (abdullah 1999). furthermore, these smes support in activating and propagating private ownership, entrepreneurial skills, exports, trade, output and employment. moreover these smes are elastic in nature and can adapt with the changing market environment quickly. therefore, it would be correct to say that smes are the backbone of industrial development for malaysian economy (saleh & ndubisi 2006). this prescribes that through the success of smes, economic success can surely be gained and as such smes success means creation of new jobs, further trade and eventually good gdp. although, government has demonstrated altruism in supporting smes; promoting entrepreneurship and speeding up economic growth, however, a part that is still missing in this upbringing of entrepreneurship phenomenon in malaysia is the involvement of women entrepreneurs which remained drastically lower over the period of years. interestingly, it is an open fact that women business owners contribute to the overall employment and are productive in generating good revenue (nel et al. 2010). according to a report published by american express in 2014; women owned businesses presented leading job opportunities; also women make up 30% of all businesses. interestingly, the percentage rose by 68% by 2014 (american express analysis of us census bureau figures), double than that of their men peers. moreover, women are opening about 1,288 companies per day and adding$500,000 or more to annual revenues (american express open 2014). truthfully, women possess the spark to contribute considerably to any economy and nation, regardless of boundaries. accordingly, all national and global economies may get full benefit of entrepreneurship if their women could remarkably compete with men. countries like united states of america, australia, sweden, france, germany, chile, uk, poland, spain and mexico that are taking women entrepreneurship gains are enjoying good employment opportunities and economic indicators (global entrepreneurship development index, gedi 2014). these women entrepreneurs are the newly considered growth engines of the economies that unconditionally bring prosperity to the nations (vossenberg 2013). regrettably, still women entrepreneurs face systematic barriers in the conduction of business in some parts of the world (alam et al. 2012; 88 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) brindley 2005; roomi & parrott 2008). furthermore, women owned businesses are reported to be more likely to fail (bekele & worku 2008). also, researchers have been reporting that women entrepreneurs growth rate is comparatively low than that of their male peers (enhai 2011). additionally, these women may be pushed or pulled in the realm of entrepreneurship whereas there is a need to change the push into the pull factors (zlatkov 2015). besides, there is a need to introduce and equip women entrepreneurs with women entrepreneurial orientation and required competitiveness (mahmood and hanafi 2013). furthermore, entrepreneurial activity diverges across globe, ranging from just over 1.5% to 45.4% of the adult women in an economy (gem 2012). according to gender gedi global entrepreneurship development index, gedi, 2014 the involvement of women in entrepreneurship in malaysia is on the lower side and expressively needs to improve the phenomenon of women entrepreneurship (gender gedi global entrepreneurship development index, gedi, 2014). moreover, census 2011 reported that merely 19.7% out of the total smes in malaysia are women-controlled which is apparent to be quite an inadequate figure for an economy like malaysia. this vividly depicts how malaysia is underutilizing the powerful women potential. according to the malaysian business commission, malaysia, in 2010, only 49,554 were female owned businesses. the number was further reported to be 54,626 in 2011. thus, malaysian women entrepreneurs are always under-represented in the business world (ministry of women and family development 2003; siong-choy 2007). an assessment of the women participation tendencies in smes from census 2000 (department of statistics, malaysia 2001) and census 2003, corroborated by aris (2007) showed increasing trend from 18.0 percent to 27.8 percent. relatively, in 1980, merely 7% women, in 1984, 0.6% and in 1990, 8.5% owned firms (siong-choy 2007). although, the trend seems increasing yet a major thrust is found in the service sectors, “the so-called female ghetto” (birley et al. 1987; carter et al. 2001; siong-choy 2007; storey 2000). unfortunately, it also portrays an immensely slow entrance pace in the field despite of the government continuous support. the support is apparent through the establishment of various ministries like the ministry of entrepreneurial and cooperative development (mecd) in 1995, and the ministry of women, family and community development (mwfcd) in 2001 etc and associations like the federation of women entrepreneurs bushra, et al. entrepreneurship and smes in malaysia, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) 89 association malaysia (fem), national association of women entrepreneurs of malaysia (nawem), persatuan usahawan wanita bumiputera (usahanita), the women’s wing of the malay chamber of commerce malaysia of the state of selangor for women entrepreneurship development, funds, physical infrastructure and business advisory services. the government also kept on guaranteeing the establishment of special funds for women entrepreneurs, through the small and medium industries development corporation (smidec). nevertheless, based on gem’s study on malaysia’s entrepreneurial environment, the effects mirrored sickly on the government’s performance, suing policies to be disapproving for the new firms. according to buang (2012), mdec (2008) reported that the success rate for new entrepreneurs obstinately remained below four per cent. in the light of this discussion, it is obviously apparent that despite government support, the participation of women in business activities has remained very low over the period of years (aris 2007; hashim 2008; siong-choy 2007; tambunan 2009). moreover, boden & nucci (2000) cautioned that women enterprises’ survival chances are lower as compared to their male peers. however besides all defies, women entrepreneurship, is a proven mean for poverty alleviation, women empowerment and economic growth (minniti & naudé 2010; kantor 2002). apparently, it seems that the developed countries have gained their superior share yet there is room for expansion (storey1994). as in uk, mostly women are still in services sector; in us women have just started seeing a shift into technology, construction and production (brush & hisrich 1999; carter et al. 2006; 2001; marlow & carter 2004). now the rest of the world can easily be envisaged as the results discover a remarkable room for development (gender gedi global entrepreneurship development index, gedi 2014). furthermore, it is also to be pointed out that malaysia ranked on 21 out of 30 countries and truly needs to develop a full fledge system for women entrepreneurship development. malaysia’ 49.1% is consisting of women who surely should not be neglected from country’s development and just imagine the height of its economic growth with the full swing of this part’s utilization. therefore, malaysia needs to nurture women entrepreneurship as it was previously ranked on number 9 among 17 countries (gedi 2013). truly speaking, smes make up majority of business establishments (99.2%) in malaysia (bank negara malaysia [bnm] 2007; miti 2009). but women involvement remains very low. this gloomy state of women 90 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) entrepreneurship in malaysia needs a revised look and demands to propagate women entrepreneurship through exploring more businesses and improving nation’s economy (ariff & abubakar 2003; siong-choy 2007; teoh & chong 2014). through this paper, it is suggested to incubate women entrepreneurship phenomenon to get maximum benefits on national and economic levels. therefore, this paper crucially calls and demands researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders to seriously cast a revised look on the perspective of women entrepreneurship phenomenon. it is also pleaded to shift their immediate focus on promulgating women entrepreneurship phenomenon in the country to promote malaysian economy at its best. references [1] abdullah, m.a. 1999. small and medium enterprises in malaysia. brookfield, usa: ashgate. 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[74] zlatkov cvetković, m. 2015. women entrepreneurship in serbia. a master thesis submitted to the swedish university of agricultural sciences. 96 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 77-96) preduzetništvo i msp u maleziji: potreba za negovanjem ženskog preduzetništva a p s t r a k t ovaj rad rasvetljava značaj i fenomen preduzetništva, kao i ulofu msp-a u preduzetništvu. na osnovu postojećeg znanja , ima za cilj da ukaže na zanemareni fenomen ženskog preduzetništva u maleziji. rad se osvrće na literaturu koja se odnosi na msp i razvoj preduzetništva širom sveta i u maleziji. takođe, u radu je predstavljena uloga malezijske vlade u podsticanju preduzetništva kroz promovisanje msp, pružajući na taj način veliku podršku razvoju privrede kroz njihovu inovaciju. uprkos istraživanjima i razvoju discipline, za žensko preduzetništvo i dalje postoji veliki prostor za istraživanje i razvoj, jer kao da i dalje stoji u redu tiho, čekajući svojih pet minuta, da u potpunosti bude priznata disciplina. stoga, preporuka se ogleda u pozivanju što većeg broja istraživača u vezi sa ženisim preduzetništvom posebno u maleziji da istraže značaj discipline, kako bi se skrenula pažnja na kreatore politika i zainteresovane strane da se udruže u delovanju sa ciljem procvata ovog fenomena. ključne reči: žensko preduzetništvo, ekonomski razvoj, mala i srednja preduzeća article history: received: 11 july, 2015 accepted: 21 october, 2015 15_jwe_1-2 udk: 331.1:305-055.1/.2(497.11) 159.942:005.962 jel: m, j cobiss.sr-id: 215911180 original scientific paper emotional intelligence of the eemployees in serbia – gender differences nikić gordana1 singidunum university, faculty of media and communications, belgrade, serbia mitrović milena, alfa university, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t the main goal of this paper is to examine the correlation between emotional intelligence and gender of the participants. the survey covered 240 participants. according to the gender structure, the sample could be considered equable enough, 45% of the participants are males, and 55% females. about 50% of the sample are workers, while the other half is constituted by managers and owners. the instruments used are: emotional competence questionnaire, personality questionnaire, questionnaire for measuring the family attachment, humour styles questionnaire, satisfaction with life scale. only a part of the results relating to gender differences on the three scales that measure emotional intelligence will be represented in this paper: the ability to perceive and understand emotions, the ability to express and label emotion, the ability to regulate emotions. 1 phd, docent, faculty of media and communications, singidunum university, belgrade, serbia, e-mail gordana.nikic@fmk.edu.rs 68 nikić, g., et al., emotional intelligence of the employees, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) the results indicate that employed women, comparing to their male colleagues, achieve better results on the three dimensions of emotional intelligence: the ability to perceive and understand emotions, the ability to express and label emotions, the ability to regulate emotions. in the key aspects of emotional intelligence such as self-awareness, awareness of the consequences of actions and empathy, women have better results than their male colleagues as it is evident in this research key words: gender, emotions, emotional intelligence, managers, employees introduction gender and eemotional intelligence emotional intelligence proved to be relevant construct in different spheres of everyday life, including physical health, social relationships and results at work (brackett et al., 2011; hervás, 2011; mayer et al., 2008; o´boyle et al., 2010). numerous studies indicate that women are more interested in the sphere of emotionality, better prepared for perceiving and expressing emotions and also more competent emotionally comparing to men. the question is if this is the stable stereotype about female emotionality or the scientific facts support these assumptions (baron-cohen, 2003;hall & mast, 2008; candela et al., 2001). this paper deals with this important subject. a certain number of studies indicate the differences in female intelligence in relation to socio-demographic variables, including gender and age of the participants (ciarrochi et al., 2000; day & carroll, 2004; mayer et al., 1999; palmer, et al., 2005).the authors in their researches provide biological and social arguments supporting the assumption about higher emotionality in women. according to the biological explanations, the female brain is better prepared for understanding their own but also other people’s emotions given that a woman has more responsibility for birth and maternity, i.e. for extension and survival of mankind. supporting this assumption, some authors highlight the argument that the parts of the brain devoted to emotional data processing are bigger in women than in men (baron-cohen, 2003). as baron and koen highlight, the female brain is more structured to feel empathy while the mail brain mostly endeavours to understand and develop systems. thus, cognitive-emotional and behavioral systems of women and men are significantly biologically different. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) 69 on the other hand, women spend most of their lifetime within social networks they build in their families, with friends and also in business communication. numerous studies show that women much more appreciate the quality of emotions, they are focused on emotional exchange with others and communication skills are significant to them (candela et al., 2001). socially, women are being taught emotional reactions much more thoroughly, while men are, during their growing up, prepared to minimize some emotions such as sadness, guilt, vulnerability and fear. both biological and social explanations have been proven through numerous studies that support the assumption about higher emotionality of women. however, when considering gender differences and emotional intelligence we should take into account the results of researches on measuring different dimensions of emotional intelligence show that women are more aware of their emotions, more empathic, socially more responsible than men, but men better cope with stressful situations and have more expressed self-esteem (baron-cohen, 2003;hall & mast, 2008). in his research, baron distinguishes the dimensions in which women achieve better results than men, primarily in developing interpersonal relationships. women have greater ability to establish and maintain mutually satisfactory relationships characterized by intimacy, giving and receiving affection. empathy is also more expressed in women, since women show awareness, understanding and appreciation of other people’s feelings. the research conducted by baron has proven that women are socially more responsible, given that they are ready to meet the environment and they are a constructive element of a broader social group. on the other hand, two dimensions in which men achieved higher scores than women are identified. in the first place, men are more capable of handling stressful situations and they have the capability of accepting their own characteristics, i.e. to respect themselves (baron-cohen, 2003). however, in most previous studies it was evident that women were emotionally more intelligent than men and had more developed capabilities to establish emotional communication with their environment, including understanding their own and other people’s emotions and their expressions, but also acting in accordance with them (brody & hall, 1993; brody & hall, 2000). 70 nikić, g., et al., emotional intelligence of the employees, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) emotional intelligence the numerous works of salovey and mayer (mayer et al., 2002) rely on gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence (gardner, 1983) and sternberg’s theory of intelligence (sternberg, 1985), and form the basis for a new concept known as emotional intelligence. “they defined emotional intelligence as ability of following and differentiating between one’s own and others’ emotions and using that information as a guide for thinking and behavior (mayer & salovey, 1996). according to their opinion, the offered definition emphasizes only perception and regulation of emotions, but does not include thinking of emotions. for that reason, they suggest a revised definition according to which emotional intelligence includes ability of quick perception, estimation and expression of emotions, ability of insight and generating emotions which facilitate thinking, ability of understanding emotions and knowledge of emotions, ability of regulation of emotions for purpose of promoting emotional and intellectual development (nikic et al., 2014, p.283)”. baron (bar-on & parker, 2000) developed one of the first systems for evaluation of emotional intelligence and first used the phrase – the coefficient of emotional intelligence. he defines the purpose of emotional intelligence in effective self-understanding and understanding others for establishing good interpersonal relationships and adaptation to the environment for success in meeting demands of the environment. he believes that eq can be developed over time and that the individuals with higher eq are generally more successful in facing the demands and pressures of the environment (bar-on, 2006). goleman (1997) defines emotional competences as a learned skill based on emotional intelligence which results in success at work and in life. he defines emotional intelligence as an ability to learn a great number of practical skills, which consists of five elements: self-awareness, motivation, self-regulation, empathy and commitment in relationships. the concept of emotional intelligence has found a strong basis in the works of some psychologists but also among laymen. however, the numerous doubts were expressed in professional literature in the validity of the model of emotional intelligence, especially in the conceptual, correlational and developmental criteria. but the researchers conducted by mayer, caruso and salovey (2002) have shown that emotional intelligence can be operationalized as a set of abilities, i.e. there are individual differences in eq. at the same time, it is shown that emotional intelligence journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) 71 is moderately associated with verbal intelligence, which is an evidence of a separate type of intelligence. the criterion that requires development opportunities of the construct was confirmed given that adult participants scored better than adolescents. recent research has confirmed that emotional intelligence can be used as a relevant construct in different spheres of everyday life, including mental and physical health, interpersonal relationships and business communications (mayer et al., 2008; o´boyle et al. 2010). three aaspects of eemotional intelligence for the purpose of this work, the questionarie of emotional competence was used (takšić et al., 2006), constructed according to the model of mayer and salovey, which estimates three aspects of emotional intelligence: the ability to perceive and understand emotions, the ability to express and label emotions, the ability to regulate emotions. emotional intelligence is defined as the ability of quick perception, evaluation and expression of emotions, the ability of insight and generating emotions that facilitate thinking, the ability of understanding emotions and the knowledge about emotions, the ability of regulation of emotions in order to enhance emotional and intellectual development (mayer et al., 2002). in this research, we investigated emotional intelligence among employees in a number of organizations, but also among the managers of middle, higher and high rank, as well as a number of owners (in this article only one segment of the results will be shown, (see nikic et al., 2014; nikic et al., 2014). perceiving emotions is one’s ability to recognize his/her own and other people’s emotions. this is a significant dimension of emotional intelligence by which individual emotional skills can be measured (for example, the participant can be asked to conclude about the mood and emotions of the person shown on the screen based on his/her face expression) human emotions are rarely expressed in words. for intuitive cognition of others’ emotions the key ability is the ability to interpret the expression of non-verbal communication, e.g. the interlocutor’s tone, gestures, face expressions or the whole set of unconscious movements that he/she makes during the conversation. understanding emotions is associated with understanding and predicting what will happen when expressing certain emotions and how the other people will react to them, and it is important 72 nikić, g., et al., emotional intelligence of the employees, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) that the person is able to observe the situation from different perspectives. emotionally intelligent persons will easier understand others’ feelings and behavior. they will be able to see the situation from multiple perspectives (e.g. in a dispute among several people they will easier decide who is right). expressing and labelling emotions are very important for harmonious emotional functioning. non-perception of others' emotions is a major failure in the emotional life of an individual, because every kind of human relationship comes from the emotional harmony as well as empathy. managing emotions implies acceptance of emotions instead of suppressing them and their use for making more useful decisions. emotional intelligence does not act independently but is closely associated with mental processes and behavior of individuals, but also with the psychological traits and character of individuals (takšić et al. 2006). one of the basic questions is when and how this ability develops. the way a child learns how to understand or not to understand emotions, to accept or not to accept his/her own and other people’s emotions, affects the child’s emotional intelligence. it is also important if the child has been taught to express or not to express his/her emotions, and if he/she has, in which way (capatides & bloom,1993). an adult’s emotional intelligence is affected by his/her willingness to devote to learning and personal development. some individuals continue with their lives and are willing to overcome obstacles, while others surrender easier and blame circumstances and other people for their own failures. emotional intelligence is one of the key factors that make a difference between individuals who are “the victims of life circumstances” and those who are made strong and wise by the difficulties (brenner & salovey, 1997). emotional intelligence can be developed regardless of age. each of us can learn how to communicate better with others, to control anger or to listen to others more carefully. this ability can be developed only to certain extent while growing up and facing with various life situations. in order to develop eq properly in adulthood, it is necessary to acquire the knowledge and to be ready for permanent practicing and improving until the new skills outgrow into the habit. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) 73 the ssignificance of emotional intelligence in business in the changed business conditions in recent years the importance of emotional and social competences at work: adaptability, self-confidence, persistence, perception and control of emotions, empathy, the ability of agreement with others, has been more and more discussed and emphasized in numerous studies (bar-on & parker, 2000; berso, yammarino, 2006). bearing in mind the changes in the business environment and increased stress of employees, it is clear that coping with stress and difficult emotions such as anger, anxiety or depression, conflict solution as everyday situation, come into the focus of scientific interest for examination of emotional competences. the results also indicate that these competences are playing a considerable role on the higher levels of management. in the highest leadership positions, nearly 90% of the competences necessary for success are social and emotional in nature. in other words, if the leaders of higher rank achieve brilliant results, their effectiveness could be attributed to emotional competences (goleman et al., 2006). it has been shown that the managerial leadership processes are especially filled with emotions and moods, both from the perspective of managers and employees. it has also been shown that the knowledge of emotions and "coping with them" especially important for managers because they work in special social context with constant interaction with employees and clients (salovey &mayer, 1990). on the list of desirable features, the dominant social and emotional qualities of employees are: adaptability in facing setbacks and obstacles, self-management, self-control, self-confidence, motivation to work focused on goals, group and personal effectiveness, teamwork, negotiation skills, and potential for leadership (bar-on &parker, 2000). employers today still need these qualities in employees because jobs are increasingly characterized by competitive pressures, constant change and downsizing. on the other hand, employees are expected to act in interaction, professionally as well as socially, to achieve better results. many employees have become part of teams and the necessity of cooperation imposes working with others to complete the work and develop new products. in the past, employees often performed tasks independently, often behind closed doors, while in modern conditions it is becoming open, from collaborating on projects to shared offices. team members are highly related to each other 74 nikić, g., et al., emotional intelligence of the employees, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) so that the individual success of each team member is conditioned by the success in performance of the other team members. in order to achieve organizational goals, all must be "as one". interaction and closeness that team members develop are similar to the relationships developing in a family. group relationships are mostly based on common interests in the field of performing tasks and achieving success. complications come with collaboration, especially in work teams that, by definition, develop much closer relationships than it used to be in organizations in the past. often, emotions dominate among employees due to competition, inadequacy, superiority, insecurity and vulnerability (brenner & salovey, 1997). one of the most requested properties in the work place today is the ability to adapt to changes in the work process and the people we are working with. in the workplace people come into contact and collaborate with colleagues who come from different backgrounds, belong to other cultures and even races. this is, according to goleman (goleman et al., 2006), the reality of today's open market. the fact is that people on all sides of the world are experiencing the same emotions, but different cultures teach people different ways of expressing these emotions. because of this, it is clear why well-developed emotional intelligence is important for all actors in business, especially for managers and leaders. according to bennis (bennis, 2002), the main task of new leaders is to build good interpersonal relationships and to make an organization a pleasant place to work. the new trend in organizations is establishing various forms of alliances between leaders and employees. the main recommendation is that all forms of organization come in account except pyramid with outdated top-bottom management. new forms of "creative alliance" between leaders, managers and employees need a completely new set of skills: the ability to recognize talent, renunciation of one’s ego in favor of the talents of others, establishment and maintenance of trust, pointing employees to make sense of what they are doing. zohar and marshall represent the view that the survival of capitalism involves a change in values, meanings, motives, and that only in this context we can talk about sustainable organizations and sustainable social system."we need a sense of purpose and a sense of fundamental values and purposes to build the wealth that they can generate" (zohar &marshall, 2004, p. 19). in this research, we examined emotional intelligence among employees in a larger number of organizations, but also among the managers of middle, journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) 75 higher and high rank, as well as a number of owners. we were interested in whether the women and men of different ages and professions, in the life period when they are most active professionally, differ in terms of eq and to what extent. in this article, only a segment of the results of the broader research on emotional competences of leaders, managers and employees in serbia will be shown (nikic et al., 2014). method goals and tasks the main goal of this part of research was to examine correlations between emotional intelligence and gender of the participants. hypothesis h1: it is expected that there is a statistically significant difference in emotional intelligence depending on the gender of the participants data collection data collecting for this research was conducted from august to december 2012. this research covered participants employed on different levels and in different business spheres (private companies, institutions, schools, universities, entrepreneurs, juridicture, public companies, banks…) significantly, this sample is constituted of different age groups of both genders, which provides a number of advantages in understanding the phenomenon. sample “choosing the sample, we paid attention to have an approximately equal number of employees and managers in the companies, as well as an equal number of male and female participants. the sample is of convenience type and partially satisfies the conditions given. the research covered 240 participants. the sample could be considered equable enough, 45% of the participants are males, and 55% females. about 50% of the sample are 76 nikić, g., et al., emotional intelligence of the employees, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) workers, while the other half is constituted by managers and owners, 18% of which are department managers, 12, 5% owners, 12, 1% sector managers, 7,5% top managers. most of the examinees graduated from the university, and that is 47, 5% of the complete number, 32% are people who finished only high school, while 15% of them graduated from college. there are only 5,4% of those with the highest degree of education. the youngest one is 20 years old, and the oldest 65, while the average age is 42. when it comes to the years in the service, the shortest period is a year, the longest 38 and the average period is 17 (nikic & travica & mitrovic, 2014, p. 285)”. table 1: frequency variable, gender number of partcipants percentage percentage of valid cumulative percentage male 107 44.6 45.0 45.0 female 131 54.6 55.0 100.0 total 238 99.2 100.0 missing 2 .8 total 240 100.0 according to the gender structure, the sample can be considered sufficiently homogeneous, 45% are male participants and 55% are female participants. instruments and variables to estimate emotional intelligence emotional competence questionnaire was used (takšić et al., 2006). this is a shortened version of emotional intelligence uek-136 constructed according to the model of mayer and salovey(1990), which estimates three aspects of emotional intelligence: the ability to perceive and understand emotions, the ability to express and label emotions and the ability to regulate emotions. all scales have satisfactory reliability in a variety of samples, from α=0,71 and α=0, 90. this is a shortened version prepared by the mentioned authors. in this research, we used several scales to measure emotional competence of managers, owners and employees. the basic instruments are: personality questionnaire for personality type estimation zkpq (zuckerman, 2002). questionnaire for the assessment of personality traits kpq (zuckerman et al., 2002), questionnaire for measuring the family journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) 77 attachment – pav (sugawara, jelic, 2003), humour styles questionnaire hsq (hsq; martin et al.,2003) satisfaction with life scale (swls; dieneretal., 1985). all the scales were used in original forms with the consent of the authors. in this paper, only part of the results relating to gender differences on the three scales that measure emotional intelligence will be represented: the ability to perceive and understand emotions, the ability to express and label emotion, the ability to regulate emotions. results canonical ddiscriminant analysis in the canonical discriminant analysis, the criterion variable was gender. the set of predictor variables are the scores on subscales: humor styles, attachment and emotional intelligence, and also the overall score on the scale of life satisfaction and factor scores on the first main component of the subscales of the questionnaire for estimation of personality traits. table 2: typical root, percentage of variance and canonical correlation function typical root percentage of variance cumulative percentage canonical correlation 1 .219 100.0 100.0 .424 table 3: estimation of the importance of discriminative function function wilks' lambda χ² numb of degrees of freedom p 1 .820 29.837 15 .013 the extracted discriminant function is statistically significant on a significance level of p= 0.013and the coefficient of canonical correlation r=0.424, which means that the existence of differences between the groups is evident, and this difference is of moderate intensity. 78 nikić, g., et al., emotional intelligence of the employees, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) table 4: matrix of the structure of discriminative function function 1 aggressive humour style hsq -.405 express and label emotions .386 neuroticismanxiety zkpq .374 perceive and understand emotions-eq .340 selfdefeating humour style hsq -.319 affiliate humour style hsq .286 activity zkpq -.267 anxiety – av -.239 avoidance av .145 selfenhancing humour style hsq .115 impulsive searching for sensations zkpq -.092 aggressionhostility zkpq -.090 regulate and manage emotions eq .083 overall life satisfaction .066 sociability zkpq -.029 the positive pole of discriminant functions defined on all three dimensions of emotional intelligence and with affiliate humor style, while the negative pole is defined by aggressive and self-defeating style of humor, activity as a personality trait and anxious attachment style. table 5: centroides of groups gender function 1 male -.548 female .395 the male participants are on the negative pole of discriminant function, which means that they have more aggressive and self-defeating style of humor, activity and anxious attachment style than women. the female participants achieved scores on the positive pole of discriminant function, which means that they achieve better results on all three dimensions of emotional intelligence and are more prone to affiliate style of humor in comparison to men. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) 79 discussion with the basis in the theory and researches previously done, this paper starts from the assumption that men and women differ in terms of emotional intelligence and some other capabilities. the results indicate that female participants achieved scores on the positive pole of discriminant function, which means that they achieve better results on all three dimensions of emotional intelligence: the ability to perceive and understand emotions, the ability to express and label emotions, the ability to regulate emotions, as well as on the scale of affiliate style of humor. on the other hand, it has been shown that men are on the negative pole of discriminant function and have more aggressive and self-defeating style of humour, activity and anxious attachment style than women the results of this research issues are not unambiguous. the study of mayer, salovey and caruso (mayer et al., 2002) has shown that women are emotionally superior to men. the studies of mendel and pharo (2003, according to shahzad and nasreen, 2012) have also shown that women achieve better results on tests of emotional intelligence. shahzad and nasreen’s (2012) findings indicated that men achieved higher scores on the test of emotional intelligence than women. baron-cohen (2003) distinguishes two dimensions in which men achieved higher scores than women. in the first place, men are more able to cope with stressful situations and have higher self-esteem than women. however, most previous studies have shown that women are emotionally more intelligent than men and have more developed capabilities to establish emotional communication with their environment, including understanding their own and other people’s emotions and their expressions, but also acting in accordance with them (brody & hall, 1993; brody & hall, 2000). it is important to bear in mind the factor of socialization that significantly affects the behavior of women and men. girls are taught from an early age a caring and friendly behavior as well as to identify and analyze their own and others' feelings. they also learn how to response adequately to other people's feelings. on the other hand, boys are often taught to behave independently and assertive, and that showing feelings is a sign of weakness. the numerous studies in serbia indicate that empathy as an important aspect of emotional intelligence characterizes women to a greater extent. we will give the results of several studies that have been conducted in our 80 nikić, g., et al., emotional intelligence of the employees, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) region. the correlation of empathy with various measures of sensitivity for others, which is usually expressed through caring for others and altruistic behavior, has been empirically proven (stojiljkovic, 1997). the women included in the research in nis (simic et al., 2013) show a higher degree of empathy than men, which is consistent with previous findings (stojiljković, 1997; chakrabarti et al., 2006). as a possible interpretation of these findings, the authors point out the differences in socialization of male and female persons. while in women the traits that are encouraged are those essential for maternal role, such as emotional closeness, compliance with other people's feelings and devotion to the needs of others, selective discouraging of these characteristics is present in men. another study in our environment (dimitrijevic et al., 2011) confirmed the findings on gender differences in empathy, which is consistent with numerous studies (see eg.harton & lyons, 2003; rueckert & naybar, 2008; vukosavljević-gvozden & hanak, 2007). women use close persons more successfully as a source of security and comfort. most previous studies indicate that women have greater emotional skills, express both positive and negative emotions more frequently and more specifically, and have more communication skills and competences (brody & hall, 1993; brody & hall, 2000; ciarrochi et al., 2005; hall & mast, 2008; hargie et al., 1995).the results obtained in this study are consistent with the findings on a higher emotional intelligence of women. however, we should bear in mind the contemporary cultural and social trends which are important for new researches and suggest men to take more care of their emotions. it is also important that our results indicate well-developed eq in employed women. as business becomes more complex with globalization, innovations and turbulent changes, the market is increasingly becoming "hungry" for emotionally literate male and female leaders, which represents challenge for the women in serbia to advance their careers, especially in the places where emotional competence is crucial. conclusion in this research, we examined emotional intelligence among employees in a number of organizations, but also among middle, higher and high rank managers, as well as a number of owners. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) 81 the results indicate that the employed women, comparing to their colleagues, achieve better results on the three dimensions of emotional intelligence: the ability to perceive and understand emotions, the ability to express and label emotions, the ability to regulate emotions. the findings on the emotional competences of women are consistent with the new trends of the best business practices, where the importance of social responsibility and environmental and social self-consciousness is increasingly emphasized, serving to a noble purpose, according to dona zohar, to transform the business as it is today into the business of the future. there is an opportunity for the employed women and women leaders in our environment to demonstrate their abilities in business, considering the advantages they show in emotional competencies. these differences may be important for women to improve their careers. in short, insufficient sample size and using the scales that provide only general information about emotional intelligence of women and men are some of the problems that can be counted. the proposal for future research is a modification of the scale, as well as expanding the sample of managers and owners, especially managers in high positions. at the beginning, it was emphasized that there was no significant consensus on this issue and that tests of emotional intelligence and its aspects, 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[44] zuckerman, m. 2002. zuckerman-kuhlman personality questionnaire (zkpq): an alternative five factorial model. in big five assessment, ed. b. deraad, and m. perusini, 377-396. seattle: hogrefe and huber publishers. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 67-85) 85 emocionalna inteligencija zaposlenih u srbiji – polne razlike a p s t r a k t osnovni cilj ovog rada je da se ispita povezanost emocionalne inteligencije i pola ispitanika. istraživanje je obuhvatilo 240 ispitanika. prema polnoj strukturi, uzorak se može smatrati dovoljno ujednačenim, 45% ispitanka su muškarci, a 55% žene. oko 50% uzorka su radnici, dok drugu polovinu čine menadžeri i vlasnici. korišćeni instrumenti su: emotional competence questionnaire, personality questionnaire, questionnaire for measuring the family attachment, humour styles questionnaire, satisfaction with life scale. (upitnik emocionalne kompetencije, upitnik za procenu osobina ličnosti, upitnik za procenjivanje porodične afektivne vezanosti, upitnik stilova humora, skala zadovoljstva životom) u ovom radu biće prikazan samo deo rezultata koji se odnose na polne razlike na tri skale za merenje emocionalne inteligencije: sposobnost uočavanja i razumevanja emocija, sposobnost izražavanja i imenovanja emocija i sposobnost upravljanja emocijama. dobijeni rezultati ukazuju na to da zaposlene žene, u onosu na svoje muške kolege, postižu bolje rezultate na tri dimenzije emocionalne inteligencije: sposobnost uočavanja i razumevanja emocija, sposobnost izražavanja i imenovanja emocija i sposobnost upravljanja emocijama. u ključnim aspektima emocionalne inteligencije kao što su samosvesnost, svesnost o posledicama postupaka i empatičnost, žene imaju bolje rezultate od svojih muških kolega, kao što se pokazalo u ovom radu. ključne reči: pol, emocije, emocionalna inteligencija, menadžeri, zaposleni article history: received: 19 january, 2015 accepted: 5 april, 2015 doi: 10.28934/jwee19.12.pp17-35 jel: m30, m31, l26, l67 original scientific paper fashion product development process with reference to women's participation milica slijepčević1 karolina perčić2 metropolitan university belgrade, faculty of management, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t the process of the development of new fashion clothing requires all actors in the process to invest tremendous effort in order for the right model to reach its customer at the right time and in the right place. although the textile and leather processing industry in serbia employs large number of people, little attention has been paid to fashion marketing, thus it is the subject of this paper as regards the process of the development of fashion products with reference to participation of women in this process, with the aim of presenting characteristics and specificities of the said, along with the results of the secondary research in relation to the subject mentioned. key words fashion product, fashion, fashion marketing, fashion diffusion, women, bloggers 1 address: tadeuša košćuška 63, belgrade, serbia, milica.slijepcevic@metropolitan.ac.rs, tel. 064/8345042 2 address: tadeuša košćuška 63, belgrade, serbia, karolina.percic@metropolitan.ac.rs, tel. 063/1074403 18 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) introduction more than ever, the fashion industry is focused on a modern human being and its clothing needs which evolved into the need to send a message of personality through clothing and dressing style (a segment of nonverbal communication). dressing up has become part of the modern human being's intimacy, thus the task of fashion clothing manufacturers is very complex it requires knowledge, time, monitoring, analysis, proactivity, passion, dedication and a number of other elements that must be represented to the right extent in order to satisfy the needs and wishes of consumers. the process of designing fashion products includes two key processes one is product adjustment, the other one is creation, and the most common is combination of these two. the process of the development of new fashion clothing requires tremendous effort of all actors in the process from designers, manufacturers, retailers, to marketing managers in order for the right model to reach its customer at the right time and in the right place. the fashion market is extremely flexible and variable seasonal collections are changed at least twice a year, and inter-season collections are often launched. as an exceptionally dynamic area, fashion is globally characterized by constant, exciting changes in the domain of creativity. however, creativity in the domain of fashion industry is not sufficient in itself and requires a number of other skills to support these new ideas and creations in order for them to survive, gain consumer audience and ensure their planned survival on the market. the constant risk of failure faced by manufacturers can be reduced and made less certain, through high-quality and well designed marketing activities that will establish continuous communication with market and with consumers. fashion marketing enables making clear distinction between a model which ends up in a storehouse and a model which is desirable, which customers are looking for, which is purchased and worn. in order for a fashion product to be created and to survive on the market, it requires market research, tailoring of a system of products and services offer, establishing of contacts and communication with customers on a long-term basis and a range of other activities that contribute to gaining and maintaining a stable market position. the textile, clothing, leather and footwear industry represents significant production branches in the serbian economy; it is import-dependent, export-oriented and labor intensive especially the textile industry. accord slijepčević, m., et al., fashion product development, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) 19 ing to the statistical office of the republic of serbia – sors (2018), textile production in 2018 employed about 11,829 workers, clothing production employed about 35,744 workers and production of leather and leather products about 13,728 workers. compared with 2017, there is almost 7% increase in the number of employees in these areas of production in serbia, especially in comparison with previous years. according to the latest sors records on the number of business entities, in 2016 there were 437 business entities engaged in the production of textiles, 957 business entities in the production of clothing and 289 business entities manufactured leather and leather products. textile and leather processing industry is not a significant industrial branch in serbia due to a number of companies and workers employed therein (it has the capacity to employ even more), but also due to significant export share: over $ 1.3 million in 2017, i.e. 8% of total exports of the serbian manufacturing industry. as regards total exports of textile industry products (textiles and textile products) in the period 2015-2017, the reported increase in the value of exported goods stood at about 20%. on the other hand, the value of textile industry imported products increased by about 20% in the reported period. despite the fact that serbian fashion industry employs large number of people, insufficient attention has been paid to fashion marketing which transforms clothing into a lifestyle, and precisely for that reason it is the subject of research in this paper in terms of the process of creating fashion products with reference to women's participation in that process and with the aim of presenting the characteristics and specificities of the said, along with the results of secondary research regarding the mentioned subject. creating fashion fashion, as part of the culture, sets trends and affects the demand, shape (design) of products and sales in the textile and clothing industry (grilec kaurić, 2009). in a wider sense, fashion is a sociological and cultural phenomenon which greatly influences product sales. in its narrow sense, it is a way of dressing, personal expression and a medium of communication between people (drvar, 1997). through development of industry and marketing, fashion enters all classes of society, constantly accelerating the rhythm of fashion changes (odak, 2003) and representing a social example of perpetuum mobile a fashion mechanism that, once put into circulation, 20 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) no longer stops but continues forever and inevitably associates (gronow, 2000). there are different theories and experiences when it comes to research of fashion creation. one of the main theories is the one entitled "trickle down" or fashion diffusion, and the other one is "trickle up" (chowdhary, 2015, according to: fallers, 1954; field, 1970). according to the "trickle down" theory, fashion moves from upper, financially more solvent classes of society, to the lower ones. due to the constant tendency of lower economic and social groups to belong to upper groups and classes, fashion will be infiltrated and will not always fully reflect the individual's belonging to a particular group. the system that makes this possible is functioning in a way that journalists are invited to fashion shows for the sake of designers’ publicity. certain image which is presented there is further processed by them according to their vision, impressions and editorial policy, as well as according to the media, and they present the most suitable models that are sent out for the consumers public opinion first to those who accept it rapidly, and then to those who are slower and more rigid in accepting new fashion requirements. an example of the functioning of "trickle down" theory dates back to the end of the twentieth century: vivienne westwood was a creator of a pretty bold fashion idea to wear the brassiere as top outerwear over the dress. in its original form, this fashion innovation was not widely accepted. however, the fashion designer jean paul gaultier took this concept over, modified it and designed dresses with shaped top, for which the pop star madonna showed great affection. the idea, modified in such a way, finally penetrated lower to the ready-to-wear in a much conservative form, although the basic shape and design of the cone bra dress remained (bohdanowicz & ciamp, 1994). there is also a process of accepting the fashion that runs in the opposite direction the abovementioned "trickle up" theory, or the street fashion accepted by fashion designers. it is known that fashion designers from the world's leading fashion centers often find inspiration in clubs and in the streets. one of the epochal examples proving this theory, included in the victoria and albert museum collection, is zandra rhodes punk dress from the 1970s. punk fashion, created in the streets, often meant that ripped clothes were reattached with chains and safety pins. according to some interpretations, this anti-fashion was made for a small amount of money since the clothes were usually bought on sale and in second-hand stores. zandra slijepčević, m., et al., fashion product development, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) 21 rhodes created also her own version of a little black dress using silk, tailor waste with worked edges, fine chains and safety pins with diamonds, which was launched for sale at a price of $ 2,500 (bohdanawicz & ciamp, 1994). in this way, the so-called street fashion became desirable in upper class as well. this british fashion designer was one of the pioneers of the new fashion wave of british designers who placed london at the forefront of the international fashion scene. also known as a "punk princess" with her dramatic creations, she created a recognizable identity in the international world of fashion. her creations, among others, were worn by princess diana, elizabeth taylor, freddie mercury and sarah jessica parker in the "sex and the city" series. creative process in fashion creation the process of creating a new collection is influenced by a number of factors. the process itself is conducted by a smaller or larger team of designers, while large fashion houses often engage external associates, individuals or agencies/studios, and the team is managed by a design manager. besides the designers, marketers are also involved in the creative process of fashion product development. fashion marketing implies the connection of fashion design and marketing, including development, promotion, sales and price aspects in the fashion industry (grilec kaurić, 2009). the designer is tasked with designing the product while respecting the elements of fashion and other technical and market features of the product, thus creating the conditions for marketing to perform its part of the task (drvar, 1997). analysis of the market and market trends is somewhere the starting point, although in companies many of these processes take place in parallel. acquiring the right information about market size, its ability to receive certain amount of fashion garments and other fashion items is crucial for giving guidelines and plans to the teams in charge of creating and producing fashionable clothing. in addition, data on sales, trends and other factors that may potentially influence consumer decisions (animal rights movement, green movement) are important elements of quality analysis. based on the analyzed elements, the market is selected and an approximate price is contracted. the next step is to create a fashion collection. it is important to point out that the entire team of designers, as well as every member individually, should, as a rule, know what is happening in fashion centers and what the world's leading designers create. ideally, fashion companies would allocate 22 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) funds for their designers’ visits to these fashion centers. moreover, it is also important to visit fair events where textiles, fabrics, leather, etc. are exposed. it is necessary to continuously monitor the complete textile and leather industries. designers with better and direct insight into fashion events have significant advantages over those who are not able to follow them. the role of fashion forecasting agencies is important in the process of designing a fashion collection. their services can be very expensive, but are cost-effective. fashion houses that can seize an opportunity use their services which, as proved in practice, are ultimately worthwhile in many segments, especially when creators are not able to visit fashion shows at the world's leading fashion centers. they often issue instructions for the next season in which they present fabrics, interpretation of patterns, colors, types of weaving, and fashion houses engage them to present their forecasts. fashion magazines are another very important source of information. they often publish useful information regarding fashion industry and trends, and present certain creations, top selling items, etc. other magazines, not directly dealing with fashion, can also have great influence. in the world of the internet, everything is much more available today than 2-3 decades ago. in the last 10 years, the emergence of social networks has made real revolution in the presentation of fashion events, fashion houses, special events, etc. the relationship between the media and designers refers to mutual influence. the media has significant impact on designers as well. by presenting sports and music stars, they can encourage designers to integrate in their designs the elements from completely different activities that enrich said designs. creativity and inventiveness of the designers does not only rest with new ideas, but also with the incredible combinations that have already been seen. the creative process, from the moment of sketching the assortment to its launching in retail, is endless. if in the process of tailoring and sewing it is found that certain material or cut is not adequate, the model is returned to the designer for refinement. perfection of a model in its first version is almost impossible. finally, the collection sample (sealed sample) is sent to the quality control service in order to control the standard of serial production. the product is then ready to be purchased, and mass production can begin. slijepčević, m., et al., fashion product development, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) 23 figure 1: calendar of fashion activities in the process of creating a fashion collection and its placement on the market, as well as withdrawals from the market and supplies removal source: bohdanowicz & clamp, 1994. the process of fashion diffusion, creation of identity and fashion product image the process of the creation of fashion innovations was presented in the previous part of the paper and the authors will further present the process that consequently follows diffusion of fashion innovations. these two processes jointly constitute an innovation process which is traditionally interpreted as a social process or a social change (rogers, 1983). understanding of the diffusion model allows understanding of the consumption of new products (rogers, 1976). acceptance of fashion creation by the upper social class is extremely important because broad masses of the population identify with them and accept their dressing style. it is known that fashion shows are visited by famous actors, singers, politicians, rich businessmen, nobles, i.e. the cream of the world's society. 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) in order for a particular dressing style to become fashionable, it must be widely accepted. we know of many dressing styles in our surroundings, but only some of them have become fashionable. the fact that great number of institutions have been established worldwide to study fashion as a phenomenon of global dimensions, its aspects and complex impact on all spheres of life, speaks in favor of fashion as an important segment of our lives. one of the most renowned institutions is the "delfo" fashion forecast institute from milan (slijepčević, 2016). this institute performs forecasts based on the analysis of styles (a group of designers collects information on the types of materials, fabrics, cuts, colors and styles in general), then sociological and psychological analysis of trends and fashion connection to these phenomena (to predict the trends that will evolve best). its third area of research is film, music, painting (the underlying essence can often be discovered in these very areas). the fashion can be divided into the three following classes: high fashion or couture a set of styles and designs created by leading fashion authorities for small circles of upper class, current fashion or ready-to-wear current style which is widely accepted, and popular fashion or high street fashion – which is accepted by the broadest masses of the people (gašović, 1998). each of these groups is intentionally targeted by designers and manufacturers through specific marketing methods used for communication with customers, but since they often intertwine in practice it is not uncommon for the greatest names of the fashion scene, specialized in couture, to address the consumers of high street fashion when designing their collections. conversely, as strikingly evident from the previous examples, high street fashion often becomes the status symbol of the upper class consumers. no matter how carefully and thoroughly certain collections are created and fashion trends conceived, certain clothing items are sometimes spontaneously accepted to the surprise of designers and marketing experts. fashion is definitely cumbersome and unpredictable. however, the task of fashion marketing is to minimize the surprises, and when they happen to put them as efficiently as possible in the service of their own products. as the product label is often more important than its quality and design, and has stronger influence on the consumers decision to buy products, marketing experts pay special attention to fostering product identity and image as this further leads to the development of product brand and customer loyalty. slijepčević, m., et al., fashion product development, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) 25 from the branding point of view, an example of the fashion brand zara is very specific and interesting in many ways. founded by amancio ortega, one of the richest people in the world, this is currently the largest fashion company with a retail chain of several thousand stores worldwide. zara is known as the initiator of instant fashion, and its business concept is based on mass production of clothes that will reach the customer as soon as possible, at the lowest price possible, and will be replaced with a new model in the shortest time possible. zara promoted the dynamic rhythm of changing trends by launching tens of thousands of new models annually and nearly a billion clothing items, while setting up standards still unattainable for competition. the marketing philosophy of this fashion giant is that consumers are their associates in creating fashion trends that are further shaped by designers; it does not rely on famous designers and does not use classical types of advertisements, but invest in equipment of sales facilities at elite locations. many couture producers, as well as editors of fashion magazines, are very critical of this concept. they reproach zara for plagiarism, aggressiveness and, most of all, for uncritical use of natural resources that can have big long-term consequences. life cycle of a fashion product fashion, style, hit life cycle of a fashion product is slightly different from life cycle of an ordinary product. fashion marketing experts are primarily tasked with discovering the product and style which have the potential to reappear on the market. fashion cycle of a fashion product is often conditioned by many impacts, such as weather, demographic and fashion trends and movement of items from the mass market to the exclusive market and vice versa. in any case, the scheme of a fashion product life cycle is beneficial primarily to the retail, because in this way there is a clear insight into the extent to which a particular product is interesting and the time for which it should be offered to consumers (bohdanowicz & clamp, 1994). the time since the introduction of a product on the market to its withdrawal from the product mix is called life cycle of a product. it is a concept that defines sales, profits, consumers, competition and marketing activities related to the product, from its emergence to its disappearance from the market. it was developed by theodore levitt in 1965. life cycle of a product is one of the most controversial theoretical concepts in marketing, but has strong support in practice. 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) regardless of the longevity of life cycle, each product goes through four stages: the stage of product emergence and introduction to the market, the stage of growth and development, the stage of maturity, stability and saturation and the stage of decline and age (kotler & keller, 2006). typical business conditions exist at each stage of life cycle. each of these stages offers different challenges and, consequently, each stage requires different management of a product life cycle (milosavljević, 2001). by observing and studying product life cycle, marketing experts have noticed that certain fashion items, or clothing items, reappear several times. above all, fashion marketing experts are tasked with discovering the product and style that have the potential to reappear on the market. some clothing items that are in line with the fashion trend (hit, fad) are widely accepted by consumers at the initial stage already, but then there is a rapid decline in popularity and elimination from the market. the particularity of the process of clothing production, with a large number of new products for each coming season, enables the designers and manufacturers to get rapidly involved in production of "hit" clothing items. although the modern era in fashion terms is characterized by a mix of various clothing combinations that create the illusion that what was once known as fashion style is vanishing now, the saying of famous yves saint laurent "fashion pales, style is eternal", is confirmed by the research presented on the charts (figure 2), according to which fashion style lasts longer than fashion itself. despite their meteoric success, the fashion hits disappear in the same manner, and product designers who passed the test of some verified styles can count on a long-term sales perspective. figure 2: life cycle of style, fashion and hit (or fad) source: kotler, armstrong, saunders & wong, 1999. slijepčević, m., et al., fashion product development, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) 27 example: "bum bag" (a small bag carried around the waist) appeared as a cyclist prop, and since cycling became fashion it was followed by the market of adequate equipment and clothes. until 1981, this bag was worn not only by cyclists, but also by nightclub visitors who carried it as a fashion detail made of a wide variety of fabrics, in a wide range of colors, from cotton tartan to gold plated pvc film. in the spring of 1990 its popularity in street fashion started to decline. at this stage, it appeared as a detail in a high fashion collection. "chanel" presented a kilt version, "hermes" and "gucci" presented brightly colored bags with important messages imprinted. copies of these couture versions were soon widely sold and available from serial production. they gained greater fame because they were counterfeit the same bag was born again. wise merchants have come with the idea to make it an ideal accessory for people on holiday, so the same bag was produced as a travel accessory and, as such, was particularly popular among fifty-year-olds (bohdanowicz & ciamp, 1994) and now, it "lives" again in 2018 and 2019. fashion product pricing no matter how brilliant the manufactured item is, the question of its survival solely depends on the answer to the following question: who will buy it? apart from answering this question, the price is one of the key and crucial factors in making purchase decisions. therefore, pricing as an element of the marketing mix of a fashion product is of great importance. increasing competition on the international fashion market urges marketing experts to focus more on pricing issues. "in its most basic form, pricing has little to do with what consumers are willing to pay" (gašović, 1998). regarding the costs, pricing takes into account the following: gross margin, i.e. the total profit expressed as a percentage of the selling price of an item, the average gross margin derived from gross margin of all items (not all items are sold equally), fixed costs – mainly the last year's fixed costs increased by the % of inflation (rent, tax, insurance, debts, wages), variable costs – vary depending on the volume of production (if the production increases, the administration, number of employees and raw materials increase as well), semi-variable costs when the same number of employees work longer due to an increased volume of production, their wage is increased accordingly but no new workers are engaged because this is a seasonal increase in the volume of work (slijepčević, 28 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) 2016). these are only key cost categories. however, when forming the price in the fashion industry, account should be taken of a series of other elements such as employee training, costs of introducing new technology, operating costs for standard and non-standard operations, direct costs (material and labor), indirect general costs, etc. in any case, it is necessary to keep records of costs for each detail, which begins at the design department. only meticulous cost management can significantly facilitate the process of item price determination, and can therefore yield the expected profit. in forming the final price in large companies, knowledge of the cost structure and cost management is of paramount importance. the account should also be taken of a whole range of other elements, such as the consideration of consumer needs, company goals, competition activities. accordingly, the main elements included in price decision-making are: costs, customers, company, and competition. marketing managers must always bear in mind the fact that external economic factors such as inflation, the economic cycle (if the economy of a country is in recession), changes in local conditions due to the emergence of new retail outlets whose phenomenon can serve larger companies but can endanger small national shops (which has happened in serbia in the last ten years when a range of small boutiques and fashion shops have been closed and large shopping centers have been opened to sell certain brands, but also the counterfeit items). cost-based pricing changes in the price of the final fashion product that are due to the cost price change are at the expense of profit, i.e. the profit rate decreases. cost-based price modification is possible under the influence of the following factors: the price recommended by manufacturers, the indicators of trade prices, the price of competing manufacturers, and the desired gross profit margin. in this regard, the following combinations are possible: − standard increase when a percentage increase is added to a determined amount of actual costs. in this case, factors such as the costs of promotional activities and total marketing costs, competitor prices and marginal costs, are not considered. this system is often applied, and the point is that the price paid by the consumer doubles. as a result, manufacturer or a wholesaler often recommends a retail price. slijepčević, m., et al., fashion product development, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) 29 − target pricing the expected sales volume is taken into account when determining the price. − demand-based pricing the higher the demand, the lower the price, and vice versa. − stabilization cost in periods of high inflation and interest rates costs of production, distribution and retail can grow rapidly. the prices of some items will be determined at the beginning of the season. changes due to a change in the cost price are at the expense of profit, i.e. the profit rate decreases. market-based pricing market-based pricing does not imply only the costs as a basis, but also the achievement of certain company goals. standard pricing methods are: market screening when high prices are determined while the product is new and attractive, in order to maximize profit, and market penetration a method that uses lower product prices in order to attract as many customers as possible and thus maximize profit. given the specificity of the fashion industry, the marketing sector always uses the first method, primarily due to a short period between two seasons and the launch of a new collection. methods of market-based pricing, when it comes to sales directly intended for the consumer, are: psychological pricing prestige (high price) and value (brand value or brand name, also called "value clothing"), determining the price range an assortment of different styles within approximate prices (the consumer's habit to buy at a certain price, focusing on the price tag), and competition-based pricing several retail chains offer the same or similar items, so the manufacturer is not focused on the selection of a label, but on the value it receives for the same amount. promoting a fashion product promotion is a permanent communication process led by the fashion house with consumers, but also with the complete environment. today, internet services, in conjunction with communication media, provide the broadest enhancement of information and communication resources, enabling freelance writing on the subject for websites, blogs, magazines and other reference sources (radović-marković, 2018). 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) the promotional mix in the fashion industry consists of: advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public relations (završnik & mumel, 2007), but the effectiveness of marketing communications depends largely on a successful combination of personal selling and public relations elements. the resources available to a pr manager are: organizing interviews, press releases, photographs, events (such as press conferences), fashion shows, commercial exhibitions. fashion companies can significantly differ in the way they organize their public relations, but they all have the same goal, i.e. establishing good relationships with customers in terms of understanding, and maintaining such relationships with the goal of further improvement. these relationships are measurable through the final sales effect. fashion magazines when it comes to fashion magazines, serbia has followed the world trends more or less successfully. the first women's magazine appeared in serbia in 1879, and in the beginning of the 20th century ten magazines were in circulation and had distinctive names based on gender (woman, housekeeper, serbian woman, sister by blood, women's world). after the war, the magazines such as taste, practical woman, bazaar and nada, emerged. today, licensed issues of world magazines, such as elle, grazia, harpers bazaar, are mostly published. many of them put an emphasis on electronic editions or web portals, while beauty and health, lisa, story, joy, ana, men's health, best shop, hello, are most often seen at press kiosks. bazaar, a fashion magazine with a half-century tradition, founded in 1964, played an important role in the creation of a fashion establishment in post-war yugoslavia. as early as in 1967, it launched a critically intricate series of articles on national fashion items such as fashion details, lingerie, makeup and confectionery. the main remarks addressed to the yugoslav fashion industry related to poor design and quality of clothing. in accordance with the social requirements for the design industry, as early as next year bazar launched a campaign called "still bazaar", whose main goal was defined as a collaboration between the fashion magazine and the manufacturer, aimed at offering beautiful and acceptable models to the market. this campaign promoted aleksandar joksimović, the first fashion bazaar editor, into the main propagator of a new design (velimirović, 2008). slijepčević, m., et al., fashion product development, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) 31 fashion blogs in the last few years there has been a massive appearance and popularization of fashion blogs, first in the world, and then in the national blogosphere, where many interesting fashion and lifestyle blogs emerged. after just a few years dozens of them have emerged and are now already diversified in several directions. there are bloggers who represent their own personal style and thus present the latest fashion trends. the first to impose themselves in this group were frashion by marina, fashion and style by vanja milicevic, brana's divine world, launched by brana antonović. the success of the zorannah blog attracted the greatest attention and caused contradictory opinions and discussions. it was launched by zorana jovanović (having over 903,000 followers on instagram). today, she has her online shop and an actual pop-up shop in delta city shopping mall and earns from blog posts between eur 1,000 and 5,000 a month (depending on the number of clients in a particular month). the price for a link in the post reaches eur 500 and the price for a completely branded post (e.g. to take pictures completely dressed in one brand while mentioning only one brand in the post) amounts to eur 1,000 (slijepčević, 2016). a large number of followers on instagram is also recorded by the following bloggers from serbia: tamara kalinić (over 710 thousand), marija žeželj (over 653 thousand), jana dačović (over 630 thousand), mima (over 238 thousand), anastasija đurić (over 157 thousand), nataša vukobratović (over 133 thousand), who write about events in the fashion world, current trends, fashion editorials and campaigns of famous brands, with some exclusive insider information, and about travel and lifestyle interior, design, jewelry. finally, there are fashion web portals in our region, such as wannabemagazine.com and style.rs, which also achieved enormous success. the emergence of social networks enables the development and application of novelties in advertising and an interactive communication between bloggers (influential persons) and their followers (consumers). according to research by harmon-kizer (2017), celebrities in their capacity as consumers and promoters can improve the effectiveness of advertising. until a survey had been conducted by beeblog network in 2015 (according to: start it, 2016), we did not know much about the blogosphere in our region. beeblog surveyed 701 bloggers from 6 countries: serbia, croatia, slovenia, bosnia and herzegovina, macedonia and montenegro, through a questionnaire comprising 70 questions divided into 10 areas. in serbia, there are more women (57%) than men among bloggers. among the 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) respondents, there are bloggers of all generations, from minors to 60+ yearolds, and most of them are in age group 31 to 40. more than three quarters of them completed the university studies or some vocational or specialist studies. bloggers mostly live in major cities, and the majority of them come from belgrade (49%), novi sad (16%) and niš (5%). the potential of a blog as a tool for self-employment and the possibility to professionalize the blog and create professional full-time employment or additional source of income is also evident in the blogosphere in the region. more than half of the bloggers write simply as a hobby. female respondents blog more often as a hobby, while mail respondents indicate that hobby is their job. every fifth blogger makes money from a blog. while in the united states of america over 54% of bloggers supplement home budget from blog jobs, and as much as 18% of them write blogs as part of their full-time jobs, the beeblognetwork survey sample shows that every fifth blogger in our region has had the opportunity to supplement his budget from blog job (21%). when it comes to revenues, these are usually symbolic budget additions, between eur 50 and 100. bloggers with more than four years of working experience in blogging have the opportunity to generate income amounting between eur 300 and 500 per a post, and only three bloggers in the total sample generate said amount per a post continuously, as monthly income. most bloggers indicate that their blog contains up to 500 words (46%), while 32% of bloggers write posts comprising 500 to 1500 words. instagram, facebook and youtube are the most popular social media among bloggers. at the diablog conference, the results were presented of the second research on the situation at the croatian blogging scene, conducted in october 2017 by dialogue communications agency (according to: marketing mreža, 2017). the research included 171 active bloggers. most respondents were women (90.6%) aged between 25 and 35, holding diplomas of higher education (42.7%). although they still consider blogging a hobby, more bloggers make money from their blogs than in 2016, and they are present mostly on facebook and instagram, whose use is on the rise. most of them make between hrk 3,500 and 5,500 a month. respondents indicate that they deal with blog writing between three and five years (36.6%) and publish two to three blog posts a month (42.1%). most bloggers cooperate with brand names (77.8%), and cooperation involves cash compensation or noncash compensation in products/services. they highlight "live" reports, video and instagram story as trends. slijepčević, m., et al., fashion product development, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) 33 conclusion this paper presents the elements of the creative process in the emergence and diffusion of a fashion creation, the life cycles of clothing, style, fashion and fashion hit, the pricing methods, as well as the tools for promoting the fashion product with focus on personal selling, public relations and fashion magazines and blogs, while listing examples from fashion practice and presenting the results of secondary research on bloggers in serbia and in the region where women dominate in their capacity as actors. the development and liberalization of the modern fashion market have led to the development of a growing importance of certain elements throughout the process, from manufacturing to selling fashion items. in parallel with technological development the market has developed, consumers have become increasingly demanding and more sensitive, both in terms of quality and design of fashion products, as well as in terms of speed of service delivery, sellers attitude towards them, readiness to make additional efforts in the organization and arranging of facilities intended for sale. "аrt forms in fashion reappear in modified forms to represent new contexts, new resources and new times. the innovative transformation represents easiness of thoughts, continuity through integration of old and new, and/or departure from old to create new entities" (chowdhary, 2015). successful fashion companies are those who manage to find an optimal relationship between key factors and to continuously improve and modernize their business models by constantly following the market, technology, trends and consumers. one of the trends refers to new forms of promotion on the internet, through social media, where great opportunities for entrepreneurship and self-employment are mostly seized by women who run their own blogs, thereby contributing to fashion diffusion. serbia has a huge potential for the development of women entrepreneurship (jovanović & lazić, 2018), and has the capacity to expand the activities of the textile and leather processing industry. the authors of this paper emphasize the importance of fashion marketing which creates space to apply the said in practical and scientific terms in serbia, and they hope that this paper will encourage others to think and conduct further empirical research on this subject because "it is no longer fashionable to be fashionable" (yves saint laurent, according to: odak, 2003). 34 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) references [1] bohdanowicz, j., clamp, l. 1994. "fashion marketing." routledge and kegan paul. [2] chowdhary, usha. 2015. "shifting fashion paradigm: from status quo to mostly business." american international journal of social science, 4(6): 40-45. http://www.aijssnet.com/journals/vol_4_no_6_december_2015/5.pdf. [3] drvar, zlatko. 1997. "moda i dizajn u marketingu i proizvodnji tekstila i odjeće." tekstil, 46(1): 2-10. [4] fallers, lloyd a. 1954. "a note on trickle effect." the public opinion quarterly, 18(3): 314-321. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2745991. [5] field, george a. 1970. "the status float phenomenon: the upward diffusion of innovations." business horizons, 13: 45-52. https://doi.org/10.1016/0007-6813(70)90157-6. [6] gašović, milan. 1998. "modni marketing." belgrade: institute of economic sciences [7] grilec kaurić, alica. 2009. "marketing mode u industriji tekstila i odjeće." tržište, 21(2): 219-234. https://hrcak.srce.hr/53124. [8] gronow, jukka. 2000. "sociologija ukusa." zagreb: jesenski i turk. [9] harmon-kizer, tracy r. 2017. "the effects of schema congruity on consumer response to celebrity advertising." journal of marketing communications, 23(2): 162-175. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13527266.2014.975831 [10] jovanović, olivera & milena lazić. 2018. "women entrepreneurship in serbia – potentials and constraints." journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, 3-4: 60-72. https://www.library.ien.bg.ac.rs/index.php/jwee/article/view/650/533 [11] kotler, philip, gary armstrong, john saunders & veronica wong. 1999. "principles of marketing" (second european edition). prentice-hall europe. [12] kotler, philip, kevin lane keller. 2006. "marketing management" (twelfth edition). new jersey, usa: pearson, prentice hall, upper saddle river. [13] marketing mreža. 2017. most croatian bloggers earn between hrk 3,500 and 5,500 a month! https://marketingmreza.rs/vecina-hrvatskih-blogeramesecno-zaradjuje-izmedju-3-500-5-500-kuna/ (accessed june 26, 2018). [14] milosavljević, m. 2001. "marketing." belgrade: savremena administracija. [15] odak, iva. 2003. "moda u društvu: suvremena sociologijska tumačenja." revija za sociologiju, 34(1-2): 97-107. https://hrcak.srce.hr/14488. [16] statistical office of the republic of serbia – sors. 2018. statistical yearbook of the republic of serbia 2018. slijepčević, m., et al., fashion product development, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 17-35) 35 http://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/g2018/pdf/g20182051.pdf (accessed november 28, 2018). [17] radović-marković, mirjana. 2018. "female entrepreneurship opportunity: home-based genealogy business." journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, 3-4: 20-33. https://www.library.ien.bg.ac.rs/index.php/jwee/article/view/638/531 [18] rogers, everett m. 1983. "diffusion of innovations" (3rd ed.), p. 42. usa, new york: the free press. https://teddykw2.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/everett-m-rogers-diffusionof-innovations.pdf. [19] rogers, everett m. 1976. "new product adoption and diffusion." journal of consumer research, 2(4): 290-301. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2488658. [20] slijepčević, milica. 2016. "modni marketing." belgrade: heraedu [21] start it. 2016. regional bloggers are predominantly holders of a higher education diplomas, every fifth blogger makes money from writing. https://startit.rs/blogeri-srbija-region-statistika/ (accessed june 26, 2018). [22] velimirović, danijela. 2008. "aleksandar joksimović moda i identitet." belgrade: utopija. [23] završnik, bruno, damijan mumel. 2007. "the use of marketing communications in the clothing industry in slovenia." fibres & textiles in eastern europe, 15(1): 11-15. http://www.fibtex.lodz.pl/article1070.html. bloggers internet sources: [24] anastasija. https://www.instagram.com/anastasija/ [25] brana’s divine world. https://branasdivineworld.com/ [26] frashion by marina. http://frashionbymarina.blogspot.com/ [27] fashion and style by vanja milicevic. http://fashionandstylev.blogspot.com/ [28] jana dačović. https://www.instagram.com/janadacovic/ [29] marija žeželj. https://www.instagram.com/marijazezelj/ [30] mima. https://www.instagram.com/miimma_mima/ [31] nataša vukobratović. https://www.instagram.com/natasablair/ [32] tamara kalinić. https://www.instagram.com/tamara/ [33] zorannah. http://www.zorannah.com/, https://www.instagram.com/zorannah/ article history: received: 14 february, 2019 accepted: 31 march, 2019 publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade associate editors aidin salamzadeh, faculty of entrepreneurship, university of teheran, iran hiroko kawamorita kesim, ondokuz mayis university, turkey editorial office journal secretaries dejana pavlović, ma elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by donat graf, beograd jelena petrović0f snežana radukić1f introduction literature review methodology data – analysis of economic growth and entrepreneurial activity in republic of serbia results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references milica slijepčević2f karolina perčić3f creating fashion creative process in fashion creation the process of fashion diffusion, creation of identity and fashion product image life cycle of a fashion product fashion, style, hit fashion product pricing cost-based pricing market-based pricing promoting a fashion product fashion magazines fashion blogs conclusion olabisi, s. yusuff4f introduction brief empirical literature patterns of land ownership in developing countries conceptual framework interpretation study areas data presentation and analysis challenges of women in accessing land in ado-odo community women’s perception on improvement of patterns of ownership of land recommendation references daniela petríková5f tatiana varadyová6f introduction objectives the concept of financial literacy financial literacy components financial education financial literacy and financial education in slovakia methodology results practical implementation of the inclusion of financial literacy in the teaching process discussion conclusion ann terngu makar vandefan7f introduction literature review /conceptual frame work financial support for women as entrepreneurs discussion conclusion references victoria burgess8f introduction theoretical overview discussion conclusion references an analysis of the development of entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia with a special focus on female entrepreneurship fashion product development process with reference to women's participation local government in ogun state, nigeria preparation of future teachers at vocational secondary schools and financial literacy assessing institutional founding sources and challenges facing women entrepreneurs in nigeria being a female entrepreneur case study 11_jwe_1-2 ne ovaj statement from the editor-in-chief my main goal for the next few years is to increase the journal’s reputation for quality and place the journal on all major indices like ssci. furthermore, i would like to encourage all researchers to consider submitting your best work to women’s entrepreneurship and education. it will be double-blind reviewed by competent reviewers and the review process will be supervised by one of our seven associate editors. our review process is based on an online submission system which means you can always follow your manuscript throughout the whole process. editor-in-chief professor mirjana radović-marković, phd 17_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.336.3 005.961:005.914.3 jel: o15, j16 cobiss.sr-id: 253638156 original scientific paper quality and human resources in function of business excellence in production organizations owned by women entrepreneurs tijana cvetić1 university of kragujevac, faculty of engineering, department for industrial engineering and engineering management, serbia oliver momčilović2 union-nikola tesla university, faculty of strategic and operational management, serbia dajana živković university of kragujevac, faculty of engineering, department for industrial engineering and engineering management, serbia katarina prljić3 university of kragujevac, faculty of engineering, department for industrial engineering and engineering management, serbia a b s t r a c t business excellence model has a key role in increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of european organizations in enhancing the importance of quality in all aspects of its activities and stimulating and assisting in the development of quality improvement. this paper represents part of research of quality and human 1 address: sestre janjić 6, kragujevac, srbija, e-mai: t.cvetic@kg.ac.rs 2 e-mail: oliomaster@gmail.com 3 e-mail: kaca-p@live.com cvetić, t., et al., quality and human resources, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 84-93) 85 resources impact on efqm among 70 organizations on the territory of republic of serbia. woman entrepreneurs as respondents contributed to this research by telling their subjective attitude and rating offered claims. the analysis proves that variable quality significantly influences efqm model unlike variable human resources which has lower impact. purpose of this research lays in creating a sustainable model of success for future female entrepreneurs key words: efqm model, quality, hr, production organizations, woman entrepreneur, system model introduction the development of the world economy has caused a wide and varied range of products and services and is therefore identified by the user and the supplier. developed countries of the world, large official government institutions and politicians have realized the importance of the changes that are taking place and create the conditions for their companies to be better in terms of competition in order to survive on the market, thus creating favourable conditions for the country's progress. from there came the business excellence and the efqm model. the goal of this paper is to improve business performance by raising the organization's awareness of the existence and significance of the impact of human resource variables and the quality of achieving business excellence. this paper presents an analysis of the data obtained from small and medium-sized enterprises in the form of a response to the questionnaire on the impact of quality and hr on business excellence. the questionnaire was distributed to companies that women entrepreneurs run, (owners and top management). the theme of this paper is entrepreneurship, managed by womens. women entrepreneurship development is an essential part of human resource development. women entrepreneurs may be defined as the women or a group of women who initiate, organize and operate a business enterprise (singh & manisha, 2013). entrepreneurship among women, no doubt improves the wealth of the nation in general and of the family in particular. women today are more willing to take up activities that were once considered the preserve of men, 86 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 84-93) and have proved that they are second to no one with respect to contribution to the growth of the economy (sharma, 2013). business excellence and efqm model business excellence involves a well-organized system that is constantly improving but also gives good financial results. the quality system enables us to define the internal organization, powers and responsibilities of employees. of course we also make constant improvements and increase the level of services. the environment is something we should not operate with a quality system. the responsibility of the management is to achieve continuous success in the salaries of employees. if used almost all resources, we come to the point that further improvement is only an increase in the level of service we provide (kanji, 2015). efqm european foundation for quality management was established in 1988 by representatives of 14 major european companies with the approval of the european commission. the current number of members is over 500 organizations, classified from major multinational and important national companies, to research institutes and prominent universities ("knowledge base", 2017). the model explains that customer satisfaction, people, the impact on society is achieved through "leadership" that is managed by politics and strategy, human resources management, resources and processes leading to excellence and business results. efqm mission is: − to stimulate and help organizations throughout europe to participate in improvement activities, leading unconditionally to customer satisfaction, meeting employee, improving social and business results, and − to support accelerating the process of introducing total quality management as a decisive factor for achieving global competitive advantages. efqm has a key role in increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of european organizations in enhancing the importance of quality in all aspects of its activities and stimulating and assisting in the development of quality improvement. cvetić, t., et al., quality and human resources, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 84-93) 87 the efqm consists of nine elements. each of the 9 elements is the criterion used to evaluate the organization's progress on the road to excellence. the business excellence model is based on evaluating these nine key criteria with a number of elements. the first group of elements refers to the assessment of activities in the organization (competences), and the second group on the evaluation of the effects of the work (results). each element contains a number of questions in order to carry out self-assessment in the business entity itself (eskildsen & dahlgaard, 1998, wang, bhanugopan & lockhart, 2015). the properties of the applied model are: possible application to the entire business system or only part of it, the ability to be implemented in a short period of time with its own resources, to be applied by inter-ministerial teams or one person, with the support of the highest management, it represents an entry for a more extensive process of selfassessment and finding of own models, to identify and facilitate the determination of possible improvements for improvement, to facilitate a successful business system, to turn to the performance levels of the most developed part of the world. the determinants of the business excellence model are: 1. leadership 2. policy and strategy 3. people management 4. resources 5. processes 6. customer satisfaction 7. people satisfaction 8. impact on society 9. business results. (iso 9004). research methodology based on the theoretical research (arsovski 2013; bass 1994; rebelo 2014; vanhaverbeke 1998, iso 9004), the methodology set up was made by 88 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 84-93) the research questionnaire. the questionnaire consists of 70 claims classified according to the meaning in 11 elements. these 11 elements are listed as follows: − leadership − hr − innovation − business results − quality − strategy − resource management − process management − monitoring measurement and measurement analysis − improving innovations − achieving sustainable success possible attitudes for each set of claims are defined in the following way: − grade 1 – completely disagree, − grade 2 disagree, − grade 3 – neither agree neither disagree, − grade 4 agree, − grade 5 – completely agree. for purpose of this paper elements (variables), hr (human resources) and quality are used as factors under assumption (hypothesis) that they significantly affect level of efqm (business excellence model). model analysis for further analysis, systematic model shown in figure 1 was used, with the dependent and independent variables: dependent variables: − efqm (this type of dependent variables includes: leadership, innovation, business results and strategy) and, independent variables: − hr and cvetić, t., et al., quality and human resources, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 84-93) 89 − quality. figure 1: system model source: author in this paper is discussed efqm aspect of production organizations, where is defined hypothesis h1: levels of hr and the quality significantly affect level of efqm. interpretation of the results of pearson correlation in table 1 shows the descriptive statistics for all variables, where the values of the average scores are: − hr = 4.110, − quality = 4,100, and − efqm of production organizations = 4.11 table 1: descriptive statistics hr quality efqm mean 4,1107143 4,1 4,1103423 std dev 0,4436258 0,5204358 0,3298444 std err mean 0,0530234 0,062204 0,0394239 upper 95% mean 4,2164931 4,2240935 4,1889909 lower 95% mean 4,0049355 3,9759065 4,0316936 n 70 70 70 source: author in the table 2. is the matrix of correlation data for different variables in a system model of efqm of the manufacturing organization. the number of hr quality efqm 90 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 84-93) cases in the sample is n = 70 is correct and there are no missing data. from the presented dimensions, we can see the relationship between the variables and the correlation r. we can conclude: a positive correlation between the variables in all cases and that the highest correlation coefficient between variable hr and efqm. correlation coefficient is r = 0.7078, these variables were moderately correlated related. figure 2: correlations of variables in the system model source: author in the table 3 was calculated coefficient of determination r = 0.5632, which illustrates how the percentage of variance of the dependent variable is explained in the model, and the coefficient of multiple correlation r = 0.7504 that illustrates what is the strength of the correlation between the variables. it means that 56.32% of the variability of the dependent variable efqm organization of production can be explained by the influence of the independent variable: hr and quality. here variables are moderately correlated related. cvetić, t., et al., quality and human resources, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 84-93) 91 table 2: summary of fit for variables: hr, quality and efqm production organizations rsquare 0,563264 rsquare adj 0,550227 root mean square error 0,22121 mean of response 4,110342 observations (or sum wgts) 70 source: author in order to assess the statistical significance we must observe table 4. anova. there are the results of the null hypothesis, r2 in the population is 0. the statistical significance of the (sig. = 0.0001), which means that r is <0.0005. hypothesis h11 confirms that the independent variables hr and quality have a significant impact on the dependent variable efqm in manufacturing organizations. in the further analysis, we will still analyze this hypothesis. table 3: anova source df sum of squares mean square f ratio model 2 4,2284316 2,11422 43,2054 error 67 3,2785830 0,04893 prob > f c. total 69 7,5070146 <,0001* source: author in the table 5, coefficients can determine which of the independent variable in the model contribute to the prediction of a dependent variable. in this case, the highest coefficient beta is 0.603 which is the value for the independent variable hr, which means that this independent variable contributes most to the explanation of the dependent variable of efqm production organizations. table 4: coefficients term estimate std error t ratio prob>|t| std beta vif intercept 1,5628689 0,27755 5,63 <,0001* 0 . hr 0,4486972 0,065059 6,90 <,0001* 0,603477 1,1745774 quality 0,1714652 0,055457 3,09 0,0029* 0,270542 1,1745774 source: author 92 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 84-93) for drawing a regression equation we can use the values from column b in (table 27), based on which, the multiple linear equations is: (1) or efqm of production organizations = 1,156 + 0,448 . hr + 0,17 quality (2) figure 3: 3d simulation of a multiple linear equation source: author figure 3. shows the 3d simulation of the resulting multiple linear equations for the effects of changing hr and quality at variable efqm for production organization. conclusion by analyzing the efqm model from the woman entrepreneur point of view we concluded that the variable quality has greater impact on business excellence. variable hr which stands for human resources according to respondents does not have great impact on business excellence but its significance is not exclusive. this article explains quality as paradigm of every successful business. the model presented in paper can be extended to other elements of the efqm model in order to create a sustainable model of success for future female entrepreneurs. cvetić, t., et al., quality and human resources, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 84-93) 93 references [1] arsovski, s., nikezić, s. 2013. „liderstvo: ključ za ekspanzivnu kreativnost“, ražanj: skupština opštine ražanj, isbn 978-86-89507-01-0 [2] bass, в., avolio, в. 1994. „lmproving organizational effectiveпess through transformational leadership“, sage publications, lnc. 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[9] srps iso 9004:2009. 2017. iss.rs. retrieved 21 june 2017, from http://www.iss.rs/standard/?national_standard_id=24883 [10] vanhaverbeke, w., torremans, h. 1998. organizational structure in process-based organizations, 14th egos conference, maastricht [11] wang, y., bhanugopan, r., & lockhart, p. 2015. examining the quantitative determinants of organizational performance: evidence from china. measuring business excellence, 19(2): 23-41. article history: received: 1 november, 2017 accepted: 15 december, 2017 note of editor in chief dear authors, this special volume of the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (jwee) is dedicated to issues of female entrepreneurship and education in europe and asia. on this occasion, a large number of scientists participated in the writing papers, of which the nine best ones were selected. we are especially grateful to the guest editor dr. mark pruett from the united states, who, in his introductory text, emphasized the importance of this journal in promoting female entrepreneurship and education. he mentioned that the journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (jwee) has been publishing on this subject for fifteen years, with authors and research settings from around the world. accordingly, during all this time, the journal has made a great contribution to research in this area and has brought together researchers from about fifty countries so far. this contributed to its progress over time and its inclusion in scopus q3 with the tendency of further progress. dr. mark pruett pointed out that it was among the first in the world to publish a paper of afghanistan university female and male students regarding entrepreneurship and self-efficacy, intentions, and perception of motives and barriers (pruett, şeşen, et al., 2018). in addition, he stressed that the jwee published the first multinational study of differences between female and male students in a full model of how culture and perceptions of motives and barriers influence entrepreneurial intentions in a four-country comparison of belgium, china, turkey and the united states (şeşen and pruett, 2014). finally, he concluded: “our own experience with education, with entrepreneurship, and with a large body of research from the last couple of decades, including the results and ideas from articles in jwee, leads us to believe that entrepreneurship education for women should make a deliberate effort to expand its traditional emphasis on teaching skills and concepts by integrating a second core theme—shaping students by focusing on developing self-confidence and personal character” (pruett, 2023, p.2). vi journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, v-vi) with special thanks to dr. pruett for the trust he has shown in our journal, which he has followed since its inception, we send a message to all authors to further spread the mission of this journal and increase its influence. july, 2023 editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković 15_jwe_3-4 notes from of editor-in-chief started in 2009, jwe will begin its eight year in 2016. from the beginning until now, it has grown tremendously in size and prestige. the jwe has a very good team of editors, which ensures that papers are expertly reviewed. the journal also has a very wide readership. namely, the jwe publishes relatively few papers per issue (approximately 7 or so) and this has the benefit of greatly increasing the visibility of the articles we publish. the additional benefits of publishing in the journal include fast decision times and rapid turnaround of accepted articles. all publications in the jwe are in english language. authors whose first language is not english should make sure their manuscript is written in idiomatic english before submission. please write your text in good english. if you have thoughts or questions on any of the articles in this or earlier published issues please contact me. editor-in-chief prof. mirjana radović-marković, phd, academician microsoft word 10_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 005(689.1) jel: b54; l26 scientific report strategies on women entrepreneurship survival: a case study of women entrepreneurs in zimbabwe between 2007-2009 moreblessings siziba, national university of science and technology, zimbabwe a b s t r a c t today's entrepreneurs require a comprehensive stock of knowledge and skills that are both related to their type of business and adaptable for change of their local and international environment .rapid changes in the southern african region in general and the country of zimbabwe in particular, in the socio-economic structures are propelling entrepreneurs especially women towards the search for a competitive edge away from the “crowd”, in order to survive. the competitive edge strategies are essential for all visionary women entrepreneurs of the twenty-first century. this paper gives an insight on how various women entrepreneurs managed to adapt to the zimbabwean unfamiliar business environment during 2007-2009. these women state the different challenges that they faced and the strategies they used to win over and be successful. kew words: challenges, strategies, women entrepreneurs introduction the zimbabwean inflation was recorded 231.000.000 % by cso, july 2006. many were pessimists and predicted the bottle to be half empty rather than half full. life on its own was a hustle, the business industry was down. most women who were employed in zimbabwe decided to resign from work during 2007. as of 2006 january, www.zimsituation states that journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 71-79) 72 the official poverty line was zwd 17,200 per month. however by 2008 it had risen to zwd 13 trillion per month (usd41). most workers were paid zwd 200 billion (usd60 cents).a nurse’s salary was estimated to be usd12 cents. the sky rocketing inflation was affecting their wages and salaries. they realised that the value for money was depreciating. a monthly salary was clearly not enough. it therefore became imperative that to survive: one had to be an entrepreneur and receive daily income that would be of value in that given day. according to the last women entrepreneurship static’s taken in zimbabwe there has been a clear increase of women entrepreneurs in this country thus significance from about 15% to about 44% between 2007-2009 the zimbabwean economic environment was turbulent and success in entrepreneurship was becoming more and more difficult. there were many challenges that entrepreneurs faced in particular women. the paper further indicates that women entrepreneurs are facing more challenges as compared to their male counter-parts. there is need for women entrepreneurs across the board to share their experiences and and assist each other with knowledge on how to deal with challenges that they face and succeed despite pressures surrounding them .it serves as a reference platform for all entrepreneurs on strategies on how to survive during economic crisis scenarios. the research questions were: − did women entrepreneurs particularly those in zimbabwe face challenges in operations between 2007-2009? − were the challenges a deviation from the norm (are they worse than the normal challenges that generally women entrepreneurs face)? − which strategies then did they use to survive and attain success? the concept of entrepreneurship entrepreneurship …...consists in doing things that are not generally done in the ordinary course of business routine. it is essentially phenomenon that comes under the wider aspect leadership (schumpeter, 1951) .this has a direct link to the characteristics and behaviour of entrepreneurs that they are` opportunity seekers and they make good leaders. moreblessings, s., strategies, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 71-79) 73 “entrepreneur …..they do not only see the system as it is but as it might be” milton, 1989.he indicates that whether a new firm is being established or not depends on the respective environment and on the founder .usually he does not have perfect knowledge about all critical factors,which drive an industry’s development .thus ,he will have to bear certain risks. the act of establishing a firm depends on the individual’s perception and on the evaluation of micro and macro environment .further more the firm’s economic success once founded is determined again by an individual’s resources and specific managerial capabilities to manage situations. women entrepreneurship the need to develop women entrepreneurship was emphasized in beijing (1995) at the fourth world conference on women. the objectives are to: 1. increase the participation of women in industry and all other sectors, particularly in the non-traditional areas, through access to advanced technologies. 2. promote, support, and strengthen female entrepreneurship development. 3. encourage investments in environmentally safe products and in environmentally sound and productive agricultural, fisheries, commercial, and industrial activities and technologies; and 4. strengthen training opportunities for women. challenges of being a women entrepreneur according to women entrepreneurship in science and technology: impetus for female participation in national development in nigeria by dr. j. b. bilesanmi and dr.o.o. kalesanwo, volume 7-issue: factors discouraging women entrepreneurship these factors are discussed in this paper as they relate to societal norms, funding, lack of information, low skill acquisition, lack of mentors, lack of supporting networks, and low level of encouragement from spouses and families. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 71-79) 74 strategies on women eentrepreneurship survival change is constant in the new economic landscape, hamel (2000). in his view, change has changed. it does not move straight in line anymore, rather its abrupt. the modern enterprises have to adopt a strategy of constant adjustment of their descions to fast moving developments everyday, for some every minute, so if entrepreneurs do not develop a hypersensitivity to the outside circumstances they risk being shifted out of business. frank h knight (1921) states that in uncertain conditions, the decision-making function forecasts on the demand and estimates the factor’s marginal productiveness. entrepreneurs attempt to predict change in the market. thus, according to knight the entrepreneurs by virtue of willingness to accept the results of a particular endeavour. consequently in their decisions entrepreneurs do not know the potential economic outcome but experimentally try different combinations. hostile environments lead to more rational strategies according to dess and beard (1984). methodology and findings the researcher focuses on the presentation and analysis of the research findings. the chosen data collection method depends upon the available resources and how best the method can generate relevant information for subject being discussed. personal interviews were used because they were able to reveal more information that was relevant for the research. it uprooted information for example the researcher derived more from facial expressions and emotional gestures of respondents. all respondents were women entrepreneurs who were active between 2007 and 2009 and more so are still women entrepreneurs in 2010.the questions included: − do you think women entrepreneurs face more challenges than their male counter parts? − which challenges do you think women entrepreneurs around the world face? − were the challenges that you faced between 2007-2009 a deviation from the norm (are they worse than the normal challenges that generally women entrepreneurs face)? moreblessings, s., strategies, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 71-79) 75 − since you are still an entrepreneur now, can you brief me on how your business managed to survive? according to hirsch and peters (1989), business started by women and men differ in terms of the nature of business they start and challenges. gem 2004 indicates that women entrepreneurs tend to be more affected by their local environment as compared to their male counterparts. the respondents believed that women entrepreneurs face more challenges than their male counterparts. they faced challenges in personality characteristics(confidence, innovativeness) as man are said to be less discouraged by surroundings or circumstances than most women. they faced more challenges in securing funds and in general knowledge about business operations (background).however they stated that any dedicated entrepreneur irregardless of sex could overcome these challenges. women entrepreneurs stated various challenges that they thought most of their counterparts in other countries faced .they are similar to those stated i impetus female participation in national development in nigeria by dr. j. b. bilesanmi and dr.o.o. kalesanwo, volume 7-issue: they relate to societal norms, funding, lack of information, lack of mentors, lack of supporting networks and low level of encouragement from spouses and families. however 95% respondents felt that women entrepreneurs in zimbabwe faced more challenges than their counterparts during 20072009. they stated the following challenges during the interview. − 83 % of women entrepreneurs in zimbabwe indicated that the biggest challenge was financing the business daily operations.it was a hustle as prices and charges of commodities changed three times a day .thus prices were changed in the morning at eight am (8:00hrs), at eleven (11:00hrs) in the afternoon they increased and at around three in the afternoon (15:00hrs). − the banking sector stopped offering financing services in terms of loans, overdraft and e-banking services as the economy was down. women entrepreneurs needed to take advantage of upcoming opportunities so that they could make larger profits which enabled their survival. therefore their businesses had to engage in a stability strategy where growth was persued. − the african set up usually discourages women entrepreneurs. they are seemingly viewed as feminists. therefore most married women who were entrepreneurs faced challenges of reaching journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 71-79) 76 their goals as their families (especially in laws) discouraged them. at times the family discouragements were understandable as most women were cross -boarders and faced challenges of accommodation (which is insecure for women) as they were shopping in those foreign countries such as botswana, southafrica, zambia and mozambique. − practically there was no development in zimbabwe .internet was scarce as it was very expensive to install. there for it became difficult for them to engage their businesses to activities such as e-marketing ,e-banking and ordering through the internet . − few women were connected in the business network especially with international suppliers. as a result they failed to increase their bargaining power with suppliers for discounts and for being granted first preference in situations where materials were scarce. this threatened their survival as their male counter parts had that advantage. − the harsh economic conditions needed dedicated women .women entrepreneurs needed to be there in their business, as decision making was contiously needed. strategies formulated needed to be reviewed and revised for survival.'' having primary responsibility for children ,home and older dependent family members ,few women can devote their time and energies to their business'' (starcher, 1996:8). “entrepreneurship is the ability to create and build something from practically nothing” (timmons, section 1 ).the science of entrepreneurship involve initiating, doing, achieving and building an enterprise or organisation, rather than just watching, analysing or describing entity. entrepreneurship is the knack of sensing an opportunity where others see chaos, contradiction and confusion. they embarked on the following strategies. hair saloon rent a chair due to the economic crisis, few customers were prepared to do their hair in the saloons and therefore operating a hair saloon as a sole trader was becoming more expensive. therefore saloon owners decided to retrench their workers and rent chair to hair dressers who wished to offer the service. these hair dressers paid rent to these owners for using the moreblessings, s., strategies, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 71-79) 77 space and heir brand name. as such they were able to pay the bills for operations of the business. rent other complementary providers more over the women entrepreneurs understood that if the customers' circumstances changed, their needs and preferences changed too. customers wanted a package and wanted to save their time for other important activities other than beauty. so they decided to rent other service providers such as manicure and face therapists in the saloon. they rebranded their companies and were less myopic and moved to offering the beauty package not centering on hair doing. flea market and fashion boutiques clubs to boost each other financially as cited before women entrepreneurs were failing to fund their businesses so that they could expand their businesses and buy stock. therefore they formed clubs to assist each other financially in small groups of six. every member could contribute about usd100.which means the receiver in that particular group could get about usd500 to run around and do some business. formed strategic partnerships with other women entrepreneurs most entrepreneurs were importing their stock. therefore instead of each lady travelling say maybe to dubai to buy her stock. they pulled funds in groups and sent two people to purchase the stuff. as such they would all sell the products and then share profits. thus they gained more profits as they cut travelling and accommodation expenses. securing good and safe accommodation in the foreign countries was a must. for married women it was an important factor. husbands clearly refused to permit their wives to travel to the foreign land if safe accommodation was not established. therefore they striked deals with various lodges to rent them temporary accommodation at cheaper prices as they were regular customers new business ideas boarding hostels for private schools students (initially day-schools) entrepreneurship ...........consists in doing things that are not generally done in the ordinary course of business routine (schumpter, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 71-79) 78 1951). during this period of zimbabwean crisis the private schools offered the best education services, teachers were not striking, books were available and sporting facilities were good. therefore most people who had gone out of the country preferred to send their children to such schools. however most of these schools were day schools. some women who owned flats in town decided to open up boarding schools using their flats. this was more profitable than renting residents. mergering as women entrepreneurs stephen p robbins (1991) postulates that synergy is so effective. thus the formula below indicates the benefits of synergy. potential group effectiveness + process gains process losses =actual group effectiveness in this case the women entrepreneurs administered a swot analysis (their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis). they discovered that working together was the best. in this case they realised that they needed to integrate as they had attained different skills. some were well vexed in marketing, finance, importing and exporting. the women were able to sustain their businesses as they had more ideas on sustainability strategies on different subjects. information forum the sky rocketing inflation was affecting the price charges. women entrepreneurs formed a forum and hired informers who continuously provided entrepreneurs with useful information so that they could charge their commodities appropriately to avoid loss making. recommendations various women organisations need to support such women. they can be used as mentors for other aspiring women so as to promote women entrepreneurship. more so the various women ministries in respective countries need to offer support to women entrepreneurs when such challenges arise so that they can survive and even then succeed and earn more profits. it is also important for men especially in africa to support their wives should they embark on business. the probability of success is usually higher when a spouse is supportive. moreblessings, s., strategies, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 71-79) 79 again it’s a challenge for women entrepreneurs to learn life skills on being able to balance family life and business, for if you can balance those the business is likely to move on. conclusion the success of many women entrepreneurs in zimbabwe is indeed a testimony. they have thrived hard, braced up and have risen in this occasion to build up empires. i believe there are still more women entrepreneurs in other countries who are facing the same challenges. challenges come and the diligent will overcome them by setting up plans that are fundamental and will breed success. it’s not where we are from, what kind of lifestyle we are used, its all in the mind and we as women entrepreneurs need to be confident and be courageous. innovativeness is needed as a weapon to unfamiliar challenges. references [1] dess g and beard d (1984) dimensions of organisational tasks environments, administrative science quarterly, vol 29 [2] global entrepreneurship monitor (gem) 2004. [3] hamel g (2000), leading the revolution, boston ma,havard business school press. [4] hirsch r d and peters m p (1989), entrepreneurship, tata mc graw-hill 2002, 5th edition. [5] j. b. bilesanmi and dr.o.o. kalesanwo, impetus female participation in national development in nigeria volume 7-issue [6] mitton d (1989), the complete entrepreneur, entrepreneurship: theory and practice ,vol 13 [7] stephen p robbins (1991), organisational behaviour concepts, controvesies and applications, prentice hall international, pp 296-297 [8] timmons j a (1994), new venture creation, homewood, ii: irwin, 4th edition [9] timmons, j. (n.d.). entrepreneurship training and assistance. retrieved 20 march 2010, from http://acec-al.org/enterpreneurship.php [10] wikpedia online encyclopedia, retrieved on the 7th of march 2010 [11] (www.wkipedia.com/femaleentrepreneurship) received: 15 june 2010 article history: accepted: 15 october 2010 18_jwee_1-2 notes from the editor-in-chief the last ten years, jwee has attracted an international readership that is primarily academic. however, the primary target group of our peer journal are not only sholars and researchers. we seek also students of ph.d studies and professional audiences as well. the concept of the journal is such that it gives the advantage to multidisciplinary approach to various subjects linked to the gender issues. it also emphasizes publishing of the scientific papers, which have an empirical and a research character. moreover, there is also the place in the journal for quality theoretical papers as well, reviews of the latest publications of national and international significance and scientific critiques and discussions. april, 2018. belgrade yours, editor-in-chief acad. prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković doi: 10.28934/jwee23.pp92-108 jel: d91, m12 original scientific paper 5bgender aspects of social intelligence management in the context of entrepreneurial and civic engagement daniela palaščáková1 7f1 technical university of kosice, faculty of economics, department of economics, kočice, slovak republic ihor liadskyi1 8f2 poltava state agrarian university, poltava, ukraine inna senko1 9f3 department of the humanities and social sciences poltava state agrarian university, poltava, ukraine a b s t r a c t the research article investigates the relationship between a person's social intelligence according to gender identity and their entrepreneurial and social activity. a significant positive impact of the development of social skills, social information processing skills and social awareness on a person’s motivation to take an active part in the life of their locality, region or state, interest in politics, business or civic activities was identified. this result agrees well with the scientific assumption underlying the research that people with developed social intelligence should also have higher ambitions for a place in the social hierarchy choosing business or politics for this purpose. the research showed that civically active women have almost the same level of social intelligence as men, which confirms their equal chances of building a career 1 corresponding author, e-mail: daniela.palascakova@tuke.sk 2 e-mail: e-mail: lyadskiy.igor@pdaa.edu.ua 3 e-mail: senko.inna@pdaa.edu.ua daniela palaščáková, ihor liadskyi, inna senko 93 in the public sphere, regardless of whether they choose business, politics or public initiatives. it can be assumed that in the context of promoting gender equality in society, the development of women's social intelligence will contribute to their greater participation in social management and achieving a balance in leadership groups. keywords: social skills, social awareness, social competencies, social intelligence, social information. introduction citizens seeking effective socialization can hardly ignore such components as entrepreneurial, political or civic engagement. one of the main criteria for interpersonal interaction is considered to be social intelligence (si). it determines how quickly and effectively a person integrates into society and assumes a role in it. accordingly, the working hypothesis of this research is that people with advanced social intelligence should have higher ambitions about their place in the civic hierarchy. the previous research by the authors proved that the level of si development determines a person’s desire for self-development and willingness to be involved in volunteering (liadskyi, 2022). therefore, identifying the relationship between social intelligence and a person’s civic ambitions was a logical continuation of the work already done. the connection of social intelligence with personal qualities, in particular social thinking, reflection, social sensitivity, empathy and social perception, was confirmed by different authors, in particular onufrieva l. (2020). it is proved that si is the basis of the communicative and reflective component of the individual’s readiness for charitable activity at the psychological level. the gender specificity of the development and manifestation of social intelligence is also a very important aspect of the problem of effective personal socialization, in particular in the context of political, economic and social awareness (marilingappa, 2019). the problem of the low level of women’s involvement in public administration, compared to men, is relevant for the whole world (stepanenko, 2019). based on the goal of this study, the main task of the experiment was not only to find a reliable influence of social intelligence on the entrepreneurial, political and civic ambitions of people, but also to identify gender-specific features for the formation of civic consciousness. 94 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 92-108) to accomplish this task, we conducted an anonymous survey among people actively involved in political, civic, or business activities. this allowed us to identify the connection between their social intelligence and civic ambitions, which is relevant for changes in public policy, including strengthening gender equality and involving women in government. literature review the phenomenon of si has been attracting the attention of scientists since the early twentieth century. there are several versions of who first used the term “social intelligence”. the most common opinion is that the american psychologist edward lee thorndike was a discoverer of this concept (garg, 2021). in 1920, this researcher defined si as the skill of “succeeding in relationships with other people while managing them” (develi, 2022). since his work appeared in the non-scientific publication harper’s journal, some scholars attribute the authorship of the term “social intelligence” to another scientist, namely harry barnes, who introduced this scientific concept in his monograph history and social intelligence, published in 1926. there are other versions of the origin of the term “social intelligence” that attribute the authorship to the american psychologist and philosopher john dewey, whose research interests included si in 1909, or to lull herbert galen, who used the term in his publication in 1911 (mateiuk, 2021). baumgartner and vasiľova (2005), luptak (2003) and orosova, sarkova, madarasova geckova and katreniakova (2004) state that other terms like “emotional intelligence”, “practical intelligence”, “social competence”, etc. are used in the same sense as social intelligence. another problem is that the definition of social intelligence tends to emphasize different components. for example, barnes and sternberg (1989) concentrate on cognitive components, i.e. especially the ability to understand other people; ford and tisak (1983) focus more on behavioral components, i.e. the ability to interact successfully with others. difficulties in understanding the concept also arise from the accepted multidimensionality of social intelligence. kosmitzki and john (1993) identified the following components: perception of other people’s mental states and moods, general ability to get along with others, knowledge of social rules, understanding and sensitivity to complex social situations, use of social techniques to manipulate others, accepting the points of view of daniela palaščáková, ihor liadskyi, inna senko 95 other people, and social adaptation. as noted by silvera, martinussen and dahl (2001), some dimensions of social intelligence are closely related to academic intelligence, but others are more related to personality traits such as extraversion. in general, the twentieth century is characterized by rapid growth of global scientific interest in human cognitive-behavioral features, with the aim of educating a harmoniously developed individual as a conscious citizen (hoseini, 2020). since then, psychologists have tried to develop an effective test of social intelligence. the tests by j. washington (gwist), gilford and sullivan (1975), and other tests are widely used (gupta, 2021). however, these questionnaires have a number of drawbacks in common. their effectiveness and versatility are reduced due to the time-consuming nature of completing them, the unclear nature of some questions, their ambiguous interpretation, difficulty in application, and low correlation with other tests. due to this, the search for more effective and universal ways to assess si continues today. one of the most versatile and easy-to-use tests is the tromsø. it was developed by d. silvera, m. martinussen, and t. dahl. in their work, they relied on the research of o. john and k. kosmijetski (silvera, 2001). these scholars proposed three basic components of social intelligence: − social skills; − social information processing; − social awareness. norwegian researchers initially formulated 103 questions. in the final version, their number was reduced to 21 questions. these authors believe that the questions they proposed fully reveal the level of an individual’s si development. they do not complicate the process of answering and further analysis of the results. data and methods the survey was conducted among entrepreneurial and civic active residents of the ukrainian cities of poltava and pervomayskyi (lozovskyi district, kharkiv region). the total number of respondents was 132. the representatives of political parties and public associations, opinion leaders, entrepreneurs and public activists were invited to participate in the survey. 96 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 92-108) the authors are personally acquainted with each of the survey participants. the respondents do have certain civic ambitions and leadership qualities. in our experiment, we used the tromsø test. it consists of 21 questions covering social information processing (sp), social skills (ss), and social awareness (sa). the questions of the tromsø test were presented in a mixed way, i.e., the level of development of social awareness, social information processing and social skills was not consistently measured, but randomly. in addition, 10 questions were formulated in a positive context, and 11 in a negative context. this involved coding them. this was done on purpose to eliminate the possibility of biased answers. the interpretation of the test results consisted of calculating the scores for each factor and dividing the sum by the total number of items to obtain an average score. if the respondent’s average score exceeded 4, it could be assumed that this person has the ability to correctly assess social situations and phenomena. in addition, they have developed communication skills. for each answer, a scale from 1 to 7 was defined, where one corresponds to the statement “not at all about me” and seven corresponds to “totally about me” (tables 1-3). table 1: questions related to social information processing question number question 1. “i can predict the behavior of other people”. 3. “i know how other people will feel after my actions ”. 6. “i understand the feelings of other people ”. 9. “i understand the desires of other people ”. 14. “i can often figure out what other people want without asking them ”. 17. “i can predict how others will react to my behavior ”. 19. “i can often tell what others are really saying by their facial expressions and body language ”. source: own processing daniela palaščáková, ihor liadskyi, inna senko 97 table 2: questions related to social skills question number question 4. “i often feel uncomfortable around new people”. 7. “i can easily adapt to different social situations”. 10. “i am quick to adapt to new situations and meet new people ”. 12. “it is difficult for me to build relationships with other people”. 15. “it takes me a long time to understand other people well”. 18. “i am good at choosing the right words when talking to new people”. 20. “it is difficult for me to find an interesting topic to talk about”. source: own processing the survey was conducted online using a questionnaire created in a google form. the work was carried out in february 2023. the data was interpreted using microsoft excel. to establish the correlation between the two variables, the spearman’s rank correlation method was chosen according to the recommendations published in the works of v.f. bosniuk (2020), where x (independent variable) is social intelligence, and y (dependent variable) is a political, social or entrepreneurial activity. table 3: questions related to social awareness question number question 2. “i often feel that it is difficult for me to understand the choices of other people”. 5. “people often surprise me with their actions”. 8. “other people get angry with me, but i don't know why”. 11. “people often get angry or annoyed when i say what i think”. 13. “i find people unpredictable”. 16. “i often offend others without realizing it ”. 21. “i am often surprised by the reactions of others to what i do”. source: own processing the results were interpreted in accordance with the recommendations published in the work by turan (2020). for this purpose, the cheddock scale was used, which defines the following possible options for the strength of the correlation between two variables: 98 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 92-108) − weak 0.1-0.3; − significant 0.3-0.5; − moderate 0.5-0.7; − high 0.7-0.9; − very high 0.9-1.0. the questions related to determining the level of civic ambition and entrepreneurial engagement of the respondents were added according to a similar evaluation system (table 4). table 4: questions to determine the level of civic ambition and entrepreneurial engagement of the respondents question number question 22. are you/have you been involved in social activities? if so, how active? 23. do you have any business experience? from an employee to a business owner. 24. what are your political ambitions? from “being an active member” to “becoming a city mayor”. source: own processing results and discussion the study revealed a significant positive impact of si on the level of respondents’ involvement in political, business or social activities. in addition, all people with developed social intelligence sought selfrealization in the communities to which they belonged. among those who were interested in participating in the survey, the majority were over 31 years of age (figure 1). the age groups were divided approximately equally into three categories: 31.8% (31-40 years old), 34.1% (41-50 years old) and 27.3% (over 51 years old). young people aged 18 to 30 made up a total of 6.8%. women were also more active (figure 2), which indicates the positive trends in ukrainian society in terms of creating equal opportunities for different genders in the entrepreneurial and civic sphere. their share in the survey was 68.2%, compared to 31.8% among men. daniela palaščáková, ihor liadskyi, inna senko 99 figure 1: age stratification of respondents source: own processing figure 2: gender distribution of survey participants source: own processing it turned out that women and men, on average, show the same level of social intelligence (4.8 and 5 scores, respectively, out of 7 possible), but there is a difference in the development of its individual components, as shown in table 5. the dynamics of the distribution of indicators are quite interesting. women have the best developed ability to process social information sp (4.9 scores), slightly less developed social skills ss (4.8 scores) and less expressed social awareness sa (4.6 scores). in contrast, men rate social skills highest (5.2 scores), followed by social information processing (5 scores). both women and men have social awareness behind the other components of social intelligence (4.7 scores). 100 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 92-108) table 5: results of the analysis of the influence of social intelligence on entrepreneurial engagement and civic ambitions social intelligence component women men total sp 4.9 5.0 5.0 ss 4.8 5.2 5.0 sa 4.6 4.8 4.7 si (total) 4.8 5 4.9 source: own processing the difference in the development of sp indicators can be explained by the fact that they depend on empathy more than any other si components, thereby approaching emotional intelligence (ei), which is better developed among women compared to men (patel, 2017). research by rahim (2018) also points to a close connection between social intelligence and empathy, which suggests that some components of si and ei are related to each other (williams, 2008). they can be considered as two overlapping sets. in contrast, men show better socialization skills and awareness of social relations, including political and entrepreneurial issues. similar conclusions were made by the authors of a study that used a two-level hierarchical linear model based on the analysis of the results of the 2009 european elections (fraile, 2014). in everyday life, this pattern is expressed in a wider range of acquaintances and a willingness to join various social associations. however, these results are preliminary and require further research with a larger number of respondents. the influence of social intelligence on self-control and gratitude is demonstrated in the study by gulliford (2019). this opens up a new aspect of the predicted impact on social engagement and political motivation, namely the interest of a citizen in his or her own people and country. the analysis of the answers of the total sample of respondents, presented in table 6, demonstrated a statistically significant positive correlation between social intelligence and civic and entrepreneurial engagement. in particular, it is best illustrated by the ability to be socially aware, i.e., to possess the necessary information about the political situation in the city, region and country, as well as the formed axiological component of the personality. daniela palaščáková, ihor liadskyi, inna senko 101 table 6: results of the analysis of the influence of social intelligence on entrepreneurial engagement and civic ambitions tromsø test criterion / civic and entrepreneurial engagement social information processing social skills social awareness general level of social intelligence development spearman's correlation coefficient 0.317 0.332 0.349 0.364 the strength of the relationship on the chaddock scale noticeable, positive noticeable, positive noticeable, positive noticeable, positive statistical significance of the feature dependence p < 0.05* p < 0.05* p < 0.05* p < 0.05* note: p≤0.05 – low statistical significance; p≤0.01 – average statistical significance; p≤0,001 – high statistical significance. source: own processing in fact, the research of the respondents by gender, given in tables 7 and 8, showed a significant difference between the relationship between sa and entrepreneurial, political or civic ambition among women and men. in particular, social awareness was more strongly correlated (0.356 moderate relationship) with social intelligence for women than for men (0.278 weak correlation). the men demonstrated a stronger correlation between si and social information processing (0.331 moderate correlation) and social skills (0.329 moderate correlation). in contrast, female respondents showed a lower correlation between social skills (0.291 weak correlation) and political and social ambition. like men, women showed the most significant positive correlation between the si component of social information processing (0.366) and the examined features. in general, the correlation between women’s social intelligence and motivation to build a political or public career (0.381) is significantly higher than that of men (0.288), which can be explained by historically formed gender stereotypes that are still observed in society, especially in developing countries. ukraine, where the study was conducted, is one such country. 102 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 92-108) while men traditionally have stronger ambitions to join political and public associations, this percentage is much lower among ukrainian women (martseniuk, 2018). table 7: results of the analysis of the social intelligence influence on the civic and entrepreneurial engagement of women tromsø test criterion / civic and entrepreneurial engagement social information processing social skills social awareness general level of social intelligence development spearman's correlation coefficient 0.366 0.291 0.356 0.381 the strength of the relationship on the chaddock scale noticeable, positive weak, positive noticeable, positive noticeable, positive statistical significance of the feature dependence p < 0.05* p > 0.05 p > 0.05 p <0.05* note: p≤0.05 – low statistical significance; p≤0.01 – average statistical significance; p≤0,001 – high statistical significance. source: own processing this may be due to both the uneven development of si and the differences in its individual components sp and sa. many ukrainian women still position themselves as “keepers of the home”, paying less attention to the political sphere of life, which is dominated by men (slobodianiuk, 2019). given the fact that the distribution of social roles between the representatives of different genders has changed in modern ukrainian society, women and men are beginning to accept new norms and rules of behavior. gender equality has both socio-cultural and biological explanations (luptak, 2003). as table 5 shows, female respondents demonstrated almost the same level of social intelligence as men, which confirms their equal chances of building a political career. it can be suggested that in the context of promoting gender equality in society, the development of women’s social daniela palaščáková, ihor liadskyi, inna senko 103 intelligence will contribute to their more active involvement in social governance and achieving a balance in governing groups (marilingappa, 2019). table 8: results of the analysis of the social intelligence influence on the civic engagement and political ambitions of men tromsø test criterion / political ambitions social information processing social skills social awareness general level of social intelligence development spearman's correlation coefficient 0.331 0.329 0.278 0.288 the strength of the relationship on the chaddock scale noticeable, positive noticeable, positive weak, positive weak, positive statistical significance of the feature dependence p > 0.05 p > 0.05 p > 0.05 p > 0.05 note: p≤0.05 – low statistical significance; p≤0.01 – average statistical significance; p≤0,001 – high statistical significance. source: own processing our results are in line with the studied components of social intelligence (goswami, 2019). for example, sp is responsible for the quick perception and understanding of major trends in society. ss determines the ability to find the necessary information and interpret it correctly. sa is aimed at the self-identification of a person as a representative of his/her nation. taking into account different views on the components of si, it can be noted that social skills, social information processing and social awareness were shown to be effective in the research, which was also demonstrated by such scholars as silvera (2001) and further studies by goswami (2019), liadskyi (2022) and sanwal (2023). it is important that the selected test questions were quite clear to the respondents and did not require additional explanations. they revealed a person’s view of the level of development of their own social skills, knowledge and abilities. since the completed 104 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 92-108) questionnaires contain all possible answers, it is likely that the invited respondents answered as honestly as possible. the test is completely anonymous, which also ensures its reliability. the respondents were informed of the importance of this research, as it is aimed at strengthening gender equality in our country and improving the social and political situation in ukraine. their answers helped to verify the scientific hypothesis, the confirmation of which opens up broad prospects for building a democratic society with equal opportunities for different age and gender categories. further research is also promising in order to establish relationships between social intelligence and other useful qualities of a citizen, such as anti-corruption, charity, etc. we believe that further research on social intelligence will enable us to develop effective genderequitable recommendations for the development and management of education in schools, colleges and universities. not only ukraine, but every citizen will benefit from this. social awareness and motivation to perform socially important activities have a significant positive impact on success. conclusion the study of the impact of si on entrepreneurial, political and civic engagement revealed a tendency towards a significant positive relationship between the development of social awareness, social information processing skills, social skills and the desire of a person to actively participate in the life of their locality, region or state. this result is fully consistent with the scientific assumption made at the beginning of the study. we predicted that citizens with developed social intelligence are more likely to have higher ambitions regarding their place in the social hierarchy. as social intelligence is closely related to political and civic engagement, its development is certainly useful for the formation of a conscious middle class in society. among the recommendations that can be made are the following: 1. determination of the pedagogical conditions for the formation of social intelligence at the national level in order to integrate such a curriculum into the educational system. 2. active promotion of social intelligence among the adult population, including writing thematic books, publications on the internet, and conducting lectures, seminars and training. daniela palaščáková, ihor liadskyi, inna senko 105 3. development of organizational and methodological support for the introduction of social intelligence into the system of political education of citizens in social assistance centers and organizations that provide assistance in employment. developed social intelligence significantly correlates with the willingness of respondents to build an entrepreneurial, political or civic career. the fact that the authors of the research are personally acquainted with the people who took part in it allowed them to invite only those who are really involved in the local political community or public associations. the research showed that entrepreneurial, political or civic active women have almost the same level of social intelligence as men, which confirms their equal chances of building a career in the public sphere. the realization of gender equality largely depends on the level of si of the individual, regardless of gender identity. thus, we can assume that in the context of promoting gender equality in society, the development of women’s social intelligence will contribute to their more active involvement in social governance and achieving a balance in governing groups. the findings suggest the satisfactory psychometric effectiveness of the survey, and we will continue to validate it on the slovak population. the methodology presented above covers some aspects of the diverse phenomenon of social intelligence. this methodology has the advantage of being easy to use and evaluate. however, it would be more appropriate to combine it with other tools for more comprehensive research. the problem of developing new methods that are more focused on the qualitative 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"characteristics that distinguish outstanding urban principals: emotional intelligence, social intelligence and environmental adaptation." journal of management development, 27(1): 36-54. article history: received: march 22nd, 2023 accepted: june 28th, 2023  14_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.322-055.2 jel: i24, b54 cobiss.sr-id: 211197196 preliminary report maybe he’s just better than you”: generation x women and higher education brabazon tara1 charles sturt university, australia a b s t r a c t the next five years will be significant in international higher education as the baby boomer generation leaves our campuses. what legacy will they leave and how will the next generations manage the ‘leaderist’ turn in universities? this article enters the tight cluster of gender, generation and leadership, and probes how masculine ideologies of achievement, power and recognition can be critiqued and challenged. recognizing laura bates ‘everyday sexism’ project, my piece names the daily structures, stories and scenarios that undermine and minimize women in universities. key words: higher education, feminism, leadership, managerialism, everyday sexism indroduction academic leadership is like dieting. in most universities, the vice chancellor, deputy vice chancellor, pro vice chancellor and acting pro vice chancellor needs a pill, potion, lotion, gastric band, girdle or vibrating slendertone to shake, shift, tuck, tighten or excrete the unwanted flab to reveal a sleek new shape. similarly, a new leadership post, role, committee, strategy or action plan is announced in universities only at moments of crisis. this 1 professor of education and head of the school – teacher education, e-mail: tbrabazon@csu.edu.au brabazon, t., generation x women, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) 49 leader-magician-guru will right the titanic of a budget, rather than rearrange the deckchairs of debt, revise the dated curriculum, solve the problematic supervision policies and inspire research inactive staff to become superheroes of scholarship. supposedly, with a great leader, all institutional problems dissipate like a tummy roll into spanx. unfortunately, leadership, excellence and achievement are not like stretchy lycra. a quick-fix appointment cannot create change. to solve structural problems in teaching and research and to make a difference in a school or department requires long, repetitive and brutal workdays of careful, direct and methodical effort. there is no easy way to create a high quality learning experience or a calm, stable and sustainable workforce. this article enters the tightly clustered relationship of gender, leadership and generation. it probes the impact of ‘blokes with grey hair’ being ‘insensitive.’ it also recognizes that those ‘blokes with grey hair’ – individually – are not a problem. well, not the only problem. more accurately, i explore the ‘leaderist turn’(morley, 2013) in higher education and then evaluate the impact of assumptions about masculinity and age on higher education. it then presents a model for leadership that enables the generational transformation of the university system. the final third of this paper is distinct: it is diagnostic, showing the impact of assumptions about women in higher education. i summon ten stories,2 ten fissures in academic life. the goal is to ensure that careful and considered succession planning is in place so that our universities continue and improve the multi-layered injustices of generation and gender (bates, 2014). i apply laura bates’ argument in everyday sexism (bates, 2014), o a university environment. she argues that the daily pinpricks of abuse are often forgotten or brushed away by women. yet this everyday sexism is not banal or minor, but is internalized, reducing the potential of women to become their best selves. my twenty year career has not been situated in buoyant times of success, optimism, clarity and commitment to the goals of higher education. the pettiness, jealousies, ignorance and wilful misuse of power have enacted systematic and acidic damage to our universities. a moment of change is upon us: the baby boomer generation is now – in waves – retiring from 2 the word ‘stories’ has been used intentionally. while often ignored as historical source material, it has a crucial place in theorizing the lives of women and other disempowered communities. please refer to b. watkins and n. rothchild, in the company of women: voices from the women’s movement, (st paul: minnesota historical society press, 1996) 50 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) their senior posts.3 this article occupies this moment, a moment for generation x women and the generations of university academics who follow. what type of leaders will we be? what have we learnt from the chaotic capitalism of the last two decades? feminist cultural studies and higher education studies align to offer a commentary about academic management, academic leadership and the distinctions between the two. take me to your leader alice: would you tell me please, which way i ought to go from here? cheshire cat: that depends a good deal on where you want to go. a new mode of talking about leadership in universities has been emerging through the last decade. louise morley described it as a “leaderist turn in higher education.” (morley,2013). she shows that through a pretence for rationality, logic, accessibility, transparency and meritocracy, the assumptions about leadership have silently transformed. patriarchy and its structures are still blocking women’s progress into senior university positions, wearing the frock of meritocracy to clothe the injustice. but now, the word ‘leadership’ is a conduit to combine marketization and managerialism into the framework into which higher education is situated (gewirtz and cribb, 2013). students transform into customers. (morley, 2013). universities are driven by key performance indicators (kpi), one-line budgets, electronic forms, delegations, 360 degree reviews and steering committees to discuss the dysfunctional decisions from earlier committees (alvesson,, et.al., 2008). patricia hill collins realized that, “oppressed groups are frequently placed in the situation of being listened to only if we frame our ideas in the language that is familiar to and comfortable for a dominant group. this requirement often changes the meaning of our ideas and works to elevate the ideas of dominant groups.” (hill collins, 2000). the definition of empowerment changes through the realization that every statement from disempowered groups must be translated before it is understood. within this context, ‘the woman problem’ is positioned. diana leonard argues that the university, “actively constitutes gender.” (leonard, 2001). this phrase is extraordinarily important and extends beyond mere secondary socialization. higher education actively constitutes masculinity. 3 a study of some of this generational change is found in laura hills, lasting female educational leadership: leadership legacies of women leaders, (dordrecht: springer, 2013 brabazon, t., generation x women, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) 51 it actively constitutes femininity. it configures masculinity with many of the characteristics that infuse the ‘leaderist turn.’ while not as overt as christina hoff sommers’ ideology during the height of the conservative backlash, the assumptions about men and masculinity is clear. it is a story of how we are turning against boys and forgetting a simple truth: that the energy, competitiveness and corporeal daring of normal, decent males is responsible for much of what is right in the world … boys need discipline, respect, and moral guidance. boys need love and tolerant understanding (hoff sommers, 2000). here is a naturalization of competition, risk, ambition and innovation. universities have different requirements of women. they are often invisible, completing the institutional housework of teaching and administration. female students are not so invisible. the higher enrolment of women over men in most countries has been recognized by unesco (2010). yet this increase is unmatched in staff appointments (leathwood, 2013). the greater the seniority of university staff, the fewer women filling out this role or layer in the organization (blandford, e. et. al, 2011). the severe underrepresentation of female vice chancellors embodies this principle.4 in the united kingdom in 2009/10, women were 44% of all academics. but 80.9% of professors were men. therefore women are over-represented as lecturers and deeply under-represented as associate professors and above. considering the rising level of female undergraduates, this disparity is not only worrying, but deeply troubling. there is also a disturbing literature emerging that confirms that when women are in management, they are in volatile and incredibly difficult situations. eveline termed this reality, the “ivory basement.” (eveline, 2004). the key question is the type of career pathways and choices that are available for female academics.5 if positions are appointed from within or appointed through patronage, then men will continue to recognize and promote men similar to themselves. 4 singh reported in 2008 that in 70% of the 54 nations in the commonwealth, all the universities were led by men. please refer to j. singh, whispers of change: female staff numbers in commonwealth universities, (london: association of commonwealth universities, 2008) 5 a fine early analysis of ‘choice’ and ‘opportunity’ is kathleen hall jamieson’s beyond the double bind: women and leadership, (new york: oxford university press, 1995) 52 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) there are also the assumptions of feminine responsibilities that morley refers to as “women academics caught between two greedy institutions – the extended family and the university (morley, 2013).i have found this to be particularly true in australia. i am one of the few heads of school at charles sturt university. i am married to an academic, but have no children. my responsibility is to manage three campuses: bathurst, dubbo and burlington in canada. once i fortnight, i travel to dubbo by train and stay overnight. once a year, i spend a month in burlington. the question is how such a regime would be possible with childcare responsibilities. my parents – in their eighties – are not only healthy but my brother, who is an experienced doctor, lives within one kilometre of my parents. my job is so challenging that i was recalled, three weeks early, from perth during my annual leave because a staff member had raised a complaint against a colleague that was later completely discharged. the foundation of leadership roles is that there are no other conflicting demands on time, attention or responsibility. the ruthlessness of this formation is staggering (woodward, 2007). but actually, these questions of family and the availability of time are proxies. louise hay – in 1997 – stated that, “today, an unmarried woman has the whole world in front of her. she can rise as high as her capabilities and her belief in herself. this statement is clearly untrue. it was wrong in 1997 and still remains so. however it constructs ‘marriage’ and ‘a family’ as impediments or barriers to success.6 the key in such statements is to switch the gender and see if the statement still makes sense. ‘an unmarried man’ does not have the same resonance, meaning or function. instead, entire television programmes – such as the bachelor and the australian and american television programme the farmer wants a wife7 – perpetuate the value of marriage to men. this individualization – rather than institutionalization of power suggests that a woman can be successful based on ‘capabilities,’ rather than constricted by access, patronage and masculine ideologies. in actuality, gaining leadership is based on opportunities being made available and then matching a set of often arbitrary criteria against lived experience and 6 while i understand and respect the argument being made, a similar mode of argument was made by through jocelynne scutt’s singular women: reclaiming spinsterhood, (melbourne: artemis publishing, 1995). however is marriage the problem, or is it the particular version of marriage created through the dual forces of patriarchy and neoliberal capitalism that is the difficulty. while alternative models of marriage are under-theorized, it is important to recognize the pioneering work of alexandra kollontai. to view some of her archived works, please refer to “kollontai,” https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/index.htm 7 obviously the foundation of this programme is that a farmer is not a woman. brabazon, t., generation x women, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) 53 expertise.8 the challenge is if these arbitrary characteristics are based on narratives of masculine ‘development.’ equality in quality? quality is audited, equality is not. 9 louise morley as baby boomers vacate our universities in the fashion of vegas elvis at the end of a show, there will be a series of budgetary choices and relationships with business and government left to renegotiate and reconsider. phrases like ‘leadership’ and ‘succession planning’ are proxies for understanding how power and the global financial crisis have changed the foundational project of universities. leadership and management directives are disconnected from the lived reality and patterns of both teaching and research. teaching well is difficult, built on locating the most relevant research to offer as resources, writing detailed feedback on assignments and caring for students, ensuring that they are supported throughout their professional careers. a range of scholars such as stanley aronowitz have described the ‘knowledge factory’ and the disconnection between ‘managers,’ ‘teachers’ and ‘researchers.’ this prescient and powerful phrase captured an odd twist in the sociology of higher education that emerged particularly in the late 1990s. those academics who failed to excel as teachers and researchers took a third path: administration. this group then worked their way through dean and pro vice chancellor posts at the point these titles started to proliferate. but the consequences of a group that was mediocre – at best – in research and teaching then moving into administration and management cannot be measured. in the knowledge factory, stanley aronowitz probed, over the past thirty years, administration has become a separate career in academic life ... what are the consequences of administration as a career? first and perhaps foremost, career administrators tend to lose touch with the educational enterprise. 8 gloria steinem recognized this trend throughout her writings in the 1980s and 1990s. she stated of university-qualified women that “like most groups of the newly arrived, our faith in education and paper degrees also has yet to be shaken,” from g. steinem, outrageous acts and everyday rebellions, (new york: owl books 1995: 1983), p. 231. she realized that even with a phd, there is a lower average salary for female university graduates, with a middle management ceiling in place. such a statement is quite ironic because the writer of this article is located right at that middle management ceiling. 9 l. morley, quality and power in higher education, (buckingham: society for research into higher education and open university press, 2003), p. 146 54 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) their allegiances and self-conception becomes increasingly corporate as they gradually surrender any pretense of doing consistent writing and teaching … it doesn’t take long before he views himself as a member of a separate social layer within the academic system and sees the faculty and students as adversaries or, at least, as a different stratum (aronowitz, 2000). aronowitz logged a foundational reality of contemporary higher education. the best teachers are committed to teaching and continue to teach. the best researchers are immersed in long-term projects and continue researching. those who fail or are un(der)skilled or un(der)successful in teaching and research enter the third strand of academic life: administration. therefore, this group of ‘academics’ are making decisions about those who achieve in the spheres where they underachieved. the result of such a structure is that professional development reviews and promotional processes are conducted by administrator-academics who demand standards that are beyond their own academic knowledge and experience. ironically, or perhaps not, they do not have the self-awareness to recognize the hypocrisy of their position. importantly, as a recent study revealed, this ‘leadership turn,’ that is really a basic managerialist turn, has not helped women become leaders in universities. christine teelken and rosemary deem realized that, in the broader context, managerialism may have either an adverse or at best neutral impact on the promotion of gender equality in european higher education systems. women have not been very prominent in senior management positions (teelken and. deem, 2014). what this study revealed is that the sociological group which developed and implemented theories of governance then validated and supported the already existing model of leadership. therefore, what is called “vertical segregation” (teelken and. deem, 2014) is increased. that phrase means that there is a high proportion of female undergraduates. this proportion lessens in doctoral programmes, reduces further at doctoral graduation, and at each subsequent stage of seniority in academic life. increased participation does not guarantee success at a higher level. there is brabazon, t., generation x women, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) 55 no vertical integration. participation does not equate with progress into and through seniority in higher education. blockages and barriers proliferate. teaching well is incredibly difficult. any leader who does not have the expertise to sit with a staff member, diagnose the flaws in their mode of preparation and provide concrete alternative patterns and pathways will not improve teaching and learning in that department, school or university. topdown management of teaching and teachers may create fear. it may produce stress. it will not initiate the motivation for – or capacity to instigate change. importantly, teaching is a feminine activity. as alice prentice and marjorie theobald recognized, “‘woman teacher’ is a phrase that still has evocative power” (prentice and theobald, 1991, p. 6)“. therefore, it is no surprise that women dominate the lower levels of academia – the teaching positions. indeed, when women reach middle management, these roles are administering teaching: programme leaders, heads of school and deans. these posts manage teaching staff, workload, timetabling and assessment: the ‘housework’ of universities. that is why a celebration of the moment of female academics into middle management is not the clean victory it appears. the structures have not changed. the assumptions about teaching ‘value’ have not altered. instead, the antagonism – in a time of tightening budgets and increased scrutiny of teaching and research ‘quality’ has increased, based on the unproductive division of ‘management’ and ‘academics.’(krucken, et. al, 2013). “therefore, women in these low level management positions “are charged with responsibility for auditing and managing targets, performance, and improvements. quality assurance processes co-opt women into managerial discourses that run counter to securing equitable outcomes” (fitzgerald, 2014, p. 34), therefore women in middle management are scapegoats, the people who have to explain ruthless decisions. women middle-managers become the foot soldiers for the more senior men. that is why sue middleton proposed a much more radical reconfiguration. while liberal feminists have focused on the attainment of equal access for women to existing curriculum subjects and positions of seniority in education, those of more radical persuasions have challenged the very nature of educational institutions – in particular, the selection, social organisation and teaching strategies of what counts as ’academic’ knowledge (middleton, 1992). 56 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) this powerful argument was made in 1992. when men do teach in universities, they are described as “masters.” (epstein, 1981). instead of concerns over workload and quality assurance, the celebration is of the “peaceful pleasures of reading and thinking.” (wain, 2008, p. 238). therefore, such a configuration of teaching – and teaching administration – also necessitates an understanding of the ideologies encircling research. ‘leadership’ in research is meant to provide a structure, synergy, strategy and goals for an institution. but – with an array of kpis and benchmarks in place what happens to the research inactive staff member who has never written an academic article and does not hold a postgraduate degree? how can they even begin to understand the level and mode of writing required for refereed scholarship? ‘encouraging’ research activity or demanding it within the context of performance management and promotion is not effective. it is easy to create action plans and key performance indicators. it is much harder to spend the hours each week that are necessary to move research inactive staff through to the submission of a first article. the point is an obvious – if unpopular – one. if research activity is a goal for an institution and a staff member is hired who has never published refereed scholarship, then someone has to spend the time equivalent to the supervision of a research masters to enable them to write articles that may be accepted by a journal. no shortcuts, policies or plans erase the reality that writing an academic article is challenging. it does not matter how many emails are sent demanding staff become research active. it does not matter if research activity is a key outcome in a strategic plan. without deep commitment from fellow academics at the level of sending reading materials, suggesting possible topics, sketching a structure, introducing staff members to editors and supporting them through the rejections as much as the successes, research inactive staff members have no method or pathway to even commence a scholarly writing career. leadership models for research often confuse motivation to commence research with a capacity to complete it. therefore, assuming that an underperforming researcher who then chose an administrative path because of a lack of results can enable and assist an underperforming colleague through the complexity of research culture is optimistic at best. i hold hopes for the next twenty years of academic life. i have just turned 45 years of age. these next twenty years will be my final twenty years in the sector. i want universities to become environments of experience, expertise, generosity, laughter and quiet reflection. our students – the brabazon, t., generation x women, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) 57 scholars who will replace us – deserve the best legacy we can give them. throughout my professional life, i have been administered and managed by baby boomers. my heads of department, deans and vice chancellors have been boomers. generation xer academics, born between 1961 and 1981, have worked with baby boomer leadership styles throughout our careers. we heard the stories about cambridge in the sixties. we heard the promises about all the new academic jobs that would be available for those postgraduates in the nineties. we also heard through the 2000s about how many baby boomer academics were ‘about’ to retire. i am not proposing a generational feud in this article. most of the academics i admire and respect are in their sixties. the real question is, when these baby boomer scholars leave our campuses, what models of leadership will the next generation create? it is when confronting these difficult questions that the ‘woman problem’ returns. when reading the history, historiography and theories of women, leadership and universities, it is the righteous anger and optimism in the 1970s that are so remarkable. the 1980s – the era of big shoulder pads and carping despair – had a huge impact (segal, 1990, p. 12). new versions of the men’s movement emerged, and while complex theorizations of masculinity were generated, the centrality of men and masculine ideologies remained. it is in men’s interests to define the limitations of femininity and the contracted career and life pathways for women.10 while women have been defined and circumscribed as wives and mothers throughout much of history, a new cap on expectations11 has been added: middle manager. this is no surprise, as the trajectory of ‘the university-educated woman’ is still in flux. feminism and feminist theory has focused a great deal on power and sex. less attention has been spent on expectations and hopes. because the changes to women’s positions in the home and workplace have been relatively recent (orbach and eichenbaum, 1994), some stretch marks in the culture have emerged. these particularly emerge in the collision between ‘woman’ and ‘leader.’ 10 cornelius murphy, in beyond feminism: toward a dialogue of difference, (washington: catholic university of america press, 1995), stated that, “men have nothing to gain and everything to lose from abusing or avoiding women,” p. 41. this statement is incorrect. in the field of the workplace alone, abusing or avoiding women increases the opportunity to gain both employment and promotion. there are few strategies in life like sexism that can remove 50% of the competitors for a particular job. 11 the word ‘expectations’ has been used with intentionality in this passage. this word resonates with gloria steinem’s commentary in revolution from within: a book of self-esteem, (boston: little, brown and company, 1992). she stated that, “there were books about low expectations for women in the public sphere, but almost none about low expectations for men in the private one,” p. 5 58 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) middle management is an incredibly difficult job in universities. at the historical moment that women may be at the springboard of vice chancellor posts, ruthless pseudo-business tactics are deployed, providing ‘targets’ that are not possible to meet. this is not anti-feminism in the academy (clark et. al.,1996). this is not anti-women in the academy. now that women actually have the qualifications and experience to move into leadership positions, new barriers and obstructions are put in place to block, stop and limit development. this is not only a new version of the glass ceiling. this is about women who have dedicated a decade to gaining higher degrees and building a career then leaving universities. susan gardner published a deeply disturbing article of how and why women leave institutions. while “women faculty tend to publish and present at the same rate as men”, she found that “academia often recognizes men’s achievement over women’s and tends to see women’s achievement as owing to something other than ability” (gardner, 2013, p. 354). “that is why – increasingly – men are holding the range of professorships in north american institutions, and women dominate the untenured faculty. when women leave universities, they report ‘personal issues’ and salary as key triggers (gardner, 2013, p. 356).“ how we think about inequality in higher education is important. the systems currently in place have not moved many women into vice chancellor roles. every decade, the hurdle becomes higher: qualifications, expertise, international experience, and capacity to move between cities, states, provinces and countries. but at the moment that women and disadvantaged minorities can reach that level, a new discourse of ‘management’ marinates higher education. it is difficult to fathom the scale of the changes required to naturalize women into senior management posts. at its most basic, ambitious men are fighting each other to be ‘king’ of a finite number of universities. any increasing reputation for women threatens their opportunity and chances to gain that post. the final part of this article summons ten stories from the last twenty years of my career that provides the consequences of the mode of masculinity and management presented in this article. this is ‘everyday sexism’ in our universities. some of these events are disturbing, but they demonstrate the deep cuts of power and the impact of naturalizing masculinity in our universities. such stories do matter, because they tell a truth that rarely emerges. when such events occur, it is easier to leave the university, leave the profession and remain silent. this silence allows these men and women brabazon, t., generation x women, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) 59 to continue to behave in this way. unless generation x women who – somehow – have survived this system speak out, then these structures will be perpetuated. each story is accompanied by a maxim – a lesson – to consider. stories of survival 1. just because your manager is a woman does not mean she is a good manager here lies the great feminist betrayal. the two worst line managers i have worked with in universities were women. we cannot assume that simply because a manager is a woman that she is a feminist. further, we cannot assume that simply because a female manager is a feminist that she is competent at her job. instead of judging these women, i now understand them better. for the baby boomer generation of women, they had to present a version of masculinity to be successful. they had to be nasty, tough, aggressive and ambitious to gain traction in the organization. they pushed down and pushed back rather than helped and encouraged other women. helen thompson, andrea sant hartig and diane thurber, in their attempt to design a ‘woman-friendly workplace,’ argued that one of the indicators was a woman in leadership positions (thompson, sant hartig, and thurber, 2009). i have learnt to be wary of such an argument. i add caveats. look for women throughout the organization in a range of leadership positions – beyond hr, education, the humanities and the administration of teaching and learning. further, look at the women in posts around these women. have they hired people just like themselves? have they hired their friends? a great leader welcomes diversity, rather than being surrounded by a stalinist show trial of sameness. it is easy to complain about the women who have made our universities unpleasant places to work, but it is up to the next generation to be positive, be optimist and to promote and deliver new ways of thinking, teaching, researching and behaving as women in leadership rather than men in drag. 2. there are pockets of predatory sexism – be careful while my two worst line managers were women, the next two on my list of shame were blatant bullies, not accidentally aggressive or occasionally nasty. these two men were systematically, almost pathologically, needed to belittle, abuse, ridicule and undermine others to increase their power and sense of self-worth. one sexually feasted off female academics suffering emotional and personal difficulties. the other was an unreconstructed mi60 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) sogynist who matched his inexperience with women with a parallel belief of how femininity should be performed by women. on my first meeting with him, he had three urgent pieces of advice for me. 1. be careful how i dressed. i had a tendency to be somewhat (uncomfortable pause) eccentric. no, that is not the right word. extrovert. 2. change my personality. i may frighten other staff. 3. two of the staff in the school were <hushed tones> lesbians. this was supposedly a problem, like homosexuality was contagious. i was a professor at the time he offered this briefing to me. he was not. it was an odd way to orient senior staff on their first day in a new post. i wonder if any of this information would have been relevant or important if a male professor was in his office. but it was an important reminder that women are rewarded for feminine behaviour, being supportive, submissive and needy. women are encouraged to slot into the masculine model, or aim lower to naturalize subservience and submission. we must be feminine but not too visible, supportive but not too talkative. the other bullying boss was easily handled. i was in my mid-20s. he was in his early fifties. after his fifth groping attempt, i replied that i respected his authority in the workplace. that is all. while he, in subsequent years, rubbed my upper arm a bit too much, the sleazy senior academic routine did cease. it did not for other women. he ruined three marriages. these three women had to move universities and cities and take a pay cut to get away from him. i am happy to report – after a five year detour in their career, two are full professors and the other is a pvc. 3. the mobility of academic life costs time, friends, intimacy and a life the hardest part of academic life is the mobility that is required to obtain employment and gain promotions. i knew this was the reality from the start. my first full time post was in wellington in aotearoa/new zealand. it was a short term replacement for a male academic, who received a research grant. i was hired to baby sit the first years. there was little care for the 24 year old woman they had employed. a week after i arrived in wellington, i have this memory of laying in this cold bed, in this cold room, in this cold house, not knowing a single person in the country and teaching three hundred first year students. the combination of stress, inexperience and remembering my life that could have been at home was overwhelming. i thought about getting on the first flight home. but i knew that if i did – i may never work in academia again. mobility is a clear strategy to gain pro brabazon, t., generation x women, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) 61 motion. this mobility is particularly important for women, because we tend to complete the ‘housework’ of universities, the work that is undervalued and forgotten. promotion is difficult because the effort is invisible. that is why it is often necessary for women to move institutions to gain promotion. 4. do not look for a guru or mentor. find characteristics, strategies and careers that you admire. many discussions of academic leadership for either men or women mention mentoring and networking. i have never had a mentor or networked. there have been important people in my life that have changed it and improved it. these connections have been formed as an accidental biproduct of work, rather than intent of attending a conference and creating relationships on the basis of what a person can do to enhance an academic’s career. i met the man who taught me everything i know about graduate education – professor frank murray – from being nominated onto a committee. what he taught me is incalculable. also, never underestimate the importance of writing and publishing in building a relationship with colleagues around the world. these relationships are more real and intimate than sharing a stale pastry at a conference. keep reading and writing, use open access journals to widen the audience for publications, and emails will emerge from admired and respected scholars who may enable future publications or positions. 5. be confident in your choices. be authentic rather than living a version of yourself for other people. images and assumptions are particularly limiting for women. women in the paid workforce must decide which components of the complex narrative of femininity works for them. from my perspective, i see the role of academic as an integrated dialogue between teaching, research and administration. such commitments do not fit the baby boomer leadership model where the goal is administrative power, rather than the (seemingly smaller) successes of teaching and writing. a fine example of this dissonance was during one of my probation meetings for a leadership role. no one with any humanities expertise was placed on the panel, even after my request for this knowledge base to be represented. even more significantly, the only variables to be discussed were my achievements as a manager. research achievement was actively separated from administrative achievement. such a separation is not possible personally, intellectually or professionally. but the intent to evaluate ‘administration’ in a way that was separated from intellectual functions is telling about the new mode of university. therefore 62 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) leadership in a university is no longer a trajectory for the best and the brightest. similarly, i have been a member of an interview panel where a vice chancellor dismissed a candidate for a dean’s post because she was “research active.” a research inactive man was appointed. 6. you will have to fight – hard – to be paid a fair wage. this story is real. it is also rare. it is so startling that a part of it formed the title for this article. it is a demonstration that women will not be paid an equitable wage with men, even if they are better qualified and more experienced. for one of my posts, i was appointed on the same day as a man in an identical role. i exceeded his qualifications, had five times his publications, had won an array of teaching awards and had worked around the world. this man – to complete the same job – was to be paid much (much) more than my salary. when i discovered this fact, i immediately made an appointment with hr. the head of hr would not see me, but a more junior staffer (a woman – obviously) was sent to address my concerns. it transpired that my salary was pegged at 15% below the median professorial salary. i explained to the rather underwhelmed hr representative that there must be a mistake. she replied that there had been “no mistake.” i went through the two cvs, line at a time and reassured her that i did not want to be paid more than him, just an equal wage. she became somewhat flabbergasted and stated, “maybe you are just not as good as him. maybe he’s just better than you.” pause. i let the walls of the interview room soak in her words. i lengthened pause. a beetroot stain started to crawl up her neck. within five seconds, her face was the colour of raw steak. i looked at the now perspiring and agitated hr officer, smiled, and stated, “find me one element of this job specification where i am not superior to this gentleman. just one. you made that statement. you have to back that statement up with evidence.” by now, her entire chest was covered in a nervous rash. she appeared to be gasping for air. her only reply was that, there “may have been a mistake in calculating your professorial salary.” she decided to lift my professorial salary to the ‘median.’ in other words, instead of being underpaid by 15%, i was now to be paid about what the other professors were paid. not the mean, but the ‘median’. i was still paid less than a man, but at least the inequality was no longer offensive. clearly, it was impossible to even consider that a woman may be better than a man. if any women reading these words think that the fight for equality is over, then remember this story. gail evans stated that, “even when women brabazon, t., generation x women, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) 63 do make it to the top, we don’t make as much money.” (evans, 2000). she had lived that experience. i have lived that experience. there is a reason. adrienne mendell argued that, in our culture, competence is not feminine – particularly if it means demonstrating greater competence than a man. the cultural imperative is for women to make men feel strong, not to point out a man’s weakness. and the aggression a woman needs to win is likely to be criticised. if you want to win, you have to be willing to defeat your opponent (mendell, 1996). while the war-like metaphors in mendell’s statement are disturbing, i did not want to ‘win.’ i did not want to be paid more than this man. i wanted to be paid the same as this man. but i had to be strong, aggressive, clear and convincing to achieve even this basic goal. i still failed to be paid equitably. 7. make a decision and live by its consequences. living a life with regrets is pointless. therefore decisions are the punctuation of our lives. it is important to write down and reflect on the decisions about life and work. it is also important to keep these pieces of paper. it stops regret. this has been particularly important for me in the selection of academic appointments. every post has advantages and disadvantages. the hardest decision i have ever had to make was leaving australia and murdoch university. actually, i stayed there too long. my family was there. my friends were there. i owned a beautiful house across the way from the university and supervised the most extraordinary students in a doctoral programme. i was in a senior management group, ran the doctoral programme for the university and was on the academy of advanced studies and an associate professor. but i decided to leave. there were many reasons. my husband is english and found a post in the uk. we did not wish to manage a long distance relationship. also, his father was unwell, so we needed to be within a train ride, rather than a flight. but also, i was intellectually stale. everything i could have written about and done, i had done. i was also modelling bad behaviour for my postgraduates. i was not developing my career because i was complacent and happy. also, i would never have been promoted to professor. the fight to be promoted to associate professor was ruthless, aggressive and demeaning. therefore, i left for a new u.k. university, comprising a staff group that were unhappy, facing challenges, and a leadership group that, although 64 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) they did not really comprehend ‘media and cultural studies’, appointed a professor anyway. this is an important lesson i have learnt from the neoliberal academy. universities will only appoint full time staff – and particularly senior staff – if they have a problem to solve. to leave my home and home university was the toughest decision of my life. but remember the motivations for leaving and if they are sound, then they will sustain that decision. 8. get up the sixth time. female academic staff confront sexism that shocks, stuns and horrifies. appalling events and behaviours happen to women that never appear in a man’s career. the oppression, discrimination and prejudice will – more often than not – go unpunished. it will be difficult, but in those moments, take a breath, crawl to your feet, push your shoulders back, lift your head up, and move on with your life. i have coined this maxim the ‘get up the sixth time, rule.’ to reinforce this point, i will tell you about the worst moment in my academic life. i very rarely talk about it. the first professorial post i applied for was in australia. i was shortlisted and travelled to the city for the interview. a colleague on the staff informed me that the vice chancellor had a friend he wanted to appoint. this friend had never taught, had few publications and was ‘from industry.’ no problem. i remembered my other rule, from the australian cricket team: we have to be prepared to lose to win. a week before the interview, i had been shortlisted for australian of the year, with a fair amount of publicity, so it was worth the trip. the other two candidates were men in their fifties. i was a woman in my early thirties. i was also aware that an academic in this department had been a postgraduate in the department of one of my former posts. i had few dealings with her. everything seemed fine. upon arrival, i said hello to this woman. she blanked me. odd. while my seminar progressed well, my friend’s comment was correct. the vc was asking odd question to reveal weakness so he could appoint his favoured candidate. his wife was present in the audience for the seminar. she was not employed by the university, but throughout the proceedings, they continued to pass notes and exchange glances. there was a gap between the seminar and the interview. the candidates were informed that the some of the staff had talked with the panel and constructed their own questions to ask the candidates. the first question asked by the vc that he stated was relayed from a staff member was, “how do we know that you won’t treat this department like you treated your first brabazon, t., generation x women, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) 65 husband?” to be clear: i am not liz taylor. i have had two husbands and not at the same time. the first marriage was short-lived and destructive. i never speak of it, not because of shame, but because of the personal cost it presented to me at the time and subsequently. yet somehow, i was asked about a former marriage during an interview. the room became oddly silent. the women looked away from my gaze. the external member of the panel blushed. the vc held my eyes. i held his and stated that, “i had never told anyone about the events of my first marriage out of respect for his family. but i will release the facts now.” at the conclusion of the story, the women on the panel apologized and the interview was brought to an end. no appointment was made on that day. within a month, the vc’s candidate was hired – not as a professor – but as an associate professor. in the guidelines for the post, it was stated that if an appointment was not made, then a position could be offered to one of the shortlisted candidates at a lower level. this was a dreadful experience. i promised from that day that i would never use someone’s personal experience to minimize, reduce, hurt or marginalize them. this story has not been presented to frighten, disturb or worry. it is important to note that sometimes in universities; it feels like feminism never happened. the goal is to make sure – in the next generation of management and leadership that such practices never happen to anyone again. care and respect are principles that matter. seek out the people who believe that, and rely on them. 9. when people tell you the truth about themselves, believe them. invariably, when we work with people they tell us who they are. if academics treat students badly or relinquish their responsibilities in one semester, then do not be surprised if they enact the same process during the following year. the point is a key one: learn from the behaviour, rather than the words, of colleagues. ruthless sexism still happens. do not summon narratives of revenge. learn from their mistakes and ensure that professionalism, integrity, respect and respectfulness are carried forward and beyond a single event or university. 10. never google yourself. googling is not productive for an academic. it may be flattering to read something positive. but it will then also be necessary to manage the damaging and often awful behaviour that confronts women online. the moment that we enter the digital comment culture, we are mortgaging our emotions to people that frequently do not hold the courage to use their own 66 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) name. therefore, make decisions. have a clear sense of identity, principles and beliefs. be surrounded by strong and reliable people who offer an accurate mirror and advice when it is needed. the internet is a circus where the clowns feed the lions. it is important to value ourselves by more than the words of the few. if i spent one moment worried about all the people who have called me stupid, a bitch, ugly, not as good as i think i am, dumb, boring, pathetic or australian (which is supposedly an insult), then i would never get out of bed. these ten maxims configure a strategy to naturalize women’s achievement in academic life. our role is not only to connect femininity and competence, but femininity and excellence. women in leadership roles can be different, not because of biological determinism but because women have been treated with disrespect through their careers. they have been marginalized and overlooked. our opportunity – our responsibility – is to behave better and more respectfully to our colleagues in higher education. we also know that management and leadership are different. one of our tasks is to bring them closer together. turtle on the fencepost if you see a turtle on a fencepost, the chances are it didn’t get there by accident. bill clinton women in leadership within higher education are like that turtle on the fencepost. there is a story behind every woman in power. the message from my ten stories and this article more generally is that generation x women made a mistake: we waited for ‘the system’ to recognize ‘achievements.’ we did not have the wisdom to realize that – within higher education – achievement is by default masculine. that is why the dominance of the sciences, scientific methods and particular models of promotion has been sustained. even by 2013, penny pasque and erin simpson still logged “current and persistent gender inequalities” (pasque and simpson, 2013). without assertiveness, high level communication skills, and repetitive cycles of challenge to the status quo, our universities will not change. the greatest problem women confront is that they have to fight to prove competence (kaseman, 1998). it is not assumed. therefore aligning women and leadership is a profound struggle. leadership is not ‘about’ individuals or brabazon, t., generation x women, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) 67 personalities. it emerges from organizational structures (rosenthal, 1997). the challenge for women is that we are fighting history. the legacy of centuries of university education is that men are the experts and women are excluded, marginalized and demeaned. if women have structural impediments to avert the development of their careers in higher education, then the talent and potential of half of the population is not being deployed. but this rational, logical argument is not the point. if the potential of half the population is not activated, then the remaining academic contenders have an easier path to the top. as joanna barsh and susie cranston revealed, “if someone doesn’t want you to succeed, there are infinite ways to let you know, slowly erasing your selfworth” (barsh and cranston, 2011, p. 3). our role – our goal – is to validate intelligence, experience and expertise and enable self-worth wherever we may find it. a final story finishes this paper. it has two parts, separated by twenty years. during my first post, as a low-level, temporary lecturer in new zealand, i was asked to go to lunch with one of the female professors. she congratulated me on a great teaching and research year and stated – in a way disconnected from all other encircling sentences – that when i arrived in wellington, “all the staff thought that i had just passed through a sex change.” i was twenty four years old. i remember looking at her, flicking my eyes to oriental bay, and looking back at her. i said nothing. what could be said? as a (very) short woman, it was left to me to wonder why “all the staff” was having this conversation about a new colleague in the first place. cut to twenty years later. i am a professor and head of department. a male professor comes into my office and closes the door. he states that he wants to ask me a question. he asks if i – like another colleague – am “transgenderist”? i look at him. smile. i state lightly that i had not made the transgender movement from male to female, and moved to another topic. conclusion there are many interpretations of these two stories separated by twenty years, different countries and a gulf of seniority. what both these stories share is that competence and achievement are masculine ideologies. if a woman is successful, then there must be a reason beyond being a woman. also, the tight constrictions on femininity and women’s behaviour demon68 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) strate that any deviance, any difference, must signal a wider sexualized issue. as a woman without children – a clear strategy to ‘prove’ femininity – and in leadership, it remains necessary to defend my choices and – once more – be pulled back to the body as a defence. like bill clinton’s turtle on a fencepost, women in leadership have stories to tell. for the next generation, i hope these stories move from sex, bodies and disempowerment and through to achievement, excellence and social justice. references [1] alvesson, m., et.al. (2008). “identity matters: reflections on the construction of identity scholarship in organization studies.” organization, 15(1): 5-28. [2] aronowitz,s. (2000). the knowledge factory. boston: beacon press, p. 164-165. [3] barsh,j. and cranston, s. (2011). how remarkable women lead. new york: crown publishing, p. 3. [4] bates, l. (2014). everyday sexism, new york: simon and schuster. [5] blandford, e. et. al, (2011). equality in higher education; statistical report 2011. london: hesa – equality challenge unit. [6] clark, v., nelson garner,s., higonnet, m., and katrak, k,(1996). antifeminism in the academy. new york: routledge. [7] clinton, b. (1997). “remarks to the women’s leadership forum in las vegas, nevada.” weekly compilation of presidential documents, 33(47 november). [8] hill collins, p. (2000). black feminist thought, new york: routledge, p. 8. [9] epstein, j. (1981). masters: portraits of great teachers. new york: basic books. [10] evans, g. (2000). play like a man win like a woman. new york: random house, p. 11. [11] eveline, j. (2004). ivory basement leadership: power and invisibility in the changing university. crawley: university of western australia press. [12] fitzgerald, t. (2014). women leaders in higher education: shattering the myths. abingdon: routledge, p. 32. [13] gardner, s. (2013). “women faculty departures from a striving institution: between a rock and a hard place,” the review of higher education, 36(3, spring 2013): 354-356. [14] gewirtz, s. and cribb, a. (2013). investigated the relationship between these two ideologies in “representing 30 years of higher education change: uk universities and the times higher”. journal of educational administration and history, 45(1): 58-838. [15] hoff sommers, s. (2000). the war against boys: how misguided feminism is harming our young men. new york: simon and schuster, p. 14. [16] kaseman, d., (1998). “beyond the double bind: women and leadership.” women and language, 21(2, fall 1998). brabazon, t., generation x women, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) 69 [17] krucken, g., blumel, a. and kloke, k. (2013). “the managerial turn in higher education? on the interplay of organizational and occupational change in germany academia.” minerva, 51: 417-442. [18] leathwood, c., (2013). “re/presenting intellectual subjectivity: gender and visual imagery in the field of higher education.” gender and education, 25(2): 133-154. [19] leonard, d. (2001). a woman’s guide to doctoral studies. buckingham: open university press, p. 4 [20] mendell, a. (1996). how men think: the seven essential rules for making it in a man’s world. new york: fawcett columbine, p. 37. [21] middleton, s., (1992). “developing a radical pedagogy: autobiography of a new zealand sociologist of women’s education.” studying teachers’ lives, new york: teachers college, p. 18. [22] morley, l., (2013).“the rules of the game: women and the leaderist turn in higher education.” gender and education, 25(1): 116-132. [23] orbach, s. and eichenbaum, l. (1994). between women: love, envy and competition in women’s friendships. london: arrow books. [24] pasque,p. and simpson,e. (2013), “women’s status in higher education.” the review of higher education, 36(3, spring 2013): 426. [25] prentice, a. and theobald, m. (1991). “the historiography of women teachers: a retrospect.” in women who taught: perspectives on the history of women and teaching, eds. a. prentice and m. theobald.toronto: university of toronto press, 3. [26] rosenthal, c., (1997). “a view of their own: women’s committee leadership styles and state legislatures.” policy studies journal, 25(4, winter 1997). [27] segal, s. (1990). “slow motion: changing masculinities, changing men.” london: virago press, p. 12. [28] teelken, c. and. deem, r. (2014). “all are equal, but some are more equal than others: managerialism and gender equality in higher education in comparative perspectives.” comparative education, 49(4): 526. [29] thompson, h., sant hartig, a., thurber, d. (2009). “designing a womanfriendly workplace: a prognosis and prescription for institutional health at the university of guam.” journal of international women’s studies, 10(4, may 2009). [30] unesco institute of statistics. global education digest (2010): comparing education statistics across the world (a special focus on gender), paris: unesco. [31] wain, j. (2008). c.s. lewis as a teacher. p. 238. [32] woodward, d. (2007). “work-life balancing strategies used by women managers in british ‘modern’ universities.” equal opportunities international, 26(1): 6-17. 70 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 48-70) „možda je on bolji nego ti“: generacija žena x i visoko obrazovanje a p s t r a k t narednih pet godina biće značajne za međunarodno visoko obrazovanje obzirom da „baby boom“ generacija napušta naše kampuse. šta će oni ostaviti u nasleđe i kako će naredne generacije uspeti da savladaju zaokret prema „liderizmu“ na univerzitetima?ovaj članak se fokusira na pitanja pola, generacije i liderstva, i istražuje kako mogu biti kritikovane i osporene muške ideologije dostignuća, moći i vrednovanja. prepoznajući projekat laure bates „svakodnevni seksizam“, članak izdvaja svakodnevne strukture, priče i scenarije koje podrivaju i minimiziraju ulogu žene na univerzitetima. ključne reči: visoko obrazovanje, feminizam, liderstvo, menadžerizam, svakodnevni seksizam article history: received: 1 august, 2014 accepted: 13 october, 2014 18_jwe_3-4 doi: 10.28934/jwee18.34.pp73-82 preliminary report women entrepreneurship in developing, developed and transitional economies – differences and similarities claudia longoria1 akamai university,hilo,united states a b s t r a c t entrepreneurship is viewed as an opportunity to drive growth and to help employment in many countries. however, women venturing to establish their own firm depend on socio-cultural conditions and of societal encouragement. this article showed that women entrepreneurs in transition, developing and developed economies have many similarities, but they differ in many aspects such as in their motivation to become an entrepreneur and the problems solving skills. key words: women, entrepreneurship, education, developing countries, developed countries, transitional economies. introduction female entrepreneurship contributes to poverty reduction, new employment and country’s prosperity in general. however, women set up fewer their own businesses than men. the explanation for this as well as the performance of female entrepreneurs in terms of traits, motivations and success rates, and its gender-related uniqueness is complex and multifaceted (minniti, allen & langowitz, 2006). women’s involvement in entrepreneurial activity reflects intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence their 1 e-mai: clongoria 2@compassion.com 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 73-82) decision to become entrepreneurs. in their research avolio and radovićmarković (2013) identify two main categories in which these factors can be grouped; these are: circumstances and motives. circumstances refer to the events or situations that motivate women to become entrepreneurs and can be personal, economic, work, or family related. motives, on the other hand, are defined by murray as “the construct that represents a force in the brain that organizes perception, understanding and behavior in such a way that it changes a dissatisfactory situation and increases satisfaction” (avolio and radović-marković, 2013, p.12). circumstances are extrinsic to the woman and relate to external situations that influence her positively or negatively towards entrepreneurship. motives are intrinsic and are related to achievement, autonomy, power and affiliation. in literature we can also note that “female are better at judging their business opportunities and they make attempts to develop them in family environments, while men shift their attention more towards developing a business hierarchy with defined working business procedures” (radović-marković, 2013, p.5). it is important to concern women’s entrepreneurship in different economic settings. literature has shown that women’s entrepreneurship is clearly distinguished between transition, developing and developed economies (oecd, 2004). with the changes in former communist countries, structural inequalities between men and women became obvious as well as the need to get knowledge in market economy and its rules. these changes have had significant impact on women’s role in society (stoyanovska, 2001). upon reviewing the relevant literature, number of studies were found on entrepreneurial motivation and its various aspects (siddiqui, et al. ,2017). in developing countries, low socioeconomic status correlates with female engaging in entrepreneurship. in developed economies, in general, opportunity-motivated entrepreneurs are dominant. also, women have the equal opportunity in education and in career. women entrepreneurship in developing countries for recent data shows that female entrepreneurship tend to be relatively higher in developing than in developed countries (minniti, et al., 2006). economic conditions make an impact on increasing women interest in developing economies in female entrepreneurship. namely, women owners prefer to spend more on household health, nutrition and education than men longoria, c., differences and similarities, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 73-82) 75 (kevane & wydick, 2001). study by garcia-cabrera and garcia-soto (2008) has shown that when it comes to generating innovative business ideas, the environment in poor countries is such that women, in particular, face very high opportunity costs for turning attention away from pressing matters to seek or perceive new business opportunities. the growing number of initiatives across the developing world aimed at empowering women are seen as a critical driver of entrepreneurship in light of their unique role in the household (www.wider.unu.edu/publications/). when it comes to education and experience, women in developing countries face disadvantages and discrimination. with the underinvestment in their human capital, many women do not have enough confidence in their ability to set up own business (minniti, et al., 2006). compared to their male counterparts, women in developing countries have a lower level of knowledge and skills. this combined with a lack of technical education and access to technology poses. so, vocational training has become an important source for forming entrepreneurial ability in women and often age, experience and background can compensate for lack of formal education in the success of the venture (vossenberg, 2013) credit and start-up costs have been identified as significant constraints to entrepreneurial ventures in developing countries, possibly affecting women more than men; however, access of women to micro-credit in the last decades has improved their decision-making autonomy and general household welfare and consumption (kevane & wydick, 2001). most start-ups in developing countries are small business enterprises (smes). these are companies employing less than five workers. research shows that on average 61 per cent of all smes in africa and latin america are female-owned and that in these economies most firms do not expand, presumably reflecting the restricted access to credit to female business owners (nichter and goldmark, 2009). common to women entrepreneurs is the combination of business with family responsibilities. while women may deploy several strategies to cope with the double workload and challenges deriving from conjoining business with family, the amount of effort spent caring for the family may negatively affect the success of the business (kevane & wydick, 2001). research has also shown that a major challenge for women when trying to start up a business in developing economies, is their access and control over finances (minniti, et al., 2006). 76 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 73-82) another important challenge for female owners in developing countries is the issue of their safety and protection, especially those working in the residual economy. this results in severe stress, and seriously limits the chances of becoming a successful female entrepreneur. (vossenberg, 2013). furthermore, cultural and religious beliefs in some countries are not supportive of the work of women in general or that of women in entrepreneurship in particular. these perceptions are mostly based on the association of entrepreneurship with traditional male stereotypes (garcia-cabrera & garcia-soto, 2008). for instance, in all middle eastern and north african countries, women have fewer inheritance rights than men and moreover, there are or more legal differences between women and men that limit women’s economic opportunity. employment of women in the informal sector has risen rapidly in the developing world. in her research radovic-markovic (2009) found that the estimated size of this sector of the economy goes up to 50% in developing countries. this growth however, has taken place in the context of an unemployed and underemployed population with very limited social support, particularly for poor women. in last several years a new area of research has been gaining interest as the prevailing method to foster rural development, particularly in regions with inadequate infrastructure and lack of education (avolio & radovic, 2013). so, the rural entrepreneurship represents a very significant employment opportunity for women of rural communities who can work near home, improving their earnings and elevating their standards of living. however, national policies and programs to aid development, as well as education and empowerment of women must take place in order for these types of enterprise development to succeed. women entrepreneurship in transitional economies transitional countries are changing from a centrally planned economy, state-owned businesses and resources to a free market. this process has taken place in the communist bloc countries of europe, the former soviet union, china and third world countries. even though research on gender aspects of entrepreneurship in transition economies is increasing, still is insufficiently known. existent literature defines the context of gender aspects of entrepreneurship in transitional economies as a job market with moderate participation of women in the labor force, considerable human capital re longoria, c., differences and similarities, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 73-82) 77 flected in the large number of women who are university educated, but with a tradition of segregated labor markets (oecd, 2004). one of the major changes in transitional economies was the deregulation of labor markets, which resulted in loss of job security for many, particularly women, and the escalating growth of informal economic activities. it can be noticed that women rights organizations in countries from the former soviet union pointed out widespread gender-based employment discrimination. (stoyanovska, 2001). conversely, welter & smallbone (2003) concluded in their research that one important benefit in transitional economies has been the development of private business ownership. for them this is important not only for the wealth and job generation possibilities that emerge, but also for the additional potential welfare gains for the economy and society as a whole. in their research they found that the growth and development of female-owned enterprises in transitional economies has helped to reduce the effects of discrimination against women in the labor market since women tend to employ other women. additionally, by reducing female unemployment, femaleowned smes can assist in the fight against women trafficking, a great concern and major social challenge in many transitional economies. and finally, female business owners can serve as role models for younger generations demonstrating new and safe opportunities for female employment. in terms of challenges to women entrepreneurs in transitional economies, the number one barrier to business development seems to be taxation, followed by low purchasing power -which is directly related to low consumer demand, and lack of financing for business investment. while in developed economies formal networking is deemed vital for women in business formation and expansion, there is evidence that suggests that female networks in transition economies are often not very helpful for subsequent business growth (brush, 2009). one problem is related to the limited size of the female business community in an emerging market context, but more significant is the history of these networks. namely, women, were excluded from most high-level positions in soviet times despite an explicit commitment of soviet governments to gender equality, which left them with less useful contacts to draw on when developing a business during in post-soviet period (stoyanovska, 2001). the overall nature and extent to which female entrepreneurship can develop in transitional economies is greatly influenced by institutional factors, particularly in economies that still have serious institutional deficiencies. 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 73-82) women entrepreneurship in developed countries entrepreneurs can be motivated to start their businesses out of necessity when there are no other options for work, or they can start because of a desire to pursue an opportunity. opportunity-driven entrepreneurship is generally more predominant in developed economies, where it actually accounts for three-fourths or more of the women entrepreneurs. economies with the highest levels of opportunity motivations can be found in developed europe, where 73% of women start their businesses primarily to pursue an opportunity (www.gemconsortium.org). studies have shown that successful women entrepreneurs in developed countries start their businesses as a second or third profession. because of their previous careers, most women entrepreneurs in developed economies enter the business world later on in life, around 40-60 years old (www.go4funding.com). industry participation of women’s business shows a dominance of consumer-oriented business and less industry sector activity. in addition, the retail industry still makes up the largest share of women-owned firms (www.americanexpress.com/us/smallbusiness/). in the united states and europe women entrepreneurs are a particularly educated group. however, despite high education levels among women entrepreneurs, and higher levels than men, women in europe and the u.s. are much less likely to believe they have the capabilities for entrepreneurship compared to men in their economies and women in other regions (www.gemconsortium.org). the fact that more women entrepreneurs have risen in the past few years in developed economies could be in part due to the relatively easy access of business capital (www.americanexpress.com/us/smallbusiness/).women prefer to fund their startups with different sources of funding, including personal money from savings and credit cards, and commercial loans. today, not only are there more grants and bank loans made available to women entrepreneurs in developed countries, but there are also more diversity programs that specialize in providing seed funding to female business owners (http://www.esa.doc.gov). however, despite the recent achievements, research shows that it still remains difficult for women of color to get access to seed funding. according to one recent study on women entrepreneurs, approximately 60% of caucasian women business owners were able to obtain bank credit, compared to 50% of hispanic, 45% of asian, 42% of native american, and 38% of african-american women entrepreneurs (www.go4funding.com). longoria, c., differences and similarities, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 73-82) 79 in general terms innovation levels are highest among women entrepreneurs in the developed world. in the united states, 36% of women entrepreneur’s report having products or services that were new to some or all customers, and for which there were few or no competitors. innovation levels for u.s. women were slightly higher than that for men. developed europe also reported high innovation levels for women entrepreneurs (32%), and equal to that of men (www.gemconsortium.org). recent studies indicate that women entrepreneurs in developed economies are assembling themselves into groups or associations. the reasons behind this trend have to do with the desire to establish solid women business networks, where members can collectively pool resources and expertise together. women business networks in developed countries have also been found to be more generous in their philanthropic contributions. at least seven out of ten women entrepreneurs of a new business volunteer their time at least once per month to community-related causes and approximately 31% of them contribute $5,000 or more to various charities annually (www.go4funding.com). a major challenge that many women entrepreneurs in developing economies still may face is the traditional gender-roles society still has on women. entrepreneurship is still a male-dominated field, and it may be difficult to surpass these conventional views. however, it is very important to be aware that despite the challenges, over 9 million women own their own businesses in the u.s. in fact, of all u.s. enterprises that exist, over 40% comprise of women-owned businesses. the united states census bureau predicts that by the year 2025, the percentage of women entrepreneurship will increase to over 55% (www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html). many women feel a great deal of empowerment by the opportunity to own their own company and may now be motivated by such high statistics. conclusion our investigation has shown that most female entrepreneurs in developing and transitional economies are motivated to start their businesses out of necessity, reflecting lack of employment alternatives or dissatisfaction with existing employment. in contrast, the majority of female entrepreneurs in developed countries start their businesses as a response to opportunity, indicating a desire to take risk, innovate and/or generate new job opportunities for themselves and for others. economies with the highest levels of oppor80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 73-82) tunity motivations can be found in developed europe, where 73% of women start their businesses primarily to pursue an opportunity. these differences reflect in part the effect of different social, cultural and economic structures in these economies. when it comes to education and experience, women in developing countries face disadvantages and discrimination while women in transitional and developed economies enjoy a more equitable possibility to obtain higher education as compared to men. “ensuring equal education for both male and female, increased training facilities for women, ensure health facilities, providing same wage to women, providing gender related education to irls and women, reducing discrimination in the working place are the possible solutions “(asaduzzaman, et al.,2015., p.62). research has also shown that a major challenge for women when trying to establish and run a business in developing economies is their access and control over finances. while securing the finances for a new business is not an easy task for women in developed economies, access to external capital is attainable, not only through bank loans and grants, but through a diversity of programs that specialize in providing seed funding to female business owners. even though female entrepreneurship and the formation of women business networks is steadily rising, entrepreneurship is still considered as a male-dominated field. so, it may be difficult to surpass this dominant stereotype. additionally, women in general have lower personal financial assets than men. this means that for a given opportunity and equally capable individual, women must secure additional resources compared to men in order to exploit the opportunity because they control less capital. overall, addressing women’s entrepreneurship challenges around the world requires a combination of broader efforts and more targeted ones. societies will benefit from efforts such as those providing better access to education, empowerment of women and promotion of societal changes. broader initiatives need to take into account the overall conditions in the environment. access to long-term resources as well as the ability to gain legitimacy in society at large is also important, particularly in the developing world. it is of vital importance to recognize women entrepreneurs as a heterogeneous group with challenges and characteristics that differ according to the economic and social environment in which they develop. then and only then, initiatives, programs and policies will be designed in a way that will be longoria, c., differences and similarities, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 73-82) 81 efficient and to promote women’s entrepreneurship world-wide. “some important strategies suggest new incentives to encourage scientists to work together with policymakers and other actors to exchange, generate, and apply knowledge linked to women in business” (radovic-markovic,2018, p.3). references [1] asaduzzaman, m.s., kabir, r. n., radović -marković, m. (2015). gender inequality in bangladesh, journal of women`s entrepreneurship and education, 2015, no. 3-4, pp.54-64 [2] avolio, b. e., & radovic, m. (2013). women and entrepreneurship: female durability, persistence and intuition at work. england: gower publishing limited.great britain. [3] brush, c. (2009). research on women business owners: past trends, a new perspective and future directions. entrepreneurship: theory and practice, 16(4), 5+. retrieved from www.questia.com [4] garcia-cabrera, a.m. & garcia-soto, m. (2008). cultural differences and entrepreneurial behavior: an intra-country cross-cultural analysis in cape verde. entrepreneurship and regional development 20(5): 451–483. [5] jamali, d. (2009). constraints and opportunities facing women entrepreneurs in developing countries: a relational perspective. gender in management: an international journal 24(4): 232 – 251. [6] kevane, m. & wydick, b. (2001). microenterprise lending to female entrepreneurs: sacrificing economic growth for poverty alleviation? world development 29(7): 1225–1236. [7] minniti, m., allen, e. and langowitz, n. (2006). the 2005 global entrepreneurship monitor special topic report: women in entrepreneurship. center for women leadership, babson college.babson park, ma. [8] nichter, s. & goldmark, l. (2009). small firm growth in developing countries. world development 37(9): 1453–1464. [9] oecd (2004) organization for economic cooperation and development. women’s entrepreneurship: issues and policies. retrieved on may, 2014 from: www.oecd.org/cfe/smes/31919215.pdf [10] radovic-markovic, m. (2009). women entrepreneurs: new opportunities and challenges. delhi, india: indo-american books. [11] radović-marković, m. (2013). female entrepreneurship: theoretical approaches, journal of women`s entrepreneurship and education 2013, no. 12, 1-9. 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 73-82) [12] radovic markovic, m. (2018). organisational resilience and business continuity: theoretical and conceptual framework, journal of entrepreneurship and business resilience. year i, number 1, pp. 5-11. [13] siddiqui, s., et al., (2017). a case of binary logistic modeling, journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, 2017, no. 3-4, pp. 28-44 [14] stoyanovska, a. (2001). jobs, gender and small enterprises in bulgaria. geneva: international labor office (ilo). [15] vossenberg, s. (2013). women entrepreneurship promotion in developing countries: what explains the gender gap in entrepreneurship and how to close it? (working paper no. 2013/08). retrieved from www.msm.nl/getattachment/e94b7b38-e17b-4c5d-b497-c4135be7ec86 [16] welter, f., & smallbone, d. (2003). entrepreneurship and enterprise strategies in transition economies: an institutional perspective” in d. kirby & a. watson (eds.), small firms and economic development in developed and transition economies [google play] (pp. 95-114). ashgate. article history: received: 25 november, 2018 accepted: 3 december, 2018 microsoft word 10_jwe_1-2.doc udc: 005.2 (437.1/.2) jel: l26, k33 scientific review societas europaea as a new legal form of the company next stage or dead end of the entrepreneurial environment’s development? bernatík werner,tvrdoń michal, silesian university, school of business administration in karvina, karvina. czech republic a b s t r a c t this article takes a look in the situation concerning the european company (se) in the czech republic. as the european legislature adopt the legal act in 2001 and put it into force since 2004, czech republic became the state with the highest amount of se. authors try to identify the conditions of founding se in czech region and whether se are located there as a ordinary trade companies or not. even the idea of se was unique now there are 27 local law amendments which make the situation complicated related to aquis communautaire (legislation eu). although it seems that se are here rather as “empty shell se” authors think that such legal form is the future in the european join market. introduction european company (also european corporation, societas europaea or se) is the new legal form of the company within the eu´s entrepreneurial environment since the year of 2004 when entered into force council regulation (ec) no. 2157/2001 of 8 october 2001 on the statue for a european company (se) as well as council directive 2001/86/ec of 8 october 2001 supplementing the statue of a european company with regard to the involvement of employees. these legal acts were adopted in 2001 and national legal systems should be prepared for the force of it until october 2004. but only 6 countries were able to do such activities on time journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 7-16) 8 – belgium, denmark, finland, island, austria and sweden. there was a delay in the other countries but the legal regulation was changed sooner or later in all of the eu members. in the czech republic the law enactment no. 627/2004 was valid since the december 2004 – so the delay was relatively minimal. definition of european corporation the act no. 2157/2001 (published in 8.10.2001) describes the status of european corporation. it declares that company which is providing business in several eu members’ countries could register itself just only in one of these countries. the place where the actual headquarters is located will be the place of company’s registration. such company provides the business matters by european regulation instead of other companies which have to follow the local legal systems which are valid in the area of its interests. the european corporation could be found: – as a transformation by two or more joint ventures from at least two different states – as a holding of at least two limited companies or joint ventures from at least two different states – as a subsidiary which belongs to two limited companies from at leas two different states – as a current company’s subsidiary located in another eu member’s country – as a transformation of limited company which has at least two years its own subsidiary located in another eu member’s country even the company which headquarter is not located within the eu could participate in founding the european corporation. it is possible if such company could prove that it is founded according to the eu member’s legal system and that it is providing a business matters with this economy. european corporation will use in its name the abbreviation se. this abbreviation could be placed in front of the company’s name as well as at the end. bernatiík, w., et al., societas europaea, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 1-7-16) 9 a minimum of basic capital (basic stock) is settled on 120 000 euro. this amount was settled as an appropriate so even the small companies could found the european corporation (se) by joining together. even that the registration is in one of the eu member’s country the taxation will be provided in the places where the business matters are carried out. so far there are different taxation levels in several countries so the committee is working on the act which will unify the tax level within the eu. such regulation will eliminate the “taxation competitiveness” factor. the headquarters (residence) of european corporation could be moved very simply. a role of trade union seems to be a little bit complicated in such companies. there is different position of it in each of the country. some trade unions could be scared of restriction of its jurisdictions if the company will change its form into european one. the trade union authority is settled by its historical background and now it could be uniformed. especially in countries where trade unions have really strong influence the protest against the european corporation was defined. as a result the significant result was done. the nice summit announced that in european corporation, which is found by joining of two different existing companies, the former agreements between the employers and employees will be guaranteed. so far there are several points which are not unified in the eu yet. one of these points is the system of the retire matters. superannuation is different is each country so it will must be solved upon which regulation this pensions will be paid to the employees who were working for european corporation (as it is considered as one sole company). the committee made a proposal of united pension fund for such employees from the all european union countries. this is very significant fact. so far this point is one of the most difficult issues to be solved. also tax issues are quite difficult and could affect the owner’s decision whether se or other form of the company will be found. here there are two areas to be discussed. the european company’s residence (which affects the taxation) and the accounting standards provided by the european company. as the joint-stock company can choose between the us-gaap standard or ias it depends on the decision of the owner, which one would be chosen. the committee made a suggestion to use the ias in the financial services action plan (fsap) since 2005. but these journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 7-16) 10 companies who wanted to be registered on stock-exchange markets in usa must use the us-gaap standard as it required by the securities exchange commission. so the fsap probably will not be fulfilled, at all, or even the transformation of joint-stock companies into european company would be not made. on the other hand under contemporary circumstances more and more companies will focus their point of interests within the world global economy excluded the us markets – this is the issue to be observed in following years. societas europaes in the czech republic many of the legal rules were adjusted for settling the legislation conformable with aquis communautaire (legislation eu) which affected on it as a superior one. one of the most significant aspects is that se must be considered within czech republic as a local company. it settles equal conditions for european companies and local ones – on the other hand it makes the position of the local ones much tougher due to competition force coming from the outside of region. during several years a lot of se was found in the czech republic. the number of them increased rapidly. as in june 2008-th year there were 62 of them, in september 2008 83 se was found. these numbers were the highest within european union – even in germany (which market is enormously larger) were only 80 se until 30.9.2008. last data shows that in 2009 (16-th of july) there were 155 european companies in the czech republic. so far such data can be explained as good utilization of new opportunities on the entrepreneurial environment. but there is another side of this situation. up to 30.9.2008 most of se’s were so called “shelf companies”. such type is created just to be sold as a ready-made company without any entrepreneurial activity for potential investor. as such company does not provide business; amount of its employees is 0. if we consider the information that company with 0-49 belongs to small and medium enterprises we will figured out that 96% of them in 2008 were sme – such information causes deformation of the sme’s data. usually joint stock companies belong at least to medium or big companies. thus situation moves the se, which is joint stock company, too, into segment of sme even when they do not belongs there (80 out of 83 were ready-made company which are intended for sale). bernatiík, w., et al., societas europaea, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 1-7-16) 11 table 1: number of se in selected countries se total se real czech rep. 84 3 poland 0 0 slovakia 3 1 hungary 2 0 france 8 3 germany 80 26 austria 11 7 gb 5 0 netherlands 18 2 source: european company (se) factsheets (30.9.2008). available from: http://ecdb.worker-participation.eu/ published in: štrauch, p. evropská společnost v praxi. 2008. as shown above it can be worth to be discussed why there is so many of se in the czech republic. when you take a look in the comparable countries, there are just few of se, there. for example in netherlands there is only 18 of the se. even in great britain there are only 5 of these european companies and in germany still the number is smaller than in cz where amount of se comes to 80 of them! figure 1: number of se in selected countries number of se (30.9.2008) 84 80 11 5 18 3 0 2 8 czech rep. poland slovakia hungary france germany austria gb netherlands source: european company (se) factsheets (30.9.2008). available from: http://ecdb.worker-participation.eu/ published in: štrauch, p. evropská společnost v praxi. 2008. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 7-16) 12 when we focus on the fact that establishing of the se is not too difficult due to law conditions but due to fact of term of doing business – it could be understandable why so huge part of all se companies are readymade. all of the conditions mentioned above require obligatory term of doing business within eu market for at least of 2 years. only one possible option makes establishing of se very easy: existing se can found its subsidiary. this is very important information which must be observed… it is subject of further analysis who and why is eager to invest so significant amount of money into ready-made companies and wait for potential buyer. another question to be answered is whether it is really czech approach to use the new opportunity made by eu´s law or some foreign investors put their money into czech market (and why czech one within eu´s region)? answers to these questions could be given after the further investigation e. g. identifying of the se owner, subject of its entrepreneurial activities, etc. typical se in czech republic typical shelf companies in the czech republic have very similar signs – most of these companies were found as se subsidiary on dualistic principle with 0 employees, dealing business in real estate trade and maintenance with subscribed share capital of 120000 € (minimal amount) spread into relatively small amount of share (1 – 20 pieces). all these data could be identified in ministry of justice of czech republic (www.justice.cz). monistic as well as dualistic principle allowed? this fact is probably tough to settle equal conditions on the entrepreneurial environment. as other legal form of the company (and especially joint stock company) must have the dualistic principle of ruling (structure of the corporate governance, cg), in the european company there could be just board of supervisors or board of directors. just imagine how huge money we can save not paying one of the board’s members. but in ordinary joint stock company there must be both of these boards – it is just question of time until some of the entrepreneur will sue the state for unequal conditions on the same base legal form within the same business and entrepreneurial environment. in such simple aspect the bernatiík, w., et al., societas europaea, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 1-7-16) 13 company could save really interesting money. thus it is very interesting that most of the se have dualistic model of corporate governance – but both boards have only one member. figure 2: structure of cg structure of cg in se 13%2% 85% dualistic model cg one member´s boards dualistic model cg other monistic model cg source: own calculation based on www.justice.cz cooperation of the employees on corporate governanace this aspect is the most issue to be discussed within the legal frame of the european company. based on the historical development it is completely different situation in the field of trade union cooperation with the cg. formerly the idea was to establish the equal conditions even in this field but during the term of several decades finally 27 different legislative frames are settled in eu member each. this is not the best situation and it must be discussed and solved in the future. se as trade companies? in the czech republic most of the se has no employees – which must bring definitely the right question: is this company doing business here or just it is prepared for some hidden purpose? authors of this article think that – with regard to this fact – this companies are prepared to cover and solve potential risks that might occur in the future in the region of this republic. we can name that as strategic approach of foreign investors – journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 7-16) 14 when we consider that most of the se is based on the activities connected with dealing the real estates and its maintenance. during last 2 decades there was the real estate business raised here, enormously. after the velvet revolution the prices of the properties were much lower than now. foreign investors were not allowed to buy the buildings and similar assets; huge money was invested in the czech republic. it is fact, that residency of se could be moved very easy – it is guaranteed by council regulation and all other law’s on the local scale. thus probably the investors try to keep the eyes on their interests within this locality as a form of risk management strategy. if the prices will change rapidly, political stability changes (which is not so probable – but foreigners still do not trust this region as they count that as a “new eu member”), legislature act change or other circumstances influence on this area – the se can move its residency very quickly abroad. authors of the article hope that within several years the entrepreneurs will trust more the local conditions and start to provide ordinary business by these se. primary having the se as a legal form of company is intended for doing business even on larger scale than via classical joint stock company. we think that owners of se located in czech republic just speculate within their own strategies and they will change their mind in the future. although the se could be found firstly as a simplest and quickest way of establishing the company in czech republic (concerning to local law system, language difficulties, etc.) or just for speculation of the foreign capital – it raised up the interest of the investors so that czech republic became no. 1 in such type of entrepreneur activities. so we can say that it fulfil its purpose – within the eu probably the most, here. such actions fulfil the idea of free movement within the eu area and it can display equal conditions of competition within its state members. the real idea of se is to deepen and intensify the cooperation of entrepreneur structures in the eu. such companies as porsche automobile holding se, allianz se, basf se and many others already figured it out and change their legal form to european company. we hope that this form will be the perspective form for settling issues of business dealings under conditions of growing globalization. bernatiík, w., et al., societas europaea, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 1-7-16) 15 conclusion as mentioned above the european corporation will handle the business matters in several countries at the same time while the registration of the headquarters just in one of these countries will be enough to do. whole company will behave by unified rules and it is consider as a residential company in each country, where the branches are settled. estimated savings (for lawyers, advisers, translators, fees etc.) could reach more than 30 billions of euros each year. relatively low amount of basic stock should create the conditions for founding such type of companies. it could improve the competitiveness of european companies as well as the whole european union. in the czech republic there is lot of questions appeared since this opportunity of founding european corporation is possible. as significant of there companies have no employees, there are rather ready-made companies intended for being bought by another investor. the amount of european companies found in eu is the highest in the czech republic. searching for the reason why it is like that requires further research based on long-term observation and digging the information about these companies as they do not share the information about their business matters, mostly. even it could be assumed that such type of company is not useful within czech republic and european union, the european corporation as a form of company seems to be the right decision for doing business in the 21st century. references [1] council regulation (ec) no. 2157/2001 of 8 october 2001 on the statue for a european company (se) [2] council directive 2001/86/ec of 8 october 2001 supplementing the statue of a european company with regard to the involvement of employees [3] neruda, r. societas europaea. právní forum 5/2006. [4] dědič, j., čech, p.: evropská akciová společnost. 1. vyd. praha: bova polygon, 2006 [5] dědič, j., čech, p.: obchodní právo po vstupu čr do eu. 2. vyd. praha: bova polygon 2005. [6] dvořák, t.: akciová společnost a evropská společnost. 1. vyd. praha: aspi 2005. [7] pelikánová, i.: evropská akciová společnost a její význam pro české právo. aspi/lit26867cz.2003, č. 180 [8] blanke, t.: legal assessment: formation of “empty shell ses” is against the law. law expertise in longform in german, edition hans böckler stiftung, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 7-16) 16 2005. see: http://www.seeuropenetwork.org/homegapes/seeurope/file_uploads/blanke_gavorratsse_summary_en.pdf [9] evropská komise. see: http://ec.europa.eu/index_cs.htm received: 15 january 2010 article history: accepted: 20 march 2010 15_jwe_3-4 udk: 005.322-055.2 378.014:316.32 cobiss.sr-id 219390476 professional paper i think she’s decided to be a manager now: women, management and leadership in the knowledge factory brabazon tara1, murray elizabeth charles sturt university, australia a b s t r a c t stanley aronowitz wrote a prescient book in 2000. titled the knowledge factory, it did not take women academics as its focus, but emphasized the consequences of separating the teaching/researching academic from the ‘manager.’ this demarcation of teaching, research and management has intensified through the 2000s. this is also a gendered separation. this article offers a model for women moving into higher education leadership, based on a considered integration of teaching, research and university service. we argue for a transformation, moving from rosemary deem’s “manager-academics” to “academics who manage.” this is not simply a movement from a compound noun to a noun and verb, but a reminder that university leaders are academics first, and manage within the context of their academic responsibilities key words: higher education, women in leadership, academic management, succession planning, generation x, feminism 1 tbrabazon@csu.edu.au brabazon, t., et al., women management and leadership, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) 29 the question of true equality and opportunity for women versus the perceived reality is a popular topic of conversation and thought for women in, or aspiring to be in, leadership roles in the workforce (2015, 316). kasey neece-fielder this article did not emerge from an inspiring keynote speaker, an innovative grant submission or a powerful seminar. instead, this piece jutted from the most uncreative and uninspiring of sources. tara brabazon, one of the authors of this article, was conducting a performance management review. stressful for the interviewee and pedantic and passionless for the interviewer, these events are punctuated by compliance, excuses, ego and narcissism. staff cry with disappointment for themselves. they shudder and shirk at the possibilities of what could have been achieved. mediocrity is common. excellence is rare. in one meeting, a senior scholar noted in their paperwork that they mentored junior colleagues. little undergraduate or postgraduate teaching was completed and no singly-authored publications were listed. tara asked for examples, as ‘mentoring’ carries an orwellian inflection that stretches and bends to suit the priorities of the speaker. this speaker stammered. a couple of names were mentioned, followed by the mention of a colleague with an unusual caveat: “but i think she’s decided to be a manager now.” this phrase captures much of what is wrong in higher education. professors used to complete the high service functions within universities. the revolving departmental chair is still present in some systems. but the post-fordist university has highly differentiated teaching, research and service functions. this system dissolves when a ‘research professor’ produces less research than much more junior academics who are also fulfilling a full workload of teaching responsibilities (evans, 2012; evans, 2014). it is also a profound problem that the word ‘manager’ becomes a label of disrespect for a colleague who has chosen to commit to service for students and staff. more significantly, women in universities – like men in universities – operate at their highest and most sustained levels when creating an integrated matrix of teaching, research and service to higher education. it is not a choice between functions, but combining all the elements that enable a career. this article is written by a head of school and an associate head of school in a regional australian university. tara brabazon is a professor of 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) education and head of school, aged in her forties. elizabeth murray is a lecturer and associate head of school, and in her thirties. both are committed teachers and research active by any university’s definition or determination. both fulfil the full spectrum of academic life. this is an effective mash of functions. this meshing of functions should also be normal. therefore this article is written to understand how and why women become leaders, and how they can be supported to integrate leadership into their academic portfolio. elizabeth murray, like thousands of emerging female leaders in our universities, deserves a better future and greater opportunities than have been available to the previous generations of women scholars. this article maintains a meta-function. in form and content, it holds its ground. research activity matters to leaders and future leaders in universities. to address this premise, two academics, who are also a middle manager and an emerging manager, have worked together to ensure that research activity is part of any future discussion of women and leadership. it is a personal project with professional resonance. manspreading why are there so few women academics, and more so, senior ones? why have women’s high educational achievement levels not produced greater female representations in the university sector? these questions continue to be pertinent, and they point to a gap in current scholarly knowledge, that requires further research. pamela adhiambo raburu (2015, 360) men occupy space and they are naturalized to do so. ‘manspreading’ was a tumblr campaign (2014) and twitter hashtag (2014) that captured men’s behaviour on public transport where they occupied two seats while other commuters stood. it is also a metaphor and trope to understand masculinity in a patriarchy. men spread – they occupy space – and are naturalized when they do so. manspreading is also naturalized in our universities. the last twenty years – the decades when women’s qualifications and experience have matched men (white, 2004) and far greater gender equality in senior posts should have been realized – have seen manspreading in action, carried through the word “manager.” this (lack of) social justice could – and can – be explained through brabazon, t., et al., women management and leadership, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) 31 understanding the failed processes and products of neoliberalism and how the entrails of injustice remain in our universities. this has been termed the zombie academy (whelan, walker and moore, 2013). this (lack of) change could – and can – be explained through the fordist automation of online learning, where mapping learning outcomes over assessment ‘products’ has become more important than ensuring expertise and excellence in teaching staff. this (lack of) change could – and can – be explained through research assessment exercises that claim and validate particular modes of research and particular types of researchers as of value. such schemes and systems have shaped the definitions and utility of words such as leadership, management and administration. yet there is a parallel problem: the women and men that could be entering positions of management and leadership are denying and demeaning these roles to focus on their own research. therefore, management is left to the men and women who do not teach and research. there is a legitimate origin for this dismissal of service and conflating it with neoliberal management. in 2000, stanley aronowitz wrote the knowledge factory. he described and theorized the disconnection between ‘managers,’ ‘teachers’ and ‘researchers.’ his title captured the unstable sociology of higher education that emerged in the late 1990s and reached levels of toxicity, confusion, fear and bullying through the 2010s. he argued that academics who failed to demonstrate excellence in teaching and research, which would be rewarded through promotion, move into a third path: administration. aronowitz argued that this group then worked their way through the dean and pro vice chancellor posts at the very point that these titles started to proliferate. over the past thirty years, administration has become a separate career in academic life ... what are the consequences of administration as a career? first and perhaps foremost, career administrators tend to lose touch with the educational enterprise. their allegiances and self-conception becomes increasingly corporate as they gradually surrender any pretence of doing consistent writing and teaching … it doesn’t take long before he views himself as a member of a separate social layer within the academic system and sees the faculty and students as adversaries or, at least, as a different stratum (2000, 164-165). aronowitz logged a foundational reality of contemporary higher education. the best teachers are committed to teaching and continue to 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) teach. the best researchers are immersed in long-term projects and continue researching. those who fail or are un(der)skilled or un(der)successful in teaching and research enter the third strand of academic life: administration. therefore, this group of ‘academics’ are making decisions about those who achieve in the spheres where they underachieved. the result of such a structure is that professional development reviews and promotional processes are conducted by managers who demand standards that are beyond their own academic knowledge and experience. ironically, or perhaps not, they do not have the self-awareness to recognize the hypocrisy of their position. how can a research inactive dean offer commentary about research? how can an inexperienced doctoral supervisor, who happens to be dean, offer advice to his or her staff? within aronowitz’s argument, this hypocrisy is ignored. credibility is not questioned, as it is based on intimidation and a title. management in universities is therefore based on a façade and a lie. lacking expertise in teaching and research supposedly does not hamper the capacity to manage staff and students. there are alternatives. a revolving departmental chair is a way to even out the load of administrative responsibilities and also spread the expertise and decision making more widely. it can also have remarkable consequences. david mcnally, professor of political science at york university in toronto, had his career ‘interrupted’ by university service. this book has been a long time coming. i hope it is better for the wait. i first started work on it in 2003, only to have my labours interrupted by a three-year stint (2005-8) as chair of the department of political science at york university. when i resumed this study, global capitalism had entered its most profound crisis since the 1930s, adding a special resonance to the themes i explore here (mcnally 2012). by the time he could resume this work, the global financial crisis had happened, but his awareness had also increased about the arbitrariness of power and decision making. he had witnessed “the capitalist grotesque” (2012, 2). this system of revolving department chairs means that the burden (and power) is shared, and the ‘interruptions’ in teaching and research are minimized. further, the connection to staff and students is maintained. in such a system, aronowitz’s third parallel strand of university administration does not occur, because administrators emerge from teaching and research and return to it. brabazon, t., et al., women management and leadership, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) 33 the question is who is promoted through this aronowitz-inspired postachievement model of university? how does patronage operate in the knowledge factory? the answer is a series of excuses to explain why men continue to run universities. work and careers in australia conducted a survey of academics in 19 australian universities. it is based on 22,000 responses (work and careers report, 2012). when discussing the rationale for the shape of this data, the focus – the justification – is that women have made a choice to ‘have families’ which ‘explains’ why promotions have not taken place (broadbent, strachan, troup, 2015). this supposedly explains why women are appointed at level a lectureships, rather than b, and why their careers taper at level c (senior lectureship). while census data sets lag and fertility commentaries are volatile and ideological, there is a clear trend that women are having fewer children, with one quarter of women predicted not to have children in australia through the 21st century (abs 2016). there is also one other observation from the emerging demographic studies: the higher the level of education a woman possesses, the fewer children she produces (fitzgerald reading, 2011). with a doctorate a requirement for permanence in a university post, there is a casual and complex relationship between procreation, educational attainment, appointment and promotion as an academic. while ‘family responsibilities’ is a justification for women not occupying the highest levels of seniority, behind these figures on a graph is a large component of women without children. therefore, an argument about promotion and commitment to the workforce because of family responsibilities is not rational. it does not recognize the role of older women and “encore careers” (denmark, goldstein, thies and tworecke, 2015). also, and most basically, the men captured in this data set also have children. their caring responsibilities are supposedly not relevant or have little impact on their professional lives. finally, the assumption of this study is that academic women (and men) are situated in a heteronormative, procreative, nuclear family. those assumptions are providing excuses for the data, not explanations and future trajectories and trends. women’s sexuality is a barrier for the promotion of both childless and childbearing women. as dianne kaseman described nearly twenty years ago, “in the past … childless single women were considered to be deceptive and the childless married woman was viewed as power driven and selfish and that childbearing was sacrificed for professional life. although the double bind is present today, it is often covertly hidden in discussions of the sexuality of women in public roles” (1998). such binaries – procreative and barren, selfless and selfish create narratives of disempowerment, 34 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) competition between women and judgments about sex, sexuality and femininity. emerging from such binaries, women with children cannot commit to paid employment. they should not be hired. women without children have failed the femininity ‘test’ and therefore should be watched. this is the “double bind” of women in leadership (kaseman, 1998). it is important to present another set of numbers that sketch a more significant snapshot of men and women in australian universities. men are 64% of pro vice chancellors, 65% of deputy vice chancellors and 77% of vice chancellors in australian universities (fitzgerald, 2014). such proportions of men and women in leadership are not an accident. such a pattern cannot be explained by individual women making choices. they signify how gender operates in universities, via “homosociability” (blackmore and barty, 2004). it is not a series of choices made by women to balance work and family life. this is institutional sexism (bagilhole 1993). power – and leadership – in australian universities is carried and held by white men. considering that there are more female students in our universities than male, this leaky pipeline of women in leadership is actually a waterfall. there is no pipe left. how can these figures be explained? justification for such a gendered pattern is even harder to configure. researchers can return to the simplistic argument about ‘caring’ responsibilities, assuming that these men in leadership have no caring functionality for spouses, children or parents (armenti, 2004). further, the self-defeating argument is also a justification: women really do not want to lead, as they are happy completing the ‘housework’ of a university. tanya fitzgerald, a head of school, explained the problem in these terms: women are travellers in a male world in which they are confronted with expectations of being managerial (read masculine) enough to be acknowledged as managers, yet feminine enough to be recognised as women. but to be accepted, they need to conform to established stereotypes and stay out of powerful positions (2014a). the head of school or department is an intriguing position from which to comment on these issues. women in these roles are not so much limited by a glass ceiling, but are squashed between a microscope’s glass slides. they occupy the housework posts of university management, the lowest rung of ‘senior management’ with little autonomy, agency or the possibility for innovation. the key performance indicators cascade to the heads of school who have to take an often untested and flawed policy and make it brabazon, t., et al., women management and leadership, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) 35 operate in some form. yet the heads who are outstanding teachers and researchers are often told – overtly – that those functions and abilities are not relevant to management. tara has been told on multiple occasions and in multiple posts that research is not an expectation of a head. it is as if the research-active head of school is an embarrassment, an aberrance, a unicorn, that must not be publicized because of the wider questions this activity asks about other managers. this research activity also reflects badly on the ‘research professors’ who work completely on their own scholarship with few wider institutional demands. yet if their ‘productivity’ is assessed against the research active head of school, serious questions are asked of the professoriate, untethered by service responsibilities. leadership is not a series of characteristics or a checklist. it is the development and management of relationships (fitzgerald, 2014b). institutional risk and responsibility are cascaded to a departmental level and the “manager-academic” (deem, 2003). the notion of individual agency and responsibility is displaced in a management structure that foregrounds competition, efficiency and productivity, often justified as ‘quality assurance.’ however, as tanya fitzgerald has argued, this process “coopt[s] women into neo-liberal and managerial discourses that run counter to the security of equitable outcomes” (2014, 32). line management is based on the presumption that employees are in a line and are managed in a linear fashion. while this configuration may operate in banking and retail industries, higher education is based on an excellence model for teaching and research. the irrationality of line management means that individual “manager-academics” are line managing people who are better teachers and researchers than they are. the only solution to that paradox, inequity and irrationality is the one proposed in this paper: only the best teachers and researchers occupy the role of “manager-academic.” it is also a transitory role that is moved between staff. what possible authority – except one based on clinging and clawing neo-liberalism – could an under-performing academic hold in a managerial role? there is the question of skill level: does the manager know the editors, the journals, the publishing processes and the ability to recommend, assist and draft an article for a staff member? can the manager solve student or teacher problems, challenges and difficulties, embedding information scaffolds, ensuring an arc of achievement through the degree and ensure the maintenance of international standards in the scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl)? he or she is performing a lie, assuming a power and authority that they do not deserve. the power that they hold is brittle and tenuous, granted on the basis of a title, rather than 36 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) ability (kruncken, blumel and kloke, 2013). instead, we recommend an academic who manages, rather than a ‘manager-academic.’ the academic expertise is much more important than the managerial element. discussing women’s style of management or leadership is a mode of meta sexism. there were so few women in leadership in australian universities before 2000 that they appeared to be men in drag. there was no space or place for women. now, through the proliferation of neo liberal ideologies including the configuration of a university as a business and students as consumers, middle management roles focus on compliance and micro-flares of disciplinary actions and complaints. to complete such a set of banal tasks, it is necessary to dissociate, to separate ‘academic’ and ‘manager.’ actually, the problem is not in and of women. the originating error is that universities are a business, based on compliance and not excellence. andrea simpson and tanya fitzgerald argued that, changes within higher education have been relatively artificial in terms of opening up new possibilities and opportunities. what has remained largely unchanged is that universities are relentless sites of exclusion and elitism (2013, 11). universities should be sites of exclusion and elitism: on the basis of intellectual ability. they are elite organizations that value and validate high levels of scholarly achievement. this is not a sifting or sorting based on class, gender, race, age or sexuality. universities admit students and conduct research on the basis of excellence. where the slippage occurs – from intellectual elitism into social elitism is that intellectual achievement is too often assumed to reside in a white, male body. are women underperforming in such a context? researchers confirm that women publish less frequently than men in most disciplines (bellas and toutkoushian, 1999). however, the next analytical leap, made by scholars such as justine mercer, cannot be made: “women themselves, want a better work-life balance and view research as a less prominent part of their identities” (2013). intriguingly susan gardner, when studying the women who left an institution, found in her study that “women faculty tend to publish and present at the same rate as men, but existing gender bias in academia often recognizes men’s achievement over women’s and tends to see women’s achievement as owing to something other than ability” (2013). the ambiguity of this statement is powerful. she suggests that the same level of achievement is not recognized. when women do succeed and are brabazon, t., et al., women management and leadership, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) 37 promoted, ‘something other than ability’ is recognized. is this patronage? is there the suggestion of sexual favours? jeff hearn, the great scholar of masculinity, offered three additional rationales for such gendered structures and distinctions. women were excluded from universities for much of their history. men still dominate the highest positions in universities in most disciplines. the higher the status of the university, the more male dominated it is (2001, 71). this gap between competency and credibility could be masked when financial conditions were buoyant. the global financial crisis confirmed that the inflated imaginings of finance capitalism, real estate capitalism and higher education capitalism were not real, sustainable or actual. it is no surprise therefore that the research literature on the political economy has been filled with metaphors, tropes and theories of zombies. the undead, walking and infecting the people in which they come into contact, has also entered discourses of the university. andrew whelan, ruth walker and christopher moore’s zombies in the academy (2013) showed the consequence of automating and dumbing down teaching through simplistic learning management systems, the pretensions of academic publishers that ask universities to pay for access to publications that scholars have provided to journals for free, and line management systems, professional development meetings and committee structures. part of this zombification is the confusion between management and leadership. christine teelken and rosemary deem realized that, in the broader context, managerialism may have either an adverse or at best neutral impact on the promotion of gender equality in european higher education systems. women have not been very prominent in senior management positions (2014, 526). what their study revealed is that the sociological group which developed and implemented theories of governance then validated and supported the already existing model of leadership. therefore, what is called “vertical segregation” (deem 2014, 524) is increased. that phrase means that there is a high proportion of female undergraduates. this proportion lessens in doctoral programmes, reduces further at doctoral graduation, and at each subsequent stage of seniority in academic life. increased participation does not guarantee success at a higher level. there is no vertical integration. participation does not equate with progress into and through seniority in higher education. these disruptions and blockages are 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) described as the ‘leaky pipeline’ of women moving into leadership (global human capital 2008). our model of leadership promoted in this article – integrating research, teaching and administration – is difficult to implement and receives little support from the current regime of power in the knowledge factory. but the question is, how do we encourage academics – and particularly women – to enter leadership? if they attempt such a movement will they be blocked? to answer these questions, the next section of this paper explains why the second author of this paper made a decision to enter a leadership role. as a young leader, managing the “gendered ageism for the young professional woman” (turnbow and williamson 2015, 16), her view should be logged and understood. the story of a new leader: elizabeth leadership is sometimes learned, but often innate. researchers have identified a number of key traits associated with leadership, such as intelligence, confidence, charisma, determination, sociability and integrity. good leaders are inspiring. they are respectful, refreshing, selfless and reflective. they encourage success and promote competence in others, and they are not threatened by that competence. good leaders make others want to be leaders. when i arrived at university to study my undergraduate education degree, i was inspired by a lone, young, intelligent, female academic. i respected her knowledge and her pedagogies. i respected her obvious dedication and empathy. i noticed the difference between her teaching and the teaching of other academics that had perhaps less to prove, and i aspired to be as committed as her. i toyed with the idea of becoming an academic myself, early on. i undertook an honours degree through a research specialisation over the third and fourth year of my undergraduate degree, and after obtaining a first class honours, i embarked on a phd for the next three and a half years. during this time i worked part time as a teacher in primary schools and part time as a lecturer at a university, and enjoyed seeing the different leadership styles of those principals and managers with whom i worked. i wanted to be an academic. i wanted to do research and teach tertiary students to be great teachers. i wanted to make a difference to more children’s lives than i could brabazon, t., et al., women management and leadership, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) 39 if i taught in one classroom, in one school. i am still eager to achieve these goals. completing a phd a number of years before turning 30, certainly did not convince prospective employers that i knew anything – and nor should it. prospective employers in the school system wondered why i needed a phd at all, and prospective employers in the university system, questioned why i did not have more publications and more years with a phd ‘under my belt’, or more years as a teacher in schools so i ‘knew what i was talking about’ when teaching tertiary students. when i was appointed as a lecturer, i was one of the youngest staff members in the faculty, if not the youngest, and i enjoyed that challenge. six years (and two children) later, when i was presented with the opportunity to apply to be an associate head of school, and when i discussed this opportunity with various colleagues, i was intrigued by the responses from others. i envisioned my new role in the faculty as one which could provide support and leadership for colleagues in teaching, research and administration. i imagined increased opportunities to support students and make a difference in their academic lives and future teaching careers. these were the reasons why i wanted to become an academic. however, it was soon apparent that these ideas might be idealistic. i did not, and still do not, want to believe that i have to choose between being a good teacher and being a good leader. i do not want to believe that i have to choose between being a good researcher and being a good leader. it was apparent that i was experiencing an “identity schism” which winter had outlined (2009), yet i had not confronted this before, and i was not comfortable confronting it at this stage. reflecting on my teaching philosophy, on who i was and who i wanted to be, was an important step in understanding the reasons behind wanting to further develop my leadership skills. i applied for the role of associate head of school to make a difference. to challenge myself. to show my students that hard work is rewarded and that age and gender did not have to be limitations. i was aware that i would have an increased workload, and that at times, i would need to dedicate more of my focus to a management task, but this is not unique. this is the challenge of any academic who has a multi-function role. i continue to be perplexed by the notion that those in leadership positions have to solely become managers or administrators, that they cannot also be leaders in their teaching, or leaders in research. there are certainly occasions where management tasks demand more attention and time, and where research, for 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) example, may have to take a back seat for a short period of time, but i would argue that this happens in any position, and can be attributed to a number of factors. to be or not to be a leader should not be the question. what type of leader we strive to be, should be at the forefront of our thinking, and our planning, as managers, teachers, researchers, administrators, whoever. as a generation xer academic (brabazon 2014), i am part of the movement that will drive universities forward for the next 30 years. this a responsibility but not a burden. an honour. this will require more than one leader to do, and more than one academic to do. it would seem that in all of our focus on leadership in academia, we have pushed aside the importance of collaboration, of being part of a team. leading is not about being out in front and forgetting who is behind you. it is about standing beside your colleagues and being an advocate. it is about inclusivity, about listening, caring and empathising with others, and encouraging competence. it is about being an exemplary scholar. the best scholars should be high quality teachers, high quality researchers and high quality leaders. they should be those who provide a leadership service to all aspects of our profession. the future relies on developing strong relationships with each other – with our colleagues and with our students. we also need to develop a strong understanding of ourselves, so we are aware of our own identity as academics and can not only be reflective but reflexive in our scholarly work and teaching. a middle manager’s story: tara after elizabeth’s revealing statements about goals, aspirations and hopes, it is now tara’s turn. middle management in higher education is the equivalent of cross fit. it creates exhaustion and not much is achieved. also, we look pretty strange while we are doing it. but as higher education becomes wedded to failed neo-liberal ideologies, the rituals and banalities of middle management increase. compliance, rather than excellence, is the goal. meetings do not enable productive work. they are the work. the consequences of this bizarre disjuncture between the highest standards of scholarship required in a university with the mediocrity of meetings sustains an open sore of scholarship, creating a culture of bullying, abuse, bitterness and jealousy. brabazon, t., et al., women management and leadership, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) 41 i made a decision, after watching years of systematic bullying and abuse of dignified staff by mediocre (at best) deans, to do something about it. colleagues had committed suicide from the bullying. dear friends were one email away from crying, most hours of most working days. alcohol abuse proliferated as men and women survived an acidic workplace by entering a stupor. i had watched nasty managers – with little research or teaching to recommend their own records – destroy academic lives. my decision to move to a management post, while attempting to sustain excellence in my teaching and research, had a very precise origin. my husband professor steve redhead is also a senior academic. the challenge of being part of a two professor family, particularly in nations without formal and regulated spousal policies, is that we often accepted posts at lesser universities so that we could work together. at one such university, a dean brought us in to see her at 8am. her reasoning was unclear, but her goal was obvious: to humiliate, attack, create fear and damage our international profile. on this particular morning, she had two tasks. firstly, a teaching evaluation had just been released that positioned me as the best teacher in the university. this result was produced from my first term at the institution. when the dean presented this table for discussion, she did not offer congratulations. instead, she shouted that “you are not as good as you think you are” and “everybody gets results like this.” when i made the statement that the mean on the survey showed that this was not the case, she threatened me with disciplinary action for questioning her views. she then turned to my husband and stated that she was refusing his request to attend his father’s funeral. because of her behaviour, i had not even applied for the leave to attend my father-in-law’s service. however she refused steve’s request with a flourish: “all of us have personal problems.” the representative from the human resources department remained silent. david mcnally described these types of moments best: “the genuinely traumatic (monstrous) experiences of subjugation and exploitation that occur when people find themselves subordinated to the market-economy” (2012). steve did not attend his father’s funeral. as i left the dean’s office on that cold morning – in temperament as much as temperature – i made a decision that if we ever left this hotel california of a university, then i would move into leadership so that no one in my care would have to confront this disrespect, personal and professional attacks and abuse. a few management posts followed, and i am now a head 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) of school. my hope is that colleagues will consider the importance of leadership in their own lives and that i can support elizabeth murray to grasp not only the value and significance of intellectual rigour, teaching and research excellence, but also respect. a leader can change the lives of students and academics. the consequences of bullying staff or sitting and doing nothing, as exhibited by that hr representative, are vast. this is not only a question of role. it is question of how we overcome the systemic and systematized bullying and attacks on academics. the suicide – triggered by management bullying – of academics is now being revealed (parr 2014). yet the silent stories of attacks on the self from damaging and dangerous managers are rarely shared. let me share one example with readers. i had an unfortunate run of university managers that were brittle, hostile and demeaning of scholars, creating an environment of bullying and professional violence. in one of these universities, i was a low level manager, running 13 degree programmes and 100 staff. the first week i worked at this university, the vice chancellor called all staff into the hall and reported that, in each row of ten academics, one would be sacked in the next month. then another staff member would be removed the following month. all professors received a warning email that their jobs were at risk. although the professors in the institution were hard working, teaching, researching and maintaining high level service responsibilities because of the few senior staff at the university, all were sent an email. (even) professors were disposable to a dumbed down institution. here is the email that was sent. from: sent: 11 october 2012 11:24 to: brabazon, tara subject: message from associate director of hr strategy and personnel dear colleague, as you will be aware proposals for consideration of the new university structure are currently being considered as part of a 30 day collective consultation process. the first of a series of union consultation meetings will take place at 10.30am today. in the proposal that is being considered for the new university structure your role is one of a number that the university has potentially identified to be at risk. as a consequence the university feels that prior to the brabazon, t., et al., women management and leadership, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) 43 commencement of the first of the union consultation meetings it is important to make you aware of the discussions that will take place with regards to your substantive role. the university wishes to emphasise that this is the initial stage of a collective consultation process which will provide an opportunity for all concerned to consider the new structure and propose alternatives if deemed necessary. the purpose of the collective consultation is also to seek ways of avoiding dismissals, reducing the number of employees to be dismissed and mitigating the consequences of redundancies. the university would like you to be reassured that only after collective consultation has been completed will roles be confirmed to be at risk. at this point all individuals whose role is affected will be invited to take part in individual consultation meetings. the university appreciates that this is a very difficult and unsettling time for employees but undertakes to ensure that employees are updated at the earliest opportunity as the collective consultation meetings progress. regards, there were only eight professors in the university. they became targets for this generic email. yet the professors were treated much better than the rest of the staff. paranoia, gossip, fear and loss became the punctuation of daily life. hr managed this process with a unique cruelty. the staff member who sent this message was the ‘associate director of hr strategy and personnel.’ in the havoc of that october, thirty-one of my staff left, being pushed and offered a financial reward to leave the institution. most mornings, a staff member cleaned their office, packed boxes and carried them to their car. we watched them walk across the carpark and leave the campus for the last time. most afternoons, my staff sat in my office, bent with worry, crying and fearful. i was fortunate. from the first week of the threats from the vice chancellor, i realized this would not be a stable institution. i applied for a few posts around the world, attained most of them, chose one, and moved back to australia. most staff were not so lucky. they left with no future plans or security. what made my case distinct is that because i was the only staff member who left under my own terms, i was also the only staff member who did not have to sign a ‘gag’ clause. colleagues were paid to never speak of the 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) conditions, actions and behaviour confronted within this institution and signed a legal document to confirm this gag. the staff needed the money, so they signed it. but i am the only insider who knows what happened, possess all the emails and moved to another post. this institution has continued to behave in this way towards its staff, and is receiving national press and legal action for the way they recently dismissed two staff. conversely, i have continued my career with great happiness and success in another role. during a burst of renewed publicity about my former vice chancellor’s ethics and behaviours, and 33 months after i left this institution, the former ‘associate director of hr strategy and personnel’ who wrote that message to me, sent me another, this time on facebook. hi tara, how are you? your pics on here look fab! i hope you are truely (sic) happy and your institution is better than the last one in the uk. i left a year ago as i’d moved to ********* with my partner and i’m now heading up hr at ********* for one of the colleges. absolutely love it and i’m now enjoying my work; something which i didn’t at ********. sorry we didn’t get a chance to work together more in a positive institution but i’m sure we will both agree we are better off out of there. it would be great to hear from you. love ##### ps i had a little girl on december 27th…loving being a mum…the most rewarding job in the world!!! how’s tricks down under for you? xxx this woman caused incalculable harm to hundreds of people. yet facebook is not a confessional. justifying it because ‘it was her job’ is not appropriate or adequate. but what is interesting – intriguing even – is after over two years without a message, she contacted me again. was it fear that i would tell the truth and speak of the institution and her behaviour? we will never know the answer to that question. but one truth of women in leadership is that our behaviour has consequences, and sending a message on facebook, mentioning a new job and motherhood, will never erase her behaviour and the cost to other staff and their families. intriguingly, it was only when her personal fear that the woman without a gag clause, who had left the country and moved into a successful post, may remember her role in this institutional armageddon that she tried to pretend we were friends, sharing particular ideologies of femininity. she failed. brabazon, t., et al., women management and leadership, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) 45 being better. doing better. women are not better administrators, managers or leaders than men. they are not worse administrators, managers or leaders than men. this article is poststructuralist in intent. we are not arguing that women are nurturing, caring, collaborative and kind and that men are ruthless, antagonistic and competitive. we leave such comments to the second wave of feminism. we raise a much more serious problem. the problem emerges when an ideology of masculinity – that is not tethered to the male body – is naturalized in and as leadership. that is why 77% of vice chancellors in australia are men and few ask how this has happened. the lack of outrage, the lack of questioning, is not only or primarily a structural dismissal and disregard of the feminine and/or the woman in our universities. it is a cascading series of assumptions about men, competence, innovation, power, authority and leadership (hearn 2001) that not only block change, but block the development of the questions that may enable change. dominating the a level lecturer ranks, women are teaching in an environment of hyper-casualization and contracts – which creates fear of labour surplus and redundancy – alongside the permanent revolution of online learning. when reaching management posts, they are capped at head of department / school and may aspire to the dean role in feminine-dominated areas such as health, education and the humanities. the ‘entrepreneurial university’ only intensifies the “techno-scientific masculinist norms” (hearn 2001, 335). there is another way to be a leader. this is not about being a nurturing woman. it is about recognizing that women – like men – in our universities are fully human and have a responsibility to represent and convey the best of our culture, rather than its debris. we do not have to stand for fear, injustice, neglect, bullying and ridicule. the final story in this article captures this spirit, desire and imperative to be better and do better. it involves elizabeth murray and tara brabazon making a decision to do the right thing – showing leadership – rather than compliant neoliberal management. as with most moment of ethical choices in our university, this incident commenced with an email. 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) from: sent: monday, 4 may 2015 3:44 pm to: brabazon, tara subject: presentation of deans merit hello tara, my name is *******. i am a 4th year student. today i received an email to tell me that i will be receiving a dean's merit certificate at the deans merit ceremony on may 27th. my father is currently in the palliative care stages of pancreatic cancer and the doctors do not think he has long to live they are talking days. this means that my very proud and devoted dad will probably not be able to make it to the ceremony at the end of the month as he will either be not alive or not able to move. he was very excited when i told him that i was getting another award. i am writing to you to ask if it would be possible for you or another member of staff to travel to orange where i am currently living with my parents to present the award to me with my father there to witness the occasion and be in a photo with me, my family and a faculty member. sometime this early/mid week would probably be best to ensure that dad is still cognitively aware and awake. i know that it would make him very happy and less stressed with the thought that he may miss out on another important occasion of my life. of course, i understand that this is an incredibly huge ask of the university and i totally understand if you are not able to organise for this to happen i know that all staff members are incredibly busy. please know that i will not be upset if you are unable to do this. thankyou for your time! kind regards, tara immediately made a decision to drive to orange, from the neighbouring small city bathurst, the next day. the school’s administrators prepared the certificate. the only problem was that a management meeting was being held. tara contacted elizabeth and at very short notice, and recognizing the importance of this situation, she agreed to attend the brabazon, t., et al., women management and leadership, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) 47 meeting as the associate head of school. her decision to step up to another level of management allowed the school and the university to demonstrate both leadership and care for our students. with these arrangements in order, tara replied. from: brabazon, tara to: date: tue, 5 may 2015 09:28:47 +1000 subject: re: presentation of deans merit wonderful *****, i have just received your message. i am so proud of you. i am so proud of your father and your entire family. i am thrilled and privileged to travel to orange tomorrow, if that is convenient. does the morning suit your father? you let me know. we’ll prepare the certificate today. you give me the best address where you would like the presentation to take place – and i’m there ☺ congratulations angel. and ***** – what is your father’s name? so i can wish him well in person. with every best wish to you. you are a fabulous person. t the address was given and the visit organized. as tara was about to get in the car – with certificate and flowers in hand – an even sadder email arrived. from: sent: wednesday, 6 may 2015 8:49 am to: brabazon, tara subject: re: presentation of deans merit hi tara, i am regretfully writing to you to tell you that dad has gone down hill a lot in the past 12 hours. he is no longer cognitively aware, able to talk, walk or get up out of bed. mum and i do not think it would be a good idea for you to come up to our house today as it is very confronting i am so sorry to do this to you!! i was honestly not expecting this to happen so soon! when i was talking to you yesterday he was still awake and walking around!!! if you do still want to come up please let me know! i just don't want to put you in an awkward position! 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) i cannot tell you how sorry i am to be such a pain and how truly greatful (sic) i am for you to do what you have done for me!!! i hope that your day can be put back on track!! i am so sorry tara! kind regards, tara replied that if her mother was comfortable, then the visit would continue. upon arrival, it was an incredibly moving and important experience. the extended family was present, photographs were taken and the student and tara went into the father’s room. tara spoke to him, told him how proud the school was of his daughter, and showed him the certificate. it was an incredible moment when this man walking through corporeal twilight and supposedly unconscious, opened his eyes, focussed on the certificate and said “dean.” although this remarkable man had given tara a promotion, he had acknowledged the dean’s merit award given to his outstanding daughter. elizabeth attended the meeting, fulfilled the role of a head of school and provided effective notes for tara to progress. the following day, tara received the – perhaps inevitable – email. from: sent: thursday, 7 may 2015 1:42 pm to: brabazon, tara subject: re: presentation of deans merit hello tara, we just wanted to say a huge thankyou for making the trip to orange yesterday to present my dean's merit. dad passed away this morning and i know that, with help from you, he felt he had witnessed as much as he could before he did pass. nothing would have made him more content to have known how proud the university is of me and how much i am valued by the uni. so for that, we say thankyou. thankyou for making some of my last moments with my dad so incredibly special!!!!!! it is rare in life that any of us have the opportunity to do something that is entirely good, beneficial, hopeful and right. too much of our working lives is punctuated by jealousy, brutality and competitiveness. yet because elizabeth recognized the importance of this situation, she moved her brabazon, t., et al., women management and leadership, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) 49 responsibilities so that tara could complete this one task for one family. this task will not change the world, transform the stature of higher education, achieve key performance indicators, lift the calibre of research or teaching. but it is a reminder of the truly human nature of our universities. it captures the belief that universities and the academics within them can represent, capture and sustain the best of what a nation can be. phrases like ‘leadership’ and ‘succession planning’ are proxies for understanding how power and the global financial crisis have changed the foundational project of universities. stanley aronowitz’s the knowledge factory, offered the most ruthless guide through university management. what is required is a new approach and a new way of thinking about management and leadership in our universities. it must be organic, integrated and aligned. in many ways, the older system of revolving departmental chairs is most effective. professors cannot dismiss ‘management’ as a series of tasks that other (lesser) scholars conduct because they are called to higher (research) duties. such a separation has had a profound impact on the organic nature of teaching and research. if we do not assist the next generation of scholars to create an integrated portfolio of functions for their career, then higher education, as much as individual academics, will suffer. steve hall stated that, “the question we must ask in future theory and research is whether an attenuated, modified variant of the potentially violent dissociated self has throughout the capitalist-modernist era been cultivated as an everyday form of subjectivity that combines the ability to exist as a normal law-abiding citizen yet retain and act out ruthlessly aggressive impulses in non-violent modes in the interconnected realms of consumerism, business and politics” (2014, 27). following on from his statements, in higher education are we validating and accepting the unacceptable through our compliance? are we saying the unsayable through our silence? are we maintaining a commitment to strategic plans and key performance outcomes while bullying lashes out from the compliance? this generational and institutional crisis is also a gendered crisis. morley stated that “quality is audited, equality is not” (2003, 522). the time has come for transparent auditing of social justice. how do women understand their lives – let alone their lived experience in the contemporary university? is it possible to disrupt the coded masculinity normalities, without reverting to “a range of simplistic male/female binaries that characterise research around leadership and gender” (blackmore, 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) sanchez-moreno and sawers 2015, iii). instead of questioning such binaries and norms, the horizontal division of labour in universities is increasing. women, such as the two authors of this article, “are clustered horizontally in middle management positions which they only occupy for a limited period of time” (blackmore, sanchez-moreno and sawers 2015, 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[33] twitter. 2015. “#manspreading,” https://twitter.com/hashtag/manspreading [34] whelan, a., walker, r. and moore, c. 2013. zombies in the academy: living death in higher education, bristol: intellect. [35] white, k. 2004. “the leaking pipeline: women postgraduate and early career researchers in australia.” tertiary education and management, 10: 227-241. [36] winter, r. 2009. “academic manager or managed academic? academic identity schisms in higher education.” journal of higher education policy and management, 31(2): 121-131. [37] wolfinger, n., mason, m. and goulden, m. 2008. “problems in the pipeline: gender marriage, and fertility in the ivory tower.” journal of higher education, 79(4): 388-405. [38] work and careers report. 2012. griffith university, october: http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/469192/work-andcareer-report-on-employee-survey_final-v2.pdf brabazon, t., et al., women management and leadership, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 28-53) 53 mislim da je ona sad odlučila da bude menadžer: žene, upravljanje i liderstvo u fabrici znanja a p s t r a k t stanley aronowitz je napisala knjigu 2000. godine koja je predvidela mnoge stvari. nazvala ju je fabrika znanja, ne stavljajući žene akademike u fokus, ali naglašavajući posledice odvajanja predavanja/istraživanja akademika od „menadžera“. ova razgraničenja nastave, istraživanja i menadžmenta su intezivirana kroz 2000-e. ovo predstavlja polno odvajanje. članak nudi model ženama koje se okreću liderstvu u visokom obrazovanju, na osnovu integracije nastave, istraživanja i univerzitetskih usluga. mi se zalažemo za transformaciju, od rosemary deem „menadžera-akademika“ do „akademika koji upravljaju“. ovo nije jednostavan preokret iz složenice na imenicu i glagol, već podsetnik da su lideri univerziteta pre svega akademici, koji upravljaju u skladu sa njihovim akademskim odgovornostima ključne reči: visoko obrazovanje, žene lideri, akademski menadžment, sukcesija planiranja, generacija x, feminiza article history: received: 10 june, 2015 accepted: 25 october, 2015 15_jwe_1-2 udk: 005.35 005.344:005.35-055.2 jel: h14, b54 cobiss.sr-id:215907596 scientific review social entrepreneurship: femininity in transformational change fournier lisa1 stratford university, falls church, va, united states a b s t r a c t social entrepreneurs are transformational change agents. using learning-bydoing as a tool, these entrepreneurs look to solve social challenges that provide long-term benefit for the environment and people. this can include helping to eradicate homelessness, poverty, human trafficking, bad water sources, pollution, and other issues that plague communities around the world. in order to solve these types of social challenges, a cooperative and caring environment focused on people needs to be instilled to shift societal norms. however, not all entrepreneurs choose to solve these types of problems, and, instead, look to shift industries through consumer-oriented products. this article purports that social entrepreneurs embrace certain femininity attributes, such as cooperation and caring, in order to instill the necessary learning that creates transformational change in people and raises resiliency levels in their communities. key words: social entrepreneurship, change agent, learning, innovation, community, resilience, transformation, femininity 1 address: 239 duke street, unit 102, norfolk, va 23510. email: lfournier@stratford.edu 4 fournier, l., social entrepreneurship, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 3-14) communities in crisis crisis in communities is not uncommon. whether addressing flooding in norfolk, virginia or cholera outbreaks in accra, ghana, resilience is required by residents to solve and overcome these pressing and potentially life-threatening challenges. cities that do not have resiliency, risk meeting their demise. cities, such as new orleans, louisiana facing hurricane katrina or ashkelon, israel facing terrorism threats (the rockefeller foundation, 2015). in addition, urbanization continues to grow, adding people to already large population centers. according to the 2014 world urbanization prospects from the united nations, “by 2050, 66 per cent of the world’s population is projected to be urban.” this is a change of 30 per cent since 1950 (united nations, 2014). for example, mexico city is the eighth wealthiest city and home to eight million people. it is, however, at risk of disaster with “the city's proliferation of informal employment, the lag in infrastructure, strong social inequality, severe weather, and the sheer size of its population—social disaster, political disaster, and environmental disaster” (the rockefeller foundation, 2015). furthermore, no longer can cities attract residents based on a central focus, such as car manufacturing in detroit, michigan. instead, cities must embrace the diversity of its many people and become resilient. it is this resiliency that emboldens city survival and propels cities into the future. resilience, by definition, is “the ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something happens” as defined in the merriamwebster online dictionary. furthermore, a community that shows resilience indicates its inherent adaptability to create positive and functional outcomes in times of crisis (a carri report, 2013). one of the reasons resiliency is not inherent in some cities is because they have become dependent— dependent upon a specific industry, traditional establishments, or hierarchical power structures with the unwillingness of the people to make transformational change (tidball & stedman, 2012). if these cities do not set an environment for resiliency, these cities face the risk of becoming obsolete. resiliency continues to garner the attention of global initiatives, such as the rockefeller foundation program, 100 resilient cities. this program helps cities such as norfolk, accra, new orleans, ashkelon, and mexico city to overcome the shocks and stresses that can break down the social and economic fabric of their communities. whether suffering from chronic food shortages or endemic violence, the 100 resilient cities plan is to help the journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 3-14) 5 city respond and become more resilient to meet these challenges head-on and adapt (the rockefeller foundation, 2015). part of establishing resiliency resides in taking deliberate action to solve problems through diverse and innovative thinking. this means developing the residents’ adaptive thinking skills in order to help transform the city into an interdependent culture. transforming the community culture from dependence to interdependence interdependence is being mutually reliant on one another for reciprocal benefit as defined by dictionary.com. this differs from being dependent and seeking aid from another or being independent and functioning in complete autonomy. globalization has increased interdependence as indicated by international trade (streeten, 2001). people come together and form relationships to share ideas and resources; not seek aid or work alone (weinstein, 2013). furthermore, with globalization and the proliferation of technology, people from various cultures have opportunities to more readily meet, resulting in the blurring of cultural lines to form common ground. common ground means people from different cultural backgrounds desire to have conversation with one another and seek familiar discussion topics (fast, heath wu, 2009). the challenge lies in accepting self as well as another person’s culture within this conversation for social acceptance and personal well-being (gudykunst, 2003). this is the underpinning of forming interdependent relationships. although culture is comprised of people and their social norms, beliefs, and behaviors, culture is also inherent in cities. over time, the people reinforce the culture and the culture solidifies the behavior of the city. as one researcher puts forth, culture means “the way we do things around here” (martin, 2006). culture can find equilibrium between diverse people for societal transformation or it can be divisive and support whatever status quo the city is dependent on. this is where communities begin breaking down and societal and environmental challenges rise up (tidball & stedman, 2012). at this juncture, people make choices to remain dependent, avoid the challenge, or become part of an interdependent solution. this interdependence is the middle ground that encourages diversity in thinking and inclusion in action—key components in developing resiliency and 6 fournier, l., social entrepreneurship, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 3-14) transforming community culture (weinstein, 2013). ghana is an example of people and the government forming an interdependent solution. cocoa farming in ghana was influenced by a traditional three-tiered class system and the government in the early and mid 20th century (kolavalli & vigneri, 2011). over time, the cocoa industry fluctuated and the farmer ended up with the economic brunt of supporting the cost of an overvalued exchange rate. the farmers and the land were suffering due to the lack of available resources to use toward reinvestment into the infrastructure or into basic needs for the people. over-inflation began to rise and poverty resulted. however, in the 1990s it started to transform when the government and its people began to establish an equilibrium between their roles. according to kolavalli & vigneri (2011), the appropriate policies were put into place by the government to adjust the exchange rates. this means that a greater share of the price was passed on to the farmers. the private sector was then able to improve on its responsibilities. the output was jobs and the economic impact was that poverty decreased from “51.7 percent in the 1990s to 28.5 percent in the mid-2000s (kolavalli & vigneri, 2011). although the government solved a pressing macro-economic challenge in ghana, the farmers were still dependent on the government through a state-owned company, cocoa marketing company, the single exporter of ghana cocoa (divine chocolate, 2011). therefore, resiliency was not necessarily embedded in the cultural norms of the people. however, a visionary farmer saw an opportunity to make a shift in how the farmers sold their cocoa. this visionary was a social entrepreneur who wanted to help farmers become more interdependent through learning how to do business differently, ultimately creating a more resilient community. social entrepreneurs as transformational change agents social entrepreneurs look to create wide-scale transformation “by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading entire societies to move in different directions…change agents for society” (ashoka, n.d.). whereas business entrepreneurs look to shift industries through innovative products and services; social entrepreneurs look to help communities take action on pressing social and environmental challenges, such as homelessness, pollution, and bad water (martin & osberg, 2007). social entrepreneurs create and nurture a learning-by-doing environment to shift people’s mindsets—mindsets steeped in dependent or independent journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 3-14) 7 thinking—to one of interdependent behaviors. nana frimpong abrebrese was this type of social entrepreneur. nana frimpong abrebrese cared about the ghanaian cocoa farmers and influenced them to pool their resources and set-up the kuapa kokoo cooperative to trade with the cocoa marketing company. rather than being dependent on one source, the state-owned cocoa marketing company, kuapa kokoo created an interdependent balance among the farmers as well as with companies in other cultures. according to the divine choocolate website: kuapa kokoo which means good cocoa growers has a mission to empower farmers in their efforts to gain a dignified livelihood, to increase women's participation in all of kuapa's activities, and to develop environmentally friendly cultivation of cocoa. it doesn't cheat the farmers by using inaccurate weighing scales, as other buying agents often do, and because it operates so efficiently, it can pass on the savings to its members. after seeing the benefits kuapa gains for its members, more and more farmers want to join and the association now has upwards of 65,000 members organized in approximately 1400 village societies. this shift in the societal norms allowed the marginalized cocoa farmers to achieve a quality of life that liberated people (martin & osberg, 2007). trapped potential was unlocked for the people in a cooperative and caring environment. within this environment, the farmers learned how to accept each other as well as do business in other countries. the impossible turned into the possible and resiliency began to take root—the community culture started shifting to one of interdependence. cooperative and caring environment for learning geert hofstede, a social psychologist, introduced the concept of dimensions in culture (the hofstede centre, n.d.). dimensions that provide a scale of how a culture functions, such as how the people of that culture embrace uncertainty (hofstede & hofstede, 2005). hofstede went so far as to provide a mapping of these dimensions and their scales for each country. one of the dimensions is that of masculinity and femininity. according to the hofstede centre (n.d.), the masculinity dimension “represents a 8 fournier, l., social entrepreneurship, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 3-14) preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness and material rewards for success. its opposite, femininity, stands for a preference for cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life.” societies with a leaning toward masculinity are more competitive, and those that are on the femininity dimension are more consensus-oriented (hofstede centre). “a society is called masculine when emotional gender roles are clearly distinct. a society is called feminine when emotional gender roles overlap: both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life” (hofstede & hofstede 2005, p. 120). an example of social entrepreneurship embracing femininity attributes is artesanas campesinas, a cooperative helping to eradicate poverty in mexico. rural locations in mexico suffer from extreme poverty. in order to escape this poverty, many mexicans cross over the us border in hopes of a better life. however, this causes problems within the us borders as well as riffs within mexican families (walser et al., 2011). social entrepreneurs formed a women-owned cooperative that makes silver jewelry to support women and children in the region. the cooperative “introduces new methods, materials, and machinery to compete in the highly competitive jewelry market…the artisans have become business women” (artesans campesinas, n.d.). the cooperative provides food, healthcare, and a means of support. it has developed a resilience, surviving through highly competitive challenges. this cooperative cares about the quality of life for these rural families. the people have developed fortitude in a learning-bydoing environment. learning creates fortitude fortitude is the “strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage,” according the merriamwebster dictionary. this strength of mind is developed by knowing something is possible, controlling fear, and taking action on it (titus, 2006, p.147). the opposites, self-doubt, self-preservation, or egotism, breaks down this strength of mind and creates fear (robbins & friedman, n.d.). self-doubt in people is negatively reinforced by societal norms. in turn, the self-doubting people reinforce societal norms. to break this cycle, concept of self needs to change and fortitude developed. “our ‘self’ is a lifelong accumulation of impressions. how we see and evaluate our ‘selves’ journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 3-14) 9 and others' selves has a tremendous impact on self-acceptance, self-control, and acceptance of others” (tucker-ladd, 1996). an example of women achieving a mindset of self-acceptance and overcoming slavery is through malia designs, social entrepreneurs who started a business to help eradicate human trafficking. human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar industry that affects millions of people (malia designs, n.d.). women and children are vulnerable from the combination of widespread poverty and lack of state support systems (united nations office on drugs and crime, 2012). according to malia designs, “human trafficking is today’s most widespread human rights violation and crime against humanity.” social entrepreneurs formed malia designs to help victims caught up in the illegal trade of human trafficking. the company formed a cooperative to help victims learn-by-doing a new trade to earn a sustainable income and have a quality of life. malia designs makes products, such as tote bags, from recycled materials. in addition, malia designs also assists with the women’s daily living challenges, such as providing for childcare and education. this caring and acceptance has helped women to break the cycle and gain their freedom. self-doubt impressions are steeped in learned frameworks that have been negatively reinforced over time by family, friends, and experiences (belmont university, n.d.). to develop self-acceptance and accept others, the “learned” frameworks need to be “un-learned” and new ones set into place through positive experiences (argyris & schön, 1974). according to ambrose, et al., “learning is a process; learning involves change in knowledge, beliefs, behaviors, or attitudes; learning is something students themselves do.” (ambrose et al., 2010, p. 3). learners acquire knowledge through rationale or experiences that then shape people’s beliefs and their truths (importance of philosophy, n.d.). learners must be provided these types of positive learning environments to develop a strength of mind—a strength of mind for people to shift from a mindset of apathy to one of courage, knowing they can achieve a life of liberation once thought impossible. an example is mata traders. mata traders is a cooperative in nepal. nepal struggles with the deep roots of child labor. thirty-three percent of the population are children ages 5-14—victims of child labor (united states department of labor, n.d.). “every year thousands of children migrate to the megacities of india to find work and send money back to their families” (traders). mata traders is 10 fournier, l., social entrepreneurship, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 3-14) helping to eradicate child labor at its root cause by providing a means for women to earn a wage and educate their children. the change can be seen not only in the life of the woman employed by the co-op, but especially in the next generation, and the children the woman can afford to educate. these social entrepreneurs from kuapa kokoo, artesanas campesinas, malia designs, and mata traders have provided a learning-by-doing, interdependent environment for people to develop fortitude; an environment with a foundation of cooperation, caring, and acceptance with a focus on quality of life through knowledge; an environment that embraces “the natural desire to know truth…overcoming timidity and fear through acts of fortitude” (titus, 2006, p. 160). people within these cooperatives have the opportunity to shift their minds from the impossible to possible and spark resiliency in their community culture. this type of environment embraces characteristics based on femininity attributes. social entrepreneurs, such as kuapa kokoo, artesanas campesinas, malia designs, and mata traders function as transformational change agents for their communities to develop new mindsets and become sustainable. they create a learning-by-doing environment that engenders femininity characteristics of cooperation, caring, and acceptance (hofstede & hofstede, 2005). these social entrepreneurs use cooperative business as an equilibrium for people to have a better quality of life and raise resiliency within their cities and communities (robbins, 1994). conclusion cities must embrace the diversity of its many people and become resilient for survival in the future. people’s attitudes and behaviors must transform as along with shifts in societal norms. this requires deep change within a person’s beliefs. learning-by-doing allows for this type of deep change within a person. it is a process the person is willing to undertake because they envision the possible and a new quality of life. they are provided a learning and supportive environment to overcome self-doubt. during the transformation, self-acceptance is experienced and fortitude developed. this is positively reinforced within the new environment of cooperation, caring, and acceptance. a confidence is embraced and adaptability ensues, going beyond the plan, creating a nimbleness and the courage to act on it. the result is a shift in community culture and the rise of resiliency. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 3-14) 11 if these are the types of attributes necessary to bring resilience into communities, this paper purports that women in entrepreneurial leadership roles can influence masculinity-based cultures. according to hofstede and hofstede (2005), “women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life.” (p. 120). however, it is not necessary for women to change the dominant culture as much as work within it to transform the heart and belief of the people within the community. women can bring forth their natural femininity characteristics to help create a cooperative culture through social entrepreneurship that brings an equilibrium to masculinity attributes and traditional norms. this same equilibrium encourages an adaptable mindset for cities to be resilient through its people. “the degree to which minds are changed, suffering is alleviated or injustice is reversed represents…success. wealth is simply a tool the entrepreneur uses to effect social change” (uhlig, n.d.). this paper is not without its limitations, in which it needs further investigation. for instance, there are many perspectives and research studies regarding the role of gender in entrepreneurship as well as the attributes of transformational learning environments. finally, there are a number of determinants that were not considered in this analysis due to data limitations of 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[26] united nations, “world urbanization prospects,” (new york, united nations, 2014). accessed february 26, 2015, http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/highlights/wup2014-highlights.pdf [27] united nations office on drugs and crime, “global report on trafficking in persons,” (new york: united nations, 2012). accessed february 26, 2015, http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-andanalysis/glotip/trafficking_in_persons_2012_web.pdf. [28] united states department of labor, “nepal: 2013 findings on the worst forms of child labor,” in united states department of labor website. 14 fournier, l., social entrepreneurship, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 3-14) accessed marc 1, 2015, http://www.dol.gov/ilab/reports/childlabor/nepal.htm. [29] walser, r., mcneill, j. b., & zuckerman, j., “the human tragedy of illegal immigration: greater efforts needed to combat smuggling and violence,” in the heritage foundation website, accessed march 1, 2015, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/the-human-tragedy-ofillegal-immigration-greater-efforts-needed-to-combat-smuggling-andviolence [30] weinstein, z. “social resilience: the case of diversity and inclusion in the israeli project renewal,” (2013). accessed february 26, 2015, http://www.rc21.org/conferences/berlin2013/rc21-berlin-papers-2/14weinstein.pdf socijalno preduzetništvo: ženske vrednosti u transformacionim promenama a p s t r a k t socijalni preduzetnici su katalizatori transformacionih promena. koristeći učenje kroz rad kao alat, ovi preduzetnici pokušavaju da rešavaju socijalne izazove kako bi obezbedili dugoročnu korist za životnu sredinu i ljude. naime, reč je o pomaganju u iskorenjivanju beskućništva, siromaštva, trgovine ljudima, loših izvora vode, zagađenja, kao i drugim izazovima koji muče zajednice širom sveta. u svrhu rešavanja pomenutih vrsta socijalnih izazova, neophodno je uključiti kooperativno i brižno okruženje fokusirano na ljude u proces pomeranja društvenih normi. međutim, nisu svi preduzetnici spremni da rešavaju takve probleme, već, umesto toga, pomeraju proizvodnju prema potrošački orijentisanim proizvodima. ovaj članak ukazuje na to da socijalni preduzetnici prihvataju određene ženske vrednosti, kao što su saradnja i briga, kako bi se usadili neophodni principi učenja koji stvaraju transformacione promene u ljudima i podižu nivo otpornosti u njihovim zajednicama. ključne reči: socijalno preduzetništvo, katalizator promena, učenje, inovacije, zajednica, transformacija, žene article history: received: 20 february, 2015 accepted: 5 april, 2015 microsoft word 10_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 305-055.2 jel: b54; i2 scientific report women in the age of chivalry and heraldry blount lawanna*, american school of genealogy, heraldry and documentary sciences, usa a b s t r a c t author discussed the important traditions and rules that the age of chivalry demanded of women in the bearing of arms and how their education reflected the needs of the era. she then indicated current changes about women and the bearing of arms. kew words: women, education, age of chivalry and heraldry introduction while we see many images of women in the age of chivalry and heraldry, there is little wittten about women of this time. what can we say about the role of women in the age of chivalry and heraldry. were there rules of behavior and protocols for women in the bearing of arms? as it was, the foundation of this age of feudalism--the lands, the military and the fighting for “heraldry was the province of the knights.” 2 “ it was because of the loyalty of such men that wars could be fought and won.” 3 however, people began to realize that wars were not constantly being waged, and, if they were always battle ready, knights could become dangerous and barbaric, which was potentially detrimental to the well * vice-president of american school of genealogy, heraldry and documentary sciences, usa journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 47-58) 48 being of the country and its citizens. 4 thus, the “code of chivalry,” a set of ethics and rules, became the tool by which the behavior of the early knights focused on warfare could be monitored and regulated. the “code of chivalry” was a necessary institution in the age of heraldry that brought order and established the parameters of acceptable moral behavior among these wayfaring knights. 5 it was the thinking of thomas hobbs, a social philosopher of the 1600s, that brought about the basic tenets of sociology. his philosophy was that man is by nature violent and will always act to further his own agenda in order to gain power and overthrow others. his thinking was important because he addressed one of the fundamental questions in social theory: “how can some semblance of social order and organization be created and maintained?" 6 thus, it was the implementation of the code of chivalry , a set of ethcs that addressed the social order. the code cultivated the warlike behavior of the knights.7 they needed to honor god, go to church, protect women and the weak, love their country, make was against the non believers (infidels) of god, perform their feudal duties, never tell falsehoods, give to all, and, finally to stand up for rightenousness and goodness. 8 influential women in the age of chivalry influential women of heraldry there were two women who were very influential in this time and wrote of the age of chivalry and the code of chivalry. they were christine de pisan (c. 1364 c. 1430), who followed the teaching of honore bonet (c. 1380) and wrote the book of feats of arms and chivalry (1408-09). she addressed issues that clearly illustrated her knowledge of the military era of the early 15th century. 9 along with the work of christine de pisan is that of raymond lull, 10 who wrote the book of the order of chivalry in 1275. this work was a textbook at that time of chivalry, which focused on converting the heathen to christianity. it was enthusiastically received by the rulers of all europe whose goal it was to make their courts centers of learning and culture based around the chivalric code and courtly love with the pageantry of tournaments and the winning of a lady. it would provide the tools by which blount, l., women in the age of chivalry, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 47-58) 49 courtiers became more civilized and cultivated and, thus, molded into a loyal and dedicated force for the country. 11 arms and illiteracy in the middle ages, many people were illiterate. there was a need for members of the nobility to find a way to identify themselves and their family lineage. not only were they proud of their heritage, it was important for a knight to be able to identify the lineage of the house into which he was born. his arms told a genealogical story, a story of his noble birth, his marriages and the alliances of houses, his children, how many sons he had and their marks of cadency, his daughters with their marks of differentiation, and his wives of noble birth and from which noble family they came. however, in spite of the complexity of arms, fox davies 12 laments, “bearing in mind that armory was so deeply interwoven with all that was best in chivalry, it is curious that the armorial status of a woman should have been left so undefined.” chivalry and women chivalry, feudalism and heraldry were inseparable components in the middle ages; it was knights, the lands and warfare that send visual images to us over the feudal period. we must recall that it was an essentially military period in history in which protecting the lands and fighting vassals were the primary concerns. because of these conditions, the role of women in society was a disadvantageous one.13 also, feudalism was another factor that shaped and molded the concept of marriage and the role of women in society. some men thought that a “most beautiful woman in the whole world was less than equal to a good horse or a fine lance thrust.” 14 girls were married at 12 years of age and knights at 15. this was the rule of canonical law taken from the canonical tribunals.15 these tribunals were consulted on the issue of marriage. girls needed the consent of both parents and young men the consent of their fathers.15 canonical law was often disregarded, however, as marriages were often arranged between fathers of children sometimes as young as 5 years of age.16 in this age of military warfare, it benefited a woman, especially if she was an heraldic heiress, to have a husband to protect her and her lands from plunder and seizure. 17 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 47-58) 50 if in dire need of a husband, women would sometimes go to the king as widows. “find me a husband, a powerful husband to protect my lands,” or, “my father died two months ago. i request you to find me a husband.” widows hardly had time to grieve after the deaths of their husbands because it meant that their lands were vulnerable. for that reason, feudal marriages needed to be completed very quickly. 18 the young girls and education most noble young ladies were educated when very young. many had hired governesses who oversaw their education. the young lady of that time was religious and assisted at mass every day. she read latin and learned the songs of the wandering minstrels that came to the castle. she knew some arithmetic and science and prepared remedies for illnesses. she was also taught basic housewife tasks such as sewing and weaving and could embroider and make the clothes for the family. in addition, she was schooled in the ways of being a proper hostess when knights came to the castle or manor. 19 women and arms there is evidence that the noblewomen in europe in earlier centuries (for example, the 13th through the 15th) were found to have born their arms on shields that were oval in shape and did not have a crest. research by slater 20 indicates that on monuments women were sometimes depicted holding shields. however, because the shield was a military device and was associated with warfare, it was deemed an inappropriate symbol for women. it was eventually replaced by another shape for the identification of the noble alliances and lineage of women, the lozenge. 21 there is no record of when this custom was adopted. 22 however, because it somewhat distorted the placement of arms, the lozenge was not considered as appropriate as the more effective oval shape. a seal from a noble woman circa 1347 was found and included in the design are five small lozenges. 23 however, by the 15th century, the diamond shaped lozenge was the preferred configuration for the display of women’s arms in britain, france and the low countries. when you view the lozenge, it is quickly apparent how such a shape would distort the arms. 24 blount, l., women in the age of chivalry, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 47-58) 51 in this military period of feudalism and chivalry, women were not allowed to use certain devices that were essentially militaristic. let what is definitely known be stated. in the first place, no woman (save a sovereign,) can inherit, use or transmit crest or motto, nor may she use a helmet or mantling. all daughters, if unmarried, bear upon a lozenge the paternal arms and quarterings of their father, with his difference marks. if their mother were an heiress, they quarter her arms with those of her father. 25 there was no appropriate mode for a married woman (other than a peeress in her own right) to display her own arms during the lifetime of her husband. 26 her arms were placed on her husband’s shield as an escutcheon of pretence or as a quartering. however, this ruling has now changed. recently, the english kingof-arms has ruled “that a married woman may bear her paternal arms, even if her husband is not armiger us.” her arms would be displayed "on a shield or a banner differenced by a small escutcheon of a contrasting tincture in a corner or elsewhere on the shield, in a manner most suitable to the design.” 27 “furthermore, the ruling states that even if the wife comes from an armigerous family, she may bear her husband’s arms alone, the shield charged with a small lozenge.” 28 however, an unmarried woman who is either the head of a college or a mayor may impale the arms of the college or corporation alongside her own with the official arms on the right (dexter) side. 29 the “law of arms” 30 was written at a time when a wife's arms were placed on a small shield in the center of the larger shield of her husband. fox-davies further remarks: as an unmarried heiress she undoubtedly was a somebody; as a widowed and richly jointed dowager she was likewise of account but as a wedded wife her identify was lost, for the married woman’s property act was not in existence, nor was it thought of. so completely was it recognized that all rights and inheritance of the wife devolved of right upon the husband, that formerly the husband enjoyed any peerage honours which had descended to the wife and, was summoned to parliament as a peer in his wife’s peerage. small wonder, then, that the same ideas dominated the rules of armory. these only provide ways and methods for the husband to bear the wife’s arms. 31 in recent years english married women are allowed to bear their own arms on a shield rather than marital arms as custom dictates. a small blank journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 47-58) 52 escutcheon is placed in the center of the shield of a woman bearing her own arms. 32 margaret thatcher’s arms have a blank escutcheon in the center; this signifies that they are hers and not her husband’s. 33 a divorced woman may bear her paternal arms with a mascle. 34 (a mascle is a lozenge with its center removed.) 35 a widow is allowed to bear her husband’s arms on a lozenge with her own arms impaled or in escutcheon of pretence. 36 spinsters or unmarried daughters could bear their paternal arms on a lozenge, which was mounted by a ribbon and was often blue. 37 women bear the cadency marks of their fathers, but, unlike the cadency of sons, girls have no differentiated birth order markings.38 however, today, as women have their own careers and interests separate from their husbands, a married woman may use her arms for her own purposes. 39 also, husbands are permitted to use their arms without their wives’ coats impaled or on escutcheons of pretence. however, it is not appropriate for a married woman to use only her family arms. married women are not permitted to use married arms on a lozenge because this is the mode that is used by a widow. 40 a married woman should place the arms of her husband as well as her own arms for her particular purposes. brooke-little 41 refers to fox davies, who he believes knows the correct precedents. she should place the arms of her husband and then herself on a shield with a knot of ribbon above it. this impalement, or escutcheon of pretence, will indicate that they are married, and a knot indicates that the arms are those of a woman. 42 the marshalling of women’s arms woodcock 43 gives us a the definition: “marshalling of arms is the proper arrangement of armorial bearings to denote rank and condition connection by marriage or representation of families.” the term was used to denote a side-by-side alliance of two coats on a shield. it was used when marriage was displayed on seals and monuments during the early years of the days of heraldry. the complete shields of the husband and the wife were placed on the shield, and they simply chopped the shields in half vertically. this was known as “dimidiation.” however, the two sides placed together on the shield often ended up with ludicrous animals or other odd figures, such as lions with the hind parts of eagles or blount, l., women in the age of chivalry, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 47-58) 53 lilies. this practice of “dimidiation” was neither effective nor well liked, so it became the custom at the end of the 14th century during the reign of edward iii 44 for both full coats to be depicted on one shield. 45 according to slater,46 putting two or more full coats of arms on one shield is known as “marshalling.” quartering of arms quartering was the method by which alliances made through marriage were displayed. this indicated how estates or “fiefdoms” were established and built up through these alliances. this custom differed depending on the country as they each had their own heraldic rules for quartering.47 as the middle ages progressed toward the late medieval period, pedigrees, family papers and shields all became more complex because of the method of quartering.48 heraldic heiresses with her marriage, an heraldic heiress, a woman from a family without a direct male heir, brings an “escutcheon of pretence” to the marital shield. as a result, the husband, instead of having his wife’s arms alongside his on the marital shield, placed her arms in a small shield in the center of his arms. this small shield is known as an “escutcheon of pretence.” the husband is pretending to be the male head of his wife’s family. thus, “any children born to the marriage can bear their father’s arms and also those of their mother (to be on a shield for a son, or a lozenge for a daughter, as quartering).” 49 women, cadency and children cadency is an important part of the british armory system as it is used to differentiate children from the head of a family. the rationale of heraldry is its ability to identify individuals’ ancestry, as well as their rank or title. thus, the coat of arms became a pictorial signature of the armiger. 50 fox davies 51 maintains that “the manner in which cadency is indicated in heraldic emblazonment forms one of the most important parts of british journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 47-58) 54 armory,” and that differentiating arms in this way is seen as an obligation. this was recognized universally in the 14th century. let us first look at well defined and designed cadency markings for the sons of a family and then we will turn to the girls in the family. cadency is normally used for the male line. growing out of the feudal system, its function was to protect the land. the arms became territorial and familial. however, the male head of the family only temporarily owned arms.52 thus, it was necessary to give a mark of cadency for the first-born son. this first mark of differentiation in heraldry was known as the label and was the first mark of differentiation. this seems to date from the early or middle part of the 13th century.53 the first-born son was the heir apparent, and it was necessary to identify him as he would eventually bear the arms of his father. in addition, the lord of the estate and the heir apparent were the most important members of the family. this was understandable as the heir apparent needed to learn the work of the estate. 54 as early as 1410 there were several issues that led to the need to devise cadency markings for the younger sons. one was the case of scrope and governor. 55 the cadency marks of the sons were as follows: the mark of the second son was a crescent, the third son a millet, the fourth son a mantle (a bird without feet), the fifth son an annulet, the sixth son a fleur-de-lis, the seventh son a rose, the eighth son a cress mine, and the ninth son a double quatrefoil.56 “the position for the mark of difference is in the centre chief point, or it can be charged on a chevron or fess in the centre point.” 57 there is no mark of cadency for the girls in the family. cadency is used to indicate the birth order of sons.58 girls were considered equal in whichever order they were born. in england, they each bore a mark of difference. adopted children, after they were granted a royal license, could use arms of their adoptive parents.59 the position of illegitimate children, and the arms of their lineage, is one of the more undefined areas of heraldry. 60 in 1464, the chief herald of the duke of burgundy wrote, “a bastard may carry the arms of his father with a baton sinister.” however, slater 61 notes that the baton sinister is only one of the heraldic marks used to differentiate illegitimacy. blount, l., women in the age of chivalry, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 47-58) 55 for illegitimate children to use the arms of their father, the father must first acknowledge paternity to the illegitimate child or children. then, there must be a royal license of illegitimate children issued. only then can a royal license be granted to use the arms of the father. however, there must be a differencing mark, which is usually a wavy border.62 in england, a female illegitimate child can become an heraldic heiress and is further allowed to transmit her father's arms to her children. however, there must be a mark of difference on the arms that indicates illegitimacy.63 in scotland, there is only one mark of official illegitimacy--the bordure company--which is a border divided into segments.64 in ireland, slater tells us that illegitimacy is not recognized in heraldry.65 even more distinct in the heraldic literature we read about are the spanish arms and titles as that inheritance comes through the female line. 66 it is also curious that there is no constraint upon illegitimate children as there is in england, france, and germany. “in general, it was considered that a family pedigree could be more damaged by misalliance than by illegitimacy.”67 foxdavies describes several examples of the arms of illegitimacy and speaks of the illegitimate son of henry viii. one of the most curious bastardized coats is that of henry fitzroy, duke of ichmond and somerset, illegitimate son of henry viii. this shows the royal arms within a bordure quarterly ermine and counter-company or and azure, debussed by a baton sinister argent, an in escutcheon quarterly gules and varied or and vet possibly hinting at the blount arms of his mother, barry nebula or an sable over all a lion rampant argent, on a chief azure a tower between a stags heads abashed argent, attired or.68 women and heraldic dress we have seen pictures of women in the middle ages. women of nobility had heraldic dress, which was of the most beautiful cloth and was worn for ceremonial occasions. lady sabine dubourbonnais69 wrote about heraldic dresses for women to help those who wished to create armorial dresses. she found that although such gowns appear on numerous sources such as funeral journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 47-58) 56 monuments, brass effigies/ inscriptions and illuminated manuscripts, there was little evidence to support that gowns carried marks of heraldry in the fashions of the age. however, she points out there is one notable exception, that of royal ceremonial dress. she indicates that for important state events it appears that royal women would have been wearing heavily emblazoned gowns, which were the traditional ceremonial gowns. she maintains that mantles and cloaks were especially made for the same traditional ceremonial uses (http://www.sca.org.au/stflorians/university/library/articleshowtos/heraldry/geraldry/gerakducfriocks5, gtn). the gowns and cloaks that the noble heraldic women wore conferred rank, wealth and status in medieval royal courts. thus, the queens and royal princesses had the arms of their countries emblazoned on their gowns. however, other minor nobles of the court would not attend state ceremonies. thus, they would not have had such gowns.70 for places to see the heraldic dress of the middle ages one can find it in funeral monuments, brass effigies and inscriptions, illuminated manuscripts, extant garments and textiles, armorial rolls and in museums. sources can be found on the types and styles of heraldic garments for women.71 conclusion in this paper i have tried to identify some important traditions that women of the heraldic and chivalric age lived by, and have identified more current changes that have been made about women and the bearing of arms. references [1] daly-weir, catherine, coat of arms, new york: grosset and dunlap, 2000, 7. [2] slater, stephen. the complete book of heraldry, london: anness pub. co., 2004, 16. [3] ibid. [4] ibid. [5] lindgren, carl edwin, “education and chivalric values,” http://users.panola.comaaghs/ articles/ethics .htm “pearls of wisdom, gems of life: a view of moral education in america during the past 160 years.” the educational review, volume 98, number 1:4-7. reprinted on –line as “ education and chivalric values” -may 2009. blount, l., women in the age of chivalry, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 47-58) 57 [6] turner, jonathan. the structure of sociological theory, homewood, ill., the dorsey press, 1974, 1. [7] slater, 16 [8] gautier, leon, jacque levron, ed. chivalry, london: phoenix house, 1959, 9, 10. [9] slater, 16. [10] slater, 16. [11] slater, 16, 17, 12. [12] fox-davies, arthur charles. a complete guide to heraldry, new york: bonanza books, 1978, 572. [13] gautier, 135. [14] gautier, 139. [15] gautier, 140. [16] gautier, 140. [17] gautier, 135. [18] gautier, 135. [19] gautier, 145-146. [20] slater, 112. [21] slater, 112. [22] slater, 113. [23] slater, 113. [24] slater, 113. [25] fox-davies, 572. [26] fox-davies, 534. [27] slater, 115. [28] slater, 115. [29] brooke-little, j.p., richmond herald of arms, boutell’s heraldry, london, frederick warne and company, 1953, 147. [30] fox-davies, 578. [31] fox-davies, 573. [32] slater, 121. [33] slater, 121. [34] woodcock, thomas, and john marten robinson, the oxford guide to heraldry, oxford university press: 1988, 116. [35] slater, , 251. [36] woodcock and robinson, 116. [37] fox-davies, 572. [38] woodcock and robinson, 116. [39] brooke-little, 147. [40] brooke-little, 147. [41] brooke-little, 147 [42] fox-davies in brook-little, 147. [43] woodcock, 116. [44] woodcock and robinson, 118. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 47-58) 58 [45] slater, 114. [46] slater, 114. [47] slater, 116-17. [48] slater, 116. [49] slater, 116. [50] slater, 120 [51] fox-davies, 477. [52] fox-davies, 478-479. [53] fox-davies 479. [54] fox eavies, 478. [55] fox-davies, 478. [56] fox-davies, 489. [57] fox-davies, 489. [58] slater, 121. [59] slater, 121. [60] slater, 122. [61] slater, 122. [62] slater, 123. [63] slater, 123 [64] slater 122. [65] slater, 123. [66] woodcock and robinson, 23. [67] woodcock and robinson, 23 [68] fox-davies, 522. [69] lady sabine du bourbonnais, http://www.sca.org.au/st florians/university/library/articles-howtos/heraldry/geraldry/gerakducfriocks5, gtn). [70] lady sabine du bourbonnais, 2 [71] lady sabine du bourbonnais, 4. received: 9 june 2010 article history: accepted: 10 october 2010 15_jwe_1-2 udk: 005.336.1-055.2 jel: b54, l26 cobiss.sr-id: 215908620 original scientific paper images of success of women entrepreneurs: the impact of religion on launching, operating and sustaining a business venture holland neila, stratford university, united states a b s t r a c t this paper describes an empirical investigation undertaken with the purpose of examining whether religion beliefs and faith impact on the launching and the operations of women’s owned businesses. this qualitative study focused on the women’s perception whether religion, as a major component of culture, played a role in the decision of starting up their business, as well on their testimonials whether this perception influence the way they view their business and the success generated from it. twenty six american women business owners participated in this study and were interviewed with a view to examining whether, according to their views, their religious background had any influence on their businesses. the results support the existence of a strong link between religious beliefs and women’s entrepreneurial motives and the findings are consistent with past studies. the women’s testimonials and perceptions demonstrated that their strong tie with religious beliefs and god fosters the desire to be successful with their ventures. in this study, there is support for the idea that, religion, as a robust cultural dimension, does in fact influence these women’s entrepreneurial processes and aspirations. key words: women entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial ventures, motivation to launch a venture 16 holland, n., images of success of women entrepreneurs, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 15-26) introduction women entrepreneurs have been increasing in large numbers and although women’s participation in the creation of entrepreneurial ventures have been well documented in global reports (gem, 2014), the perception and the images of success held by these female entrepreneurs, as it relates to the reasons why they enter the enterprising process, is still a work in progress. a strand of research analyzed the impact of cultural dimensions on the women’s perception of success and motivation to launch a venture (anderson, 2010; galbraith et al., 2004; cousins, 1996) and it has been reported that religion plays an important role in women’s entrepreneurship (holland, 2014). images of success and the research questions although patriarchal cultural heritage encountered in certain societies precludes female entrepreneurship (jonathan & da silva, 2007), especially in certain developing nations, women’s owned businesses still flourish at a very high speed. but the questions remain: what motivates these women to establish and grow a business besides the usual financial motivator? is there any underlining robust cultural factor that strongly fosters entrepreneurship? what are the women’s perception and images of success? does religion, as a strong cultural component, play a major role in female entrepreneurship? the main objective of this study was to investigate whether, religion, as a major component of culture, impact on women’s reason to launch, operate and sustain a business venture. other factors such as perception of success, were also examined. literature review entrepreneurs carry a series of behavioral characteristics of the person carrying out the act of enterprising (holland, 2010). conditions leading to entrepreneurial activities range from personal, cultural and institutional and are impacted by external competitive forces, levels of business innovation, variety of offerings (products and services), and individual entrepreneurial efforts (wennekas & thurick, 1999). journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 15-26) 17 past studies indicate that enterprising is deep rooted in social and cultural contexts and it is impacted by societal possible stereotyping and preconceptions (fonchingong, 2005; pelegrino, 2005). a woman’s desire for self fulfilment, independence and selfactualization have been indicated as factors associated with the desire to own her own business (orhan & scott, 2001; deakins et al, 2002). a strand of research reveals that entrepreneurial women often list some type of ‘critical incident’, there is, a critical moment in their lives that triggered the venture creation (scheinberg & macmilland, 1988). critical incidents vary from lack of employment, dissatisfaction with a regular job, or an encounter with god (holland, 2014). religion and entrepreneurship religion has been considered an important component of entrepreneurial motives and culture. the united states has been considered a religious traditional society and the spirituality of the american entrepreneur is reflected in many successful entrepreneurs such as s. truett cathy, founder of chick-fil-a restaurants who died at the age of 93 in 2014, mary kay (mary kay cosmetics) and estee lauder (valtonem, 2007). chick-fila is a nationwide chain of restaurants that have a tradition of not opening on sundays for religious observation purposes. this practice is widely accepted by the community, whose members tend to view turett’s business as a role model for other businesses. one of the strong foundations of the protestant ethics, which is largely adopted in the united states, is the glorification of god through hard work and the creation of wealth. therefore, religious motivation to launch an enterprising venture have been popular and well documented. (valtonem, 2007). carter & cannon (1992) indicated that ‘women generally regarded success [of their business] in terms of how well the business met individual needs” (p. 50). these individual needs are often above the conventional measures of success such as high profitability and financial gains and may include spiritual needs. religion is embedded in social and cultural contexts by developing values that shape attitudes and behavior (anderson: drakopoulo-dodd, 2000). the act of enterprising is not isolated from societal cultural values, 18 holland, n., images of success of women entrepreneurs, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 15-26) therefore religion, as a critical element of culture, should be closely investigated while exploring entrepreneurship. max weber (1930) in the protestant work ethic, argues how the protestant values and belief shape entrepreneurship. religion as an explanatory variable for entrepreneurism has been discussed in the literature through the works of dana (2010), lumpkin and dess (1996), and farmer and richman (1965). historically, this relationship has been well documented. farmer and richman (1965) posit that the relationship between calvinist and economic development through entrepreneurship is clear, by arguing that, as back as 1958, fifteen countries with higher per capital income followed protestantism, with the exception of france and belgium. galbraith et al (1997), on examining catholic hispanic entrepreneurs in the united states, concluded that most hispanic business leaders were also leaders in their religious community, thus establishing a robust link between entrepreneurship and religion. although religion does not seem to always necessarily foster or prevent individuals from the act of entrepreneuring (dana, 2010), it promotes and teach cultural values that may consequently be embedded in entrepreneurial ventures. methodists accept the division between wealthy and poor, but the rich may be charitable (dana, 2010). for chandler, the founder of coca cola company, making money through entrepreneurship was a form of religious worship (dana, 2010). farmer and richman (1965) argue that religious values have a direct impact on the perception of work achievement. some religious values may create needs and these needs can be sources of enterprises. when chick-fila is closed on sundays for religious observation, other fast food restaurants benefit from this. when the amish community in lancaster county, pennsylvania, cannot drive modern automobiles, the selling of bicycles flourishes in the area. religion can also shape the types of ventures. for instance, the amish are usually owners of small ventures (stores) that meet the needs of the amish community, although some businesses occasionally grow into larger businesses. interestingly, certain religions do not foster entrepreneurship at all. buddhism promotes after life and this religious value might even prevent individuals from pursuing the entrepreneurial path. (cousins, 1996). journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 15-26) 19 therefore, different religious view the act of enterprising and values entrepreneurship differently. carswell and rolland (2004) posits that ethnic diversity and religious values enhance startup rates. emphasizing the importance of the impact of social and cultural environment on entrepreneurship, ronning and ljunggren (2007) concluded that all entrepreneurs are product of their environment, and therefore, the external environment will influence the venture. for instance, if starting up a business in a community is rare, then fewer individuals will pursue entrepreneurship. on the other hand, if entrepreneurship is a popular and acceptable occupation, then entrepreneurship will flourish in the society (ronning & ljunggreen, 2007). stigma and stereotypes can also be translated into a business opportunity. malheiros and padilla (2014) examined how the idea of body aesthetics (a cultural element) becomes a resource for brazilian female immigrant entrepreneurs in portugal. the perceived possibly negative image of sensuality helped to foster the creation of beauty related enterprises. in general, the literature indicates that, cultural values and specifically, religious values, greatly impact on the rate and type of start -ups. but the question remains: how do religious values really impact on the launching and success of women entrepreneurs? methodology and methods this study uses a methodological stance based on a phenomenological approach, which focuses on understanding experiences and will enable the researcher to relate to and use the women’s experiences and stories to answer the research questions. the phenomenological methodology is associated with interpretive inquiry as opposed to normative inquiry, which is linked to quantitative methods (cohen, 1987). the phenomenological approach aims to understand the subject world of individuals (husserl, 1970). due to the nature of the sample, this study is generalizable to theoretical propositions only, not to the entire population of women’s entrepreneurs. it is recommended that further studies be developed to validate the findings generated from this study. 20 holland, n., images of success of women entrepreneurs, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 15-26) this qualitative research applied the techniques of face to face and telephone interview with twenty six women small business owners in south carolina, united states. this study is about exploring meanings and gaining understanding of the respondents as it relates to images and perception of success, as well as the influence of religion on their ventures; it was not intended to test or measure theory or the women’s behavior or actions in regards to the competitiveness of their businesses. findings and discussion this qualitative exploratory study investigates the phenomenon of women’s entrepreneurship in the context of religion as a strong cultural component. this was done by first reviewing the literature, and then by analyzing the responses from face to face and telephone interviews with twenty six american women who owned and operated their own businesses. the female participants were selected with the help of a nonprobability, judgment sampling techniques, known as purposeful sampling (marshall, 1996). the sample exhibited the qualities the researcher wanted to explore, which included: (a) the women started and operated the business, (b) the women own at least 50% of the business and the enterprise was active at the time of this research. snowballing sampling was also used, that is, the researcher asked the participants for additional respondents that exhibited the qualities sought after by the researcher. thus, the respondents themselves helped to shape the actual study from the beginning. the data collection process was focused on capturing the women’s stories and the interview questions were established in order to obtain response intended to understand the women’s experiences. the method of thematic network analysis (sirling-attride, 2001) was used to group the results and analysis of the data. the unit of analysis of this research was the understanding of the impact of religion, as a cultural component, on the women’s images of success and motivation to launch and operate a business. the initial sample, before the ‘snowballing took place, was drawn from a list of participants at a self-employment seminar offered by the bamberg county in south carolina, usa. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 15-26) 21 questions related to demographics, age of participants, age of business and location, were asked, but the main questions the researcher was interested in were “in your opinion, what is the key for your business success?”, and ‘does religion plays (played) a role in your business?”, with a view to listening to women’s stories and the underlying motivators for their business ventures. the researcher was also interested in the impact of the recent economic developments on the women’s business. the face to face interviews lasted about 30 to 45 minutes and were conducted, when possible, at the participants’ business premises. the interviews were not recorded, per participants’ request. the open ended questions focused on the understanding the women’s feelings, stories, perceptions and experiences. from the data generated from the interview transcripts, the method of content analysis, followed by the technique of thematic analysis with aid of thematic networks (sirling-attride, 2001) were used. figure 1: illustrates the age distribution of participants the average year in operation was 5 ½ years, with 42% of the women holding a higher education degree. most businesses were merchandise retailing and service retailing activities. the number of employees average 1 per business. during the interviews, when asked about their perceptions and images of success, several recurrent themes, such as ‘help others help themselves’, ‘make a difference in somebody else’s lives”, ‘being a role model’, and ‘inspiring others’ were extracted from the women’s answers. 22 holland, n., images of success of women entrepreneurs, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 15-26) yolanda, one of the participants residing in bamberg, south carolina, stated that “[success] is being able to achieve and bring others along with you… it is not only a personal thing… other people depend on what i do…”. another participant, marion, explained, ‘teaching my employee is the most important thing… give a man a fish and he will for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a life time…”. marion believed that her religious background fostered this perception of business success. most women strongly perceived that religion played a major role in their businesses. they believed that their close relationship with god triggers the launching of the business venture. for some, their entire purpose in life was to start a business to glorify god. wanda, an owner of a dog sitter and grooming business, perceived that god played a major role in her business venture. she describes her experience: …” i was working as a dog groomer and administrative assistant for the business owner that taught me everything i should learn about the business… then, he died and the business literally fell on my lap… it was god…and i can tell you…it was god. now, twelve years passed and the business is solid as it can be…” gloria affirmed that “[the key to my business success] is trust in god…with this trust one can reach anything. melinda perceived that “[the key to my business success] is first have faith in god, have jesus christ as my chief executive’. cecilia (cici), a hair dresser from orangeburg, south carolina, proudly affirmed that “i use my business talent because it is the purpose of my life given by god… i know god wants me to do this…” the impact of the recent economic developments on the women’s businesses during the conversations with the participants, many mentioned that their faith in god and trust in their entrepreneurial abilities, were strong ammunitions to face the current economic scenario. although the usa economy is now recuperating from the great recession of 2007-2009, jobs are still not abundant and many of the participants started their business as a salary substitute enterprise, guided by their strong faith and trust in god. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 15-26) 23 wanda mentioned that “looking for a job in this current [economic] situation after the recession, would not be an easy thing… i am happy i have my business and god’s blessing… business is not good as it was before 2007, but i am glad i can make a living…” conclusions studies have showed a direct link between religious and entrepreneurship (anderson & drokipoulo-dodd, 2000; dana, 2010; farmer & richmond,1965; carswell & rolland, 2004). the academic literature also demonstrated that religious beliefs and their influence on business are continuously observed across many different societies and ethnic groups (galbraith et al, 1997). the findings are consistent with these views. the results of this empirical study support the existence of a strong link between women’s religious faith and the desire to launch, operate and succeed in business. the participants showed a strong religious background and faith, incorporating their images of success into their religious views. in the participants’ words, their strong religious views helped them to ‘weather the storm’ and go through the great recession of 2007-2009, with some sort of salary substitute businesses to earn a living. their strong ties to their societies’ cultural dimensions, especially to religion, greatly influenced their perception of success. in fact, it was observed, that religious motives impacted on the business launching and overall operations. although the results of this qualitative study suggested that religion impacts on women’s entrepreneurial process, the findings cannot always be generalized due to the size of the sample. it is recommended that other variables such as education, age, and ethnicity, be also examined in future studies. references [1] anderson, a. 2000.“the protean entrepreneurs: the entrepreneurial process as fitting self and circumstance”. journal of enterprising culture, 8(2): 201234. [2] anderson, a.; drakopoulo-dodd s.; scott, m. 2000. “religion as an environmental influence on enterprise culture: the case of britain in the 1980’s”. international journal of entrepreneurship and behavior research, 6(1): 5-20. 24 holland, n., images of success of women entrepreneurs, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 15-26) [3] carswell, p. & rolland, d. 2004. “the role of religion in entrepreneurship participation and perception”. international journal of entrepreneurship and small business, 1(3-4/2004). interscience publishers. [4] carter, s. & cannon, t. 1992. women as entrepreneurs. san diego: academic press limited. [5] cohen, m. 1987. “a historical overview of the phenomenological movement”. journal of nursing scholarship. 19(1): 31-34. [6] cousins, l.s. 1996. “the dating of the historical buddha: a review article”. journal of royal asiatic society, 6(1): 57-63. [7] dana, leo-paul. 1991. “bring in more entrepreneurs”. policy options, 12(9): 18-19. [8] dana, leo-paul. 2010. entrepreneurship and religion. edward elgar publishing. [9] deakins et al. 2002. “developing support for entrepreneurial learning: evidence from start up support programmes”. international journal of entrepreneurship and innovation management, 2(4/5): 323-338. [10] farmer, r. n. & richman, b., m. 1965. comparative management and economic progress. homewood, il, irwin. [11] galbraith et al. 2004. “entrepreneurship in the hispanic community of the southeastern united states”. frontiers of entrepreneurship research. wellesley, ma: babson college. [12] gem (2014). global entrepreneurship monitor report. www.gemconsortium.org. accessed on february 17th, 2015. [13] holland, n. (2014). “cultural and socio economic experiences of female entrepreneurs in brazil and the us: an exploratorial and empirical analysis”. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education. 1-2/2014. [14] husserl, e. 1970. the idea of phenomenology.1st. edition. nijhoff. the netherlands. [15] jonathan e. & da silva, t. 2007. “empreendorismo feminino: tecendo a trama de demandas conflitantes”. psicologia e sociedade. 19(1): 77-84. [16] lumpkin, g. t. & dess, gregory. 1996. “clarifying the entrepreneurial orientation construct and linking it to performance”. academy of management review, 21(1): 135-72. [17] malheiros, j. & padilla, b. 2014. “can stigma become a resource? the mobilization and aesthetic corporal capital of female immigrant entrepreneurs from brazil”. identities: global studies in culture and power, portugal. [18] marshall, m. 1996. “sampling for qualitative research”. family practice. 13(6): 522-525. [19] orhan, m & scott, d. 2001. “why women enter into entrepreneurship: an exploratory model”. women management review. 16(5): 232-247. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 15-26) 25 [20] ronning, l & ljunggren, e. 2007. “community entrepreneurship: building entrepreneurship and facilitating social capital”. nordland research institute, norway. [21] scheinberg, s. & macmilland, i. 1998. “an eleven country study of the motivations to start a business”. frontiers of entrepreneurship research. [22] sirling-attride, j. 2001. “thematic networks: an analytic tool for qualitative research”. qualitative research, 1(3): 385-405. [23] valtoren, h. 2007. “does culture matter? entrepreneurial attitudes in the autobiographies of twentieth-century business leaders in finland and the united states”. business and economic history, 5: 1-15. [24] weber, m.. 1930. the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. charles scribers sons. new york. [25] wennekers, s.; wennekers, a.; thurick, r. 2005. “nascent entrepreneurship and the level of economic development”. small business economics. 24(3): 293-309. prikazi uspeha žena preduzetnika: uticaj religije na osnivanje, poslovanje i održavanje preduzeća a p s t r a k t ovaj rad opisuje empirijsko istraživanje sprovedeno u cilju ispitivanja da li verska uverenja i vera utiču na osnivanje i poslovanje preduzeća u vlasništvu žena. ova kvalitativna studija je fokusirana na žensku percepciju vezano za to da li je religija, kao značajna komponenta kulture, odigrala ulogu u odluci o pokretanju njihovog poslovanja, kao i na njihove izjave o tome da li ova percepcija utiče na način na koji one posmatraju svoje poslovanje, kao i na ostvareni uspeh. dvadeset šest američkih žena vlasnica firmi su učestvovale u ovoj studiji, i bile su intervjuisane sa ciljem da se ispita da li je, u skladu sa njihovim stavovima, njihova verska pripadnost imala bilo koji uticaj na njihovo poslovanje. rezultati ukazuju na postajanje jake veze između verskih uverenja i ženskih preduzetničkih motiva, što je u skladu sa nalazima iz prethodnih studija. ženska svedočanstva i percepcije su pokazale da je njihova jaka povezanost sa verskim uverenjima i bogom podstakla želju da budu uspešne u svom poslovanju. u ovoj studiji se daje podrška ideji da religija, kao robusna kulturna dimenzija, stvarno utiče na preduzetničke procese i aspiracije ovih žena. 26 holland, n., images of success of women entrepreneurs, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 15-26) ključne reči: žene preduzetnice, preduzeća, motivacija za pokretanje poslovanja article history: received: 17 february, 2015 accepted: 31 march, 2015 16_jwe_1-2 udk: 316.647.82:331.5.024.5(497.11) 316.644:331.56 jel: i24, l26, m13 cobiss.sr-id: 222327564 original scientific paper empowering employment of women and marginalized people through entrepreneurship education in serbia radović-marković mirjana1 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t the aim of the paper is to identify discriminatory barriers in employment and put in place policies aimed at achieving equity. the research is conducted on a representative sample of 300 respondents in belgrade (serbia). in this paper, special attention was paid to the following issues. these are: (a) the issues of determining the form of social exclusion that is the most common in serbia; (b) determining the cause of the faster leaving the educational processes of marginalized groups compared to other population groups; (c) identifying the causes of difficult employment of marginalized groups in serbia.. the research findings suggest that economic restructuring and transformation of a system in serbia exclude certain groups from the labour market due to the fact that their qualifications do not match the needs of the new system. the lack of appropriate educational programs tailored to the needs of marginalized groups in serbia is not the only major cause of social exclusion and the lack of employment opportunities. also, certain population groups are discriminated because of various stereotypes, stigma and prejudice. with this in mind, serbia should make greater effort to remove the existing obstacles. this will significantly contribute to the growth of employment, which would give a chance to all unemployed persons who are marginalized on a certain basis to be socially involved. 1 full university professor, contact email: mradovic@gmail.com 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 3-17) key words: discrimination, social inclusion, entrepreneurship, education, employment, marginalized groups, serbia introduction economic restructuring and transformation of an economic system exclude certain groups from the labour market due to the fact that their qualifications do not match the needs of the new system. besides that, certain population groups can be discriminated against because of various stereotypes, stigma and prejudice. it leads to their economic and social vulnerability that usually follows them throughout their life. therefore, reaching equality among all population groups in contemporary society represent moral imperatives. accordingly, the europe 2020 strategy pays special attention to social programs for the most vulnerable social groups and their inclusion in innovative education programs (radovic-markovic, et al 2014). these programs should enable their more rapid and easier employment. also, innovative programs are aimed at fighting discrimination (age, gender, racial and other). addressing this issue is of special importance for serbia on its path to eu integration. although the anti-discrimination law was passed in 2009, serbia is still far from a tolerant society where differences are respected and all citizens exercise their rights undisturbedly (euractiv, 2013). the availability of education and a reform of education programs according to the needs of this population group affect a decrease in discrimination directly. namely, the new education programs should be based on individual`s growth and be able to foster the individuality, flexibility and personality enabling development and showing a clear path toward the following (radovic markovic, 2012): − promoting achievement; − tackling barriers to inclusion. thus, educational institutions need to become more responsible in terms of providing support to the romani, the disabled and those who are excommunicated and are not in an equal position with other groups. this is, perhaps, where we can find the key to overcoming inequalities and discrimination that starts back in school (furlong, ferguson and tilleczek 2011). the main aim of our research is to bring some light into the opportunities for members of marginalized groups to realise their right to radović-marković, m., empowering employment, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 3-17) 5 education and to identify which causes difficulty in their employment recruiting in the country. literature review socio-economic inclusion (integration) of marginalized communities has the ultimate goal to provide for such communities an equal (or at least improved) access to jobs, education, and health services (economic commission, 2011). the opinion of a number of scientists is that creators of social and economic policies and the inadequacy of implemented programs are largely responsible for differences in terms of opportunities for people to achieve equal rights (hastings, 1998). the literature review shows the correlation between marginalized groups and discrimination is not recognized in all the countries. for these reasons, there are no proper strategies that will support discriminated people. marginalization of population can be determined based on a combination of relevant indicators, such as indicators of high rate of long-term unemployment, low level of education, discrimination, high exposure to health risks or lack of access to health care (economic commission, 2011). employment is essential not only to achieve economic security of the individual, but also for his or her physical and mental health, personal well-being and the sense of identity. numerous studies have shown that the relevant education can lead to improvements in self-esteem (carlton & soulsby, 1999, dench and regan, 1999), communication skills (emler and fraser, 1999; radovic-markovic, 2011a), the sense of belonging to a social group (emler and fraser, 1999; jarvis and walker, 1997), as well as the achievement of personal identity (radovic-markovic et al, 2012b). also, education that accompanies the needs of the individual, encourages creative and logical thinking (radovicmarkovic, 2012 c). therefore, it can be concluded that proper education leads to improvements in social, economic and personal lives. namely, the level of qualification and business skills are directly related to the degree of employability (undp, 2006). therefore, the identification of a subset of young people who are outside the formal education and understanding their needs and situations in which they are located is one of the most important tasks of any society. for the marginalized and those young people who have left schools, illiteracy and the lack of basic life skills reduce their life chances, including access to employment. basic life skills may include capabilities such as the development of communication skills, respect for 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 3-17) the work ethic, developing the ability to resolve conflict situations or making decisions. they can include management skills that support business development, with emphasis on developing entrepreneurial capabilities. however, one of the problems faced by many countries is the provision of funding mechanisms that facilitate the education of marginalized groups. programs tailored to their needs are very expensive and in many developing countries state funding is insufficient to meet the high cost of equipment, materials, infrastructure and training of instructors to work with these groups. these groups often have better access to informal education, organized by ngos, than to formal ones. it is necessary to define the standards of quality of informal training programs and carry out monitoring of complying to these standards. this will facilitate the integration of these groups into the labour market and lifelong learning (bessette, 2011). accordingly, the promotion of social inclusion implies, above all, the inclusion of all marginalized groups in lifelong learning and paid employment (ifsw, 2012). it will, in the long run, contribute to reducing inequalities and achieving inclusive growth (undp, 2010). the world bank study (2006) showed that greater inclusion of marginalized groups consequently leads to inclusive growth and improves economic and social development of a country. for these reasons, policy makers, more than ever, deal with the issues of social inclusion. social exclusion and discrimination in employment in serbia types and forms of social exclusion vary from country to country in terms of their perceptions and development. the debate on social exclusion in the european context has led to the development of the concept in two ways: a) focus on the factors that lead to poverty and b) the development of a multidimensional concept that cannot be directly associated with income (berghman, 1995). the consequences of social exclusion (ngec, 2011), reflect on (radovic-markovic, 2016): − poverty; − political exclusion and discrimination; − limited approach to educational possibilities; − identity issues; − negative stereotypes. radović-marković, m., empowering employment, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 3-17) 7 various forms of discrimination in employment can be observed in serbia. it is especially evident in the recruitment of younger women in their reproductive age. they are often offered short term employment and part time employment, to minimize the cost of paying for pregnancy and maternity leaves. older persons are also at high risk of marginalization, as well as women over 55 years of age. in serbia, according to a research, there is still discrimination against persons between 55 and 64 years of age in employment, which is reflected in the lack of demand for them in the labour market (radovic-markovic, 2011). the reasons for this are multiple. first of all, it is believed that older workers are less productive, do not have adequate knowledge, are slower to accept change and are not willing to improve and adapt to the current demands of the workplace (radovicmarkovic, 2012a). namely, by observation of the structure of unemployed persons by age in serbia, it is seen that in the category of persons between 50 and 64 there are 192,408 persons or 25.9% of the total number of the unemployed (nes, october 2014). the analysis of the unemployment rate of persons of working age (55 64) in the period from 2004 to 2014 shows that there has been a steady growth of the unemployment rate, i.e. from 7.8 percent in 2004 to 12.2 percent in 2010 (radovic-markovic, 2011) and 14.2% in 2014 (nes, october 2014). in other words, the unemployment rate of persons older than 55 years of age has almost doubled in the last ten years. also, few people with disabilities are able to find employment in serbia. around 15,500 of disabled people in serbia waited for a job (on june 31, 2014), out of which there were about 5,000 women, while in vojvodina there were about 5,300 people with disabilities without job, including 1,500 women. discrimination occurs in those cases where a candidate for a job, despite the necessary qualifications, is not taken into account due to his or her disability. namely, in the workplace, employers’ attitudes are a significant barrier to persons with disabilities gaining access to meaningful work and job promotions. the employment of people with disabilities, particularly people with intellectual disabilities, is very important, given the fact that it is a group of people who has been excluded from all social flows for decades, resulting in the lack of skills and the lack of opportunities to enter labour market. the law on vocational rehabilitation and employment of disabled persons of the republic of serbia (rs official gazette, 36/2009), 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 3-17) recognizes people with disabilities as a group that requires special attention due to extremely low level of employment. the measure by which persons with disabilities are entitled to education and employment, is the extent to which they can develop their potential and become an active members of society (odović, rapaic and nedović, 2008, 189 p.). the social position of the romani people in serbia is also very unfavourable. that is shown by the employment rates of the romani and displaced persons, which are between 5 and 10 percent lower than the average rate of unemployment (radovic-markovic & chair, 2010). the latest data showed (on june 31, 2014), that there were about 23,706 romani people without a job, out of which 10,800 women and in vojvodina there were 6,150 unemployed romani people, among them about 2,900 women (centre for development of syndicalism, 2014). the workers belonging to those population groups are poor and more likely to be engaged in informal sector of economy (radovic-markovic, 2010). the high representation of women in the structure of unemployed persons older than 55 years of age explains the existence of stereotypes that exist among employers during recruitment. according to them, women in this age group are not sufficiently prepared to meet their workloads, are not sufficiently physically attractive, do not have contemporary knowledge and are not ready to be trained. despite these stereotypes, recent research has shown that workers of both sexes are willing to be trained and to learn, for which they need adequate support (radovic-markovic, 2012). this support is important both from the state and educational institutions. in countries where women face difficulties in obtaining a job in formal economy due to existing stereotypes, they are deprived of their livelihood (hill and macan, 1996). it forces them to work in the informal sector, which is the case with discriminated persons in serbia. for these reasons, the inclusion of older people in the development of society contributes to their welfare and the welfare of a society as a whole. therefore, their inclusion by promoting their social, economic and intellectual contribution to society through providing them with opportunities to make decisions at all levels is needed. methodology the research was carried out in 15 ngos and associations of the romani people, persons with disabilities and the displaced people from the territory of the republic of serbia. radović-marković, m., empowering employment, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 3-17) 9 the sample encompassed 274 respondents, among which 74% of women and 26% of men in both groups. this is an expanded study, which was done in 2014 on a smaller sample of 104 respondents. in view of the structure of our respondents, prevailed disabled people in the sample with 54%, followed by refugees (21%) and the romani people (15%) in addition, among the respondents, most were persons aged between 51 and 60 (32%). according to gender, women are only at the forefront among the respondents belonging to the group of disabled people with the share of 41%, while in the other groups, men were more affected than women the study started from the hypothesis: h1: lack of appropriate educational programs according to the needs of marginalized groups in serbia is the main cause of their social exclusion and inability to find employment; h2: marginalized population in serbia leave educational process because the lack of material conditions; h3: people with disabilities cannot find employment due to a stereotype that they lack working skills. for all questions in the questionnaire there is an answer by which the respondents evaluated how much they agree with the above statement in the form of a quarter-point likert scale (1 small, 2-intermediate 3-important, 4very important). research results and discussion the exclusion on the basis of education and age is the most common in the opinion of the respondents due to the fact that it is most about young people that leave educational process, as well as persons older than 50 that are mostly low qualified. among the people who leave school, the romani are most frequent. the reasons for leaving educational process can be manifold (foster and norton, 2012): (i) the way teachers treat them (with no respect); (ii) students react to racial harassment that are not well handled by schools; (iii) they are not successful at doing homework; 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 3-17) (iv) the lack of parents’ cooperation and support to children to educate that results in their leaving school. they should be added to the reasons of other nature, such as (radovicmarkovic, 2016): (v) the lack of qualified educational programs for the romani people and other marginalized groups; (vi) low level of self-esteem and desire to acquire knowledge; (vii) the lack of material conditions necessary for education; (viii) insufficient social support or inability to learn due to the fact that they are forced to manage somehow in order to survive. when asked why marginalized groups leave the process of regular education most frequently, the majority of respondents (45%) consider the lack of material conditions and the lack of social support to be the main cause of such a state. they are followed by the lack of educational programs (17%), inability to educate due to the insufficient financial support (28%) and the lack of self esteem and desire to acquire new knowledge (10%) the analysis done on the basis of the respondents' answers to the question in which direction to change the educational programs in order to encourage learning and inclusion of marginalized groups has shown that the respondents consider that it is almost equally important to provide programs to suit their needs (35%) and those that contribute to faster employment (28%). the third most important is acquiring entrepreneurial skills (23%), while they think that encouraging creativity and cognitive abilities should not be among the priorities (14%). from the presented data we can see that the participants are fully aware that without the appropriate programs that address their needs their faster employment cannot be expected, which is one of the basic dimensions of exclusion and poverty. in order to test which causes difficulty in recruiting marginalized population groups in serbia, we offered respondents four possible answers: 1. the untimely adoption of appropriate legislation; 2. the negative impact of employers' attitudes towards this population group; 3. stereotypes of other employees in terms of their difficult adjustment and integration into work teams 4. insufficient protection mechanisms against discrimination. the largest number of respondents stated that due to the existence of stereotypes it was difficult to obtain a job in formal economy (51%). in addition, our research has shown that although there are appropriate laws, they are not radović-marković, m., empowering employment, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 3-17) 11 respected enough. with that in mind, they feel insufficiently protected in terms of their discrimination in employment. there is an opinion that this problem would be significantly reduced by applying severe penalties for employers who determine the age limit, sex, religious or ethnic affiliation in the recruitment process (radovic markovic, 2012). however, serbia has not yet developed legal mechanisms against discrimination, which is characterized by a small number of prosecuted offences. also, regulations are often misunderstood and misinterpreted. therefore, a lot is expected from the implementation of the strategy of prevention and protection against discrimination, which was adopted in serbia for the period 2013-2018. it provides highlights of the plan to prevent discrimination and identifies nine vulnerable groups (the romani people, refugees and internally displaced persons, persons with disabilities, rural population, the rural population in south east serbia, the rural population that owns no land, the uneducated, as well as women, young people (aged 15-24) and older people (aged 50-64) and provides measures to improve their situation (euractiv, 2013). our respondents see the greatest opportunity in employment in the public sector that they find that it should be better utilized for their involvement in the process of work (41%). such high commitment to employment in public sector can be explained by the fact that generally the unemployed in serbia, including marginalized groups, prefer permanent employment and choose state companies for the employer, to work in the informal sector or under contract. namely, the state is considered desirable employer because of regular monthly income. the reason for the fact that a small number of respondents opted to start their own business can be explained by the lack of entrepreneurial skills and knowledge that often prevents them in their entrepreneurial intentions. namely, the above mentioned and similar studies conclude that training in the field of entrepreneurship and acquisition of practical knowledge directly influences the entrepreneurial competence. to get the proper education that would be in function of their employment, a special fund is expected to be established to finance the training of these individuals and monitor the quality of the training programs in accordance with pre-set standards. otherwise, education will still not be equally accessible to all, which will result in their exclusion. respondents also expect that the state should provide more flexible working 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 3-17) conditions (working from home, flexible working hours, etc.) as well as to use all mechanisms to protect them from marginalization in employment. the biggest number of respondents thinks that the position of marginalized groups in serbia has been improving slowly due to the lack of financial means (64%) and because they are not singled out as priority issue for resolution, while other reasons are almost negligible. conclusion addressing inequalities will play a major role in the future global development framework .in this context, the post--‐2015 development framework must be focused on a holistic and rights--‐based approach to development. a holistic approach to inequalities should include each type of inequality–social, political, economic and material. also, it must be based on equality and inclusive participation, ensures that the marginalized groups can benefit from development and growth. based on our review, hypothesis h1 is partially confirmed. the lack of appropriate educational programs tailored to the needs of marginalized groups in serbia is not the only major cause of social exclusion and the lack of employment opportunities. beside the lack of appropriate educational programs, the reasons for the high rate of unemployment of marginalized groups should be sought in a large number of factors that are closely linked. these include the decline in gross domestic product, decreased productivity, high overall unemployment, the existence of budget deficits, the lack of social support and the lack of problems of marginalized groups among the priority issues of society, then the existence of stereotypes relating to their working and other abilities, the lack of implementation of measures and mechanisms of their protection, the lack of interest of employers to invest in their training, etc. according to all these reasons that underlie the high rates of unemployment, the economic development of serbia would be the basis for more investment in the education of these groups and raising the level of their knowledge and qualifications. the main resultant of all this would be their higher employment, decrease of poverty and social inclusion. therefore, it can be concluded that social exclusion issues should be dealt with mutually by the government and business and education sectors in order to assist marginalized groups on their way to their social inclusion. radović-marković, m., empowering employment, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 3-17) 13 the hypothesis h2 that marginalized population in serbia leaves educational process because the lack of material conditions has been completely confirmed by our respondents. h3 hypothesis that persons with disabilities cannot be employed because of the stereotypes that they lack the capacity for work has been fully confirmed by this study. there is a special exclusion of persons with higher degree of disability and women, given that there dominates a stereotype among employers that they represent a cost because they do not have working capacity. that is crucial in their engagement. however, disabled persons can be useful both for themselves and their families and the society as a whole through appropriate training and employment that matches their competencies and work skills. accordingly, it is necessary to encourage employers to opt for employment of persons with disabilities instead of paying the penalty fund, specifically to help large companies and systems that, within their organization, can have the whole workshop staffed by disabled persons. partnerships with ngo and with local governments should be made in order to give employers better information about legal opportunities and working abilities of persons with disabilities. we expect that this research can trigger further empirical and research investigations and better inform 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[44] world economic forum 2013. the global gender gap report 2013. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/wef_gendergap_report_2013.pdf diskriminacija kod zapošljavanja i socijalna isključenost: osnaživanje žena i marginaliziranih grupa kroz proces obrazovanja u srbiji a p s t r a k t cilj rada je bio da se utvrde diskriminatorne prepreke u zapošljavanju i uspostavljanje politike usmerene na postizanje jednakosti. istraživanje je sprovedeno na reprezentativnom uzorku od 300 ispitanika u beogradu (srbija). u ovom radu je posebna pažnja posvećena sledećim pitanjima: (a) određivanju oblika socijalne isključenosti, koji su najčešći u srbiji; (b) utvrđivanju uzroka radović-marković, m., empowering employment, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 3-17) 17 bržeg napuštanja obrazovnog procesa marginalizovanih grupa u odnosu na druge grupe stanovništva; (c) utvrđivanje uzroka teškog zapošljavanja marginalizovanih grupa u srbiji. rezultati istraživanja sugerišu da su restrukturiranje privrede i transformacija sistema u srbiji isključile određene grupe sa tržišta rada, s obzirom na činjenicu da njihove kvalifikacije nisu odgovarale potrebama novog sistema. međutim, nedostatak odgovarajućih obrazovnih programa prilagođenih potrebama marginalizovanih grupa u srbiji nije jedini uzrok socijalne isključenosti i njihove nemogućnosti za zapošljavanje. takođe, određene grupe stanovništva su diskriminisane zbog raznih stereotipa, stigme i predrasuda. imajući to na umu, srbija bi trebala da učini veće napore za uklanjanje postojećih prepreka. to bi značajno doprinelo rastu zaposlenosti, što bi dalo priliku svim nezaposlenim osobama koje su marginalizirane da se u određenoj meri društveno uključe. ključne reči: diskriminacija, socijalna uključenost, preduzetništvo, obrazovanje, zapošljavanje, marginalizovane grupe, srbija article history: received: 26 january, 2016 accepted: 5 march, 2016 udc: 005.961:005.914.3(549.1) ; 334.722-055.2(549.1) jel: b54, l26, j16 id: 207720204 original scientific research female entrepreneurship and the women chamber of commerce and industry: economic emancipation and clout for pakistani women khan iqbal1 lahore school of economics, pakistan a b s t r a c t socio-economics, culture, religious entrepreneurism and taboos have a massive impact on the societies in south asia. pakistan is a muslim society that has lived side by side with the culture driven religion of the indian society. there are numerous cultural overlaps though muslim characteristic is an identity and practical way of life. in defining the entrepreneurial portrait of a muslim female entrepreneur in pakistan it has to be borne in mind that culture plays the dominant role as the hurdle. there is so much of complexity in the culture of south asia that amartiya sen raises the question “how much of this can a foreigner with no more them a cursory knowledge of the factors involved – feel and respond to? --and consequently warp the judgment”. and furthermore roomi (2005) contends women face deep rooted discriminating cultural and social factors that hamper their growth. yet the empowerment of women in pakistan has come about following the example of prophet muhammad’s (saw) wife khadija (ra). this contradiction in terms and this evolution among muslim women is a subject of interest to researcher what inhibits the growth of female entrepreneurs in a muslim society like pakistan. the objective of this paper is to bring out for the benefit of the global community the nature of the environment and the impact of customs, traditions and culture and deterring factors of religious entrepreneurism. existing literature on female entrepreneurship has been reviewed and especially the role of the diana project. but the constraint was owing to limited literature on female entrepreneurs 1 e-mail: ibajauri@gmail.com khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 61 of the muslim of south asia and pakistan in particular qualitative methodology, indepth interviews and case studies were adopted. the surveys recorded and transcribed the responses. the findings indicate that under the garb of religion, false philosophy is practiced. women have discovered clout comes from having platform and hence the long down struggle to setup the women chamber of commerce & industry. conducting the paper has identified that there is not enough literature on this subject. yet it is still surviving on the theoretical aspect of papers written on western society by the western researchers. research must now look beyond the current limited and scope go for studying the various culturally linked factors and how to change the future growth of female entrepreneurship. key words: female entrepreneurship, religious entrepreneurism, diana project introduction the research paper aims to explore what environment prevails to prevent or foster female entrepreneurship in pakistan. it explores the role played by some prominent female entrepreneurs that resulted in creation of a forum in the economic environment of pakistan. the selected entrepreneurs all belong to a similar status except their leaders. it discusses some entrepreneurial leadership characteristics of the pakistani female entrepreneurs. this paper attempts to analyze women’s emancipation and ‘economic emancipation’ of women. the question arises how can you define the characteristic of a female entrepreneur and leadership characteristics without understanding the culture and the impact of culture on a society. in south asia, culture is all pervasive. therefore does this aspect of culture, impacts entrepreneurial characteristics and entrepreneurial leadership aspects. culture is the most dominant influence in this region. so strong is the impact of culture that any minor deviation from the set pattern of life can spell disaster. a lot of culture revolves around women in south asia. the culture in this region may be said to be female driven. cultural practices lay barriers on a woman's marriage, her inheritance, her education, her independence, her emancipation, her entrepreneurial inclinations. the classical ‘caste system’ practiced by the hindus of south asia is an extended form of culture. in the wake of the dominance of culture and ‘caste 62 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) system’, among the hindus we have seen ‘sati2’, we have seen women married to the holy book3 among the muslim and we have seen ‘4karo kari’ (honor killing) prevailing in all the societies of this region. all these cultural practices show a complete hold on women by men, restricting their mobility inheritance, marriage and contact with males outside the families. these are customs that have come down for ages. breaking these shackles would mean a heavy price to pay. hence the paper lays the case of culture which is a barrier for the muslims or other societies or the religions existing in the south asian region. it has to be seen if some women have penetrated the culture barrier, if yes, then they are the proverbial ‘trojan horse’. it should be understood that a significant influence of hindu culture exists on the muslims of this region and these practices hence are motivated culturally rather than religiously. cultural divide between the east and west is not easily understood. in this region under the garb of religion ill-fated customs are practiced and sometimes it becomes difficult to separate religious from cultural practices. hence this paper has presented the events in a cultural format showing where these are different from religious facts. therefore the paper begins with the assumption that not enough research exist on the cultural and religious dimensions of female entrepreneurship among muslim countries. it is planned to review literature pertaining to female entrepreneurs of south asia. their activities as entrepreneur are bound by cultural factors and the struggle is being analyzed, to see what they may have achieved. the cultural status of women in pakistan has been summed up by roomi thus: “the status of women in pakistan is not homogenous because of the interconnection of gender with other forms of exclusion in the society. there is considerable diversity in the status of women across classes (the socio-economic status of a woman’s family), geographical regions, ethnic 1 sati: an indian woman who burned herself on her husband’s pyre: the custom of so doing is sati chamber’s twenty century dictionary, 1968, w & r chambers ltd. edinburgh. 2 marriage with the holy book: a practice whereby muslim women are made to swear by the holy book that they forsake marriage. in this way men are able to hold their sisters, women’s share of inheritance. this is a custom among some societies not to share inheritance of their sisters with anyone and keeping it within in the hold of men, circumventing their religious requirement. 3 karo kari: honor killing khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 63 origin and the rural/urban divide due to uneven socioeconomic development and the impact of tribal, feudal, and capitalist social formations on women’s lives…. (roomi, 2007) this observation touches almost all those multifarious aspect that have stood as barriers and shackles for women in this region. a close examination of the culture of this region gives the realization that the entire culture revolves around the women of this region and these are almost 1.5 billion people. and among them muslim community is bigger than the entire population of usa. the size alone commands the need for research of the women’s claim to entrepreneurship. research questions and problem statement: the objective of this paper is to bring out the nature of the environment and the impact of customs, tradition, culture and religious entrepreneurship on the female entrepreneurs in pakistan. and the study is driven by the research question. 1. given the cultural overcast, what entrepreneurial traits or characteristics or competencies can be indentified among the pakistan female entrepreneurs, causes for gaining recognition and clout and specially what entrepreneurial leadership characteristics are depicted through the case studies, that brought about the women chamber of commerce and industry in pakistan? hence we will be looking into the cultural context, the religious context, the characteristics of the female entrepreneurs in pakistan and through in-depth interviews and case studies of the main players building momentum through their leadership of the women in pakistan. literature review for the purpose of this paper we will study literatures that have bearing upon the objectives to look at culture, religion, female entrepreneurs and clout. culture and environment, massively influence entrepreneurship phenomenon, though there are many dimensions of influences on women entrepreneurs. as reported by global entrepreneurship monitor (gem 2007) that even the most enabling environment for entrepreneurship, usa, indicates that the male entrepreneurial activities surpasses female 64 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) entrepreneurial activity almost two to one. kauffman centre for entrepreneurial leadership compiled a report on obstacles facing women entrepreneurs and identified human, social and financial capital as major constraints (guerrero, 2008). the diana project was and is the major push for research on female entrepreneurship. it brings in the western societies female entrepreneurship out of the domain, of minority or marginalized society’s entrepreneurship. it is considered an extra ordinary and high impact research. prior to this female entrepreneurship was an underresearched field (holmquist & carter 2008). however irrespective of culture & environment, women are found to be less active as entrepreneurs (minitti 2005). (then men) female entrepreneurship development theories have therefore emerged primarily from research carried out in developed countries with specific social norms and values regarding women’s participation in economic activities. the initiative to setup the diana project itself is an example of the way women in the west think and act to create an enabling environment for themselves. there is a dearth of studies conducted in different social contexts especially in islamic societies. but what compound the issue is the cultural aspects of some societies. women have not been seen to-gather together a rally for a cause as has been done in the west. it is unheard of as no literature exists. female entrepreneurship research domain grew in phases though a pioneering study as early as 1976 by schwartz notes that women were motivated by need to achieve or economic necessity and desire to be independent. these motivating factors have prevailed in the west. but it was in the real sense in 1990s that female entrepreneurship became well established. the development in this domain is literature driven and a constant search for novel topics. but all of this does not apply to the south asian women development (holmquist & carter 2008). these researchers have also stated that women generally are found to run smaller business compared to men as entrepreneurs. this disparity and imbalance is generally an accepted norm. contemporary existing disparities that are universal on a global perspective are that a typical female entrepreneur is more educated than her male counterpart, but her professional experience often falls short and is usually outside the traditional business sector (gurrero, 2008). it was also found that they seldom founded their business in sectors that had to do with their educational qualifications and it was observed that they had high need for achievement, were highly educated, had someone in the family as khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 65 entrepreneur, have a strong support system from her spouse or family but having limited network of resources (brush, greene et al., 2001) showing distinctive behavioral differences from male. “glass ceiling” was one factor that drove most women to entrepreneurship. they are known to be steadfast to their business and customer satisfaction as compared to their male counterpart and these are the general characteristics of female entrepreneurs universally. this paradox is universal across all societies. iiris aaltio, paula kyro, and elisabeth sundin (2009) make this observation quoting mills “the feminist researcher may be better served avoiding a search for cues that support a notion of progress over a period of three years progress, instead examining events to see what they tell us …” thus change is more important than progress. i concur with this observation because the experience of researching the women entrepreneurs in pakistan, this researcher, also faced similar experience. hence the evidence gathered was empirical and through in-depth interviews by repeated visits. the examination of events over a sufficient length of time (5 years) revealed the change in status rather than the progress overtime. the events typically went back and forth but the ultimate development was the establishment of a platform (pwcci) for the women entrepreneurs. as to the progressivity of the women entrepreneur it was minimal. shehla the popularly chosen leader of these women entrepreneurs felt that there was still very low involvement of the members and a general apathy. the author of the paper suggests that women entrepreneurship be studied from multiple angles and especially one of them could be self-efficacy and leadership. information on the struggle for women chamber of commerce & industry is available on www.reformsnetwork.org/women the female entrepreneurship landscape across south asia: beginning from the perspective across the border in the neighborhood of pakistan in india and bangladesh the cultural tradition and situation has a number of similarities though there is a significant difference at the level of culture tradition and development. in “a reflection of the indian women in entrepreneurial world” kollen & parikh (2005) trace the history of economic emancipation of the indian female entrepreneurs from the era of the fifties to the 21st century. the women of the fifties would give up their education to support their families at the expense of their aspirations if there was no income generating males. there were also those who were landed with the family business in their lap in the event of loss of the male family member. the paper calls them ‘extremely courageous women’. in the sixties 66 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) the educated females had started taking small steps to start their small enterprises. whereas the women of the seventies were new radical women. they were those who had completed their education and were in the field to take professional assignments. they opened the new frontiers for women entrepreneurs. but they showed clear cut evidence of wanting homes, marriage and children as well as occupation, who accepted the restrictions of their parents and grandparents but expected their husbands to give them understanding for their choice of occupation. by the eighties the women entrepreneurs of india were educated in highly sophisticated technologies and professional education. so many preferred degrees in engineering, medical field and bioengineering. but the choices of business were typically clinics, nursing, boutiques, garments, beauty parlors, schools and the like. yet the society was hostile and environment was male dominant. the nineties was a qualitative different era for women. they had two decades of role models and hence these become more assertive entrepreneurs. they had now acquired economic independence, high self esteem and could deal with situations single handedly. whereas the 21st century’s first decade is an era of telecom, it and financial institutions. many pioneered in these new ventures and the opportunities were alike for men and women and a melting pot for professionally trained and enterprising women. the real change visible in the 21st century was somewhat different as the focus shifted to the elite class of women. women have become aware of their existence, their rights and their work situation. however, women of the middle class are not too eager to alter role in fear of social backlash and this was reflected in other part of the region such as pakistan. the progress is more visible among upper class families in urban india. “society designs and defines roles for women”, where as each country has its cultural, social, religions and political back ground, it in turn develops for the society its economic thrust trough industrialization resulting in new occupational roles for women. a parallel change in pakistan is also visible as we see the emergence of the women chamber of commerce lead by a couple of elite women in the pakistan society. one can draw a parallel with the status of the women and in particular the female entrepreneurs in pakistan though at a lower degree. the authors go on to say that despite the dilemma of being an entrepreneur the women maneuvered into this position out of a desire to be independent and do something meaningful and to have their own identity instead of remaining “closeted behind their husband’s name plate”. they also found that they were less concerned with making money and often choose entrepreneurship as result of career dissatisfaction. indian female khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 67 entrepreneurs were either house wives or fresh graduates with no experience. generally ran traditional business like garments, beauty care and fashion designing which grow usually from hobby to serious business. the famous indian examples of a successful female’s entrepreneur are of herbal queen lady shehnaz hussain who began from her kitchen and ended with an herbal empire and a chain of beauty parlors. and sarabai, mrinalimi set up dancing schools and later malika expanded the ‘darpana institute’ as a household name in dancing (kollen & parikh 2005). sujal kumar maiti (2008) has given a profile of bengali urban educated women entrepreneurs in kolkata india. the paper focused on the women who were engaged in home delivery catering services in salt lake area kolkata, west bengal india. the paper has concluded that educated bengali women are not shy to engage in the business ventures. they are ready to take risk for their economic freedom. they are quick to adopt to this business as a source of income and source of pleasure to utilize their leisure after having given adequate time for bringing up their children and taking care of their families. the average age of these women was above 40 years. all 40 surveyed happen to be married and were above graduation qualification, and rarely did they have more than five years of professional experiences. but their education and independence to pursue a business gives them a status of being elite. this again explains the similarity of women entrepreneurs across the border in pakistan. afreen haq and abdul moyeen (2008) have also drawn similar conclusion about bangladesh women entrepreneurs. bangladesh has witnessed a growing group of well educated urban based women who have shown potential for starting their own business as an economic option. this growing phenomenon has not been noticed much in developing countries but developed countries have witnessed a surge of literature and research on this subject of urban educated elite business women. this phenomenon has been referred to as “the quietest revolution of our times” by afreen haq and abdul moyeen (2009) with respect to bangladesh. such women have demonstrated that the key elementary factors that have brought about this phenomena are good formal education, work experience, socio economic status, networking, and type of business. in the past the main focus on research on women entrepreneurship has been on rural poor or urban poor. however it was observed that women have smaller network restricting their access to business support services. they are also handicapped by being unable to access business associations and government agencies. (haq, moyeen, 2008). this creates an awareness of the need and significant importance of women chamber of commerce. 68 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) female entrepreneurship environment in pakistan: to understand the pakistani environment and to study the women entrepreneurs and their efforts, the findings of usaid survey gives a fairly good idea. nabeel goheer and susan penksa (2007), have made some observation about women in the pakistan economic context? we quote the relevant text as the usaid report also signifies the socio-cultural context for studying female: “it is imperative to understand the unique sociocultural context of pakistan before planning to “engender” economic growth. a characteristic feature of pakistani society is its family orientation and an inside/outside (private/public) dichotomy of gender relations. as can be observed almost all research have been able to touch and feel the sensitivity of the family orientation in the environment and the mobility aspect of the women. roomi (2009) has also described this phenomenon. even while considering ‘engendered’ economic growth report recommends to understand socio-cultural context of pakistan. which various from place to place even within a provence based on variation in language and ethnicity of the society? the intensity of this social feature may vary from urban to rural areas and from one province to the other but its flavor can be seen almost everywhere in pakistani society. the male members of the family are supposed to take care of the productive or more precisely, the remunerative aspect of public life while women work in private, “inside” their homes. they bear and rear children, maintain social relationships with the extended family and friends perform household work. the gendered division of work effectively prohibits women from participating productively (and remuneratively) in the economic growth of pakistan. the report goes on to emphasize the gendered division that prohibits women from economic activity outside the home. the concern ranges from security to reputation. another important feature of pakistani society is a cultural restriction on the mobility of women. this restriction is due to concerns for the safety and security of women who venture outside the home and fear that the family will lose “reputation” or “honor” due to illicit relationships in khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 69 which females might become involved (either through consent or by force). secondly, and related to the former problem, is the social stigma attached to women working outside the home. cultural restriction on mobility has safety, security, honor and stigma concerns but there are indication of change. a number of factors are altering these social norms but the pace of change still is incremental. two potent forces of change are the spread of secular education for women and men and increasing economic pressures. pakistani women especially those from the middle class are now emerging and participating in the productive sphere of life both as employees and as entrepreneurs but their ratio of participation, as compared to men, are still very small.” an incremental change is visible in the social norms but huge majority still labors under these cultural norms. breaking away from these traditions are considered radical and courageous. another survey has brought out some converging observation examining recent development of women entrepreneurship in asian developing countries. tulus tambunan (2008) has taken account of the entrepreneurship enabling environment among women entrepreneurs in south asia. some studies have shown that successful women entrepreneurs generally belong to rather well to-do families and live in nuclear family rather than extended families as it gives them freedom from social & cultural restrictions. as a part of the profile it was observed that female entrepreneurs are generally found in sole proprietorship, they also have a higher closure rate. but the motivation behind female entrepreneurship comes from the desire for economic emancipation because entrepreneurship ‘implies being in control of one’s life and activities’. the factors identified in this paper that hinder & growth are psychological, social, cultural, religious, economic and educational factors depicting lower status of women in pakistani society. the under estimation of women’s economic contribution is confounded by factors that emerge from factors such as tribal, feudal culture and cultural practices in the name of religion; inadequate public transport and the notion of ‘pardah’ & ‘izzat’ as also pointed out by roomi (2008). culture: an all pervasive impact on female entrepreneurs: explaining the impact of culture generally there are two meanings of culture; in the narrow sense civilization (art science and education). in the broad anthropological sense 70 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) “a collective programming of the human mind”. the western society lives in the individualism mode but the eastern society of south asia lives the collectivism mode. people belong to in-group are supposed to be looked after by in-group. it is dangerous to be kicked out of your in-group. loss of face has to be avoided. face saving is important. for the purpose of this paper and its objective a deeper look at the environment and culture of the region needs to be taken. this region has been the cradle of a typical culture for all the nations residing herein. opinions are pre-determined by groups. everyone has to fulfill obligation to and society and in-group. otherwise face shame and penalties are sever. amartya sen (2005) explains through the works of satyajit ray that the environment consists of indigenous ‘factors such as habits of speech and behavior, deep seated social practices past traditions, present influences and “so on”. he asks “how much of this can a foreigner with no more than a cursory knowledge of the factors involved – feel and respond to?” and goes on further to say “which can only puzzle and perturb – and consequently warp the judgment of – the uninitiated foreigner”. in effect both these notable tinkers and keen participants of this society feel that the tendency to assume that there cannot be such big difference in the culture of the region with that of the western society would be a fallacy. sen quotes a singaporean foreign minister at a human right conference in vienna 1993, which further elaborate the asian perspective of culture as opposed to western perspective thus “universal recognition of the ideal of human rights can be harmful if universalism is used to deny or mask the reality of diversity”. in the “argumentative indian” amartya sen (2005) the winner of the nobel prize in economic defining this region says “cultural conservatism and separatism that has tended to grip india from time to time” has left an indelible mark and each society is an island on its own. he also establishes rabindarnath tagore’s pride in indian culture by saying that “india’s culture is not as fragile and in need of ‘protection’ from western influence”. such is the impact of culture in this region. it is strengthened by the lack of education in this entire region, and pakistan or bangladesh have not escaped the strong impact of culture. each has its own flavor and doses of religious edicts by the ‘religious entrepreneurs’. and to use amartya’s quote “important as history is, reasoning has to go beyond the past” where then do we go from the influence of culture? of course he is advocating opening up of culture of south asia to the world. how do we deal with culture with khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 71 such pervasive influence? and in speaking of indian culture one takes it to a great extent to include the pakistani culture where of course there is also the expansion of religious sectarianism – and fueled by ‘religious entrepreneurism’ for vested interest. even when it is not religious motivation, the garb of religion is quick to invoke severe punishment. herry kissinger (2011) in his book “on china” explains the stark difference in the eastern (asian) cultural thinking and western cultural thinking by giving an example. the chinese philosopher confucius was unlike machiavelli. the confucian philosopher is concerned with the cultivation of social harmony not with the accumulation of power and using power. rather it was incumbent as a spiritual task to recreate proper order and recovery of forgotten principles of self-revelation (p.14). harmony is the drawing force in the asian culture. furthermore sun tzu (art of war) proclaims that not every problem has a solution and too much emphasis on total mastery over specific events upset universal harmony. harmony has to be maintained. in contrast the western traditions prefer decisive clash. the significance of association and chamber of commerce in building clout for women entrepreneurs: the need for external support system. in a paper “women entrepreneurs in the global economy” susanne e. jalbert (2000) has examined how women entrepreneurs affect economy, why women start businesses, how women’s business associations promote entrepreneurs, and to what extent women contributed to international trade. she has also emphasized economic clout that women have built up and quotes irene natividad, chairperson us national commission on working women at the 15th global summit of women “global markets and women are not often used in the same sentence, but increasingly statistic show that women have economic clout – most visibly as entrepreneurs and most powerfully as consumers”. she finds that women bring commitment and integrity because they care about economic empowerment. but according to her finding women entrepreneurs are dependent upon professional and personal support that is found in business associations. the paper goes on to say that women entrepreneurs look for role models and mentors that help them to carve out paths to follow. citing susan caminiti the paper says that conventional mentoring role of women has changed. women by nature are given to offering advise based upon years of experience they have gained. mentors usually see mentoring as a responsibility. it’s a payoff for the gains 72 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) of their life. therefore members of associations, consultants, and trainers are all acting as role models. this finding supports the findings of our paper and the role played by shella with the role models discussed in jalbert’s paper and the chamber of commerce has taken on the role of association. the economic empowerment of women, the clout, comes from being together on a platform that provides the support services discussed above. this platform is the associations or the chamber of commerce. talking of support systems from within the family and society rajani & sardar (2008) state that enterprises started by women are influenced by the interest and influence of the relatives and family. two contrasting cases have been analyzed in their paper. once again the research within this region reveals that similar problems and difficulties are faced by female which revolve around culture, and tradition and way of life. the external support system is of great significance in such environment. this does therefore brings out the significance of associations. business women’s associations in malawi, nepal, brazil, canada, ireland, mexico and uk all have provided psychological advocacy required to start small businesses. they create growth oriented atmosphere and vision for their members through wide spectrum of activities such as networking and political and economic empowerment of women. in many societies women’s ability in accessing mainstream organizations is limited. by establishing and joining a chamber of commerce, one can demonstrate economic clout and force larger organizations and government to pay attention to their cause. associations also provide a system of bonding because they share same problems & issues and the bond of being a business woman overrides the cultural differences. the paper most powerfully establishes the significance of associations or the chambers of commerce as a platform. in other words chambers of commerce or associations provide a formidable clout to women and gives them economic emancipation. (jalbert 2000) the realization of the acquiring clout by being together in the chamber of commerce has played a significant role to overcome cultural barriers. we will see this in some of the interviews of pakistan female entrepreneurs. the conceptual understanding of female entrepreneurs, of their role in the family and then in the society weighs heavily on the women in pakistan. the number of female entrepreneurs has increased. hence there is a need for research that covers the area of female entrepreneurs and their efforts in a khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 73 male dominant society like pakistan. but the phenomenon is much the same in other societies as well as we see from the observation of brush and maltay “… despite the tremendous growth in the number of women-owned enterprises and their increasing aggregate impact on society and the economy, there are few studies researching women business owners in general” (brush, 1992) the observation made much later on by matlay (2005) still paints a similar tone. but also refers to the difficulty in theory building aspect in female entrepreneurship. “the dramatic rise in female entrepreneurship in contemporary europe cannot be realistically or adequately investigated, let alone explained or theorized, as a new and isolated phenomenon. it is our contention that theory building in this as well as other aspects of entrepreneurship should be conceptualized in the wider body of knowledge. -------------------------------------------------------”. (matlay, 2005) despite a growing enthusiasm among researchers, there has been a greater failure to build adequate theory around the concept of female entrepreneurs in islamic societies. this vacuum is more pronounced in a wider socio-economic context because women business has a growing contribution to the economy. the challenge here is to understand what motivates female entrepreneurs in society as traditionally patriarchal and difficult for woman as pakistan. the best we could make of this was from the series of interviews that were conducted on the 30 female entrepreneurs and we are in the process of analyzing and discussing their views. not all have been reported but they all belong to a similar status in society and similar educational background. except for their leadership which happens to be highly qualified and educated abroad also. female entrepreneurs in pakistan are realizing their status and position in society. they have also improved their conditions in society to some extent. roomi (2009) goes on to present the role of women entrepreneurs in a muslim country like pakistan. 74 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) “two factors especially influence women’s occupational roles: the cultural norm of pardah (veil) and the notion of izzat (honor) (roomi and parrott, 2008: 2). pardah has significance as an instrument of sexual segregation and seclusion based on spatial boundaries, (roomi, 2008) in the strict sense these are inclined to be socially and culturally oriented. the definition has to be more precise to demarcate the social & cultural from the religious requirements. ‘izzat’ is the notion that women are repositories of a family’s honor, and that their chastity and good reputation, being highly valued, must be guarded.” (shaheed, 1990) he further goes on to state “there is considerable diversity in the status of women across classes (the socio-economic status of a woman’s family), geographical regions, ethnic origin and the rural/urban divide due to uneven socioeconomic development and the impact of tribal, and feudal, social formations on women’s lives” (roomi & harrison 2008: 2). while he has also hastened to support the conditions of openness for women in pakistan by saying they are able to cross the barriers and participate in economic activities. but in his conclusion he has confirmed “that socio-cultural variables play an important role in the growth of women owned enterprises in pakistan.” this statement establishes once again the inter connectivity of culture and business venturing of female entrepreneurs. in the true islamic sense, religion has not forbidden business to women. a lot of confusion prevails with regards to social norms and cultural practices and religious biddings. this doubt is put to rest as he says in his practical recommendations about the role of women in the islamic context by quoting the quran and sunnah/ hadith5 (sayings of the holy prophet muhammad s.a.w.w.) “the most important point to mention is that there is nothing in the qur’an or in the hadith which prevents women from working outside the home. in fact the qur’an extols the leadership of bilqis, the queen of sheba for her capacity to fulfill the requirements of the office, for her political skills, the purity of her faith and her independent judgement (al naml, 27:23-44). if a woman is qualified and the one best suited to fulfill a task, there is no qur’anic injunction that prohibits her from any undertaking because of her sex. the hadith literature is replete with women leaders, jurists and scholars, and women who participated fully in public life. there 5 sunnah/hadith: saying of the holy prophet muhammad (saww) recorded by scholars, jurist and scribes and later on compiled as parallel interpretation of the quran based upon prophet muhammad (saww) sayings khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 75 is another hadith which states that 9/10 of our sustenance comes from business. for those who are able and are competent, islamic society should encourage them to become entrepreneurs or get involved with other types of business activities.” (roomi, 2009) he concludes by indicating that women face deep-rooted discriminating cultural and social factors that hamper their growth. only few receive encouragement from family members, who have spatial mobility, private transport, tend to grow. the paper also highlights educational qualification, good hr policies. the paper comes up with original identification of socio-cultural variables affecting growth of female owned enterprises in islamic countries. the empowerment of the women in pakistan has been the result of the precedent and the role model of prophet muhammad’s (saw) wife khadija (ra). women in business are no new phenomena in the muslim society but the traditions in pakistan have prevented the development. despite its significance, recognized worldwide, not much work has been done to study the growth of women entrepreneurs in a muslim society. in a more, homogenous society it becomes all the more necessary to study the growth of females in business so as to establish closer linkages among the western society and the muslim society. dove seidman the author of “how” says “when the world is bound together this tightly, everyone’s values and behavior matter more than ever … we have gone from connected to interconnected to ethically interdependent” all the more reason to research the female entrepreneurs of pakistan because they are growing into a force and are going global as well. the muslim of india, pakistan and bangladeshi are roughly estimated to be a little over 500 million and all representing the cultural complexity of south asia. in pakistan, many women are able to cross these barriers and this is the new trend observed by roomi, 2008 & 2009. one of the strength of pakistan female entrepreneur has been their social capital. they are able to actively participate in economic activities. it has been found that women in pakistan are receiving moral support from immediate family members. a correct interpretation of the perceptions of islamic values have played a role in allowing spatial mobility, access to transport, and interaction with male members at school, college, university and office level, has helped them grow confident and to venture in business (roomi: 2009). this correct interpretation of islam has come about because of wide range of translating the islamic literature to english and urdu which is a pakistani language. 76 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) previously the quran & hadith was only read in arabic without understanding what it meant. today it is read bilingually and not through a teacher but by most students in their language. it has corrected many perceptions. research methodology this study took a case study approach as a tool of gathering data & information, and has a qualitative methodology, and now spreads over a period of 05 years. we outline the preliminary results of 30 illustrative case studies from pakistan out of which 10 have been reported in this paper. the selected entrepreneurs has a similar status in society and similar educational background except the few leaders such as shela who have been educated abroad and belongs to a upper class of society. they already experienced nearly 3-5 years experience before discovering the advantage of getting together on a common platform for collective benefit. case study approach has been adopted as it provides in-depth knowledge regarding the phenomenon being studied such as the understanding of the culture, the sentiments and to understand personal self-reflection captured through the story telling. in this research paper female entrepreneurs were interviewed repeatedly over a spread of time and reported the ‘voices’ of the female entrepreneur participants; it presents a valuable opportunity for understanding their learning experiences (guerrero, 2008). these case studies helped to uncover commonalities with female entrepreneurs of this region and the learning experiences shared by female entrepreneurs(rae, 2005)further this research methodology may determine the underlying factors responsible for their progress and success in getting ‘clout’ and recognition. case studies are narrated incidences of life experiences. they have focused on two variable: one the problems faced in getting started and two the building of the platform in the shape of the women chamber of commerce & industry. some case studies carry critical life events but all along these are emotive narrations recorded by the author and later transcribed by the author. the interviews were recorded as they were narrated in a story format. the story format has acted as historical background with a multiple of case studies to support the understanding of the prevailing environment. the main case study is that of dr. shehla akram the entrepreneurial leader of this movement which has been embedded with smaller case studies. however the theoretical framework has khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 77 also been embedded with these case studies. the survey took place in the same period that the women were struggle to establish the chamber of commerce hence the women were overwhelmed by their efforts and were inclined to bring in the emergence of the chamber of commerce. no doubt it was something new happening and they knew it so common ground was the women chamber of commerce & industry. the author has spent five or six month with the wcci. given that the participants reflected on the learning experiences, they considered it central to development of entrepreneurial leadership. further findings may contribute to the further development of a conducive environment for women entrepreneurs. the interviews generally look one hour at the premises of each entrepreneur. but the interviews and discussion with shela akram extend over months intermittently. this was followed by the formulation of a theoretical framework which formed a structure for the study. a set of research questions to be used in interviews was later constructed. the case studies thereby support the theory and create evidence of sentiments, the emotions the experiences and the behavior pattern of a whole social environment surrounding the emergence of these entrepreneurs. those case studies that were not included have been screened for further research papers. research sample and instrument: snow-ball sampling was used in this research as sampling strategy. this happened because of numerous repeat visits by the author to the office of the women chamber of commerce & industry. most of the female entrepreneurs were contacted and introduced at the wci office. however, respondents were also selected on the basis of researcher’s personal judgment through quota sampling on the basis that they could provide information required for research. documentary sources official and unofficial documents were also utilized for validating information gathered from interview. points of convergent and divergent have also been recorded. case studies there were two parties claiming ownership for the women’s struggle and challenge for the women’s chamber of commerce and industry (wcci). the platform was divided into two zones and shehla was made pwcci president for islamabad and punjab and nwfp cities. (northern pakistan). the other claimant to ownership of the women’s chamber was a karachi-based woman entrepreneur named salma ahmad, who was given 78 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) responsibility for swcci offices in sindh and balochistan (province of pakistan comprising southern pakistan). shehla said, “we felt there was a need for such a chamber because the existing institutions of this kind do not pay enough attention to women. we feel that one of the most effective methods of promoting women entrepreneurship is to empower them; this requires an institution solely devoted to this cause’. “for many months i have argued with government officials and private organization about the ownership of the wcci and finally, i have won even if its been divided into two territories”. the aspect of dedication and desistance and willingness to take the mantle of leadership is the hallmark in her personality. here leadership acumen was high and show knew there would be a price to pay. one of the steps taken by pwcci which brought immediate acceptance was the conference organized as “national beautician conference” in the september of 2005. this event turned out to be a resounding success and it somehow gave great confidence to women entrepreneurs. it laid the foundation for women to recognize their own strength that came through networking and through being united on one platform. it propelled them into a higher economic status. as lahore has a large number of small and micro beauticians they took pride in their profession and felt encouraged to carry on their business. some found support from their family for their business because this business pertained to women. it was a female oriented business area. it received less hurdles from family and society though a decade ago this profession and this business was looked down upon. uzma beauty clinic and institute living with extended family & petty bureaucrat. uzma belongs to a modest middle class background. her story began when her husband supported her dream to setup a beauty parlor; the uzma beauty clinic. though they pioneered the venture at a time when there was an absolute vacuum in the market, 1984, she faced numerous threats some real and some perceived. she could not stabilize her business as she was constantly firefighting. her relatives at one time turned their back on her family and her children suffered humiliation within relatives. “the family plays a very important role in a traditional pakistani woman’s life. face saving is essential within the family. your profession or your activities can damage the reputation of the entire extended family from uncle and aunts to in-laws of the family members. you cannot cut yourself off from your family khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 79 to do your business. women are not generally seen as bread earners or businesswomen in this culture” explained uzma, as she remembered how she had to deal diplomatically with her father-in-law to continue with her profession. “today i find that our society has turned more ‘grey’ and she explained this by saying “to establish my business i have had to work 18 hours a day. today i can say that my networking and my membership of pwcci has been a great support. however, the journey was never easy. my real problem has been dealing with these petty bureaucrats that come from various government agencies. it is not easy to deal with these mettlesome officers from electricity department, or from municipality or from the police, or from the tax department. they come threateningly and spreading fear among my girls working for me. at that moment it appears as if someone has pulled the rug from under your feet”. she narrated incidents of how she continuously wastes time in firefighting and depriving herself from quality work. she feels she could do much more if the environment was more conducive. “our system has evolved as a culture of unfriendly environment. everyone perceives that women entrepreneurs can be harassed and made to give illegal gratification to avoid further disturbance. its this ‘grey’ culture, immature attitude, towards your own society that is depriving our society the fruits of growth and development. i think we, the members of pwcci can now contribute towards improvement and empowerment of women for a better tomorrow”. uzma has identified all the areas that were mentioned in various literature review. here emphasis on face saving and her experience of the petty officers is a reminder of the way the environment existed. but her positivity is reflected in her statement that ‘our society has turned more grey’ meaning that there was a slight change in the environment. the shows exceptional emotional intelligence and resoluteness to continue. another event that gave boost to the women entrepreneurs was the public display by the government that they supported the struggle of women entrepreneurs. the then prime minister mr. shaukat aziz awarded a shield to shehla, president pwcci, on september 14, 2005, in recognition of her accomplishment and performance of promoting the chamber of commerce for women. it was an acknowledgement for the struggle for this forum. until this time it was not recognized officially or legally as the women chamber of commerce and industry, though even this was not a legal recognition, yet it gave them enough clout to be heard. 80 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) ‘re-grow’: herbal hair oil taking care of members: counseling and mentoring by the chamber of commerce leadership of the wci was a responsible and understanding role by shela as an indication. the events that led rukhsana zafar to become an entrepreneur is yet another story. she had a master’s degree in zoology, and had invented herbal hair oil that she named as ‘re-grow’. she wanted to sell it. however, her husband was a businessman and was doing quite well so he did not allow his wife to pursue it. so she came to shehla and said “i have invented this product and i want to sell it in the market and you have to take care of my husband, i have a lot of faith in you”. “this meant that i would schedule a counseling session with her husband and giving him confidence and assurance of his wife’s capabilities, which he should empower and take pride in”. shehla was thinking of the past on providing this account said; “she was one of the first who came to me when my chamber was announced, she brought with her a very old and shabby looking pamphlet which i think she might have made when she was in school or college. she also brought with her a very old packaging. i didn’t know how old it was, but all i can say is that it was years and years old. one good thing by now her children were grown up. now she is very successful and is traveling with us everywhere we go. it was all done with a bit of counseling”. one of the thing she felt that this incident taught her was to become a counselor to the families of her members. it had become essential in her capacity as a leader of these women to give counseling. she felt she was strongly positioning herself for counseling not just the women but also their husbands. once again the depicts an educated entrepreneur having conviction in her idea and going about it with an approach to achieve it. shela once again displayed a high sense of emotional intelligence and adopted the role of a mentor and leader and not shirking any responsibility in her role as a leader. social, cultural and traditional taboos: women’s role in business: the social, cultural, and traditional taboos on women allow men to carve legitimacy for themselves in public affairs, as well as in the sphere of production and related economic activity. women are not acceptable, seen as running businesses. tradition and convention and culture have never allowed it. this culture and traditional taboo even prevented women from obtaining education. khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 81 as shehla said “the main issues were ownership of property, lack of control over capital land and business. that if a woman wants to do any business her husband or her father would not give her property (to be used as collateral). they will give it only to the son, but not to her. this puts her at a disadvantage with her banker, who advances only against collateral”. there is also inherent lack of encouragement from male family members. the absences of networking mechanism and patriarchal social norms have prevented women from running businesses. the situation was more grave, serious and to great extent dangerous for rural women. there were no role model of rural women who rose up against the traditions and taboos till then. it was inconceivable that a woman would have the guts to defy the norms of society and become an entrepreneur or a social entrepreneur. mukhtara mai – the rural scenario it was probably the worst of times or best of times for women. one could see that an environment was developing that supported the rights and recognition of women. it was in june 2002 that a woman, mukhtara mai was raped by the landlord family of meerwala near jatoi in the remote corner of rural punjab. she was the victim of one of pakistan’s more ‘politics of rape’ a infamous crime against women. she shocked the traditional mindset by approaching the government and the police for help against ‘politics of rape’ in pakistan. this incident also received international attention. “after she was brutally assaulted the illiterate pakistani was supposed to restore her family honor by killing herself. instead, mukhtara mai chose to live, to fight for justice and to find a better life for women like her. she became the symbol of women’s right”. “i want to remain a symbol of oppressed women until someone shoot me” she says. the government rose to the occasion and supported her and provided her legal support. (reader digest jan 2008). ultimately, it was the financial support from the government of musharraf and donors from canada and norway that helped her in setting up the mukhtara mai model girls school and mukhtara mai women’s crises relief centre, home for women hit by crises. today its educating 650 girls who would have faced a dismal future and it employs 50 providing shelter to women exploited. she remains today a source of inspiration, relentless to pressure to withdraw case against the perpetrators of that horrific crime. (express tribune july 25, 2010) the case study of mukhtara mai depicts – the change and empowerment of women at this period in time. what is important is that these little incidents add to the change of the whole picture. it’s the progress 82 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) which is more relevant for such a movement and change follows. the point in this case is that women as social entrepreneurs or as entrepreneurs are noticeable. the logical outcome of a gender biased environment was the low status and weak bargaining position of women. that indicated the disadvantaged position of women who try to start or run a business in pakistan. however as we have seen in islam women in business are not frowned upon. the greatest example muslims can quote is that of the prophet muhammad’s (s.a.w.w) wife khadija (ra) who is a glowing role model of a business women of the muslim world. (roomi 2007) characteristics of women entrepreneurs in pakistan and impact of pwcci: according to a survey report, (prior to the emergence of wcci), ‘women entrepreneurs in pakistan’ (nabeel goheer) ilo islamabad 2003, eighty percent of the women in business were between the age 20-49 years. they were generally found to have only one or two children (65%). it was also found that a woman entrepreneur usually belongs to family living away from extended family with husband and unmarried children. that helped them to keep out of the social cultural influence. similarly their literacy rate was above national average, and had obtained professional training. barriers, some real, some perceived and some self-imposed, confront women entrepreneurs. in the area of export marketing, obstacles include limited international business experience, inadequate business education and a lack of access to international networks. a similar observation was made by roomi (2008). his sample consisted of 265 and of these 54% managed micro enterprise, 36% managed small enterprises and 10% medium enterprises. roomi found 82% engaged in traditional sectors of textile, apparel, education, food, beauty, and health sector. it is here he noted deep rooted social cultural values segregating female entrepreneurs they were serving female customers. small investment and they usually began with pilot project at home. usually in their sector male, female interaction was almost nonexistent. whereas gehori also observed most women headed businesses operated from home, and financial matters were taken care of by male family members. women entrepreneurs were seen in subordinate roles; with low levels of education and technical skills; low exposure to business; lacking role models; lacking peer support and business associations; and, low income and poor investment capacity. about sixty percent of women khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 83 entrepreneurs in pakistan have opted for traditional business such as parlors, bakeries, boutiques. however, the largest numbers were in the garments and handicrafts businesses. other than these, societal, cultural norms and forces of patriarchy and a systemic subordination of women by men also impeded women in business. other challenges faced by women in particular are; financing, globalization of social and economic environments, marketing, and management. economies such as pakistan’s economy can pose difficult hurdles such as banking, legal contracts, political contracts, customs tariffs, and impediments by petty bureaucrats who daily invent new mechanism for the simplest procedures. however roomi (2008) states that literacy rate plays important role in creating awareness of their rights. 82% of his samples were high school graduate, 53% had bachelors and 15% post graduate. roomi (2008) states that women have been denied the right to education despite islam having made it compulsory for men & women to peruse education. he also draws attention to the rights given to own property, inheritance, business, to keep her madden name and to hold political office. based on these facts verified from hadiths and the quran, the dichotomy is that religious entrepreneurism is misleading the general public and wrongly denying the female entrepreneurs of their position in the economy. yet the major problem seen was the lack of confidence of women entrepreneurs and extreme shyness to approach organizations for support. in the opinion of shehla, they also did not have the capability to present their case or proposal hence they were unconvincing to the bankers or the financers. this survey (ilo 2003) also recorded some experiences of women entrepreneurs: these mini cases reflect a spectrum of experience over a long time span. it is a fairly good description of the environment confronted by the women entrepreneurs. nikki’s beauty saloon mrs. ayesha had lost her husband at a very young age. they had four daughters and a son and three of whom were minors and two were as yet teen-agers. ‘nothing is more devastating then to have your world shattered while you are still young. in a country like pakistan, women take the backseat and are taken care off by their husbands. it takes time to get your 84 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) bearings and i found myself fumbling with my husband’s business an auto car sale agency “soon i realized i must do some business to survive but it was not my cup of tea to run a car agency. therefore, i soon negotiated a sale of my husbands business and went into the beautician business”. what had raised her confidence in the business of beauty saloon was her friends who admired her makeup skills. occasionally she would do the makeup of some brides getting married in her family and among friends. she had a natural talent for it and now she was being appreciated by her friends and peers. it was at that moment in time when she was convinced that beauty saloon was the kind of business she wants to be in. as a matter of fact the business of beauty saloons had come of age. pwcci had given it a big boost by organizing a conference on the subject. the concept in pakistan of beauty saloon was initially introduced by chinese parlors. all weddings require bridal makeup and the chinese beauty parlors performed this service. another source of business were the professional working women who had no time to take care of themselves. hence beauty saloons were becoming responsible for grooming women. technology too had played a vital role. (based on the interviews conducted by maira taqi and kinza malik) this case depicts scenario when women inherent business when they loose the male member of the family. but it also depicts the enterprising side of the female entrepreneur. anjum rafi the owner of ‘qashang boutique’ and ‘heritage school system’ is a masters in textiles. though she successfully came out of her teething problem, still faced numerous problems. she quickly learnt that to be a member of a chamber or association was really beneficial for her in a male dominated society. hence, first she joined lahore chamber of commerce and industry and later the pakistan association of women entrepreneurs. it was a great boost to her to join the pwcci. she felt that this had empowered her to think in terms of international business and to participate in fashion shows abroad. but most of all, this gave her status among the business community. on the other hand, bushra iqbal who had been running one of the first beauty clinics bushra iqbal beauty clinic in lahore after qualifying from hannereuth says that “the worst of all was dealing with orthodox government officials”. at that time, there was no support or sympathy for a woman entrepreneur. khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 85 farah yousaf of comeily collection, a garment unit, reflected questions she confronted, “doing business is the responsibility of men. why are you doing it?” for a long time the absence of a support system hampered her growth as with every woman entrepreneur. it was essential for her to join the women entrepreneur society of pakistan and the lahore chamber of commerce in 1998 and eventually the punjab women chamber of commerce and industry. robina jamil not only confronted the humiliation of the male dominated business environment but also the derogatory attitude of the relatives. on the other hand nobody was willing to do business with her because she was a woman. all the whole-sellers would not respond to business deals handled by her and would insist on doing business with the male. these mini cases are reference points that lay the ground to establish the theory of female entrepreneurship in pakistan environment. the multidymentional social factors that hinder women entrepreneurship and despite the cultural taboos these women have emerged as a force and have gained acceptance. there may be the need to study deeper to profile the emerging picture of pakistan female entrepreneurs. what choices did women have? they have always led a dominated life without an outlet. the options were limited. with that kind of background, it was not possible to conceive a women chamber of commerce and industry. as a matter of fact there are only a handful of examples of wcci existing in the world though progress has been made in asia and africa. but pakistan is a society of paradoxes where a women’s exclusive bank existed (first women’s bank). it is a society where all over the country there are many schools, colleges and universities segregated and exclusive only to women, besides co-education institutions. it is a society with tradition of a woman being its prime minister twice. it proves that the women have a conviction of purpose and cause to pursue. yet the paradox is that women are really very weak in this culture. the other paradox is that where as women are striving for economic emancipation, they never desired emancipation from their family. there is no place for a single woman; she must have her family standing in the back ground. her husband or her children have to be in her picture. their strength comes from the association with the family. (and muktara mai is one example of a woman finding her way back in her society among her own people). legitimacy came from the strong association with the immediate family so a new norm of society has 86 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) emerged. pwcci was the new platform of culture and emancipation from dependence but not from family. culturally pakistan is an emerging culture, a society which has influences of different cultures of societies, specially those that were in the subcontinent like hindu society, the turkish and iranian culture. it was shehla’s persistence and conviction that the women need a fullfledged chamber. she used every source in her reach to propagate a separate chamber for women. but it was on ‘bridge championship’ organized by the family in memory of her father that she had got a chance to meet the president of pakistan and talk about promulgating an ordinance for a women’s chamber. she finally approaches president musharraf at the bridge championship and the president eventually agreed to promulgate a new ordinance to support the establishment of women chamber of commerce and industry. eventually after long struggle by the women in karachi and lahore a final recognition of the women’s right to do business was established in the pakistan 2006 ordinance called the trade organization ordinance (2006). it allowed more representative associations including the women to have their own chamber of commerce and industry. the women are now able to form their own associations without male sponsorship. hence women such as shehla in lahore and salma in karachi moved for achieving legal registration of their respective chambers. but it was not as easy as it seemed. conclusion women entrepreneurship in pakistan is in a transitory phase. the emerging role models in the 21st century have given a lot of weight to women entrepreneurs. each woman is a case uniquely responsible to bring about a change. the case studies are not in isolation from the theory but support them. they are the “voices” of the forum the pwcci. they are the evidence of the sentiments, the emotions the experiences and the behavior pattern of a whole social environment surrounding the emergence of these female entrepreneurs. on the other hand they also reflect the grit and perseverance of dr. shehla and the challenges she accepted as a leader of the women entrepreneurs. the leadership style of women entrepreneurs in pakistan has been the same as in other regions. the consultative style has been the hallmark of khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 87 their leadership traits. shehla herself showed flexibility and accommodation to the prevailing circumstances, yet stood her ground relentlessly to achieve her goals. culturally neutral concepts such as the theory of leadership have been equally applicable in this environment. what could not be considered suitable was the entrepreneurial intention or motivation of other regions such as european or american or russian. each region has its own unique characteristics and traits. the conclusion that one can draw from the comparison of different cultural background and different societies is that theories developed so far in the western societies do not apply to pakistani environment as there is not sufficient evidence and research knowledge of the women in business. it was observed that the experiential learning developed the entrepreneurial competencies of the women and in turn increased the confidence and level of entrepreneurial leadership capabilities among all the women entrepreneurs. yet the most basic principal of management was the most sought after training by the members of the newly formed pwcci. it was also observed that the female entrepreneurs are more educated than her male counterpart as seen in the western societies. but her professional experience often falls outside of traditional business sector e.g. an engineer may set up garment business or a boutique or bakery. women by nature are inclined to go for mentorship or coaching and it has been amply demonstrated that the success of the establishing the pwcci was because of the coaching & mentoring role of shehla and their team. women entrepreneurs look for role models and mentors that help them carve out paths to follow. however the impact of experience and training has been observed as a factor for building leadership self-efficacy among the female entrepreneurs similar to western societies. such theories are culturally neutral. mentoring and coaching is a payoff for the gains of their life. none of the barriers that stood in the way of these aspiring pioneering women entrepreneurs were religious or islamic ideology based. these were socially and culturally oriented and represented the norms of the society. (a society that still preserved certain customs and traditions and norms). some were deeply rooted for centuries and had taken this form and appeared to be religious edicts. it has also been established that economic emancipation was not emancipation from men dominance or against family bond. it was economic freedom and more an expression of capability, an expression of an art form, 88 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) an expression of skill and ability and competence to do what one had chosen to do. in fact it was an expression of equality given by islam as stated by quran and hadith. women entrepreneurship is not alien to islam. the ‘izzat’ and ‘pardah’ was the defensive mechanism provided to women and it, protected her if she knew how to allow it to be implemented. religious entrepreneurship imposed its own version of islam on women entrepreneurs; it was under the guise of religion that this concept was being used to prevent women from spatial mobility. but the awareness and education has made women realize their status and position in society. the social cultural and traditional taboos on women allow men to carve legitimacy for themselves on women. it was this exploitation by men that led the women to set up a common forum to claim equal rights that were theirs by virtue of islam. once the platform was legally established and officially recognized, it brought more opportunity and clout to assert their economic and legal rights. as time passed these members realize their growing strength and the value of the association or the platform of women chamber of commerce and industry. they have opened the gateway for women in other parts of this country. family and spouses played a very strong supportive role as in the case of their western female entrepreneurs, acting as advisors and legitimizing the entrepreneurial ventures in the society. however successful women entrepreneurs were found to be living outside the domain of extended family allowing the parental controls but expecting husbands to give understanding and support. we also conclude that the economic empowerment of women, the clout, comes from being together on a platform that provides the support services and to be able to raise their voice and that was the chamber of commerce & industry. it infact provides a formidable clout to women and gives their economic emancipation. though the serious work on female entrepreneurship and now there is a range of it available, there is always reference to the influences of culture on women but it has not brought out the strong south asian impact that exists among the female entrepreneurs of pakistan; roomi has time and again emphasized the freedom to do business in islam and has given the role-model in islam for the muslim women but has not focused on the various crucial cultural barriers which are the real hindrance and precipitators of sufferings by the women in pursuit of economic independence. in this respect much work remains researchers could well khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 89 bridge this gap by undertaking step by step cultural taboos, geographical regions, ethnic origin, rural and urban divided, tribal & feudal bearing on culture and influence women in pakistan. there is vast scope for such serious research, which will evolve into a situation of change as has the correct knowledge of islam done to the current leaders and female entrepreneurs in pakistan. this would have an impact on all other neighboring countries of south asia. references [1] aaltio, i., (2009). ‘how women entrepreneurs identify themselves in current russian business culture’. icsb world conference seoul. 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[14] matlay, h., (2005). ‘researching entrepreneurship, part 1: what is entrepreneurship and does it matter?’ education and training, 47, 8/9, 665-677. 90 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 62 -91) [15] minitti, m. arenius, p. & langowitz, n., (2005). “global entrepreneurship monitor 2004 report on women and entrepreneurship” babson park, ma: babson college. [16] nabeel a. goheer, (2003).‘women entrepreneurs in pakistan; how to grow their bargaining power’ ilo: islamabad. [17] nabeel goheer and susan e. penksa, (2007). ‘gender intelligent economic growth work in pakistan’, united states agency for international development (usaid). [18] rajani, n., sarada, d. (2008). “women entrepreneurship & support system” kamla-raj stud home comm sci : 2(2): 107-112. [19] roomi, m, a., (2008). “women entrepreneurs in pakistan: profile, challenges and practical recommendation”. [20] roomi, m, a., (2009). ‘entrepreneurial capital, social values and islamic traditions: growth of women-owned enterprises in pakistan’ icsb world conference. seoul. [21] roomi, m. a.& p. harrison (2008). “impact of women-only entrepreneurship training in islamic society,” in the dialogue of woman entrepreneurship and social capital. eds. [22] sajal k. maiti, (2008). ‘women entrepreneurs and emerging profession: a study on women entrepreneurs engaged in home delivery catering services in salt lake area, kolkata, west bangal’ management and labor studies: vol. 33 no 4. [23] sen, amartya (2005) “the argumentative indain: writing on indian history, culture and identity” picador n.y. [24] tambunan, tulus t.h. (2008), development of smes in asean, read worthy publications, ltd, new delhi. [25] wcci (undated publication), “community of women entrepreneurs. weekly. žensko preduzetništvo i ženska komora privrede i industrije: ekonomska emancipacija i njen uticaj na žene pakistana a p s t r a k t društvena ekonomija, kultura, i religiozno preduzetništvo i tabui imaju jak uticaj na društva južne azije. pakistan je muslimansko društvo koje egzistira uz religiju vođenu kuturom indijskog društva. postoji jako puno kulturnih preklapanja muslimanskih karakteristika identiteta i praktičnog načina života. prilikom definisanja preduzetničkog profila muslimanskih žena preduzetnica u pakistanu mora se imati na umu da je kultura tu dominantna prepreka. previše je kompleksna khan, i., women chamber of commerce and industry, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 60-91) 91 kultura južne azije da amartiya sen postavlja pitanje: “koliki deo ovoga jedan stranac koji poseduje opšte znanje faktora koji su uključeni može da to oseti i na to da odgovori? – i koliko to može da mu iskrivi sud.” zatim roomi (2005) govori da se žene suočavaju sa kulturom u kojoj je diskriminacija duboko ukorenjena i društvenim faktorima koji onemogućavaju njihov razvoj. ali osnaženje žena u pakistanu prati primer žene proroka muhameda kadije. ova kontradikcija u terminima i ova evolucija medju muslimanskim ženama je predmet interesovanja istraživača koje inhibira razvoj žena preduzetnika u muslimanskom društvu kao što je pakistan. cilj ovog rada jeste da ukaže na korist globalne zajednice, prirode okruženja i uticaja običaja, tradicija i kultura i odredjivanja faktora religijskog preduzetništva. pregledana je postojeća literature o ženskom preduzetništvu i posebno uloga projekta diana. ali prepereke postoje zbog ograničenosti literature koja se bavi ženskim preduzetništvom muslimana južne azije i pakistana posebno je korišćena kvalitativna metodologija, detaljni intervijui i studije slučaja. razmatrani su upitnici i korišćeni odgovori. pronalasci pokazuju da pod uticajem religije, praktikuje se pogrešna filozofija. žene su otkrile da se treba uložiti napore i stoga postoji duga borba za uspostavljanje ženske komore za privredu i industriju. prilikom pisanja rada utvrdjeno je da ne postoji dovoljno literature o ovoj temi. već da je ona prisutna kao teorijski aspect radova napisanih o zapadnoj kulturi od strane zapadnih istraživača. istraživanje mora da ima u vidu trenutna ograničenja prilikom proučavanja raznih kulturološki povezanih faktora i načina kako se može uticati na budući rast ženskog preduzetništva. ključne reči: žensko preduzetništvo, religiozni pristup preduzetništvu, diana projekat article history: received: 28 december, 2013 accepted: 21 april, 2014 cultural and socio economic experiences of female entrepreneurs in brazil and the united states: an exploratorial and empirical analysis holland neila, business and entrepreneurship professor, stratford university, baltimore campus,united states of america introduction the research question and the purpose of the study methodology entrepreneurship as a socially and culturally constructed phenomenon social capital and social networks family cross country comparative studies on female entrepreneurs push and pull female entrepreneurship across countries necessity and informal entrepreneurship linked to economic development in brazil and the united states gender inequalities, stereotypes and perceived male entrepreneurs’ characteristics in brazil and the united states the family influence on entrepreneurship in brazil and the united states religion and business values images of success results and analysis of data demographics and business characteristics the women’s success stories work/life balance financial independence self actualization recognition by society customer loyalty help others help themselves the key to business success on being a woman in business the importance of family for the women’s business: the advocates, the adapters and the hermits perceptions and practices on education discussion the relationship between the women’s categories and emerging themes conclusions problems of women employees in private shops and business enterprises, kerala kurian dolly kumar saleel position of women in the indian society status of indian women in employment position of women in kerala research hypothesis research approach and method sample selection and size key findings psycho-social problems gender discrimination health problems occurrence of sexual harassment conclusion women entrepreneurship through “self help group” in ysr district, india rajani levaku objectives of the study methodology of study age-group of select shg members educational qualifications of select shg members marital status of select shg members family size of the select shgs purpose of joining shgs by the select members activities undertaken conclusion suggestions reference female entrepreneurship and the women chamber of commerce and industry: economic emancipation and clout for pakistani women khan iqbal literature review research methodology case studies nikki’s beauty saloon conclusion microfinancing in smes development, evidence from serbia vladan kovačević milan beslac, dejan vukosavljević, radmila grozdanić literature overview microfinancing early initiatives smes and micro financing smes microfinancing-evidence from serbia discssion and conclusions social change and women entrepreneurship in algeria ghiat boufeldja introduction discussions conclusions references gender dimensions of informal cross border trade in west-african sub-region (ecowas) borders olabisi yusuff introduction brief literature review and theoretical framework rational choice theory method of data collection results and critical discussion motivation and social networking among women traders in informal cross border trade trading activities across ecowas sub region borders known and unknown risks challenges of women in informal cross border trade drivers’ theft, robbery, and fraud in the market coping strategies of women traders in informal cross border trade in ecowas su-region conclusions recommendation regional trends for women’s electoral success in the east african legislatures ombati mokua the east african case countries: rwanda, tanzania, uganda,burundi andkenya rwanda tanzania uganda burundi kenya choice of quota type challenges lessons skills development training among women hospitality industry entrepreneurs in south sudan brown desmond, university of kentucky, united states of america purpose barriers to women in south sudan’s development skills development, hospitality & tourism capacity building of sses multinational organizations and development in sudan the project impacts discussion and conclusion references 16_jwe_3-4_finalna_ver udk: 330.14 005.32:331.1-055.2 jel: l26, b54, o15 cobiss.sr-id: 227960844 professional paper women entrepreneurship and access to capital bogdanović miodrag faculty of economics, finance and administration, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t this paper explores the consequences of gender inequality on the women entrepreneurship development and economic development. the paper challenges the theoretical statement which says that resolving issue of the gender inequality worldwide, can significantly change the conditions of economic development. limited potentials for women in business stop the economic growth, particularly in developing countries. ability to access the financial resources appears to be the biggest impediment for women to achieve economic independence. this finding is recognized in many developing as well as developed countries. key words: gender equality, women entrepreneurship, access to capital, microfinance, social inclusion introduction according to a recent study by the credit suisse research institute (gender diversity and corporate performance, 2012); companies with women board members routinely outperform competitors whose boards include no women. growing interest in the subject of gender diversity in corporate boards and in governmental policymaking positions has produced a lively debate about the economic benefits of gender equality. although bogdanović, m., women entrepreneurship, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) 21 women are making progress in eliminating gender disparities, they still lag men in the workplace and in the halls of government. these gaps are found throughout the world, but are particularly pronounced in developing economies. renowned scholars, leading institutions, global businesses, and a growing range of nongovernmental organizations stress the benefits of further reducing gender inequality to allow women to realize their full potential in economic activities and in civic life (stotsky, j. 2013). the question is no longer whether gender diversity matters, but how it can be achieved. in the shadow of global economic crisis, started in 2008, and awareness that the market is neither stable nor self-correcting, it is difficult to explore the facts related to women entrepreneurship and equal access to capital as common practice throughout the world. it is the fact that female-run enterprises are steadily grown all over the world, contributing to household incomes and growth of national economies. according to new data from the global financial inclusion (global findex – klapper, l. 2014) database, women represent the greatest portion of the population with marginal or without access to capital. the same document provides information that women in comparison to men have approximately 20 percent less chances to open an account in the bank or borrow the money in order to initiate their economic activities. these inequalities exist worldwide, particularly in developing countries making the distinction within the income categories wider and more visible. despite the obvious potential for growth, women entrepreneurs still face difficulties accessing the capital sources and enforcing their business plans. lack of access to finance and financial services is repeatedly identified as the major constraint for women business owners (world bank, 2013). numerous studies have shown that smes in middle-income economies generally contribute nearly half of employment and as much as a third of gross domestic product (ifc, 2014). on a larger scale, smaller companies contribute in some aspects (e.g. employment growth) even more than bigger companies. macroeconomic aspect of gender equality exploring the way how gender inequality affects the macroeconomic categories has a relatively short history. however, microeconomic analysis considesr gender impact for a long time now. this is why the policy makers 22 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) developing gender responsive strategic documents must have profound understanding of the causal effect that economic growth and policies supporting it, have on the female entrepreneurship. to achieve equality and economic independence females, have to be provided with the equal opportunity to run a business, open a bank account and borrow the money. the survey (un, 2009) on gender equality, found that the empowerment of female entrepreneurs has multiple effect in many different aspects of development especially in poverty reduction and the welfare of children. macroeconomic policies impact gender equality by means of market interventions to make capital more accessible. until recently, gender inequality has been neglected as the category on significance in drafting macroeconomic strategies and policies, especially when it comes to the economic growth strategies and monetary, fiscal, trade and investment policies, as well as the specific constrains to women’s economic empowerment, including in particular the unequal gender distribution of paid and unpaid work and its implications for access to economic resources and opportunities. monetary policies influence the issue of gender inequality through the labor market. women smallholder farmers and smes are prevented from easy borrowing through formal procedures in formal banking institutions. other than that, tax system often creates additional inequality by forcing female entrepreneurs to shift their economic activities into the gray zone of economy to avoid the burdens imposed by tax authorities. on the flip side, governments have tools to help vulnerable social categories and female entrepreneurs to ensure their empowerment. namely, budgets at national and local level could be an instrument for a “positive discrimination” of these groups. gender budgeting initiatives could be used in ensuring that resources are allocated in accordance with the gender sensitive policies. trade policies may affect female empowerment and force gender inequality through different mechanisms. for example, women can be discouraged by employment policy giving more opportunities to males over females, or by income policy when for the same work females get less income than males. again, like in the case of monetary policy, there are mechanisms to stimulate women empowerment and their economic independence and welfare. bogdanović, m., women entrepreneurship, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) 23 foreign direct investment – the foreign investment attraction policy and its impact on gender inequality could be two fold. namely foreign direct investments bring new jobs, particularly in labor intensive sectors. on the other hand, the incentive for capital reallocation is rather often, the low wages policy where the overarching goal is higher amount of investments, number of new jobs but not empowerment of the vulnerable social categories and gender equality. according to un survey (un, 2009) the obstacles women are facing in the market are: the low level of education that keeps them in the work intensive, low income sectors, obstacles in market mobility, and access to capital. these factors keep women in the labor sectors where the influence of global competition defines the framework for development. economic growth strategies should give attention to the real economy and focus on creating a gender sensitive macroeconomic environment, full employment and decent work, access to land, property and other productive resources as well as financial services, and full coverage of social protection measures. position of women in transition and developing countries according to the united nations population fund (un, 2015) an empowered woman has a sense of self-worth. she has control over her own life, both within and outside the home and she has the ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order, both nationally and internationally (undp, 2008). the world bank and others have shown that increasing women’s access to quality education, good jobs, land and other resources contributes to economic growth, and sustainable development on the long-run (un women, 2011). women represent 3,5 billion citizens; yet in many countries they face a wide range of constraints to effective participation in social and economic sphere. women make up less than 10% of world leaders. women have found themselves consistently limited by traditional gender stereotypes regarding women’s ability to assume leadership positions. according to research done by csri (credit suisse research institute, 2012) approximately one quarter to a third of all small firms in the world are owned by females. these are predominantly small or micro companies with limited potentials for further development. the situation with big and multinational companies is different. women are rather poorly represented 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) in these companies with no or rare presence in the highest management levels. the suggestions given in the world bank’s report (world development report 2011) estimate that productivity could increase by 25% in the development countries, if the “positive discrimination” measures and polices towards female entrepreneurs is adopted and enforced. in essence, the findings of the report lead into conclusion that women empowerment and gender equality have supportive effect to the sustainable economic growth and creation of new jobs. that requires removing existing legal and traditional obstacles, and improvement of the financial markets. the following is a detailed exposition of these two limitations: in the early 1970s, awareness arose about the disadvantaged conditions of women all over the world. at this time the concept of "women in development” has been developed by undp. the idea called for the involvement of women in projects that would help improve their conditions as well as those of their families (aggrawal s., 1996). to illustrate the recent changes related to gender inequality, it is helpful to analyze the data from u.s. census 2000. namely, based on the results of it, one of three employed females earns more than her male partner. slowly but steadily the status of women is improving in every aspect. as the time and effort required for household chores diminished due to the technology development, women spent less time at home. it was necessary to assess the global situation (both social and economic) of women so that needed areas of change could be identified. in 1975, the united nations' declaration of the international women's year and the decade for women provided the impetus for studying the specific problems, concerns, and issues pertaining to women from a policy perspective. findings from studies, conducted mostly by un in the second half of 20th century became very important. they provided the basis for planning strategies for the integration of women in national development programs. much of the research, however, was conducted among women in the western world. it was inappropriate to use these data as a basis for planning projects intended for women in developing countries. social scientists, (tinker b., 1981) warned against the implementation of development programs based on the western model for women in developing nations. tinker argued against this practice, explaining, "the unquestioned transfer of erroneous beliefs about women from developed bogdanović, m., women entrepreneurship, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) 25 western to developing societies seems to be at the root of many of the negative effects development has had on women's lives (tinker b., 1981)" in the republic of serbia for example, there is no precise statistical data on women’s entrepreneurship. the lack of policy and specific measures that promote female entrepreneurship and gender equality is the direct consequence of non-existing data that would help to compare local circumstances with surrounding countries and european union. however, it seems that women in the republic of serbia are changing their attitude. namely, long period of instability, wars and transition made serbian people and particularly women more decisive when it comes to economic independence. they were taking the risk of running business more often, trying to secure the future of their families. such developments could not be neglected by the authorities at the all levels in the country, from national to local. the government of serbia introduced new laws, improving the business environment. sometimes, the new legislative was modern in essence but too difficult to implement. particularly, when it comes to entrepreneurship, the new regulation missed comprehensive gender equality component. the complex theme of female entrepreneurship as well as the clarity of the policies has to be supported by the adequate activities of gender mainstreaming. obstacles to women entrepreneurship this section of the article will give more information about female entrepreneurship as well as on different impediments that prevent women in being economic active and run their businesses in competitive manner. the short list of these impediments along with the brief explanation is provided below: legal framework – the basic precondition for avoiding “gray economy” is the regulation that stimulates start-ups, micro businesses and smes to exercise their economic activity in the formal sector. the world bank’s study conducted among poor people worldwide in 2015 (voices of the poor world bank) came to conclusion that poor people see their escape from poverty through development of their own businesses or work in the small scale businesses. the lack of smart regulation, however, keeps approximately 80% of economic activities of the poor still in the “gray economy”. 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) ownership issue – a basic factor that serves as an incentive for boosting entrepreneurship activities is the ownership. the right to acquire and access the private property encourages entrepreneurs to take an effort towards economic empowerment. particularly it works for women in business. in many countries around the world property rights issue goes hand in hand with gender inequality. women are discriminated in access to capital, borrowing and ensuring collateral, despite the fact that most countries now have in the constitutions mandatory provision on property rights and gender equality. poorly enforced constitutional provisions, directly affect female entrepreneurship enthusiasm and their decisiveness in risk taking. cultural constraints – the set of incentives for female entrepreneurs to start and develop business activity is seriously endangered with the role that women has in the society. in some countries, cultural heritage and tradition prevent women in having their own property and makes access to capital more difficult. thus, with no property and no money, women are discouraged to achieve economic independence through the business activities. time constraints – the longer time devoted to child care, preparing fresh food and other household activities, reduce the time women can allocate for personal improvement, learning and economic activities. the time constraint determines market position, type of work and duration of work experience. thus, time constraint is considered as one of the most important factors that influences females’ labor market position. custom and traditional social norms social norms often define the activities women can engage in, imposing restrictions on mobility or on engagement with the outside. although influential, strong and deeply rooted into the real life, these social norms are changeable under appropriate regulatory reform process. the enforcement of gender sensitive regulation could change custom and traditional social norms. women’s position within the family – very often, particularly in the poor countries women are not in the position to take part in decision making about spending family funds, even in the cases when it is decision about their earnings. that situation prevents women entrepreneurs in takin actions towards business development and economic empowerment. human resources – females education, skills improvement and experience gained over the time, significantly influence the value of the human capital. this helps in their positioning on the market, since the bogdanović, m., women entrepreneurship, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) 27 measure of female entrepreneurs’ human capital is still lower in comparison to males. this obstacle became as of recently easy to overcome due to the improvements in education of women infrastructure – access to finance is determined, among others, whit the status of infrastructure. good roads and railroads can shorten the time for female entrepreneurs to rich the financial institutions. electricity shortages could affect the economic performance of the small companies owned by women. thus, good condition of infrastructure helps businesses in general, and women owned business in particular, to grow and develop. governance – well-structured and managed system for the businesses to perform their activities is maybe of crucial importance. no matter how the business is effective and profit oriented, the burden of poor governance could be very discouraging. it works for every type and size of business. so, good governance stimulates businesses and economic activities in general. it is especially important for the women owned businesses. good governance, gender sensitive, sets the stage for female businesses to find the market niche and achieve steady growth. very often, good governance is the tall order for the poor countries or developing countries and requires lot of efforts and investments. thus, creation of business enabling environment and good governance model is the most difficult reform to introduce in these countries. women entrepreneurship and access to finance depending on the company size, access to finance as an obstacle to economic growth and development has a different significance. the chart below presents the ratio determined with the company size – the bigger companies, the less need for additional finances. there is a difference also whether the company is run by female or male, and what sector companies work in. 28 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) graphic 1: smes development constraints namely, women-owned smes are a financially underserved segment at the market. they are less likely to obtain formal financing and often pay higher interest rates. as mentioned above the economic performance depends on the sector and geographic location. women entrepreneurs who owned smaller firms in distant locations and specific product are in less competitive position and it reduces their chances to obtain good loan at good interest rate. that is why very few female entrepreneurs are using formal bank credits. instead, they are financing the growth of their businesses by relying upon personal savings, investment from private sources such as family and friends, and the reinvestment of business earnings. analyses (ifc, 2001) have shown direct correlation between type, size and the ownership structure of the business and the size of the loan they can borrow at the bank and average time of issuance of the loan. though women are running a large number of formal small and medium enterprises, the number of businesses owned and lead by women is inverse proportional to the business growth scale. namely, on the list of successful, growing smes, number of female owned firms goes down as one move to the top of the list. this doesn’t mean that women are less successful in running business, it means that aforementioned constrains are huge and influential and among them access to capital is considered as the most difficult one. the position of female entrepreneurs depends also on the overall rate of entrepreneurship in the country. namely, more developed sector of entrepreneurship means more women in business. the linkage in number of bogdanović, m., women entrepreneurship, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) 29 male entrepreneurs in one country is directly proportional to the number of female entrepreneurs. more developed entrepreneurial sector means higher number of the female firms, performing well and without problems in access to finance. microfinance in context women entrepreneurship improvement in order to provide an answer to the question whether women entrepreneurship contributes to the economic growth at large, it is important to tackle the other, supply side or the financial institutions. there is no doubt that the financial institutions have an important role in making financial resources more accessible and affordable to the female entrepreneurs. the experience from the financial market shows positive attitude of the commercial banks towards female owned firms as good clients and very bankable. as stated above, female entrepreneurs more risk averse tending to decrease the possibility of failure because of high interest loans that could not be re-payed. thus women entrepreneurs are more oriented towards informal financial resources like private savings, borrowing from friends and family and other informal resources. one of the informal financial services providers are microfinance institutions (mfi) whose number of clients increases over the years. many women entrepreneurs are mfi client although as of recently, the female entrepreneurs need for capital grows faster than mfis. some women have extremely good business ideas requiring larger loans, but they face discrimination in accessing such loans, with the result that their businesses collapse because they are forced to purchase inferior equipment or materials. mfis are required to react fast to the needs of their clients and, very often, they provide tailor made package of financial services for the different type of clients. the flexibility of smes to react to the market impulses is followed with the increased flexibility of the mfis to answer their needs. in this part of the document, the examples cooperation between mfis, governmental agencies and international development entities will be provided. in the developing countries recently appeared numerous financial models tailored on the needs of specific country in order to improve private sector. particularly, many financial mechanisms have been developed to support women entrepreneurship in last several decades. 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) the example of global banking alliance for women (gba) is maybe the most illustrative one. gba is an organization based on the membership. it has an innovative approach in helping women become economic independent. the organization provides women owned firms with the basic access to the financial resources through its cooperation with commercial banks. the gba was established as consortia of several banks from ireland, usa and canada. previously, these banks have its own successful experience in help fostering female entrepreneurship. nowadays, the gba is very well developed organization with more than 30 member national and commercial banks as well as some other institutions. the banks and institutions collaborate and exchange information on developments in sector of women entrepreneurship on regular basis and make the support to women in business more efficient. apart from being credit support for women businesses, certain number of programs was developed to support female entrepreneurship from the aspect of technical assistance. from the experience of these programs can be concluded that female entrepreneurs are quite profitable and reliable market actors. aforementioned mechanisms have proved over last two decades that continuous support to female entrepreneurship, based on mix of steady support in access to capital and technical assistance is helpful and efficient when it comes to increased number of women owned firms and number of jobs created in such firms. the system based on following standards was developed to estimate usefulness of the support mechanisms: − leverage: this standard shows how the public entities contribute to the mechanism, − sustainability: represents the potential of the mechanism in question to grow in the long term period resisting the everyday challenges, − replicability: supporting mechanisms supposed to be used in different environments with minimal modifications, − results and track record: the mechanism should have solid m&e system in place for the purpose of tracking results, and learning from the experience, − implementation capacity: the mechanism should be tailored by the capacity of mfi that has to implement it. bogdanović, m., women entrepreneurship, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) 31 the case of certain financial support mechanisms shows that the full efficiency and perfection are still far away, if reachable at all. why is that so? well, it seems that operational mfis are not resistant to scaling up along with its clients and shifting its focus on the profit making. maybe the most illustrative example comes from peru and the mfi mibanco that over the time became a commercial bank. transformation to a commercial bank brought transition of the overarching goal that instead of helping women micro-entrepreneurs to get easily small loan, became assurance of bigger loans that would help in scaling up their economic activity. in the end the result of the transformation from mfi to a commercial bank, was the higher rate of business failure among women entrepreneurs. the case of wedi was somewhat similar. namely the women enterprise development initiative (wedi) established in south africa to support women entrepreneurship. this fund ensures capital for the women owned firms, however unlike mibanco, wedi considers social aspect of its activity much more than profit created from the financial service provided. the wedi goal is set in the long run and it is about helping female entrepreneurs to build up their capacity and ability to grow on the sustainable basis. the difference of two compared examples is in the level of social awareness and readiness to work towards this goal. improving access to capital for female entrepreneurs in serbia socio-economic conditions for women’s entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia are unfavorable. women owned firms are proportionally smaller than men’s. when it comes to the type of business women entrepreneurs in the republic of serbia are oriented toward business sectors of trade and services, unlike men entrepreneurs who are much more in the sector of production and agriculture. the share of the firms from trade sector in total number of women owned firms is 36.4%. at the same time share of men owned trade firms is 28.4%. additionally, share of female owned firms in service sector is 44% in total number of firms, which shows that women entrepreneurs are predominately (80%) in the sectors of trade and services, while the same number in case of men entrepreneurs is approximately 68%. numerous are factors that influence this relation on the market. interestingly, reasons for that are more social in the nature. namely, female entrepreneurs are more reluctant to choose complex legal forms for their activity, they are less interested in joint ventures than in independent 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) business, and so on. at last, women entrepreneurs have started their businesses later than men. all of mentioned, along with the standard obstacles for women entrepreneurship recognized globally, causes the higher rate of female businesses closure. in the republic of serbia, the rate of closed businesses was 47% for female owned firms to 38% of male owned ones. this is particularly case with the female owned firms in the earlier stage. it points out how women entrepreneurs still facing numerous impediments in running the business. lately, the developments in the process of creating business enabling environment for women entrepreneurs in the republic of serbia are promising. the legal framework and institutional support mechanisms were drafted with awareness of the complexity of the women empowerment issue and higher level of gender sensitivity. however, although the trend of changing of the social and business environment is going in the positive direction, it has to be stressed that it is not sufficient. namely, the rigor legal framework on financial institutions doesn’t recognize the non-banking financial institutions like mfis, while the banking sector is even stricter when it comes to the funding of start-ups. many banks are unwilling to provide services, in part because of the perceived high risk of financing poor clients and start-ups, but also because they would need to invest significant resources in changing their business model to serve this clientele. with an estimated size of €267 million, microcredit can play a significant role in credit access for the entrepreneurs, particularly female ones, although it would remain only a small fraction of the total level of bank credit provided. in the author’s view, this potential demand justifies further study on how financing the female entrepreneurship could be improved in the republic of serbia. conclusion in the “post-economic-crisis” times of economic instability, the priority for development and economic growth must be based on the balance approach to smes. the concept or gender equality must not be neglected. on contrary, barriers that stop women in easier access to financial resources have to be removed. making women equal to men can improve their and lives of their kids and families and society at large. finally, further democratization of the society has to be based on social and political bogdanović, m., women entrepreneurship, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 20-34) 33 activism of both men and women as economic independent members of the society. among others, one possible path to enhance both female and male 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[18] international food policy research institute. http://www.ifpri.org/divs/fcnd/dp/papers/fcndp115.pdf [19] http://www.gbaforwomen.org/, accessed, march 2015. article history: received: 10 june, 2016 accepted: 7 november, 2016 18_jwe_3-4 doi: 10.28934/jwee18.34.pp20-33 scientific review female entrepreneurship opportunity: home-based genealogy business mirjana radović-marković1 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t in the last 15-20 years, the character of genealogical research has transformed gradually. thus, genealogy is changing into a modern academic discipline. the modern genealogy is supported by digitization of public and genealogical records. at the same time, the new technologies are affecting the development of home-based genealogical research services. the goal of this paper is to offer more ways of encouraging entrepreneurship for genealogists, including the role of the education system and research skills that are especially critical in the field of genealogy and in genealogists' success in their business key words: entrepreneurship, genealogy, skills, education, home business, communication introduction the thinking “entrepreneurially” leads to the intention to start a business and ultimately to the decision to act on that intention (busenitz and lau 1996). a new generation of moms is creating a new model for doing business and become very interested in establishing home business. also, women over 45 age-group is growing rapidly what opened growth potential for the genealogy industry. in this context, the objective of this paper is there 1 address: znaj jovina 12,11000 belgrade, e-mail: mirjana.radovic@ien.bg.ac.rs radović-marković, m., home-based genealogy, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 20-33) 21 fore to examine gender of entrepreneur’s operation factors on firm performance in the home-based genealogy business. it provides an understanding of the pre-requisites for female entrepreneurs to succeed in their home businesses, which is of critical importance to survive in the competitive business environment. theoretical overview different theoretical approaches to entrepreneurship show that this field of research is considered as a very broad one. the need to understand entrepreneurial learning and education is critical (gartner and birney,2002; mitchell et al., 2002 and cope,2005) in order to support acquisition of knowledge and skills required for sustainable business development. yet, research which examines the “complex interactive learning relationship that exists between the entrepreneur, her/his business and the wider environment” (cope, 2005) is still in the early stages (minnitti and bygrave, 2001; ravasi and turati, 2005). considering the importance of education for entrepreneurs, it has recently become evident that the new age is looking for new forms of education, such as creative education. creative education and training should help entrepreneurs to raise their creativity, logical thinking and entrepreneurship skills/capabilities/performance (radović marković 2012). many scientists think that knowledge is probably the most important requirement for business success and therefore it is the factor to which the most attention is being paid. research in the usa shows that business owners who were not educated enough for the business in which they were engaged were not successful, i.e. more than 80% of their businesses failed during the first year of its existence (mirjana radović marković 2009). on the contrary, those entrepreneurs who were educated and who showed constant interest for improvement have increased their business success (60%) after the completion of basic training programs for entrepreneurship. certain skills cannot be developed solely by simple multiple-choice exams. new education programs for entrepreneurs must be based on exchanging good practice through studies and networks among strategic partners (researchers, entrepreneurs, financiers, advisors, policy-makers, and so forth). becoming an entrepreneur, however, is a time-consuming process, and the goal of education is not only to rush students into becoming entrepreneurs, but rather to provide them with tools that enable realistic student self-evaluations even several years after graduation. extensive literature explores both the role of 22 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 20-33) learning in adaptation and strategies for facilitating institutional and social learning in ‘complex adaptive systems’ (radovic-markovic, 2018 there are lot of studies examining the determinants of entrepreneurial activities. their number, size and types. in literature, we can also note that “women entrepreneurs see their businesses more realistically and they make attempts to develop them in family environments, while men gravitate more towards developing a business hierarchy with defined rules and working business procedures” (radovic-markovic, 2013, p.4). according to inmyxai, et a. (2013, p.94), in some cases where males and females have the same types of firm resources,” many females are reluctant to transform their economic resources into empowerment outcomes within family because of the threat of social isolation if their husbands should leave them. in addition, “women place significantly less emphasis on making more money through entrepreneurship than they would by working for someone else “(pruett, at.al. 2018., p.43). it is of particular interest to explore female business background and the organizational characteristics of their enterprises (avolio and radovic-markovic, 2013). rules for running home business “today mom-preneurs are very prominent because many women wish to have a family and children, but also have the dream of starting a business” (radović marković, 2013 p.131). it is not easy to work from home, although it seems at the first sight. they have a vision of business in home organization, which should provide plenty of time for relaxing, socializing, dealing with family members/affairs and other personal activities. in line with this, they expect that will avoid long business meetings, boss’ critics, etc. however, although work from home allows more freedom and different opportunities for quality use of time, still business owners fall into traps, having in mind that they lack organizational capabilities, cannot organize their commitments and time, and sometimes they even lose their identity. in order to succeed in realizing our business intentions and to avoid the traps of running business at home, we shall list several rules which should be followed: − first, energize your entrepreneurial idea by initiating it and turning it into solid activities. next, think of how your business will be unique and think of an original way of maximizing the service for clients and customers. in other words, the customers must always radović-marković, m., home-based genealogy, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 20-33) 23 have your full attention. it is well known that every business is born with a product or a service and that it dies without customers. therefore, no matter what type of business is started/initiated, whether it is an e-business or a traditional one, it is important to maintain control of all its operations and resources. among those, customers are considered the greatest source of all. therefore, connect to your customers and offer them a reason to come back to you. from those reasons, it is very important to create a positive experience for them, which is the combination of everything customers see and in which takes part. always have in mind that customers’ positive experience is a key to success of every small business. − emphasize your uniqueness compared to others. find a market which is does not have a high level and quality of services and offer something new and original. also, you have to become technical fanatic; use the advantages of the latest technicaltechnological achievements, which should help your business to improve and develop. permanently innovate and redesign your web presentation and work on it in order to make it more interesting for greater number of visitors and at the same time be connecting with them. connection to external world over internet is essentially important, as well as connection through professional associations, organizations and similar. − need to structure your time; it is necessary to make good time organization in order not to overlap private and business activities and always make work priorities. try to minimize time you spend outside your office during time dedicated for work. − use services of experts and practice team work. therefore, it is necessary to form a team of experts and external associates that can support or help you if it is necessary for your genealogy research. monthly meetings with associates are recommended, where all business opportunities, challenges and potential mistakes would be discussed. − do not avoid changes. they are sometimes desirable in some segments or elements of your work. in order to initiate them, all circumstances should be considered. also, associates opinion should be taking into account because they can pay you attention on mistakes, give suggestions and opinions. therefore, whenever this is 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 20-33) possible, corrections and changes should be accepted in every project. we can differ two basic types of changes; that is, reactive changes which imply those which are necessary in order to respond to research problems (technical errors, the lack of resources, etc.) and requested changes which imply that these changes may arise from new ideas, new information or new business perspectives. the role of knowledge of entrepreneurs is the most significant; having in mind that management of changes is very risky and sensible process, which demands combination of planning and communication skills, logical and creative capabilities, working experience, etc. these skills are necessary regardless on the type of project and the level the changes are applied − manage your project documentation efficiently. research documentation provides necessary information for research analysis. therefore, managing documentation is extremely important for that project’s success. the basic goals of the management of project documentation are creation of mechanisms of control of project documentation, minimizing errors and securing that all documents are gathered from valuable sources. in order to accomplish these goals, it is necessary to provide appropriate instruments which vary from the simplest to the most complex ones, which are in the basis of every system of project documentation management. system of project documentation management must contain the following elements: that is input which means by which documents will be created. others are output; that is, determining the way of presentation of documentation which should be distributed (by email, printed material or some other acceptable form), research; that is determining the way of analyzing of gathered documentation (by using specific information of by keywords) and documentation archiving. genealogist`s responsibility must relate to the following fields of his/her engagement: − to determine and identify project’s and research requirements and accordingly to determine a procedure for gathering project documentation, − to determine which type of project documentation is needed, considering project plans, contracts, technical documentation, work specification, reports, etc., radović-marković, m., home-based genealogy, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 20-33) 25 − how and when gathered documentation will be used, − who will enter the data in prepared forms, − how will documentation be applied and used depending on the complexity and the size of project, − to determine which software will be used, − to define how will documents be classified by their importance, and − to determine how the documents will be analyzed. however, the common thing for all genealogists is the fact that they must define required documentation, to secure its gathering and analyzing, as well as to make it available to clients on time. managing these activities could be interpreted as having ability, mind and skills which are essential for success. it requires much knowledge, techniques and experience, and above all, their good integration in a whole, which should lead to optimal use of human and financial resources in order to achieve business results. key decisions for initiate/start a home business a good business plan has to be developed with intention to explore all the defined possibilities for a business. this is maybe the toughest phase of the entrepreneurial process. the integral parts of a typical business plan are: − mission − overview of key objectives − the market environment − strategy − financial forecast − activity business plan is made at the beginning of each business year and has to be done professionally, which demands hiring managers and entrepreneurs, as well as a number of consultants or specialized agencies in order to take advantage of their potentials. business plan creation, according to some estimates, needs more than 200 hours of preparations. it has to be made in a way to give a potential investor complete picture and understanding of new business and to enable him to clarify important business components. an individuals' business plan size is mostly determined based on the amount of resources needed to be invested in planned business. in other 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 20-33) words, the larger amount of means necessary, the more detailed business plan should be prepared and the more estimates and suggestions should be given. despite that, realistic average size of business plan is between three to ten pages, which accents the most important business details with related financial estimates. the activity of creating a formal business plan consumes both time and resources. there are four mechanisms by which a business plan might aid the performance of the venture. when the business plan is prepared, it should be checked once again to evaluate whether the choice of business suits the market, as well as the interest and desires of the future business owner(s). that is, to what extent personal and market interests overlap? at this stage, the most important thing is to balance entrepreneur`s personal goals with market demands. part -time or fulltime home business many female entrepreneurs start their home business part-time, due to their family commitments and raising children. others cannot be engaged more than several hours per day, since their home business is considered as an additional or second job, that is, they have other work obligations. female entrepreneurs usually decide to work from home on a full-time basis when family and financial conditions allow them to do so. in this way, they have maximum dedication to their home business, paying their full attention to it, as well as their time, knowledge and money. however, there are many of those who do not pay any attention to making such a decision, since they do not consider it important. instead, they expect that they will decide in time, after business inception and depending on the scope of activities how much time they would dedicate to the home-business activities performed every day, so they can choose between two options in time – i.e. to work full or part-time? while making such a decision, one should realistically consider the existing family situation, finance and spare time which allows the entrepreneur to be dedicated to the new enterprise (mirjana radović marković 2009). sometimes it is very hard to make a clear distinction when the part-time employment becomes the full-time one, having in mind that most of the home-business owners spend most of their spare and work time thinking about their business – about marketing strategies, planning and similar issues. therefore, it usually happens that the entrepreneur seamlessly radović-marković, m., home-based genealogy, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 20-33) 27 goes over that boundary, and starts dedicating himself/herself to it full-time, instead of previously part-time engagement. most genealogists work part time. according to the u.s. bureau of labor statistics, 57 percent of genealogists are part time while only 34 percent worked full time, as of 1997 (rada 2011) in other words. many genealogists are self-employed and work on a contractual basis for their clients. even though it is a fact that part-time engagement gives more work liberty and provides many personal options. the practice in numerous world-wide countries has shown (the usa and other countries with a long tradition of doing business from home are considered) that engagement of this kind is short-lived, and it rather grows fast to full-time employment. it shows certain advantages, which can be illustrated in the following issues: − higher degree of professionalism in business − faster development and business progress − business market share increase despite the advantages, some disadvantages could also be mentioned for full-time engagement. among the main disadvantages are (radović marković and kyaruzi 2010): − greater risk − higher initial costs − loss of additional job the aforementioned disadvantages did not significantly contribute to home-business owners discouraging and giving up full dedication to their work. many of them hold on to the well-known business proverb, “no great risk in business – no great gain”. a genealogist's annual earnings may vary considerably depending upon her/his client base, the size of projects to which she/he is assigned. of all professional genealogists, 50 percent average salaries are between $22,880 and $52,041 as of january 2011, according to payscale (schnotz 2011). determination of success or failure of a home business it is logical to expect that everyone who starts a new business wishes that it succeeds, regardless of the type of business and the way it is organized and ran. but, what does it mean to be successful in business? as an entrepreneur, this is a question which you are expected to ask yourself, having in mind that you spend your energy, time and money, as well as talent to 28 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 20-33) create a new business. despite all efforts, experience and knowledge sometimes it may seem that business is not going the way you want and as you expected. therefore, self-evaluations important as it should be a part of your daily management process. learning "how you work" may be an excellent basis for deciding which way to take next. there are several tests which can help in determining how good or bad is your business. one must have in mind that the success of a five-year lasting business cannot be evaluated in the same way as the one that is lasting only for six months, which is practically in the phase of development/incubation. some of these ways for determining the road on which the business is are: (a) have you achieved all planned goals? compare your business plan with your results. also compare performances of your business to competition businesses. determine your part of the market, (b) do you pay your bills regularly? one of the main indicators of your business’ successfulness is whether you are in a position to cover your expenses on time and to pay your duties and taxes. if you are, you may consider your business as good functioning one. if you are not able to fulfill these commitments, then it is necessary to make certain steps and to make additional efforts to improve your business activities. maybe the only thing you have to do is to decrease your expenses or maybe your choice of business was wrong. also, do not expect that you can make so much money in the phase of development that you can fulfill your desires, because of which you founded the business. the advice for all those who enter entrepreneurial waters is to be patient and to do their work well and qualitative. if you work in this manner, in long-terms your business will certainly fulfill your material and other expectations, (c) have you done more as an entrepreneur or when you were employed at someone else’s? many entrepreneurs start their own business because they are not satisfied with their current job, material and social status. therefore, when you enter entrepreneurial waters, it is necessary to ask yourself do you earn now more compared to period when you were working for someone else. also, it is desirable to compare earnings of your colleagues which run similar businesses, have similar education and working experience as an entrepreneur similar to yours. all these answers will be an excellent index to show you whether you are more successful now than in the previous job when you were employed by someone else. not only the evaluation of your success, but also the making of a decision what to change radović-marković, m., home-based genealogy, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 20-33) 29 in professional plan in the future, that is, whether the existing business should be modified in some segments or replaced with some other, will depend on those answers, (d) what does a financial report show? a simple financial ratio analysis is the best way to show financial weaknesses and advantages of your business, (e) how are the sales doing? it is necessary to examine the trend of the sales of your products by comparing the data with previous month and previous year. if you notice a constant decrease of your sales, you must stop and make a different sales strategy. actually, these data should show whether your marketing efforts are efficient, do the distribution mechanisms operate well and is there still an expressed demand for your products or services, (f) do you make profit? do you lose or earn money? when can you expect profit from your business? do you have sufficient financial means to cover expenses and losses while your business is without profit? in long terms, is your business profitable at all? (g) how do you feel about your business? maybe the answer to this question is one of the best indexes whether you have achieved business success or not. actually, many entrepreneurs start their business from different motives. some of them were already mentioned, but the one which is of extreme importance is whether the business is approached with the same passion as in the beginning? at the end of this analysis you may conclude whether your business is worth your engagement and effort. but, only the business which fulfills you in every way and makes you happy can bring you success. turning genealogy hobby into home-based business a bank of america analysis reported "nine million internet users describe genealogy as a "core passion/hobby", and the majority of these (7.5 million) are 45 years and older (us census,2011). according to archives.com, about 65% of members are female and only 35% are male. a harris interactive survey estimated that 87% of american adults are interested in learning about their family histories (http://corporate.ancestry.com). despite the genealogy is being considered as a hobby, there are many opportunities for encouraging entrepreneurship for genealogists. the advantages to run this business are that we can start it with a minimum investment ($2,000 $10,000), do it part time and from home. 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 20-33) businesses that genealogists and other entrepreneurs do in their homes are relatively new. according to many indexes, these businesses are very stable, which is affirmed by data which show that the average age of businesses which owners run from their homes is around six years (radovicmarkovic 2009). the research also showed that workers who work at home use computers and modern technologies more than in other types of businesses in order to do their everyday tasks. in this way, by opening the door to modern technology and by using it in every day work situations, they gained more opportunities in choosing businesses which best suit their life style and made running a business much easier (mirjana radović marković 2010). figure 1: phpgedview based genealogy software source: https://www.infosolutionsgoa.com/deployment/phpgedview-genealogy software.html the internet plays a huge role in a genealogy business because it is a great source of information. internet services, in conjunction with the existing and more widely used communication media, provide the broadest enhancement of information and communication resources. in line with this, “genealogy business could become a mixture of researching jobs for clients, radović-marković, m., home-based genealogy, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 20-33) 31 consultation for professionals and speaking engagements for groups and conventions geared to family history research plus freelance writing on the subject for websites, blogs, magazines and other reference sources” (wallin, 2018). namely, today genealogists have given rise to the capabilities that make it remarkably easy for many people with a casual interest in genealogy to quickly assemble an accurate view of their family history (voelker 2011). thanks to some new software, it s very easy to create and manage tasks. so, phpgedview is one of the leading php based genealogy software (fig.1). lots of genealogists are still working toward combining their hobbies into their career. the genealogist business is varied, and an entrepreneur can choose the genealogist business according to his/her specialty – in order to design and run genealogical websites, research family history or to conduct family history consultations. conclusion the new economy is very often erroneously related to internet concept. however, this economy relies on the need of good informing and applying the best international modern entrepreneurial experiences. therefore, small businesses owners now face a permanent task to gain knowledge and continual examination of competition all around the world. besides that, they have to accept the fact that they can make business formula of success which should find market, meet customers’ demands and offer/render services at the lowest prices possible. networking is a huge part of any successful entrepreneurial endeavor. research skills and professionalism are critical in the field of genealogy. in other words, success of home-based firms depends primarily on the genealogist research competency, much more than on the technological competencies. namely, their research is actually a voyage of discovery and their business innovation. finally, many recent trends have positively impacted the genealogy industry. at the same time, internet penetration and usage will disrupt existing business models and make way for new ones. namely, consider just lot of the ongoing and upcoming digitization projects that will offer historical records, many at no cost to the user will make an impact on genealogy popularity. in line with this, we hope that this challenge will stimulate more research in this field, as well as, help genealogists to turn their nice dreams into a successful and profitable business. 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 20-33) references [1] archive.com: online family history trends, february, 2012 http://www.archives.com/blog/miscellaneous/online-family-history-trends1.html#_ednref9 [2] avolio, beatrice and radović marković, mirjana. 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[17] radović marković, mirjana. 2018. organizational resilience and business continuity: theoretical and conceptual framework, journal of entrepreneurship and business resilience, 2018, year i, number 1, pp. 5-11 [18] ravasi, davide and turati, chiara.2005. exploring entrepreneurial learning: a comparative study of technology development projects, journal of business venturing [19] schnotz, william. 2011. professional genealogist salary http://www.ehow.com/info_7805586_professional-genealogist-salary.html [20] u.s. census bureau,2011. "population profile of the united states: the elderly population," author frank b. hobbs, http://www.census.gov/. [21] voelker, dave. 2011. serial entrepreneurship and genealogy, genealogy industry http://www.digicopia.com/serial-entrepreneurship-genealogy/ [22] wallin, c. 2018. a genealogy business is about family. avaiable at: https://extraincomeover55.com/genealogy-business-family/ [23] wickham, phillip .2001. strategic entrepreneurship: a decision-making approach to new venture creation and management, financial times management article history: received: 7 november, 2018 accepted: 3 december, 2018 16_jwe_1-2 udk: 005.321-055.2:331.5 502.12:330 jel: b54, j16 cobiss.sr-id: 222332940 position paper women in the green economy petrović nevena1 beogradska bankarska akademija, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t women all over the world are engaged in different activities from providing basic necessities for their families to running businesses and countries. however, their contribution to societies and economic growth is unrecognized and undervalued. the green economy presents new opportunities for women but there is a possibility that they will be deprived from the potential benefits arising from the green economy especially in developing countries, unless the governments act and initiate structural reforms which will reduce gender inequality in labor markets. key words: women, green economy, sustainable development, gender inequality introduction the global society today is committed to the implementation of the sustainable development strategy. sustainable development incorporates not only economic and environmental sustainability, but also social 1 phd student, email: jovanovicnevena989@gmail.com 98 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 97-110) sustainability. social sustainability largely depends on the way societies ensure protection of human rights and well-being of all citizens equally. the new approach to global economy, so called green economy, “is one that ends extreme poverty, improves human wellbeing and enhances social equity while reducing carbon dependency and ecosystem degradation and furthering sustainable and inclusive growth” (unep, 2011). this definition corresponds to the definition of sustainable development and its three dimensions, being economic, social and environmental. despite the fact that throughout the world women are engaged in activities ranging from providing basic necessities for their families to running businesses and countries, in many countries, due to gender inequality, their contributions to societies and growth remains unrecognized and undervalued. consequently, there is a possibility that women will be deprived from the potential benefits arising from the green economy in developing countries, unless the governments act and initiate structural reforms which will bring about gender equality in labor markets. тhe research objective is to describe the opportunities for women in the green economy. theoretical background: the role of women in society and economy although there is no clear relationship between gender equality and sustainability, both relate to the economic development. for example, there are aspects of gender equality, such as female education and women’s share of employment, which have a positive impact on economic growth, depending on the „nature of growth strategies, the structure of the economy, the sectoral composition of women’s employment and labour market segregation, among other factors“ (kabeer & natali, 2013). one of the major obstacles in recognition of women contribution to the economy is the fact that they are engaged in so called non market activities. despite the fact that policymakers rarely consider the impact of the unpaid and often invisible work, which is typically conducted by women in the developing countries, these “non-market activities” are especially important in the times of environmental stress and poor infrastructure (unrisd, 2010).these non market activities are not paid, and the difference between them and the other paid activities serves as a basis of gender inequality. petrović, n., women in green economy, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 97-110) 99 on the other hand, these unpaid activities are the building bricks of societies – women are in charge of bringing up the children, keeping the families together and preservation of the basic traditions and moral values. often, women are also responsible for providing the basic necessities for their families, more than often work and contribute to the household budget, and are increasingly involved in other areas of business and social life. in developing and emerging markets, women are secondary earners within their households (chen and others, 2005). besides doing the unpaid work, due to the unsustainable economic models which promote genderbased discrimination and segregation in labour markets, women are usually confided to jobs that are low-paid and of poor quality in terms of working conditions and access to social protection (united nations, 2014). green economy and gender inequality despite the huge impact of the technology development and climate change has on women, only recently, more limited attention has been given to the gender perspectives of the sustainable development (schalatek, 2013). the changes in the social and natural environment have brought about different forms of gender inequality. as consequences of climate change, natural disasters disproportionately affect poor women (neumayer & plümper, 2007). in the rural areas, where households depend on women, they are marginalized and displaced as the limited resources such as land, forest and water are privatized by foreign investors (levien, 2012). the question of gender equality is insufficiently reflected in national adaptation or low-carbon development plans (otzelberger, 2011). as a result, policy makers focus on financial effects rather than on the more structural political and economic changes needed for implementation of the sustainable development strategies, including gender equality as important element of the social sustainability. the participation of women in the policy making is vital. however, in order for their involvement to result in greater gender equality, the structural foundations of gender inequality has to be changed. therefore, implementation of the international norms and standards on women’s human rights and gender equality is needed to strengthen the role of women in achieving sustainable development (united nations, 2014). the emerging green technology economy is expected to be worth $4.2 trillion annually by 2020 (united nations, 2014). however, mainstream 100 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 97-110) approaches to green economy have paid no or little attention to its implications for women and men (cela et al, 2013). green economy is defined as a global economic model with focus on businesses and feasibility, with less attention to social inequalities (schalatek, 2013). the prevailing approach to the green economy as a market-based model could lead to undermining livelihoods and dispossession of local peoples, especially women food producers (united nations, 2014). on the other hand, gender equality requires recognition and value of unpaid care work in green economy debates (mellor, 2009). there are many aspects of the green economy that affect women. for example, the strict conservation of carbon sinks to mitigate global climate change could affect the way of life of households near forests and is expected to intensify women’s unpaid care work. carbon mitigation policies entail higher prices for consumers, and can have “a regressive impact on poorer households, particularly given that they spend a higher proportion of their overall income on electricity” (gough, 2011). these and similar policies prevent environmental degradation and mitigate climate change but at the same time cause social problems. in order to reduce such risks, global and national governance and regulatory policy frameworks are necessary (unmüßig, 2014). this is, however, difficult when dominant model of green economy assumes enhanced market-led economic growth, through green business investments and innovations that increase energy and resource efficiency while preventing the loss of ecosystem services (united nations, 2014). therefore, this model does not involve social sustainability and therefore does not even tackle the question of gender equality. market-based approaches to green economy often promote corporate interests, and thereby constrain the social and sustainable development (unrisd, 2012). “recent research on consumption patterns in europe shows that women on average generate fewer greenhouse gas emissions than men, as a result of their greater reliance on public transport, lower consumption of meat and higher levels of energy poverty”, partly because of women’s lower incomes (european institute for gender equality, 2012). also, women are more concerned about environmental, health and climate issues, compared with men. these findings provide new solutions for preservation of energy, such as sustainable and accessible public transport. for example, in france, transport policy measures based on women’s needs are structurally petrović, n., women in green economy, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 97-110) 101 integrated in the public transport system and in territorial and mobility planning processes (european parliament, 2012). focus on the economic development has different implications on the society, besides the desired positive impact on the economic growth. for example, restrictive monetary policy which is used to control inflation often has negative impact on women’s employment. fiscal constraints limit the capacity of the states to provide public goods which affects women in lowincome households, “partly because of their status in the household and partly because the content of their work is so closely linked with the care economy” (ortiz &cummins, 2013). the fiscal austerity measures that were implemented in many countries during the past several years resulted in cuts in housing benefits, in child and family allowances, in old age benefits and in care services, which mostly affected women (un-women, 2014). additionally, fiscal austerity also means reducing labour in public sector which is traditionally an important source of better quality employment for women (un, 2014). therefore, public sector downsizing has led to “a disproportionate impact on formal employment opportunities for women and is likely to increase women’s concentration in less formal, non-regular jobs” (lee, 2005). this is opposite of what green economy agenda promotes, “where the greening of investment and public policy in both developing and developed countries is intended to enhance environmental protection while also creating jobs and stimulating economic growth” (unctad, 2013). opportunities and challenges of „green jobs” it is estimated that 80% of green jobs will be located in different industries including energy, construction, transportation and basic industries such as aluminium, iron and steel, since “small number of manufacturing industries are responsible for a large share of resource and energy use as well as greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants” (international labour foundation for sustainable development, 2009). the major shift is therefore expected in activities in the use of renewable energy resources, production of fuel-efficient vehicles, clean processing techniques, waste management and recycling. in developing and emerging economies, an estimated 15 to 20 million mostly women and children serve as waste pickers. although they are driven into this work by poverty, they provide an essential environmental 102 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 97-110) service to societies (ilo, 2012). by legalizing their work, governments can increase their otherwise low and unstable earnings. furthermore, by providing them with education and training, and by organizing them, governments can reduce the risks associated with the work in hazardous working conditions and prevent their harassment and violence against them (ilo, 2012). including waste pickers into waste management and recycling value chains promotes zero waste strategies that maximize recycling and provide decent employment for the poor (ilo, 2012). lack of access to certain types of infrastructure services (e.g., water, sanitation, fuel and transport) negatively affects women more than men and can act as a drain on economic growth in a community (world bank, n.d.). access to basic electricity services is a prerequisite for gender equality (un, 2014). electricity allows women to read and watch television thus contribute to their education prospects (pereira et al, 2011). access to electricity improves health-care infrastructure and allows development of women as entrepreneurs. however, providing access to electricity requires huge investments, and developing countries are often unable to finance such projects on their own. most developing and emerging markets are small and capital cost considerations and low prospects for revenue recovery are the main obstacles for the private sector to offer energy services. the role of the governments is in implementing attractive incentives for private investors in this sector. strict monitoring is however required to ensure provision of services to an extremely poor user base and guarantee of environmental integrity. green jobs in general medium skill jobs (un, 2014). therefore they present an opportunity for women to enter non-traditional, more highly paid industry sectors (international labour foundation for sustainable development, 2009). this opportunity requires government attention and consideration in order to be used efficiently, given the extent of gender segregation in most labour markets. women constitute only 30 % of the global workforce, so there is a strong chance that they will be bypassed or marginalized when adopting the green economy model (un, 2014). for this to be avoided, governments have to ensure implementation of the mechanisms that will include women into new structures. sectors where green employment expansion is expected are traditionally male dominated, with sectoral segregation increasing (un, petrović, n., women in green economy, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 97-110) 103 2014). additionally, the share of women in the existing green jobs is low in oecd countries, where “women earn more than half of university degrees, only 30 % of degrees in science and technology, being key areas of study for green jobs go to women” (ilo, 2011). for example, in developing economies, women are employed in the low value-added green jobs, such as informal workers in waste collection and recycling (ilo, 2011). the government also has a crucial role in removing gender stereotypes which usually result from attitudes formed in an early age and are dominant at home, in schools, in the media and in all interactions embedded in and reinforced by the society. stereotypes shape education choices, both in secondary school and higher education and further in occupational choices. it is very important to remove all which favors occupational segregation between women and men, since the studies clearly show that “the low representation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics is related to attitudes rather than ability”. even if women choose science, technology, engineering and mathematics as subjects, they are less likely than men to pursue a career in science, although there is no gender difference in performance (organization for economic cooperation and development, 2012). although it is certain that deeper reforms are needed in order to include gender equality into new green economy, all activities that can help in the promotion of women human rights are important. there are several examples of encouraging practice all over the world which show that people are becoming more aware of the importance of women in the economy. for example, in the “working for water” project in south africa, women, youth and people with disabilities were recruited (ilo, 2011). installing solar home systems in rural areas in bangladesh required training of women who serve as “rural electricians” (ilo, 2012). in the united states of america, a number of programmes encourage women into green jobs through skill development and networking (un, 2014). “women’s seclusion from the public arena, higher time poverty, and lack of mobility limit their access to markets in various ways” (world bank, n.d.). for instance, women usually have less information about prices, rules and rights to basic services. in uganda, this type of inefficiency has been tackled by ideas for earning money, software for women who wish to develop new business skills (world bank, n.d.). additionally, in 2015, more than 70 world leaders made commitments to overcome gender equality gaps during the global leaders’ meeting on 104 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 97-110) gender equality and women’s empowerment. the new sustainable development agenda which builds on the millennium development goals from 2000 goes further in addressing the causes of inequality (un women, 2015). this is the first time that such initiative was considered on a high level meeting. women and sustainable energy policies as said before, women in most developing countries experience energy poverty more severely than men, since they are more associated with household activities and are responsible for household and community energy provision. without access to modern energy services, women spend most of their day performing basic subsistence tasks, and both timeconsuming and difficult tasks of collecting biomass fuels. this often constrains them from searching for employment and educational opportunities, and limits their options for inclusion into social and political interaction outside the household (danielsen, 2012). energy poverty is expected to further in the future, without government commitment and investment. access to energy is critical for economic and social development in terms of cleaner natural environment and more income generating opportunities. promotion of the use of renewable energy sources and technologies increases access to modern energy services in rural areas that currently have no access to electricity and pay higher prices for energy service delivery because of the transportation costs and inefficiency of traditional energy forms (unido, n.d.). additionally, for women, access to sustainable energy will reduce the time and efforts needed for performance of everyday tasks. this will consequently improve their health, and leave them more time to engage in social interactions or entrepreneurship. since women are the main individual users of energy on global level, women’s needs should be taken into account in energy interventions and their participation in sustainable energy solutions is critical in the transition to sustainable energy. therefore, involving women in the various steps of the energy value chain can expand both the scale and the quality of sustainable energy initiatives (unido, n.d.). however, women are underrepresented in the energy industry work force, and are rarely considered as stakeholders for energy initiatives. even more, women’s economic contribution to the energy sector, such as fuel petrović, n., women in green economy, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 97-110) 105 collection, is unpaid, unrecognized and undervalued and their activities of energy use are often not reflected in national statistics. as a result, energy planners are unaware of women’s energy demands, and less attention is paid to technology development and investments aimed at improving women’s work in comparison to men’s (unido, n.d.). policymakers need to recognize the potential of women in the energy sector, as well as the value of their work, in order to design gender equitable energy policies and legal frameworks that support green employment creation. recent experiences from south africa and guatemala show that electrification has resulted in a 9% increase in female employment, and in nicaragua electricity has increased the propensity of rural women to work outside the home by about 23% (unido, n.d.). at the same time, access to energy-based technologies, such as lowcost domestic appliances or power water wells, improves productivity and increases the time available for engaging in activities outside the household. governments play crucial roles in promoting and enforcing gender equality, through setting standards and regulations for resource use and providing public services and investments for sustainable development (un, 2014). numerous traditional and non-traditional sources of financing energy services exist and can be redirected towards sustainability and gender equality through government actions such as domestic resource mobilization through taxation methods or incentives to private sector in implementation of any new socially responsible projects enforcing gender equality. local and municipal government financing, as well as public and international development financing should be partly redirected toward green microfinance leading to sustainability and gender equality. according to the united nations world survey (2014) there are three criteria to assess whether sustainable development is in line with gender equality and women’s human rights. the first one is compliance with human rights standards and the realization of women’s capabilities. the second one is attention to the unpaid care work of women and girls, especially those in poor and marginalized households and communities. the third is ensuring full and equal participation by women and girls in all aspects of sustainable development. international agreements such as beijing platform for action and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against 106 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 97-110) women serve as the basis for different actions among which are (un, 2014): − promotion of transitions to sustainable low carbon, climate-resilient consumption and production patterns while ensuring gender equality. − ensuring women’s right to an adequate standard of living, through increasing access to decent work and providing gender-responsive, universally accessible and high quality services, social protection measures and infrastructure, including education, health, water and sanitation, and energy. − recognition, reduction and redistribution unpaid care work between women and men within households, and between households and the state by expanding basic services and infrastructure that are accessible to all. developing countries are also encouraged to apply for both financial and technical help in the development and implementation of the institutional solution and realization of various programs that aim to reduce gender inequality, and thus contribute to the sustainable growth. conclusion governments play important role in adopting policies that ensure the full and equal participation of women in sustainable development initiatives as actors, leaders and decision makers. states are also responsible for adopting green growth policies which allow women an access to high quality jobs in sustainable and low-carbon industries. this also requires investment in women’s skills development and education, and breaking down the stereotypes that are particularly strong in the developing nations. implementation of labour market regulations and employment policies that guarantee decent employment conditions for all and prevent discrimination against women are precondition for economic development and growth of both developing and developed countries. investment into initiatives which provide basic and affordable energy access to all citizens, particularly in rural areas, serves as the basis for balanced regional development and economic growth, while at the same time reduces gender inequality. the use of the renewable energy sources contributes to achievement of both environmental and social goals of the petrović, n., women in green economy, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 97-110) 107 sustainable growth strategies, since it improves access to health-care, education, and income generation opportunities. at the same time, it reduces women’s unpaid care work, enabling them to engage more actively in other areas of social and political life. full and equal participation of women in decision making processes at all levels contributes to the efficiency of the chosen strategies, since the women are the main consumers and providers for the households. governments are responsible for ensuring the gender balance at all management boards, panels and advisory groups related to the sustainable 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(2014). on the value of nature: the merits and perils of a new economy of nature. berlin: heinrich böll stiftung. [27] un-women (2014) annual report 2013-2014. available from: http://www.unwomen.org/~/media/58ed9ae6a3b544149c9defa302cc9 884.ashx. [date of access 10th february 2016] [28] world bank, n.d. key issues on gender and development. available from: http://go.worldbank.org/jy9azo39z0 [date of access 10th february 2016] 110 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 97-110) žene u “zelenoj ekonomiji” a p s t r a k t žene širom sveta su uključene u različite aktivnosti, od brige za porodicu do upravljanja preduzećima, pa i zemljama. međutim, njihov doprinos društvu i ekonomskom rastu je nepriznat i potcenjen. zelena ekonomija otvara nove mogućnosti za žene, ali postoji mogućnost da će one biti lišene potencijalnih koristi koje proističu iz zelene ekonomije, posebno u zemljama u razvoju, ukoliko vlade ovih zemalja ne pokrenu strukturne reforme koje će smanjiti rodnu nejednakost na tržištu rada ključne reči: žene, zelena ekonomija, održivi razvoj, rodna nejednakost article history: received: 1 february, 2016 accepted: 7 march, 2016 15_jwe_3-4 udk: 331.5:305-055.2(669)"2007/2011" 371.212.1-055.2(669) cobiss.sr-id 219394060 original scientific paper does female participation in teaching affects enrolment of female students in secondary schools in nigeria? adekoya adenuga fabian1 michael otedola college of primary education, department of economics, nigeria a b s t r a c t this study examined the notion that the female participation in teaching would affect the enrollment of female student in secondary in nigeria. to do this, the feminism theory was explored to supoort the gender equality agenda going on around the globe. the literature also pinpointed that promoting the engagement of women in teaching profession would assist the economy. owning to this, the study made used of panel data from 2007 to 2011 and data were analysed using the static panel data regression. the result shows that female participation in teaching has positively affected the enrollment of female students in secondary schools in nigeria at 5% level of significance. in addition, the enrollment of female students at this level of education was not motivated by the presence of male participation in teaching. thus, policy makers were advised to make appropriate plan to accommodate more women in the teaching profession in order to increase female students enrollment in secondary schools and consequently reduce the gender inequality. key words: enrolment of female students, female participation in teaching and gender equality 1 lecturer, p.m.b. 1028 noforija-epe, lagos state, nigeria. email: adenugaadekoya@gmail.com 98 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 97-106) introduction the promotion of gender equality on how women could be empowered through education have received much attention in the liteature especially after the cedaw beijing declaration in 1995 (mccracken, unterhalter, márquez & chełstowska, 2015). that is, women education was noted as a necessity to guarantee women’s employment for instance, in education sector which could better served as economic surety for them in the future (kelleher et al 2011). not only that, it is possible to increase their supportive role both at home and in the society by avoiding a discrimination in learning environment for men and women (national bureau of statistics, 2014). also, one means of lowering discrimination against women is to increase their enrolment for education and make them to participate in employment like the teaching profession. again, both the need to enroll more women for schooling and participated in the teaching profession have received more clamor (kelleher et al 2011). this is because development central around women yield an exceptional gains in the society. more so, schultz (2001) asserted that government need to invest more on girls’ education as evidence around the world have proven that the social returns to female schooling were more higher that the returns to males. in nigeria, the clamoring of gender equality has received much supports as the share of women in teaching and the female students’ enrollment at the secondary school level in 2006 and 2010 have increased from 37.07% to 56.13% and 37.07% to 56.13% respectively based on the national bureau of statistics (2012). more so that the year-on-year rate of change in girls’ enrolment in secondary school rose from 8.0 percent in 2011 to 11.5 percent in 2012 and 17.0 percent in 2013 (national bureau of statistics, 2014). in addition, the participation of women in teaching and enrollment of girls’ education has been variably improved in nigeria (nwagwu, 1994). but, the female enrollment in the final examination between 2007 and 2011 in west african examination council shows that the female enrollment dropped from 45.38% to 45.16% based on the national bureau of statistics (2012). thus, one may intented to ask whether the enrolment of female in secondary schools might have increased over the years based on increased of women participation in teaching at secondary level in nigeria? perharps, if one is not gendered sensitive could it be that the possibility of male participation has assisted in inreasing the female enrollment in secondary schools? however, available studies like handa (2002) showed how women in teaching profession has affected enrollment adekoya, a.f., female participation in teaching, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 97-106) 99 at primary school in mozambique; george and thinguri (2013) demonstrated that female teachers would affect the perfomance of female student in kenya. suryadarma, suryahadi and sumarto (2006) focused on what causes low enrollment of girls in secondary schools in indonesia as igberadja (2014) studied what causes low enrollment in delta state, nigeria. besides, the objective of this study is to see how women participation in teaching has affected the enrolment of female students in the literature particularly in nigeria as it has remained uncaptured empirically based on available studies. moreover, the importance of the study would help the policy makers in nigeria to confront the challenges that may arise in terms of low student-teacher ratio as the students’ enrollment is increasing in spite of the increased in female teachers at secondary level of education. hence, this would also help in actualizing the objective of universal basic education and promotion of gender parity in the country. literature review gender equality and more women participation in the economy has been fronted through the feminism theory. the feminism theory believes that more attention and rights should be given to women in the society especially on issues affecting their well-being. this was based on the fact that women were not given due recognition in the society and couple with the high prevalent poverty and domestic violence mitigating them which had made a wider inequalities to exist between women and men. the feminism theory further acclaimed that ways to remove the inequality between women and men are to make women to have equal right to education and made their voices to be more heard through participation in public offices which include teaching profession. in this regard, women would be more empowered and overcome their problem of low status they were made to suffer in the society (alabi & alabi, 2013 and mosedale, 2014). thus, the notion is that when female participation is increase, the enrollment of female students in secondary school would increase and by this, gender inequality would be reduced in society. meanwhile, the participation of women in the teaching has received a significant tone in the literature due to their better performance on the job especially on the relation to girls’ enrollment in schools. for instance, handa (2002) reveals that gender composition of trained teachers helps to encourage pupils’ enrollment as the study examined how school quality 100 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 97-106) through trained teachers could be used to improved enrollment of primary pupils in mozambique. the study found that a positive significant relation exist between them. that is, enrollment may be increased by 1% point when trained teachers is increased in number by 10. but, the work went further to have sex disaggregation of the trained teachers, the result indicated that the share of female trained teachers has significant impacted on the girls’ enrollment. that is, 1% increase female trained teachers would increase the enrollment of girls’ in primary schools by 0.473%. more so, the latter result shows that parent in mozambique were not willing to allow their children being taught by male teachers simply that male teachers habitually made them in fetching water and firewood (handa,2002). mwangi, george and thinguri (2013) conducted a study on what determined low girls’ enrollment in physics in secondary schools in kenya on the account that low women involvement in sciences were noted to have affected the requirements for admission. the work concluded that during practical sessions, female students rarely enjoyed the support of their physics teachers. but, acclaimed that physics teachers should be more innovative and effective when delivering their subject matter so as to attract and sustain the interest of many girls. suryadarma, suryahadi and sumarto (2006) focused on poor enrollment in secodary schools but have advanced other causes like building of more schools, consumption expenditure and religious background as factors that may increased or decreased enrollment in secodary schools in indonesia. similarly, igberadja (2014) studied what causes low enrollemnt in techinical schools in delta state, nigeria baesd on teachers perception. the study used a primary data to elicit responses from19 principals and 280 teachers with the aid of z-test to analysed the data. more so, the result shows that school factors is among factors responsible for low enrollment in technical schools in delta state, nigeria. besides, one of the issue emphasised in the literature about the enrollment is its inconclusive nature of whether it is purely determined by the supply side of education or it demand side of education. the data and method nature and source of data. this study made used of annual data that comprised time series and cross-section from 2007 to 2011. the choice of this period were based on access to data and particulary, it affords the study to see how the female particpation in teaching has affected the enrollment of adekoya, a.f., female participation in teaching, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 97-106) 101 female school students in secondary schools across and within the country. data were sourced from the annual abstract of the national bureau of statistics, 2012. enrolment of female students (effs). the enrolment of female students signifies the number of female students enrolled and sat for final seconday examination conducted by the west african examination council from may/june, 2007 to may/june, 2011. this variable was employed beacuse it showed those student that enrolled and continued their studentship in respect of one barrier or the other. female participation in teaching (fpit). the female participation in teaching involves the number of women teachers that registered with the teachers’ registration council and were involves in teaching of secondary school students in nigeria. the use of this variable to capture female participation in teaching is based on available data and its previous used in the work of handa (2002). besides, handa (2002) focused on the trained female teachers at the primary schools level in mozambique and found it significant with female enrollment. male participation in teaching (mpit). to capture male participation in teaching, the number of men teachers that registered with the teachers’ registration council and engaged in teaching at secondary school in nigeria was used. the variable to introduce to serve as the control variable and see if male participation in teaching especially at secondary school would have any influence in promoting girls’ enrollment at that level of deducation. this variable had been employed in the study of handa (2002) and found not significant with female enrollment. methodology. the analysis in this study was done by using stata 12.0 in estimating the static panel data based on the available data as pointed out earlier. at initial stage, the pooled ols model was tested and the result shows that variable of interest (fpit) was significant at 5% and more so, the pool ols model was significant at 1%. but, because there may be individual and time variant in the different states in the country if such exist otherwise spurious regression may occurred, the study proceeded to estimate the random effect model. in estimating the random effect model, it was noted that the model was also, significant at 1%. notwithstanding, the study used breush-pagan lm test to decide the choice between pool ols and random effect models which was in favour of random effect. that is, the individual and time variant in the different states in the country exist which connotes that unobserved specific effects exist. then, a need arise to 102 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 97-106) see whether or not the presence of unobserved specific effects is distributed independently on the independent variables. in this wise, fixed effect model was tested and the model was weakly signifiant at 10% which means the presence of unobserved specific effects is not distributed independently on the independent variables. having done this, following mohm isa (2014), a hausman test was conducted which shows that there is consistency of effect across the states in the country that is, the result favoured fixed effect model. the random effect and fixed effect model for the study are hereby specified as follows in equation 1 and 2 respectively. in addition, diagnostic tests were carried out to show that the result of the fixed effect model was more robust. the test of variance inflation factor shows there is no multicollinearity among the independent variables. more so, the diagnostic reveals that there is no serial correlation but heteroskedasticity exist (see table 1). in view of this, a robust test of heteroskedasticity was done which enabled the model to be significant at 10% and both female participation in teaching and female participation in teaching were significant at 5% and 10% respectively. then, panel corrected standard error was employed and the result was interpreted. empirical specification of the model. in carring out the empirical test for the study, the reduced form equation as specified by handa (2002) was used and it thus specify as below in equation 1. in addition, all the variables were logged in linear form following wu and wu (2012). more so, parameters were specified in terms of to explain the proportion of independent variables that would cause changes in the dependent variable. is the constant parameter and is the time invariant part of the disturbance term as are the individual and time invariant in the disturbance term. adekoya, a.f., female participation in teaching, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 97-106) 103 results and conclusion the notion that when women were allowed to participate in teaching in secondary schools, female students enrollment at this level of education tends to increased for the actualisation of gender equality in the society was tested. the result of the empirical test shows that female participation in teaching is positive related to the enrollment of female students in secondary schools is significant at 5% in the panel corrected standard error (see table 1 below). this result is robusted having corrected for the problem of heteroskedasticity found in the result of the fixed effect model. that is, an increase of 1% in female participation in teaching would cause increase of 0.346% in the enrollment of female students in secondary schools. similar result was noted in handa (2002) on the studied of primary school enrollment in mozambique. more so, the result proffessed the effort of the federal government of nigeria in addressing the problem of low teachers in secondary school in 2006. this effort in making teachers to be more available has promoted gender equity due to increased in girls’ enrollment, retention and community participation (nigeria mdg report, 2013). meanwhile, the result for the male participation in teaching is positive and not significant with the enrollment of female students in secondary schools. although a 1% increase in male participation in teaching would cause an increase of 0.155% in the enrollment of female students in secondary schools. likewise, the result of the male participation in teaching is related to handa (2002). from the above, female participation in teaching in nigeria has made the female enrollment in secondary schools to increase statitically by 0.346%. this lend credence to the assertion of the gender agenda that more women should be empowered through employment like teaching. that is, employment of women in teaching would assist in reducing the gender parity through the means of girls’ educationg in the country. therefore, policy makers are enjoined to make appropriate plan to accommodate more women in the teaching profession so as to encourage more girls’ education in the country in order to reduce the gender inequalities that exist between men and women in nigeria. however, that does not stop the outright of male employment into the teaching profession at secondary schools in order not create gender inequality. in addition, reduction of male teachers in secondary schools in nigeria should be cautiously done since more time would be required to have a enough women that can fill those position as gender equality is also being promoted in all other work-sectors. t a b le 1 : r es u lt o f e st im a ti o n o f p a n el c o rr ec te d s ta n d a rd e rr o r p oo le d o l s r an d om e ff ec t f ix ed e ff ec t r ob u st f ix ed e ff ec t e st im at io n o f p an el c or re ct ed s ta n d ar d e rr or c on st an t 3 .3 9 65 9 4 .6 8 4 45 0 1 [4 .9 6] ** * 7 .5 2 15 3 9 .6 0 8 61 7 5 [1 2 .3 6 ]* ** 8 .8 7 74 6 5 .5 8 6 14 4 8 [1 5 .1 5 ]* ** 8 .8 7 74 6 5 .5 5 2 66 2 9 [1 6 .0 6 ]* ** 5 .4 7 14 0 8 1 .5 5 92 5 7 [3 .5 1] ** * ln f p it .4 7 2 64 9 .0 6 5 40 1 4 [7 .2 3] ** * .0 5 9 35 4 .0 6 6 58 2 4 [0 .8 9] -. 1 2 6 3 9 8 .0 6 7 34 2 6 [1 .8 8 ]* -0 .1 2 6 3 98 0 .0 55 9 61 3 [2 .2 6 ]* * .3 4 6 53 0 8 .1 4 2 93 6 2 [2 .4 2] ** ln m p it .2 9 1 84 2 7 .1 2 5 76 1 4 [2 .3 2] ** .1 7 9 20 7 3 .1 0 0 76 0 5 [1 .7 8] * .1 9 0 91 9 5 .0 9 5 04 9 1 [2 .0 1] ** 0 .1 9 09 1 95 0 .1 0 10 8 6 [1 .8 9] * .1 5 5 47 0 4 .1 4 6 86 1 3 [1 .0 6] b re u sh -p ag an l m t es t ch ib ar 2 (0 1 ) = 2 1 0 .3 6 p ro b > c hi b ar 2 = 0 .0 0 0 0 h au sm an t es t ch i2 (2 ) = 1 44 .3 0 p ro b > ch i2 = 0 .0 0 0 0 o b se rv at io n s 1 8 5 1 8 5 1 8 5 r -s q u ar ed 0 .9 5 89 f -t es t 0 .0 2 02 m u lt ic ol li n ea ri ty ( vi f) 2 .5 9 h et er os k ed as ti ci ty ( ) ch i2 ( 3 7 ) = 2 6 5 8. 4 1 p ro b > ch i2 = 0 .0 0 0 0 s er ia l c or re la ti on ( ) f ( 1 , 36 ) = 0 .8 27 p ro b > f = 0 .3 69 1 t -s ta ti st ic s ar e in p ar en th es es , *, * * an d * * * d en o te s 1 0 % , 5 % a nd 1 % r es p ec ti ve ly . adekoya, a.f., female participation in teaching, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 97-106) 105 references [1] alabi, t. and alabi o.s. 2014. “female education: a sociological analysis of girl-child education in nigeria.” international journal of educational policy research and review, 1(1): 006-013. [2] burke, k. and beegle, k. 2004. “why childen aren’t attending school: the case of northwestern tanzania.” journal of african economies, 13(2): 333355. [3] handa, s. 2002. “raising primary school enrolment in developing countries: the relative importance of supply and demand.” journal of development economics, 69:103– 128. [4] igberadja, s. (2014). “assessment of teachers’ and principals’ opinion on causes of low enrollment of students in technical colleges: a delta state study.” journal of educational policy and entrepreneurial research, 1(2): 238-250. [5] kelleher, f. et al. (2011). women and the teaching profession: exploring the feminisation debate. commonwealth secretariat, london and unesco, paris. [6] mohd yaziz bin mohd isa. 2014. basel iii accord: different bank characteristics (insolvency risk) due to unobserved heterogeneity effects. australian journal of basic and applied sciences, 8(7) may 2014, pages: 377-385 [7] mosedale, s. 2014. women’s empowerment as a development goal: taking a feminist standpoint. journal of international development, 26, 1115–1125. [8] mwangi, b. n., george, g. e. and thinguri, r.w. 2013. determinants of girls low enrollment in physics in secondary schools: case of kajiado north district, kajiado county, kenya. journal of education and practice, (4):.13. [9] millennium development goals report. 2013. federal republic of nigeria [10] schultz, t. p. 2001. why governments should invest more to educate girls.yale university. [11] suryadarma, d., suryahadi, a. and sumarto, s. 2006. causes of low secondary school enrollment in indonesia. the smeru research institute, jakarta. [12] wu, d., & wu, z. 2012. crime, inequality and unemployment in england and wales. applied economics, 44(29): 3765–3775. doi:10.1080 106 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 97-106) da li učešće žena u nastavi utiče na upis učenica u srednje škole u nigeriji? a p s t r a k t ova studija ispituje da li učešće žena u nastavi može da utiče na upis učenica u srednje škole u nigeriji. u tu svrhu je uzeto u obzir ispitivanje feminističke teorije kao podrške postizanja ravnopravnosti polova ,koja se primenjuje širom sveta. analiza literature je takođe pokazala da bi podsticanje angažovanja žena u nastavničkim profesijama pomoglo privredi. pored toga, istraživanje je uzelo u obzir podatke o učešću žena u nastavi od 2007. do 2011. godine. obrađeni su podaci uz pomoć regresione metode. rezultati istraživanja su pokazali da učešće žena u nastavi se pozitivno odrazilo na upis učenica u srednje škole u nigeriji za 5%. shodno tome, predlaže se da nosioci politike zapošljavanja donesu plan koji bi podstakao prijem većeg broja žena u nastavničke profesije kako bi se povećao upis učenica u srednje škole i time smanjila nejednakost polova. ključne reći: upis studenata, sudelovanje žena u nastavi, ravnopravnosti polova article history: received: 11 september, 2015 accepted: 10 november, 2015 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.pp128-145 jel: o1,03,04 original scientific paper 7bthe sustainability analysis of womenowned businesses examined through the impact of selected variables on dimensionsof innovation capacity sanja popović-pantić2 2f1 institute mihajlo pupin, belgrade, serbia snežana kirin2 3f2 ivana vučetić innovation centre of the faculty of mechanical engineering in belgrade, belgrade, serbia24f3 a b s t r a c t innovation is often described as the main driving force of business, which can lead to the company's sustainable growth. not all innovation dimensions are equally responsible for the sustainability of businesses. therefore, this study examines the sustainability of women-owned businesses by exploring the influence of selected variables on specific dimensions of companies' innovation capacities. based on the commonly applied methodologies for assessing the innovation capacity of companies such as imp³rove and innovate, the following variables were chosen for the analysis of the impact on innovation in the context of the sustainability of smes: 1) annual income and its impact on the decision to invest in innovation 2) the sector of operation and its influence on expectations regarding growth 3) the expectations regarding growth and its impact to a range of innovation dimensions. different techniques were used, starting with descriptive 1 corresponding author, e-mail: sanjap.pantic@pupin.rs 2 e-mail: snezanakirin@yahoo.com 3 e-mail: vuceticivana@yahoo.com sanja popović-pantić, snežana kirin, ivana vučetić 129 statistics, then cross-tabulation, pearson's chi-square test and anova as the most appropriate techniques to conduct statistical analysis. the research has indicated that annual income does not have a decisive influence on the decision to invest in innovation, as does the sector. however, the sector of operations has a significant influence on expectations regarding growth. also, there is a statistically significant difference between growth expectations and dimensions such as client base and product development plan, market awareness and perception, innovation strategy, decision-making process, employee training, business networking, and external advice. while exploring the innovation activity of launching new products/services, we came to a finding that is potentially risky for the sustainability of women’s businesses, namely that 50% of the companies in the sample offer only one product to one customer. that is why it is important that companies that have a high awareness of the need to innovate diversify their product and client portfolio and thus ensure greater independence on the market and, therefore, sustainability. keywords: sustainability, women entrepreneurs, innovation capacity introduction innovation is considered to be a crucial factor for sustainable development, and the previous study results have shown that sustainabilityoriented innovation requires different conditions in different contexts (salamzadeh et al., 2022). in economies driven by innovation, innovativeness and competitiveness are interdependent, which is why programs supporting smes are often named as programs supporting competitiveness and innovation. indeed, if a company is highly competitive in the market, it is very likely to have a well-developed innovation management system with standards that are largely aligned with european standards. the previous research results have shown that, when it comes to innovation capacity, there are differences between serbian companies (vučetić & kirin, 2022). various methodologies exist for assessing companies' innovation capacities, and for the purpose of researching the interdependence between sustainability in women-owned small and medium enterprises in serbia and innovation, a questionnaire was constructed based on a combination of two commonly applied methodologies for assessing innovation potential: the imp³rove methodology and the innovate methodology. imp³rove is a widely accepted methodology for evaluating innovation potential in small and medium-sized enterprises, which uses benchmarking and/or comparison with ideal values in five dimensions known as the 130journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 128-145) "house of innovation," as described by the consultancy company a.t. kearney (popović-pantić, 2013). in this paper, some questions were adapted from the imp³rove questionnaire and contextualized for women-owned businesses. for example, in the imp³rove methodology, the time from idea conception to prototype development and market launch, as well as the time when the new product or service starts generating profit, is measured. since this aspect is important for both sustainability and further innovation-driven business development, it is a subject of investigation in this research. ten years ago, the closure rate of women-owned companies was around 47%, while for male-owned companies, it was 38%. one of the main reasons for this difference was the motivation for establishing a company, with necessity being a significant factor (popović-pantić, 2020). women who found themselves unemployed in their middle age, ten or more years ago, had limited options in the job market, leading them to start their own businesses to secure their livelihoods. although they often had prior work experience, it was not sufficient for long-term success in their new entrepreneurial ventures. only a small number of them introduced new or significantly improved products and services, approximately one-fifth. however, regarding processes, half of them implemented new or improved processes (popović-pantić, 2020). at that time, external experts were rarely utilized in innovation development. however, this new research, conducted on a sample of 104 respondents, revealed that as many as 86 of them occasionally or continuously seek external advisors for business improvement, and a quarter of them specifically seek expert support for enhancing technological aspects of their operations. this latest finding confirms some previous ones, according to which sustainability-oriented innovations (soi) push companies to introduce changes to their core business, often requiring them to use external partners’ expertise (salamzadeh et al., 2021). a prerequisite for a successful soi partnership is that companies acquire specific capabilities and strengthen and expand partnerships (ibid). digitalization is often perceived as a trigger for the introduction of new business models and innovations in business. some research indicated that there is a significant relationship between digital technology and business innovation, especially in emerging markets, since digital technologies can provide new ways to organize economic activities and reduce time and costs (dana et al., 2022). this was especially pronounced with the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic when digitalization helped numerous small and sanja popović-pantić, snežana kirin, ivana vučetić 131 medium-sized companies to remain sustainable. while two decades ago, the innovation activities of the company were related to the purchase of equipment, employee training and internal r&d (popović-pantić, 2020), since the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic until today, digitalization has been primary and is the main driver of the introduction of new products and services, as well as other innovation activities. female-owned companies face challenges related to access to and use of digital technologies, often seen as a key factor contributing to the development gap between female and male-owned companies, as overall utilization of digital technologies is crucial for prosperity (popović-pantić et al., 2019) and innovation capacity nowadays. information and communication technologies (ict) such as social media, mobile telecommunications, the internet of things (iot), big data, and 3d printing, as well as digital transformation in general, empower women to overcome gender bias in their path to development and growth. adopting ict and digitally transforming businesses are important factors in developing business strategies, fostering creativity and innovation, and enhancing competitiveness (ongori & migiro, 2010), ultimately leading to a stronger position in the global market and improved financial performance. the connectivity that the internet provides is of great importance for networking and promotion, which contributes to sustainable entrepreneurship (yakubu et al., 2022). as digital technologies are increasingly affordable and userfriendly, they enable women, who often operate micro and small-sized businesses in traditional sectors, to elevate their businesses relatively easily (popović-pantić et al., 2020). a study conducted in 2019, just before the covid-19 pandemic, showed that one-third of women-owned companies managed to innovate their business models comprehensively through the extensive use of digital technologies to meet customer needs (popović-pantić et al., 2019). this innovation included offering a basic product/service for free and selling additional products/services, shifting from sales to rental, selling advertising space, licensing, selling data, and utilizing excess capacity. additionally, 45.5% of companies reported generating additional benefits for customers through digitalization, such as easier access to products, location independence, and a wider range of choices. crises have shown that innovation activities decrease during such periods. therefore, during the pandemic, only 17% of the 87 women-owned businesses in the sample introduced new products/services primarily related to digitalization, and 132journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 128-145) merely 7% mentioned that the pandemic enabled them to enter new markets (popović-pantić et al., 2020). when it comes to differences between male and female entrepreneurs, it has been stated that women often have different attitudes to power than men, and more communal characteristics, which, in an entrepreneurial environment, implies efficiency in solving relational problems in companies (radović-marković & salamzadeh, 2022). as far as innovation is concerned, studies have indicated that women excel in key innovation activities and lead transformative changes within companies (díaz-garcía et al., 2013). while some authors argue that women, whether entrepreneurs or managers, face less support in implementing their ideas within organizations, gender diversity is considered a driver of creativity and innovation (danilda & thorslund, 2011). furthermore, research suggests that women score as well as or higher than men in key innovation capacities, such as "championing change," and that prevailing organizational culture plays a crucial role in enabling women's participation in the innovation process (zenger & folkman, 2015). investment decisions regarding innovation are often linked to a company's financial performance. studies by hitt and brynjolfsson (1996), velcu (2005), aral and weill (2007), koski (2010), and benavente et al. (2011) have found no direct relationship between financial performance and digital transformation. however, if digital technologies are used innovatively, they have a positive impact on a company's financial performance (popović-pantić, 2020), as observed in the sample of womenowned businesses. in this research, innovation was observed through five dimensions of the "house of innovation", which is the core of the imp³rove methodology. methodology the research was conducted from january to march 2023, using an online survey on a sample of 104 companies owned and managed by women. the data were statistically analyzed using descriptive statistics to analyze various dimensions of innovation capacity. cross-tabulation was employed to examine the data distribution and identify relationships between variables. this technique was chosen to investigate the behavior of one variable in relation to another. the chi-square test for independence, sanja popović-pantić, snežana kirin, ivana vučetić 133 also called pearson's chi-square test, was applied to determine whether two categorical variables are related. since multiple answers were offered by the questionnaire, analysis of variance (anova) as the most appropriate technique to conduct statistical analysis was applied. the aim of the method was to establish whether there are statistically significant differences between the sector of operation and growth expectations. the aim of this method is to determine the existence of statistical significance between the sector of operation and dimensions of innovation capacity in women-owned companies. welch's test was applied in cases where the assumption of levene's test for anova analysis was not met. the following hypotheses were formulated: h1: annual income significantly influences the decision to invest in innovations. h2: the sector of operation significantly affects the dimensions of innovative capacity. h3: expectations regarding growth significantly influence the dimensions of innovative capacity. anova test was conducted to examine the relationship between the sector of operation and specific dimensions of innovation capacities, such as: expectations regarding growth, external advice, approach to product development, client base and product development plan, employee training, collaboration with the academic sector, and business networking. we also examined the impact of certain dimensions of innovation capacity, such as business networking, utilization of external advice, and the time from product launch on the market to market profitability, on the overall annual income. additionally, the existence of a relationship between growth expectations and investment in employee training was measured. sample description the sample consists of 104 companies predominantly managed by women. in terms of their educational background, it is as follows: 17 (16%) have a vocational high school/gymnasium education, 19 (17.9%) have completed college of vocational studies, 36 (34%) have a faculty education, while 32 (30.2%) female entrepreneurs have completed postgraduate studies. 134journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 128-145) the sample comprises women from different regions of serbia: belgrade (51 or 48.1%), vojvodina (15 or 14.2%), western serbia (18 or 17%), central serbia (7 or 6.6%), and south serbia (13 or 12.3%). it can be seen that the region of belgrade is the most represented region in the sample. regarding the rural-urban ratio, the sample mostly consists of companies from urban areas, with 98 companies (92.5%), while only 6 companies (5.7%) are located in rural areas. as for the number of employees, the majority of companies had up to ten employees, 82 out of 104, as shown in table 1. table 1: number of employees frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent up to 10 82 77.4 78.7 78.8 11-50 16 15.1 15.4 94.2 51-250 6 5.7 5.8 100.0 total 104 98.1 100.0 source: authors results of the research and discussion table 2 presents the cross-tabulation of annual income and the value of the company's assets related to internal investment in innovation. we used the pearson chi-square test to examine the relationship between annual income and the value of the company's assets and internal investment in innovation. the obtained results are as follows: χ(6) = 4.818, p = 0.567, (p>0.05), indicating that there is no statistically significant causality between annual income and value of the company's assets and the decision to internally invest in innovation. thus, the first hypothesis that annual income significantly influences the internal decision to invest in innovation has been refuted, suggesting that the decision is likely more influenced by the innovation culture within the company. furthermore, it can be observed that 28.84% of female entrepreneurs do not have a budget for innovation, which poses a risk to the sustainability of their businesses. on the other hand, 71.16% of female entrepreneurs are investing in innovation, which is an encouraging finding. sanja popović-pantić, snežana kirin, ivana vučetić 135 table 2: annual income and value of the company's assets related to internal investment in innovation cross-tabulation annual income and value of the company's assets less than 2 million eur 2-10 million eur 11-50 million eur internal investment in innovation we don't have a budget for innovation 21 7 2 we work on the development of new products/services based on commercial contracts 13 1 2 we regularly co-finance development projects 20 10 4 every year we invest in certain innovative activities 17 6 1 total 71 24 9 source: authors among female entrepreneurs who have a budget for innovation, whether they co-finance development projects regularly, allocate a specific amount of money for innovation each year, or work on developing new products/services based on commercial contracts, as much as 50% rely solely on one product/service, while 22% offer 2-3 products to specific clients. this makes them vulnerable despite their investment in innovation (figure 1). 136journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 128-145) figure 1: breadth of product range and client base in women-led businesses source: authors we also examined the extent to which female entrepreneurs who invest internally in innovation measure the time from idea to product introduction in the market. we found that among women who internally invest in innovation, 93.1% of them measure the time until the market launch of new products/services or measure the time to market and start making a profit for new products/services (table 3). table 3: time to develop a new product frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent we do not measure the development time of a new product/service 1 1.7 1.7 1.7 we monitor the development time of a new product or service against the plan 3 5.2 5.2 6.9 we measure the time until the market release of new products/services 40 69.0 69.0 75.9 sanja popović-pantić, snežana kirin, ivana vučetić 137 frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent we measure the time to market and the beginning of making a profit for new products/services 14 24.1 24.1 100.0 total 58 100.0 100.0 source: authors the obtained results show that a significant percentage of respondents who invest internally in innovation (79.3% of those who invest internally in innovation) have clients from europe and the rest of the world (table 4). they represent 44.23% of the total sample. additionally, we found that entrepreneurs who offer two/three products to selected customers, actively participate in business/technological networks, and measure the time from product launch to market and profitability, have the highest annual income (figure 2). table 4: market horizon development plan frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent the market for our products/services will cover serbia 12 20.7 20.7 20.7 the market will include clients from europe 31 53.4 53.4 74.1 the clients will be from developed countries from all over the world 15 25.9 25.9 100.0 total 58 100.0 100.0 source: authors 138journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 128-145) figure 2: the influence of product portfolio, business networking, and product development approach on the annual income of companies that offer 2-3 products to a select group of clients source: authors when testing the second hypothesis, which states that the business sector significantly influences innovation dimensions, such as the use of external consulting services, we found a significant statistical difference in the impact of sectors on the utilization of external consulting services (advice). the statistical significance was tested using levene's test of homogeneity of variances (levene statistic (12.91) = 1.960, p-value is p = 0.037, (p < 0.05)). by applying welch's test (welch's f(12, 28.887) = 5.226, p = 0.000), we determined that the statistical significance of the sector's influence on accepting external consulting services is most pronounced in the it and trade sectors (table 5). sanja popović-pantić, snežana kirin, ivana vučetić 139 table 5: multiple comparisons; tukey hsd, dependent variable: external advice (i) type of business mean difference (i-j) std. error sig. 95% confidence interval lower bound upper bound it trade 2.119* 0.574 0.021 0.17 4.07 source: authors regarding the impact of the business sector on growth expectations as a dimension of innovation, it was found to be statistically significant (levene's test (12.91) = 0.994, p = 0.461), f(12) = 2.392, p = 0.01 (p < 0.05), table 6 and figure 3. this means that the sector in which the company operates significantly influences growth expectations. table 6: growth expectations and business sector sum of squares df mean square f sig. expectations regarding growth between groups 26,319 12 2,193 2,392 0,010 within groups 83,440 91 0,917 total 109,760 103 source: authors 140journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 128-145) figure 3: growth expectations and business sector source: authors the results indicate that the highest growth expectations are observed in the it, media and communications, industry, education, and science sectors, while the lowest expectations are found in the tourism, hospitality, transport, health, and construction sectors. overall, regardless of the sector, 13% of female entrepreneurs have no growth expectations, while 44.3% have modest expectations (table 7). table 7: growth expectations frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent 14 13,2 13,5 13,5 47 44,3 45,2 58,7 15 14,2 14,4 73,1 28 26,4 26,9 100,0 104 98,1 100,0 2 1,9 106 100,0 source: authors sanja popović-pantić, snežana kirin, ivana vučetić 141 to test the third hypothesis, which states that growth expectations significantly influence certain dimensions of innovation capacity, we conducted an anova analysis. the results showed a statistically significant difference between growth expectations and dimensions such as client base and product development plan, market awareness and perception, innovation strategy, decision-making process, employee training, business networking, and external advice (table 8). table 8: growth expectations related to other dimensions of innovation capacity anova sum of squares df mean square f sig. client base and product development bg 17.012 3 5.671 4.816 0.004 wg 117.748 100 1.177 total 134.760 103 market awareness and perception bg 8.471 3 2.824 4.929 0.003 wg 57.228 100 0.573 total 65.760 103 innovation strategy bg 24.899 3 8.300 5.973 0.001 wg 138.947 100 1.389 total 163.846 103 decision making process bg 8.926 3 2.975 4.641 0.004 wg 64.113 100 0.641 total 73.038 103 employee training bg 19.150 3 6.383 6.660 0.000 wg 95.841 100 total 114.990 103 business networking bg 20.743 3 6.914 4.848 0.003 wg 142.632 100 1.426 total 163.375 103 external advice bg 24.088 3 8.029 8.725 0.000 wg 92.027 100 0.920 total 116.115 103 links with the academic environment bg 11.333 3 3.778 2.950 0.036 wg 128.051 100 1.281 total 139.385 103 source: authors 142journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 128-145) figure 4: growth expectations and dimensions of innovation capacities source: authors it can be observed that among female entrepreneurs with high growth expectations (in the it, media and communications, industry, education and science sectors), the greatest investments are made in employee training, connecting with the academic community, and seeking external advice. this demonstrates that these entrepreneurs, who anticipate growth, have developed an awareness of the importance of investing in people as a factor of long-term sustainability. this is confirmed by previous research that indicates that technology, combined with organizational culture and employee training, yields greater benefits (radović-marković et al., 2022). furthermore, they show higher values in most other dimensions of innovation capacity, except in the case of innovation strategy (where entrepreneurs with modest growth expectations showed slightly higher values). on the other hand, female entrepreneurs without growth expectations have low values in business networking, client base, and product sanja popović-pantić, snežana kirin, ivana vučetić 143 development plan (figure 4). the third hypothesis that growth expectations significantly influence dimensions of innovation capacity has been proven. conclusion according to the obtained results, annual revenue is not associated with internal investments in innovation, which suggests that investment in innovation is secured independently of annual revenue. this indicates that there is awareness among female entrepreneurs about the importance of investing in innovation for sustainability. among those who have a budget for innovation, it was found that they produce only one product offered to one client or, at most, 2-3 products to a specific number of clients, which holds a potential risk to their sustainability. specifically, the sustainability of half of the surveyed female businesses that offer only one product to one client is risky, although it represents better results compared to 18 years ago. additionally, about half of the companies have managed to develop more than one product and diversify their range, reducing the risk of relying on only one product and one client. this has led to polarization over time, with some businesses being at higher risk and others at lower risk. encouragingly, 55.7% of businesses invest in innovation. these are the ones that have developed a wider range of products, are better networked, and have a diversified customer base, thus having a higher chance of sustainable operation. the research showed that companies, which measure time to market and time to profit are involved in business networks and offer 2-3 products to a few clients, generate higher income. the decision to invest in innovation is not significantly influenced by the sector or annual revenue, indicating that the mindset and overall innovation culture within the company can have the greatest impact. the sector in which businesses operate significantly affects the willingness to seek external advice, as well as growth expectations. the structure of growth expectations shows that around 57.5% of female entrepreneurs have low growth expectations. the obtained results also indicate that companies with different growth expectations differ in most other components of innovation capacity. the highest growth expectations are found in the most profitable sectors, such as it and media and communications, where female entrepreneurs invest the most in employee training, academic networking, and seeking external advice. it is 144journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 128-145) highly likely that these sectors hold the greatest potential for business sustainability. acknowledgments the research was funded by the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic of serbia. references [1] aral, sinan, and peter weill. 2007. 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"productivity, business profitability, and consumer surplus: three different measures of information technology value." mis quarterly: 121-142. [7] ongori, henry, and stephen o. migiro. 2010. "information and communication technologies adoption in smes: literature review." journal of chinese entrepreneurship, 2(1): 93-104. [8] popović-pantić, sanja. 2014. "an analysis of female entrepreneurship and innovation in serbia in the context of eu competitiveness." economic annals, 59(200): 61-90. [9] popović-pantić, sanja, dušica semenčenko, and nikola vasilić. 2020. "digital technologies and the financial performance of female smes in serbia: the mediating role of innovation." economic annals, 65(224): 53-81. sanja popović-pantić, snežana kirin, ivana vučetić 145 [10] popović-pantić, sanja, dušica semenčenko, and nikola vasilić. 2019. "the influence of digital transformation on business performance: evidence of the women-owned companies." ekonomika preduzeća, 67(7-8): 397-414. [11] popović-pantić, sanja. 2020. dve decenije ženskog preduzetništva u srbiji. institut mihajlo pupin. [12] vasilić, nikola, sanja popović-pantić, and dušica semenčenko. 2020. "women entrepreneurship in the time of covid-19 pandemic." journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, (3-4): 23-40. [13] radović-marković, mirjana, zorana nikitović, borko somborac, aleksandra penjišević, and slađana vujičić. 2022. "integration of gender aspects into development of knowledge management system in the entrepreneurial organizations in serbia." journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, (1-2): 154-169. [14] radovic-marković, mirjana, aidin salamzadeh, and mostafa razavi. 2013. "women in business and leadership: critiques and discussions." in the second international scientific conference on employment, education and entrepreneurship, belgrade, serbia, pp. 19-31. [15] salamzadeh, aidin, morteza hadizadeh, niloofar rastgoo, md mizanur rahman, and soodabeh radfard. 2022. "sustainability-oriented innovation foresight in international new technology-based firms." sustainability, 14(20): 13501. [16] vučetić, ivana, and snežana kirin. 2022. "innovation capacities as the key to survival – a case study in serbia." balkans journal of emerging trends in social sciences, 5(2):115-124. [17] yakubu, b. n., a. salamzadeh, p. bouzari, p. ebrahimi, and m. fekete farkas. 2022. "identifying the key factors of sustainable entrepreneurship in nigeria food industry: the role of media availability. entrepreneurial business and economics review, 10(2): 147‒162. article history: received: june 5th, 2023  accepted: july 17th, 2023   14_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.411; 005.32-055.1/.3; 005.511-057.87 jel: l26, i25 cobiss.sr-id: 211194892 original scientific paper nascent entrepreneurs: gender, culture, and perceptions şeşen harun1, european university of lefke, northern cyprus pruett mark, university of south carolina upstate, u.s. a b s t r a c t we assess gender differences in 1526 nascent entrepreneurs (college students) across four countries to test a model of entrepreneurial intentions incorporating gender, culture, and perceptions about entrepreneurship motives and barriers. in contrast to prior research on surviving entrepreneurs, we study people who may be at the very beginning of entrepreneurial careers. the model proves significant—we find support for hypotheses regarding the impact of gender, culture, and perceptions of motives and barriers. there are substantial differences between men and women. culture affects students’ intentions, women have lower levels of entrepreneurial intentions, motives generally have a positive influence on intentions, barriers have a negative influence, men appear more influenced by motives, and women appear more influenced by barriers. the results in china provide interesting exceptions in the analyses and suggest directions for future research specific to that country. as a whole, the study results suggest directions for future research on entrepreneurial intentions. we also discuss implications of the study for entrepreneurship education. key words: gender, culture, students, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial intentions, entrepreneurship education, motives, barriers 1 associate professor 2 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 1-21) introduction entrepreneurship literature on gender and culture is growing but more is needed (radović-marković, 2013). previous research on gender and culture is mostly on existing entrepreneurs. there is little gender-oriented, cross-cultural comparative research on nascent entrepreneurs (a recent exception is kew, herrington, litovsky and gale, 2013) and cross-cultural studies focused on college students are rare (e. g., pruett, shinnar, toney, llopis, and fox, 2009). thus, we survey university students from the united states, china, belgium, and turkey who may be at the beginning of entrepreneurial careers to study how gender, culture, and perceptions of motives and barriers influence entrepreneurial intentions. after summarizing literature to develop a basic model of entrepreneurial intentions and hypotheses about gender, culture, and perceptions of motives and barriers, we discuss our method, findings, and conclusions, including implications for research and for education. literature and model figure 1: model of entrepreneurial intentions the issue of gender men are more likely to be entrepreneurs (e.g., kickul, wilson, marlino and barbosa, 2008; minniti, bygrave and autio, 2005; minniti and nardone, 2007; wilson, marlino and kickul, 2004). and, women have different entrepreneurship behaviors and motives (e.g., robichaud, mcgraw, cachon, bolton, codina, eccius-wellmann, and walsh, 2013). these gender differences may have various causes. men seem more inclined to take risks (sexton and bowman-upton, 1990) and may have a şeşen, h., et al., nascent entrepreneurs, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 1-21) 3 greater locus of control (mazzarol, volery, doss and thein, 1999), more confidence (bandura, 1992) or higher entrepreneurial self-efficacy (sanchez and licciardello, 2012; zhao, seibert and hills, 2005). self-efficacy, defined as the self-confidence that someone has the necessary skills or abilities to be an entrepreneur, may be more important for younger people (wilson et al., 2004). we, too, believe experience and time should reduce gender differences—they should be more evident in nascent entrepreneurs, such as students at the beginning of their careers. thus, h1. gender negatively affects entrepreneurial intentions of females. the issue of culture culture, the distinctive mental programs shared by a group of people (hofstede 1980), influences entrepreneurship (e.g., avolio, 2012; kew et al., 2013; langowitz and minniti, 2007). cultural socialization of young people can teach gender stereotypes (gupta and bhawe, 2007; jose and orazio, 2012; miller and budd, 1999), collectivism may affect intentions (holland, 2014), and women lack entrepreneurial role-models in some cultures (klyver and grant, 2010). table 1: cultural differences among study countries hofstede’s cultural dimensions us china belgium turkey pd power distance (higher score: society accepts inequality of power) 40 80 65 66 in individualism (higher score: society focuses on individual more than group) 91 20 75 37 mf masculinity/feminity (higher score: competitive, focused on extrinsic rewards) 62 66 54 45 ua uncertainty avoidance (high score: low tolerance of ambiguity and risk) 46 30 94 85 note: data retrieved from hofstede centre, www.geert-hofstede.com as shown in table 1, hofstede’s (1980) model of culture has four dimensions: power-distance (egalitarian versus acceptance of inequality), individualism versus collectivism (i versus we orientation), masculinity-femininity (competitiveness and extrinsic rewards versus cooperation and intrin4 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 1-21) sic rewards), and uncertainty avoidance (tolerance of ambiguity in decisionmaking). these distinctive cultural attributes may affect entrepreneurship. high power-distance may limit entrepreneurial opportunity and freedom for many, making entrepreneurship less likely than in a low power-distance society. an individualistic society may encourage pursuit of individual entrepreneurial aspirations, while a collectivist one may discourage them. a culture which avoids uncertainty is likely to discourage entrepreneurial risktaking and ambiguity. last, a masculine culture appears likely to encourage competitive thinking, perhaps making entrepreneurship more likely. thus: h2a. cultural individualism is positively related to entrepreneurial intentions. h2b. cultural uncertainty avoidance is negatively related to entrepreneurial intentions. h2c. cultural power distance is negatively related to entrepreneurial intentions. h2d. cultural masculinity is positively related to entrepreneurial intentions. perceptions of motives and barriers in addition to the influence of gender and culture on entrepreneurial intentions, individuals perceive motives and barriers, which may be intrinsic (e.g., desire for independence and risk aversion) or extrinsic (money and economic climate). prior research with students shows that barriers and motives do matter (birdthistle, 2008; finnerty and krzystofik, 1985; sandhu, sidique and riaz, 2011). we argue that pre-existing perceptions of motives and barriers should be especially important for nascent entrepreneurs since they lack much experience, thus: h3. the strength of perceptions regarding motives is positively related to entrepreneurial intentions. h4. the strength of perceptions regarding barriers is negatively related to entrepreneurial intentions. men and women are likely to differ in their perceptions. men are likely to perceive a larger network of entrepreneurial contacts (klyver and grant, 2010) and to have different motives (humbert and drew, 2010). especially, they may have more self-confidence (kirkwood, 2009) and a lower fear of failure (shinnar, giacomin and janssen, 2012). thus: şeşen, h., et al., nascent entrepreneurs, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 1-21) 5 h5a. perceptions of motives will have a greater impact for men than for women on entrepreneurial intentions. h5b. perceptions of barriers will have a greater impact for women than for men on entrepreneurial intentions. culture also may interact with perceptions of motives and barriers. cultural individualism should encourage the pursuit of entrepreneurial motives. uncertainty avoidance and power distance should raise the importance of barriers, and a masculine culture that encourages competition should strengthen individuals’ valuation of motives. thus: h6a. higher cultural individualism will increase the impact of motive perceptions on entrepreneurial intentions. h6b. higher cultural uncertainty avoidance will increase the impact of barrier perceptions on entrepreneurial intentions of students. h6c. higher cultural power distance will increase the impact of barrier perceptions on entrepreneurial intentions of students. h6d. higher cultural masculinity will increase the impact of motive perceptions on entrepreneurial intentions of students. method participants our sample consisted of 1526 university students (317 americans, 333 chinese, 417 belgian, and 459 turkish). 69.6% were from business departments, the rest were from arts, sciences, engineering, education, and other departments. 47.6 % were female. 17.6% of respondents were 1st-year students, 18.1% were 2nd-year, 27.8% were 3rd-year, 20.6 % were 4th-year, and 16.3% were graduate students. questionnaires and measures our questionnaire was developed from one used previously by other authors (genesca and veciana, 1984; veciana, aponte and urbano, 2005). american and chinese students were asked in english, belgians in french, and turkish students in turkish to provide data on various individual factors, educational environment, and perceptions of motives and barriers. for example, scale answers for entrepreneurial intention ranged from 1 (no, never) to 4 (yes, i have a definite plan to start my own business), and five6 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 1-21) point likert scales from ‘very unimportant’ to ‘very important’ measured beliefs about 16 motives and 20 barriers. we factor analyzed the data to aggregate motives and barriers, a process used by other researchers (e.g., pruett et al., 2009). this gave five motive factors: pursuit of profit/social status, independence, creation, personal development, and professional dissatisfaction and five barrier factors: lack of support structure and fiscal/ administrative costs, lack of knowledge/experience, economic climate/ lack of entrepreneurial competencies, self-confidence, and risk aversion. to test factor construct validity, a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was conducted and yielded acceptable fit. findings: regression analysis table 2 below shows binary correlations. the masculinity/femininity dimension is excluded from further analysis due to multicollinearity (a very low tolerance score), so hypotheses h2d and h6d were not tested. table 3 shows the results of regressing culture, gender, and motive/barrier perceptions on entrepreneurial intentions. table 4 shows results for regressions separated by gender and country to explore h5a and h5b. table 3 supports several hypotheses. h1 is supported—females have lower entrepreneurial intentions. using a dummy variable with the value 1 for women, the coefficient for gender is significant and negative. h2a is not supported—cultural individualism is not positively related to intentions. the coefficient for individualism is significant, but in the opposite direction. higher individualism is related to lower intentions. h2b is not supported—uncertainty avoidance is not negatively related to entrepreneurial intentions. the coefficient for uncertainty avoidance is significant, but in the opposite direction. when cultural uncertainty avoidance is higher, entrepreneurial intentions are higher. h2c is supported—power distance is negatively related to entrepreneurial intentions. the coefficient for uncertainty avoidance is significant and negative. when cultural power distance is higher, entrepreneurial intentions are lower. h3 is partly supported—the strength of perceived motives is positively related to intentions. in the regression, two of five motive factors are significantly and positively related to intentions—the pursuit of profit and social status, and the desire to create. şeşen, h., et al., nascent entrepreneurs, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 1-21) 7 h4 is partly supported—the strength of perceived barriers is negatively related to intentions. three of five barriers are significantly and negatively related to intentions—economic climate/lack of entrepreneurial competencies, lack of self-confidence, and risk-aversion. table 4 shows partial support for h5a and h5b. h5a is partly supported—motive perceptions affect men more than women, with at least one significant motive in each country. in belgium, profit and social status is significant for males. in turkey, independence is significant and in the us and turkey creation is significant. strangely, in chinese males, independence is negatively related to entrepreneurial intentions. for women, motives do not explain entrepreneurial intentions. the sole exception is the desire to create for women in turkey. otherwise, across four distinct countries/cultures, women’s perceptions of motives are unrelated to their entrepreneurial intentions. however, barrier perceptions do help explain female intentions. h5b is partly supported—perceptions of barriers have a greater impact on the intentions of women. in three of four countries, males are negatively influenced by economic climate and lack of entrepreneurial competencies, and in turkey risk aversion. for females, the story depends on intrinsic barriers. us and belgian females are negatively affected by lack of self-confidence. for turkish females, the standardized coefficients show that the negative influence of risk-aversion is greater than the positive influence of the desire to create. except in china, fear seems to matter for females. overall, across countries the significant perceptions for woman are intrinsic, and mostly barriers. male intentions are influenced by a mix of extrinsic and intrinsic motives and barriers. hypotheses 6a-6c are not supported—cultural dimensions do not increase the impact of motive and barrier perceptions on entrepreneurial intentions. we did a regression with interaction variables for individualism, uncertainty avoidance and power distance (e.g., individualism* motivefactor1, the same for motive 2 and so on), but none of the interaction variables were significant. table 2: binary correlations for country, gender, motives, barriers, and intentions mean s.d 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1. country 1 2. gender .041 1 3. profit, status 3.55 .73 .243** -.005 1 4. desire for indep. 4.24 .72 .152** .077** .408** 1 5. creation 3.99 .84 .257** .127** .385** .480** 1 6. pers’l devel. 3.77 .99 .221** .060* .448** .355** .299** 1 7. prof’l dissat. 3.40 .86 .254** .152** .305** .331** .275** .382** 1 8. lack of support 3.37 .77 .063* .215** .249** .187** .204** .218** .320** 1 9. lack knowledge/exp. 3.59 .91 .064* .217** .233** .225** .208** .249** .302** .588** 1 10. econ.climate/comp. 3.99 .74 .115** .199** .278** .349** .257** .232** .304** .413** .465** 1 11. lack self-conf. 3.30 .89 -.009 .210** .266** .189** .195** .191** .284** .520** .559** .399** 1 12. risk aversion 3.33 .93 .046 .184** .209** .106** .105** .191** .309** .427** .431** .438** .461** 1 13. entrep’l intentions 1.63 1.06 .516** -.118** .272** .150** .225** .251** .131** -.054* -.050 -.035 -.114** -.133** 1 n = 1291 to 1536, missing cases excluded pairwise *p<.05, **p<.01. table 3: hierarchical regression coefficients for entrepreneurial intentions of students b standardized β coefficients for full model step 1 gender step 2 individualism step 3 unceravoid step 4 power dist step 4 motives step 5 barriers intercept 2.003** 3.029** 2.357** 8.521** 7.692** 8.060** 19.278 gender (dummy var) -.252** -.410** -.373** -.434** -.439** -.339** -7.132 culture individualism -.014** -.017** -.050** -.048** -.046** -24.303 uncertainty avoidance .011** .019** .018** .017** 16.875 power distance -.075** -.071** -.070** -.877 motives profit, social status .66 .126** 0.87 independence -.015 .000 .000 creation .106** .112** .089 personal devel. .022 .035 .033 prof. dissatisfaction -0.53 .008 .006 barriers support structure, costs .009 .007 knowledge & exper. -.038 -.033 econ. clim., lack. comp. -.102 -.072 self-confidence -.083** -.069 risk aversion -.105 -.093 change in f 18.330** 196.508** 116.466** 478.428** 4.673** 16.633** change in r² .014 .131 .071 .213 .010 .030 total model r² .014 .145 .216 .428 .438 .469 note. dependent variable student entrepreneurial intentions, n = 1526 *p<.05, **p<.01 table 4: motive and barrier impacts on entrepreneurial intentions, separated by gender and country β male female american chinese belgian turkish american chinese belgian turkish step 1 step 2 step 1 step 2 step 1 step 2 step 1 step 2 step 1 step 2 step 1 step 2 step 1 step 2 step 1 step 2 pursuit of profit and social status .012 .063 .151 .201 .162 .179* .064 .128 -.077 -.016 -.100 .005 .147 .163 -.028 .067 desire for independence -.053 -.013 -379* -.348* .008 .033 .167* .167* .176 .114 -.137 -.029 .170 .138 .047 .030 creation .284** .300** .035 .074 .099 .122 .267** .207** .094 .117 .074 .084 -.116 -.089 .171* .157* personal development .130 .133 -.088 -.149 .066 .079 -.053 -.038 .101 .145 .098 .180 .035 .063 .052 .097 professional dissatisfaction -.070 -.031 .031 .033 -.154 -.110 -.149* -.029 .049 .005 .017 .008 -.094 -.111 -.165* -.061 lack of support, structure and fiscal or administrative costs -.153 .104 .012 .125 -.078 -.233 .130 .119 lack of knowledge and experience .041 .107 -.063 .041 -.196 .127 -.021 -.065 economic climate and lack of entrepreneurial competencies -.118 -.321* -.213** -.171* -.042 -.224 -.025 -.055 lack of selfconfidence -.137 .040 .027 -.153 -.232* -.116 -.319** -.147 risk aversion .010 .036 -.015 -.194* -.131 .104 -.082 -.239** f 3.268** 2.793** 1.347 1.921* 1.917 1.919* 7.118** 6.451** 1.833 2.588* .521 .966 1.414 2.217* 2.349* 3.984** r²change .096 .062 .165 .113 .048 .046 .147 .096 .075 .053 .028 .075 .063 .117 .046 .098 ∆r² .096 .158 .165 .279 .048 .094 .147 .243 .075 .128 .028 .103 .063 .180 .046 .144 note. all columns are standardized β values. *p<.05, **p<.013 şeşen, h., et al., nascent entrepreneurs, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 1-21) 11 findings: anova for motives and barriers table 5 shows mean scores and anova results for perceptions of entrepreneurship motives; table 6 shows mean scores and anova results for perceptions of entrepreneurship barriers. as noted earlier, students’ perceptions of motives reduced to five factors: pursuit of profit and social status, desire for independence, desire to create, personal development, and professional dissatisfaction. the gender difference was insignificant for all countries regarding the extrinsic motive of pursuit of profit and social status. for all intrinsic motive factors, there is a significant difference between genders in at least one country. for the desire for independence, in all countries the scores of females exceeded males, but the difference was significant only in belgium. for creation, the differences between genders were significant—female students viewed creation as more important than did males in all four countries. for personal development, the differences between male and female students were insignificant in the us, china, and belgium, but in turkey the female students differed significantly, seeing personal development as more important than did the male students. for professional dissatisfaction as a motive, female students’ scores were higher than those of males in all countries—the difference was significant in turkey and belgium. for table 6, students’ barrier perceptions reduced to five factors: lack of support structure and fiscal or administrative costs, lack of knowledge and experience, economic climate and lack of entrepreneurial competencies, lack of self-confidence, and risk aversion. men and women differ significantly on all barrier dimensions and females’ barrier perceptions consistently exceed males’ except in china, where there are no gender differences in barrier perceptions. table 5: anova for motives for starting a business factor pursuit of profit and social status desire for independence creation personal development professional dissatisfaction country m sd f m sd f m sd f m sd f m sd f us male 3.59 0.683 1.342 4.37 0.738 1.851 3.84 0.795 12.952*** 3.98 0.921 2.545 3.48 0.795 1.285 female 3.50 0.649 4.48 0.639 4.18 0.833 3.81 0.864 3.58 0.777 china male 3.19 0.641 0.128 3.65 0.888 0.772 3.30 0.734 2.738* 3.33 0.918 1.030 2.84 0.636 0.893 female 3.23 0.707 3.85 0.963 3.49 0.849 3.54 0.961 2.95 0.803 turkey male 3.92 0.723 0.094 4.45 0.574 0.711 4.25 0.770 5.678** 4.13 0.834 11.765*** 3.55 0.887 13.043*** female 3.91 0.649 4.51 0.534 4.40 0.638 4.36 0.701 4.01 0.768 belgium male 3.31 0.684 1.022 4.00 0.675 12.897*** 3.82 0.838 12.695*** 3.36 1.029 0.064 3.17 0.725 11.874*** female 3.24 0.703 4.24 0.584 4.12 0.729 3.33 0.972 3.43 0.765 *p<.10, **p<.05, ***p<.001. table 6: anova for barriers to starting a business factor lack of support structure and fiscal or administralack of knowledge and experience economic climate and lack of entrepreneurial lack of self-confidence risk aversion country m sd f m sd f m sd f m sd f m sd f us male 3.31 0.738 10.356*** 3.61 0.925 12.820*** 4.01 0.782 9.775** 3.33 1.187 4.997** 3.40 0.812 5.785** female 3.62 0.914 3.97 0.726 4.26 0.533 3.59 0.712 3.64 0.810 china male 3.22 0.545 0.864 3.51 0.776 0.252 3.64 0.829 0.200 3.16 0.619 0.531 3.21 0.854 0.629 female 3.36 0.634 3.54 0.798 3.72 0.875 3.28 0.719 3.15 0.799 turkey male 3.18 0.859 46.985*** 3.42 1.02 53.494*** 3.93 0.825 46.968*** 2.99 0.958 56.146*** 3.01 1.120 64.091*** female 3.72 0.828 4.07 0.885 4.39 0.614 3.66 0.951 3.79 0.970 belgium male 3.23 0.694 8.878** 3.32 0.851 7.804** 3.76 0.660 21.086*** 3.07 0.759 10.756*** 3.24 0.817 5.587** female 3.44 0.609 3.56 0.773 4.06 0.562 3.33 0.702 3.44 0.755 *p<.10, **p<.05, ***p<.001. 14 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 1-21) findings: additional analyses table 7 presents scores by country of male and female students’ perceptions of the business start-up knowledge in the curriculum, the extent to which universities stimulate entrepreneurship, and students’ entrepreneurial disposition and intentions. men and women differ significantly in nine of the sixteen comparisons. table 7: university, disposition, and intentions country male female factor m sd m sd f p skills included in curriculum us 2.54 0.892 2.17 0.911 13.022 .000 china 2.52 0.735 2.53 0.847 0.210 .811 turkey 2.52 0.879 2.77 0.780 8.432 .000 belgium 1.80 0.757 1.92 0.742 2.618 .106 university stimulation us 2.45 0.667 2.29 0.675 4.254 .040 china 2.58 0.731 2.61 0.731 0.173 .841 turkey 2.39 0.856 2.39 0.956 0.001 .973 belgium 2.07 0.671 2.23 0.756 5.346 .021 entrepreneurial disposition us 4.64 1.402 3.72 1.557 29.587 .000 china 3.75 1.466 3.67 1.350 0.180 .836 turkey 5.24 1.335 4.40 1.229 9.311 .000 belgium 4.00 1.398 3.61 1.319 7.138 .008 entrepreneurial intentions us 1.42 0.813 0.92 0.803 29.201 .000 china 1.34 0.872 1.03 0.713 2.983 .049 turkey 1.93 0.871 1.37 0.785 8.201 .000 belgium 1.13 0.768 0.95 0.822 4.855 .028 skills in curriculum—chinese and belgian males and females have similar perceptions about the extent to which their curricula provide knowledge to prepare them to start businesses, with average scores somewhere between a little and some. however, there are significant differences in the us and turkey. university stimulation—us and belgian males are significantly more positive than females about the extent to which their universities stimulate şeşen, h., et al., nascent entrepreneurs, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 1-21) 15 students to start businesses, with average scores between a little and some, while chinese and turkish students do not differ significantly by gender. entrepreneurial disposition—in three of four countries males had significantly greater entrepreneurial disposition (their internal sense of how entrepreneurial they are). there was no gender difference in china. entrepreneurial intentions—in all four countries men had significantly higher levels of intention than did women. discussion and implications the analyses generally support our model. they show substantial differences between men and women. culture affects students’ intentions, women have lower levels of entrepreneurial intentions, motives generally have a positive influence on intentions, barriers have a negative influence, men appear influenced by motives, and women appear influenced by barriers. gender, culture, perceptions, and intentions the regression test of the full model showed that gender, cultural dimensions, and motive and barrier perceptions are significantly related to entrepreneurial intentions. further, in separate regressions by country and gender, the model is significant in seven of eight instances (chinese women were the only group for which the model did not have any significant explanatory power). in most cases, the significant factors were psychological or intrinsic ones. belgian males were the only group for which the extrinsic profit-status motive was significant. males in three countries (the u.s, china, and turkey) saw the extrinsic barrier of economic climate/entrepreneurial competencies as significant. when other barriers and motives were significant, they were intrinsic—desire for independence or to create something, lack of self-confidence, and risk-aversion. self-confidence or risk-aversion barriers were significantly related to women’s entrepreneurial intentions in three of four countries. in other research, kew et al. (2013) find that teens and young adults are less likely to believe in their entrepreneurial skills in asia, europe, and the united states (the regions represented in our study). those authors also find that fear of failure is important—35-45% of the youths in those three regions say that fear of failure would prevent them from starting a business 16 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 1-21) (kew et al., 2013: p 35). unlike our study, kew et al. did not assess the impact of gender on responses. barriers and motives for barriers, as shown in the anova, there is a uniform difference across three countries (turkey, the us, and belgium)—in each case, women perceive each barrier as significantly more important than do men. in all fifteen barrier gender comparisons, women rate barriers higher. further, the regression standardized beta (β) scores show that the impact of barriers is greater for women. more women believe barriers matter, and they believe barriers matter more, except in china, where there are no significant gender perception differences. for motives, the results are different. when men and women differ, they differ on the psychological/intrinsic motives for entrepreneurship, not the material/extrinsic ones. women rate intrinsic motives as stronger. across countries, there are no gender differences in the importance of the profit/status motive. in belgium, independence matters more to women, in turkey personal development matters more to women, and in turkey and belgium professional dissatisfaction matters more to women. in all countries, the creation motive is significantly more important to women, and it is the only motive/barrier on which chinese women differ. implications for future research first, results in china unique—there are no significant gender differences on many dimensions, and the motive and barrier perceptions of chinese women have no relationship to intentions. chinese males seem more likely to pursue entrepreneurship but have no greater entrepreneurial disposition. do men overstate their entrepreneurial intentions? do other factors limit women’s entrepreneurial intentions even when they have entrepreneurial disposition? further gender research in china is needed. second, men and women perceive barriers and motives differently— do women overrate barriers or do men underrate them? do men underrate intrinsic motives? new research is needed on these differences, especially their sources and their impact on intentions and behavior. third, psychology deserves a role—this paper began by noting the scarcity of cross-cultural research on gender, perceptions, and intentions. we need research to connect gender, culture, education, and psychology. şeşen, h., et al., nascent entrepreneurs, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 1-21) 17 implications forentrepreneurship education our study suggests that addressing gender differences may help resolve the continuing debate about the effectiveness, content, and purpose of entrepreneurship education (dhaliwal, 2010; fayolle, 2008; giacomin et al., 2011; hoelscher, 2012; jose and orazio, 2012; katz, 2003; khadija, usman, and mohsin, 2012; kirkwood, 2009; lo, sun, and law, 2012; nabi, holden and walmsley, 2010; packham, jones, miller, pickernell and brychan, 2010; peterman and kennedy, 2003; petridou, sarri and kyrgidou, 2009; wu and wu, 2008; yordanova and tarrazon, 2010). education should focus more on the psychology of barriers. intrinsic and psychological factors affect student perceptions (especially for women), but university education focuses on knowledge and specific skills, not explicitly on students’ psychological understanding and confidence. psychological and social skills are crucial for entrepreneurs (taatila, 2010), so perhaps developing self-reliant students should be a central purpose of entrepreneurship education (van gelderen, 2010). to us, this seems more important than technical skills. education should emphasize intrinsic motives. although women care more than men about intrinsic motives, this does not lead to an increase in female entrepreneurial intentions. perhaps education should find ways to emphasize the value of intrinsic motives more than it apparently does. education should address cultural differences, for those differences affect both men and women. for example, education in a culture which does not value individuality should address the psychological and practical conflicts which an entrepreneurially-minded student is likely to face. how can we give all students, male and female, a better understanding of their own culturally-influenced thinking? by focusing on the impact of gender and culture, entrepreneurship education is likely to raise students’ entrepreneurial intentions, increase the likelihood that students will actually pursue entrepreneurship, and improve their chances of success and satisfaction. references [1] avolio, b. 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(2005). “the mediating role of selfefficacy in the development of entrepreneurial intentions.” journal of applied psychology, 90 (6): 1265-72. şeşen, h., et al., nascent entrepreneurs, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 1-21) 21 preduzetnik u nastajanju: pol, kultura i percepcije a p s t r a k t procenjivali smo polne razlike kod 1526 preduzetnika (studenata) u nastajanju, u četiri zemlje, sa ciljem testiranja modela preduzetničkih namera uz uključivanje polnih i kulturnih aspekata, kao i percepcija o preduzetničkim motivima i preprekama. za razliku od prethodnog istraživanja usmerenog na preduzetnike u fazi preživljavanja, mi proučavamo ljude koji su na samom početku preduzetničke karijere. model, prema našim nalazima, pruža značajnu podršku hipotezama o uticaju pola, kulture i percepcija o motivima i barijerama. postoje značajne razlike između muškaraca i žena. kultura utiče na namere studenata, žene imaju niži nivo preduzetničkih namera, motivi uglavnom imaju pozitivan uticaj na namere, prepreke imaju negativan uticaj, muškarci su više podložni uticaju motiva, dok su žene više podložne uticaju prepreka. rezultati u kini predstavljaju interesantne izuzetke u analizama i sugerišu smernice za buduća istraživanja specifična za tu zemlju. u celini, rezultati istraživanja sugerišu pravce za naredna istraživanja o preduzetničkim namerama. između ostalog, diskutovali smo o implikacijama studije na preduzetničko obrazovanje . ključne reči: pol, kultura, studenti, preduzetništvo, preduzetničke namere, preduzetničko obrazovanje, motivi, barijere article history: received: 13 july, 2014 accepted: 19 october, 2014 16_jwe_3-4_finalna_ver udk: 005.32:331.101.2-055.2 005.21:005.966 jel: b54, j16 cobiss.sr-id: 227963148 position paper strategies for the professional development of executive women: empirical evidence in latin america avolio beatrice1, alcalá patty, rurush mónica, vilca pedro, zelaya david2 centrum católica graduate business school a b s t r a c t this study identifies the main strategies used by women in order to access executive positions and to increase their professional development using the latin american case. the study was conducted with 20 women executives who work in large companies in lima, peru. the analysis in the latin american context adds more empirical information with regard to the executive women in a context that is not studied in depth so far. it is important to analyze latin america because there are inequities in the use of time by men and women, mainly in the case of the unpaid productive work, since the unpaid work activities are mainly designated to women. the results show that the executive women seem to identify the development strategies that were proposed according to the theoretical basis of this study. the results also show that the main strategies that executive women use are: networking; the support of a leader who guides the development process and is considered as a reference; education; and the overall experience. in addition, other identified strategies were the development of specific skills and competences for the activity, the search for a challenging work, making important decisions with 1 professor and researcher, e-mail: bavolio@pucp.pe 2 patty.alcala@pucp.pe; mrurush@pucp.pe; pedro.vilca@pucp.pe; dzelaya@pucp.edu.pe 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) determination, the “hard work”, and the passion for what they do. in all cases, the respondents’ innate leadership prevailed and they were willing to accept personal and work challenges which would allow them to grow professionally during their personal and work experience. key words: woman, executive woman, strategies, professional development classification: empirical study case study introduction in the last decades, there have been a series of changes in regard to the integration of women in the economic activity at a global and regional level. the international labour organization [ilo] (2012) estimated that the female labor force3 was 1.3 trillion, about 39.9 per cent of the total labor force (3.3 billion). the ilo found that female labor force participation rates increased from 50.2% to 51.7%, while the male rates decreased from 82.0% to 77.7% from 1980 to 2008 (ilo, 2010); thus, in the last decades, there has been a gradual reduction of the gender gap. the ilo stated that the female participation rate for 2014 was 50.3%, while the men’s rate was 76.7%, which represents a gap of almost 26% (ilo, 2014a). the decline in the participation rate compared to the previous years (for both men and women) is caused by cyclical factors, such as the recession and the slow recovery from the recent financial crisis, and structural factors such as the population ageing and the increase of the years spent in education (ilo, 2016). in the case of latin america and the caribbean, female participation in the labor force had a progressive and constant increase (43.5% in 1992, 49.6% in 2002, to 52.6% in 2012), while male participation decreased (82.5% in 1992, 80.3% in 2002, 79.5%) (ilo,2012). this increase in female labor participation can be explained by the combined effect of the economic development, the higher level of education, the decline in fertility rates, the technological development that allows reducing the time spent on household chores, and the structural changes that reduce the transaction costs and the use of time (goldin, 2006). 3 this refers to the total number of working-age people who are currently employed and those who are seeking employment (unemployed) (national institute of statistics and economic studies [insee], 2016). avolio, b., et al., empirical evidence in latin america, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) 83 the participation of women in business and executive leadership has increased globally, particularly during the last decade (grant thornton international, 2013). despite this, their participation remains low in comparison with the male rates due to a series of factors that hinder the regular career development of women. women must face and overcome several barriers to accessing managerial positions and obtaining fair wage compensations (lopez, 2012, p. 21). although the statistics are scarce, in accordance with the information provided by grant thornton ibr (2016), the average percentage of women in business management positions in the world is 24%. eastern europe leads the global participation at a regional level with 35%, followed by the association of southeast asian nations with 34%, the countries of the south of europe with 28%, africa with 27%, the european union with 24%, the united states with 21%, and 18% in latin america. in latin america, the participation of women in managerial positions goes from 23% in mexico to 16% in argentina. in addition, 53% of the companies in the region do not have women in their leadership teams. this percentage is well above the world average (32%) (grant thornton ibr, 2015b). on the other hand, the latin american country that reported the highest percentage of companies with women in top management positions is venezuela (31%), while chile reported only 5% (world economic forum, 2014). in this context, the professional development of women and their evolution in leadership positions within the companies is a research topic in expansion, which is primarily oriented to study the relationship between the performance of a company and the number of female personnel (grant thornton international, 2012; ymca, women on boards & acoss [australian council of social service], 2012). the literature related to the development of executive women provides valuable information to the business and government sectors in order to assess the potential factors that prevent women from having the same opportunities for educational and economic development as their male peers. this study aims to identify the main strategies used by women in order to hold executive positions and to increase their professional development using the latin american case. this knowledge would be considered as a base to encourage women empowerment within the organizations. additionally, the study examines whether women have a career development plan and whether they receive the support of the companies for their development. the study was conducted taking into account executive 84 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) women who work in large companies in lima, peru. this analysis in the latin american context adds more empirical data with regard to the executive women in a context that is not studied in depth so far. it is important to analyze latin america because it presents inequities in the use of time by men and women, mainly in the case of the unpaid productive work (housekeeping, household chores, children, parents and handicap care). this inequity in the use of time, where the unpaid productive work are mainly designated to females, is a critical factor for female participation in the labor force (ilo, 2012). previous studies first, strategy is understood as a means to establish a purpose in terms of long-term objectives that follow a specific program which allocates the resources according to it (hax and majluf, cited by d'alessio, 2008). the strategy implies, in addition, “to follow a consistent, unified and integrated pattern of decisions” (p. 6). this study uses the term strategy as a set of actions and decision-making processes—linked to a purpose—that will enable the achievement of the long-term objectives. these actions and decision-making processes are typically supported by the individual’s past experiences. the management of an executive’s professional career includes all the tasks and positions held during the employment history (werther & davis, 2008). the management of the career is going to be directly related to the professional development, which is understood as “the sum of all the actions, experiences and opportunities that the individuals had in order to achieve their professional objectives” (werther & davis, 2008, p. 547). in addition, it includes “the aspects that a person enriches or improves to achieve the objectives within the organization” (werther & davis, p. 291). in summary, the strategies that executive women use to achieve their professional development shall be understood as the actions and decisions made to achieve the objectives mediated by a purpose; these are additional actions, apart from the jobs and tasks that executive women performed during their professional life. previous research studies have identified the following strategies for the career development and administration of executive women: (i) education: it is considered as one of the executives’ main strategies to develop their skills and competencies within an organization. the avolio, b., et al., empirical evidence in latin america, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) 85 educational strategies are mainly related to post-graduate studies and specialization courses (chen, doherty, & vinnicombe, 2012). (ii) international experience: it guarantees the knowledge of foreign markets, international sales and general management skills. in the case of executive women, it is a determinant factor for their professional development. it enables them to develop a global vision, expand their networks, and cope with different places and cultures (orser & leck, 2010). (iii) networking: it is an invaluable tool for the executives’ professional development since it gives the opportunity to interact with other professionals and to exchange knowledge and experiences. most of the networking activities are focused on the development of the professional career and skills, in addition to the improvement of the communication between the staff and the management. it also provides information on the organizational systems and the promotions since it gives the opportunity to strengthen the relationships with potential sponsors (knörr, 2011). (iv) online networking: it is a variant of the aforementioned strategy. it uses the new technologies, such as the internet and multimedia programs, to network not only within the workplace, but outside from it. in accordance with donelan, herman, kear and kirkup (2009), online networking would enable women to work in fields that were previously dominated by men since online environments are more flexible and there are no gender restrictions. (v) mentoring: it is understood as the support, assistance or guidance provided by one person to another in order to achieve an objective or several objectives in a given period of time. it improves the chances of having more promotions, improved job satisfaction, better salary range, and a higher selfesteem (woolnough, davidson, & fielden, 2005). maxwell (2009) also considered that active mentoring programs can improve the development of the professional career, especially for executive women. in addition, it would be a vital strategy for a greater gender equality. however, given that this strategy involves social interaction processes—an area where women face more barriers than their male counterparts—its use takes on a greater relevance for the professional development of women (knörr, 2011). knörr (2011) also stated that the relationship with a mentor enhances the executives’ self confidence and reduces their levels of stress. (vi) e-mentoring: consists of making the most of the benefits offered by the internet and multimedia technologies in order to have a mentor virtually. this overcomes the geographical barriers, optimizes the use of 86 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) resources and allows women to face the barriers encountered during their career. müller (2009) described the e-mentoring as a relationship that uses the electronic communication tools so as to expand and improve an existing mentoring relationship or to create one where it might not been possible. headlam-wells, gosland and craig (2005) described it as a transformative tool for the professional development of executive women. it helps to overcome and go through the “glass ceiling.” in addition, it contributes to the perfection of the social skills. (vii) sponsorship. it is the existence of a sponsor that defends or mentions the one executive in front of other executives. the difference between the mentoring (mentors) and the sponsorship (sponsors) strategies is that the mentor is the one who supports the personal and professional development through advice or assistance, while the sponsor only actively defends or mentions the sponsored in front of other executives (kram, cited in ibarra, carter, & silva, 2010). networking at senior levels of the organization helps to obtain a sponsor for the professional development. hence, these two strategies would be directly related (seibert, cited in eddleston, baldridge, & veiga, 2004). previous studies identified the main barriers that executive women have to face during their professional career: (i) gender stereotype: the gender stereotype is defined as the characteristics of men and women translated into a group of tasks and activities assigned to them by every culture. throughout life, in the family, at school, and in the social environment, we are told what is right and wrong in regard to the clothes, the manner of speaking, how to behave, in which kind of sports we can participate, etc. the fact of being a man or a woman involves a long process of acculturation, learning, and adaptation of the established roles (berger & luckman, 1968). gender is a cultural representation that includes ideas, prejudices, interpretations, standards, duties, mandates, and prohibitions in the lives of women and men (butler, 2007). socially, it is considered that men and women are not equal, because each one has its own role in life. a stereotype is an image or an idea that is commonly and immutably accepted by a group of society. it is a very simplified mental image with few details in regard to a group of people who share certain characteristics and abilities. the term is often used in a negative sense, since it is considered that stereotypes are illogical beliefs that can only be changed through education. it is a way to categorize the real world and to give meaning to a avolio, b., et al., empirical evidence in latin america, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) 87 specific aspect of this world instead of another. the stereotype is a “group” concept; it is something that is shared by a group and it has a uniform content. its strength resides in the degree perceived by those who consider it a valid representation of the reality (rae, 2015). gender stereotypes are specific to each society and each culture establishes what is supposed to be “natural” for each sex, defining the gender within the dichotomy between what is “feminine” and “masculine”. gender stereotypes are transmitted and perpetuated in the family, at school, in the media, etc. this socialization creates a gender identity, promotes certain and different ways of thinking, feeling and acting between the sexes, which establishes the basis for the imbalance of power that is transmitted to the private sphere. hence, the framework to understand why different values are assigned to several actions related to women and men is provided so that the gender approach allows identifying the reasons of assigning a certain image that is reproduced again and again in the society and in some professions (levistrauss, 1961). it is socially acceptable for women to be prepared for the household chores and for the men be prepared for work-related activities that confer prestige and power. these stereotypic beliefs contribute or might affirm that some activities are considered to be more appropriate for an specific gender (cep, 2005). (ii) salary inequity: according to the report of the international labor organization (ilo), the female labor participation in latin america currently represents 50% of the total (2013). this is an increase in the last decades caused by the significant economic growth in latin america, the rapid urbanization of the cities, the free trade, among other factors (atal, ñopo & winder, 2009). however, this increase of female participation did not lead to an improvement in the wages of women, despite the fact that the wage gap was reduced by 7% from 1992 to 2007 (hoyos & ñopo, 2010). (iii) vertical segregation: the vertical segregation barrier is defined and exists within the organizational structure of a company. this type of segregation shall be understood as the tendency of male managers to significantly identify the male characteristics in the attributes of a good manager. women are not promoted to management positions due to the male tendency to see other men as more appropriate for such posts; thus, this vertical segregation is transfered to the hierarchy of an organization (ellison, 2001). (iv) glass ceiling: another factor that is present in the professional development of women is the glass ceiling concept. this term first appeared 88 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) in the wall street journal in 1986 and it is defined as the invisible barriers that women face when approaching the highest levels of the organizational hierarchy (wentling, 2003). wentling (2004) identified three types of barriers: (a) organizational, which represent the lack of hiring, development and support for managerial positions, prejudices in performance assessments and hostile environments, including sexual harassment; (b) societal, which is understood as the source of the aforementioned organizational barriers that assume a lack of commitment among women in regard to their professional development; and (c) governmental, due to the lack of an effective governmental participation and an inadequate employment data collection. (v) the labyrinth: in accordance with mcdonagh and paris (2012), the glass ceiling concept does not constitute an impenetrable barrier anymore since many women have “broken” this ceiling to achieve highlevel positions within a company; however, a labyrinth currently appears as the figure of the many obstacles that women must overcome throughout their professional life. this metaphor, which is “more complicated and vertiginous,” might be the reason why many women decide to abandon the goal to access executive leadership positions. although, due to the “wild” nature of the labyrinth, this would be translated—at the end—in wisdom that would benefit women and the organization itself. (vi) maternity discrimination: the increasing number of women entering the labor market has exceeded the paradigms performed by women at home, in regard to a productive and unpaid work as part of their traditional role as women. this entrance helps to improve the self-esteem, to have a greater personal freedom and economic autonomy, and to have new social environments and relations which directly affect the family dynamics (fawaz, 2012). the work has a significant meaning for women. it does not replace, but complements the family life as a guide. the meaning that women give to their work, although it makes reference to personal achievements, is closely linked to the contributions to the family. in the same way, the main reasons for not working outside home claimed by women who stay at home are related to the household chores, children or elderly care, and the refusal from their partners. (vii) cultural characteristics: there is a differentiation between the systems of symbols and the beliefs that each society has to represent the world. these cultural characteristics are shown through the societal institutions and organizations; we find the family within the scope of the avolio, b., et al., empirical evidence in latin america, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) 89 institutions. culturally, there are different types of family structures that are correlated to the social characteristics of specific human groups, in which the different roles distributed among its members take precedence. the role played by a woman within the family might be considered as a barrier for her professional development if this lead to put the marital and maternal obligations ahead of any desire to access management positions (jogulu & wood, 2011). (viii) organizational culture and policies: there is a relationship between the methods of organizational socialization and the progress of women’s careers in the organizations. these methods are important and influential because they have a potentially strong and lasting impact on the employee’s behaviors, attitudes and commitment. it has been stated that the organizational socialization process can develop or destroy a career. kwesiga and bell (2004) stated that “researchers have little knowledge of whether there are certain organizational tactics that are more likely to favor a particular gender and thus promote the status of men or women within the organization.” the women who accessed executive positions are more likely to use specific practices, such as flexible working hours, part-time work or hiring child care services. women have been encouraged to climb the corporate ladder “and to break the glass ceiling”; however, the high level positions are still beyond reach. some women leave their corporate careers to start their own business for the need for a greater flexibility, the experience with the glass ceiling, and the lack of opportunity in their jobs. as a first step toward gender equality and the promotion of female career development, the organizations can promote the recruitment, retention and promotion of women through the implementation of work/life policies (guy, 2003). (ix) female leadership: finally, the leadership factor in the literature indicates that women tend to exercise a transformational leadership and they could work on some aspects of the transactional leadership. on the other hand, men tend to exercise transactional leadership, in which corrective actions and disciplinary measures are more frequent; however, in spite of the fact that the modern organization should be led in transformational way, this does not exert a significant influence on the promotion of women to higher-level positions in the organization (eagly & carli, 2007). mcdonagh and paris (2012) stated that women seem to have an advantage in leadership based on their natural tendency toward a transformational leadership style, since their method provides the collaborators with the inspirational 90 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) motivation, intellectual stimulation, interpersonal orientation and a participative style that are needed to improve the competitive level of agents within the company. in summary, the transformational leaders earn the confidence and build a shared vision since they serve as role models. research methodology a case study qualitative approach was used to explore the strategies used by executive women for their professional development (yin, 2013). the case studies were selected among executive women in large companies located in peru. this rigorous selection aimed to reflect the diversity of the situations experienced by professional women, considering the following dimensions: age, marital status, education level, and industry (see table 1). mondy (2010) defined the executive positions as the high-level positions that report directly to the executive director of the corporation or to the head of a major division. the term “executive” is used in this study as the person who works in a company and holds a management or top executive position and, therefore, interferes in the decision-making process within the organization. the information was collected mainly through in-depth interviews of approximately 90 minutes each. the study was conducted in metropolitan lima, since this area concentrates 29.7% of the total population of peru and 30.2% of peruvian female population (inei, 2006). the sample was built using purposeful sampling (maxwell, 2005) with a combination of snowball and maximum variation techniques. to answer the research questions adequately, 20 cases were selected, which made it possible to obtain enough information to carry out a transversal analysis of the cases and to answer the research questions. the number of cases was selected based on the theoretical saturation. the information was coded, categorized and analyzed using analytic induction (corbin & strauss, 2007). table 1 shows the profile of informants. avolio, b., et al., empirical evidence in latin america, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) 91 table 1: profile of the respondents sector capital job position area children older than 40 years undergraduate degree postgraduate degree chemical foreign manager quality assurance no no engineering master’s degree financial agents foreign manager operations yes yes engineering master’s degree financial agents domestic manager accounting yes yes accounting master’s degree financial agents foreign manager development yes no engineering master’s degree financial agents domestic manager corporate assets no no psychology master’s degree textiles foreign manager human resources no no law master’s degree financial agents domestic manager shared services yes no administration master’s degree financial agents domestic manager human resources management yes no administration no chemical domestic manager business unit yes yes engineering master’s degree food industry domestic manager operations no yes administration master’s degree telecommunications foreign manager regulatory affairs no no law master’s degree marketing agents foreign deputy manager human resources no no administration postgraduate studies marketing agents foreign manager regulatory affairs yes no pharmacy and biochemistry no fishing foreign manager general management yes yes law postgraduate studies beverages foreign manager internal audit yes no accounting master’s degree consulting and services foreign manager talent management for the americas yes no communication master’s degree marketing agents foreign director talent for latin america no yes administration master’s degree marketing agents foreign manager brand & trade manager no no administration no marketing agents foreign manager information technologies (andean region) yes no engineering master’s degree consulting and services foreign director administration and finance no yes accounting master’s degree strategies used by women to access executive positions the study identified four key strategies used by executive women to achieve their professional development: (i) networking, (ii) support of a leader, (iii) education as the basis for professional development, (iv) international experience. in addition, other identified strategies are: the development of specific skills, the search for a challenging work, making important decisions with determination, the “hard work”, and the passion for their work (see table 2). the findings of the study are described below. networking: 18 of the respondents stated that networking is a fundamental element to identify job opportunities, to recognize the 92 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) performed work, and to obtain the necessary tools to adequately execute their activities: i believe that it is important to maintain relationships with people who might contact you someday. when you apply for a job, and if you have maintained a good relation and people saw your work, when they call them, they are going to speak very well of you (e02). support given by a leader: 12 of the informants mentioned that the support received by a leader was the base for their development. this means to have a person, an immediate superior, who teaches, guides, advocates, challenges, instructs and, in general, supports the development of professional skills through his/her guide and trust. the mentor is not necessarily formally selected and, according to the respondents, they are responsible for identifying their mentor: you have to find it; you need to know how to choose the person that will help you, someone who you would like to become by virtue of his/her experience or capabilities (e13). i was on probation approximately one year and, finally, my boss assigned me an important project. he said: “i think you can do it.” he made me to take the plunge and it was one of my best experiences (e4). education as the basis of professional development: the study found that, in all cases, women had continuous training and support to strengthen their capacities and to achieve their objectives. although the educational level and the specialization areas were varied, they all had a specialized education in their fields, either by experience or continuous improvement. in addition, they considered that a continuous education is critical for their professional development, since they become more competitive with respect to their peers and complement their work experience and the personal growth: the fact of holding a master’s degree gives you some professional maturity. education is a very important thing and you definitely need that kind of experience in order to have greater responsibilities (e19). it was clear that i wanted a management position, then i pursued a master’s degree to complement my experience (e20). international experience: ten respondents had some kind of international experience related to their studies, meetings, travel, etc. this allowed them to know different cultures and behaviors in order to increase their professional skills. avolio, b., et al., empirical evidence in latin america, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) 93 having international experience influences the development of your professional skills… in general, it is useful to achieve a better professional experience (e20). development of skills and competencies: thirteen respondents considered that the development of leadership, communication skills and specific job-related competences obtained through the professional experience is essential for the professional development of women. i identified the opportunities for improvement, i.e. those skills that i had to develop and i worked with my leaders and a coach, which allowed me to somehow build up my position (e18). challenging jobs: another strategy identified by ten respondents is the importance of having stimulating jobs with constant challenges for the professional development. what stands out most among executive women is the ability to cope with new experiences and to be able to say “i did it”. i had to cover the position of a person who quit the company and didn't leave reference documents. i learned a lot, a lot, a lot. i started from scratch with all the pending tasks. i had a hard time but it was very challenging. that made me grow professionally (e08). ability to firmly make important decisions: ten respondents mentioned that they had to make difficult decisions for their professional development. these involved sacrifices that finally led them to fulfill their career development plan. obviously, i had to make decisions and, in many cases, give up some other things (e17). this has always been the case and i have made my decisions and taken my own risks. i believe that this is one of the keys to success. you might lose but but you have to take risks (e19). hard work: the “hard work” is also considered a key strategy to grow professionally, as part of the self-learning and experience maturity process. my only strategy was to work hard and always give 100% or 200%. it didn't matter where i was, i worked on saturdays and sundays. the other strategy was to earn my boss’s confidence (e11). i worked until 9:00 or 9:30 pm. i worked really hard on the project until midnight. i left home at 5 am and went to work on the project. i really made an effort, didn’t i? if someone wants to grow, he or she must make efforts. once i saw a sign that said: “nothing will come out of nowhere”, which means that things do not come alone [smiles] (e8). 94 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) passion for the professional work: finally, just as the intense and determined work is essential, being passionate about the work that women do is also considered important. if someone wants to grow, he or she must make efforts because things do not come out of nowhere (e8). the key is to love what you do; if you don’t like what you do, you are not going to make an effort and persevere (e12). (…) it was excellent. you say: i studied for this and you feel so happy. i always tell my college students: you have to be happy with what you are doing. if you are not happy, you are not going to see it (…) you have to enjoy what you do! (e19). table 2: strategies that executive women use for their professional development strategies cases frequency networking e01, e02, e03, e04, e05, e06, e07, e08, e09, e11, e13, e14, e15, e16, e17, e18, e19, e20 18 education e01, e02, e03, e04, e05, e06, e07, e09, e10, e11, e12, e14, e15, e16, e17, e19, e20 17 international experience e04, e05, e06, e08, e09, e10, e13, e15, e16, e19, e21 10 support given by the leader e03, e05, e06, e08, e10, e11, e12, e13, e15, e16, e17, e18 12 development of skills and competencies e01, e02, e05, e06, e08, e11, e12, e13, e14, e15, e16, e18, e19, e20 13 search for challenging work e01, e02, e08, e10, e11, e12, e13, e16, e19, e20 10 make important decisions e02, e03, e08, e12, e13, e14, e16, e19, e20 10 hard work e01, e03, e08, e09, e10, e11, e12, e13, e15 9 passion for what you do e12, e13, e19 3 note. the cases can be classified in several alternatives. use of professional development plans the study analyzed whether executive women have established a professional development plan (pdp) with regard to five areas: professional goals, gap analysis, pdp management, career development, and the dependence on professional development. avolio, b., et al., empirical evidence in latin america, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) 95 with regard to the professional goals, the respondents identified two types: work and academic-related goals. the work goals were related to the professional promotion, i.e. accessing a management position, a top executive position, or changing to another company. with regard to the education, the postgraduate studies—master’s degrees or specialization studies—were the most frequently mentioned goals: i never set my mind on a particular position. what i always wanted to do is to be in a level where i can influence, create, and design business solutions (e17). with regard to the gap analysis, 15 respondents did this analysis. it was mainly oriented to their level of knowledge and/or experience. five of them didn’t do the analysis. when i was promoted to the management, i identified the issues that i had to address. i did a self-assessment: what we have now versus the leadership model of the company ….and i worked on them (e15). the results of the pdp showed that only nine women developed an explicit plan which was aimed to achieve the career goals related to the search of a managerial position and to the pursue of postgraduate studies: of course, i did a strategic planning. i was not going to be able to become a human resources manager if i was a simple lawyer. i had to work on other competencies. (e6). five years ago i quit a company… i knew i wanted to work at a corporate business. the other thing that was clear to me was that i wanted to hold a management position. therefore, i started to study an mba (e20). with regard to the professional career, ten respondents had the opportunity to develop professionally at various companies (10 respondents), both local and international. they got their first executive position after working from 10 to 15 years in various positions. no respondent obtained their first executive position with less than five years of experience. finally, women felt that their professional development depended primarily on them (13 respondents) and very few (4 respondents) considered that it also depends on the companies for which they work: the company gives you the tools or it can open you the doors. somehow it makes it simple for you or your development, but i think that in the end it all depends on us, and if you are not satisfied with what the company gives you, then you have to make a decision and quit (e1). depends on oneself. it depends whether we want to get out our comfort zone. the company can give you the tools, but you have to have the attitude to do so. if you do not have the desire to do it, then you won’t succeed (e15). 96 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) figure 1: use of the career development plan executive women the company’s support for their professional development the study evaluated the support that the companies provide to women in regard to their professional development, considering the following aspects: assign a professional development plan (pdp), possibility of promotions and/or transfers, training courses, collaboration among colleagues (internal networking, mentoring or coaching experiences, experiences abroad, and the differences between national and international companies). in regard to the pdp, only in four cases the companies assigned a pdp and it basically depended on the individual rather than the company. the companies that had a pdp for their female employees were foreign capital businesses since the local companies do not consider its implementation. the pdp were mainly oriented to training, distribution of responsibilities, and career path. in regard to the possibilities of promotion, 15 women considered to have some kind of possibility to get a promotion and/or to be transferred within their companies. the promotion of training courses is also a frequent activity (18 respondents), either by the initiative of the company or of the women themselves. as to the foster of internal networks, collaboration or mentoring, nine respondents stated that the company promotes them and ten informed that they are not encouraged. the experiences abroad, as well as the skills, are frequent in foreign capital companies and they are scarcer in local companies. avolio, b., et al., empirical evidence in latin america, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) 97 figure 2: support given by companies for the professional development of women discussion this study has identified strategies—in addition to those identified in the literature—that are used by the executive women in their professional development, and that aim to address the specific barriers faced by women during their professional development: development of specific skills and competences for the activity, the search for a challenging job, making important decisions with determination, the “hard work”, and the passion for what they do. figure 3 presents the schema identified in this study. with regard to the support of the companies for the professional development, women felt that this depends on themselves and not on the company for which they work. however, they considered that the companies for which they work should provide the necessary conditions and resources to complement such development. the probability of having a pdp assigned by the company is higher in foreign capital companies than in national companies. in regard to the management of a pdp, the study reveals that it is common for women executives to have an outlined pdp although this is not expressly formalized, and it will be developed according to the challenges and projects taken during their career. for a group of women executives, their professional goals are also linked with their personal objectives. the results identified the different factors that motivate executive women: motivation driven by personal or work challenges to achieve the life 98 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 81-101) objectives; 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[41] ymca, women on boards & acoss australian council of social service. 2012, september. reflecting gender diversity. an analysis of gender diversity in the leadership of the community sector: inaugural survey results. retrieved from http://acoss.org.au/images/uploads/nfp_boards_and_gender_diversity_201 2_final.pdf article history: received: 20 october, 2016 accepted: 14 november, 2016 microsoft word 10_jwe_1-2.doc udc: 005.331 jel: l26, b54 scientific review pandita ramabai saraswathi: making of a social entrepreneur kumar irvathur udaya, rajalakshmi n.k., university collage mangalore a b s t r a c t after the ingress of imperialism through colonization, indian society underwent transition. transition to modernity though opened up new avenues for the middle class women by enabling them to opt for english education and selective participation in the public sphere, there was hardly any escape from the broader patriarchal and caste dominated social design. an exploration into the social history of the 19th century india unfolds the intricate designs within the nation’s social fabric. the process of modernization opened new opportunities to the educated indian men especially drawn from the dominant castes. these opportunities were in the form of ascribed status created at the bottom of the pyramids of power structure. changing positions of men in the process of modernization called for realignment in the role of women within the family and society. these new roles for women necessitated the acquisition of certain skills, which was readily provided to them through english education. this also opened up a little space for women, which was not available to them in the system that prevailed till then. pandita ramabai saraswathi was able to appropriate this little space that was opened for women. she had an in depth knowledge of the hindu religion, the gap between the practice and its philosophy, as reflected by the condition of women in the indian society. ramabai stands apart from many of her contemporaries, in a number of ways. this is the reason why, we choose to consider her a social entrepreneur of the period in which she lived. accordingly, the term social entrepreneur is used to signify the leadership taken by ramabai, the courage she has shown to accept the challenge, the manner in which she organized her whole project, and addressed the social problems confronted by women of her caste. therefore, it was thought necessary to contextualize the situation within which ramabai was driven towards the achievement of a social goal. the term social entrepreneur is of recent origin but the spirit of social enterprise is not new. it is not kumar, i.u., et al., making of a social entrepreneur, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 49 easy to frame a definition that would encompass the varied entrepreneurial ventures undertaken to achieve a social goal all over the world. it has to be understood as a particular concept constructed within a particular context. even though the concept of social entrepreneur is mostly in circulation in the capitalist economy, it embodies features that are quite distinct from the reformers and business entrepreneurs. the paper attempts to make a contextualized space-time study of ramabai as a social entrepreneur. kew words: colonization, reform, women’s emancipation, empowerment women’s education, social entrepreneurship a prelude in the 19th century, the social position of women in the strategic caste system suited well to support and sustain hierarchical and patriarchal system in india. the british imperial powers pointed out the degraded position of women in the indian society as a mark of underdevelopment.1 with the colonization of indian sub-continent, the hierarchical caste based society, which was insulated against transformation, was introduced to the process of modernization. the process of modernization that mediated through colonization project is also viewed as an effort to tune the indian social system to imperial engine of growth at the global level.2 the concept of modernity, nation, and history were put into circulation in india by the colonial powers to engage the indian middle class in the dialogue of progress and development. the indian elite brahmin intelligentsia, which occupied the strategic position in indian society, began to respond to such intelligent moves. the western educated indian men, who wanted to get rid of the inferior status of underdevelopment and raise to the higher level, were keen on educating their women. the indian men, who were able to become part of the bureaucracy through the newly acquired education, firmly believed that education would transform the lives of women. the reform measures in this direction initiated by intellectuals like rajaram 1 kumkum sanghari and sudesh vaid (ed) re casting women: essays in colonial history. kali for women new delhi1999. also see geraldine forbes women in modern india: the new cambridge history of india .new york : cambridge university press 2000 pp 28-31 2 berberoughe, bech. class, state and development in india. new delhi: sage publications 1992, also see anupam sen. sate, industrialization, and class formation in india: a neo-marxist perspective on colonialism, underdevelopment and development london :routledge 1982 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 50 mohun roy, pandit vidyasagar, dayananada saraswathi and others is, no doubt, were important. but it may be noted that the reform measures taken up by these reformers fell within the traditional boundaries. 3 indoctrination of the idea of ‘reformed women’ to the emerging middle class, further expedited with the introduction of new schools at the behest of missionaries and conversion to christianity. the natives believed that english education would open up new opportunities and felt that it is not wrong to use or exploit opportunities that came on their way. however, embracing christianity to achieve material gains was not acceptable.4 traditional indian men were afraid that girls who attend missionary schools may fall a victim to the christian mode of life and may get converted.5 to avoid such situations, the natives also started schools to impart modern education to prevent girls from attending the schools run by christian missionaries.6 the english education and training for women equipped them with new skills to function effectively in the private domain of house keeping, taking care of the husband and children, and liaison with the changing society. the newly started education and reformation both by the colonial powers and the indians, focussed on educating women from the upper castes in varying degrees. one can observe that the modernization agenda pursued by the colonialists and the nationalists, invariably failed to address the fundamental issues responsible for the subordinate position of women in the indian society. however, this can not be a sufficient reason to discount the efforts made and steps taken by the reformists to improve the status of women in india.7 the initial reform agenda to address the problems of 3 uma chakravarthi, whatever happened to the vedic dasi? orientalism, nationalism and a script for the past pp 27-87, partha chatterji, the nationalist resolution of the women’s question pp 233-253 “re casting women: essays in colonial history” kumkum sanghari and sudesh vaid (ed) new delhi :kali for women, 1999. 4 the benefits that followed the colonial rule were accepted but moving away from the tradition was not tolerated. 5 people got converted to christianity for various reasons. poor people were able to get the basic necessities of life. moreover, it was also the feeling of liberation, which otherwise was not possible especially for people who were at the lower strata in the caste system. there were conversions from the higher castes, who got converted for reasons other than poverty. 6 geraldine forbes women in modern india: the new cambridge history of india. new york: cambridge university press, 2000.pp 41-46 7 geraldine forbes, women in modern india: the new cambridge history of india. new york :cambridge university press, 2000.pp31 kumar, i.u., et al., making of a social entrepreneur, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 51 women in indian society served as a reference point for all future generation of leaders of the nationalist and women’s movement. nationalist leaders like m.k.gandhi could organize the indian nationalist movement to include women, partly due to the awareness created by the reform movement. intense pace of the movement opened up new space for women and won them their due place in the struggle for indian independence. but at the same time there were barriers which came in the way of their economic self sufficiency or independence. these barriers were to be removed if women wanted to make further advancement. however, within the nationalist struggle it could not be addressed, because the priority of the struggle was to gain political independence. women’s issue within the nationalist movement, therefore, had to be postponed till india gained independence. real change in the life of women had to emerge from a strategy quite different from the ones mentioned above. apart from the already discussed women’s movement, there were a few women leaders, who adopted a unique strategy to improve the condition of women in the society. such strategies, in fact, were instrumental in changing the life of women in india to a great extent. for reasons unknown, such contributions have remained oblivious from the purview of public debates and discussions. the idea of excluding contributions made by ramabai in the nationalist history could be owed to the point that she doesn’t form a part of the nationalist discourse that would include the contributions of swami vivekananda, rajaram mohun roy, aurobindo ghosh, and the like. it is also true that ramabai can not be a part of the nationalist history, as she pursued her own agenda for improving women’s position in india, without postponing it till india achieved independence. moreover, she did not hesitate to accept the support of the sympathisers of her cause from britain and united states of america. it is desirable to trace this history to understand the domain of social entrepreneurship8 of women. in this context, pandita ramabai and her contribution to the socio economic condition of women deserves greater attention.9 8 a social entrepreneur is a person who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a venture/project to address the social problem and bring in a social change. 9 padma anagol, the emergence of feminism in india.1850-1920 england: ash gate, 2005. pp 19-55 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 52 though the conceptual jargons like empowerment and emancipation 10were not in use during the time of pandita ramabai, her contributions to change the life of helpless indian women, undoubtedly carry the overtones of these concepts. the rich experience based on the material conditions of her life fashioned her thinking as a social entrepreneur, who brought changes in the life of the marginalised. the paper attempts to discuss the role of ramabai in addressing the socioeconomic problems that deterred women from achieving economic independence and social advancement. i anantha shastry dongre, ramabai’s father, a renowned sanskrit scholar, tread a path different from other scholars of the time by educating his second wife laxmibai.11 he strongly protested the established practice of keeping women away from sanskrit education. having in depth knowledge of the hindu scriptures, anantha shastry dongre was critical of irrational rituals practiced in the name of religion. the opposition from orthodox pundits to educate women in sanskrit was put down logically by anantha shastry dongre in a debate organized at shiroor mutt in udupi. though he won the debate, the people in his native village were very hostile to him. therefore, he left his native village and moved to ganga moola, 12 which is located within the thick forests on the western ghats. anantha shastry had sufficient wealth gifted by the maharaja of mysore and peshwa kings of pune. in his new ashrama in ganga moola anantha shastry dongre had a relatively better atmosphere to exercise his views. he invited students who were keen on pursuing their studies. ramabai was taught sanskrit and religious texts by her mother laxmibai bai. she was made to experience the need for and value of knowledge, self respect, dignity and hard work and she maintained them throughout her life. but ramabai’s parents did not like their children to come in contact with the outside world. her parents wanted the children to be strictly religious and 10 udaya kumar m.a. measuring empowerment of women in socioeconomic development in “development and empowerment rural women in india” ed. jaya arunachalam and u. kalpagum, jaipur:rawath pulications, 2006. pp 145-167 11 anantha shastry after the death of his first wife yamuna bai married lakshmi bai in 1840 on his way back from nepal to his native place near pyitaan. at the time of marriage lakshmi bai was eight years old. 12 the birth place of rama bai in ganga moola is now on mangalore – kudremkuh highway, about 75 km from mangalore in karnataka in southern part of india. kumar, i.u., et al., making of a social entrepreneur, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 53 adhere to their old faith and not to opt for any kind of secular education. but ramabai realized that the kind of training and education given by her parents and virtues alone wouldn’t offer her a decent life.13 despite being a scholar and a good human being her father suffered a lot and ramabai was a witness to all their suffering. being an ardent believer in noble virtues enshrined in the ancient hindu scriptures, anantha shastry invested all his wealth in educating people, offering gifts to brahmins and learned puraniks. anantha shastry firmly believed that good deeds performed by a brahmin as prescribed by the sacred texts would take care of the brahmin. but his experiences showed that he was proved too philosophical and far removed from reality.14 being a mute spectator watching her parents dying out of hunger and illness was a traumatic experience for ramabai at the age of sixteen.15 travelling through various provinces of india, anantha shastry dongre’s family developed the art of living, gained wider understanding of the society and good knowledge of the social dynamics of the country. the pilgrimage taught ramabai to develop the art of understanding the indian society, hindu religion, and the craft of making a living. but in the process ramabai lost her parents and also her elder sister krishnabai. ramabai and her brother srinivasa were greatly attached to one another. when they lost their parents and also the sister, their bondage grew stronger. srinivasa was a healthy, strong young man but was impractical like his father. he was a great devotee of lord hanuman. he did tapasya to get his lords’ darshan and by the time he realized that it was a futile exercise, he had lost his health and also the little wealth he possessed.16 13 meera kosambi ed. pandita ramabai in her own words. new delhi: oxford university press, 2000. p297 14 the four canonical principles of hindu way of life are to be pursued in a coordinated way, persuasion of mere moksha without coordinating it to dharma, artha and kama is disastrous. for details see antony j parel gandhi’s quest for philosophy and quest for harmony. new delhi: cambridge university press, 2006. pp vii-xi 15 anantha shastry died at the age of 78 in the year 1874 near tirupathy in andhra pradesh and his wife lakshmi bai died near raichur in karnataka at the age of 47. in her biographical description, which was printed in subodh patrika, ramabai writes that she intended to publish a book giving a detailed description of her experiences and travels through out india. perhaps this did not get published. see padmini sen guptha, pandita rama bai sarswathi: he life and work. new delhi: asia publishing house, 1970. page 56 16 rama bai makes a special mention of this incident on a number of occasions where her brother srinivasa found the various methods adopted by the priests in holy places to cheat journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 54 though ramabai was a great scholar, her scholarship gained recognition only after she went to calcutta, one of the important centres of learning and reform in india. in calcutta she had the opportunity to interact with scholars and reformers like keshab chandur sen, kalicharan bannerji, nyayarathna panditha maheshchandra, j.c. bose his wife abala bose, sucharu devi, 17who married maharaja of mayur bhanj, sunity devi,18 and a number of other scholars. ramabai through her intellect, scholarship, and balanced approach drew the attention of the elite. she was conferred the title ‘pandita saraswathi’ by the scholarly community of calcutta. ramabai and srinivasa visited sylhet in assam and from there they went to dhakka where srinivasa fell sick and later passed away on 8th may 1880. ramabai was deeply hurt and upset by his demise. this even made her question the hindu belief in the existence of god. after her brother’s demise she thought of getting married. though a number of brahmin intellectuals proposed to marry her, she did not show interest in them. 19 ultimately she was guided by her progressive ideas and ruled by her intellect and chose to marry bipin bihari das medhavi, a close friend of her brother srinivasa and a learned advocate from shudra caste. unfortunately her married life was too short. she lost her husband after eighteen months of her marriage. ramabai left calcutta with her infant daughter manorama and reached pune. krishnabai’s miserable failure of married life, ramabai’s own life experiences, and the superficial ritualistic practices of religion that never addressed the problems of everyday life appears to have played a major role in fashioning her personality and inculcated confidence to be guided by reason. ii in india, widows were considered inauspicious and were also seen as sinners. the position of high caste widows was worse than the rest. people. of course, srinivasa also firmly believed that if one performed penance (thapasya) god will appear before him. while in dwaraka he performed thapasya with total dedication putting his health and little wealth to test, and found that it was not true. 17 she was a revered figure in calcutta and a leader of women’s movement. 18 one of the intellectuals and who married the maharaja of cooch behar 19shripad babaji thakur, a bombay based barrister and ics officer, holding a high position in the then government was one of them who was interested to marry rama bai. he came to meet ramabai when she was in sylhet. padmini sen guptha, pandita rama bai saraswathi: he life and work. new delhi: asia publishing house, 1970. page 72 kumar, i.u., et al., making of a social entrepreneur, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 55 ramabai saw to it that being a widow she wouldn’t fall a prey to the oppressive practices of her religion. widowed ramabai arrived in pune on 30th april 1882 and the intellectual progressive maharashtrian brahmins were delighted to accept ramabai. on her arrival in pune there were many options before rama bai. some of those options would have absorbed her within the reformist mould, which she abstained from choosing. her liberal mind was able to gauge the problems involved in opting for the patriarchal reformist groups. she was very rational and pragmatic in addressing the issues of women empowerment through her reformative activities and the strategies involved in them. as a consequence she lost the good will and respect of the elite brahmins and received criticisms for being progressive. ramabai, without reacting much to the criticisms, continued her mission. she founded arya mahila samaj on 01-06-1882 in pune, to raise the consciousness of women, to change their mental and material conditions of life. kesari, the news paper run by bala gangadhar tilak, came down heavily on ramabai for her audacity to intervene in the life style of men, under the pretext of eradicating the evil practices affecting the life of women. she wanted to address the issues concerning women more seriously, which many of the social reformers of her period could not pursue. herself being a widow and having known the condition of widows and destitute women from the upper caste, ramabai thought of taking up their cause. by this time ramabai felt the place of modern education and how she could grow because of it. she was not ready to miss any opportunity that could have been of help to women. accordingly, she appeared before the hunter commission on education in september 1882 and sought better facilities for women’s education.20 she strongly argued for the need for general as well as medical education for women. she insisted on the appointment of female teachers and doctors to educate and treat girls and she pointed out that females would find it very difficult to explain their problems to male teachers or doctors. but the traditional, patriarchal, male chauvinistic indians feared the english education for indian women, for the reason that it would damage the social fabric of india. having engaged in a social dialogue with the women through her arya mahila samaj, ramabai could take a closer look at the life of 20 padmini sen guptha, pandita rama bai saraswathi: he life and work, asia publishing house new delhi 1970 pp 94-95. also see meera kosambi ed. pandita rama bai in her own words. new delhi: oxford university press, 2000. p8 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 56 widows. she was shrewd enough to gauge the impact of reform process carried out by the elite male in maharashtra on improving the condition of women’s life. she found such reforms operating as an effective agency but lacking the strength and vigour to be a transformative agency.21 knowing the calibre and vigour needed to bring in the structural change in the already existing patriarchal system, ramabai distanced herself from it and explored alternative reformist measures that would grant women the agency to change the structures that exploited them or suppressed them. her contact with the christian missionary has to be understood in this context. though she knew the spiritual depth of hindu traditions and practices she was not blindly grounded in it. series of discussions, letters and correspondence of ramabai, makes it clear that her decision to go in the christian way had a definite purpose and was guided by intellect. initially, she had reservations about christianity as a religion. her decision to get converted to christianity came only after she got convincing answers to her questions by one of the converted chitpavan brahmin (neelakanta shastry) fr. nehemia gore.22 progress of imperialism through colonization created a new space for indians. modern education was one such space. in the traditional space the position of indians was ascribed. but in the new space, the position had to be acquired through specific skills and qualities. modern education enabled people to move up in the social ladder. indian men wanted their women to get modern education for a different reason. but pandita ramabai with her life experiences realised the powerful place of modern english education. for ramabai, it was the new space that could be used as a launching pad for women’s emancipation. on her visit to wantage sisters in poona, she discussed her plan to go to england. once she decided to go to england for her studies, she realised the need for resources to support her. she wrote her first book titled stri dharma neethi and raised sufficient funds to go to england. her stay in cheltenham college helped her to understand the education system in england and the works of christian missionaries. she was both a student and a teacher there. she gave lessons in sanskrit at 21 amartya, sen. development as freedom. new delhi: oxford university press, 2000. pp189-204 22 pandita nilakantha shastry, who stayed in banaras got converted to christianity after a lot of self introspection. he was baptized on 14th march 1848 and took the name nehemiah. later joined society of st. john the evangelist (s.s.j.e.) mission in bombay, see padmini sen guptha, pandita rama bai sarswathi: her life and work. new delhi :asia publishing house, 1970. pp 112-116. kumar, i.u., et al., making of a social entrepreneur, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 57 cheltenham college. she taught marati at wantage to the sisters who would be sent to india. she had hard times to face in england especially when she lost her friend, anandibai bhagath, who accompanied her to england. ramabai had clear-cut ideas and plans of her own and did not yield to the plans prepared by the missionaries. she was discouraged from going to the united states of america to attend the graduation ceremony of her cousin anandibai joshi. she was even threatened of withdrawal of support if she pursued her plans of visiting the usa. but she was very firm in her decision to visit the usa. she honoured the invitation of dr. rachel badley, the dean of medical college of pennsylvania, to attend the graduation of anandi bai joshi. in america, ramabai was impressed by the liberal atmosphere, and the freedom that the women enjoyed there. she was fascinated by the education opportunities for girls. immediately she thought of having such facilities back home in india for girls. she says, “i am deeply impressed by and interested in the works of western women, who seem to have one common aim, namely, the good of their fellow beings. it is my dream some day to tell my country women, in their own language, this wonderful story, in the hope that the recital may awaken in their hearts a desire to do likewise.23 her idea of education for girls in india symbolically expressed ‘training of hand with that of the head.”24 she knew the importance of proper exposure in the form of good education from the early stage of life for girls. this appears to be the reason why she underwent training in basic education and kindergarten education in america. she translated a good number of kindergarten school books to marati. preparation of study material for indian students required resources and then she decided to write a book titled high caste hindu woman to generate necessary resources. ramabai travelled around the usa and appealed to people to contribute to her work to uplift women in india. ramabai was able to get good support from the u.s citizens for her cause. she was very critical of 23 pandita rama bai the widows friend, an australian edition of the high caste hindu women by pandita rama bai with a sequel by her daughter manorama bai 2nd edition (george robertson & co. proprietary limited ., melbourne, sydney, adelaide, brisbane 1903) as quoted in padmini sen guptha, pandita rama bai sarswathi: he life and work . new delhi: asia publishing house, 1970. pp 157 24 ibid p157 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 58 religious codes that denied freedom for women to express their views, and get education of their choice. she asserted to get women the freedom of choice and expression by creating democratic space that provided women the opportunity to participate in public life. however, these major contributions of ramabai, escaped public debate and consequently a due place in the making of modern india. some of the leaders from the nationalist school of thought were unhappy with ramabai’s open talk about the poor and inhuman condition of women in india. it was alleged that she painted a very ugly picture of india.25 swami vivekananda is said to have been very unhappy over ramabai’s speeches that delivered the poor status of women in india. but ramabai was stating the ground realities that affected the life of women in india. the practice of child marriage, self-immolation of widows, restricting women to the household chores, dowry deaths, social seclusion of widows, was all a reality26. she was aware of the fact that there was no point in living in the past glory of india where the position of women was believed to have been better. ramabai believed in the ‘india of women’ that she saw and experienced during her pilgrimage. this india of women was different from the india of male reformers and also the glorious india that was said to have been in existence before the arrival of the moslem invaders. before bringing any reform to the existing set up it was necessary to deconstruct 25 swami vivekananda visited the usa and delivered lectures which gave a splendid picture of india, but the picture of indian women that rama bai gave was different. it is said that vivekananda was very unhappy about it. moreover, rabindra nath tagore writes about occasions were men shouted down rama bai without allowing her to express her views after her return to india from the us. see padmini sen guptha, pandita rama bai sarswathi: he life and work, new delhi: asia publishing house, 1970. pp 163 and 205206. it is stated that leaders like b.g. tilak were critical of rama bai for not conforming to the religious tradition to which she was born. the criticism was much severe for her conversion to christianity and for motivating other hindu women for conversion. for a detailed study see, padma anagol, the emergence of feminism in india 185-1920 england: ashgate publishing house, 200. pp 35-36, meera kosambi ed. pandita rama bai in her own words new delhi: oxford university press, 2000. uma chakravarthy rewriting history: pandita rama bai, her life and times new delhi: oxford university press, 1998. padmini sen guptha, pandita rama bai sarswathi: her life and work. new delhi :asia publishing house, 1970. 26 account of the life of hindu women: notes of conversations with rama bai. cheltenham college magazine 1885 pp 138-146. also see padmini sen guptha, pandita rama bai sarswathi: her life and work, new delhi :asia publishing house 1970 kumar, i.u., et al., making of a social entrepreneur, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 59 the mythical india that was the construct of the patriarchal male. ramabai decided to demythify india, as she was sure that either the male reformers or the colonial masters were not interested in this. the reformist agenda of the patriarchal indian men suffered from the inherent defects to bring in any structural changes. the main project of the colonial power was to tune the socioeconomic system of india to the imperial powers at the global level. any transformation or reformation was only incidental to their main project. this is obvious in the position taken by the british on certain critical occasions. the british feared to go against the sentiments of the majority in india. 27 this was evident in the judgement delivered in rukhmabai and phulmani cases. 28 on her return to india from england, ramabai swung into action. ‘sharada sadan’ the home for the high caste widows, and orphan women was opened in a rented building in bombay on 11th march 1889. the institution was open to boarders and day scholars. child widow godubai, the first inmate of the sadan, when grew up married bharatha rathna 27 meera kosambi, “women’s emancipation and equality: pandita ramabai’s contribution to women’s ause” economic and political weekly october 1988 ws pp 3849 28 rukhmabai, married dadaji bhikaji at the age of eleven, stayed with her father and continued her studies. dadaji’s demand for rukhmabai’s stay with him was refused by her. the court first agreed to her decision to stay with the father and continue her studies. when dadaji appealed to the court it ordered rukhmabai either to go her husband’s house or to the jail. the decision was welcomed by traditionalists like b.g. tilak. but pandita ramabai was furious about this judgment. queen victoria issued a royal decree dissolving the marriage and saved rukhmabai from sentence. rukhmabai studied medicine in england and on her returned to india headed hindu hospital poona. see letters and correspondence of pandita ramabai (ed.) a.b. shah maharashtra state board of literature and culture bombay 1977 pp175-78. also see, tanika sarkar “rhetoric age of consent, resisting colonial reason and death of a child wife” economic and political weekly vol. ws 28 no. 36 1993 geraldine forbes women in modern india: the new cambridge history of india new york: cambridge university press, 2000. pp 69-70. phulmani was a child wife who died of sexual injuries in 1891. her death lead to the passage of the second consent bill (the first one in 1860), which raised the age of consent from the existing ten to twelve years. in this case too b.g.tlak and other traditionalists opposed the bill and termed it as interference in the life of hindus and hindu traditions. for detailed information see, taisha abraham (ed) women and politics of violence new delhi: hari anand publications pvt. ltd, 2002. and also catharine a. mackinnon, “sex equality under the constitution of india: problems, prospects, and personal.”. international journal of constitutional law.2006; vol.4: no 2, -202 and padma anagol, the emergence of feminism in india 185-1920 england: ashgate publishing house, 2005. pp 270-271 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 60 maharshi dr. dhondo keshava karve, the great social reformer and champion of the cause of rejuvenation of widows. inmates of the school were taught in english, gujarati, marati and sanskrit. pandita ramabai’s efforts to improve the condition of indian women were well appreciated by the local people. the american supporters of the project had already approved rao bahadur, mahadeva govinda ranade, dr. sir ramakrishna gopal bhandarkar, bahadur gopal hari deshmukh as trustees and advisors on the board.29 it was assured that the religious freedom of all those who were admitted to sharada sadan would not be infringed or affected (or freedom of religion would not be compromised for any facilities provided to them). more and more girls found a ray of hope in sharada sadan, as it offered them a life of freedom and choices. it renewed the faith of those helpless women for a better and meaningful life.30 ramabai was not only adored but also was taken as a role model by the inmates of sharada sadan. they were deeply moved by her sympathetic attitude and the democratic space provided for them. some of the girls who used to attend ramabai’s bible prayer in the evening were impressed and got converted to christianity. in the light of mounting criticism to the works of the institution and the increasing economic burden, ramabai thought it better to shift sharada sadan to pune (in november 1890). the news of conversion of girls in sharada sadan spread in the town and ramabai’s opponents came down heavily on her. some of the trustees of sharada sadan resigned from the board. but ramabai did not deter from her mission and went ahead with her plans. with the increase in opposition to her missionary work, she began to grow more close to christianity. her search for solace in jesus was further reinforced by her reading of rev haslam’s from death unto 29 it is stated that apart from the above krshinaaji laxman noolakara, kasheenatha thryambaka telanga, and rao were made members of the advisory board. 30 padma anagol in her work gives some interesting details about the number of girls who opted for the life that rama bai offered to the girls. at the end of 1900, pandita rama bai had 2000 pupils in four of her institutions and with the exception of a few were converts to christianity. she also spread her work outside maharastra after 1900 by opening branches in doddaballapur and gulbarga now in karnataka. in any one year in the 1890’s soonder powar’s school had 200 female converts. franscina sorbaji like wise noted with pride that over 400 students had completed their education in the victoria high school. shewanthi bai nikambe had 120 girls in the princess high school, all of who were high caste hindu girls. padma anagol. the emergence of feminism in india 1850-1920. england :ashgate publishing house 2005, p 21 kumar, i.u., et al., making of a social entrepreneur, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 61 life. meanwhile people like balagangadhar tilak criticised her severely for disrupting hindu religion through the conversion of the helpless. ramabai visited brindavan, delhi and agra to study the condition of widows. to her surprise the condition of women was much worse than what she thought. in the name of religion, customs and tradition widows were exploited. helpless women had no other option but to suffer silently. they were ready to do anything to escape the suffering. as ramabai’s arrival brought new hope in life, it was natural for those women to develop a liking for her. with the increase in the number of girls embracing christianity, the hindu organisations developed a serious dislike for her. efforts were made to address some of the problems that hindu women confronted. as a result home and the widow remarriage association was started on 31st december 1893. from pune ramabai shifted her establishment to a nearby place called khedgaon in 1897. she could get sufficient land in which she built her institutions and also provided place for other productive activities. ramabai’s work was initially aimed at improving the condition of upper caste hindu widows. the stiff opposition to conversion, made her expand her activities. she indoctrinated the principle of service in her life. thousands of people turned helpless and homeless due to the famine in central provinces in 1896. ramabai toured the famine hit places and started rescuing women from starvation and destitution. rescued women were brought to khedgaon in pune. mukti sadan (home for salvation) was opened to provide shelter to them. sexual abuse and exploitation of women gained momentum with the developing urbanisation. the helpless and homeless women who were pushed into flesh trade were rescued and kripa sadan provided shelter to them. perhaps this kind of rescue mission was first of its kind in the region. ramabai’s vision and inexhaustible energy to serve the cause of women brought a ray of hope in the life of helpless women in india. in the new found home women were given education and training to lead an independent life of dignity and self respect. efforts to empower women through income generating activities like teaching, nursing, tailoring embroidery, laundering, weaving of clothes and carpets, gardening and operating the printing press were taken up. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 62 iii sustenance and support of a strategic caste system and hierarchical patriarchal system that prevailed in india, was at an enormous social cost. women of higher caste had to bear a considerable part of this social burden of the patriarchy within their caste. after the ingress of imperialism through colonization, indian society underwent transition. transition to modernity though opened up new avenues for the middle class women by enabling them to opt for english education and selective participation in the public sphere, there was hardly any escape from the broader patriarchal and caste dominated social design. an exploration into the social history of the 19th century india unfolds the intricate designs within the nation’s social fabric. the process of modernization opened up new opportunities to the educated indian men, especially, to those drawn from the dominant castes. these opportunities were in the form of ascribed status created at the bottom of the pyramids of power structure.31 changing positions of men in the process of modernization called for realignment in the role of women within the family and society.32 these new roles for women necessitated the acquisition of certain skills, which was readily provided to them through english education. this also opened up a little space for women, which was not available to them in the system that prevailed till then. ramabai was able to appropriate this little space that was opened for women. she had an in depth knowledge of the hindu religion, the gap between the practice and its philosophy, as reflected by the condition of women in the indian society. the term social entrepreneur33 is of recent origin but the spirit of social enterprise is not new. what is social entrepreneurship (se)? where exactly we can place them in the development design of an economy is one of the major questions that have to be addressed. se in the contemporary context is stated as a 'process and practice' of integrating economic and social value creation, which has a long heritage and global presence. the initiatives of 31 from speeches of lord macaulay with his minute on indian education selected with an introduction a notes by g.m. young , oxford university press , 1935. 32 see shankar ghosh political ideas and movements in india. new delhi: allied publishers, 1975. pp21-24 33gregory dees j. the meaning of social entrepreneurship. center for the advancement of social entrepreneurship at duke university fuqua school of business usa 2001; also see, charles leadbeater the rise of social entrepreneur demos united kingdom 1997 pp53-66 kumar, i.u., et al., making of a social entrepreneur, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 63 ashoka foundation in us, grameen bank in bangaladesh, manchester crafts guild in uk, and sewa, lijjath, wwf in india, are all contemporary manifestations of this phenomenon of social enterprises that finds its historical precedents in the values of victorian liberalism. the concept of social entrepreneurship is poorly defined and its boundaries to other fields of study remain fuzzy and overlapping. attempts to locate and define the concept of 'social entrepreneurship' are driven by the recent developments in the area of social entrepreneurship in the developed world like us, europe, and australia. it is apparent from the works on social entrepreneurship that there is absence of clear theoretical boundary within which the term could be located. one can not deny the fact that knowledge on social entrepreneurship can only be enhanced by the use of a variety of theoretical tools and a combination of different research methods around ‘social’ and ‘entrepreneurship.’ the concept of entrepreneurship is rooted in the social and political spheres of the society. originally the spirit of entrepreneurship referred to the product of social resistance (protestant ethic) to the predominant and exploitative forces prevalent in europe, which lead to social revolution. the spirit of protestant ethic is also the spirit underlying crux of entrepreneurship. the protest against the ‘the social norms and customs’ that pandit ramabai showed falls very well within the spirit of entrepreneurship. the condition and the context in which the concept of entrepreneurship emerged may be discussed in the following paragraph. weber in his protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism observed that a theological doctrine of calling produced intense anxiety amongst the calvinists. in order to reduce this anxiety and reassure them that they were, in fact, to be numbered among the elect, attempted to behave as though they had indeed been called. this meant first and foremost of ordering their daily life through hard work, thrift, and clean living including their economic pursuits, so as to preclude any idleness or frivolity. weber interpreted this breaking away from the beaten track as protest, and individuals who did so as entrepreneurs or 'adventurous individuals'.34 together with rationalization process in other spheres of society, entrepreneurship among people has actually led to capital accumulation. subsequently, david mcclelland, based on weber's thesis, attempted to identify the variable responsible for making people tread a new path or 34 max weber, the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism trans. talcott parsons (london: routledge, 1992. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 64 to become entrepreneurs. after a rigorous research, mcclelland attributed entrepreneurial achievements to a psychological factor, identified as 'need for achievement'.35 thus, according to mcclelland, 'need for achievement' was identified as instrumental in making people entrepreneurial. everett hagen interprets entrepreneurship in terms of personality traits of a group. she explains that whenever there is a fall or withdrawing of social status of a group, the group attempts to recapture the withdrawn status.36 this drive of a group to fall back to its original position in the status is said to be the cause of entrepreneurship. however, we notice a fundamental difference between mcclelland and hagen. mcclelland attributes 'the spirit of achievement' at the individual level, and hagen identifies 'the innovative spirit' at the group level on which the entrepreneurial spirit depends. however, the arguments of both hagen and mcclelland, are in conformity with what weber has already theorized about entrepreneurship.37 entrepreneurial element came to be considered as a key element in economic development when schumpeter established a relationship between the entrepreneur and economic development. schumpeter considered entrepreneur as an innovator, who introduces something new in to the economy so as to break new grounds in an otherwise stationary economy. this innovation is said to be the result of creativity in the entrepreneurial personality. apart from these interpretations of entrepreneurship, we have other theories that have attempted to advance psychological, anthropological and cultural explanations of entrepreneurship.38 it is to be remembered that all these theories have evolved at different stages of economic growth in different parts of the world. a social entrepreneurship is a process of creating value by combining resources in new ways. such value creation is intended 35 david c. mcclelland, the achieving society (bombay: feffer and simons pvt. ltd. 1961) 1-9. 36 everett hagen, on the theory of social change: how economic growth begins (new york: feffer simons inc., 1962) 3-20. 37 schumpeter j.a. "the fundamental phenomenon of economic development," ed. peter kilby entrepreneurship and economic development (new york: the free press, 1971) 43-71. 38suresh balakrishnan, k. gopakumar and ravindra n. kanungo, "entrepreneurship development: concept and context," rabindra n. kanungo ed. entrepreneurship and innovation: models for development (new delhi: sage publications, 1998) 19-39. kumar, i.u., et al., making of a social entrepreneur, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 65 primarily to bring in a change in the society. in this process of value creation results in satisfaction of social needs. 39 pandita ramabai rose to the position of an extraordinary personality, through her protest to the spirit of hinduism which reduced philosophy of life to mere rituals. she refused to endorse the scholastic handouts by pundits and puraniks that could not live up to her own scrutiny and scholarship. her enormous courage emerged from her self confidence. her first major virtue was her unquestionable faith in god, which people felt was hindu in the pre-conversion period and jesus in the post conversion period. the second great virtue was her experimental outlook to test the knowledge acquired in the light of her own life experiences. unlike many scholars and nationalist leaders, she never waited for an auspicious day for improving the condition of women in india. it was a now or never decision. during ramabai’s time the changes in the life of women would have hardly been brought by the state without the active participation of natives like ramabai. the position that ramabai took needed a lot of strategic thinking, courage, vision, boldness and belief in oneself. ramabai appealed to the former governor of bombay presidency, sir bartle frere and sought his support to set up a destitute home for the women in india.40 undoubtedly she was able to think much ahead of her time. the following exploration into the pioneering works that she administered supports the claim that she was one of the first social entrepreneurs of india. as discussed in the earlier sections, she was down to earth in her approach; she never took recourse to history to convince herself on the position of women in india. she reconciled with realities and sought to action. when she decided to do something to improve the condition of women, she started arya mahila samaj. in line with the spirit of the weberian protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism, ramabai selected a creative and courageous path of destructives and the barriers that stopped women from marching ahead. throughout her life’s journey we find the notion of creative destruction. from the writings and life experiences of ramabai, one can certainly state that she gave more practical, down to earth explanation to the condition of indian women. one can infer that the insatiable hunger for 39 mair, j., and seelos, c. ‘social entrepreneurship: creating new business models to serve the poor,’ business horizons, 48.3, (2005)may-june, pp. 241-6 40 meera kosambi ed. pandita rama bai in her own words. new delhi: oxford university press, 2000. p9 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 66 knowledge and the commitment to the cause of improving the living conditions of high caste hindu women was the driving force behind ramabai’s deeds. she had her foot strongly grounded in the indian tradition, with her mind reacting to the practical ends of the poor and the needy. by all counts she was never looking back or being buried in the glorious (spiritual vedic) past which most of the indian men dwelt in. the orientalist view of india as spiritual as against the rational and modern west doesn’t seem to apply to ramabai’s dealing with indian women. she seems to be very rational. she visibly broke this binary sensation and worked for the development of women from the humanist standpoint. this approach of ramabai defeats the west’s view of treating india as spiritual and at the same time it defeats the idea that india is not rational and scientific in its approach. she felt that there was a need for (a) self reliance for women (b) education for women and (c) more women teachers to educate women. she could get support across the country, though natives did not stand by her to fight for a right cause. her experiences in life built courage and confidence to live up to her ideas, despite all odds like losing her near ones. travelling in the uk and the usa and exposure to modern type of education, institutional functioning, democratic and liberal atmosphere in such circumstances, inculcated the spirit of enterprise in ramabai. throughout her life ramabai explored public space more than the private space. perhaps this was instrumental in exploring new ideas to introduce the ‘high caste hindu women’ to this space. in fact, it was only the high caste hindu women, who were deprived of their opportunity to explore public space in the name of ‘purity’, ‘chastity’ ‘honour’ and ‘dignity’. empowerment in the real sense of the term is exposure to a larger public domain with confidence. it is apparent from the life and works of ramabai that what we define as empowerment in contemporary situation was practiced by her much earlier. she had her action plan and she gathered sufficient resources required to transform her plans into concrete actions or projects. it is reflected in her parting words to her admirers in the usa “christ came to give different gifts to different people. some he made prophets, some he made preachers and some he made teachers. since i have become a christian i have thought he has given me the gift of being a sweeper. i want to sweep away some of the old difficulties that kumar, i.u., et al., making of a social entrepreneur, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 67 be before the missionaries in their efforts to reach our hindu widows”.41 one of the significant contributions of pandita ramabai was that she was instrumental in making her ardent critics also to think of improving the condition of women in india. people did disagree with the means she chose to improve the condition of women. but hardly there is disagreement about the ends she wanted to achieve. ramabai addressed a huge gathering of social council in bombay on 29th december 1889. she appealed to the men gathered there not to force women to shave off their heads on the death of their husbands. she insisted that men, who complain of the british government robbing their freedom of speech, should not deny the same to womenfolk in their families. she moved a resolution in a meeting demanding freedom for widows to lead a decent and dignified life according to their wish after the death of their husband. a number of prominent congress members were present at the meeting. the questions raised by ramabai were taken up seriously by the indian political leaders. dr. bhandarkar, who was the then vice chancellor of bombay university and had just resigned from the trusteeship of sharada sadan advisory board, drew attention of the inc at its 5th session of indian national conference in 1889.42 “the misery of our widows has been the subject of frequent remark. i will not detain you long with full exposition of it. i will only make a general observation that that society which, allows men to marry number of times even up to the age of sixty, while it sternly forbids even girls of seven or eight to have another husband after one is dead; which gives liberty to a man of fifty or sixty to marry a girl of eleven or twelve, which has no word of condemnation for man who marries another wife within fifteen days of the death of first, is a society which sets very little value upon the life of the female human being and places women on the same level as cattle, and is thus in an unsound condition, disqualifying it for a successful competition with societies with a more healthy constitution. often times the marriage of a girl under certain circumstances proves her death warrant.”43 41 padmini sen guptha pandita rama bai sarswathi: her life and work. new delhi :asia publishing house, 1970. page 179 42 padmini sen gupta, p230 43 pandita rama bai saraswathi; pioneer in the movement for education of the child widow of india, chairman executive committeeamerican rama bai association ( flemming h revell company london and edinburgh new york chicago 1922pp 48-49, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 48-70) 68 mr. justice ranade also testified against the inhuman treatment meted out by the widows in india, especially the upper caste widows. maharashtra was a place of rapid industrialization and also the home of many right wing hindu religious activities. ramabai chose to be a christian to improve the condition of women. it is a paradox that the daughter of a hindu scholar like anantha shastry dongre went on to become the most revolutionary reformist, by getting converted to christian faith to improve the status of the hindu women in india. it is very disturbing to note that contributions of this social entrepreneur have been ignored by both the christian missionaries and other social groups. christian missionaries colour her achievements with religious reverence; other social groups are struck with ramabai’s conversion as a major issue, leaving much brighter side of entrepreneurial venture in the horizons of women empowerment. undoubtedly she stands out as the most important social entrepreneur of the 19th century, whose contribution in this regard needs to be revisited in the light of recent debates on development, empowerment, gender and social entrepreneurship. references [1] anagol, padma .the emergence of feminism in india 185-1920 england: ashgate publishing limited, 2005. 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[33] thomas p.j. rev. fr. pandita ramabai saraswathi bengalooru kaipathrike matthu pusthakagala sangha received: 11 january 2010 article history: accepted: 1 march 2010 18_jwee_1-2 doi: 10.28934/jwee18.12.pp1-16 original scientific paper how does state and local government support affect entrepreneurs’ gender, age and race? halil dincer kaya1 northeastern state university, college of business and technology, department of accounting and finance, oklahoma, united states a b s t r a c t in this study, we test whether state and local government support attract female entrepreneurs. we also test to see whether government support attracts younger entrepreneurs and minorities. first, we differentiate between the u.s. states where state government support is high and the u.s. states where state government support is low. then, we compare small business owners’ gender, age, and race across highand low-state government support states. we find that there is no significant difference in owners’ gender across highand low-state government support states. however, our results show that, in the states where state government support is high, there are more young entrepreneurs (age 25-34) and fewer middle-aged entrepreneurs (age 45-54) when compared to the other states. our results also show that, in these states, there are fewer asian or hispanic entrepreneurs when compared to the other states. when we differentiate between the states where local government support is high and the states where local government support is low, we find that there is no significant difference in owners’ gender or age across highand low-local government support states. however, our results show that, in the states where the local government support is high, there are more white entrepreneurs and fewer asian or hispanic entrepreneurs. 1 address: 3100 e. new orleans st., broken arrow, oklahoma, usa, e-mail: kaya@nsuok.edu 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) key words: government support, small firm, small business, entrepreneurship, entrepreneur, owner characteristics introduction in this study, we examine whether high levels of government support for small businesses attract certain types of entrepreneurs into a state. first, we look into the impact of state government’s support on entrepreneurs’ gender, age, and race. then, we examine the impact of local government’s support on entrepreneurs’ gender, age, and race. there is a survey titled “united states small business friendliness survey” which asks small business owners questions on their state and local government’s support. we use the responses in this survey in our analysis. we name the u.s. states with high scores on the state government support question as the “high-stategovtsupport score states” and the u.s. states with low scores on the state government support question as the “lowstategovtsupport score states”. then, using nonparametric tests, we compare the two groups of states in terms of the entrepreneurs’ gender, age, and race. after that, we do a similar analysis for local government support. we compare the states with high scores in local government support to the states with low scores in local government support. by doing these analyses, this study will demonstrate the relation between government support and entrepreneur’s gender, age, and race. if female entrepreneurs need and expect government’s support to start a business, then we should find a positive relation between government support and the percentage of female entrepreneurs in a state. if younger entrepreneurs or minorities expect government’s support to start a business, then we should find a positive relation between government support and the percentage of younger entrepreneurs or minority entrepreneurs in a state. we believe that the findings here on gender, age, and race will guide state and local government officials when forming their policies. if a state or a city/town wants to attract certain types of entrepreneurs, they can increase their support for small businesses. conversely, if a state or a city/town wants to avoid attracting such entrepreneurs into their area, they can reduce their support for small businesses. the paper continues as follows: section 2 goes over the previous literature. section 3 explains the data used in this study. section 4 presents the empirical results. section 5 concludes. dincer, k. h., how does state and local government, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) 3 literature review several papers look into the relation between government support and entrepreneurship. ariff and abubakar (2002) argue that past and current policies to create a class of entrepreneurs in malaysia have succeeded. however, the authors argue that, the transformation from a manufacturingbased to a knowledge-based economy brings in changes in these companies’ needs and demands; therefore, a closer relation between the entrepreneurs and the government is needed. according to ariff and abubakar (2002), bureaucratic delays and red tape are major blocks to entrepreneurs. still, the authors believe that the government recognizes the importance of its tasks including ensuring a healthy political and economic climate, encouraging corporate governance, making funds available to stop the liquidity crunch, designing guidelines and regulations to ensure intellectual property right protections, and providing the entrepreneurs with more guidance and training. bennett (2008) examines the evolution of british government support to small and medium-sized enterprises (smes). the author uses four surveys done, and also uses comparisons with other analyses. according to the author, government support is often based on overcoming market failures in the availability or use of supports to smes. however, bennett (2008) argues that successful government intervention is difficult to make effective at realistic cost – benefit ratios. the author also shows that female entrepreneurs do not use government support as much as male entrepreneurs. the author concludes that, over the 1991-2004 period, there is not much evidence that indicates the overwhelming success of government sme support policies, especially when the cost levels are considered. carland and carland (2004) argue that small firms are very important for societies, therefore economic development policies should specifically target these firms. according to the authors, if the u.s. economic development efforts targeted this smallest firm sector, and if they only had an average of a 10% improvement in performance, the nation would have experienced a 42% increase in employment growth. according to carlsson and mudambi (2003), after activity starts and clusters form, a comprehensive set of facilitating policies (including information provision and networking, tax codes and labor laws) are necessary. according to carlsson and mudambi (2003), these policies must 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) consider both cluster development and the life cycles of individual small firms. the authors also contend that government policy should focus on making entrepreneurship easy. higher opportunity cost of entrepreneurship lowers the quality of entrepreneurs, since in that case, “the only agents willing to undertake entrepreneurship are those who cannot do anything else”. fatoki and chindoga (2011) find that youths in south africa perceive lack of skill, lack of capital, lack of market opportunities, lack of support, and risk as the main obstacles to entrepreneurial intention. the authors recommend governments to reduce the obstacles to youth entrepreneurship. fischer and reuber (2003) find that policymakers and external resources providers have incentives to interact with rapid growth firms, but, although rapid growth firms also have an incentive to interact with these other two groups, they prefer to obtain advice from their peers. the authors recommend a network-based approach for supporting the rapid growth firms. gilbert et al. (2004) argue that public policy towards business is undergoing a profound shift. according to the authors, governments around the world have designed a new set of policies to promote entrepreneurial activity and these policies focus on enabling the startup and increasing the viability of entrepreneurial firms rather than constraining existing enterprises. henrekson and rosenberg (2001) examine science-based entrepreneurship in the us. and sweden. they show that despite comprehensive government support and high r&d spending in sweden, science-based entrepreneurship has been far less important compared to the u.s. the authors point to weaknesses in several areas in sweden. these are “the rate of return to human capital investment, incentives to become an entrepreneur and to expand existing businesses, and insufficient incentives within the university system to adjust curricula and research budgets to outside demand”. the authors suggest that policies “should focus on strengthening individual incentives for human capital investment and entrepreneurial behavior both within universities and in business”. keuschnigg and nielsen (2001) analyze several policy measures addressed at venture capital activity: subsidies to equipment investment, government spending on entrepreneurial training, and output subsidies at the production stage. the authors contend that while these measures stimulate dincer, k. h., how does state and local government, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) 5 entrepreneurship, only cost-effective government services can improve welfare. korosec and berman (2006) examine how cities help social entrepreneurship. they find that municipalities help social entrepreneurs in several ways. these include helping entrepreneurs to acquire resources, to coordinate with other organizations, and to implement programs. municipalities also help by increasing awareness of social problems in the community. the authors explain that nearly three-quarters of cities provide active or moderate support. fredric and zolin (2005) examine the role that government technology programs can play in facilitating the process of technological entrepreneurship. they explore relationships between these programs and environmental factors, entrepreneurial orientation, firm performance, and organizational factors. according to the authors, “technology development programs should take the capabilities and interests of the small firms into account when deciding whether their top priority is technology development or commercialization”. lee et al. (2006) examine entrepreneurship education in the us, korea, china and fiji. they show that, in order to have an effective entrepreneurship education, each country needs a customized approach based on its cultural context. li (2002) examines the effects of government credit subsidies on entrepreneurial activity. the author finds that “credit assistance programs in the form of interest subsidies exert strong effects on the allocation of credit to targeted entrepreneurs, but at the cost of non-targeted entrepreneurs”. according to the author, as a result, total entrepreneurial activities and output go down. the author also examines several alternative credit programs. li (2002) finds that “income subsidy programs and programs that specifically target poor and capable entrepreneurs are more effective in promoting entrepreneurial activity and improving total output”. markman et al. (2004) examine the relation between monetary incentives to inventors, their department or institution, or to university technology transfer office increase entrepreneurial activities at u.s. universities. they find that incentives to scientists and to their departments are negatively related to entrepreneurial activity. on the other hand, incentives to university technology transfer office is positively related to entrepreneurial activity. 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) mcquaid (2002) argues that the term “entrepreneurship” has been used inconsistently in research. according to the author, the previous papers focus on one of the following five different definitions of entrepreneurship: “a particular function in the economy (such as innovation, risk-taking or allocation of resources); a new business startup; an owner-manager or sme; a set of personal or socio-psychological characteristics; and, a form of behavior”. the author presents a three-stage model that covers different stages of the entrepreneurial process that are linked to different perspectives of entrepreneurship. michael and pearce (2009) argue that some governments support entrepreneurship as a means to create jobs while others support entrepreneurship as a means to create competition in markets. the authors examine government support that focuses on supporting and encouraging innovation. the authors also show that aiding entrepreneurship without a commitment to innovation is unlikely to be as successful as the support that focuses on innovation. rasmussen (2008) examines canadian government’s support for the commercialization of publicly funded research. the authors differentiate between two types of programs: programs providing support to specific commercialization projects and programs made to induce structural reforms within the university sector. according to the author, canadian government provides resources for direct use in commercialization projects, supports the development of professional expertise in technology transfer, supports experimentation with new initiatives, and facilitates cooperation between commercializing organizations. rasmussen and borch (2010) propose three university capabilities that facilitate the venture-formation process within the university sector: creating new paths of action, balancing both academic and commercial interests, and integrating new resources. according to the authors, each of these capabilities is particularly important for specific phases in the venturing process. rothwell and zegveld (1982) explain that smes (i.e. small and medium sized enterprises) serve as a significant source of employment. they lead to a more favorable balance of economic power and also they mutually benefit small/large firm relations. additionally, in certain industry sectors, small firms contribute to a disproportionately high percentage of radical innovations. therefore, smes should receive more government support. the authors conclude that “smes are essential to the innovative dincer, k. h., how does state and local government, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) 7 progress of the economy, especially playing highly significant roles at the early, fluid stages of development in new technological industries”. sebora et al. (2009) examine the critical success factors for ecommerce entrepreneurship in thailand. they find that while achievement orientation and emphasis on reliability and ease of use all have a positive impact on these firms’ success, government support has an insignificant impact. todd and javalgi (2007) examine how information technology and communication infrastructure affects smes in india. according to the authors, to achieve international growth, smes need better infrastructure. the authors imply that, in order to promote international growth by smes, governments should focus on improving the infrastructure. trajtenberg (2002) examines the role of government support for commercial r&d in israel. according to the author, it is highly likely that government policies significantly contributed to the high-tech sector’s success. the author contends that “the key to the apparent success of r&d policies seems to have been both boldness in the deployment of resources, and flexibility and creativity (i.e. innovativeness) in responding to rapidly changing needs and challenges”. wiklund and shepherd (2008) differentiate between novice and habitual (i.e. portfolio) entrepreneurs. they show that “whether or not business founders subsequently pursue portfolio entrepreneurship is explained by their human capital (education and start-up experience) and social capital (business networks and links with government support agencies). data and methodology we employ a national survey done by kauffman foundation and thumptack.com in 2013. it is called “united states small business friendliness survey”. this survey asks small business owners their opinions on their state government’s and local government’s support for small businesses. the respondents answer the following two questions: “in general, how would you rate your state government's support of small business owners?” “in general, how would you rate your local (county, city, or town) government's support of small business owners?” 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) for both questions, the respondents chose one of the following five answers: “very supportive” (we coded as “4”), “somewhat supportive” (we coded as “3”), “neither supportive nor unsupportive” (we coded as “2”), “somewhat unsupportive” (we coded as “1”), and “very unsupportive” (we coded as “0”). then, we compute the average score for each question for each state. there are 41 states with enough data, so using the averages for each state, we assign a “stategovtsupportscore” and a “localgovtsupportscore” for each state. therefore, our first two variables are the “stategovtsupportscore” and “localgovtsupportscore” variables. the survey also asks questions on the owner’s gender, age, and race. for each state, we compute the percentage of female owners, and this is our third variable. we call this variable “female”. using the survey answers, we also compute the percentage of owners in each state that are in certain age groups. these age groups are age<25, age25-34, age35-44, age45-54, age55-64, and age>64. these are our “age” variables. again, using the survey questions, we compute the percentage of owners in each state that belong to certain races. these race groups are asian, black, hispanic, white, and otherrace. these are our “race” variables. table 1 shows the summary statistics for our variables. table 1: summary statistics (all variables in %) variable mean median stdev min max stategovtsupportscore 2.42 2.43 0.23 1.96 2.92 localgovtsupportscore 2.54 2.57 0.20 2.00 2.97 female 37.00 36.96 5.96 21.05 52.94 age<25 2.09 2.18 1.67 0.00 8.70 age25-34 18.72 19.21 5.14 5.26 35.48 age35-44 24.27 25.32 3.98 14.29 31.82 age45-54 28.18 28.46 5.88 10.00 46.67 age55-64 21.38 20.45 6.32 8.70 42.11 age>64 5.36 5.71 2.61 0.00 11.43 asian 1.67 1.12 2.73 0.00 16.67 dincer, k. h., how does state and local government, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) 9 variable mean median stdev min max otherrace 5.38 4.21 5.34 0.00 26.67 black 7.36 4.84 7.72 0.00 34.71 hispanic 4.95 3.85 4.26 0.00 16.16 white 80.63 81.82 11.33 53.33 100.00 as the table shows, the mean “stategovtsupportscore” for the 41 states is 2.42. as explained above, we coded “somewhat supportive” as “3”, and “neither supportive nor unsupportive” as “2”. therefore, a mean score of 2.42 indicates that, in the average u.s. state, the small business owners believe that there is just not much support available to them by their state government. the mean “localgovtsupportscore” for the 41 states is 2.54. again, this means that, in the average u.s. state, the small business owners believe that there is just not much support available to them by their local government. the mean value of “female” is 37.00, meaning that, in the average u.s. state, 37% of the small business owners are female. when we look at the age groups, we are seeing that, in the average state, only 2.09% of the owners are younger than 25 years of age. 18.72% are 25 to 34 years of age, 24.27% are 35 to 44 years of age, 28.18% are 45 to 54 years of age, 21.38% are 55 to 64 years of age, and only 5.36% are older than 64 years of age. when we look at the race groups, we are seeing that, in the average state, only 1.67% of the owners are “asian”, 5.38% are from other races, 7.36% are “black”, and 4.95% are “hispanic”. we are seeing that 80.63% are “white”. in order to do the analyses, we run nonparametric tests (i.e. mann whitney wilcoxon tests) that compare states with high and low scores in terms of “stategovtsupportscore”. we also compare states with high and low scores in terms of “localgovtsupportscore”. in order to differentiate between high and low score states in each category (i.e. “stategovtsupportscore” and “localgovtsupportscore”), we use the mean values. the states with scores higher than the mean are classified as highscore states, and the states with scores lower than the mean are classified as low-score states. in the next section, we first show the results of our comparisons between high-stategovtsupportscore states and low-stategovtshupportscore 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) states. then, we show the results of our comparisons between highlocalgovtsupportscore states and low-localgovtshupportscore states. empirical results table 2 shows the results of our comparisons between the high-state government support states and the low-state government support states. panel a examines the differences between the two groups of states in terms of the gender of small business owners. panel b examines the differences between the two groups of states in terms of the age of small business owners. panel c looks into the differences between the two groups of states in terms of the race of small business owners. table 2: gender, age and race (stategovtsupport) variable high-score low-score mann-w. mean med. mean med. p-value panel a. gender female 37.60 37.15 36.31 36.94 0.3190 panel b. age age<25 1.93 2.15 2.29 2.27 0.3862 age25-34 19.62 19.63 17.68 16.94 *0.0771 age35-44 24.56 25.62 23.92 24.68 0.2281 age45-54 26.90 26.79 29.67 29.03 *0.0584 age55-64 20.83 19.83 22.01 20.55 0.2960 age>64 6.15 5.58 4.43 5.80 0.1448 panel c. race asian 1.02 1.10 2.44 1.61 *0.0847 otherrace 4.99 4.08 5.84 4.35 0.3187 black 8.24 4.63 6.35 4.84 0.3917 hispanic 4.00 2.92 6.06 5.24 **0.0457 white 81.75 82.63 79.33 81.45 0.2609 panel a shows that there is no significant difference in small business owners’ gender across highand low-state government support states. when we look at the median values, while 37.15% of the owners are female in the high-state government support states, the corresponding percentage is dincer, k. h., how does state and local government, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) 11 36.94% in the low-state government support states. the difference is statistically insignificant (p=0.3190). panel b shows that, in the states where state government support is high, there are more young entrepreneurs (age25-34) and fewer middle-aged entrepreneurs (age45-54), when compared to the other states. while 19.63% of the owners are of age 25 through 34 in the high-state government support states, the corresponding percentage in the low-state government support states is only 16.94%. the difference between the two groups of states is statistically significant (p=0.0771). on the other hand, while only 26.79% of the owners are of age 45 through 54 in the high-state government support states, the corresponding percentage in the low-state government support states is 29.03%. here, the difference between the two groups of states is also statistically significant (p=0.0584). we do not find any significant difference between the two groups of states with respect to the other age groups. panel c shows that, in the states where state government support is high, there are fewer asian or hispanic entrepreneurs when compared to the other states. these results imply that asian and hispanic entrepreneurs, on average, do not adequately take advantage of state governments’ support. while only 1.10% of the owners are asian in the high-state government support states, the corresponding percentage in the low-state government support states is 1.61%. the difference between the two groups of states is statistically significant (p=0.0847). on the other hand, while only 2.92% of the owners are hispanic in the high-state government support states, the corresponding percentage in the low-state government support states is 5.24%. here, the difference between the two groups of states is also statistically significant (p=0.0457). with respect to the other race groups (i.e. white, black, or other race), we do not find any significant difference between the two groups of states. table 3 shows the results of our comparisons between the high-local government support states and the low-local government support states. panel a examines the differences between the two groups of states in terms of the gender of small business owners. panel b examines the differences between the two groups of states in terms of the age of small business owners. panel c looks into the differences between the two groups of states in terms of the race of small business owners. 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) table 3: gender, age and race (localgovtsupport) variable high-score low-score mann-w. mean med. mean med. p-value panel a. gender female 37.64 37.15 36.27 36.94 0.2483 panel b. age age<25 1.89 2.17 2.33 2.27 0.3134 age25-34 18.81 19.47 18.63 18.64 0.3097 age35-44 24.77 25.62 23.68 24.68 0.2202 age45-54 27.22 26.79 29.29 28.57 0.1361 age55-64 21.54 20.23 21.19 20.55 0.4121 age>64 5.77 5.30 4.87 5.88 0.2781 panel c. race asian 0.99 0.77 2.46 1.61 *0.0711 otherrace 4.62 3.73 6.26 4.52 *0.0596 black 6.61 3.95 8.24 5.05 0.2085 hispanic 3.63 2.82 6.48 5.53 ***0.0044 white 84.15 86.28 76.56 79.01 **0.0242 panel a shows that there is no significant difference in small business owners’ gender across highand low-local government support states. when we look at the median values, while 37.15% of the owners are female in the high-local government support states, the corresponding percentage is 36.94% in the low-local government support states. the difference is statistically insignificant (p=0.2483). panel b shows that there is no significant difference between the two groups of states in terms of the percentages of any age groups. combining panel a and panel b results, we can say that there is no statistically significant relation between the level of local government support and owners’ gender or age. panel c shows that, in the states where local government support is high, there are more white entrepreneurs and fewer asian or hispanic entrepreneurs. there are also fewer entrepreneurs from other races. while 86.28% of the owners are white in the high-local government support states, the corresponding percentage in the low-local government support dincer, k. h., how does state and local government, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) 13 states is only 79.01%. the difference between the two groups of states is statistically significant (p=0.0242). on the other hand, while only 0.77% of the owners are asian in the high-local government support states, the corresponding percentage in the low-local government support states is 1.61%. here, the difference between the two groups of states is also statistically significant (p=0.0711). also, while only 3.73% of the owners are from other races in the high-local government support states, the corresponding percentage in the low-local government support states is 4.52%. here, the difference between the two groups of states is also statistically significant (p=0.0596). finally, while only 2.82% of the owners are hispanic in the high-local government support states, the corresponding percentage in the low-local government support states is 5.53%. the difference between the two groups of states is statistically significant (p=0.0044). with respect to the percentage of black entrepreneurs, we do not find any significant difference between the two groups of states. conclusion in this study, we examine the impact of government support on small business owners’ gender, age, and race. for this purpose, we employ the “united states small business friendliness survey” which was done by kauffman foundation and thumptack.com in 2013. this survey asks small business owners questions about their feelings regarding their state and local governments’ support for small businesses. the survey also has questions on owners’ gender, age, and race. in order to do our empirical analysis, first, we differentiate between the u.s. states where state government support is high and the u.s. states where state government support is low. then, we compare small business owners’ gender, age, and race across highand low-state government support states. our results show that there is no significant difference in owners’ gender across highand low-state government support states. when we look into the relation between state government support and owners’ age, however, we find that, in the states where state government support is high, there are more young entrepreneurs (age25-34) and fewer middle-aged entrepreneurs (age45-54) when compared to the other states. we do not find any significant difference between the two groups of states with respect to the other age groups. 14 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 1-16) when we look into the relation between state government support and owners’ race, we find that in the states where state government support is high, there are fewer asian or hispanic entrepreneurs when compared to the other states. these results imply that asian and hispanic entrepreneurs, on average, do not adequately take advantage of state governments’ support. with respect to the other race groups (i.e. white, black, or other race), we do not find any significant difference between the two groups of states. then, we continue with our analysis by differentiating between the states where local government support is high and the states where local government support is low. when we compare the two groups of states, we find no significant difference in small business owners’ gender or age. in other words, there is no relation between the level of local government support and owners’ gender or age. when we look into the relation between local government support and owners’ race, we find that in the states where local government support is high, there are more white entrepreneurs and fewer asian or hispanic entrepreneurs. there are also fewer entrepreneurs from other races. in this study, we document whether high levels of state or local government support within a state attract certain types of entrepreneurs into that state. although we do not find any evidence of female entrepreneurs being attracted into a state that offers high levels of support, we show that certain age groups or certain races can be attracted through government support. we believe that the findings here will guide state and local government officials when forming their policies. if a state or a city/town wants to attract certain types of entrepreneurs, they can utilize the results here. this would allow them to be more effective when using their resources. references [1] ariff, mohamed, and syarisa yanti abubakar. 2002. 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"portfolio entrepreneurship: habitual and novice founders, new entry, and mode of organizing." entrepreneurship theory and practice, 32(4): 701-725. article history: received: 23 january, 2018 accepted: 18 june, 2018 microsoft word 11_jwe_1-2 udc: jel: b54; l26, i20 scientific review paper new schools for entrepreneurs and managers: education for female entrepreneurship radović-marković mirjana*, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t education and training help to build human capacity for both men and women. it is a key priority area for poverty reduction. the development of contemporary technologies, especially the internet, on the one hand and changes in management practice, communication and work organization in companies on the other hand, have in recent years brought about changes in the kinds of knowledge and ways of acquiring it. in keeping with these, new educational programs, as well as new modes of studying, everywhere in the world the existing education system is being redefined and educational programs that have to closely relate to practice are being improved. for that sake, “new schools for entrepreneurs and managers” are founded, which are based on modern programs and courses meant for various groups of business people. in this article, the author tried to explain advantages and disadvantages of e-learning with a stress of special benefits for women. kew words: education, educational programs, e-learning, female entrepreneurship * full professor and fellow of world academy of art and science, us and fellow of rsa, uk, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia, email: mradovic@gmail.com journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 77-88) 78 introduction there is no doubt that the progress made by women in entrepreneurship activities worldwide is an important factor to be taken into consideration when studying economic development and social progress. namely, entrepreneurship represents an appropriate opportunity for women all over the world, as entrepreneurship responds flexibly to entry, change and innovation. it is for this reason that a lot of countries see women entrepreneurs in smes as a hope for providing new blood to the economy. at present, women represent more than one third of all people involved in entrepreneurship activities around the world. different theoretical approaches to female entrepreneurship show that this field of research is considered very broad. according to different theoretical approaches, different perspectives are offered through which we can expand and challenge our understanding of the women‟s entrepreneurship and education. the need to understand entrepreneurial learning and education is critical (cope, 2003; gartner and birney, 2002; mitchell et al., 2002; prime minister’s task force on women entrepreneurs, 2003; rae, 2000) in order to support acquisition of knowledge and skills required for sustainable business development. yet, research that examines the “complex interactive learning relationship that exists between the entrepreneur, her business and the wider environment” (cope, 2003: 26) is still in the early stages (cope, 2003; minnitti and bygrave, 2001; ravasi and turati, 2005). education for female entrepreneurship research and e-learning initiatives until recent time’s entrepreneurship education, training and development programmes have been gender neutral. common criticisms of such programmes are that they tend to be male dominated and dismissive of women (carter, 2000). these programmes are frequently “starts your own business” courses which, in the main, cater for service type industries and micro-enterprises rather than for growth oriented businesses. the current research shows that the level of women entrepreneurs engaging in incubation type programmes, and/or entrepreneurship programmes geared radović-marković, m., new schools, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 77-88) 79 for high-growth, high-tech sectors is still less than 10% (elaine aylward, et. al.2006) the new educational programs have appeared, as well as new modes of studying. accordingly, everywhere in the world the existing education system is being redefined and educational programs that have to closely relate to practice are being improved. for that sake, “new schools for entrepreneurs and managers” are founded, which are based on modern programs and courses meant for various groups of business people men and women. very popular are virtual faculties which are founded all around the world and which enable connection between business people and business students with lecturers from all around the world, no matter where they actually might be. participating in courses and testing over internet, essentially change previous way of gaining knowledge in classical classrooms. the above way of learning contributes to fast information exchange, more access to the newest knowledge and experiences in this domain and save the time and money. consequently, in this millennium the classic way of education will be slowly substituted with some other forms of education. interactive education should provide a completely new dimension of gaining knowledge. in this context, in many countries there is a variety of research and evaluation around the impact of e-learning practices in education. mentioned research and evaluation of e-learning aims to: 1. assess the impacts of e-learning initiatives across the education sector to strengthen planning and implementation 2. explore e-learning practices that make a positive difference to learning 3. support educators to make critical and reflective pedagogical decisions about their use of e-learning. e-learning empowers women a study conducted by the world bank has recently shown that if women in the field of agriculture had the same education as men did, the agricultural yield in developing countries would increase by 6 to 22% (radović marković, 2007b). this example, as well as similar ones, invites every rightful reason to focus greater attention to further development of educational programs aimed at women, but also to enhancing contemporary technologies that will improve e-learning. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 77-88) 80 distance learning is becoming increasingly attractive for women, as shown by some research studies. namely, more than 60% of those over 25 years of age and female opt for this type of development and education in the world (radović marković, 2006a). the reason for this lies in the fact that this method of learning offers numerous advantages. among the most prominent benefits, the following may be pointed out: a) the flexibility of the learning process (learners study at the time most convenient to them). b) achieving a better balance between personal and other commitments (they may spend more time at home with their families). c) minimizing costs (both time and money savings are made). d) a deeper sense of self-fulfillment (acquiring relevant and useful knowledge and achieving professional goals). furthermore, women at a certain age, over the age typical for learners (18-22 years of age), consider virtual classrooms to minimize the embarrassment and alienation factor (capogrossi, 2002). having in mind that due to fast changes in techniques and technology especially in the last decade of 20th century, new kinds of business and jobs emerged, the need for new knowledge became very clear. accordingly, everywhere in the world the existing education system is being redefined and educational programs that have to closely relate to practice are being improved. for that sake, “new schools for entrepreneurs and managers” are founded, which are based on modern programs and courses meant for various groups of businesspeople. very popular are virtual faculties, which are founded worldwide and allow for the connection between businesspeople and business learners and lecturers from all around the world, no matter where they actually might reside. participating in courses and testing via the internet, essentially change the previous way of gaining knowledge in classical classrooms. this way of learning contributes to a fast exchange of information, more access to the newest knowledge and experiences in this domain and saves the time and money. thus, in this millennium, the classic way of education will be slowly substituted by some other forms of education, in which learning from homes and offices with the help of computers will be a viable solution. interactive education should provide a completely new dimension of gaining knowledge making learning faster and easier for those who attend certain courses. it also enables women to choose a certified course, offered by more than 90% of faculties in the radović-marković, m., new schools, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 77-88) 81 world (radović marković, 2007b). accordingly, women are given the opportunity of choosing some of the programs from a broader range, the ones that best suit their professional interests and goals, without the requirement to move geographically. in other words, women are no longer limited to the local educational institutions, but have at their disposal a more comprehensive choice of educational programs offered worldwide. studying over the internet ensures women a permanent development thus reducing the educational gap in comparison to men. at the same time, the social status and life quality of women are being improved. higher qualifications enable women to contribute more to their community. the goal of my own work in this area is to offer more ways of encouraging entrepreneurship, including the role of the education system, developing positive attitudes and an active approach towards female entrepreneurship. it is well known that a correlation exists between entrepreneurship and economic performance. but entrepreneurship brings more than this correlation to our societies, because the science is also a vehicle for personal development. in spite of the importance of entrepreneurship for personal and social development, all potentials are not fully being exploited particularly in the european union (eu). the eu has failed to encourage an enormous number of people to become entrepreneurs. according to the eurobarometar, although 47% of europeans prefer self-employment, only 17% actually realise their ambitions (european commission [ec], 2007). as regards the new entrepreneurial initiative, only 4% of europeans said that they desired to be engaged in setting up a business, and 29% of europe‟s sme declared growth as their main ambition (ec). europe, unlike the united states, suffers from low expansion rates after the start-up. as a rule, women everywhere in the world are starting businesses in the service sectors which are most attractive for them. also, women, for example, find it much easier to manage companies in the developed countries, while keeping financial stability of business is more difficult in the countries with lower gdp and a "lifetime" of women's enterprises is shorter. according to the age criteria, the usual age of the women who start their own business range from 25 to 34 in less developed countries, and a they are not likely to achieve any greater success and respect until they are 35 to 44 years old. in the developed countries the situation is even worse; women choose to start with their own business from age 25 to 44, reaching journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 77-88) 82 the climax of their careers only between the ages of 35 and 54 (radovićmarković et.al., 2009).. learning processes: online and face-to-face methods the number of higher educational institutions that offer online courses has grown significantly (allen & seaman, 2005; maguire, 2005). carr-chellman (2005) strongly believe that online education is the fastest growing market segment of adult education today and that growth expectations in future are extraordinary. recent research has compared online learning to face-to-face learning (hoben, neu, & castle, 2002), explored the effectiveness of online tools such as discussion boards and chat rooms. spatariu, hartley, & bendixen (2004), addressed evaluating effective online instruction. graham, cagiltay, lim, craner, & duffy, (2001) wentling & johnson (1999) assessed the value of online courses in specific fields of study. online courses require participants to take on new and different teaching/learning behaviours; students are empowered to learn on their own. online courses are usually far more writing-intensive than traditional classes have ever been. in an online course, general discussions, requests for elaboration or assistance, answers to directed questions, group projects, most assignments, and many tests and quizzes are in writing in addition, online education fosters self-motivated education, giving precedence to the autonomy of the learner. university of phoenix's flexnet goes one step further by using a common model (1/3 classroom, 2/3 online) to maximize utilization of its classroom facilities. this improves access by increasing the number of available courses and thus number of students served (table 1,annex). course management and design, the delivery of materials, communicating with students through the use of multimedia, providing an interactive online environment, and the way in which course participants use instructional technology within the course is different from traditional face-to-face instruction. distance education teams include administrators, instructional designers, technologists, and instructors/facilitators (miller, 2001; williams, 2003). the functions of instructors and facilitators then include being a “facilitator, teacher, organizer, grader, mentor, role model, counsellor, coach, supervisor, problem solver, and liaison” (riffee, 2003, radović-marković, m., new schools, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 77-88) 83 roberson, 2002; scagnoli, 2001). in other words, the thinking, planning, research, learning, and effort of constructing and teaching an online course rejuvenate many faculty members. it would seem on the basis of a series of interviews conducted over the past year with women in a number of many us universities who received training via the women’s entrepreneurship programmes that they improved their skills and knowledge which is fundamental to business success. will traditional education be replaced by new modalities of education? open communication and management approaches will become the driving techniques to enhance learning skills in virtual environments, which will meet new requirements of societies. high quality traditional entrepreneurship education can be used as a means to obtain new skills for entrepreneurs or necessary to foster alternative ways of education. selfmotivation, as a means for people to acquire computer skills, seems to be the major educational component to emphasize when devising an academic entrepreneurship programme. future research might determine the effects of mandating computing courses in educational program as a prerequisite to other virtual courses, which may minimize embarrassment. it can be concluded that computer assisted learning (e-learning) through the internet is the most significant mode of entrepreneurial education particularly for women in managerial positions who tend to be as busy as their male counterparts. in some european countries, such as serbia and western balkan countries, elearning has evolved; therefore, it is very difficult to consider the cons and pros of the process in this country. conclusion the proponents of educational technology have for years stated that faculties need to focus more on teaching “21st-century skills,” such as problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration. the 21st century learners will need to meet the complex demands of the new economy and society in a globalized form (radović marković, 2006-2007). the workplace of tomorrow will increasingly require 21st century learners to journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 77-88) 84 work in teams, collaborating across companies, communities, and continents. certain skills cannot be developed solely by simple multiplechoice exams. new education programmes for entrepreneurs must be based on exchanging good practice through studies and networks among strategic partners (researchers, entrepreneurs, financiers, advisors, policy-makers, and so forth).to address individual needs of learners, attention must be paid to the adaptability of the curriculum and the learning environment. a worthy institution views quality issues as primary and integral throughout the conceptual design of its education programmes. true quality institutions must govern their curricula, instruction, and support services by policies and standards established to assure future success of the participants (capogrossi, 2002). in many occasions, the assessment and examination vehicles have been evaluative measures of knowledge and competencies of learners measured against learning objectives derived from the needs of the industry and professions. successful institutions must design their learning objectives to serve the demonstrated needs of the desired student audience. the academic and professional needs of the student audience will be at the foundation of the curriculum, and the subject matter objectives will become the focus of a quality control process (capogrossi, 2007). in summary, education and training play an important role in human development by empowering people to improve their well-being and participate actively in nation building. education and training help to build human capacity for both men and women. it is a key priority area for poverty eradication and reduction. however, lack of appropriate skills cannot lead directly to prosperity. the development of contemporary technologies, especially the internet and gsm, on the one hand, as well as changes in management practice, communication and work organization in various contemporary organisations on the other hand, have in recent years brought about changes in the kinds of knowledge and ways of acquiring it. in keeping with the above, new educational programs have appeared, as well as new modes of studying. accordingly, everywhere in the world the existing education system is being redefined and educational programs that have to closely relate to practice are being improved. for that sake, “new schools for entrepreneurs and managers” are founded, which are based on modern programs and courses meant for various groups of business people men and women. very popular are virtual faculties which are founded all around the world and which enable connection between radović-marković, m., new schools, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 77-88) 85 business people and business students with lecturers from all around the world, no matter where they actually might be. participating in courses and testing over internet, essentially change previous way of gaining knowledge in classical classrooms. the above way of learning contributes to fast information exchange, more access to the newest knowledge and experiences in this domain and save the time and money. consequently, in this millennium the classic way of education will be slowly substituted with some other forms of education, in which learning from homes and offices with the help of computers were true. interactive education should provide a completely new dimension of gaining knowledge and to make it easier for those who attend certain courses to learn faster and easier. by using icts a university can delight students of deferent ages with flexibility learning tools and atmospheres. references [1] allen, i.e., & seaman, j. (2005). growing by degrees: online education in the united states, 2005. needham, ma : sloan-c. retrieved february 22, 2006, from http://www.sloan-c.org/resources/growing_by_degrees.pdf [2] allred, e. (2003, june). is quitting good? unpublished manuscript, brigham young university. [3] american business women association (abwa). (2001). the advantages of online learning. women in business, 53(6), 23-23. [4] anderson, t. (2001, november/december) the hidden curriculum in distance education: an updated view. change. 33(6): 28-35. [5] capogrossi, douglass. (2002). assurance of academic excellence among nontraditional universities, journal of higher education in europe, volume 27, number 4, pp. 481-490. [6] capogrossi, douglass. (2007). four keys for personalizing distance learning gender and informal economy: developing, developed and transition countries, lagos, icea and prenticeconsults. [7] criteria for youth entrepreneurship education, http://www.entreed.org/_entre/criteria.htm [8] entrepreneurship in american higher education, a report from the kauffman panel on entrepreneurship curriculum in higher education,2006. [9] entrepreneurial education. (2009). retrieved january 30, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/entrepreneurship_education [10] entrepreneurship in american higher education. a report from the kauffman panel on entrepreneurship curriculum in higher education. (2006). retrieved january 30, 2009, from http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedfiles/entrep_high_ed_report.pdf [11] european commission (ec). (2007). eurobarometer. retrieved february 10, 2009, [12] from http://ec.europa.eu/growthandjobs/european-dimension/200812annualprogress-report/index_en.htm journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 77-88) 86 [13] graham, c., cagiltay, k., lim, b.-r., craner, j., & duffy, t. m. (2001). seven principles of effective teaching: a practical lens for evaluating online courses.  technology source. retrieved october 27, 2005 from [14] hoben, g., neu, b., & castle, s. r. (2002). assessment of student learning in an educational administration online programpaper presented at the 2002 annual meeting of the american educational research association, new orleans , la. [15] kroon, de klerk, dippenaar,(2003),”developing the next generation of potential entrepreneurs: co-operation between schools and businesses?” south african journal of education vol.23(4) 2003: 319-322 [16] radović-marković, mirjana et. al., (2009), the new alternative women’s entrepreneurship education-learning and virtual universities, journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, no. 1-2 , pp.1-12 [17] radović-marković, mirjana (2007), "managers and entrepreneurs skills as key contributors to sme success in the future business challenges", serbian journal of management: an international journal for theory and practice of management science, bor, university of belgrade, technical faculty, management department, no. 1, pp. 93-99. [18] radović-marković, mirjana (2007),” special benefits of e-learning for women: sample of program entrepreneurship” achakpa, priscilla. gender and informal economy: developing developed and transition countries, lagos, icea and prenticeconsult, pp. 156-166. [19] radović-marković, mirjana (2005), "women entrepreneurship and leaders abilities of women and their position in the business: a study of serbia and region, pcte journal of business management, punjab college of technical education, india [20] riffee, w.h. (2003),”putting a faculty face on distance education programs. syllabus: technology for higher education.” retrieved june, 2003: http://www.syllabus.com/article/asp?id=7233 [21] roberson, t. j., & klotz, j. ( 2002) how can instructors and administrators fill the missing link in online instruction? online journal of distance learning administration. 5(4). retrieved june, 2003: http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter54/roberson54.htm [22] scagnoli, n. i. (2001),”student orientations for online programs. journal of research on technology in education”. 34(1): 19-27. [23] spatariu, a., hartley, k., & bendixen, l. d. (2004). defining and measuring quality in online discussions. [24] journal of interactive online learning,2(4).retrieved october 24, 2005 from http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/2.4.2.pdf [25] wentling, t. l., & johnson, s. d. (1999).” the design and development of an evaluation system for online instruction”, paper presented at the 1999 academy of human resource development, washington, dc. radović-marković, m., new schools, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 77-88) 87 annex table 1: comparison of online and face-to-face learning online face-to-face instructors sense of control 1. less sense of instructor control 2. easier for participants to ignore instructor 1. more sense of leadership from instructor 2. not so easy to ignore instructor condition of meeting 1. no waiting for participants to arrive 2. no latecomers or early leavers, etc. 1. often have to wait for others to arrive 2. people leave during the meeting, etc. mode discussions through text only; can be structured; dense; permanent; limited; stark verbal discussions: a more common mode, but impermanent physical context don't meet in a room; no shared physical context meet in a room; strong physical context w or k/ di sc us si on 1. work on multiple issues at the same time 2. work not condensedfluid and interweaved with other activities 3. group contact continually maintained 4. depth of analysis often increased online 5. discussion often stops for periods of time, then is picked up and restarted 6. members sometimes lose sense of where they are in the discussions over long periods of time (information overload) 7. level of reflection high 8. able to reshape conversations on basis of ongoing understandings and reflection 1. usually work on one issue at a time and advance through agenda item by item 2. work is condensed and focused 3. little group contact inbetween meetings 4. analysis varies, often dependent on time available 5. discussions usually completed during meeting 6. discussions occur within a set time frame, therefore less likely that members will lose sense of where they are 7. often little time for reflection during meetings 8. less likelihood of conversations being reshaped during meeting journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 77-88) 88 g ro up d yn am ic s 1. group dynamics not same as face-to-face; participants have to learn how to interpret them online 2. less sense of anxiety 3. more equal participation, especially for females; participants can take control of this 4. less hierarchies, etc. 5. dynamics are 'hidden' but traceable 6. no breaks constantly in the meeting 7. can be active listening without participation 8. medium (technology) has an impact on dynamics 9. different expectation about participation 10. slower time delays in interactions/discussions 1. dynamics 'understandable' to most participants because they have experienced them before 2. anxiety at beginning/during meetings 3. participation unequal and often dominated by males, but group may try to share time equally among members 4. more chance of hierarchies 5. dynamics evident but lost after the event 6. breaks between meetings 7. listening without participation may be frowned upon 8. medium (room) may have less impact 9. certain 'accepted' expectations about participation 10. quicker immediacy of interactions/discussions total effort of group greater using online learning less than with online learning source: mcconnell, d. (2000) implementing computer supported cooperative learning. london: kogan page limited (adopted to requirements of this paper) article history: received: 10 march 2011 accepted: 16 april 2011 17_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.961:005.914.3 005.336 334.722-055.1/.3(497.11) jel: m20, l25, j16 cobiss.sr-id: 253628428 original scientific paper financial performances of the serbian enterprises depending on the director’s gender slavica stevanović1 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia vladimir simović2 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t the main objective of this paper is the analysis of incidence of woman directors within selected group of enterprises operating on the republic of serbia market and the analysis of their business success. the specific objective is directed towards comparative analysis of business success of the enterprises managed by woman and enterprises managed by man. the research methodology is based on financial, descriptive and comparative analysis. the success measures are based on selected profit and cash flow margins. the research object is the group of medium-sized enterprises engaged in processing industry in serbia and classified by gender of the directors. the success indicators are determined using the financial reports published by serbian business registers agency. the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the financial reports is for the period between 2010 and 2015. the analysis results show that the women are the directors in 15% of the medium-sized enterprises in processing industry in serbia. the average values of success indicators in enterprises managed by women are lower compared with the enterprises managed by man. the business success analysis on a yearly base shows 1 address: zmaj jovina street 12, belgrade, serbia, e-mail: slavica.stevanovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 2 address: zmaj jovina street 12, belgrade, serbia, e-mail: vladimir.simovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) different relations between classified enterprises depending on indicators and used year. key words: directors gender, business success indicators, medium-sized enterprises, processing industry in serbia introduction the success of a business is caused by many internal and external factors. the quality of corporative management is a significant factor which determines the business success through the quality of the system of responsibility and decision making process. the gender of directors can significantly affect the business success in different ways. the scale and the types of impact are caused by different factors on the side of enterprise characteristics and success measures. the main objective of this paper is the analysis of incidence of woman directors within a group of medium-sized enterprises in serbia and analysis of their business success. the specific objective is directed towards comparative analysis of business success of the enterprises managed by women compared to enterprises managed by man and the group of the processing industry medium-sized enterprises as a whole. the research methodology is based on financial, descriptive and comparative analysis. the overall assessment of business success is determined by return on sale based on cash flow and accrual accounting approach. the research objects are medium-sized enterprises from processing industry operating on a serbian market and classified by gender of the directors. the selected business success indicators are determined using financial reports published by the serbian business registers agency. the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the financial reports is conducted for the period between 2010 and 2015. key scientific contribution of this research lies in comparative analysis of business success of the selected enterprises in relation to gender of the directors. the special contribution lies in a fact that the analysis is focused on a group of enterprises operating in serbia and representing the significant part of medium-sized enterprises in this country. in accordance with the main objective of this research, besides introduction and conclusion, this paper also includes two integral parts. the first part addresses managerial and gender aspects of business success stevanović, s., et al., financial performances, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) 47 analysis of the selected enterprises with the special emphasis on incidence of woman directors in selected enterprises. the indicators of management success which can also be used as indicators of business success were identified. in the second part of the paper, after the methodology was presented as well as the sample of the enterprises and data sources, the incidence of woman directors in a selected sample of enterprises in serbia was analyzed. on a basis of research results and success indicators values a comparative analysis of business success of the selected enterprises was conducted in both cases when the directors are man and woman. managerial and gender aspects of business success analysis the management success of the company determinants and measures the management and decision making process within a company is under impact of a huge number of factors which are relevant for long term success of the company. macroeconomic policy, competition, legal and institutional environment, business ethics, environmental awareness and social interests of the community are only few of the factors which determine the corporative management framework and which affect the long term success of the company. modern corporative systems are characterized by corporate management as a process in which the management professionally manages the entrusted capital in order to achieve the defined business goals. the company owners transfer the management and decision making power to selected individuals who are competent and capable of deploying available resources in order to secure the successful business operations, the improvement of wealth and good position in terms of competition (stevanović & belopavlović, 2012a). legal entities of capital in serbia define the management forms within their founding acts and depending on the governance system the steering committee of the company may be organized as board of directors or supervisory committee or executive board. the board of directors is present in the first governance system whilst the supervisory committee and executive board are present within the second governance system (đuričin, stevanović & baranenko, 2013). the managerial function and representation of the company is executive director's role in both governance systems. 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) executive directors manage day to day operations in terms of realization of the defined strategy, formulation of business plans, human resources management, development of marketing and sales strategies and assets management. the number and qualifications of the executive directors depends on the actual needs of the company, on the type of business, number of employees, the development stage etc. the usual categorization of the executive director's positions are general director, executive directors of the production sector, executive directors in finance, legal sector, marketing and sales, procurements sector, research and development sector, it sector, pr sector, hr etc. (international financial corporation, 2011). the financial position of the company, earning capabilities and ability to generate cash can be observed as a result of decisions made in a certain period. the effects of managerial decisions on company’s performances are evident. the financial position and performances of the company are also a measure of management’s ability to manage the activities in order to achieve defined business goals. the management of the company works in best interest of the capital owner if successfully manages the company’s capital and achieves satisfactory return on revenue and return on equity rate. in order to measure the contribution of the managers to company’s success a traditional accounting measures based on profit, cash flow and nonfinancial indicators can be used (murphy, 1999; malinić, 2007). the cost and revenues performances are most commonly used for management performances measurements on a level of profit and investment centres considering the fact that those are responsible for profit achievements of these parts of the company. the increase of sales and revenues volume results in revenues performances development. besides aforementioned measures the management success can be measured using return on equity, earnings per share, dividend per share, net cash flow etc. considering the fact that indicators of management contribution to business success needs to be consistent with created value from the perspective of capital owners the aforementioned accounting measures can be observed as measures of manager’s contribution to the creation of new value for shareholders. incidence of women directors the company’s managers contribute to the quality management and decision making process by using their knowledge, professionalism and by complying with ethical values (stevanović & belopavlović, 2012b) stevanović, s., et al., financial performances, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) 49 regardless of their gender. international financial corporation, in its corporative management handbook analyzes jurisdiction and structure of executive bodies. the gender of executive bodies’ members is not a subject of analysis but their knowledge, skills and experience. though, the examples from scientific literature and practice show that diverse gender structure of corporative bodies offers a wider range of backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and problem-solving skills. credit suisse reports add to the research indicating that women directors are good for business. despite the potential benefits that firms can derive from giving women a more prominent role, they remain under-represented in the business sector in all countries. women are underrepresented in business leadership. while women across the oecd (2014) make up almost 45% of the labour force, they constitute only some 30% of legislators, senior officials and managers. the council on gender equality in education, employment and entrepreneurship, among other things, recommends increasing the representation of women in decision-making position, and reducing the gender gap in entrepreneurship activity (oecd, 2013). improving the gender balance at the top of companies is seen as one way of fostering wider gender equality within firms. but policy approaches across countries differ in the way this objective is pursued, either by promoting self-regulatory corporate governance codes and other soft measures or imposing board quotas by law (oecd, 2014). the corporate governance codes (cgc) are self-regulatory measures increasingly used to promote gender-balanced company boards. the australian stock exchange cgc requires, since january 2011, that companies set measurable objectives for the increased representation of women on boards, amongst executives and throughout the organization. the us securities and exchange commission (sec) requires companies to disclose whether and how the nominating committee “considers diversity in identifying nominees” for director (oecd, 2014). gonzález's and vargas-hernández's research (2017) shows that women hold 32% of senior management positions in the oecd countries in 2015, and 10% of the members of the boards of companies in the oecd countries are women. in 2010, women in employment accounted for 43% of managers in the us (oecd, 2012). the results of gmi ratings’ reports (gladman & lamb, 2012) show that women hold more than one in ten board seats globally. women are 10.5% of the directors, and the percentage of companies with no female directors at all is 39.8%. the percentage of companies with at least three 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) women is 9.8% of companies worldwide. for the world’s industrialized economies as a group, 11.1% of directors are women, and for emerging markets as a group, only 7.2% of directors are women. norway with 36.3% of female directors is still slightly under the 40% requirement imposed by a 2006 norway law. credit suisse research institute (2014) among other things analyzes the female participation in the companies' boards, by sector. the analysis of women representation on boards in industrials show that this sector has the ratio of female directors in the level on 11% in 2013., which is lower than the all sectors average (12.7% in 2013.) the presence and position of women directors in serbia is a subject of researches in many different areas. popović's study (2005) considers the position and careers of women, scientists working in natural sciences and technology in serbia in historical and social context. gender inequity in employing, managing and decision making (kolin & čičkarić, 2010) is a subject of sociological researches with the special emphasis on management and decision making in politics. significant scientific contribution to the development of women’s entrepreneurship is present in the papers published in journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education. except theoretical approaches of the female entrepreneurship (radović-marković, 2013), some authors analyze the significance of different factors for the female entrepreneurship development in the serbia, for example the position of women leaders and mangers in the serbia (tošković, 2013), entrepreneurial education (ravić & nikitović, 2016), the financial sector and sources of finances (balaban, župljanin & perišić, 2016), rural tourism (radović &radović-marković, 2016), the information and communication technologies (prljić, vučeković & vujičić, 2015), the development of micro-crediting (đuričin & pantić, 2015). the researches of women's entrepreneurship academy also provide a significant contribution to understanding and the development of women’s entrepreneurship. the publications of this institution provide a complete insight in presence, role, obstacles, advantages and chances the women are facing on a business success path (women's entrepreneurship academy, 2006a), as well as the perspectives of the women’s entrepreneurship in serbia (women's entrepreneurship academy, 2006b). gender equity, among other things, means proportional and direct enrolment of the women in a decision making process in all areas of the stevanović, s., et al., financial performances, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) 51 public life and on all levels. the action plan evaluation results in terms of national strategy for the improvement of women’s position and development of gender equity in a period between 2010 and 2015 show that women in serbia are absent in terms of managing the national assembly boards (10%), parliamentary clubs (10%), public administration and public agencies boards in the area of economy, security, energetics, foreign politics and sport (government of the republic of serbia, 2016). women are rarely managing the public enterprises and legal entities with great financial power and profitable operations. there are double as much man than women on managing positions in serbia. the women are present on a lower decision making instances and especially on executive positions which are not relevant for decision making process. gender gap in terms of entrepreneurship is pronounced even more. in a business sector the women are in charge of managing the company or in a company owner role in 22.1% of the small and medium-sized companies. the position of women on a serbian labour market is often analyzed using a data provided by serbian statistical office. the analysis of women proportion within publication women and man in the republic of serbia is conducted from several different perspectives (statistical office of the republic of serbia, 2014). the proportion of women directors, officials and lawmakers is presented within analysis of the employees using occupation and gender as criterions. the incidence of women as decision makers is observed using a data of deputies in national assembly, government members and state secretaries, deputies of local administration, majors as well as farmstead managers. the farmstead managers are observed as decision makers in charge of daily operations and organization of agricultural production on a farmstead. besides women decision makers the publication shows the incidence of women directors and managers in social care organizations and in security sector. the results of the research conducted by statistical office in serbia will be compared to the results of the research conducted by the authors of this paper. the success of the companies managed by women were usually conducted in order to establish the connection between the number of women on a managerial positions and return on sale, return on invested capital and return on equity (joy et al., 2007), average growth, share price, and price book value multiples of companies with and without women directors (credit suisse research institute, 2014), as well as the connection between gender structure of managerial organs and average revenues and 52 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) average income after tax (dreven & kokot, 2015). the business success of the companies managed by women is not so often researched in serbia. the analysis of the business success of the selected enterprises depending on the director’s gender the methodology and data the research methodology in this paper is primarily based on financial, descriptive and comparative analysis. at the beginning of the research an incidence of women directors in a selected group of companies was analyzed. using comparison the data were analyzed against the results of other research conducted in other countries on the same subject. afterwards the business success indicator, for the selected enterprises were identified. the analysis included medium-sized enterprises from serbia engaged in processing industry. out of total number of medium-sized enterprises in serbia in 2015 the waste majority is engaged in this sector. the selected enterprises were grouped using gender of the directors and the business success analysis was conducted for each group separately. the first group of the enterprises includes the enterprises in which the director is a woman, the second group includes those in which the director is a man and the third group represents all medium enterprises in a processing industry as a whole. the incidence of women directors in total number of enterprises in processing industry was determined using a data of the serbian business registers agency. the financial reports of the legal entities and entrepreneurs register contain a data on legal representatives on a director’s position in these enterprises. the check of the collected data on director’s gender of the selected enterprises was conducted during july 2017 using the serbian business registers agency web site. operating profit margin (opm) and profit margin (pm) as relevant business success indicators were the initial indicators analyzed in this paper. return on sale analysis of the selected group of enterprises was conducted by observing the relation between operating profit and sales revenues as well as the relation between net profit and sales revenues. cash flow margin (cfm) as a ratio between net operating cash flow and sales revenues shows the extent in which sales revenues generate net cash inflow in regular operating activities. stevanović, s., et al., financial performances, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) 53 the selected indicators of business success are determined using the data from financial reports published by serbian business registers agency. quantitative and descriptive analysis of financial reports is for the period between 2010 and 2015. return on sale indicators were analyzed on a yearly basis and also average for five years period 2010-2015. the research results the analysis was based on a group of 365 medium-sized enterprises in processing industry. the fact that medium enterprises in processing industry make more than 37% of the total number of medium-sized enterprises in serbia is the reason why they were selected as the analysis object in this paper. three enterprises which make 1% of the total number of mediumsized enterprises within processing industry were excluded from the analysis due to missing statutory and financial data in serbian business registers agency. the selected enterprises are corporations and out of that number 78% are limited liability companies and the remaining 22% are joint stock companies. the management and representation function is in executive director's jurisdiction. the number of executive directors varies and depends on actual needs of the company and other factors which determine the optimal number of executive directors. considering the fact that some enterprises have more than one executive director for the purpose of this research only the first legal representative was taken into the consideration namely the first director stated in serbian business registers agency. the gender structure was analyzed using a data of legal representatives in serbian business registers agency regardless of the fact whether it is an executive director, general director or some other director’s function. incidence of women directors in selected enterprises is shown in figure 1. 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) figure 1: incidence of women directors in selected enterprises source: authors' calculations based on serbian business registers agency data the directors’ gender analysis in the paper shows the dominant incidence of male directors with over 85% of the total number of legal representatives. the women directors are present only in 15% of the cases in medium-sized enterprises in processing industry. country profile report (european commission, 2012c) named “the current situation of gender equality in serbia”, shows that the rate of women on boards in serbia lies at 16%. the rate of women on boards in croatia (european commission, 2012a) and macedonia (european commission, 2012b) are 16% and 15% respectively, which is slightly higher than the euaverage (14%). the data of the serbian statistical office (2014) shows that the incidence of women in employed population differs and depends on occupation. unlike services and trade, the occupations like administrative workers, engineers, associates, technicians, experts and artists in which women are more frequently engaged than men, the incidence of woman directors, officials and policy makers is twice as less than men. the executives and directors in social care organizations are women in 70% of the cases. the percentage is significantly lower in a case of women majors (5%), deputies in local administration (29%), and in a case of farmsteads the women executives are only present in 15.9% of the cases. stevanović, s., et al., financial performances, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) 55 analyzing the data on a number of men and women in executive and supervisory boards in companies listed on stock exchange dreven and kokot (2015) determined that in croatia on a sample of 25 companies 12% of women are the presidents of the executive and/or supervisory boards whilst the 19% of women are members of executive and/or supervisory boards. the women are ceo in 4% of the cases and executive directors in 16% of the analyzed companies. additionally, in 18% of the analyzed companies women are directors of some department. the business success of the enterprises managed by women in regards to profit margins and cash flow margins is presented on following figures. the graphical representation also includes the comparative analysis of the enterprises managed by women and the enterprises managed by men as well as the overall medium enterprises in processing industry. figure 2: average margins of selected enterprises for the period 20102015: gender analysis (%) source: authors' calculations based on serbian business registers agency data the average values of the business success indicators in enterprises managed by women are lower than those managed by men and the overall medium enterprises in processing industry. earnings quality indicator as a difference between the average operating profit margin and average cash 4.6 3.2 -2.4 5.2 3.7 1.7 5.1 3.5 1.1 -4.0 -2.0 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 opm cfm pm women men total 56 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) flow margin (milford & comiskey, 2005) for the selected enterprises is 1.4%, 1.5% and 1.6% respectively. relatively balanced relationship between average operating margin and average cash flow margin in all three groups is an indicator of balanced quality of represented operating earnings, sustainability of the positive operating result and net operating cash flow of the enterprises in those groups. the business success analysis within a group of enterprises managed by women on one side and enterprises managed by men on the other side is represented on following figures (3, 4 and 5 respectively). figure 3: gender analysis of operating profit margin (%) source: authors' calculations based on serbian business registers agency data gender analysis of operating profit margin shows the extent of operating revenues contribution to the operating earnings creation within enterprises managed by women, enterprises managed by men and the overall medium-sized enterprises in processing industry in serbia. the women directors achieve higher return on sale in 2010 and 2012 than men directors. the situation is quite the opposite in last three years in which the changes of opm are different depending on a group of enterprises being observed. the decrease of opm in a first group during 2013 when opm was three and a half times less than in previous year, continued in the 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 women men total stevanović, s., et al., financial performances, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) 57 following two years. in second and third group opm trend was opposite as well as the changes dynamics resulting in increased gap of the profitability from the operating activities between analyzed groups. figure 4: gender analysis of cash flow margin (%) source: authors' calculations based on serbian business registers agency data the cfm trend in a group of enterprises managed by women is extremely variable unlike other two groups in which cfm are rather less variable. thanks to net operating cash outflow in 2010 and 2013 the cfm in a first group is negative. in years when cfm was positive a margin was beyond cfm of the second and third group. the exception is 2015 in which the operating revenues coverage by net operating cash inflows was relatively balanced in all three groups of enterprises. the extent in which operating revenues of the selected enterprises enable net profit is presented in figure 5. -4.0 -2.0 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 women men total 58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) figure 5: gender analysis of profit margin (%) source: authors' calculations based on serbian business registers agency data unlike the operating profit margin that provides information about a enterprise's profitability from the operations of its core business, excluding the effects of investments, financing and tax position, profit margin includes all revenues and expenses (white, sondhi & fried, 2003). in a period between 2013 and 2015 the cumulative net profit of the enterprises managed by women is directly lower than cumulative net loss resulting in negative net financial result and negative profit margins. almost six times higher number of medium enterprises within processing industry managed by men directors compared to number of enterprises managed by women is a significant reason why analyzed indicators of the group of enterprises managed by men on average is close to success indicators of the medium enterprises in processing industry as a whole. numerous researches show that the companies managed by women are more successful than the companies which are managed by men. there are researches which aren't confirming positive correlation between participation of the women in managing boards of the companies and performances of those companies or on the other side, there are researches suggesting negative relationships between women on the board and -12.0 -10.0 -8.0 -6.0 -4.0 -2.0 0.0 2.0 4.0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 women men total stevanović, s., et al., financial performances, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) 59 financial performance. different research results regarding gender structure, managing organs and financial performances of the companies led to a conclusion that the characteristics of the empirical researches (e.g. methodology, performance measurements, sample, and types of data) have a relevant impact on the results. some studies show the correlation between market capitalization and the number of women on boards. large capitalization companies are leading the increase in female representation (credit suisse research institute, 2014). study of joy et al. (2007) showed that the companies with a greater portion of women make 42% higher return on sale, 66% higher return on invested capital and 53% higher return on equity. the study based on boston-based trading platform quantopian showed that fortune 1000 companies that had women ceos between 2002 and 2014 had over 348% return on equity whilst the return with s&p500 companies was 122%. the comparison showed that the 80 women ceos during those 12 years produced equity returns 226% better than the s&p 500. the study also revealed that not all women were equally successful and that some of them were even unsuccessful. credit suisse institute researches showed that companies with at least one-woman director had better share price performance than those companies without women and that companies with more than 10% women on a key positions had 27% better results compared to those with 5% or less women. dreven and kokot (2015) researches show that the average profit after tax in a companies managed solely by men compared to companies managed by men and women jointly is almost the same and that there is no statistical difference leading to a conclusion that a gender structure itself has no significant impact on a business success of the analyzed companies. in terms of gender inequity regarding the members of the advisory boards the results show that the average profit after tax of the companies in which both men and women representatives are present is higher than in those in which only men are members of the advisory board leading to a conclusion that gender inequity has an impact on financial performances of the companies. conclusion many researches indicate that women directors are good for business. in order to improving the gender equality in companies' management, policy 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) approaches across countries differ. promoting self-regulatory corporate governance codes and other soft measures can be the way of improving the gender balance, as well as imposing board quotas by law. the rate of women on boards in serbia lies at 16%. the number of women directors, executives and policy makers in serbia is twice as less compared to men. the incidence of women directors in analysed selected group of enterprises in serbia is 15%. the comparative analysis of business success of the group of enterprises using gender structure of the directors represents the crucial contribution of this paper. the analysis was focused on enterprises within processing industry in serbia which represent significant part of mediumsized enterprises sector in this country. the business success of the enterprises managed by women and enterprises managed by men is based on return on sale and cash flow margin analysis. the average values of success indicators of the medium-sized enterprises managed by women directors are lower when compared to enterprises managed by men and with success indicators of the medium enterprises within processing industry as a whole. regarding the quality of the operating profit, sustainability of the positive operating result and net operating cash flow, there is no significant difference among analysed groups of enterprises. the analysis of the business success on a yearly basis shows different relations among groups of enterprises depending on success indicators used and a year of observation. women directors in 2010 and 2012 achieve higher levels of return on sale compared to men directors. the opposite situation is present in a last three years in which the difference in profitability from the operating activities among analysed groups is increasing. the cfm trend in a group of enterprises managed by women is extremely volatile but the cfo as a six years average is positive. the margin that reveals the profitability of each dinar of sales is negative in four out of six observed years due to negative net financial result. the different research results on relationship of gender structure of the managing bodies within companies and financial performances of the companies in literature lead to a conclusion that methodology, performance measurements, sample, types of data and many other factors have relevant impact on the results of the empirical research. stevanović, s., et al., financial performances, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) 61 acknowledgements this paper is a part of research projects european integrations and social and economic changes in serbian economy on the way to the eu no. 47009 and challenges and prospects of structural changes in serbia: strategic directions for economic development and harmonization with eu requirements no. 179015, financed by the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic of serbia. references [1] balaban, m., župljanin, s. & ivanović, p. 2016. 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"strengthening economic subjects’ internal capacities improvement of decision-making process". in international scientific monograph: managing structural changes: trends and requirements. coimbra: faculty of economics of the university of coimbra, p. 552-564. [32] tošković, j. 2013. "the position of women leaders and managers in serbia". journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education. 3-4: 137161. [33] white, g. l., sondh, a. c., & fried, d. 2003. "the analysis and use of financial statements", new jersey: john wiley & sons. [34] women's entrepreneurship academy. 2006a. "socijalni profili uspešnih preduzetnica". http://www.ewa.org.rs/sites/ewa.localhost/files/soc_profili_0.pdf. 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 45-64) [35] women's entrepreneurship academy. 2006b. "žensko preduzetništvo u srbiji šanse i perspektive". http://www.ewa.org.rs/sites/ewa.localhost/files/zensko_preduzetnistvo_u_sr biji-w_0.pdf. article history: received: 4 november, 2017 accepted: 7 december, 2017 microsoft word 09_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 305-055.2, 005.64(560)(569.5) jel: b54, l26 professional paper development and survival strategies in jordan and the contribution of femaleowned firms to domestic economic growth in turkey yildirim kemal, ministry of education, istanbul, turkey a b s t r a c t this paper will help you to determine where to strive and in a way how to make changes to the cultures. types of semi similar cultures between two ethics man and women have also been exemplified with diversity synthesis oriented on both jordanian and turkish local economic growth with a perspective on development, survival strategies and the role of woman owned firms/industries. the findings demonstrate that self-efficacy could represent an important individual trait for examining whistleblowing issues. internal whistleblowing is becoming an important organizational consideration in many areas of survival strategy kew words: women, female-owned firms, economic growth, managers, leaders, organizational culture illiteracy rate,development, turkey, jordan introduction the terms "developed" and "developing" (or "underdeveloped"), have proven problematic in forming policy as they ignore issues of wealth distribution and the lingering effects of colonialism. some theorists see development efforts as fundamentally neo-colonial, in which a wealthier nation forces its industrial and economic structure on a poorer nation, which will then become a consumer of the developed nation's goods and services. post-developmentalists, for example, see development as a form of western cultural imperialism that hurts the people of poor countries and yildirim, k., development and survival strategies, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 89 endangers the environment to such an extent that they suggest rejection of development altogether. the best-known development critic is mohandas gandhi, who heavily criticized modern technology and many other characteristics of western culture. like many other development critics, he recommended local food production for local consumption rather than for trade. similar thinkers often criticize contemporary globalization. development critics are often politically left-leaning and favour such ideas as pacifism and local-level democracy, though there are notable exceptions (for example, ted kaczynski supported local-level democracy, while supporting violent revolution against the state to achieve it). although development critics are mostly humanistic, some are misanthropists who blame human nature for the destruction of the environment. organizational culture is enduring and complex, and may have both a positive and a negative effect on the staff and the workplace. in many ways culture will determine the survival of an organization over the long term, especially in volatile industries. cultures that can be a liability to an organization include those that create barriers to change, create barriers to diversity or barriers to mergers and acquisitions. (stephen p. robbins. organizational behavior, 8th ed., 602-603.) understanding the organizational culture can help you to understand why change does not take place, or why a project fails. it will also help you to determine where to strive to make changes to the culture. as managers and library leaders, why do we need to get a sense of the prevailing organizational culture? it is essential to understand the organizational culture if you want to make changes to how work is done, what type of work is being done, or at the broadest level, to affect the organization's standing in its industry. understanding the culture and, as required, changing it, can mean the difference between attracting and retaining good employees and driving away the best employees with an environment that doesn't encourage, challenge, or reward them. the organizational culture assessment that i participated in didn't provide any surprises regarding the existing culture--most people with any level of sensitivity can get a sense of what type of culture is prevalent in an organization. what was surprising were the results from the survey to journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 90 determine what type of culture staff would prefer to see the organization develop. as background, the organization had just gone through a major change. the executive director had departed after 20 years; there had been a period of several months with an acting ed followed by a new, external ed appointment. the assessment took place only a month after the new ed was in position. business cultures of turkey and jordan the assessment we used to assess the organization's culture used questions that sought to determine and enumerate such organizational traits as symbols (such as images, things, events), organizational-espoused values and beliefs (for example, the mission statement, constitution, espoused goals of the ed, slogans). then the espoused beliefs and values were compared with the symbols and culture identified through the written survey and staff interviews. the written survey asked staff to answer questions related to the current culture and then asked how they would like to see the culture change. responses were tabulated to determine which type of culture existed among the four metrics of organizational culture: hierarchy, adhocracy, clan, and market. the hierarchy aspect of an organization refers to how structured, inflexible, and process-driven an organization is in the way it operates. at the opposite end of the scale, adhocracy refers to how flexible, informal, innovative, and dynamic an organization is. a clan culture supports a very friendly and social environment in which to work, while a market culture is often found in organizations that are results-oriented and sales-driven. the assessment determined that the existing culture was very hierarchical and quite clannish. the staff also indicated, through the anonymous written survey, that they would prefer the culture to be more adhocratic and less hierarchical, while at the same time being slightly more market culture and clannish. this showed the positive and optimistic view of the staff towards change. the process i used for assessing the culture involved conducting group employee interviews and written staff surveys, followed by analysis of the information. staff responded to a series of prompts and questions regarding organizational symbols, organizational-espoused values, and yildirim, k., development and survival strategies, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 91 beliefs. these responses were analyzed, creating a pattern showing comparisons between espoused belief/values (in the form of phrases or statements) with their associated symbols (both positive and negative), and related culture types (hierarchy, adhocracy, clan, and market). the assessment we used to assess the organization's culture used questions that sought to determine and enumerate such organizational traits as symbols (such as images, things, events), organizational-espoused values and beliefs (for example, the mission statement, constitution, espoused goals of the ed, slogans). then the espoused beliefs and values were compared with the symbols and culture identified through the written survey and staff interviews. the written survey asked staff to answer questions related to the current culture and then asked how they would like to see the culture change. responses were tabulated to determine which type of culture existed among the four metrics of organizational culture: hierarchy, adhocracy, clan, and market. the hierarchy aspect of an organization refers to how structured, inflexible, and process-driven an organization is in the way it operates. at the opposite end of the scale, adhocracy refers to how flexible, informal, innovative, and dynamic an organization is. a clan culture supports a very friendly and social environment in which to work, while a market culture is often found in organizations that are results-oriented and sales-driven. the assessment determined that the existing culture was very hierarchical and quite clannish. the staff also indicated, through the anonymous written survey, that they would prefer the culture to be more adhocratic and less hierarchical, while at the same time being slightly more market culture and clannish. this showed the positive and optimistic view of the staff towards change. the process i used for assessing the culture involved conducting group employee interviews and written staff surveys, followed by analysis of the information. staff responded to a series of prompts and questions regarding organizational symbols, organizational-espoused values, and beliefs. these responses were analyzed, creating a pattern showing comparisons between espoused belief/values (in the form of phrases or statements) with their associated symbols (both positive and negative), and related culture types (hierarchy, adhocracy, clan, and market). for a new leader or manager, understanding the organizational culture that is in place is essential for success in providing direction, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 92 especially when the direction is different from what has come before. are staff willing and eager to take on new challenges and to follow a new direction, or will they provide passive or active resistance to any changes? what is important to people today, based on their view of where the organization is and where it should be? where are there disconnects between espoused values, such as the mission statement, and the over symbols and culture type? for example, if the organization's mission is to provide expert customer service, yet the strong hierarchical structure means that employees are not empowered to assist customers by providing creative solutions or don't have the required authority to provide responses or results, there is a disconnect. the organization that i surveyed was eager to see positive change and the time was right for providing impetus to staff to follow a new path. the assessment can reveal the opposite, however, which is just as valuable to managers or library leaders. if there is resistance to change, if the espoused values of the organization don't match with the staff perceptions and prevailing culture, you must try to change the culture or change the objectives and mission to reflect reality.some ways that you can try to change the organizational culture include reviewing the mission and vision for the library with the staff to ensure that they are accurate. if changes are needed to reflect the reality of what you want to do and what you can do, then do so. for a start, make sure that departmental statements and staff actions reflect the type of culture you want. for example, to increase the market culture, it is necessary to try increasing the measurements of service activities and have staff involved in developing metrics and outcomes for services (as part of the performance management system, for example). i̇n jordan the importance of development agencies such as jusbp in giving businesses targeted technical and financial support in developing proper business plans, business strategies and capability enhancement training for women in business “jusbp is exerting great effort in promoting jordanian women.” 1 1 jordan times – thursday april 8. 2004 yildirim, k., development and survival strategies, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 93 jordan’s women in culture and business jordan is embarking on a radical reform process aimed at modernising the country's political system. one of the key reforms is getting jordanian women more involved in public affairs. women often occupy different roles in a foreign culture. avoid offensive assumptions and behavior by understanding the position of women in jordanian society: their legal rights; access to education and health care; workforce participation; and their dating, marriage, and family life. boost your knowledge about how things work in jordan to avoid insulting its people or their heritage. both men and women can make a better impression and show respect by understanding how women are viewed in jordan: whether they enjoy the same legal rights as men; how they are represented in jordanian politics, law, medicine, and business; if they can date or choose their own mates and professions, and what they tend to choose. as a woman, you’ll gain insight on how to blend in with dress and behavior and make appropriate travel or business plans to fit in with cultural norms. women of jordan in terms of cultural term answers the following types of practical questions: how are women and girls treated in this country? are there dress code restrictions for women? what are women’s rights for voting, owning a business, and owning and inheriting property? what are traditional jobs for women in this country/culture? who assumes childcare if the female head of the family works? what types of businesses do women typically own? from what age are women allowed to date? is it considered bad if a woman has no children? what happens to women in case of divorce? do women in jordan have access to birth control? but l will leave to the reader to comment anout the answers fort he questions quoted above.criticism differes from the reader to reader .therefore one should investigate himself/herself on how to cope with the world standards on woman rights the king also appointed a female minister, asma khader, to serve as the government's spokesperson. ms khader is a prominent lawyer and champion of human rights, particularly women's rights jordan's prime journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 94 minister, faisal fayex, for his part, has also urged women's organisations to spur political development in the country.jordan is a very conservative society. it is a society of men2 most powerful women in turkey guler sabanci was defined as one of the “the most successful woman in turkish economy today. guler sabanci, head of sabanci holding, thinks the west has the wrong perception about her country women have always been highly regarded, unlike in other countries it is that guler sabanci is all these things in turkey, a country more bound to tradition than most. none of this is lost on the defiantly single, staunchly progressive sabanci. as chair of sabanci holding, an industrial conglomerate whose consolidated revenues last year amounted to $10.6bn, she is, at 51, turkey's most feted female entrepreneur and, by virtue of her impact on finance and culture, probably its most powerful woman to date. but if she embodies the muslim nation's myriad contradictions as the living incarnation of its founding secular principles it appears to leave her unfazed. she is first woman ever to have sat on the board of turkey's influential businessmen's association. companies the size of hers employing 45,000 people are the backbone of the turkish economy. the answer seems categorical: professional women have always been highly regarded in this country, whereas going to england in the early eighties where women were not allowed to lunch in a famous bankers' club in the city. as we all are aware that over the world there is a gender issue ... but in business it is less of a problem because you can be more specific and result-orientated, and measure the results.' results, unsurprisingly, are what sabanci likes best. the influence of women in the world of business is increasing by the day. as presidents and ceos they direct the largest companies in turkey. they manage thousands of people and are responsible for the realization of major projects. 2 senator wijdan talhouni saket yildirim, k., development and survival strategies, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 95 in recent years this reality has changed the appearance of the major groups in turkey. sabancı holding is managed by güler sabancı, the representative of the third generation. the captain of the ship at yaşar holding is feyhan kalpaklıoğlu, while the kale group is run by zeynep bodur okyay. nor is this something which is only happening in family companies. the influence of women as professional executives is also increasing. canan edipoğlu is general manager of shell turkey. i̇mre barmenberk is vice president of dogan holding. gülsüm azeri is household goods group president at şişecam. there are also those who have established their own businesses and are competing with the giants, like emine kamışlı, head of esas holding, and aynur bektaş, owner of hey tekstil…appointed head of sabanci in 1993 turkey elected its first female prime minister, tansu ciller. many wealthier nations have yet to equal that feat. in business, too, some turkish women stand out. for example, one of them heads the sabanci group, a large conglomerate. guler sabanci succeeded her uncle when he died in 2004. there are plenty of turkish women who appear scantily clad in the local gossip magazines, and there are those who parade up and down istanbul's ultra-smart abdi ipekci street, buying fashion labels. there are also brilliant female professors, glamorous tv ... future trends and strategies for both development and survival perspectives in jordan and turkey as a rule, the best strategies in governments and public services mainly are: − clear about objectives, relative priorities and trade-offs − underpinned by a rich understanding of causes, trends, opportunities, threats and possible futures − based on a realistic understanding of the effectiveness of different policy instruments and the capacities of institutions (strategies that work well on paper but not in practice are of little use) − creative designing and discovering new possibilities − designed with effective mechanisms for adaptability in the light of experience journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 96 − developed with, and communicated effectively to, all those with a stake in the strategy or involved in its funding or implementation. strategies vary greatly. some are very precisely defined and imposed top-down through organisational hierarchies. others emerge in a more evolutionary and co-operative way from discussions, experiments and learning. taking a strategic approach should ensure that decisions on strategic direction, policy design and delivery are seen as an end-to-end process of change management, with constant testing, feedback, learning and improvement the most complete data of the international labour organisation (ilo) comes from asia, which shows that growing numbers of women are moving to japan, singapore and hong kong, often illegally, and most are from the philippines, indonesia and sri lanka. in the three labour markets, 12 of 13 philippines, three of four indonesians, and three of five sri lankans are women, accordingto youyun zhang, ilo special adviser on women's labour issues peru is seeing a similar emigration phenomenon, where three of every five people leaving the country in search of work are women. for most women emigrating from latin america and the caribbean, the goal is western europe, especially italy, spain and france. in europe, the migrant women find work as domestic employees,nurses, retail workers, or waitresses. if they are young and attractive they may find work as hostesses in casinos or other entertainment centres. more than a few, however, find themselves exploited in prostitution networks. the number of latin american women working in europe is unknown.but the government of peru, for example, calculates that in italy alone there are some 18,000 peruvians, mostly women. but the number is only an estimate because the subject population is mostly illegal. in europe, however, there is reliable data showing that most immigrant women are coming from nicaragua, the dominican republic, panama, brazil, colombia and peru. the testimonies that appear regularly in the press about the difficult living conditions faced by immigrant women in europe do not appear to change women's decisions about taking the leap. they say they cannot yildirim, k., development and survival strategies, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 97 imagine it could be any worse than the lives they are living in their home countries. the massive migration of women overseas obscures what experts warn is a survival strategy, and they call on the authorities tobe more flexible in handling the problem.the entry of women "into the international labour markets is one of the most impressive responses to the deterioration of options in their national labour markets," affirmed youyun zhang. this phenomenon "represents a strategy of family survival," shestated in her study of women's participation in the globalisedlabour market.the presence of foreign women working illegally or for extremely low wages has permitted a continuous and intensive industrialisation of the work force, which attracts investments,stressed the ilo adviser. the asian countries once again provide an illustration for her statements. south korea, malaysia, singapore, thailand, hong kong, and, to a lesser extent, japan, have been able to grow economically thanks to the supply of female workers, whether local citizens or immigrants. the benefits of this influx for investors and manufacturers has been so great that they are now recruiting women workers in indonesia, china, bangladesh, india and vietnam. the work force is cheap in those countries and women do not tend to demand much as far as their work conditions or compliance with labour laws. in central america, the expansion of the maquiladoras (duty-free zones for producing exports, especially assembly), another indicator of economic globalisation, has also prompted the mass exodus of women from rural areas to the cities, where the maquiladoras are located. migrational flow between the region's neighbouring countries has soared as women cross boarders hoping to find work in maquiladoras, the majority of which are financed by south korea,taiwan and hong kong. in honduras alone, the maquiladora companies employ an estimated 60,000 people 90% are women and the remaining 10% are men andminors. work conditions are generally difficult, the pay is meager, and workers must occasionally bring their work home in order to meet their required quotas. "women are most vulnerable in the globalisation process because,unlike men, they are not as demanding in their wages or in work conditions," journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 98 "for women, the most important thing is to have an income, especially if they are the head of the family, poor and lack specific training for the labour market." many men prefer unemployment to working under adverse conditions,. "but often women don't have a choice. then we could ask what is important for them to ensure the well-being of theirchildren? for nearly four decades, king hussein of jordan has managed to survive and to consolidate his rule in the face of difficult internal and external circumstances. indeed, hussein's will to survive has been and will remain the central organizing principle of his statecraft. throughout hussein's reign, there have been several constant factors: hussein's identity as a conservatively inclined, hereditary hashemite monarch; a regular leavening of this essentially elitist posture with periodic populist appeals, especially towards the large palestinian population of jordan; jordan's weak economic base and its social, geographic and military precariousness; a concomitant need for foreign patronage; and hussein's personality, which over the years has changed remarkably little. the first major challenge that hussein faced in the mid-1950s was the wave of pan-arab nationalism inspired and led by egypt's gamal abdul nasser. hussein responded to nasserism first by swimming with the tide and then making a tacit alliance with the anti-nasserist muslim brothers and discreetly winning american patronage with promises to resist "communist" influence. a key pillar of his survival from the mid1950s to the 1967 war with israel was his loyal army and security forces, an abiding presence in jordan, seldom used apart for times of crisis when they were deployed ruthlessly. contrary to popular wisdom, hussein ' s decision to participate in the 1967 war was, under the circumstances, a reasonable course for him to follow. he had long been suspect as a traitor to arabism, an image that would have been reinforced had he stayed on the sidelines, and he never had reason to fear a direct israeli attack against the east bank core of his kingdom. afterwards, the chief threat to his survival came from the palestinian nationalist organizations, which hussein first tried to appease but then was forced to oppose with the full weight of his army in september 1970. from 1971 to 1988, hussein enjoyed relative calm. that period was marked by a strategic understanding with the u.s. and israel and by largescale financial aid from the oil-rich gulf states. by the outbreak of the yildirim, k., development and survival strategies, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 99 intifada in late 1987, arab aid had dried up and many israelis had begun to raise the slogan of "jordan is palestine." internally, the intifada coincided with an upsurge of islamic fundamentalism within jordan. hussein attempted to save himself from these dilemmas by announcing an administrative disengagement for the territories in july of 1988. at home, he allowed limited democratization that allowed some fundamentalists into the political system, giving them a stake in the status quo. the 1980s also witnessed the development of deep and wide-ranging ties with iraq, conditioned in part by the king's longstanding fear of iran and, especially, syria. given those ties and the great popularity that saddam hussein's invasion of kuwait enjoyed among the jordanian people, hussein felt he had no choice but to publicly side with saddam. yet throughout the crisis, hussein tried to maintain a role as sympathetic mediator, identifying more with the people of iraq than with its government. he genuinely tried to give no more offense to the antisaddam forces than was absolutely necessary. in the end, this proved a wise strategy. the west has forgiven and almost forgotten. hussein's politics are essentially passive: whosoever poses in his judgment the danger of the moment determines his reaction. his one guiding principle is survival. other goals, such as economic development, expansion, or dynastic ambition are subordinate to this. this makes him a dubious partner for undertakings requiring political courage or innovation. the essentials of his survival strategy on the whole are: − today's perils must be looked at today, while tomorrow's may be looked after tomorrow. − it is important to be popular and bad to be hated. − powerful allies are a necessity, but one must keep all options open. − syria is a perennial object of suspicion and fear, while israel must be made to feel secure along its jordanian frontier. no breakthroughs with israel should be made to seem imminent. − direct and efficient control of the army is the ultimate fundament of survival. position of women in the business ssector of turkey the status of women in turkey is different from what it is in your home country. not "better," not "worse," but different. in some ways, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 100 women may seem subservient to men; but turkey had a female supreme court justice long before the usa did, and turkey has had a female head of government, something the usa, for all its success in women's liberation, has not yet had; thus each gender seems to be more or less sovereign within its appropriate realm. the husband-father is head of the household, but the wife-mother mainly appears to be in charge of the house and family. men goes out of the house to deal with the world of business, government and military; women stays close to home and tends the crops, the animals and the household. the illiteracy rate among turkish women, according to kagider, the women entrepreneurs’ association which helps start-ups and campaigns against violence against women, is 20%, compared with less than 5% for men; generally, girls leave school 18 months earlier than boys and the courts, prodded by the erdogan government, have stepped up prosecutions of families refusing to send their daughters to school. women 52% of the 70 million population earn 40% less than men and provide just a quarter of the registered labour force, while 42% of them work unpaid for their families mainly in the fields. they hold just 4% of seats in the ankara parliament, 0.4% of local council seats and there is just one woman minister in the islamist akp-led government, “and she fought a court case with the biggest women’s ngo”, scoffs umit nazli boyner, chief financial officer of the boyner holding, which owns turkey’s biggest non-food retailer. mustafa kemal had declared openly women and men are equal there would be no difference between men and women .moreover he had promised turksih women would be free and enjoy education and occupy a position equal to that of men, since they were entitled to equality. he therefore tried to break the traditional norms and overcome the the prejudices of male dominated institutions, including religion many states in the middle east could be characterised as patriarchal ,authoritarian states during the transition to and thorugh modernity some of them had been sympathetic to the idea of woman’s emancipation and empowerment, like turkey and the kemalist reforms in the 30’s jordanian women in business enjoy reforms of their king whatsoever rights were granted for them and turkish women also enjoy rights granted by kemal ataturk of their founder of the republic it looks they both need to struggle a lot to shape themselves for an equal non dominant world. yildirim, k., development and survival strategies, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 101 turkey's top business group tusiad, which was set up in 1970, weighs in not only on economic matters, but in politics as well, issuing critical and often influential statements on questions ranging from the kurdish conflict to turkey’s ties with the eu.women in major urban areas are emancipated to the point that they hold traditionally male-dominated jobs such as football referees or fighter pilots but many in rural or conservative communities are still in the grip of die-hard patriarchal traditions. turkey, a muslim-majority but secular country, is under pressure to improve women's rights as part of its struggling bid to join the eu. many of the non-turk peoples located in the arab, kurdish areas of the country, mostly in the south east, are not given the special group privileges given to the recognized 3 minority groups. the turkish people do not include ethnicities other then the main turkish population and the country’s considered minorities in their census. today, internal strife’s among secularists and islamic traditionalists invade the states political affairs. the military, which has intervened 3 times within the last generation claims the next president must be a follower of the established secular order. many fear that this might affect turkey’s acceptance into the european union. through it all, turkey has been a great example of how secularism and islam can work in an area dominated by tradition, and religion. so we could argue thus how could women improve her status under such circumstances while she is not free in fact, women's participation in the urban labour force is low. once women come from the rural ares to the cities, they prefer to become housewives because they are unskilled, and so would get only very lowpaying jobs. second, there is a tradition and ideology of being a housewife. not many men want their wives to work. what kind of right or freedom does a woman have to select her partner? does the famwily play a role or pressure her? are there many love marriages? sort of in-between. in the rural areas, there are more arranged marriages. but many younger women from villages want to marry into urban areas. usually, among the non-kurdish girls, the parents get the consent of the girls. now the practice of bride pric e is decreasing and becoming symbolic. however, in the kurdish areas, the bride prices is still an important revenue for the girl's family. this is the reverse of dowry... yes, the father will get money for marrying off his daughter. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 102 how much would the price be for a farmer having medium land holding in a kurdish rural area? something like $2,000. what about polygamy? is it allowed in turkey? polygamy is legally not allowed. but it happens, like everywhere else... yes, but it is not very common. about 12 per cent of the marriages are only muslim marriages, which are not legally valid. a civil marriage is the legal marriage. so does that mean that the 12 per cent who go in for muslim marriages, can keep more than one wife? no, that is not legal. but we are suspecting that among this 12 per cent, there is more potential for polygamy. so, legally, the second wife is a mistress... yes. and the child will not enjoy inheritance rights? the child will enjoy inheritance rights, if the father says it is his. but the second wife does not have this right. how does divorce work? is the triple talaq concept valid? no. divorce is a totally legal process. it is easy with both sides having equal rights to divorce and both sides can have `no fault' divorce. on grounds of incompatibility... yes. but we have very few divorces in turkey. hardly 2 per cent. and the woman can get divorce easily... yes. but the problem now is that you have no money so what do you do with divorce? what about alimony? she can get it but it is meagre. now they are trying to introduce a new civil code, where a divorced woman will get half the property. it is under discussion in parliament. what about the representation of women in politics? very little. we have hardly four per cent women in politics. and women ministers? none at the moment. that is a shame. yildirim, k., development and survival strategies, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 103 we had, once upon a time... in fact, we also had a woman prime minister. the main problem is that women themselves do not want to get into politics because they feel they cannot compete with men in terms of time and money. and men do not want women in po litics. feminist organisations in turkey have tried, though unsuccessfully, to have a quota for women. how strong is the women's movement in turkey? it was very strong until a few years ago. then why and how did it become diluted? in conclusion the majority of women are not interested in the feminist movement as they did not have the means to address a wider public. also, they did not want to make it more radical because that would alienate the masses even more. so they w ere caught between two things. it is an internal crisis. conclusion appointing women to public office may be a good way to set a model in jordan it looks that "jordanian women are taking positions of authority, they can do it and there is nothing wrong with it." although this is just one of many reforms king abdullah is initiating, critics say a number still concentrate power in the hands of the king and do not go far enough. another problem is they have not caught on at the grassroots level. turkish women are not as alone on the road to female independence. turkish women typically have a close knit family structure and a greater closeness among their friends and neighbors. however, "men generally dont’t like to be ruled and managed by women" turkish working woman is able to overcome much more easily the "many daily small or large challenges that a european woman faces mostly alone." on the other hand, women in turkey are fearful of becoming an iranian example. and in the end, they fear in unison of going down the "slippery slope," of which there is no return. "socalled modern kemalist turkish women generally tend to fight tooth and nail not to lose their basic freedoms and liberties they have enjoyed all their lives." education and financial independence are of top priority along the road to women being able to assert what is written as their rights in the turkish system but most journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 104 of the women are not well trained. there are three groups in the hub of turkish islamic women. one group consisting of migrants who move to larger cities and have difficulty assimilating. therefore, by hanging onto the hope that utopic islamic times could be replicated, then those women who are highly educated and are disgusted by the moral corruption of what they see as the western societies and ruling elite. they also consider women to be promiscuous and lacking family values. those in this group isolate themselves with islam. and then the third is of women wanting to fit into the modern lifestyle, but cannot for one reason or another and "in total humiliation" turn to islam. efforts by islamist parties to deprive women of their rights to vote, to education and to other civil rights are real, the dangers posed to modernity and what it has done for women by fundamentalist islam are real, and they are most frightening for muslim women." in short i believe one of the main problems facing the islamic world today stems from the unchallenged authority of a few men believing they know the absolute truth." so the women can not develop herself while man believes his own truth . reference the washington institute for near east policy-king hussein's strategy of survival 2008 zoraida portillo migration of women is a survival strategy-what factors attract foreign direct investment? culture, leadership, and power: the keys to organizational change includes... globalisation and the development of underdevelopment of the third world guler sabanci in german press pres release 17 feb 2008 handelsblatt: “most successful woman in turkish economy of today” analysts’ view: “she is the very right person” fadime coban the 30 most powerfull women in the turkish business community arturo escobar: encountering development: the making and unmaking of the third world, princeton university press 1995. gilbert rist, the history of development: from western origins to global faith, expanded edition, london: zed books, 2003. wolfgang sachs -the development dictionary: a guide to knowledge as power, ed. london: zed books, 1992. mohandas gandhi: hind swaraj (1909) ivan illich: tools for conviviality (1973) henry thoreau: walden (1854) [post-development reader] (zed books, ed.majid rahnema, 1997). yildirim, k., development and survival strategies, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 88-105) 105 helena smith –the 30 most powerful women in the turkish business the observer, sunday september 17, 2006 article history received: march 2009 article history: accepted: july 2009 14_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.32; 005.336.1:159.944.4-055.2 jel: l26, d54, j2 cobiss.sr-id: 211195404 scientific review women in business environment: types of stress women are exposed radović-marković mirjana1 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t time management is a skill that all people, regardless of age, gender and job, can benefit from. this article is aimed at studying the causes and effects of stress and how to manage stress effectively with a focus on women. first, a study was done to examine the causes why stress occurs and the potential consequences of stress. this is followed by a search on methods to manage stress by managing a work-life balance and by effective time-management. the desire to succeed does make people prone to accepting stress as a part of life and career, but, the long term effects of stress are quite unpleasant. in addition ,our study showed that men and women react to stress in totally different ways. the method used for this study was a study of the existing literature and its interpretation in the present context. key words: women, entrepreneur, stress, time-management, success, conflict, work-life balance „to manage time means to control time and work, instead of allowing time to control us“ (schiffman & greist-bousquet, 1992) 1 full professor, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia, mradovic@gmail.com 38 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 37-47) introduction stress and fatigue undermine almost every aspect of an individual’s capability, whether, it is in decisionmaking, alertness or ability to solve problems, either personal or work related. the entrepreneurial context is known as stressful because initiating and running one's own business which requires significant risk taking .in line with this, entrepreneurs face the possibility of loss of these assets as well as the vagaries of the marketplace (buttner, 1992). it is a fact that business competition is becoming more and more intense. increased free trade, outsourcing of jobs, recession etc., have lead to difficult and stressful times in almost all industries. and unfortunately, it is the quality of life of the employees that is sacrificed the most to meet the demands of the economy. it has become a norm for the employees to work longer hours, longer days and longer weeks and the outcome is constant fatigue among the employees. organizations and employees, both are under constant pressure to increase income while keeping costs in check. the goal is to do things better and faster at a lower cost, these constraints do cause a quite a significant stress to the employees. the results are higher performance, increased salaries, faster growth and higher profits. but, there are abundant negative effects as well, like, burnout, turnover, aggression, depression, broken families and other unpleasant side effects of stress at work. some experts even maintatin that there is no need for women to compete with men in certain typically male jobs, such as managerial or entrepreneurial jobs, and thus be alienated from their nature-endowed instictive roots (radovic markovic, 1998). in their attempt to depart from the “kitchen“ environment and go out and work and earn for their family, which is in a large number of communities considered to be an urgent need, women most often do not reduce their family obligations in favour of business ones, but only multiply them (radovic markovic, 1998). work related stress has become a common phenomenon of modern lifestyle. however, men and women react to stress in totally different ways.irrespective of the profession a person is in, he/she feels a certain amount of stress and the professional stress faced by the individuals affects their physical health and ultimately the health of the organizations. in line with this, many countries spend large funds to alleviate stress effects (a large amount of research conducted in the usa has shown that usa $ 5070 billion are lost annually due to stress induced illnesses) (radović radović-marković, m., types of stress, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 37-47) 39 marković, 2012). it is our opinion that the society should pay more attention to identification and an efficiant ellimination of stress causes, rather than to alleviating their effects, which frequently prove to be “difficult to cure“ and cost considerably more, both financially and in any other senses. theoretical overview we live in a rapidly changing world where uncertainty dominates employment and social interaction. moreover, we have gone through a period of unprecedented greed and speculation resulting in a dog-eat-dog competition where more powerful companies are constantly eating up smaller and weaker competitors (krumov, et. al. 2011). in addition, research suggests that role conflict, job versus non-job conflict, role overload and concern for quality will be negatively related to entrepreneurs' work satisfaction (buttner, 1992). time management is the act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness and efficiency .it requires planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on activities. it is designed to increase efficiency and to maximize the benefit obtained from a set of activities. stress management refers to the wide spectrum of techniques and therapies aimed at controlling a person’s stress, usually for the purpose of improving everyday functioning. many times, it is poor time management, either at work or at home with everyday activities that cause many people’s stress. when people can improve their time management skills, they can then lower the amount of stress in their life and be able to better manage it. there are a number of causes for stress. the main stressors that are responsible for causing stress among people running after success are the demands of their profession, lack of security and overload of work. those who are “stressed for success“ are subject to role conflict and role ambiguity. leadership styles and personalities also contribute to stress among people who are constantly stressed for success (moorhead and griffin, 2009). the signs of stress are quite varied like its causes, it could be physical, emotional, mental, and social/behavioral are physical symptoms. physical symptoms of stress appear as headaches, muscle soreness, shortness of breath, fatigue and exhaustion, sleep disturbance etc. emotional symptoms of stress include low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, emotional outbursts, while mental symptoms of stress include poor concentration, negative atti40 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 37-47) tude, procrastination, indecisiveness, lack of interest etc. there are many additional sources of stress derived from the workplace itself. in this context, satisfaction with the conditions of employment is an important factor not only for the well-being of the individual worker, but indeed to the efficient functioning of the workplace (krumov, et. al. 2011). in comparative studies between entrepreneurs and employees, entrepreneurs are found have greater commitment (felfe & al., 2008). nature of stress stress has traditionally been thought of as a simple problem. in reality, however, stress is a complex phenomenon and often misunderstood (de frank and ivancevich, 1998). stress can be defined as a person’s adaptive response to a stimulus that places excessive psychological or physical demands on him or her (moorhead and griffin, 2009). stress affects different people in different ways; it depends upon their personalities. the two types of personalities have been observed and studied by social scientists and given the names type a and type b personalities (lifepositive, 2014). type a people are extremely competitive and are highly committed to work and have strong sense of urgency. while the type b people are less competitive, less committed to work and have a weaker sense of time urgency. research has shown that type a personalities are not necessarily more successful than type b people (moorhead and griffin, 2009). hence, it can be implied that being in stressful situations does not necessarily lead to more success. another important individual difference between individuals that determines their stress levels are hardiness and optimism. hardiness is a person’s ability to cope with stress and people with hardy personalities tend to manage stress better than people with low hardiness (moorhead and griffin, 2009). optimism is another personality difference between individual that lets people handle stress differently. business people with more optimism or positive outlook tend to handle stress a lot better than people with pessimism or negative outlook (moorhead and griffin, 2009). in addition, the person has organized herselfor or himself well, he/she should help others – collaborators, bosses and colleagues to get well organized themselves. it is necessary that they be trained to function much more efficiently, with as small a waste of time as possible, without unnecessary breaks and work interruptions (radović-marković, 2012). radović-marković, m., types of stress, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 37-47) 41 workplace stress stress is the objective conditions of work, any requirement that pushes the worker beyond his ability to cope (krumov, et. al. 2011) .job stress can be caused by a complex set of reasons. some of the most visible causes of workplace stress are job insecurity, high demand for performance, technology challenges, and culture at workplace, role ambiguity and role conflict (lifepositive, 2014). economic instabilities, downturns, recessions are forcing organizations to reorganize their structures and as a result employees may be threatened with job losses. unrealistic expectations from the employees, especially during restructuring of organizations put unhealthy and unreasonable demands on the employees at every level, from ceo to a mere executive. the increasing use of technology across the organization sometimes poses challenges for the older generation of employees or those who are not very technology friendly. workers working with heavy machinery face the stress associated with being alert all the time. often employees are stressed because they have to keep pace with constantly changing technological breakthroughs and improvisations, forcing employees to upgrade their skills all the time or face the danger of being obsolete at their workplace. workplace culture can sometimes cause immense stress to employees, if they cannot adjust themselves to the culture (lifepositive, 2014). one of the leading causes of stress is the inability of individuals to meet the demands of family responsibilities simultaneously with work and career demands (moorhead and griffin, 2009). demands from both sides can be extreme and one of the methods of effectively handling the stress caused by work-life conflict is to recognize the possible trade-offs and be prepared to make these tradeoffs. some of the strategies for handling work-life stress could be working for companies that allow flexible working hours, have the option of working from a remote location. furthemore, by creating a positive working environment and by increasing the level of satisfaction among employees, the best basis for realization of well set working tasks in an efficient and adequate way will be enabled. are women stressed more than men in the workplace and business environment? woman, no less than man, aspires to achieve the ultimate, both from the point of view of needs and from the point of view of value. in many communities, however, these needs are not duly understood and recognized. 42 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 37-47) instead, women tend to be ruled by long established patterns of life and behaviour (radović-marković, 2012). emotional responses to stress often divide along gender lines, with men more likely to have a "fight or flight" reaction while women are more likely to have a "tend and befriend" response (weber and shellenbarger, 2013). a new survey by the american psychological association (2013), found that "one-third of employees experience chronic stress related to work" and that work stress is especially acute in women. according to the american psychological association, which surveyed 1,501 employed adults, women are more likely to report that they feel tense during work (37 percent of women versus 33 percent of men) and less likely to feel there are enough opportunities for internal career advancement (35 percent of women versus 43 percent of men). women are also less likely to report feeling valued by their employer than men (48 percent of women versus 54 percent of men). women report higher levels of work stress than men, as well as a gnawing sense that they are underappreciated and underpaid (weber and shellenbarger, 2013). the recent study, conducted by researcher cook (2014) showed that lack of sleep may be a major issue for entrepreneurs and managers of over-stressed employees. in additon, low salaries, lack of opportunity for advancement can trigger work stress. women managers in male-dominated fields sometimes find the stress of juggling family responsibilities intolerable (weber and shellenbarger, 2013). namely, a large burden of obligation and need to be successful in more than one segments of life and to step out of traditionally assigned roles reduces their resistance to stress (radović-marković, 2012). types of stress women are most frequently eexposed to in business environment using technology initiates a new and dynamic work environment characterized by multiple employers at the same time in different locations, leading to phenomenal change in the scope for entry of women in the field of entrepreneurship. such new work environment entails stressful opportunities with uncertain outcomes. demands at work act as a major source of stress arising from multiple roles of women entrepreneurs. there are a large number of stressogenous factors arising from the business environment. they may include (radović-marković, 2012): − too much or too little work; radović-marković, m., types of stress, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 37-47) 43 − complexity of work goes beyond personal abilities, qualities, knowledge and work experience; − changes in business policy; − lack of clear business goals; − increased responsibility for the employees, financial assets or equipment; − lack of business certainty; − lack of opportunities for promotion in their job and being assigned tasks below their education level or work potentials; − lack of relevant information, support and councelling from other employees; − inadequate reward for the work performed and lower wages in comparison with men for the same type of jobs; − lack of clear plan for job promotion; − pressure from the bosses or seniors in the organization; − poor organization of work and chronic lack of time to complete all business tasks; − insufficient work space; − noise and other. according to research (radović-marković, 2012), the impact of one or a number of factors may result into disturbances such as lack of concentration, chronic tiredness, incompetence in decision-making, loss of selfconfidence, change in habits and in daily business activities etc. certain cases of highly intensive stress may result in chronic health problems and even grave diseases. women under stress may be more likely to turn to foods with higher fat and sugar content than men, as one possible explanation for the results. how does stress management have an impact on the worker’s sense of well-being? work stress has an impact on the worker’s sense of well-being and negative moods (krumov, et al. 2011).the first step towards stress management is recognizing stress. stress can build up gradually and the person under stress may not be aware of it till stress reaches critical levels. although, stress may not be eliminated completely, it can be managed to keep 44 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 37-47) it at healthy levels and prevent distress. the key steps in managing stress include identifying the cause of stress (external, relational, internal) (fig.1). figure 1: stress management source: http://www.uwic.ac.uk/shss/dom/newweb/images/stress_management_concepts.gif next, the person under stress needs to identify his/her current coping reactions and try to change either his/her reactions or the factors that cause stress (stress and time mangement, 2014), many strategies for helping individuals manage stress have been proposed. exercise is one of the methods for effectively managing stress. research has shown that people who exercise regularly are less prone to stress and less likely to be depressed than people who do not exercise (moorhead and griffin, 2009). another method of managing stress is relaxation, one must sleep well and rest so as to maintain his/her energy levels (fig.1). joining yoga or meditation classes also help individuals relax and effectively manage their stress levels (lifepositive, 2014). radović-marković, m., types of stress, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 37-47) 45 coping with stress :time management time management is often recommended for coping with stress. a large amount of research worldwide deals with the problem of how to manage time in a most efficient manner (radovic markovic et. al., 2008). research has shown that if an employee manages his/her time effectively on a daily basis, a lot of stress can be eliminated or eased (moorhead and griffin, 2009). one popular and effective way of managing stress by managing time is to make a to-do-list in the morning, which lists all the tasks that the person aims to complete by the end of the day. in the next step, the person would group the tasks in three categories: critical activities that must be performed, important activities that should be performed and optional or trivial things that can be delegated or postponed. and then, one could perform the tasks depending upon the priorities assigned to each task (figure 2). this strategy has helped people to accomplish most important tasks every day and reduces stress significantly (moorhead and griffin, 2009). this practice also helps people learn the art of effective delegation while reducing stress. figure 2: time management source:http://kimbeasley.com/2013/04/26/effective-time-management-guide-entrepreneurshome-based-business/ conclusion stressed for success is a very common feature among the working population in the modern world. a competitive work culture combined with economic instability has forced organizations and individuals to aggressive46 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 37-47) ly compete against each other to be successful. but, success comes at a cost and the result is an immense amount of stress. often living in the conditions of repression the society and family imporse on them (the prevailing attitude in numerous cultures is still that the woman’s only duty is to take care about the children and the household), women become increasingly vulnerable due to the lack of opportunity to prove themselves in other domains of life and work. some experts even maintatin that there is no need for women to compete with men in certain typically male jobs, such as managerial or entrepreneurship jobs, and thus be alienated from their nature-endowed instictive roots. reference [1] american psychological association (2013). apa survey finds us employers unresponsive to employee needs. in the internet: http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/03/employee-needs.aspx [2] buttner, e. h. (1992). "entrepreneurial stress: is it hazardous to your health?" journal of managerial issues, 4(2): 223-240. [3] cook, d. (2014). women more than twice as stressed at work than men, benefitspro. in the internet: http://www.benefitspro.com/2014/04/03/women-morethan-twice-as-stressed-at-work-than-men [4] de frank, r. and ivancevich, m. (1998). “stress on the job: an executive update,” academy of management executive, 12(3): 55-65. [5] felfe, j., schmook r., schyns b. and six b. (2008). „does the form of employment make a difference? commitment of traditional, temporary, and selfemployed workers“. journal of vocational behavior, 72 (1): 81-94. [6] krumov, k., larsen, k. and hristova, p. (2011). „leadership styles and effective management of professional stress in organizations“. in organizational behaviour and culture: globalization and the changing environment of organizations, ed. radovic-markovic. [7] lifepositive (2014). stress and the workplace, http://www.lifepositive.com/mind/psychology/stress/stress-at-work.asp. [8] moorhead, g. and griffin, w. r. (2009). organizational behavior, pp. 221-240. [9] radović-marković, m. (2012), impact of globalization on organizational culture, behaviour and gender role. iap, charlotte, nc, 148 pp. [10] radovic markovic, m. et. al. (2008). the quality of managerial, entrepreneurial & leader behavior. belgrade: business school, belgrade, 158 pp. [11] radovic markovic, m. (1998). profile and profit – successful manager personality design. ums, belgrade. [12] stress and time mangement,. (2014).saint john`s university.in the internet: http://www.csbsju.edu/chp/health-promotion/health-advocates/mentalhealth/stress-and-time-management.htm radović-marković, m., types of stress, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 37-47) 47 [13] weber, l. and shellenbarger, s. (2013), office stress: his vs. hers.wall street journal. in the internet: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/sb100014241278873246786045783403322 90414820 žene u poslovnom okruženju: vrste stresa kome su one izložene a p s t r a k t upravljanje vremenom je veština koja je od koristi za sve ljude, bez obzira na njihovu starost, pol i posao kojim se bave. ovaj članak je usmeren na proučavanje nastanka i posledica stresa i kako se uspešno s njim nositi , sa posebnim osvrtom na poslovne žene. naime, prvenstveno, rad se bavi ispitivanjem uzroka stresa i njegovim potencijalnim posledicama. nakon toga razmatraju se metode za upravljanje stresom.želja za uspehom ne čini ljude sklonim da prihvataju stres delom života i karijere, ali, dugoročne posledice stresa su vrlo neugodne ,zaključuje autorka. osim toga, istraživanje je pokazalo da muškarci i žene reaguju na stres na potpuno različite načine. autorka se u svom radu koristila metodologijom zasnovanom na proučavanju postojeće literature i njenom tumačenju u ovom kontekstu. ključne reči: žene, preduzetnice, stres, upravljanje vremenom, uspeh, konflikt¸ radni i životni balans article history: received: 14 may, 2014 accepted: 31 august, 2014 doi: 10.28934/jwee19.12.pp80-86 professional paper being a female entrepreneur case study victoria burgess1 calcampus, ringe, united states of america a b s t r a c t the purpose of this study was to explain the factors which make an impact on the success of female ceos. this paper takes a broad look as to what it takes to gain substantial promotions leading to executive positions, and therefore the rise in numbers. this is then followed by an interview with the sr. vice president of sales at espn. lastly is a look at suggestions as to why there is a sudden decrease. key words: female executives, promotions, successful business women introduction according to research in 2018, the number of female executives fell by 25 percent (jones, 2018). experts say the challenges women face are bigger than their individual choices. are the challenges the usual suspects--things like not being competitive enough, failing to chase opportunities for promotion and choosing work-life balance over high-powered jobs? or are there larger forces at work that go beyond women’s personal individual choices such as biases against women in power, mothers who work, or leaders who don’t fit the mold of the people who led before them. 1 e-mail: victori.3458@gmail.com burgess, v., being a female entrepreneur, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 80-86) 81 for many years, it seemed as if the share of women at the top of corporate america would slowly increase over time. the number of women leading companies in the fortune 500 had grown to 6.4 percent in 2018 , a record high, from 2.6 percent a decade earlier.however, the number of female chief executives declined 25 percent, according to fortune’s 2018 list (jones, 2018). this paper explores what it takes to be a successful business woman followed by an actual account via an interview with mrs. sweeney-beltran. theoretical overview “although women still face “glass ceiling” and somehow fail to achieve maximum potential, there are evidences to suggest that most countries have now realized the potential contributions women make to the nations’ economic growth” (radovic-markovic, 2013, p. 2). females still own and manage significantly fewer businesses than men (achakpa and radović-marković, 2018). namely, „women didn’t obtained an equal standing to men with respect to job opportunities, wage, ownership of real estate and decision-making positions in government and the business sector” (radovic-markovic, et. al., 2010, p. 23). in line with this, in one number of studies are explored the impact of government support on small business owners’, gender, age, and race (dincer, 2018). according to different theoretical approaches, varieties of perspectives are offered through which we can expand and challenge our understanding of the women`s entrepreneurship (radovic-markovic, et.al., 2011). discussion research indicates that there were three important methods that led to the success--and increase--of business women, and therefore their rise into executive positions: recruit a sponsor within the company, strategically selfpromoter, and invest in your personal appearance.2 − sponsors (not mentors) are people who have power and influence and are willing to use their position to advocate on your behalf. in other words, they are “in the room where it happens”, and therefore can yield results in one’s advancement. when center for talent innovation asked professionals if they had a sponsor, only 13 percent of female professionals and just 8 percent of professionals of color 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 80-86) reported having a sponsor, compared to 40 percent of their nondiverse peers. lack of sponsorship is likely one of the reasons why there are so few female leader, and therefore successful business women, in the corporate world. it is suggested that if an individual doesn’t have the necessary power and influence, or is not willing to advocate on your behalf, then he or she is not your sponsor. furthermore, it is important to a woman’s success she is an excellent protégé and gives back to your sponsors when the opportunities arise. − effective self-promotion is about being proud of what you worked hard to accomplish and willingly sharing those stories with others. if people start off with a neutral or negative perception of your ability, it is your responsibility to present them with positive facts about yourself, so they can form a more accurate, positive perception of you. this is particularly important for women because you they usually have to push back against negative stereotypes often associated with your gender. − mark zuckerberg ceo of facebook may wear jeans and a t-shirt to work, but you don't see sheryl sandberg coo of facebook, dressing that way. emulate the level of professional appearance of your organization's leaders to the extent that your budget will allow. looking the part is an important component of rising through the ranks. besides working hard each and every day it is important for women, as suggested, to also focus on some on these matters as well. however, these are some areas that often get overlooked as per the research, and therefore put women at a disadvantage in being more strategic regarding their upward mobility and their success. instead of being strategic they become more reactive in their career. i took these three suggestions and posed questions to the mrs. sweeney-beltran, sr. vice president of espn’s sales department. she was on a business trip so the telephone interview was not very long. the time she gave me i truly appreciate. her first name will not be used as requested. first a little background about her upward mobility. mrs. sweeneybeltran first started out as a junior research analyst in the local advertising department at nbc; after a year, she was promoted to senior research analyst. out of shear boredom (her exact words) with the tedious job of data analysis and servicing the salespeople, she became curious about sales and burgess, v., being a female entrepreneur, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 80-86) 83 how to enter that field. she learned of an opening in the local advertising sales department at chicago for the abc network. she applied, got the job and moved from new york. then she learned of a sales position that opened at espn, which at that time, was owned by abc. her love of sports propelled her into applying for that job and she got it and moved back to new york. there she moved up to sales manager, then director and on, and on. as indicated, she is now sr. vice president of sales at this stellar network—which i have to add was (and kind of still is) a boys’ club. nonetheless, she did it. she is married with two teenage children. i told her about the research and the three methods that are suggested by other successful business women. the following was interview; she will be addressed as sb: me: so, what is your opinion about the suggested methods? do you agree with having a sponsor, self-promoting, and dressing the part? sb: if it wasn’t for ron, i would not have gotten my first sales job at abc. he literally went to bat for me to the higher ups. i’m not so sure if i actually engaged in self-promotion, but i would go into his office and discuss research data and my marketing ideas. maybe that within itself was self-promoting. at that time, he worked at nbc and later went to abc. we kept in touch and that’s how i learned about the sales position in chicago. i literally had no sales experience, but he had faith in me and “sold” the idea of hiring me to the powers that be sort to speak. he was a good salesperson. it’s funny though, i didn’t really see him as a sponsor, but i guess he was. me: so, it seems that your creativity and ideas are what help to make your transition into sales, which eventually moved you up the ladder. or was it business strategy. sb: i think it was more creativity and coming up with new concepts on marketing…and this is what ron saw. he would always compliment me on my work and saw me more as a marketer than an analyst. he told me that marketing is very important for sales; and he would always say i would be good at it. i’m not very pushy, so sometimes i would question, and even doubt, myself about being a sales person. that being said, for me, initially it was my ideas that helped more than strategy. but as i moved up i had to incorporate a business strategy more in the plan in order to increase profits—especially when i became a director espn. in my experience, the higher i moved up business strategy played a more important role…the creative ideas were left to the marketing staff and salespeople. 84 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 80-86) me: and what about dressing for success? did your personal appearance change? sw: i have a funny story. when i was a junior analyst at nbc i never got a manicure. i was young, inexperienced, and just moved to new york from boston….what did i know. there was another analyst that suggested that i get a manicure and voila! i’ve been hooked ever since. anyway, i believe that personal appearance most definitely plays a part…especially as i moved up. i’ve invested in nice suits that maintain my femininity which is important for me. i don’t want to look masculine…just professional. me: okay, so you agree with the research. it seems that you travel a lot for your job. do you mind if i ask if work-life balance difficult? sb: yes, it is. but i am very fortunate though to have a husband who has chosen to put work aside and raise the kids. it was really hard when my daughter became seriously ill. that’s when the bells and whistles went off. i had to make more time for my family. noe, because i have been at espn for 20 years, i have a lot of vacation time, personal time, etc. vacations are with the family, and i make it a point to take them with me on business trips now that they are in their late teens. they enjoy all of the sporting events that espn has to offer. you really can’t have it all and be successful at both. one of the parents has to make a sacrifice. i am very fortunate in that regard. i’ll be retiring soon though. me: thank you for your time. i’ll wrap this up by asking if you have any advice or suggestions for those looking to advance. what is a secret to success in your opinion? sb: honestly what your research suggest is spot on…and now looking back is what i did but didn’t realize it. however, and i don’t know if this is a secret but maybe it is especially for the millennials: one has to be a good communicator and writer. and this goes for any business i believe— corporate, profit, non-profit, healthcare you name it. i see this lacking very much so in this generation; technology through phones, social media, internet has put a damper on how to relate via communication—verbal and nonverbal. i teach sports marketing at fairfield university and witness the writing and communication abilities first hand. it’s kind of scary, but their abilities are lacking. in order to speak with a sponsor or self-promote one must have good communication skills. that is my advice. the interview ended at this point after my sincere appreciation for her time and honesty. burgess, v., being a female entrepreneur, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 80-86) 85 conclusion evidence via general research, and the interview, suggest that there are ways to become a successful business woman in the corporate world in america. however, remember what was mentioned in the opening paragraph as well: that of late there is a decrease in the number of female executives. why is this so? in the united states alone, women statistically get more college and graduate degrees than men representing nearly half of the workforce. and yet, although women represent a substantial force in today’s economy, the business world still curtails their upward mobility. it is therefore suggested that although women play by the rules in the business world with the impression that if they work hard, are diligent and committed, their skills and abilities would be recognized and rewarded, most women get discouraged after a while and give up the dream top executive job. for example, one study found that at first female employees enter the workforce with confidence, as 43% are determined to climb the corporate ladder and get a top management position. but, after a couple of years, morale drops by 60%, with just 16% of women still believing they can make it to the top (boyd,2015). furthermore, additional research suggests that as the foreseeable dream executive fades away, at the same time most women start considering other life goals. one study indicated that compared to men, women have more life goals that make achieving high-power positions at work seem less desirable. therefore, women may not assume high-level positions in organizations — at least in part — because they desire other things as well: the importance of taking care of their family. i would like to add that “family” for these females does not only include their children, but their aging parents as well. remember what mrs. sweeney-beltran said in the above interview, “you really can’t have it all and be successful at both”. she almost paid the price and lost her daughter. she will be one of the successful business woman who will be soon drop out of this successful world, via early retirement, to be successful for her family. references [1] achakpa, p. and radović-marković, m. 2018. employment women through entrepreneurship development and education in developing coun86 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 80-86) tries, journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, 2018, no. 1-2, 17-30. [2] boyd, b. 2015. the pros and cons of promotions for women leaders, multibriefs: exclusive. http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/the-pros-andcons-of-promotions-for-women-leaders/business-management-services-riskmanagement. accessed november 10, 2018. [3] dincer, k. h. 2018. how does state and local government support affect entrepreneurs’ gender, age and race? journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, 2018, no. 1-2, 1-16. [4] jones, s. 2018. three unwritten rules of the corporate world that women need to know. women entrepeneur. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/322014. accessed november 9, 2018 [5] radović-marković, m. 2013. female entrepreneurship: theoretical approaches, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 2013, no. 1-2, 1-9. [6] radović-marković, m., et al. 2010. female employment, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 2010, no. 3-4, 18-27. [7] radović-marković, m. 2011. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 2011, no. 1-2, 77-88. [8] the advantages of a female ceo in today’s business climate. money, inc. https://moneyinc.com/the-advantages-of-a-female-ceo/. accessed november 10, 2018. article history: received: 17 april, 2019 accepted: 18 may, 2019 publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade associate editors aidin salamzadeh, faculty of entrepreneurship, university of teheran, iran hiroko kawamorita kesim, ondokuz mayis university, turkey editorial office journal secretaries dejana pavlović, ma elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by donat graf, beograd jelena petrović0f snežana radukić1f introduction literature review methodology data – analysis of economic growth and entrepreneurial activity in republic of serbia results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references milica slijepčević2f karolina perčić3f creating fashion creative process in fashion creation the process of fashion diffusion, creation of identity and fashion product image life cycle of a fashion product fashion, style, hit fashion product pricing cost-based pricing market-based pricing promoting a fashion product fashion magazines fashion blogs conclusion olabisi, s. yusuff4f introduction brief empirical literature patterns of land ownership in developing countries conceptual framework interpretation study areas data presentation and analysis challenges of women in accessing land in ado-odo community women’s perception on improvement of patterns of ownership of land recommendation references daniela petríková5f tatiana varadyová6f introduction objectives the concept of financial literacy financial literacy components financial education financial literacy and financial education in slovakia methodology results practical implementation of the inclusion of financial literacy in the teaching process discussion conclusion ann terngu makar vandefan7f introduction literature review /conceptual frame work financial support for women as entrepreneurs discussion conclusion references victoria burgess8f introduction theoretical overview discussion conclusion references an analysis of the development of entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia with a special focus on female entrepreneurship fashion product development process with reference to women's participation local government in ogun state, nigeria preparation of future teachers at vocational secondary schools and financial literacy assessing institutional founding sources and challenges facing women entrepreneurs in nigeria being a female entrepreneur case study 16_jwe_1-2 udk: 005.336.5:004(73) 005.32:331.4 jel: l26, o33 cobiss.sr-id: 222331148 original scientific paper the impact of technology use on entrepreneurial activity and owner composition kaya halil dincer1 northeastern state university, broken arrow, oklahoma, united states a b s t r a c t in this study, we examine the impact of each u.s. state’s score in technology use on the entrepreneurial activity in that state. we specifically focus on each state’s score on internet startup process, internet tax payment process, and internet licensing process to see how they impact the entrepreneurial activity in each state. we also examine whether the characteristics of small businesses and entrepreneurs differ across high technology use and low technology use states. our results show that there is no statistically significant difference in terms of total entrepreneurial activity between states with technology scores and low technology scores. however, our results confirm that small businesses and entrepreneurs with certain characteristics prefer high technology use states. we find that new startups, entrepreneurs that are independent in the political scale and community college graduates tend to prefer states with high internet startup scores and high internet tax scores. female entrepreneurs also tend to prefer states with high internet startup scores. finally, we find that single employee firms, entrepreneurs with previous entrepreneurial experience, entrepreneurs that are liberal in the political scale and technical college graduates tend to prefer states with high internet licensing scores. 1 northeastern state university, broken arrow, ok 74014, united states, kaya@nsuok.edu 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) key words: entrepreneurship, small business, technology, entrepreneurial activity, owner characteristics introduction in this study, we examine two issues: first, we examine the impact of technology use on entrepreneurial activity. we focus on the use of the internet in three different startup-related activities: we look at the internet use during the startup, the tax payment, and the licensing processes for new businesses. our objective is to see how the use of this technology affects the entrepreneurial activity in the u.s. states. our second objective is to see how the internet use in these processes affect the firm and the owner compositions. we test to see whether the characteristics of small businesses and entrepreneurs differ across high technology use and low technology use u.s. states. the results here will hopefully guide the state officials to improve the startup, the tax payment, and the licensing processes in their states. knowing whether the use of this technology helps their state’s entrepreneurial environment will help them in improving their state’s systems. also knowing what type of firms or owners are attracted to their state due to the ease that comes with the online format will help. the policy makers will also see which groups are discouraged due to all of these processes being online. we focus on small business owners’ perceptions on the internet use during the startup, the tax payment, and the licensing processes. for this purpose, we use the “united states small business friendliness survey” done by kauffman foundation and thumptack.com in 2013. the survey asks small business owners several questions including their opinions on their state’s tech friendliness during these processes. it also asks respondents questions on the type of business (i.e. the age of the firm, the number of employees, etc.) as well as on the owner characteristics (i.e. gender, race, age, previous entrepreneurial experience, political view, educational level, etc.). the paper proceeds as follows: section 2 discusses the previous literature. section 3 describes the data and the methodology. section 4 shows the empirical results. section 5 concludes. kaya, h.d., the impact of technology use, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) 41 literature review since the use of technology during the business startup, the tax payment, and the licensing processes makes the whole process easier, we expect more entrepreneurial activity in high tech states when compared to the other states. the use of technology reduces some of the burden on the entrepreneurs who struggle with many rules and regulations. since technology use helps with the burden associated with rules and regulations, here in this section, we are examining the papers that focus on the strictness of rules and regulations and how it impacts entrepreneurial activity. there is an extensive literature on the impact of rules and regulations on entrepreneurial activity. these papers have shown that there is a negative relation between the degree of rules and regulations in a country and the entrepreneurial activity. for example, zoltan j. acs, pontus braunerhjelm, david b. audretsch, and bo carlsson (2009) examine factors such as risk aversion, legal restrictions, bureaucratic constraints, labor market rigidities, taxes, and lack of social acceptance. they show that entrepreneurial activities decrease under greater regulation, administrative burden and market intervention by government. ruta aidis, saul estrin, and tomasz mickiewicz (2008 suggest that russia's institutional environment explains its relatively low levels of entrepreneurship development. ruta aidis, friederike welter, david smallbone, and nina isakova (2007) focus on the impact of the formal institutions such as rules and regulations on female business development. they also look at the impact of the informal institutions such as gendered norms and values on female business startups. they show that although rules and regulations may permit women to start their own businesses, gendered norms and values restrict women’s activities and their access to resources. zoltan j. acs and laszlo szerb (2007) find that middle-income countries should focus on improving technology availability, increasing human capital, and promoting enterprise development. for developed economies, reducing entry regulations, in most cases, will not result in more high-potential startups. in these countries, they argue that, labor market reform and deregulation of financial markets may be needed. lee branstetter, francisco lima, lowell j. taylor, and ana venâncio (2014) examine portugal, hich implemented one of the most dramatic and thorough policies of entry deregulation in the industrialized world. their results indicate that the reform resulted in increased firm formation and 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) employment, but mostly among "marginal firms" that would have been most readily deterred by existing heavy entry regulations. these marginal firms were typically small, owned by relatively poorly-educated entrepreneurs, operating in the low-tech sector (agriculture, construction, and retail trade). the authors argue that these firms were also less likely to survive their first two years than comparable firms that entered prior to the reform. aristidis bitzenis and ersanja nito (2005) show that the most important obstacles faced by entrepreneurs in albania include unfair competition, changes in taxation procedures, lack of financial resources and problems related to public order. axel dreher and martin gassebner (2013) show that the existence of a larger number of procedures required to start a business, as well as larger minimum capital requirements are detrimental to entrepreneurship. miguel garcía-posada and juan s. mora-sanguinetti (2015) find that higher judicial efficacy increases the entry rate of firms, while it has no effect on the exit rate. william b. gartner and scott a. shane (1995) argue that changes in values, attitudes, technology, government regulations, and world economic and social changes have a significant influence on changes in entrepreneurship over time. ejaz ghani, william r. kerr, and stephen o'connell (2014) examine the spatial determinants of entrepreneurship in india. they find that local education levels and physical infrastructure quality play the most important roles in promoting entry. they also find evidence that strict labor regulations discourage entrepreneurship, and better household banking environments are associated with higher entry in the unorganized sector. leora klapper, luc laeven, and raghuram rajan (2006) examine the effect of market entry regulations on the creation of new limited-liability firms, the average size of entrants, and the growth of incumbent firms. they find that costly regulations hamper the creation of new firms, especially in industries that should naturally have high entry. tatiana s. manolova, rangamohan v. eunni, and bojidar s. gyoshev (2008) argue that comparisons of the overall institutional framework across countries should, therefore, be used as a first approximation only and interpreted with great care. khaled nawaser, seyed mohammad sadeq khaksar, fatemeh shaksian, and asghar afshar jahanshahi (2011) find that laws, the present regulations and motivational factors are the obstacles for achieving appropriate entrepreneurship development. kristina nyström (2008) shows that a smaller government sector, better legal structure and security of kaya, h.d., the impact of technology use, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) 43 property rights, as well as less regulation of credit, labor and business tend to increase entrepreneurial activity. tomi ovaska and russell s. sobel (2005) focus on entrepreneurship in post-socialist economies. they show credit availability, contract enforcement, low government corruption, sound monetary policy, high foreign direct investment, and policies (such as low regulations and taxes) that are consistent with giving citizens a high degree of economic freedom are important factors for entrepreneurial activity. simon c. parker (2007) shows two issues. first, legal structures shape organizational forms in entrepreneurship. second, legal rules and institutions carry public policy implications for entrepreneurship in at least three areas: regulation; bankruptcy legislation; and the broad area of property rights, corruption, and the efficiency of courts. he reviews the literature on each of these issues. david smallbone, friederike welter, artem voytovich, and igor egorov (2010) contend that governments play a particularly important role for entrepreneurship development in a transition context, particularly with respect to their role in creating the institutional framework that enables and/or constrains entrepreneurship. russell s. sobel, j. r. clark, and dwight r. lee (2007) argue that while entrepreneurs benefit from unrestricted free entry into markets, they have a time-inconsistent incentive to lobby for government entry restrictions once they become successful. bad political institutions yield to these demands, and growing barriers are placed on domestic and international competition. ute stephan and lorraine m. uhlaner (2010) find that opportunity existence and the quality of formal institutions support entrepreneurship. michael e. valdez and james richardson (2013) suggest that a society's normative, cultural-cognitive, and regulative institutions are related to entrepreneurial activity. normative and cultural-cognitive institutions' descriptive power in explaining entrepreneurial activity is higher than regulative institutions' or per capita gross domestic product. according to the authors, this suggests that differences in values, beliefs, and abilities may play a greater role than purely economic considerations of opportunity and transaction costs. van stel, andre, david j. storey, and a. roy thurik (2007) find the minimum capital requirement required to start a business lowers entrepreneurship rates across countries, as do laborr market regulations. friederike welter (2004) argues that an integrated strategy for fostering female entrepreneurship needs to consider that there are shortcomings in the institutional (political and societal) environment, possibly restricting 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) women’s interest in entrepreneurship and thus determining the extent of female entrepreneurship. sander wennekers and roy thurik (1999) argue that both culture and the institutional framework are important conditions codetermining the amount of entrepreneurship in an economy and the way in which entrepreneurs operate in practice. according to the authors, technological, demographic and economic forces are also important. shaker a. zahra and dennis m. garvis (2000) show that aggressive government intervention, technological changes, and fierce local rivalries all contribute to hostile international environments for u.s. firms' global expansion. the authors show that there are upper limits to the potential gains a firm achieves from its aggressive pursuit of international corporate entrepreneurship when the international environment in which it competes is hostile. data and methodology in this study, our main objective is to examine the impact of each u.s. states’ business friendliness score in technology use on the entrepreneurial activity in that state. we specifically focus on each state’s score on internet startup process, internet tax payment process, and internet licensing process to see how they impact the entrepreneurial activity in each state. we also examine whether the characteristics of small businesses and entrepreneurs differ across high technology use and low technology use states. i use the “united states small business friendliness survey” done by kauffman foundation and thumptack.com in 2013. the survey asks small business owners their opinions on their state’s internet startup process, internet tax payment process, and internet licensing process. it also asks respondents questions on the type of business (i.e. the age of the firm, the number of employees, etc.) as well as on the owner characteristics (i.e. gender, race, previous entrepreneurial experience, political view, education, etc.). in order to access the entrepreneurial activity index for each state, i use kauffman’s website (http://www.kauffman.org/multimedia/infographics/2013/kiea-interactive). all other variables are available in the survey itself. all of the variables are explained below: entreactivity: the entrepreneurial activity index for each state (from kauffman’s website) kaya, h.d., the impact of technology use, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) 45 internetstart: the percentage of respondents in a state that have used the internet to form/start the business (computed from the individual responses in each state) internettax: the percentage of respondents in a state that have used the internet to pay the taxes on business earnings (computed from the individual responses in each state) internetlicensing: the percentage of respondents in a state that have used the internet to get a license or permit to do business (computed from the individual responses in each state) ageofbuslessthanone: the percentage of small businesses in a state that are less than 1 year old (computed from the individual responses in each state) employeesone: the percentage of small businesses in a state that are single-employee businesses (computed from the individual responses in each state) previousentre: the percentage of small business owners in a state that have previous entrepreneurial experience (computed from the individual responses in each state) prevstartupsfiveormore: the percentage of small business owners in a state that have previously started five or more businesses (computed from the individual responses in each state) female: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are female (computed from the individual responses in each state) ageunderthirtyfive: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are younger than thirty-five years of age (computed from the individual responses in each state) asian: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are asian (computed from the individual responses in each state) white: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are white (computed from the individual responses in each state) black: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are black (computed from the individual responses in each state) hispanic: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are hispanic (computed from the individual responses in each state) independent: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are independent in their political view (computed from the individual responses in each state) 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) conservative: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are conservative in their political view (computed from the individual responses in each state) liberal: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are liberal in their political view (computed from the individual responses in each state) no highschool: the percentage of small business owners in a state that did not graduate from high school (computed from the individual responses in each state) highschool: the percentage of small business owners in a state that graduated from high school (computed from the individual responses in each state) community college: the percentage of small business owners in a state that graduated from a community college (computed from the individual responses in each state) technical college: the percentage of small business owners in a state that graduated from a technical college (computed from the individual responses in each state) undergrad: the percentage of small business owners in a state that has a bachelor’s degree (computed from the individual responses in each state) masters: the percentage of small business owners in a state that has a master’s degree (computed from the individual responses in each state) doctoral: the percentage of small business owners in a state that has a doctoral degree (computed from the individual responses in each state) in order to do the analyses, i run nonparametric tests that compare states with highand low-scores in each internet use category. to divide between highand lowscore states in each category, i use the mean value. the states with scores higher than the mean are classified as high-score states, and the states with scores lower than the mean are classified as lowscore states. first, i divide the 41 states in the survey into highand lowinternet start score states, using the mean internet start score (i.e. “internetstart”) among the 41 states as the dividing point. then, i compare highand low internet start score groups’ entrepreneurial activity. are they significantly different? i also compare the two groups in terms of firm and owner characteristics. then, i do the same for the internet tax score (i.e. kaya, h.d., the impact of technology use, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) 47 “internettax”). do highand low-internet tax score states differ in terms of entrepreneurial activity? do they differ in terms of firm and owner characteristics? finally, i do the same analysis for internet licensing score (i.e. internetlicensing”). do highand low-internet licensing score states differ in terms of entrepreneurial activity? do they differ in terms of firm and owner characteristics? figure 1 shows the mean entrepreneurial activity across 50 states and the district of columbia over time. 1999, 2001, 2002, and more recently 2013 are the years when the activity is low. especially from 2012 to 2013, there was a bog drop in entrepreneurial activity. fig. 1. entrepreneurial activity across 50 states and the district of columbia (means) 0.20% 0.25% 0.30% 0.35% 0.40% 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 year entrepreneurial activity index figure 2 shows the median entrepreneurial activity across 50 states and the district of columbia over time. the two figures are very similar. 2013 is again a low point in entrepreneurial activity. 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) fig. 2. entrepreneurial activity across 50 states and the district of columbia (medians) 0.20% 0.25% 0.30% 0.35% 0.40% 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 year entrepreneurial activity index table 1 shows the summary statistics for our variables. all of the variables are in percentage. table 1: summary statistics (all variables in %) variable mean median stdev min max entreactivity 0.2548 0.2471 0.0711 0.1109 0.4030 internetstart 58.21 58.62 6.39 37.50 69.11 internettax 34.54 34.78 6.71 20.83 54.51 internetlicensing 32.94 32.93 10.07 18.30 64.09 ageofbuslessthanone 6.16 6.02 2.84 0.00 11.90 employeesone 53.03 52.17 6.98 36.11 68.18 previousentre 43.84 43.33 6.78 29.49 57.14 prevstartupsfiveormore 5.45 4.76 4.54 0.00 21.43 female 37.00 36.96 5.96 21.05 52.94 ageunderthirtyfive 20.82 20.31 5.98 5.26 38.71 asian 1.67 1.12 2.73 0.00 16.67 white 80.63 81.82 11.33 53.33 100.00 black 7.36 4.84 7.72 0.00 34.71 hispanic 4.95 3.85 4.26 0.00 16.16 independent 30.52 28.85 6.62 21.05 52.63 conservative 29.37 28.39 9.65 4.35 47.37 liberal 22.68 21.14 6.60 13.33 42.86 kaya, h.d., the impact of technology use, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) 49 variable mean median stdev min max no highschool 0.66 0.00 1.06 0.00 4.35 highschool 17.18 17.09 4.73 4.76 34.09 community college 17.99 17.28 6.67 5.26 35.00 technical college 16.00 14.67 5.09 4.35 26.32 undergrad 31.51 31.58 8.11 10.00 61.70 masters 12.88 13.27 4.35 4.26 24.05 doctoral 3.79 3.64 2.59 0.00 15.79 empirical results table 2 compares the entrepreneurial activity and firm and entrepreneur characteristics across highand lowinternet start score states. panel a looks at the entrepreneurial activity index, panel b looks at firm characteristics, panel c looks at entrepreneur’s experience, gender, age, and race, panel d examines entrepreneur’s political view, and panel e looks at entrepreneur’s education level. in all panels, the last column shows the results of the mann-whitney wilcoxon test. as we can see from panel a, the internet start score does not have a statistically significant impact on the total entrepreneurial activity in a state. the median entrepreneurial activity index is 0.2452% in high-score states versus 0.2563% in low-score states (the p-value of the difference is 0.3793). we are seeing that the internet start score has a statistically significant impact on some firm and entrepreneur characteristics. in panels b, c, d, and e, when we look at the medians, we are seeing that in high-score states, a marginally higher percentage of firms tend to be a newly-founded firm (6.25% of the firms versus 5.33% of the firms; p-value=0.1021), a higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be female (38.71% versus 36.79%; pvalue=0.0605), a higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be independent in their political view (29.41% versus 27.53%; p-value=0.0974), and a higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be community college graduates (20.16% versus 15.40%; p-value=0.0622). therefore, from table 2, we conclude that although the internet start score does not have a statistically significant impact on a state’s total entrepreneurial activity, it has a significant impact on several firm and owner characteristics. 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) table 2: comparison of states with highand low-internet start scores high low mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value panel a. states' entrepreneurial activity entreactivity 0.2567 0.2452 0.2520 0.2563 0.3793 panel b. firm characteristics ageofbuslessthanone 6.51 6.25 5.62 5.33 0.1021 employeesone 53.44 51.89 52.38 52.32 0.4680 panel c. entrepreneur's experience, gender, age, race previousentre 43.67 43.80 44.11 42.34 0.4840 prevstartupsfiveormore 5.63 5.06 5.17 3.75 0.2870 female 38.40 38.71 34.82 36.79 0.0605 ageunderthirtyfive 20.99 20.00 20.55 21.43 0.2231 asian 1.86 1.19 1.39 0.69 0.3821 white 79.46 79.01 82.46 84.19 0.2312 black 7.98 5.00 6.40 4.25 0.2228 hispanic 5.34 4.03 4.35 3.66 0.2781 panel d. entrepreneur's political view independent 31.03 29.41 29.73 27.53 0.0974 conservative 30.43 32.79 27.72 27.68 0.3248 liberal 21.68 20.59 24.25 23.70 0.1714 panel e. entrepreneur's education level no highschool 0.58 0.00 0.80 0.16 0.3598 highschool 17.11 16.98 17.30 17.47 0.3393 community college 19.14 20.16 16.19 15.40 0.0622 technical college 15.95 14.67 16.06 16.41 0.4101 undergrad 30.47 30.65 33.12 31.95 0.2075 masters 13.27 13.27 12.26 13.25 0.4416 doctoral 3.48 3.64 4.27 3.76 0.3998 table 3 compares the entrepreneurial activity and firm and entrepreneur characteristics across highand lowinternet tax score states. again, panel a looks at the entrepreneurial activity index, panel b looks at firm characteristics, panel c looks at entrepreneur’s experience, gender, age, and race, panel d examines entrepreneur’s political view, and panel e looks at entrepreneur’s education level. in all panels, the last column shows the results of the mann-whitney wilcoxon test. as we can see from panel a, the internet tax score does not have a statistically significant impact on the total entrepreneurial activity in a state. kaya, h.d., the impact of technology use, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) 51 the median entrepreneurial activity index is 0.2419% in high-score states versus 0.2563% in low-score states (the p-value of the difference is 0.4322). table 3: comparison of states with highand low-internet tax scores high low mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value panel a. states' entrepreneurial activity entreactivity 0.2533 0.2419 0.2568 0.2563 0.4322 panel b. firm characteristics ageofbuslessthanone 6.83 6.67 5.31 5.27 0.0172 employeeone 53.09 51.61 52.94 53.63 0.2039 panel c. entrepreneur's experience, gender, age, race previousentre 44.55 44.90 42.94 42.33 0.1755 prevstartupsfiveormore 5.07 4.00 5.93 5.47 0.3179 female 36.87 36.84 37.17 38.68 0.3042 ageunderthirtyfive 20.71 20.31 20.95 20.17 0.4581 asian 2.09 1.61 1.14 0.61 0.1706 white 80.01 81.45 81.41 82.44 0.4117 black 7.34 5.05 7.39 4.55 0.4738 hispanic 5.04 3.85 4.84 3.84 0.3466 panel d. entrepreneur's political view independent 31.10 29.96 29.77 27.78 0.0761 conservative 29.14 28.39 29.67 31.53 0.3419 liberal 22.43 20.52 22.99 21.40 0.2642 panel e. entrepreneur's education level no highschool 0.65 0.00 0.69 0.40 0.2626 highschool 16.53 16.98 18.02 17.65 0.2002 community college 16.75 16.97 19.57 20.41 0.1013 technical college 16.02 14.29 15.96 16.80 0.4168 undergrad 32.60 31.82 30.11 29.49 0.1109 masters 13.29 13.57 12.34 12.49 0.3371 doctoral 4.17 3.64 3.30 3.67 0.4686 we are seeing that the internet tax score has a statistically significant impact on some firm and entrepreneur characteristics. in panels b, c, d, and e, when we look at the medians, we are seeing that in high-score states, a higher percentage of firms tend to be a newly-founded firm (6.67% of the firms versus 5.27% of the firms; p-value=0.0172), a higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be independent in their political view (29.96% versus 27.78%; p-value=0.0761), a marginally lower percentage of entrepreneurs 52 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) tend to be community college graduates (16.97% versus 20.41%; pvalue=0.1013), and a marginally higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to have undergraduate degrees (31.82% versus 29.49%; p-value=0.1109). therefore, from table 3, we conclude that although the internet tax score does not have a statistically significant impact on a state’s total entrepreneurial activity, it has a significant impact on several firm and owner characteristics. table 4 compares the entrepreneurial activity and firm and entrepreneur characteristics across highand lowinternet licensing score states. again, panel a looks at the entrepreneurial activity index, panel b looks at firm characteristics, panel c looks at entrepreneur’s experience, gender, age, and race, panel d examines entrepreneur’s political view, and panel e looks at entrepreneur’s education level. in all panels, the last column shows the results of the mann-whitney wilcoxon test. as we can see from panel a, the internet licensing score does not have a statistically significant impact on the total entrepreneurial activity in a state. the median entrepreneurial activity index is 0.2458% in high-score states versus 0.2471% in low-score states (the p-value of the difference is 0.4636). we are seeing that the internet licensing score has a statistically significant impact on some firm and entrepreneur characteristics. in panels b, c, d, and e, when we look at the medians, we are seeing that in highscore states, a higher percentage of firms tend to be a single-employee firm (55.00% of the firms versus 51.29% of the firms; p-value=0.0190), a higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to have previous entrepreneurial experience (45.40% versus 42.55%; p-value=0.0855), a lower percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be black (4.34% versus 5.88%; p-value=0.0700), a higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be liberal in their political view (22.20% versus 20.52%; p-value=0.0776), a higher percentage of entrepreneurs are technical college graduates (18.06% versus 13.64%; pvalue=0.0330), and a marginally lower percentage of entrepreneurs have a master’s degree (12.71% versus 14.22%; p-value=0.1126). therefore, from table 4, we conclude that although the internet licensing score does not have a statistically significant impact on a state’s total entrepreneurial activity, it has a significant impact on several firm and owner characteristics. kaya, h.d., the impact of technology use, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) 53 table 4: comparison of states with highand low-internet licensing scores high low mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value panel a. states' entrepreneurial activity entreactivity 0.2538 0.2458 0.2558 0.2471 0.4636 panel b. firm characteristics ageofbuslessthanone 6.21 6.35 6.12 5.66 0.3193 employeeone 55.03 55.00 51.12 51.29 0.0190 panel c. entrepreneur's experience, gender, age, race previousentre 45.29 45.40 42.46 42.55 0.0855 prevstartupsfiveormore 4.96 3.79 5.92 5.41 0.2444 female 37.06 36.72 36.95 36.96 0.4327 ageunderthirtyfive 21.02 20.10 20.62 21.87 0.2964 asian 2.19 1.40 1.18 0.45 0.2403 white 81.23 82.63 80.05 78.60 0.4022 black 5.03 4.34 9.58 5.88 0.0700 hispanic 4.78 3.76 5.12 4.25 0.4532 panel d. entrepreneur's political view independent 30.29 29.58 30.74 28.08 0.2488 conservative 28.30 28.52 30.39 28.39 0.2247 liberal 24.16 22.20 21.27 20.52 0.0776 panel e. entrepreneur's education level no highschool 0.76 0.20 0.58 0.00 0.3119 highschool 17.44 16.98 16.94 17.09 0.4792 community college 17.41 17.14 18.54 19.40 0.1841 technical college 17.70 18.06 14.37 13.64 0.0330 undergrad 30.82 31.34 32.16 31.58 0.4688 masters 12.28 12.71 13.44 14.22 0.1126 doctoral 3.60 3.45 3.97 3.76 0.2571 conclusion in this study, using the joint survey done by kauffman foundation and thumptack.com, we examine the impact of each u.s. states’ business friendliness score in technology use on the entrepreneurial activity in that state. we specifically focus on each state’s score on internet startup process, internet tax payment process, and internet licensing process to see how they impact the entrepreneurial activity in each state. 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) we access the entrepreneurial activity index for each state through kauffman’s website. we then calculate each state’s scores for internet startup process, internet tax payment process, internet licensing process. we do that by finding the percentage of the respondents in each state that used the internet to start their business, to pay their taxes, and to get a license or permit. we follow the same procedure to calculate each state’s average firm and owner characteristics. we then merge all the data and form our statebased database. our results show that there is no statistically significant difference between states with high technology scores and low technology scores. in other words, the states with high internet use scores in startups, tax payments, and licensing do not have significantly more entrepreneurial activity when compared to the states with low internet use scores. this finding should provide the state officials and administrators with a guiding light. the efforts to increase internet use in these areas do not seem to positively affect the overall entrepreneurial activity. however, our results confirm that small businesses and entrepreneurs with certain characteristics tend to prefer high technology use states. we find that new startups, entrepreneurs that are independent in the political scale and community college graduates tend to prefer states with high internet startup scores and high internet tax scores. female entrepreneurs also tend to prefer states with high internet startup scores. finally, we find that single employee firms, entrepreneurs with previous entrepreneurial experience, entrepreneurs that are liberal in the political scale and technical college graduates tend to prefer states with high internet licensing scores. we conclude that although the efforts to increase internet use in these areas do not seem to positively affect the overall entrepreneurial activity, these efforts would attract certain types of entrepreneurs into their states. in other words, the composition of small businesses change based on a state’s efforts in internet use. references [1] acs, zoltan j., 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"international corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance: the moderating effect of international environmental hostility." journal of business venturing, 15(5): 469-492. uticaj različitih vrsta propisa na preduzetničke aktivnosti i vrste vlasništva a p s t r a k t cilj ovog istraživanja se odnosi na utvrđivanje kako različiti propisi utiču na preduzetničke aktivnosti u sjedinjenim američkim državama. takođe je ispitivano da li karakteristike preduzeća vlasnika se razlikuju u zemljama s povoljnijim propisima u odnosu na druge države. korišćeno je istraživanje kauffman fondacije iz 2013. godine o malim firmama u sad-u. ova anketa se zasniva na mišljenju kaya, h.d., the impact of technology use, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 39-57) 57 malih privrednika o šest različitih tipova propisa, uključujući "propise zapošljavanja, rada i regrutovanje kadrova kod zapošljavanja", "poreskim propisima", "oblika licenciranja i propisima plaćanja naknade", "propisa zoniranja", "propisa zaštite zdravlja i sigurnosti na poslu" i "zakona o zaštiti okoline". provereni su rezultati nekoliko neparametrijski ispitivanja, kako bi se utvrdilo da li je došlo do još nekih preduzetničkih aktivnosti u državama sa postignutim visokim rezultatom u svakoj od ovih kategorija propisa u upoređenju sa zemljama sa niskim rezultatom. dobijeni rezultati pokazuju da su "propisi zapošljavanja, rada i regrutovanja kadrova kod zapošljavanja" imali značajan uticaj na preduzetničke aktivnosti u nekoj zemlji. "poreski propisi" su imali takođe izvestan značaj. ovi rezultati ukazuju na to da države i gradovi koji žele da unaprede svoje poslovno okruženje za male firme, posebno treba da se usredsrede na poboljšanje njihovih "propisa zapošljavanja, rada i regrutovanja kadrova kod zapošljavanja", kao i "poreskih propisa". ključne reči: preduzetništvo, mala preduzeća, propisi, preduzetnička aktivnost, karakteristike vlasnika article history: received: 20 january, 2016 accepted: 23 february, 2016 18_jwee_1-2 doi: 10.28934/jwee18.12.pp40-53 original scientific paper female students: afghanistan’s new entrepreneurs? mark pruett eagleblade llc, north carolina, usa1 harun şeşen2 european university of lefke, faculty of economics and administrative sciences, department of business administration, lefke, northern cyprus j.rajendran pandian3 virginia state university, college of business, department of management and marketing, virginia, usa greg winter4 alcorn state university, school of business, department of business administration, mississippi, usa a b s t r a c t we have conducted the first-ever study of female and male afghan university students about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education. ninety-four business students at a new 4-year university in afghanistan provided data on their intentions, entrepreneurial disposition, perceptions about the university role, and their beliefs about barriers and motives to 1 address: 94 north trade street, tryon, north carolina, usa, markpruett@hotmail.com, +1 828-719-7827, 2 address: lefke, northern cyprus, tr-10 mersin, turkey, e-mail: harunsesen@gmail.com, +90 392-660-2000, 1976 3 address: 1 hayden drive virginia state university, virginia 23806, usa, e-mail: jrpandian@vsu.edu, +1 804-524-5316, 1949 4 address: 1000 asu drive, lorman, mississippi 39096, usa, e-mail: gswinter@alcorn.edu, +1 601-877-6100, 1957 pruetti, m., et al., afghanistan’s new entrepreneurship, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 40-53) 41 entrepreneurship. we used likert-scale questions and conducted t-tests to explore difference between the female and male groups. on the one hand, we find significant differences between women and men in disposition and intentions, with women having lower levels of disposition and intentions. on the other hand, the two groups display remarkably similar views of the importance of numerous entrepreneurship motives and barriers. they also feel the same about the positive university support of their entrepreneurship interests. in other words, although young afghan women and men appear to feel different about themselves and their plans, they hold relatively similar views on the reasons for entrepreneurship, the impediments to entrepreneurship, and the potential of university education and support to foster entrepreneurship in both sexes. key words: afghanistan, students, women, culture, entrepreneurship education, intentions, motives, barriers introduction entrepreneurship research regarding women as the central or an integral topic continues to grow (radović-marković, 2013). women-oriented entrepreneurship research seems to flow from two distinct settings. the first is research on women and entrepreneurship in countries which may be further along the path of economic development (for example, hoelscher, 2012; humbert and drew, 2010; jose and orazio, 2012; katz, 2003; kickul, wilson, marlino and barbosa, 2008; kirkwood, 2009; klyver and grant, 2010; langowitz and minniti, 2007; lo, sun, and law, 2012; minniti and nardone, 2007; wu and wu, 2008, yordanova and tarrazon, 2010). the second setting is a significant and growing stream of work related to the relationship between women and entrepreneurship in less developed countries (for example, agrawal, 2017; avolio, 2012; dhaliwal, 2010; khadija, usman and mohson, 2012; robichaud, mcgraw, cachon, bolton, codina, eccius-wellmann, and walsh, 2013; sanchez and licciardello, 2012; sandhu, sidique and riaz, 2011). overview of the research setting: afghanistan many countries could be called unique, but afghanistan is a clear outlier, not only in its violent history and political instability, but in its 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 40-53) economic and geographical isolation and its cultural distinctiveness. studying the entrepreneurial attitudes of afghan students is particularly timely, since the prospects of social, political, and economic stability for the country will depend largely on the country’s youth: the country’s population is around 34 million people, but more than 60% of them are less than 25 years old (cia world factbook, 2017). physically isolated but strategically located, afghanistan evolved as a set of regions and factions subject to periodic invasion. by the 18th century it became more or less unified as a country. starting in the 1830s, great britain began on a series of wars in attempts to colonize the country. those periodic wars ended nearly 85 years later, in 1921, with the end of the third british-afghan war. from the early 1920s, afghanistan began to modernize—adopting new technologies, developing widespread education, expanding trade with foreign nations, institutionalizing governmental processes, and blending conservative islam religion with a modern, secular socio-economic system. in the twentieth century, afghanistan was influenced by its border neighbor the soviet union. the afghan system thus became increasingly communist in nature, partly through political pressure, partly through economic and technical aid. military coups in 1973 and 1978 led to decades of violence. involvement (both open and subversive) in local politics by the united states and the soviet union led to a soviet invasion, civil war, a series of short-lived governments, and the departure of roughly 5 million afghans by the mid-1990s. a conservative faction, the taliban, rose to power. they brought a semblance of peace to the country, but with an austere and brutal moral code, and a highly-developed mistrust of outsiders. in 2001, it was the united states’ turn to invade and occupy. in the seventeen years since then, the country has alternated between periods of mild stability and on-going provincial/regional/civil war. why study afghan students one of the consequences of the american occupation was enormous spending, including a portion intended to rebuild afghanistan’s educational system. the students in this survey are part of that process, since they attend a relatively new four-year university build on western educational models and processes, with administrators and faculty from a variety of countries. however, conditions are not what most educators would consider normal. for example, it is not uncommon for university faculty to live, commute, pruetti, m., et al., afghanistan’s new entrepreneurship, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 40-53) 43 dine, and shop in groups, with armed guards at home, school, and on excursions. the road from the international airport into the capital city has been called the most dangerous road in the country. students in the university generally could be called the children of the afghan elite. they come from various cities across the country, but have solid educational backgrounds, speak at least one foreign language (english), are technologically and economically literate, and largely come from prosperous families. by no means are they typical young afghans. however, even if they are not typical young afghans, they are likely to play a large role in the country’s future. previous research shows that the children of whatever socio-economic elite segment exists in a relatively poor are the people most likely to become the future economic, social, and political leaders of that country (rarick et al., 2013; rarick et al., 2014). thus, these afghan students are an especially interesting group to study, and the results of their survey are revealing. studying their views on entrepreneurship is particularly important. like many countries which are less developed economically or which are politically unstable, afghanistan has a substantial informal economy. however, that economy is fractured, poor, unstable, and subject to a violent, corrupt, and relatively incompetent government and economic system. the informal economy, although it is populated with countless skilled entrepreneurs, is unlikely to generate substantial stability or progress for the country as a whole. competent management will be needed, combined with intelligent investment, stronger regulatory frameworks and political processes, and an increasingly stable environment with opportunities and support for significant-scale entrepreneurial activity. thus, it seems important to study the beliefs of the young people who will shape that system. entrepreneurship and gender we also extend previous gender-based entrepreneurship research. previous researchers have concluded that women students often show significantly less in entrepreneurship, whether due to different motives, inherent differences, culture, learned fear, or other factors (e.g., farashah, 2013; kourilsky and walstad, 1998; robichaud et al., 2013; shay and terjensen, 2005; şeşen and pruett, 2014; wilson, marlino & kickul, 2004). in our study, the overall sample is small, as a result of the newness of the educational institution, so the number of female respondents is accordingly small as well. nonetheless, we will show some interesting observations. 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 40-53) methodology we surveyed business students at a new 4-year private university in kabul, afghanistan. due to the small size of the school, the sample consists of 94 respondents. the survey questionnaire is derived from prior literature (including genesca and veciana, 1984; pruett and şeşen, 2017; veciana, aponte & urbano, 2005). it explores students’ perspectives on university environment/curriculum, aspirations, intentions, entrepreneurial disposition, and entrepreneurship motives and barriers. the survey used likert scales and a number of categorical variables. likert scales were used to measure student perceptions about twenty barriers and sixteen motives. when conducting t-tests to assess differences in means between men and women, we used levene’s test to look for variance differences between the two groups. if we found such differences, we did not assume equal variances in the t-tests that were subsequently performed. demographics of the 94 students who completed the survey, 19 were female and 77 were male. about three-fourths were business majors, with the rest divided between other areas like computer science, political science, and liberal arts. slightly more than half were from the capital of kabul, with the rest coming from other significant cities like jalalabad and kandahar. they were distributed across the program from freshmen to seniors. results students’ entrepreneurial disposition and intentions disposition and intentions provide significant contrasts between male and female university students. the students were asked to rank themselves in terms of entrepreneurial disposition on a 7-point likert scale ranging from “not entrepreneurial at all” to “very entrepreneurial”. the self-reported disposition scores for men yielded a mean of 5.18, with s.d. 1.52. the disposition scores for women yielded a mean of 3.64, with s.d. 1.91. the difference between men and women was statistically significant (p .025). thus, women see themselves as significantly less entrepreneurial then men see themselves. pruetti, m., et al., afghanistan’s new entrepreneurship, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 40-53) 45 a similar pattern held for entrepreneurial intentions. scale answers for the entrepreneurial intentions question ranged from 1 (no, never) to 4 (yes, i have a definite plan to start my own business). the typical male response was that they had been thinking about it somewhat (mean 1.90, s.d.0.852), while the response of most female examinees was no (mean 1.00, s.d. 0.953). the difference was statistically significant (p .008). curriculum content and university stimulation as discussed above, female and male students differ significantly in their reported entrepreneurial disposition and intentions. however, they do not differ significantly in their views about the curriculum and university regarding entrepreneurship. we assessed student perceptions as to: (a) the degree to which their field of study offered information on starting their own business and (b) the degree to which the university stimulated students to start their own business. both questions were measured on a 4-point likert scale ranging from a lot/greatly to none/none at all. students felt that entrepreneurial skills were a substantial part of their curriculum (men, mean = 2.91, s.d. = .692; women, mean 2.92, s.d. 0.669). the difference between men and women was statistically insignificant (p .972). men and women felt that the university also stimulated students to start their own business (men, mean 2.14, s.d. 0.969; women, mean 2.50, s.d. 0.905). again, the difference between male and female students was statistically insignificant (p .227). perceptions of entrepreneurship motives although women and men report significant differences in terms of entrepreneurial disposition and entrepreneurial intentions, they differ much less in their perception of motives for entrepreneurship. in fact, women differ from men in only one out of sixteen different motives: women place significantly less emphasis on making more money through entrepreneurship than they would by working for someone else. besides that one motive, there are no significant differences in the relative importance they attach to all the other reasons listed for entrepreneurship. the most striking conclusion is how similar young afghan women and men are regarding their motives for entrepreneurship (see table 1). women and men provided highly consistent rank orders in the full set of motives, 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 40-53) with only few exceptions, and generally agreed on the relative significance of motives. as shown in table 1, motives for starting business are ranked in the order that women students provided as the most important, going from 1 to 20. male rankings are also provided, along with the means for both sexes. the t-tests can be interpreted as measuring whether there is any significant score difference between women and men for a particular motive. table 1: motivations for business ownership motives ranked in order of importance afghan women afghan men women mean men mean t-test sig. create jobs 1 2 4.50 4.42 .772 chance for financial independence 2 3 4.50 4.41 .709 create my own thing 3 4 4.50 4.40 .660 improve life quality 4 1 4.25 4.42 .549 gain high social status 5 10 4.25 4.03 .370 manage people 6 5 4.17 4.26 .773 use my own ideas 7 7 4.17 4.19 .928 personal independence 8 9 4.08 4.14 .885 run an organization 9 11 4.08 3.92 .614 receive fair pay 10 12 4.00 3.89 .778 build personal wealth 11 6 3.92 4.21 .273 make more money than wage work 12 8 3.58 4.16 .020* have more free time 13 13 3.55 3.19 .326 professional/job dissatisfaction 14 14 3.33 3.18 .709 hard to find right job 15 15 3.17 3.13 .916 family tradition 16 16 3.00 3.01 .973 source: survey data * the means of women and men are significantly different at the .05 level given the economic and political situation in afghanistan, it perhaps is no surprise that young women are focused on creating their own things and improving life quality just as much as men are. the top four motives for both sexes refer to creating jobs, financial independence, creating something of their own, and improving quality of life. women and men included only pruetti, m., et al., afghanistan’s new entrepreneurship, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 40-53) 47 one specifically money-related motive in their top five motives, i.e., the opportunity to be financially independent. perceptions of entrepreneurship barriers the survey also assessed students’ perceptions of the relative importance of barriers to entrepreneurship. again we assessed mean differences between afghan women and men (see table 2). the two groups show more variety in the weights they assign to barriers than to motives. as shown in table 2, perceptions of business start-up barriers are ranked in the order provided by afghan women as the most important, ranging from 1 to 20. the corresponding male rankings are provided, along with the means for both sexes. the t-tests are interpreted as measuring whether there is any significant score difference between women and men for a particular motive, regardless of the motive’s overall ranking. for example, the top three ranked barriers for women are lack of capital, the current economic situation, and the lack of high level of entrepreneurial competence. in contrast, the top three ranked barriers for men are lack of capital, assisting organizations, and knowledge. issues such as risk and the current economic situation receive less weight from men. as shown in the table, women and men agree less on the relative weights they assign to each barrier. however, women and men do not differ significantly in their assessment of the importance of individual barriers to starting a business. there is only one exception. the other disagreements are not statistically significant. the potential for problems with employees is the issue over which afghan women and men disagree. women see it as a big potential problem, while male students do not see it as a problem. this is not surprising given the traditional male-dominated nature of afghan culture. the results show that women may be concerned about their ability to manage employees if they become entrepreneurs because of the maleoriented national culture. interestingly, the issue of human resources/personnel in companies run by women entrepreneurs remains a timely issue in advanced countries as well (see, for example, cvetić, momčilović, živković, and prljić, 2017). 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 40-53) table 2: perceptions of business start-up barriers barriers ranked in order of importance women men women mean men mean t-test sig. lack of initial capital 1 1 4.08 3.99 .720 economic situation 2 5 4.08 3.76 .227 lack of competence 3 6 3.75 3.72 .960 employee problems 4 19 3.75 3.01 .009** lack of knowledge 5 3 3.67 3.81 .676 excessively risky 6 8 3.58 3.66 .793 irregular income 7 13 3.58 3.45 .601 lack of formal help 8 10 3.55 3.59 .273 start up bureaucracy 9 17 3.55 3.18 .380 have to work too much 10 16 3.50 3.20 .324 lack of management + accounting experience 11 4 3.50 3.77 .526 lack of business ideas 12 11 3.50 3.48 .951 lack of help to assess business viability 13 14 3.50 3.35 .638 lack of organizations to assist entrepreneurs 14 2 3.45 3.84 .898 fear of failure 15 15 3.45 3.23 .430 lack of legal help 16 7 3.36 3.71 .320 lack of knowledge of business + markets 17 9 3.40 3.59 .673 family/friends don’t support my desire 18 12 3.36 3.47 .699 doubt my own abilities 19 18 3.18 3.07 .803 taxes, legal fees 20 20 3.08 2.97 .646 source: survey data ** the means of men and women are significantly different at the .01 level study limitations the most important limitation is that our study is based on a rather small sample. in future research, a larger sample, perhaps longitudinal, will be more informative. nonetheless, we are sampling from what is inherently a rather small population—highly educated young afghan women and men. discussion and implications this paper reports the results of survey data from a study of a group of university students in afghanistan. that young, highly educated, socio pruetti, m., et al., afghanistan’s new entrepreneurship, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 40-53) 49 economic elite group may have a substantial impact on the progress of their country over the next decade. further empirical research certainly is warranted. in summary, there are significant differences in entrepreneurial disposition and intentions—young afghan men are more likely to pursue it than afghan women. however, in terms of how the two sexes see entrepreneurship barriers and motives, there are scarcely any differences. afghan women and men may have distinct views about themselves and their plans, but they hold highly similar views on reasons for entrepreneurship and the barriers they will face. even though there were relatively few women in our sample, women now form more than one-third of the university’s entire student population. this suggests that the socio-economic elite of afghanistan will face a situation in which a substantial portion of women are highly educated, which will no doubt create challenges for traditional afghan social norms. in order for women’s education to truly succeed in afghanistan, educational programs will have to find ways to address these cultural issues. otherwise, it is likely the country will develop a group of educated women who are dissatisfied with cultural norms and push for change. alternatively, if they are sufficiently dissatisfied but see little chance for advancement, some of them may simply leave. any potential future female “brain-drain” of educated women leaving afghanistan certainly would not improve the country’s future prospects. in particular, the potentially very large number of uneducated female entrepreneurs could be adversely affected if educated women are not available to help them (see, for example, agrawal, 2017). it also is possible that changes in other conservative male-dominated cultures may be instructive in the development of afghan female entrepreneurship. we find it extremely interesting that the perceptual differences of women and men are so minor in this study, especially given that afghanistan has such diverse role expectations and social norms for women and men. that may strongly suggest the commonalities shared by this student population. it may also suggest a broader global shift, in which younger women and men are sharing increasingly common views of entrepreneurship and in which taboos against women in business are changing, as in bahrain and oman (dechant and al-lamky, 2005) or the especially interesting case of budding female entrepreneurship in saudi arabia (khan and sharpe, 2017). 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 40-53) however, we still can see that there are significant differences in how women and men see themselves, and how they imagine their future is that a question of culture and socialization?, political and economic realities?, or physiological and neurological differences? these are topics that we believe merit discussion and further research. it will help not only in scholarly work, but in practical aspects as well. we encourage other researchers to pursue such topics, not only to 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(2010). “gender differences in entrepreneurial intentions: evidence from bulgaria.” journal of developmental entrepreneurship, 15(3): 245-261. article history: received: 18 january, 2018 accepted: 17 june, 2018 doi: 10.28934/jwee19.12.pp1-16 jel: o11, m13 original scientific paper an analysis of the development of entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia with a special focus on female entrepreneurship jelena petrović1 university of niš, faculty of science and mathematics, niš, serbia snežana radukić2 university of niš, faculty of economics, niš, serbia a b s t r a c t entrepreneurship is a significant factor of the economic development of developed and transition countries. in the literature, special attention is paid to the entrepreneurship development and its impact on the economic growth and economic development of the transition countries. however, insufficient attention is paid to economic growth as a factor of the entrepreneurship development in transition countries. the purpose of the paper is to analyze the impact of economic growth on the entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia and its regions. the results indicated that there is a statistically significant negative correlation between the gross domestic product (gdp) and the number of entrepreneurs as well as between gdp per capita and the number of entrepreneurs in the republic of serbia. also, the results indicated that gdp per capita has a significant impact on the development of female entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia. 1 address: višegradska 33, 18000 niš, republic of serbia, e-mail: jelena25@pmf.ni.ac.rs, tel. +381 63 113 27 68, 1979 2 address: trg kralja aleksandra 11, 18000 niš, republic of serbia, e-mail: snezana.radukic@eknfak.ni.ac.rs, tel. +381 64 149 48 00 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 1-16) key words: entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship, economic growth, correlation analysis, regression analysis, republic of serbia introduction fast-growing enterprises or dynamic enterprises are a propeller for the development of the economy. dynamic companies use their resources more efficiently on the market, increase their employment and quickly respond to market signals by making appropriate business decisions. the entrepreneurial process is one of the key factors in the economic development of the country/region (toma, grigore & marinescu, 2013). at today's level of development, economic development and entrepreneurship become strongly interconnected. lately, there is a growing interest in the concepts of economic development and entrepreneurship in the literature (acs, szerb & autio, 2013; szirmai, naudé & goedhuys, 2011; caree & thurik, 2010; wennekers, van stel, carree & thurik, 2009). economic experts have abandoned the traditional approach that economic development is based on the business of large companies, but small and medium-sized enterprises are considered to be bearers of development in the present time. it is stated that entrepreneurship is a key mechanism for improving economic development, increasing the number of jobs and per capita income (shane, 2005). “entrepreneurs need access to resources and markets to succeed, and this is where national policies play a vital role” (kressel & lento, 2012, p. 6). in the republic of serbia, the number of small and medium-sized enterprises increases, as well as their participation in gdp of serbia. the entrepreneurial sector in serbia contributes only 1/3 of gdp: in 2017 there were about 242 thousand entrepreneurs, and the largest number in the region of šumadija and western serbia, and then in the belgrade region (statistical yearbook, 2018). encouraging the development of dynamic entrepreneurship is a development opportunity for serbia. primary tasks should be to create a stimulating environment, as well as to solve the key developmental problems of the enterprises in the growth and development phase. the research presented in this paper is aimed at examining the dynamics of entrepreneurship in serbia. the aim of the research in dynamic entrepreneurship is to test the primary hypothesis that the economic growth affects on entrepreneurship development. in the first part of the paper a short overview of literature will be given, which points to the importance of inter petrović, j., et al., entrepreneurship in the rs, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 1-16) 3 dependence between entrepreneurship development and economic growth. in the second part of the paper, after the explanation of the models and data, the discussion of the obtained results is followed, as well as recommendations for improving the entrepreneurial sector in serbia from the point of view of the region and gender. the main goals of the paper are: 1) analysis of the entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia during the 21st century – total, male and female; 2) analysis of the entrepreneurship development in the regions in the republic of serbia; 3) analysis of the interdependence between gdp and the entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia; 4) analysis of the interdependence between gdp per capita and the entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia; 5) analysis of the impact of gdp per capita on the development of female entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia; and 6) analysis of interdependence between gdp per capita and the entrepreneurship development in regions of republic of serbia. literature review in recent decades, increasing attention has been focused on the analysis of the entrepreneurship development in transition countries (smallbone & welter, 2006; 2009), examining the limiting factors of entrepreneurship development in these countries. the entrepreneurship development represents a function of its environment (morris, 1998), i.e. internal environment as well as the external environment. the institutional environment is identified as one of limiting factors for the entrepreneurship development in transition countries. during the xxi century, special attention is focused on female entrepreneurship (delmar, 2003; marlaw, coletle & carter, 2009; ruminskazimny, 2002; ward & pampel, 1985). researchers point to the characteristics of female entrepreneurs in relation to male entrepreneurs (watson, 2002; welter, smallbone, isakova, aculai & schakirova, 2004). in the literature, special attention is devoted to the analysis of informal institutions that represent a significant factor of the development of female entrepreneurship, especially in transition countries and developing countries. norms and a value system that is accepted and adopted during the period of central planning are difficult to change (williams & vorley, 2015). although women in transition countries face similar problems, they have a different position in society in different transition countries (aidis, welter, smallbone & isa4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 1-16) kova, 2007). the different position in society affects on the development of female entrepreneurship. in the literature, special attention was paid to the influence of informal institutions on female entrepreneurship while analysis of the influence of economic factors on female entrepreneurship is rare, especially in the case of transition countries (petrović & radukić, 2015; petrović & radukić, 2018). researches look on the entrepreneurship as an engine of economic development and economic growth (omoruyi, olamide, gomolemo & donath, 2017). entrepreneurship represents a critical factor for the transforming economy from central planning to a market economy. based on the link between entrepreneurship and economic growth and development, faggio and silva (2014, p. 81) point out that entrepreneurship is “a critical ingredient in determining” of economic growth and economic development. researches point out 13 significant roles of entrepreneurs (hebert & link, 1989; dijk & thurik, 1995). from the viewpoint of the influence of entrepreneurship on economic growth can be stand out the following rolls: ″new entry”, i.e. the entrepreneur as creator, organizer and operator of a new business; and “newness”, i.e. the entrepreneur as creator of innovation (wennekers & thurik, 1999). acs and amoros (2008) indicate that linking between entrepreneurial dynamic and economic growth depending on economic and social situation of the country. the results of their research show that low and middle income countries record a high rate of entrepreneurial activity because the entrepreneurship is the only source of employment for the most population in those countries. several researches show a negative influence of economic growth on the entrepreneurship development. these researches were carried out in the 1970s and 1980s, when countries recorded a low level of per capita income (schultz, 1990; bregger, 1996). research carried out at the end of the last century and the beginning of this century points to a positive relationship between per capita income and entrepreneurial activity, because the observed countries recorded a higher level of income per capita (storey, 1999; carree, van stel, thurik & wennekers, 2002). carree, van stel, thurik and wennekers (2002) and wennekers, van stel, thurik and reynolds (2005) pointed out that there is a u-shaped relationship between entrepreneurial activity and per capita income. however, the literature does not pay special attention to analysis the relationship between entrepreneurial activity and economic growth in transition countries. this analysis is the subject of research in this paper. petrović, j., et al., entrepreneurship in the rs, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 1-16) 5 methodology the following methods were used in the paper: correlation and regression analysis. the correlation analysis enabled the analysis of the interdependence between the number of entrepreneurs and the gdp in the republic of serbia, as well as the analysis of the interdependence between the number of entrepreneurs and the gdp per capita in the republic of serbia and its regions. in order to quantify the impact of economic growth on the development of female entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia, the regression analysis is applied in the paper. the research will use the official data of the statistical office of the republic of serbia on the number of entrepreneurs towards the sex and region in the republic of serbia. bearing in mind that the republic of serbia is a country of delayed transition it is assumed that has not yet exceeds a certain level or turning point of gdp per capita. after gdp per capita will exceed a turning point, it turns to increase of the number of entrepreneurs as gdp per capita increase. the hypotheses to be tested in this study are the following: h1: there is a negative correlation between the number of entrepreneurs and gdp per capita in republic of serbia; h2: there is a significant impact of economic growth on female entrepreneurship; h3: there is a negative correlation between the number of entrepreneurs and gdp per capita all regions in republic of serbia. data – analysis of economic growth and entrepreneurial activity in republic of serbia table 1 presents dynamic of gdp and gdp per capita for the observed period. the highest gross domestic product (gdp) measured by dinars was recorded in 2017, while the lowest gdp was recorded 2007. the same situation is with gdp per capita measured by dinars. the observed variables show continuous growth in the observed period. 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 1-16) table 1: gdp and gdp per capita year gdp (mil. rsd) gdp per capita (rsd) gdp (mil. eur) gdp per capita (eur) 2005 1747459 334849 21077 2833 2006 2042048 275522 24255 3273 2007 2302214 311886 28785 3900 2008 2722461 370392 33418 4547 2009 2815000 371555 28952 3955 2010 2881891 395243 27968 3836 2011 3208620 443541 31472 4351 2012 3584236 465155 29601 4112 2013 3876403 540902 34263 4781 2014 3908470 548035 33319 4672 2015 4043468 569873 35716 5034 2016 4261927 603816 36723 5203 2017 4754368 677178 39183 5581 source: statistical office of the republic of serbia, http://www.stat.gov.rs/sr-latn/ but, if we observed gdp measured by the euro, it can be concluded that gdp decreased 2009 and 2010 which is a consequence the economic crisis. the same situation is when we observe gdp per capita measured by the euro. table 2: regional gdp year gdp (in mil. din) gdp per capita (thousand din) belgrade region region of vojvodina region of šumadija and western serbia region of southern and eastern serbia belgrade region region of vojvodina region of šumadija and western serbia region of southern and eastern serbia 2009 1124565 720301 563734 406400 690 366 275 243 2010 1152005 748673 562911 418302 703 382 276 253 2011 1271691 859808 610143 466979 772 442 301 285 2012 1422963 973800 682067 502719 855 507 338 315 2013 1546620 1055270 731466 540461 926 552 365 342 2014 1514166 1070479 770165 551050 904 563 387 352 2015 1590947 1060389 809774 579655 947 561 374 374 2016 1696449 1117298 843022 602511 1007 594 392 392 source: statistical office of the republic of serbia, http://www.stat.gov.rs/sr-latn/ http://www.stat.gov.rs/sr-latn/ http://www.stat.gov.rs/sr-latn/ petrović, j., et al., entrepreneurship in the rs, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 1-16) 7 the highest gdp per capita recorded in belgrade region and the lowest in region of southern and eastern serbia. although, observed regions recorded the continuous growth of gdp per capita, data indicate that regional gap is increased. about 40% of the gdp of republic serbia is realized in the belgrade region and only 14% in region of southern and eastern serbia. table 3 presents the development of entrepreneurship and female entrepreneurship in republic of serbia in the xxi century. the data indicate that the highest number of entrepreneurs as well as female and male entrepreneurs recorded in 2008. from 2008 to 2015, the number of entrepreneurs has decreased. the number of female entrepreneurs has decreased from 2009 to 2014. table 3: entrepreneurs, male and female entrepreneurs year number of entrepreneurs number of female entrepreneurs number of male entrepreneurs 2005 522493 226939 295554 2006 553877 236664 317213 2007 569494 241992 327502 2008 571019 242739 328280 2009 492293 209391 282902 2010 441138 185901 255237 2011 403246 176471 226775 2012 385934 170884 215050 2013 377081 166312 210769 2014 373855 166091 207764 2015 308863 -1 2016 323313 2017 342457 1 for the period of 2015 to 2017, data about female entrepreneurs in republic of serbia do not exist on the site of statistical office of the republic of serbia. source: statistical office of the republic of serbia, http://www.stat.gov.rs/sr-latn/ http://www.stat.gov.rs/sr-latn/ 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 1-16) table 4: entrepreneurs in regions in republic of serbia year belgrade region region of vojvodina region of šumadija and western serbia region of southern and eastern serbia 2005 142852 144018 143605 92018 2006 158726 147154 147222 100776 2007 162842 155632 151203 99823 2008 162630 157415 151258 99716 2009 140268 135561 130459 86005 2010 127795 121600 115981 75768 2011 115702 106172 110118 71256 2012 98101 96892 112819 78122 2013 90820 96551 112392 77319 2014 89270 98248 110493 75844 2015 69976 80119 94482 64286 2016 73581 82749 99387 67596 2017 79459 87135 105051 70813 source: statistical office of the republic of serbia, http://www.stat.gov.rs/sr-latn/ the highest number of entrepreneurs recorded in region of šumadija and western serbia and the lowest number of entrepreneurs recorded in region of southern and eastern serbia. the number of entrepreneurs recorded the increase in all regions except in region of southern and eastern serbia in the period of 2005 to 2008. those regions recorded decrease of the number of entrepreneurs from 2009 to 2015. in 2016 and 2017, all regions recorded increase of the number of entrepreneurs. results and discussion results of correlation analysis have confirmed the hypothesis h1 pointing out that there the negative significant correlation between gdp per capita and number of entrepreneurs. the same time, the results of correlation analysis indicate that there the negative significant correlation between gdp and number of entrepreneurs; between gdp and number of female entrepreneurs and between gdp per capita and number of female entrepreneurs. from the viewpoint of relationship between gdp per capita and entrepreneurs, it can be concluded that the relationship between gdp per capita and http://www.stat.gov.rs/sr-latn/ petrović, j., et al., entrepreneurship in the rs, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 1-16) 9 the number of male entrepreneurs is stronger than between gdp per capita and number of female entrepreneurs. the results show that serbia has not exceed the level of gdp per capita, where increase of gdp per capita would contribute to the increase in the number of entrepreneurs. table 5: independence between gdp, gdp per capita, number of entrepreneurs and number of female entrepreneurs gdp (mil. din) gdp per capita (thousand din.) entrepreneurs female entre-preneurs male entrepreneurs gdp (mil.din) pearson correlation 1 .973 ** -.902** -.870** -.863** sig. (2tailed) .000 .000 .001 .001 n 13 13 13 10 10 gdp per capita (thousand din) pearson correlation .973 ** 1 -.914** -.896** -.909** sig. (2tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 n 13 13 13 10 10 entrepreneurs pearson correlation .902** -.914 ** 1 .997** .999** sig. (2tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 n 13 13 13 10 10 female entrepreneurs pearson correlation .870** -.896 ** .997** 1 .993** sig. (2tailed) .001 .000 .000 .000 n 10 10 10 10 10 male entrepreneurs pearson correlation .863** -.909 ** .999** .993** 1 sig. (2tailed) .001 .000 .000 .000 n 10 10 10 10 10 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). source: prepared by the authors (spss statistics 19) the results of regression analysis, i.e. the impact of gdp per capita on development of female entrepreneurship are given in table 6. the value of the observed regression coefficient is statistically significant because the sig. value is less than 0.01. the hypothesis h2 is supported. 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 1-16) table 6: the value of regression coefficients – influence of the gdp per capita on the development of female entrepreneurship model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate sig. 1 .896a .803 .779 15351.29187 .000 a. predictors: (constant), gdp per capita b. dependent variable: number of female entrepreneurs source: prepared by the authors (spss statistics 19) table 7: interdependence between gdp per capita and number of entrepreneurs in belgrade region gdp per capita entrepreneurs gdp per capita pearson correlation 1 -.973** sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 8 8 entrepreneurs pearson correlation -.973** 1 sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 8 8 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). source: prepared by the authors (spss statistics 19) on the basis of the value of sig. in table 7 it can be concluded that there is a statistically significant relationship between the gdp per capita and number of entrepreneurs in belgrade region. the results of analysis indicate that is negative correlation between observed variables i.e. with the increase in gdp per capita, the number of entrepreneurs is decreasing. table 8: interdependence between gdp per capita and number of entrepreneurs in region of vojvodina gdp per capita entrepreneurs gdp per capita pearson correlation 1 -.931** sig. (2-tailed) .001 n 8 8 petrović, j., et al., entrepreneurship in the rs, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 1-16) 11 gdp per capita entrepreneurs entrepreneurs pearson correlation -.931** 1 sig. (2-tailed) .001 n 8 8 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). source: prepared by the authors (spss statistics 19) results of correlation analysis have shown that there is statistically significant negative correlation between the gdp per capita and number of entrepreneurs in region of vojvodina since the value of sig. is not less than 0.01, as indicated in table 8. we can determine that hypothesis h1 is confirmed. table 9: interdependence between gdp per capita and number of entrepreneurs in region of šumadija and western serbia gdp per capita entrepreneurs gdp per capita pearson correlation 1 -.738* sig. (2-tailed) .037 n 8 8 entrepreneurs pearson correlation -.738* 1 sig. (2-tailed) .037 n 8 8 *. correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). source: prepared by the authors (spss statistics 19) results of correlation analysis have shown that there is statistically significant negative correlation between the gdp per capita and number of entrepreneurs in region of šumadija and western serbia since the value of sig. is not less than 0.01, as indicated in table 8. 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 1-16) table 10: interdependence between gdp per capita and number of entrepreneurs in region of southern and eastern serbia gdp per capita entrepreneurs gdp per capita pearson correlation 1 -.698 sig. (2-tailed) .054 n 8 8 entrepreneurs pearson correlation -.698 1 sig. (2-tailed) .054 n 8 8 source: prepared by the authors (spss statistics 19) on the basis of the value of sig. in table 10 it can be concluded that there is no statistically significant relationship between the gdp per capita and number of entrepreneurs in region of southern and eastern serbia. we can determine that hypothesis h3 is not confirmed. the results of correlation analyzes indicate that the highest statistically significant negative correlation between the observed variable is recorded in belgrade region. based on the results of the research it can be concluded that no region has reached the level of gdp per capita whose increase contributes to the increase in the number of entrepreneurs. conclusion the number of entrepreneurs in the republic of serbia in the 21st century is decreasing. the largest number of entrepreneurs was recorded in 2008, and the smallest in 2015. the results indicated that there is a statistically significant negative correlation between the gdp per capita and the number of entrepreneurs in the republic of serbia and their regions (except region of southern and eastern serbia). also, the results indicated that gdp per capita has a significant impact on the development of female entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia. bearing in mind that during the 21st century the total number of entrepreneurs is reduced it is necessary to apply adequate measures in order to stimulate the development of entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia. based on the analysis of problems in the development of entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia, concrete solutions should be proposed in order to petrović, j., et al., entrepreneurship in the rs, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 1-16) 13 eliminate economic, legal and administrative barriers in order to stimulate the development of entrepreneurship and economic growth. the originality of the work is reflected in the fact that the influence of economic growth on the development of entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia will be explored. particular emphasis will be put on the analysis of the development of entrepreneurship towards the gender and region within the republic of serbia. we will try to identify the basic problems in order to identify the necessary measures to stimulate the development of entrepreneurship. acknowledgements this paper is a result of research project under the code 44007 financed by the ministry of education, science, and technological development of the republic of serbia. references [1] acs, j. zoltan, and josé ernesto amorós. 2008. ″entrepreneurship and competitiveness dynamics in latin america.″ small business economics, 31(3): 305-322. 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[33] williams, nick, and tim vorley. 2015. ″institutional asymmetry: how formal and informal institutions affect entrepreneurship in bulgaria.″ international small business journal, 33(8): 840-861. article history: received: 23 february, 2019 accepted: 18 may, 2019 publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade associate editors aidin salamzadeh, faculty of entrepreneurship, university of teheran, iran hiroko kawamorita kesim, ondokuz mayis university, turkey editorial office journal secretaries dejana pavlović, ma elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by donat graf, beograd jelena petrović0f snežana radukić1f introduction literature review methodology data – analysis of economic growth and entrepreneurial activity in republic of serbia results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references milica slijepčević2f karolina perčić3f creating fashion creative process in fashion creation the process of fashion diffusion, creation of identity and fashion product image life cycle of a fashion product fashion, style, hit fashion product pricing cost-based pricing market-based pricing promoting a fashion product fashion magazines fashion blogs conclusion olabisi, s. yusuff4f introduction brief empirical literature patterns of land ownership in developing countries conceptual framework interpretation study areas data presentation and analysis challenges of women in accessing land in ado-odo community women’s perception on improvement of patterns of ownership of land recommendation references daniela petríková5f tatiana varadyová6f introduction objectives the concept of financial literacy financial literacy components financial education financial literacy and financial education in slovakia methodology results practical implementation of the inclusion of financial literacy in the teaching process discussion conclusion ann terngu makar vandefan7f introduction literature review /conceptual frame work financial support for women as entrepreneurs discussion conclusion references victoria burgess8f introduction theoretical overview discussion conclusion references an analysis of the development of entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia with a special focus on female entrepreneurship fashion product development process with reference to women's participation local government in ogun state, nigeria preparation of future teachers at vocational secondary schools and financial literacy assessing institutional founding sources and challenges facing women entrepreneurs in nigeria being a female entrepreneur case study 15_jwe_3-4 udk: 338.1:305-055.2(549.3) 316.662.2-055.2:338.43 cobiss.sr-id 219390732 original scientific paper gender inequality in bangladesh md. asaduzzaman, m. s1., kabir, r. n. ali department of rural sociology, bangladesh agricultural university, bangladesh radović-marković mirjana institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t this study focused on gender inequality and its impact on socio-economic development of rural households in bangladesh. to know the main reasons and areas of gender inequality and its impact on household development the study was carried out in five villages of sadar upazilla of mymensingh district. data were collected from a purposively drawn sample of 85 from 900 rural households. the study indicated that disparity exists in targeted area, which on many grounds affects the development of rural households. findings indicated that women had no or low share in income/ earnings of the family, that there was no equal status of women, female were not allowed to work outside home, women were more vulnerable to poverty, women share more burden of productive and household work. the women’s participation rate was higher in cleaning house, child care, cooking and preparation of meal and lowest in case of tree plantation, dairy farming, poultry rearing etc. about 88 per cent women contributed to increase their family income. male members dominated in household decision, there was no equal opportunity in higher education, physical and mental health for women, and women were facing difficulties in labor market. the participation rate of women in many decisions making process such as marriage, education of sons and 1 mymensingh-2202, bangladesh asaduzzaman, m.s., et al., gender inequality, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 54-64) 55 daughters, buying health care facilities, use of contraceptive and participating ngos were very low. gender inequality increases maternal mortality (92 per cent agree), increase fertility (88 per cent agree), increase dowry (88 per cent agree) and domestic violence (89 per cent agree). social norms and values restricted women to participate in development activities. key words: gender, gender inequality, socioeconomic context, household development introduction the rural economy of bangladesh has witnessed remarkable structural changes and diversification during the 1990s. in today’s society, the role of women extends way beyond the home and bringing up of children. empirical evidence indicates that there are significant gender differences in all spares and family lives in rural bangladesh. in bangladesh about 85 percent of women live in rural areas. the rural social structure plagued with many problems such as illiteracy, unemployment, malnutrition and poverty. even there is the traditionalization of the system and institution that place them in unequal and disadvantages position (ali, 2012). women have to perform the dual role of housewife and wage earner. women participation in home and farm activities is dependent upon social cultural and economic condition in an area. it also varies region to region and even with a region, their involvement varies widely among different farming system, castes, classes and socio-economic status. women’s opportunities and public involvement have changed extensively in recent decades. for example, major progress has been made in closing the gender gap in school enrolments at both primary and secondary levels (ferdousi, 2012). in bangladesh, there are social and religious restrictions on women in doing works outside homestead area. therefore their activities are confined to child care, household management, kitchen gardening, processing of rice and maize, service etc. the peace of development in any country largely depends upon the people’s participation including women. in bangladesh women constitute almost half of the population. bilkis (2010) find family culture and religious values that are taught by the family are the root causes of gender gap in employment. begum (2005) finds a higher level of gender gap between male and female among the rural households in bangladesh. bangladesh are now facing the issues that hinder their development: education for girls, women’s political, legal and marital rights, and 56 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 54-64) employment outside of the home for women and men alike, lower fertility and reduced child mortality. yet they have, for a long time, remained economically unproductive in the sense that their contributions to gdp are not acknowledged. a good number of studies on women have been undertaken in bangladesh, but a very few of these were undertaken to explore the gender inequality in rural households. the study was undertaken with a view to analyzing the impact of gender inequality on the socio-economic development of the rural household in bangladesh. the focus of the research was to satisfy the following objective: i) to analyze the extent of gender inequality within the household in rural areas; ii) to examine the relations between gender inequality and socioeconomic development in the rural household’s. methods and materials considering the objectives, time and availability of fund and man power, five villages i.e. bhabkali, charkai, naraynpur, unairpar and sutiakhali under mymensingh sadar upazila in mymensingh district were selected purposively. the villages were selected considering easy communication facilities and accessibility to the village. poor rural households mainly farming households were selected from the selected villages. in all 85 sample households were selected where women were participating in different farm and non-farm activities and deprived from different facilities which they require. the study period was january to june 2014. the final survey was conducted during the period from february to march 2014 by direct interviews using a questionnaire. tabular and statistical techniques were used for the analysis of the data. results and discussion socio-economic profile of the selected households the findings of the study show that socio-economic characteristics of women of the selected households were not different from those of other parts of the country. majority of the respondent women (84 per cent) were between 18-40 years of age. average family size was found to be 5.58 persons where male and female was 2.86 and 2.72 respectively. about 19.35 per cent of family members were illiterate, 10.39 per cent could write their asaduzzaman, m.s., et al., gender inequality, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 54-64) 57 name, 59.86 per cent had academic qualification of secondary level; 1.39 per cent had education above secondary level. heads of respondents household were engaged in agriculture 52 per cent, 16 per cent in business and 32 per cent in service. extent of gender inequality women get a smaller share of household expenditures on education and health care relative to men. women’s have less opportunity to visit health center, go to a movie, visit outside the village, and visit friends and relatives. most of the women were discriminated by their parents at first and then by their husband in the family. usually parents were exposed different attitude between their boys and girls after birth. women in family have always been considered subservient to men. men mostly own the lands owned by the households and women were deprived of this rights. in the family, as women are responsible for child bearing and rearing, they have less scope to go out home for employment, hence most of them are confined to the domestic chores, which are not counted in the accounting procedure of the country, however, there is a clear discrimination with family affairs falling under personal laws governed by religion, where the state is reluctant to become involved. literacy as well as the significantly higher proportion of female dropout from the system is still a major concern. the situation of female health is still poor. women participation and cooperation of other members in household activities most of the household activities were done by women. the women’s participation rate was higher in cleaning house, child care, cooking and preparation of meal and lowest in case of tree plantation, dairy farming, and poultry rearing etc. the cooperation of the family members to different household activities was not sufficient enough. the highest cooperation was seen in case of child care. 58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 54-64) table: 1 women participation and cooperation of other members in household activities items of operation extent of participation (percentage) extent of cooperation (percentage) regularly occasionally never sufficient moderate little cooking & preparation of meals 81 19 0 8 40 52 vegetables production 46 14 40 34 40 26 tree plantation 24 34 42 14 32 54 poultry/ dairy 52 20 28 12 48 40 child care 80 20 0 46 30 24 teaching children 28 36 36 30 22 48 washing cloths 81 12 7 36 32 32 cleaning house 92 8 0 31 26 43 buying daily necessities 24 64 12 12 50 38 source: sample survey, 2014 women participation in household income decision women are often less concerned in the decision making process even at the household level. women’s participation rate in choice of crop to be grown and buying and selling of agricultural product was 19 per cent and 34 per cent respectively. the women’s participation rate was higher in livestock and poultry rearing 46 per cent and lowest in case of buying and selling of real estate 17 per cent from others. the table 2 shows that only 31 percent household decisions were made by women. table 2: participation of women in household income decisions (n=85) decision making process female male number percentage number percentage buying and selling of real estate 17 20 68 80 buying and selling of agricultural product 29 34 66 66 homestead gardening 35 41 50 59 livestock and poultry rearing 39 46 46 54 fishery operation 26 31 59 69 purchase of agricultural equipment 23 27 62 73 working outside the home 27 32 58 68 employment of the children 22 26 63 74 asaduzzaman, m.s., et al., gender inequality, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 54-64) 59 decision making process female male number percentage number percentage borrowing of money 19 22 66 78 choice of crop to be grown 16 19 69 81 all decision matters 26 31 59 69 source: sample survey, 2014 women participation in social affairs decision lastly, women’s participation rates in marriage of sons and daughters, education of sons and daughters, buying health care facilities, use of contraceptive and participating ngos stood at 31, 47, 31, 61 and 38 per cent respectively (table 3). the women’s participation rate was higher in child care 62 per cent and lowest in case of expenditure on family maintenance 18 per cent from others. table: 3 women’s role in making decisions regarding household and social affairs (n=85) decision making process female male number percentage number percentage expenditure on family maintenance 18 21 67 79 joining social ceremonies or visiting relatives 37 34 48 56 family planning 35 41 50 59 marriage of son and daughters 26 31 59 69 education of sons and daughters 40 47 45 53 childcare 62 73 23 27 buying health care facilities 26 31 59 69 use of contraceptive 52 61 33 39 to give a vote 33 39 52 61 participating ngos 32 38 53 62 repairing house 28 33 57 67 all decision matters 35 41 50 59 source: sample survey, 2014 women’s response to mobility questions table 4 shows that women are free to move from one bari to another. women travel outside bari often 68 per cent, 28 per cent sometimes and 4 per cent seldom. however, they are confined in their movements outside of 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 54-64) the village. about 62 per cent women often, 32 per cent sometimes, and 4 per cent seldom travel outside the village and 2 per cent never travel outside the village. when traveling outside, most women (57 per cent) do not wear a burka. further, very few women travel outside of the village alone (12 per cent). when they go outside the village, other members of the family mainly children (52 per cent) and female members (18 per cent) usually accompanies with them. table 4: percentage distribution of women responses in mobility questions (n=85) how frequently do you travel outside…. often sometimes seldom never the bari? 68 28 4 0 the village? 62 32 4 2 when you travel outside, do you generally wear a burka? yes sometimes no 25 18 57 when you go outside the village, who usually accompanies you? no one children female relative male relative husband 12 52 18 8 10 source: sample survey, 2014 factors affecting the level of family income the several factors affecting the level of family income were identified for functional analysis. they were land, number of female earning member, women education, women occupation, women income and family size. from the table 5 we see that, the regression coefficient of land and number of female earning member variables stood 0.154 and 0.099. they were significant at 5 per cent level. the regression coefficient of women income and expenditure variables stood at 0.084 and 0.412. they were significant at 1 per cent level. on the other hand, education and family size were insignificant. the variables selected in the log linear model explained about 8.20 per cent variation in family income. asaduzzaman, m.s., et al., gender inequality, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 54-64) 61 table 5: estimated values of co-efficient and related statistics selected variables co-efficient t-value land (x1) 0.154* 4.903 earning member of family (x2) 0.099* 1.981 women education (x3) -0.009 0.218 women income (x4) 0.084** 3.558 family size (x5) -0.089 -0.095 expenditure (x6) 0.412** 8.023 r2 0.802 r2 0.765 f-value 21.98 note: ** = significant at 1 per cent level * = significant at 5 per cent level impact of gender inequality on household development the table 6 shows that 92 per cent respondents agree to the statement that gender inequality increase maternal mortality, increase fertility 88 per cent, increase dowry 88 per cent. gender inequalities also ensure lower nutritional status of women (93 per cent agree) and lower recreational facilities (84 per cent agree). on the other hand due to gender inequality women was become sufferer to different domestic violence (83 per cent). table: 6 impact of gender inequality in society: (n=85) indicators per cent distribution of respondents agree disagree increase family income 0 100 reduce family size 36 64 ensure better health 16 84 increased family assets 15 85 increase women income 6 94 increase fertility 88 12 increase maternal mortality 92 8 ensure social development 44 54 reduce early marriage 24 76 increase dowry 88 12 increase domestic violence 83 17 lower nutritional status of women 93 7 lower recreational facilities 84 16 source: sample survey, 2014 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 54-64) problems and cconstraint faced by rural women the respondents were asked to identify the major problems and constraints faced by rural women in society and to suggest some possible solutions. low payment for same work (59 per cent), low efficiency of women (26 per cent), physical and mental violence against women (76 per cent), lack of sufficient educational facilities (67 per cent), social norms and rules (73 per cent), physical harassment in the working place (57 per cent), low availability of nutritional food for women (83 per cent), early marriage and lack of gender education (79 per cent) were identified as the major problems by the respondent women (table 7). table 7: problem faced by rural women (n=85) nature of suggestions number percentage low payment 50 59 low efficiency 22 26 physical weakness 36 43 violence against women 65 76 low quality of education 57 67 social norms and rules 62 73 physical harassment 48 57 low nutritional food facilities 71 83 early marriage and lack of gender education 67 79 source: sample survey, 2014 solution suggested by the respondent ensuring equal education for both male and female, increased training facilities for women, ensure health facilities, providing same wage to women, providing gender related education to girls and women, taking various steps to reduce domestic violence, reducing physical and mental harassment in the working place were the possible solutions suggested by the respondents in general. conclusion gender inequalities exist in rural areas. regrettably, this has led society to place greater emphasis and value on the role of men and boys in public life and in the work place, as opposed to women’s role in unpaid asaduzzaman, m.s., et al., gender inequality, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 54-64) 63 family labor, care giving, and community work. since factors that perpetuate gender inequality, especially in rural communities are manifold (e.g., cultural practices, traditional gender roles, gender socialization, poverty and discrimination in access to land) they have implications for policy and research. structural inequalities continually deprive women of having equal access to social and economic opportunities and services. gender inequalities could have both short and long-term consequences not only for women but the entire society. reducing gender inequalities implies benefits not only for women but also for all vulnerable persons and groups. the respondents were found to be able to realize their problems and suggested probable solutions. it is important for government to understand and find out the extent to which this problem is prevailing. references [1] ali, r. 2012. “changing expectations of gender roles in bangladesh: the case of female field staff of brac”. research monograph series no. 52. [2] begum, h. a. 2005. empowerment of women in bangladesh: tmss experience february 28-march, 2005. [3] bilkis, a., habib, s. b. and sharmin, t. 2010. “a review of discrimination in employment and workplace”. asa university review, 4(2): 137-150. [4] ferdousi, a. m. 2012. “examining gender difference in socioeconomic development: implications for developing countries”. journal of economics and sustainable development, 4(3): 8-12. rodna neravnopravnost u bangladešu a p s t r a k t ovo istraživanje se fokusira na neravnopravnost među polovima, kao i na njen uticaj na društveno-ekonomski razvoj ruralnih domaćinstava u bangladešu. u cilju otkrivanja glavnih uzročnika i oblasti u kojima se rodna neravnopravnost javlja, kao i posledičnog uticaja na razvoj domaćinstava, ova studija je sprovedena u pet sela sadar upazile okruga mimensing. podaci su prikupljeni iz namenski kreiranog uzorka od 85 od 900 seoskih domaćinstava. istraživanje je ukazalo na 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 54-64) postojanje razlika u ciljanoj oblasti, koje po mnogim osnovama utiču na razvoj ruralnih domaćinstava. rezultati su pokazali da žene nemaju ili imaju mali udeo u prihodima/ primanjima porodice, da ne postoji jednak status žena, da ženama nije dozvoljeno da rade van kuće, da su žene podložnije siromaštvu, da žene preuzimaju veći teret proizvodnog rada i rada u kući. žene su više učestvovale u čišćenju kuće, brizi o deci, kuvanju i pripremanju obroka, a najmanje u sadnji stabala, izradi mlečnih proizvoda, uzgoju živine, itd. oko 88% žena doprinosi povećanju porodičnih prihoda. muški članovi domaćinstva dominiraju u donošenju odluka vezanih za domaćinstvo, ne postoje jednake mogućnosti za visoko obrazovanje, fizičko i mentalno zdravlje žena, dok se žene suočavaju i sa teškoćama na tržištu rada. stopa učešća žena u mnogim procesima donošenja odluka, kao što su brak, obrazovanje dece, zdravstvena zaštita, upotreba kontraceptiva i učešće u nevladinim organizacijama je veoma niska. rodna neravnopravnost utiče na rast stope smrtnosti kod majki (92% ispitanika potvrđuje), povećava plodnost (88% se slaže), povećava miraz (88% saglasnih) i nasilje u porodici (89% saglasnih). društvene norme i vrednosti ograničavaju mogućnosti žene da učestvuje u razvojnim aktivnostima. ključne reči: pol, rodna neravnopravnost, društveno-ekonomski kontekst, razvoj domaćinstva article history: received: 15 july, 2015 accepted: 25 september, 2015 15_jwe_1-2 udk: 005.411(53) 005.342-055.2 jel: l26, b54 cobiss.sr-id: 215911692 original scientific paper an investigation of women entrepreneurship: motives and barriers to business start up in the arab world bouguerra nesrine1, emlyon business school, france a b s t r a c t entrepreneurship is seen as a necessary ingredient for stimulating economic growth and employment opportunities in all societies. smes account for a wide share of economic activity and development; they are the primary engine of job creation, income growth and poverty reduction. it is widely acknowledged that women are playing a significant role in economic development through starting new businesses. entrepreneurial activities should be embraced by women as the nation benefits, not only from reduction of unemployment, promotion of production and increase in consumption, but also in achieving gender equality, social and cultural reforms. this conceptual paper aims to investigate the attitudes of women towards entrepreneurship; it discusses the motives and barriers women in the arab world face in the process of their entrepreneurial activities. the study reviews previous published works on female entrepreneurship in order to understand this phenomenon and bridge the motives and barriers that may help or challenge them in their engagement in business start up. this will be followed by a development of a model of female entrepreneurial process and a 1 research and teaching assistant, emlyon business school, france bouguerra@emlyon.com journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) 87 female decision process framework which highlights the relationship between motives, barriers and the developed model of female entrepreneurial process. main findings of this study include exploring the different motives and barriers that may help or challenge females in their engagement in the entrepreneurial process. indeed, the developed conceptual framework reveals that there is a relationship between female motives and the barriers they face in their business start up; female entrepreneurial decision is determined by both the motives and barriers through the entrepreneurial process. main contributions of this conceptual paper include: shedding light on the motives and barriers that may push or challenge arab females to embrace entrepreneurial activities; develop a model for female entrepreneurial process as well as develop a female decision process framework which will serve as a reference for replication in future studies. key words: entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship in the arab world, women, motives, barriers study background entrepreneur & entrepreneurship entrepreneurship is widely acknowledged to be an engine of economic development in the past years and the foreseeable future. entrepreneurship is the creation of new businesses in which new ventures largely contribute to the economic growth of nations. for instance, small business formation is widely encouraged by political and economic policies to stimulate wealth creation resulting in productivity and employability. derived from the french verb enterprendre ‘to undertake’, an entrepreneur is thus seen as ‘one who undertakes a commercial enterprise and who is an organisational creator and innovator’ (gartner, 1990; gartner et al., 2004). schumpeter (1934) described the entrepreneur as: ‘the innovator who introduces something new into an economy’. he is, according to kirzner (1997), ‘the decision maker in a particular cultural context, who commands a range of behaviours that exploit these opportunities’. singh & belwal (2008: 2) stress that an ‘an entrepreneur is an individual who is propelled by an idea, personal goals, and ambition, brings together the financial capital, people, equipment, and facilities to establish and manage a business enterprise‘. while defining entrepreneur, some writers have employed economic indicators like growth and profit, or incorporated entrepreneurship as an effective tool 88 bouguerre, n., motives and barriers to business start up, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) in reducing poverty. entrepreneurs, accordingly, seek out and identify potentially profitable economic opportunities; they are, thus, agents of growth (oecd, 2006). mordi et al. (2010: 3) emphasises the significance of human behaviour and characteristics, defining the entrepreneur as: ‘one who prospects for or exploits opportunities and who has a tenacity to face challenges’. entrepreneurship has been studied from various angles providing complementary views of the phenomenon and leading to a better appreciation of the complexities involved in it. stevenson (1983: 1) defines entrepreneurship as: ‘the pursuit of opportunity without regard to the resources currently controlled’. shane & venkataraman (2000) see that: ’entrepreneurship concerns the environment conditioning opportunity, the process of discovering opportunity, the evaluation and exploitation of opportunity, and the individual decision-makers who do these things”. entrepreneurship is also related to economic development, to the role of individuals in creating and capturing new economic opportunities through a creation of small businesses. according to wennekers & thurik (1999: 46), entrepreneurship is defined as: “the manifest ability and willingness of individuals, on their own, in teams, within and outside existing organizations to perceive and create new economic opportunities (new products, new production methods, new organizational schemes and new product-market combinations), and to introduce their ideas in the market, in the face of uncertainty and other obstacles, by making decisions on location, form and the use of resources and institutions”. besides, dynamics of entrepreneurship has positive effects on economic well-being through alleviation of unemployment and promotion of productivity as porter (1990: 125) puts it: ‘entrepreneurship is at the heart of national advantage’. other essential variables for the success of the process include innovation, variety of production, competition, efforts and energy of entrepreneurs for the purpose of growing regions, firms, industries and nations. in other words, entrepreneurs create new businesses, and in turn new businesses create jobs, more supply of products or services, intensify competition and increase productivity for the benefit of the nation in terms of employment, productivity and consumption (wennekers & thurik 1999). journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) 89 female entrepreneurship female entrepreneurship appeared as a sub – field in the literature of entrepreneurship over thirty years ago (schwartz, 1976; sexton & kent, 1981); holding its intellectual roots in two major fields of study: feminist theory and gender studies. most of the studies in the 1970s and 1980s were rooted in psychology; they focused on who women entrepreneurs were (birley et al, 1987; holmquist &sundin, 1988) and how they are compared to men entrepreneurs (sexton & kent, 1981; masters & meier, 1988). it was not until the 1990s, when women gained more political and social rights, that the study of female entrepreneurship attracted attention with the influence of feminist theories (hurley: 1999); yet there was very minimal development in terms of the theoretical framework of the field (snyder: 1995). this was further supplemented by claudia goldin’s book in 1990 ‘understanding the gender gap’ through which she legitimized the study of women’s labour behaviour and along with studies by francine blau and gary becker, inspired both theoretical and empirical research on female entrepreneurship (minniti & naude, 2010). the field became well established by 2000 as a well respected and defined area of academic inquiry; it did not only focus on entrepreneurial traits, intention and behaviour, but also on issues related to motherhood, family position and lifestyle (williams, 2004; minniti & naude, 2010). further studies to broaden the field included works on social ties and networks (aldrich et al, 2002; greve & salaff, 2003), and others on female owned businesses, covering subjects such as growth and performance, management style, finance, human capital, labour markets and social entrepreneurship (bird & brush: 2002; burke, 2002; carter, 2003; stewart et al., 2003; minniti & naude, 2010). feminism and entrepreneurship borrowing from other fields, entrepreneurship scholars adapted certain theories from economics, sociology and psychology in order to further understand characteristics of female entrepreneurs and their firms. according to feminism theory, society is based on a hierarchical patriarchy of power in which males possess greater economic and social privilege than females do (kendall et al., 2004). there are three paradigms of feminist theory offering different explanations of prevailing differences across gender in entrepreneurship (byrne &fayolle, 2010). 90 bouguerre, n., motives and barriers to business start up, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) liberal feminism tends to give primacy to the rational individual in society. the core belief is that each and every person can develop and contribute to society as long as opportunities are available and accessible to both sexes, indifferently. in such, education, as an agent of development, is seen as one of the key opportunities that must be accessible to all. liberal feminists maintain that women can rationalize and solve problems as effectively as men, but they are disadvantaged because of their lack of experience, lack of management training, lack of financing as well as the presence of segregation and social inequities (byrne & fayolle, 2010). consequently, one can attribute gender differences to the fact that women have not been able to develop their full potential: once women are given access to the same opportunities as men, these differences can be eliminated (fisher et al., 1993). social feminism, on the other hand, views the individual as acting within and influenced by economic and social structures (calixte et al., 2005). both gender and work are considered social constructions that are collectively maintained, renewed, and occasionally challenged (robichaud et al., 2005). indeed, the situation seems to be complex since differences in power are responsible for maintaining the existing inequalities in social structures (clement & myles, 2001). even though, the relationship between family and work is stronger for woman, than for men (byrne & fayolle, 2010; brush, 1992) found that, compared to men, female entrepreneurs perceive and manage their business differently; they do not only acquire a separate economic entity, but also involve themselves in a new network of relationships, which includes family, community, and business. thus, women tend to evaluate their performance through a variety of non-financial criteria, such as employees’ and clients’ satisfaction, balance between work and family commitments and the formation of interpersonal ties. with respect to entrepreneurship, women are constrained to small, micro-businesses, preferring flexibility by working part-time and possibly at home. social feminists argue that the situation will remain unchanged until the domestic work of women is recognized through some type of monetary consideration and there is an equitable sharing of household responsibilities between men and women (byrne & fayolle, 2010). social constructionist feminism holds the belief that identities are socially and linguistically constructed (fiaccadori, 2006; byrne & fayolle, 2010). gender, is thus, a social process which is ‘produced and reproduced through power relations which emerged from historical processes, dominant discourse, institutions and dominant epistemological journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) 91 conceptualizations’ (byrne & fayolle, 2010). the continuation of this cycle of women’s subordination to the opposite gender is related to the reproduction of generally accepted patterns of behaviour. by going through a different socialisation process, females develop different skills and understandings of living than males do (fisher et al., 1993). this is very much the case since they both follow distinctive paths, based on gender specific behaviours, social norms attribute to each. social constructivist feminism is more concerned about how behaviours are gendered and how entrepreneurship is influenced by such social construction. in such, a deep analysis of the prevailing ideologies and institutional orders, including the legal environment, family and childcare, division of labour, cultural environment, supports system and education, is inevitable in order to understand how these are constructed and reconstructed and how they influence female entrepreneurship (ahl, 2006; byrne & fayolle, 2010). the gender gap in entrepreneurship gender gap does not seem to be a global alerting phenomenon; when it comes to engagement in entrepreneurial activities, men constitute 52% while women 48% of all entrepreneurial activities. yet, the gender gap varies significantly in size across the world, when studying countries at the individual level. according to minniti (2009), the gender gap in entrepreneurship is most visible in middle income and transitional countries where men are 75% more, and in developing countries where they are 41% more, likely than women to start a business; yet it is relatively small in high income countries where men are 33% more likely to start a business. in countries such as: panama, venezuela, jamaica, guatemala, brazil, thailand, switzerland and singapore, the rates of men and women engaged in starting a business are equal (gem, 2012, vossenberg, 2013) while in latin america and the caribbean, both male and female entrepreneurship are considerably high. on the other hand, countries in the middle east and north africa seem to have the lowest number of female entrepreneurs with iran and pakistan having the lowest levels of all countries in the world (gem: 2012). countries of eastern europe have, indeed, low rates of female entrepreneurs with the exception of russia in which female entrepreneurship represent 44% (gem: 2012). in sub saharan africa, levels of female entrepreneurship are considerably high with ghana being the only economy with more female entrepreneurship, 92 bouguerre, n., motives and barriers to business start up, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) representing 55% of the entire conducted entrepreneurship activities (gem; 2012, vossenberg: 2013). in asian and western european economies, female entrepreneurship varies considerably; it is high in singapore and switzerland but remains low in countries such as france and the republic of korea (gem, 2012, vossenberg, 2013). besides, gender gap becomes more visible when exploring the incentives to start a business. women, in such, are more likely to start a business out of necessity. for instance, in developing countries, the vast majority of women are engaged in entrepreneurial activities driven by pure necessity to generate income, rather than opportunity. accordingly, through developing economies, expanding growth and providing jobs, gender gap in entrepreneurship measured by motive will gradually decline (gem, 2010). in countries like china, brazil and others in eastern europe, the gender gap in entrepreneurship is narrowing due to the decline in the proportion of female entrepreneurship driven by necessity factors. nevertheless, this does not seem the case in other parts of the world, especially in the middle east and north africa where necessity based entrepreneurship seem to increase and further feed the expansion of gender gap. moreover, the gender could be highlighted when shedding light on entrepreneurial orientation and industry choice which show that women seem to pursue certain business activities at the expenses of others. for instance, sectors such as manufacturing and construction are often controlled by men while women’s representation is extremely low, if not absent. they, however, seem to exist in higher percentages in customer service and retail businesses , especially in latin america, the caribbean and sub-saharan africa where they are 75% dominated by women (gem, 2010). the gender gap is also visible in business performance. compared to men’s, women’s businesses tend to be smaller and less profitable; grow slower and have lower sales turnover (robb & wolken, 2002; coleman, 2007). this could be related to the fact that men and women differ, mainly, in socioeconomic characteristics, namely education, wealth, family, cultural background, work status and experience (orser et al., 2006; minniti & naude, 2010). lastly, maintaining and growing the business beyond start-up is a serious challenge for all women entrepreneurs, especially in developing countries where women are subject to high exit rates related to lack of financing, insufficient profitability and family responsibilities (vossenberg, 2013). journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) 93 women entrepreneurship in the arab middle east and north africa according to the world bank report (2013), women in the middle east and north africa are more educated, empowered and engaged in the political, economic, cultural and social activities than ever before. arab states have wisely invested in women’s education; yet, they are not utilising them to contribute to economic growth. although women make up 49% of the population in the arab region, their participation in the workforce does only represent 25 percent, about half of the world average. since the outbreak of arab revolutions in 2010, some governments across the mena region introduced new assets to close the widened gender gap by further investing in human development and integrate women in both the economic and political life. women found themselves supported to play a new role of starting up new businesses and help shape the future economies for their countries (world bank, 2012). thus, an investigation of female entrepreneurship in the region is needed in order to understand the motives that push them to embrace entrepreneurial activities as well as the barriers that may challenge them throughout. methodology a survey of women attitudes towards business start-up in the arab mena this study carries out a survey of literature in the area of women entrepreneurship in the arab middle east and north africa and has been divided into three sections. the first part attempts to review the main researches that discuss how women are influenced to embrace entrepreneurial activities; the second part reviews the constraints that face women throughout the process of entrepreneurship. finally, the last section of the survey includes a summary of key findings based on different studies and geographical locations between 2000 and 2013 that demonstrate women entrepreneurial attitudes and the issues facing them when they start a new business. 94 bouguerre, n., motives and barriers to business start up, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) incentives previous studies found that women entrepreneurship is progressed by a number of incentives; for instance, personality traits (opportunity, motivation and performance), the desire for independency, autonomy, flexibility, diversity, long lasting business and self-challenge (ylinenpää & chechurina, 2000; mcelwee & alriyami, 2003; dima, 2009). also, the desire for additional income, better future, social status and recognition, family support and the presence of a role model have been appealing to female entrepreneurs (lincoln, 2012; mumuni et al., 2013; yves et al., 2010). besides, the presence of governmental and financial support, technological development and the availability of education, training and networking are essential to help shape female entrepreneurial identities and firms (unescap 2005; meenu & jai, 2011; akhalwaya & havenga, 2012; kargwill, 2012). constraints on the contrary, women have a tendency to be discouraged to embrace entrepreneurial activities when faced by a number of constraints. for instance, the lack of support from government institutions, lack of training, financing, networking, technology , social pressures, culture, tradition and gender inequality remain big challenges for women in their entrepreneurial process (wendey & choy, 2007; al owaihan & rao, 2010; akhalwaya & havenga, 2012; kargwill, 2012; mcelwee & alriyami, 2010). indeed, turbulent legal, normative, economic and social environments as well as a combination of regulative, normative and cognitive factors are also critical obstacles for women (dima, 2009; faraha,2009; niazkar & moghaddam, 2011). besides, competition, education, economic conditions, high costs of production, lack of infrastructure, business and marketing skills do, indeed, challenge females in their entrepreneurship activities (meenu & jai, 2011; yves et al., 2010; acs, 2012; lincoln, 2012; mumuni & bowan, 2013). journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) 95 table 1: list of detailed incentives and constraints arab women face through business start-ups incentives constraints independency , employment, family support , extra income gender inequality , lack of social and government support personal satisfaction, additional income, independency, family support, influenced by a role model traditional and cultural practices, religion’s involvement, gender inequality lack of networking and training, absence of women’s entrepreneurial culture, family responsibility opportunity, motivations (pull & push factors), financing and performance legal environment, normative environment, economic environment and social environment education, support of family members, role model to others, bright future, income, government policies and procedures, self-challenge, innovative thinking and social status gender inequality, culture, management dimension, financial and networking, personal dimension and legitimacy family support and influence, skills, economic conditions, access to capital and support services, role models traditional views on women, social pressures, cultural and traditional values, patriarchal tradition, access to finance, markets, training , networks and policy makers independence, family, income, intrinsic & personal factors, business, government and social related factors financing, training, government regulations and external environment, tradition, culture, religion, masculine society customer and employee satisfaction, diversity, flexibility, personal freedom, profitability, security and social recognition social recognition, cultural and social values, developmental opportunities, networking, education and training, family responsibility, finances and labour legislation economic and technological development, flexible enterprise policies, education and spiritual support government institutions , traditions, gender inequality 96 bouguerre, n., motives and barriers to business start up, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) incentives constraints personal achievement, independency, flexibility, family support, implant the idea of female entrepreneurship, additional income tradition , male oriented society, poor personal traits and skills, financial, economic and infrastructural factors, lack of start-up capital and training independence, family, income, intrinsic & personal factors, business , government and social related factors government institutions, culture, gender inequality personal satisfaction, independency, financial motives, desire for autonomy and flexibility, family support gender, culture, education, economic condition, social pressure, lack of support, family, training, costs of production, access to technology, financial assistance and infrastructure personal satisfaction, independency, financial motives, desire for autonomy and flexibility, family support gender inequality, patriarchal traditions, culture, religion, lack of resources, information and technology, lack of training, financing and government support. 98 bouguerre, n., motives and barriers to business start up, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) conceptual background developing a model for female entrepreneurial process from the above discussion, it is significant to highlight that a female entrepreneur relies, in her business start up process, on a number of critical factors, namely: a good business idea, a business plan, an opportunity, resources and a team. balancing these five factors is inevitable to succeed through the entrepreneurial process; a successful entrepreneur with a good business idea, seizes the opportunity, plans her business, forms a team and gathers the necessary resources. these factors are influenced by antecedents to the start up related to individual and contextual domains and the entire process can be affected by risk and ambiguity. through entrepreneurial activities and intermediate linkages (innovation, supply, competition intensity, entrepreneurial progress); economic growth, productivity, employment and consumption can be achieved. figure 1 shows the developed model for female entrepreneurial process. figure 1: source: original journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) 99 conceptual framework this study attempts to absorb these key findings into developing a ‘female decision process framework’. based on these studies, the framework is divided into three categories starting by the input which includes the motives influencing women to embrace entrepreneurial activities; then the barriers that affect the developed model for female entrepreneurial process and finally their decision on whether to or not to embark in entrepreneurial activities. indeed, there is a strong relationship between female motives to start a business and the barriers they may face in order to achieve it; they, thus, find themselves torn between two major forces able to affect each other respectively: motives and barriers. from the literature survey, personal motives such as the need for independence, personal achievement, motivation and self esteem are the main factors that motivate women in their entrepreneurial decision. also, tackling employment issues and economic development and support as well as education and training remain crucial elements in dragging women’s attention. on the other hand, many studies found that the lack of financing, business and government support and entrepreneurship education obstructed women in the process of business start-up. this was supplemented by the strong effect culture and tradition has on influencing women’s entrepreneurial decision and process. significantly, both motives and barriers can affect the developed model of female entrepreneurial process, either positively or negatively, and females can evaluate the effect of each in order to make the decision to whether or not embark in entrepreneurship. this developed framework can be applied in different studies and the outcome might differ, considering the political, social and economic environments of the new geographical location. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) 101 conclusion this study aimed to investigate female entrepreneurship; it discussed the notion of the entrepreneur, entrepreneurship and female entrepreneurship in the light of feminist theory and its three prevailing paradigms that analyse female entrepreneurship as well as shedding light on the gender gap in entrepreneurship. the study also critically examined the motives that push females in the arab world to start businesses and the barriers they may face throughout. absorbing all the key factors in the study allowed the development of a model for female entrepreneurial process which was then used to develop a conceptual framework for female entrepreneurial decision. the study opens a door for future research to apply the developed conceptual framework in other contexts and examine the extent to which each of these motives and barriers variables affect the business start up process. references [1] aldrich, h.e., & cliff, j.e. 2003. “the pervasive effects of family on entrepreneurship: toward a family embeddedness perspective”. journal of business venturing, 18: 573-597. 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[online] [39] wennekers, s. and thurik, r. 1999. “linking entrepreneurship to economic growth”. small business economics, 13: 27-55. 104bouguerre, n., motives and barriers to business start up, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 86-104) istraživanje ženskog preduzetništva: motivi i barijere u pokretanju biznisa u arapskom svetu a p s t r a k t preduzetništvo je nužno za podsticanje privrednog rasta i stvaranja mogućnosti zapošljavanja u svim društvima. mala i srednja preduzeća imaju veliki udeo u privrednoj aktivnosti i razvoju; oni su primarni pokretač otvaranja novih radnih mesta, rasta prihoda i smanjenja siromaštva. opšte je poznato da žene igraju značajnu ulogu u ekonomskom razvoju kroz osnivanje preduzeća. preduzetničke aktivnosti treba da donesu prednosti ženama, ne samo zbog smanjenja nezaposlenosti, podsticanja proizvodnje i povećanja potrošnje, već i zbog postizanja ravnopravnosti polova, socijalnih i kulturnih reformi. ovaj rad ima za cilj da ispita stavove žena prema preduzetništvu; raspravlja o motivima i preprekama sa kojima se suočavaju žene u arapskom svetu u procesu vođenja njihove preduzetničke delatnosti. studija razmatra prethodno objavljene radove o ženskom preduzetništvu, kako bi se bolje razumeli motivi i prepreke, kao i izazovi u njihovom angažovanju u osnivanju firmi. na osnovu toga razvijen je model ženskog preduzetničkog procesa i donošenja odluka koji stavlja akcenat na odnose između motiva i barijera. istraživanje je pokazalo da žene donose odluku za pokretanje preduzetničkih aktivnosti kao rezultat povezanosti motiva i barijera kroz preduzetnički proces. glavni doprinos ovog konceptualnog rada uključuje: rasvetljavanje motiva i prepreka koje se mogu smatrati izazovom za arapske žene da prihvate preduzetničke aktivnosti; razvijen je model za ženski preduzetnički proces, kao i model donošenja odluka, koji mogu da posluže kao okvir u budućim istraživanjima ključne reči: preduzetništvo, žensko preduzetništvo, motivi, barijere article history: received: 10 january, 2015 accepted: 3 march, 2015 microsoft word 10_jwe_1-2.doc udc: 005.21 (497.5) jel: l26, m2 scientific report small business in croatia 2009 sommer tina, european small business alliance a b s t r a c t this summary report represents the results of an effort to portray the business environment in croatia from the view of croatian small businesses. umis-smea, a national business organisation and esba, the european small business alliance, a pan-european association, teamed up to examine the problems and barriers small firms experience in croatia. the data presented was drawn from an online survey conducted over a fiveweek period in march/ april 2009 with 254 respondents, a number of focus groups interviewing 19 business owners from various industries, media and public bodies over a 2-day period, and visits to three selected companies in zagreb and krizevici. kew words: entrepreneurship, croatia, small business, education, business environment, barriers introduction this report represents the results of an effort to portray the business environment in croatia from the view of croatian small businesses. umissmea, a national business organisation and esba, the european small business alliance, a pan-european association, teamed up to examine the problems and barriers small firms experience in croatia. the data presented was drawn from an online survey conducted over a five-week period in march/ april 2009 with 254 respondents, a number of focus groups interviewing 19 business owners from various industries, sommer, t., small business in croatia 2009, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 35 media and public bodies over a 2-day period, and visits to three selected companies in zagreb and krizevici. the recommendations made in this report derive from proposals made by survey respondents, interview contributions and the extensive expertise of the interview panel consisting of tina sommer, president of esba, fredric soudain, brussels representative of esba and norman mackel, esba treasurer. all three panel members are business owners in their own right, working in various industries, countries and company sizes. katarina jagic and her team in umis-smea provided local background knowledge, administration, translations and contacts. the full report is divided into three parts beginning with the analysis of the profile of businesses drawn from the survey, a description of problems and barriers in various areas of the current business environment including constructive recommendations and case studies and concludes with summary remarks. this paper is an extract of some key findings. profile of businesses a number of online questions were asked to establish the profile of small businesses in croatia. 66% of respondents have a well-established business for more than 10 years. only 3% however were considering starting a company and less than 1% have taken the step into selfemployment. this pattern is quite different from the typical small business sector in the rest of europe. most entrepreneurs own one business, but almost a quarter has expanded into more than one business. the vast majority chose a limited company as their legal status. not a single franchise operation responded to the survey invitation. table 1: what is the legal form of your business? journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 36 the regional distribution is as expected with 42% of businesses based in the capital and its region. the four top industry sectors were wholesale trade, manufacturing, it related activities and retail. 76% of respondents provide services and 24% are involved in product creation. over half of respondents work from offices. working from home are 27%. both figures clearly reflect the emphasis on service provision. 196 firms provided details of their staff numbers totaling 900 comprising of full-time, part-time and seasonal workers. the average employment rate is 4.5 to 5.5 staff per company mirroring the eu majority of micro businesses. family members play a substantial part in croatian firms with 60% reporting involvement of relatives, predominantly spouses and children. table 2: how many people do you employ? the vast majority of business owners are between 35 and 54 years old (65%). only 11% of the total number of respondents are young entrepreneurs (under 34). educational qualifications are high amongst businesses with 52% reporting degree level or above. given the requirement of internet access for an online questionnaire this figure may not be representative of the business population as a whole. however, it may also reflect the failure of the earlier years of education, to develop an understanding of the value of the business opportunities available. two thirds of business owners were employed prior to starting in business. 14% already had involvement in the same business. only less than 10% saw self-employment as an alternative to unemployment. similar small numbers considered business as a career opportunity after university. very few company owners work less than 40 hours per week. the vast majority input between 40 and 60 hours with a quarter working more sommer, t., small business in croatia 2009, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 37 than 60 hours. their efforts are rewarded in terms of improved finances (62%) and better quality of life (56%). table 3: how many hours do you work typically in a week? business environment the main purpose of this report is to evaluate the business climate from a small business angle. the report is subdivided into 12 business topics, which have been collated into six groups in this summary. croatia in comparison to other countries the worldbank report ‘doing business 2009 – country profile for croatia’ gives a good indication where croatia stands compared to 180 other countries in terms of its business environment. croatia ranks 106 out of 181 countries in terms of business climate. in general it falls behind other south eastern european countries such as albania (86), macedonia (71), montenegro (90) and serbia (94). overview the overview sets the scene of the general perception of the business climate as expressed by the online survey respondents. the more detailed topic analysis includes the comments of the focus groups. 43% of survey respondents considered the business climate in croatia as difficult in contrast to 31% who judged their environment as average. clearly there was unison in the question of whether entrepreneurship was understood and supported, with 92.5% stating a resounding no. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 38 table 4: what do you think of the business climate in croatia to start and run a business? the evaluation of education and training produced a draw between 42.2% considering both provisions as insufficient and 42.9% as average. again employing people is a problem for 44.4%, but not for 55.6%. regulations are seen by 60% as a barrier, but not by the remaining 40%. table 5: how do you evaluate education and training for entrepreneurs in croatia? access to finance is a problem to three quarters of businesses clearly compounded by the financial crisis, which 75% of respondents blame for business support was important to the respondents with 380 hits to this multiple-choice question. 28% see central government as best placed to provide business support, followed by 20.5% in favour of local government support. banks came in third place as a preferred support source and the european commission attracted 10% of respondents. starting and running a business seem to have similar problems. startups are struggling relatively more with regulations, taxation and finding suitable business support as opposed to existing business whose concerns were more concentrated on access to finance, the impact of the financial crisis and corruption. neither group paid much attention to training. sommer, t., small business in croatia 2009, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 39 entrepreneurship, education and training these three topics were identified as the most pressing issues facing the croatian businesses. entrepreneurship is multi facetted and can occur in many different contexts, but the concern here is with its business application. primarily, it is a mindset, which provides the individual with the motivation and capability to produce new value or economic success based upon change. croatia’s recent history of a war and a socialist system is contributing to obvious difficulties in establishing an understanding of entrepreneurship. mistrust of public institutions and the feeling of being left without support became highly visible during the focus group discussions. in addition, central and local government policies differ substantially contributing to restrictions on entrepreneurship. the fact that membership of the chambers of commerce is compulsory, is seen as a barrier and a license to trade. freedom to choose, which services best suit each business, should prevail. whilst entrepreneurship in the individual can be encouraged, it is the most difficult characteristic to consciously and methodically develop. the need for training was not widely recognised by survey respondents despite the clear lack of business skills reported by business consultants and agencies. availability, cost and quality of training are blamed by some for the lack of interest. there are many ways to instil interest in entrepreneurship i.e. awareness rising in schools, universities and the general public as a whole through events, open days, presentations and visits to flourishing companies and the introduction of role models and champions via the media. banks could improve their damaged image by providing support to entrepreneurs. social enterprise being undervalued in croatia could provide an alternative to un-employment as well as encourage community based collaboration. a number of case studies show how good examples already exist within croatia that only need to be publicised for replication in other areas and regions. education and training featured high in the priorities identified by focus groups. the massive problems range from lack of understanding of rights and responsibilities of workers though to recognising that selfjournal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 40 employment can form an alternative career path. existing courses are perceived as too theoretical and not practical enough to make a marked difference. essential business skills are not provided nor do institutions teach the skills needed for the employment market. apprenticeships are considered to be lacking in value without systematic tests. for example, qualifications of bookkeepers and accountants seem to be too close to differentiate. table 6: training problems for start up companies table 7: training problems for existing companies most of all the lack of courses to train the trainers is limiting entrepreneurial education everywhere. changes made to the education system after 1991 are perceived as ‘useless’ and business skills are seen as ‘not on the agenda’ for many institutions. although the responses and complaints are damning, there are good examples. attempts are being made to improve the situation provided funds are available to implement the changes. the recommendations from the interview panel and focus groups include the teaching of an understanding of rights and responsibilities as sommer, t., small business in croatia 2009, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 41 well as the principles terminology and processes of a free market culture, projects in schools and universities to simulate or create real business activities, the drawing on expertise of mentors and business owners, teachers and trainers need to educated to train others and lastly banks should be encouraged to contribute to the dissemination of financial information. regulation and business support bureaucracy is a key word for croatian businesses. be it lengthy procedures, complex forms or lack of transparency, when it comes to following rules, both new and existing businesses are struggling. given the industries represented in the focus groups, construction industry and pharmaceutical regulations were highlighted as bad examples. the lack of synergy between the requirements of central and local government adds to the general frustration. having a name seems to make all the difference and doors open easily. table 8: regulation barriers for existing companies the persistent need to provide proof i.e. police records, health and marriage certificates is time consuming and costly. many procedures require notaries adding to cost and seemingly not serving any purpose. the world bank report ‘doing businesses’ confirms the feelings of the small business community and ranks croatia at 163 out of 180 countries. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 42 remedies are plentiful, if only policy makers would listen. ‘think small first’ is the basic principle that needs to be followed in law making, as does simplification of existing rules. common commencement dates of new regulations can significantly ease the burden on small firms. impact assessments combined with a sme test should be obligatory as should be clear and understandable language. consultation with stakeholders is now common in all eu member states and contributes to better lawmaking and implementation. the first aim of inspections should be to educate and not to punish. lastly and most importantly, especially in croatia, the law must apply to everyone equally. business support was criticised by both start-ups and existing businesses. finding the right support was a challenge for a third of respondents. quality of support was next on the list with cost of advice more of a problem for existing businesses. the plethora of business support on offer seems to be confusing and overwhelming. information seems to be aplenty, however the link to practical application is missing. table 9: getting help for start-up companies table 10: getting help for existing companies sommer, t., small business in croatia 2009, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 43 from the business support agencies point of view, a lot of misunderstandings stem from the lack of basic knowledge of what is possible and what is not. financial assistance is often thought of as a last resort and unrealistic expectations add to the frustrations on both sides. business plans are seen as an unpleasant requirement rather than an essential roadmap to manage the business. business decisions are made on ‘gut feel’ rather then analysis. business support should be clear, defined, easy to find and affordable. the preferred option for many businesses in the eu are one stop shops, either online or physical, where all relevant information can be found and advisors are at hand to fill the gaps. a dedicated business advisor over extended periods of time can make a huge difference to the performance of a small firm. credibility of business advisors is best established through personal business experience. access to finance, public procurement and taxation in terms of access to finance croatian businesses face the same problems as anywhere else in europe. a lack of start-up capital, limited collateral in small firms, high cost of loans and overdrafts, as well as difficulties in accessing guarantee schemes and grants. combined with a lack of financial advisors and general lack of support by banks small firms find themselves disadvantaged. the lack of liquidity and working capital as a result of late payments especially by public bodies contribute significantly to the slow growth and struggle of small companies. the financial crisis does not seem to be a major factor in accessing finance at present. the reduction in demand was reported as much more of a problem. to improve access to finance a number of measures can be taken. subsidies and grants must be allocated in a transparent, timely and just fashion. government and banks should promote credit guarantee schemes, simplify applications and set time limits for approval. late payment should be reigned in by publishing creditor days of large companies and limiting public bodies to terms of 30 days. financial advisors should be available, affordable and accountable. micro finance with simple procedures should be offered to encourage start-ups. given the rumour that public procurement is a closed shop and only accessible to 200 families in croatia, 50% of the survey respondents journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 44 reported participation in public contracts. despite this positive indicator, complaints were made about late payment, excessive paperwork and slow process time. to verify participation figures, statistics should be published on how much of public purchasing goes through small firms in croatia. the public procurement process must be transparent with publication of tenders. applications need to be simple and cost free and centralised systems should be utilised to eliminate repeated duplication of data when multiple applications are submitted. less experienced companies should receive help to tender and large companies could be required to use local small firms to complete contracts. taxation rates in croatia are well within the lower range in worldwide comparison. problems are reported with low vat thresholds and slow vat refunds on export goods. new companies struggle with the bureaucratic process and getting specialist advice. a higher vat threshold could provide more cost effective services to consumers, stimulate the economy and create more enterprise. long waits for vat refunds on export goods and services only hamper export and can cause financial difficulties resulting in less activity or even business closure. trading abroad export and imports have improved since 2008 according to the world bank report. in depth discussions with the focus groups however revealed more detailed barriers to trading abroad. there is a general lack of knowledge how to expand abroad, find suitable trading partners and promote goods and services. exported goods are not seen as sufficiently value added to achieve better returns. the implication of required market access standards and rules, especially for the us, were seen by some companies as a major hurdle. to resolve some of these issues an export promotion board could be established that deals with export marketing and training, help with finding suitable partners and branding of croatian goods and services. assistance to achieve european and international standards should be made available to open up markets. lastly, the european commission should consider reinstating their europartenariat programme to facilitate networking within the internal market. sommer, t., small business in croatia 2009, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 45 crime and corruption figures on crime were reported by a third of survey respondents. by far the most pressing issue is fraud, which was experienced by 58% of participants. vandalism and theft was recorded in second and third place with much lower figures (12% and 9% respectively). to gain a clearer picture crime on business should be recorded separately. clear up rates should be recorded and made public for monitoring over time. online reporting for minor crime should be made available. corruption is reported as a significant issue in croatia. the index of economic freedom 2009 put croatia on a ranking of 64 out of 179 countries. although the croatian government has initiated a process to overhaul areas particularly affected, the general perception by businesses is that corruption reaches all walks of life. the cost to the economy and society as a whole can be massive. where there is a political will there is a way to stamp out corruption. no society should suffer as a whole to benefit a few. starting and closing a business the world bank report clearly shows that starting a business has become significantly more difficult in 2009 compared to 2008. survey respondents experienced particular problems with bureaucratic and timeconsuming company formation requirements. other barriers mentioned were late payments and corruption. the focus groups mentioned the low vat threshold as an obstacle and in general tax payments required at a time when income is still unpredictable and low. training for new entrepreneurs in business skills is essential to avoid unpleasant surprises. a mentoring scheme combined with dedicated business zones providing a cost effective infrastructure can increase the survival rate of new firms. good examples already exist in croatia and should be replicated. availability of start up capital and micro finance can increase the number of new firms dramatically and should be used to ensure a new stock of potential employers. closing a business is a lengthy process in croatia and can take between 3 and 6 month if it is done on a voluntary basis. bankruptcy journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 46 procedures can take over 3 years according to the world bank report. given the fact that most small business owners are personally liable and their family and home can be under threat, insolvency laws should be geared towards giving the opportunity to start again. the cost of bankruptcy of 15% of the estate is far too high. table 11: problems with company formation for start-up companies table 12: other barriers for start-up companies conclusions this summary report has given a snapshot of how small businesses in croatia see their current environment. although the picture is not good in comparison to other european countries, it is showing tentative signs of improvement. it has become very apparent that enterprise policy and education and training are the dominant issues. by tackling these two areas first, many opportunities will open up for the small business sector. monitoring reforms in croatia, the world bank report only mentions two areas where efforts have been made i.e. construction permits and trading across borders. as a reformer, croatia still has a long way to go. bureaucracy features high in all areas, as does the lack of transparency. a functioning, reliable and trustworthy judicial system is sommer, t., small business in croatia 2009, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 34-47) 47 essential to instil confidence in would-be entrepreneurs and existing businesses. there seems to be a severe lack of consultation. input from the small business community is not only helpful in finding solutions, but also important to build bridges and trust. listening to the concerns of business owners is becoming the norm in eu member states. co-operation to find solutions and ‘think small first’ are the best way to improve the economy and create jobs. successful businesses will provide the tax revenue that pays for services. small business is the backbone of every economy in the world. croatia is no exception. corruption and crime will only harm the economy as a whole and have no place in an aspiring eu country. last but no least, it is down to the businesses and citizens of croatia to make their voices heard. they need to stand up for their needs and contribute to a better environment. it is difficult to be heard as an individual; it is easy to show determination as a group. responsibility lies with everyone involved. received: 8 january 2010 article history: accepted: 7 march 2010 microsoft word 10_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 37.046.14(669) jel: i2; n37 original scientific paper enrolment, attrition and graduation of the girl child in public junior secondary schools in south west nigeria, 1996-2006 abari ayodeji olasunkanmi*, oshun grace okaima, lagos state university, faculty of education, department of educational management, ojo lagos, nigeria a b s t r a c t the study examined the enrolment, attrition and graduation of the girl child in junior secondary schools in south west nigeria from 1999 to 2006 during which five cohorts were produced. this is against the backdrop of the launching of the universal basic education (ube) programme of the federal government of nigeria in 1999, a programme that is designed not only to ensure that the child acquires basic skills in life but also to redress the gender imbalance in the nigerian educational landscape and therefore ensure greater female participation in national development. relevant data were collected through a records observation format from 72 junior secondary schools purposively selected from the urban and rural areas of the six states that constitute south west nigeria namely ekiti, lagos, ogun, ondo, oshun and oyo states. data collected were subjected to the t-test statistical analysis in consonance with the hypotheses formulated to guide the study. results indicate no significant difference between enrolment and graduation in both urban and rural areas at 0.05 significant level indicating that the ube programme is probably on course with respect to participation of the girl child. among the recommendations are that brilliant but indigent female students be offered bursary and scholarship awards and that gender specific laws be enacted to protect female children from abuse and exploitation in order to ensure and assure their education. kew words: enrolment, attrition, graduation, girl child * e-mail: ayodejiabari@yahoo.com journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 59-70) 60 introduction the last few decades have witnessed the emancipation of women in terms of access to education and the attainment of positions of authority. in spite of this, it is believed in some quarters that more need to be done to bridge the inequality in all ramifications between men and women to ensure that every citizen contributes meaningfully to national development. thus, gupta (2006) points out that although women have made great strides in improving their general educational status, gender gap still persists, particularly in the realm of secondary education. in an efa global monitoring report by unesco (2002), it is stated that gender disparities in primary education is amplified at the secondary level. this, the report claims, is responsible for the lowest levels of secondary enrolment for girls in central and west africa. “generally, women’s levels of education are lower than men’s and the few girls who are educated are steered towards subjects preparing them for reproductive and domestic life rather than entrepreneurship (ibeh, 2009). this suggests that the “social role of women predetermines their position in everyday occurrence” (horvathova, 2009) including education. meanwhile, the nigerian government has set the agenda by formulating the national policy on education (federal republic of nigeria, 2004) where provision is made for all primary school leavers to have access to secondary education irrespective of sex, social status, religious or ethnic background. in order to achieve these objectives, the universal basic education (ube) programme was introduced in 1999. according to okiy and as cited by bilesanmi-awoderu and kalesanwo (2009), “the introduction to ube is seen as a catalyst which will result in greater female participation in national development. she went further to opine that the scheme sets specifically to redress the gender imbalance which has been evident in the nigerian educational landscape”. furthermore, the scheme provides for free and compulsory education for the first nine years of school, that is, up to junior secondary school level which is referred to as basic nine under the ube. according to obanya (2001), ube is expected to provide the type of education that is terminal since the programme was designed to ensure that a child acquires basic skills by the time he or she completes junior secondary school. going by the findings of previous studies, secondary school enrolment usually fall short of the figures of pupils who completed primary abari, a., et al., enrolment, attricition and graduation, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 59-70) 61 school (obanya, 2004). part of the cohort, mostly girls, would have drifted away while others were entering secondary schools seven years later. according to obanya (2004), “a smaller proportion of girls are able to transit from primary to secondary schooling’. similarly, tanbawel, ugochukwu, akintomide, agunwah, okafor and dada (2006), state that bias for boys’ enrolment is evident in the south west (nigeria) as against the south east which displays a bias towards girls’ enrolment. the phenomenon of a girl enrolling in school and dropping out before the set time for completing her course of study is attributable to a number of factors. at the secondary school level, girls drop out due to such factors as early and unwanted pregnancy, early marriage, sexual harassment by male teachers, lack of encouragement by teachers, administrators, parents, and the wider society, inability of parents to provide learning materials, absence of a role model, tiredness when the child has been over-laboured, being forced to look after sick relations or siblings and having to walk long distance from home to school. this view is in consonance with that of obanya (2004) who postulates that environmental hazards such as early marriage, unwanted pregnancies, gender insensitive education environment, teaching methods among others are responsible for drop-out among adolescent girls. gupta (2006) notes that, in china, drop out is often attributed to boredom or dissatisfaction with school. unicef (2004) reports that the rate of female attrition is very high and the increasing number of drop-out has also complicated the problem associated with rising single parent families”. moreover, hallman, peracca, cationo and ruiz (2007) conclude that the most critical age for dropout among girls is 12. this they state is the period when a girl transits from primary to secondary school. apart from girls who drop out of school, there are some who have to repeat the same class, thereby constituting themselves into a waste to the system. according to unesco efa global monitoring report (2002), it is not in common to have the level of repetition by girls as being above 15%. the reasons adduced are the need to attend to domestic and other chores; low expectation of girls’ performance in school by parents and society, and curriculum and pedagogical biases. added to the above are deep emotional problems which some girls find difficult to discuss with their parents. rather, they speak to their friends and classmates who may misinform them. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 59-70) 62 the need to stay in school and complete her education at every level of the education system is very essential to the girl child. graduation at the end of a set course of study is dependent to a very large extent on school attendance, diligence and the ability to obtain good grades. bolarin (2005) asserts that at the secondary school level, female participation dwindles and only a small percentage of girls complete secondary education. the government, parents and teachers have important roles to play to ensure that a girl who has been enrolled in school remains within the school, benefits from the instructions and graduates. the government sets the tone of the school through the school administrators. it performs the role of providing infrastructural facilities, instructional materials, laboratories and other facilities to facilitate the teaching and learning process. the parents need to prepare the girl child psychologically for school. she has to be made to understand the importance of education and be provided the learning materials. all her other needs have to be met by parents to prevent her from being influenced by negative forces which may make her drop out of school. the teacher is said to be in loco-parentis to his students. the teacher, therefore, has to play the role of a parent as well as that of a counsellor. the teacher needs to encourage the girl child to work hard, guide her in career choice and help to boost her self-confidence in order to succeed. in spite of the foregoing, to what extent then, has the ube policy and programme achieved its ends particularly in ensuring the girl child education and, therefore, in ensuring the enrolment and graduation of the girl child at the junior secondary school level since the policy was launched in 1999 and up till 2006? what specifically was then the status of enrolment, attrition and graduation of the girl child in urban and rural public junior secondary schools in south west nigeria from 1999 to 2006? and is there any significant difference between enrolment and graduation in these schools during the period under study? methodology the study population comprised all public junior secondary schools in the six states that constitute the south-western geo-political zone of nigeria namely ekiti, lagos, ogun, ondo, osun and oyo states. the study sample was drawn from six public junior secondary schools in urban areas and six public junior secondary schools in rural areas from each of the six abari, a., et al., enrolment, attricition and graduation, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 59-70) 63 states in the zone. the schools were selected through purposive sampling technique and in such a way that, as much as possible, no two schools were selected from the same local government in the sates. this produced a total of 72 sample schools. a records observation format on girl-child enrolment attrition and graduation which serves as a primary source of data collection was administered on the sample junior secondary schools’ principals. the format was used to seek information on statistics of school enrolment, attrition and graduation from 1999 to 2006. during this period (1999 to 2006), five cohorts were produced. the following hypotheses were formulated to guide the study: 1. there is no significant difference between enrolment and graduation of the girl child in urban public junior secondary schools in south west nigeria. 2. there is no significant different between enrolment and graduation of the girl child in rural public junior secondary schools in south west nigeria. the hypotheses were subjected to the t-test statistical analysis. data analysis the data collected from the sample schools were collated and the means of the girl-child’s enrolment, graduation and attrition derived. these were processed into frequencies and percentages in order to present a quantitative analysis of each of the cohorts in all the sample public junior secondary schools in all the states in south west nigeria. table 1: enrolment, attrition and graduation of girl child in public junior secondary schools in south west nigeria from 1999-2006 urban rural enrolment attrition gradua-tion enrolmen attrition graduation ekiti 4,457 475 3,982 3,364 560 2,804 lagos 12,769 687 11.082 8,983 1,241 7,742 ogun 6,277 459 5,818 2,808 108 2,628 ondo3,835 474 3,361 2,577 557 2,020 osun 4,555 265 4,190 3,518 205 3,313 oyo 3,578 358 3,220 3,700 221 3,479 source: fieldwork journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 59-70) 64 table 1 gives a picture of enrolment, attrition and graduation during the period 1999-2006, which was covered by the study. lagos state has the highest figures for enrolment and graduation as well as attrition both in the urban and rural secondary schools. attrition is high in rural schools in ondo state in spite of the fact that it has low enrolment compared with other states. test of hypothesis 1 there is no significant difference between enrolment and graduation of the girl child in urban public junior secondary schools in south west nigeria. in testing this hypothesis, the paired student t-test was used. table 2: summary of t-test analysis of difference between enrolment and graduation of the girl child in urban public junior secondary schools. source mean sd n df t-cal t-tab decision enrolment 085.3 2395 36 70 0.1849 1.67 h0 graduation 879.3 2112.86 table 2 reveals that there is no significant difference between the enrolment and graduation of the girl-child in urban public junior secondary schools. (t-cal 0.1849 <t-table 1.67; df= 70;p <.05). hence, the hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference between enrolment and graduation figures of the girl child in urban junior secondary schools is accepted. test of hypothesis 2 there is no significant difference between enrolment and graduation figures of the girl-child in rural pubic junior secondary schools. table 3: summary of that t-test analysis of difference between enrolment and gradation of the girl child in rural public junior secondary schools source mean sd n df t-cal t-tab decision enrolment 720.2 1654.9 36 70 0.3242 1.67 h0 graduation 599.6 1454.8 abari, a., et al., enrolment, attricition and graduation, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 59-70) 65 table 3 shows the t-test analysis and it is discovered that there is no significant difference between enrolment and graduation of the girl-child in rural public junior secondary schools. t-cal = 0.3242< t-tab = 1.684; df= 71, p< .05. it therefore means that a similar number of female students who enroll into junior secondary schools in the rural areas graduate. therefore, the hypothesis which states that there is no significant difference between enrolment and graduation figures of the girl-child in rural public secondary schools is not rejected. discussion the results obtained from this study show a steady increase in enrolment over the years in both urban and rural public junior secondary schools in south west nigeria. this could be due to the fact that the region south west of nigeria where the study was conducted has, for the most part, experienced free education for more than five decades. it is an area in which the right to education of the girl child has long been established and entrenched into the culture and psyche of the people. the willingness of parents to educate the girl child therefore led to a steady increase in school population over the years, perhaps, as the entire population increased. adebola (2008) lend credence to this by stating that the region is particularly known for its thirsty quest and drive for the acquisition of education and knowledge. people there have come to the realization that the education of the girl child is a vehicle for social change as well as employment opportunity and mobilization. this is more so as the six south west states under investigation have free education programmes which means that they are non-fee paying. the parents only take responsibility for girls’ uniforms, books and other school materials. another factor that may be responsible for the result may be the relatively ‘small’ family sizes due to family planning campaign and the down-turn in the economy of the country. this would really enable the education of all the children, including the girls. again, the number of schools in urban areas is so many that the fear of the distance the girl child has to cover before getting to school is eliminated. parents therefore have the confidence to send their daughters to school as there is always one nearby. all these factors may have accounted for the high enrolment in urban centres. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 59-70) 66 in a previous research in rural india by yuan (2007), it was reported that distance from home was a problem and that the closest school for girls was 10 kilometers (6 miles) away from home. parents feared for the safety of their daughters and keep them at home instead of allowing them to trek several kilometers to get to school. that problem does not arise in the south west of nigeria as efforts have been made to build schools as close to the settlements as possible since 1955 when the free education programme was introduced, thereby giving parents the opportunity to enroll their daughters in nearby schools. the girl child attrition in schools may be due partly to the glamour and attractions in the city. many parents are so busy that they are unaware of what their children get up to. some parents leave home very early in the morning and return late at night. their assumption would be that their daughter had been to school for that day, whereas, she skipped school. after making a habit of playing truancy, the girl fails her examination and decides she is not going back to school to repeat the class she failed. in some cases, the girl is made to repeat the class and this constitutes a waste to the educational system. also, poverty has been identified as a major cause of attrition among girls. when money is in short supply, the girl is asked by the parents to withdraw from school to enable her brother continue schooling. this is attributable to the value the nigerian society, as in many other societies, place on the boy over the girl child. the world bank (2008) asserts that inequality between men and women tends to be more pronounced among the poor. furthermore, the attrition may be due to the challenges faced by public schools, one of which is incessant strikes by teachers. moreover, the study area, the south-west geo-political zone of nigeria is occupied predominantly by the yoruba ethnic group and trading is quite prominent among them. many children join their parents in the buying and selling business at a tender age. the profit the girls among these groups of children make could be a distraction which in turn tempts them to drop out of school. anukan (2001) argues that most parents withdraw their children from school out of ignorance. lack of sponsorship is the reason why some children are unable to graduate as they are unable to provide school materials. some lose their parents while they are still in school and no relative is willing to take on the responsibility for educating them, so they abari, a., et al., enrolment, attricition and graduation, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 59-70) 67 withdraw from school. suryadarma, suryahadi and sumarto (2006) refer to a study in indonesia where it was discovered that parental death is twice more likely to make a child drop out than other factors. in the rural areas, the girls probably work alongside their parents on the farm and may have to skip school when it is time to harvest. gradually, the habit catches on and dropping out of school is no longer difficult. also, whenever the crops fail, she and her parents may have to endure whatever hardship and lack of finance, she may offer to drop out. parents may even suggest that a girl should get married if the finance to educate her is not readily available. whenever she agrees to marry, it could mean the end of her education. hypothesis one which states that “there is no significant difference between enrolment and graduation in urban public junior secondary schools in south west nigeria” was accepted. a student is expected to be in junior secondary school for three years after which she graduates. the number which graduates is low in relation to the number that had been enrolled. even though some dropped out, others transfer to the schools from other schools thereby swelling the number who actually graduate. considering the level of enlightenment of the people of the south west, a large number of girls actually graduated from public junior secondary school. even though some drop out, others manage to reach the final class, which is junior secondary, and graduate. with regard to hypothesis two, it was revealed that there is no significant difference between enrolment and graduation of the girl-child in rural areas public junior secondary schools. the hypothesis which states that there is no significant difference between enrolment and graduation in the rural area was therefore not rejected. the result is in consonance with that of suryadarma, suryahadi and sumarto (2006) who assert that in indonesia “nearly all those who enrolled in rural senior secondary schools finished”. most villages and rural areas are small and the population homogeneous to the extent that most people know one another. many are related one way or the other; if not by blood, then by marriage, friendship or membership of age grade associations. in this type of close-knit community, it is difficult for a girl to be a truant unlike the city where there is anonymity. since the chances of skipping school are narrow, girls stay on in school, study hard and graduate. however, though attrition may be low in the rural junior secondary schools, the few that left schools during the course of their study are not replaced to any appreciable degree as there is little or no migration journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 59-70) 68 into the rural areas as there is into the urban areas. this probably accounts for the non-significant difference between enrolment and graduation in these rural area schools. conclusion enrolment of the girl child into urban and rural public junior secondary schools in south west nigeria seems not a problem. the challenge that is being faced is retention of the girls in school so they can graduate. therefore more needs to be done to ensure that the girl child’s right to education is achieved with more vigour more so that the overriding objective of having an egalitarian society with political stability, technological advancement and economic self-sufficiency can be accomplished largely through the socializing influence of education on the girl child. after all, adequate provision of the necessities of life by an educated mother is expected to help in reducing the incidence of miscreants, hoodlums and street children who commit crimes for survival. also, security, peaceful co-existence, and national development can be assured and achieved in an environment where there is equality and equity. recommendations 1. brilliant, but indigent female pupils should be given bursary awards and scholarship to enable them study without the burden of having to work to raise funds for their school needs or simply drop out because they cannot afford the cost of school materials. 2. efforts should be made to ensure that the universal basic education policy is implemented to the letter. 3. enlightenment programme should be mounted and intensified to educate parents on the merits of educating the girl child. 4. teachers should encourage girls to be hard working in order to make headway in life. 5. penalty awaits any parent or guardian who refuses to send his or her child to school, but there is no sanction against a child who refuses to go to school. by the same token, sanctions should be imposed on any child who refuses to go to school. they could be sent to home and closely supervised. abari, a., et al., enrolment, attricition and graduation, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 59-70) 69 6. gender specific laws to protect female children from abuse and exploitation should be put in place at all levels of governance. references [1] adebola, s. a. (2008). plight of the disadvantaged groups in access to education and completion rate in nigerian universities. lead paper presented at a workshop of the committee of vice-chancellors of nigerian universities on 29th february, 2008 at the university of lagos. [2] anukan, i. k. (2001). investigating factors influence primary school pupils’ learning achievement in imo state. in n. a. nwagu, e. t. ehiametalor, m. a.ogunu, and m.nwadiani (eds.) current issues in educational management. benin city: nigerian association of educational administration and planning. [3] bilesanmi-awoderu, j. b. and kalesanwo, o. o. (2009). the universal basic education (ube) programme and women entrepreneurship in science and technology: a catalyst for enhancing female participation in national development. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia. 1 – 2;72 – 87. [4] bolarin, t. a. (2005). women participation in higher education in nigeria. in b. b.oderinde, and o. e. ekpo, (eds.) value education. lagos: the nigeria academy of education. [5] federal republic of nigeria (2004). national policy on education –4th ed. lagos: nigerian educational research and development council. [6] gupta, g. r (2006). unlocking the power of women: is education the key? washington d. c. international centre for research on women. retrieved january 5, 2008, from http://www.icrw.com. [7] hallman, k., peracca. s., catino, j. and ruiz, m. j. (2007). assessing the multiple disadvantages of mayan girls: the effects of gender, ethnicity, poverty and residence on education in guatemala-brief no. 16. [8] horvathova, l. (2009). position of women in public administration in slovak republic in the case of municipal officers. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia. 3 – 4; 35 – 41. [9] ibeh, e. (2009). factors affecting performance of women entrepreneurs. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia. 1 – 2; 39 – 50. [10] obanya, p.a.i.(2001). financing the universal basic education (ube) programme. in maduewesi (ed.) financing education in nigeria year book no 3. ibadan: nigeria academy of education. [11] obanya, p. a. i. (2004). education for the knowledge economy. ibadan: mosoro publishers. [12] suryadarma, d., suryahadi, a., sumarto, s (2006). causes of low secondary school enrolment in indonesia. retrieved may 3,2008 from www.smeru.or.id journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 59-70) 70 [13] tanbawel, ugochukwu, akintomide, agunwah, okafor and dada (eds. (2006) basic and senior secondary education 2004-2005. abuja: federal ministry of education [14] united nations children’s emergency funds (2007). unicef scores nigeria low on poverty eradication and human capital development. retrieved august 7, 2007, from www.voiceofnigeria.org./unicef [15] united nations children’s fund (2005). the state of the world’s children 2006: excluded and invisible. new york: unicef. worldbank (2008). engendering education: why do girls drop out in developing countries. retrieved may 16, 2008, from www.youthink.worldbank.com/issues [16] yuan (2007). for a girl in rural india, education is a difficult pursuit. retrieved on may 3, 2008, from http://www.cnn.com received: 17 july 2010 article history: accepted: 3 october 2010 note of editor in chief it is our pleasure to inform you that the journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (jwee) is indexed in scopus q3 (m24), but we are permanently going to work on its improvement. the jwee encourages almost all original research papers directly related to the concept of the journal. namely, articles that do not deal with different aspects of female entrepreneurship and education, but only with gender aspects in some areas, will not be taken into consideration. i am thankful to the editorial board members, newly joined and longstanding, all of whom have embraced the journal’s vision and who are all dedicated to an exciting future. but we would not be able to succeed in these challenging tasks without helpful assistance from the academic community. in support of this is the fact that due to the participation of authors from many countries, jwee has become recognized and cited worldwide. thanks to the increasing selection of articles and their quality, we expect an even greater number of citations in other journals with the same or better ranking. yours faithfully, prof. dr mirjana radovic-markovic editor in chief 18_jwee_1-2 doi: 10.28934/jwee18.12.pp31-39 preliminary reports an institutional approach to female entrepreneurship in nigeria ann terngu makar vandefan1 university of business academy, fimek, novi sad, serbia a b s t r a c t with the increase in population and unemployment rates globally, especially in developing countries like nigeria, government of most nationals are unable to provide adequate jobs for their teeming population. this study is to ascertain the institutional approach to female entrepreneurship in nigeria. there are about 37,067,416 micro businesses and 36,994,578 small and 4,670 medium scale businesses respectively in nigeria (smedan 2010, smedan 2013 & smedan 2015). female entrepreneurs accounted for ownership of 43.32% of micro enterprises and 22.75% of small and medium enterprises respectively (nepza 2013). yet there is no clear institutional approach to female entrepreneurship in nigeria. the focus of this article is to explain the reasons for the lack of institutional approach and proffer ways to developing same. this is imperative in order to develop institutional frameworks for providing effective support for female entrepreneurs. key words: female entrepreneurship, small and medium enterprises nigeria 1 phd candidate, university of business academy, fimek, cvecarska 2, novi sad, serbia, e-mail: magtvan@gmail.com 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 31-39) introduction the way women have contributed immensely to national and world economic growth and development cannot be overemphasized. this has made women empowerment and development as one of the issues that have gained tremendous attention by individuals, governments and nongovernmental organizations (ngo’s) across the globe. the momentous interest attached to women empowerment and equal opportunities to the world over is due to the consideration fact that women constitute 49.56% large number of the world’s population with about (3,710,260,959) females out of the world’s population of 7,486,520,598 as at 31 december 2016 out of 7,486,520,598 world’s population constituting about 49.56% of the world population, with the female population in nigeria that stand approximately at 94,349,729 out of the 191,137,487 of the nigerian population (unesco, 2003). thus women make up to 49.36% of the estimated nigerian population (un-women, 2014). the interest in women empowerment is also due to the consideration of their greater contribution to the development of the society. according to spevacek (2010) the concept of promoting women’s economic and political empowerment has gained some much attention for decades. verheul et al. (2006), observed that this is attributable to the fact that female entrepreneurs are now considered important forces in economic development of their nations (kirk and belovics, 2006). according to okezie, et al. (2013) thee are of the opinion that the need for entrepreneurship development today is required by the fact that entrepreneurship development plays as a key factor in economic growth and development and also it is the permanent solution for extreme hunger and poverty which is caused by unemployment. ikeije and onuba (2015) are of the belief that entrepreneurship is an area that has attracted the interest of various researchers, academics, and government as well as private individuals. researchers in this field of study have adopted multidisciplinary approach in the study of entrepreneurship. accor4ding to scholars like clausen (2006) and ikeije and onuba (2015), there is an extensive and increased interest about the study of entrepreneurship skills in nigeria. this renewed interest in the study and application of entrepreneur ship skills is based on the realization that it will enhance skills acquisition, open up job opportunities and reduce unemployment, reduce the poverty levels among women and enhance economic growth and development. ikeije and onuba (2015) agreed that there is increased research about entrepreneurship that has encouraged researchers in diverse fields to devote vandefan, m.t a., female entrepreneurship in nigeria, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 31-39) 33 more time in understanding the driving forces behind entrepreneurship. the increased interest in this new field is prominent in areas of studies such as economic, political considerations, environmental realities and socio cultural factors. both adejumo (2000) and anyadike, et al. (2012) agreed that entrepreneurship has a lot of contribution to the development of advance economies and to this understanding the under developed world should not under estimate its contribution to its economic planning. entrepreneurship skills will no doubt contribute to the increased economic activities of any growing economy in the areas of job creation and is also capable of improving the quality of living of families and contributing positively in the overall domestic growth of a nation. entrepreneurship studies by (thomas and mueller, 2000; reynolds, 1987) has demonstrated how its (entrepreneurship) relationship is capable of positively stimulating growth economically and increased employment of labor and resources and has can also empower the less privileged in societies. according to (anyadike, et al. 2012,). josiane (1998) in ayogu and agu (2015), entrepreneurship is considered as an engine that mobilizes economic growth and a vessel that stimulate economic development and is acknowledged as a very important avenue of creating jobs, enhance revenue generation, reduce poverty and increase wealth generation. according to the united nations research on small and medium scales published in 2006, entrepreneurship is an essential tool that supports the development and growth of both the small and medium size enterprises in developing economies and is central in job opportunities for skills and semi skills labor force (united nations, 2006 in ayogu and agu, 2015). studies by sowmya et al. (2010) in mazlina and punitha (2016, p. 224) attest to this that entrepreneurship is essential aspect for growth and development of most countries after the global financial crisis and economic downturn. entrepreneurship is also considered one of the major economic drivers for both advance economies and under developed ones (ramadani, hisrich and gerguri, 2015; hisrich, bowser and smarsh, 2006). it is the realization of the importance of entrepreneur ship to economic development that has resulted to rapid studies in the field by many business schools around the world; this is because this field has been realized by many countries as a pillar to growth and development and as an avenue to be your own employer and generate profit has attracted people to entrepreneur ship skills equitation. (rose, kumar and lim, 2006). agbeze 34 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 31-39) (2012), quoted in anya dike, emeh, and ukah (2012) believes that there are various business potentials in nigeria due to its abundant human and natural resources it possess; they both agreed that utilizing these resources depends on the ability to identify useful and viable economic fields of endeavor. they both agreed that nigerians have made remarkable progress in the areas of science, technology, business, agriculture, academics and entertainment sectors. they further stated that, it is in this regards that nigeria enterprise has been greatly developed in agriculture and other related agro allied industries like food restaurants, food vendor etc. nigerians hve also made their marks in diverse fields such as science, technology, academics, business and entertainment. entrepreneurship activities and innovative ingenuity in nigeria have developed enterprises in the areas of solid minerals explorations, quarrying, and germ stone cutting/polishing and crushing engineering. also there is a remarkable achievement in power generation, transportation and haulage business (cargo and passengers). also there are a lot of nigerians in information technology where they repair mobile handsets and sales of accessories, printing and selling of recharge cards. they are also visible in hospitality and tourism enterprises such as hotels, resort centers and events management. nigerians are found in banking and other financial services and in building and construction departments where there are plan and design services and material sourcing too (agbeze, 2012 in anyadike, emeh, and ukah). for many developing countries, entrepreneurship has been a powerful engine of economic growth and wealth creation, and is crucial for improving the quality, number and variety of employment opportunities for the poor (oteh, 2009). ikeije and onuban (2015, p. 6) reasoned the same way with oteh (2009) when he reiterated that there is a correlation between economic growth and the level of entrepreneurial activity. a study by global entrepreneurship monitor (2008) as cited in ikeije and onuba (2015) revealed that economic growth of a country is directly correlated to its level of entrepreneurial activity. oteh, 2009 in ikeije and onuba (2015) points out the benefits of entrepreneurship on the economic development of a country like nigeria when he wrote: entrepreneurship has many multiplier effects on the economy, spurs innovation, and fosters investment in people, which is a better source of competitive advantage than other natural resources, which can be depleted. entrepreneurs create new enterprises, new commercial activities, and new vandefan, m.t a., female entrepreneurship in nigeria, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 31-39) 35 economic sectors. they generate jobs for others; they produce goods and services for society; they introduce new technologies and improve or lower cost outputs; and they earn foreign exchange through export expansion or the substitution of imports. entrepreneurship has assisted in providing gainful employments to the teaming youths in communities and cities and it is an avenue for many young men and women to get jobs in informal sectors of the economy where they work in small scale or medium scale industries or establish their own small firms that render services to bigger firms and industries. (ikeije and onuba, 2015). entrepreneurship has been one area where domestic resources are mobilized while they serve as contributory factor to disposal of industrial waste. they also serve as a source of semi processed raw materials for the utilization by bigger factories. entrepreneur skills have been a vital source for acquiring semi skilled and skilled work experience by many nigerians. it is a base for the development of appropriate technology and provides a veritable ground for skilled, unskilled and semi-skilled workers (ikeije and onuba, 2015). it provides productive self-employment to a number of educated and less educated young men and women coming. (ikeije and onuba, 2015). according to radovic-markovic et. al., (2017), “e-learning programs specially designed for entrepreneurs can be used as a tool for empowering female and young people’s competencies in ountries with inadequate system of formal education.” since this can be an encouragement to the individual and will also establishes entrepreneurial culture wider. saskia (2016) agreed that there are a lot of benefits in female entrepreneurship skills that is considered as a gold mine by nations as an avenue for economic growth and a new untapped area for wome4n empowerment that should not be ignored by any developing country. the focus of this article is to examine the role of women entrepreneur in nigeria and the various policies provided by the nigerian government that are capable of providing the needed support for women engage in small and medium scale enterprise research question this study addresses several questions below: i. what are the available opportunities in nigerian economy for women entrepreneurs? 36 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 31-39) ii. how effective has women entrepreneurs being in economic development of the country? iii. what are the available institutional frame works in nigeria for female entrepreneurs? methodology: population and sample this research work will look at the six geo political zones of nigeria and then select one state from each of the zones as the sample study area these will be the north east, north west, north central, south east, south west, and south-south, and the federal capital territory. the following states will be the selected states for the study are in each of the zones. benue from north central, taraba form north east, kaduna from north west, enugu from south east, cross river from south-south, lagos from south west and fct abuja. the women entrepreneurs in these states will be the sample size and 400 women will be randomly selected as the sample population. method of data collection and analysis the research will be conducted using both the secondary and primary sources of data collection. the interviews and questionnaires will be employed as primary sources of data while the secondary source will be published works, journals, qualitative and quantitative techniques will be employed in data analysis and interpretations. results and discussion the data in this study will be analyzed using quantitative and qualitative approaches. data collected through questionnaire will be analyzed through the use of descriptive statistics while data collected through the use of the interviews will be analyzed qualitatively using thematic, analytical, interpretative and explanatory approaches. conclusion there are various phases that need to be considered for women entrepreneurs to be empowered they differ from a particular culture to vandefan, m.t a., female entrepreneurship in nigeria, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 31-39) 37 another culture. in some cultures, women work in different areas for them to be able to provide the basic needs for the family and in certain times, they are permanently involved in just working at home doing all the household jobs (brush et al, 2009; garba, 2011). for women to be successful entrepreneurs it has to do with the environment they find themselves and this is normally subjected to situations involving political and economic culture and national policies. (garba, 2011 and emmanuel, 2013). these factors play an important role by helping to reduce the challenges that women entrepreneurial faces in many ways. the government should try as much as possible in providing the needed resources and facilities for women through their various associations and different forums that are available to them in their communities. this will help enhancing entrepreneurship and development for a sustainable economic change through the needed capital. from time to time women should be educated with the needed skills and educational knowledge for enable them participate effectively in an enabling environment (gem, 2012). references [1] achtenhagen and welter 2011. surfing on the ironing board. entrepreneurship and regional development, 23: 763-786. [2] adebimpe, a. 2011 assessing nigerian female entrepreneur’s access to finance for business start-up and growth. african journal of business management, 5(13), 5348-5355, available online at: http://www.academicjournals.org/ajbm [3] adeoye, a. 2015. the effect of entrepreneurship on economy growth and development in nigeria. international journal of development and economic sustainability, 3(2): 49-65. [4] agarwal, j. 1999. ethical work climate dimensions in a not-for-profit organization: an empirical study. journal of business ethics, 20(1): 1-14. [5] agu, o. e. and ayogu, u. d. 2015. assessing the prospects and problems of entrepreneurship development in nigeria. international of current research and academic review, 3(10): 208-221. [6] akinola, a. o. 2013. entrepreneurship in nigeria-funding and financing strategies. european journal of accounting auditing and finance research, 1(4): 115-128. [7] alex, m. 2008. entrepreneurial services marketing initiatives facilitating small business growth. journal of small business and entrepreneurship, 21(4): 493-502. 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 31-39) [8] anyadike, n.; emeh, i. e. j. and ukah, f. o. 2012. entrepreneurship development and employment generation in nigeria: problems and prospects.universal journal of education and general studies, 1(4) pp. 088102, available online at http://www.universalresearchjournals.org/ujegs. [9] brush, c. d and bruin a. d. and welter, f. 2009. a gender aware framework for women’s entrepreneurship. international journal of gender and entrepreneurship, 1(1): 8-28. [10] cantzler, i. and leijon, s. (2007). team orientated women entrepreneurs: a way to modern management. journal of small business and enterprise development, 14(4): 732-746. [11] emmanuel, c.l. 2013. entrepreneurship, a conceptual approach, second edition, pumark nigeria limited: 353-358. [12] garba, s. a. 2011. stumbling block for women entrepreneurship in nigeria: how risk attitude and lack of capital mitigates their need for business expansion. european journal of economics, finance and administrative sciences, 36: 38-49. [13] hisrich, r. d. and ozturk, s. a. 1999. women entrepreneurs in a developing economy. the journal of management development, (18): 11424. [14] ikeduru, n. g. 2002. women entrepreneurship and development: the gendering of microfinance in nigeria. a paper presented at the 8th international interdisciplinary congress on women, 21 26 july, 2002. makerere university, kampala, uganda. [15] ikeije, u. u. and onuba, c. o. 2015. contributions and challenges of entrepreneurship in nigeria: a sociological analysis. european journal of business and innovation research, 3(3): 1-9. [16] ilo. 2012 women’s entrepreneurship development. encouraging women entrepreneurs for jobs and development. published online, http://www.ilo.org/wed [17] kirks j, bolvics r. 2006. counseling would-be entrepreneurs. j. employment counselling, 43(2): 50-62. [18] mordi, c., simpson, r., singh, s. & okafor, c. 2010. the role of cultural values in understanding the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs in nigeria, gender in management: an international journal, 25(1): 5-21. [19] nepza. 2013. "national enterprise development programme (nedep)." retrieved 7th april, 2018, from http://www.nepza.gov.ng/downloads/nedep.pdf. [20] okezie, a. i.; alex, o. and asoluta, n. 2013. challenges and prospects of entrepreneurship in nigeria. academic journal of interdisciplinary studies, 2(5): 25-35. vandefan, m.t a., female entrepreneurship in nigeria, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 31-39) 39 [21] radovic-markovic, m. et al. 2017. e-learning as a tool for empowering entrepreneurship. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, 34/2017: 1-27. [22] radovic-markovic, m. 2013. “female entrepreneurship: theoretical background. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, 2013/12: 1-9. [23] saskia, v. 2016. gender-aware women’s entrepreneurship development for inclusive development in sub-saharan africa. gender advisory and knowledge services, netherland ministry of foreign affairs. [24] spevacek, m. a. 2010. constraints to female entrepreneurship in subsaharan africa. research series, united states agency for international development, june 17. [25] smedan. 2010. "2010 national msme collaborative survey." from http://www.smedan.gov.ng/images/collaborative%20survey%20report.smed an-nbs.pdf. [26] smedan. 2013. "smedan and nbs collaborative survey: selected findings." retrieved 10 april, 2018 fromhttp://nigerianstat.gov.ng/pdfuploads/smedan%202013_selected%20 tables.pdf. [27] smedan 2015. "national policy on msmes." retrieved 10th july, 2016, from http://www.smedan.gov.ng/images/nbs2015/national%20policy%20 on%20msmesfin al%20copy.pdf. vollmer, s. (2015). "7 ways to ease smes’ access to capital markets." retrieved 12th april 2018, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-ways-ease-smes-access-capital-marketsrodgerstephens-cpa-cgma. [28] todaro, m.l. & smith, s.c. 2009. economic development, 10th edition, addison-wesley, pearson education. [29] unesco (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization). 2003. efa and global monitoring report 2003/4: gender and education for all: the leap to equality. paris: unesco [30] un-women. 2014. world survey on the role of women in development: gender equality and sustainable development. accessed at www.unwomen.org on 23.4.18. article history: received: 4 april, 2018 accepted: 8 june, 2018 14_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.961:005.914.3-055.2; 005.57:[316.774:654.1(497.11) jel: l26, d8 cobiss.sr-id: 211197708 professional paper the invisible entrepreneurs the neglect of women business in serbian mass media jovanović dragana,1 baltezarević vesna faculty of culture and media, belgrade, serbia baltezarević radoslav faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship, belgrade a b s t r a c t rapid development of technology and communication science enable high mobility of people, goods, capital, managers, workers in globalized market. entrepreneurship became synonymous for corporate communications including public relations, marketing, advertising, corporate social responsibility and similar disciplines. in such communication system it is almost impossible to isolate women`s from man`s communication activities. or it isn`t so hard? among communication channels necessary for market promotion, branding and advertising of women entrepreneurship mass media are often the weakest link. topic of this paper are mass media in serbia, and their influence on transition economic processes, public opinion, based on ownership concentration and inappropriate media laws, self censure, stereotypes, prejudice, etc. analysis of media content in several daily newspapers from serbia during one week in february 2014, qualitatively and quantitatively show ways mass media engage emotions instead of information to influence public in case of economy. key words: communications, economy, emotions, information, mass media, women entrepreneurship 1 goce delceva 8, djovanovic@megatrend.edu.rs 72 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 71-82) introduction politics, religion and media in last decades of balkan history often were desirable allies in creating and maintaining of media contents, even in case of economy. democratization and civil commitment require from post conflict societies clear differentiation from nationalism, gender prejudices, religious influence and rapid changing of individual and collective way of thinking. as more adaptable to democratic criteria, media were first to cross from conservative allies to fervid democrats, adopting patterns of behavior from social science. religious institutions stay consistent in resistance to everything that cams from the west, including free market, gender equality in business and capitalist economic model, along with small number of nationalist political parties and mostly quasi-patriotic movements. also, media try to fulfill expectations of dominant public opinion makers and public itself about question of economic development and preferable economic partners in this process, especially investors. in serbian society this is often not economic but emotional category. from the dialectical mediation point of view in social life public and media can function on surprisingly intimate ways and make very potent forms of social practice, if they find mutual interests. in case of conflict, discourses of these pillars of society dramatically depart in some sort of a role playing – public rather deals with politics than economy and media offers public sensational isolated economics scandals without context, mostly related to corruption. so, both are potential allies or enemies of economic development. government must therefore give priority to reducing the risk of conflict. ”the two objectives of economic recovery and risk reduction are likely to be complementary: economic recovery may reduce risks, and risk reduction may speed recovery. however, this complementary between objectives does not imply coincidence of instruments: the instruments that are effective for risk reduction may be quite distinct from those for economic recovery.” (collier, hoeffler, soderbom, 2006). media are active participants of this process and, if agree that we live (media) mediated lives, we can call them leaders of outlined changing. while trying to achieve self re-creation media are willing to challenge social authority of religious and political institutions, considering them as individual right (religion) and social obligation (politics). economic questions are somewhere in between, depending on actual government policy. main goal of the process is western model of social and personal autonomy in choosing an ultimate authority over everyday life. main consequence is extreme jovanović, d., et al., the invisible entrepreneurs, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 71-82) 73 mobility given to political and economical messages and, simultaneously, origin point of conflict between economy self-perception and media perception of economy and free market. in extreme cases this relation developed into open conflict or travesty of economic ideas into quasi-patriotic questions about neo-colonialism and national surviving. origin of manipulation mcluhan’s aphorism media is the message can define essence of conflict between economy, women entrepreneurship and media – every media is predestined for certain types of messages and resistant on others. also, media can easily recreate message to fit their communication power. nature of economy message is in collision with communicative powers of media and here are some reasons: − economy message is ultimate, media are skeptical. − for economy, continuality is essential, media prefer ad hoc news. − economy promotes joined venture, media are specialized for conflict. − for economy doctrine is essential, for media visible phenomenon. − economy aim internal communication, media communicate with wide public. differences are natural and necessary, and key for reduction of conflict lies in capability of both sides to give up exclusive right to truth. according to this, economy and media we can consider separately, competitively and inclusively. in serbian society situation is far more complicated because of complex relations and truths that confuses average media consumer. negative media influence on public in serbia is still ongoing, primary through manipulation with stereotypes, prejudice, selectiveness and sensationalism. economy is sometimes just generator of rage and violence, semantically manipulated to provoke emotional reaction maintain tensions of conflict with regularly updated diary of insults, forced fear from others and encouraged masses to ”fight” against what they usually called economy neocolonialism (capitalism). that sort of media content we can name as ”emotional hooks” instead of information. paradoxically, simultaneously we witnessed inclusion of western economical ideas in balkan transition process mediated by the same media, according to main political interest (mostly eu integration). vocabulary of 74 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 71-82) media political correctness related to economy is based on sterile phrases about dialog, understanding, tolerance, help, friendship, gender equality in business and improvement. it is generic, abstract and socially desirable but – extort, avoiding everything that can provoke national passion and, potentially, violence. in our media desirable transmission of communication symbols is slow, confused and pervasive, while present period puts media above society and redirect transmission into channels created by political and social structures, but not economy. when an economic symbol goes through media filters social memory is forming backwards. as they circulate through new system, economic symbols being socially re-produced and re-make. current media attitude toward economic questions is balance between sensationalism about corruption scandals and conspiracy theories, linking individual pathology with economic system and organizations, and respect for political will to make changes. misunderstanding generates in some weaknesses of both sides: − media suffers from constant luck of journalists qualified for economic questions, which can`t be tolerate because vital questions like unemployment and poverty can encroach affective mind of individuals and provoke violence. − economy institutions in transition countries often are unsuccessful in media relations. sometimes it is question of bureaucracy incompetent to present its own position, sometimes in slow reactions, sometimes in seductive rhetoric of politicians playing roles of economic experts. − media create social leaders or events influencing that way economic system itself. media are, by their nature, offensive, orientated to visible, new, impressive, instant, expendable, and transparent; while economy tend to stability, continuousness, scientific and expertise. that`s why looks like economy is in defensive position against mass media spectacle, forced to reactive response and adaptability which disturb her habitat and principles. political discourse of economy there is nothing new in claim that crucial aspect in media agenda in balkan countries must be security, and that main threats are often related to jovanović, d., et al., the invisible entrepreneurs, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 71-82) 75 economy and media public discourse. till recent, whenever media use term security it implicate existence of conflict and need to address certain social conflicts on domestic or international level. these interrelations and ways to talk about them publicly are not neutral and separated from ideological premises. in the same time, media are main communication channel of politician and social elites. scientists are actively engaged in debates about questions of conflicts, but they mostly separate three of its pylons (religion, politics and media) from the fourth, the newest – economy. we can`t understand link between economy and society without media role and reference to wider political context of those processes. in other words, in political and media use of economy we can notice flagrant hypocrisy obvious in starting differentiation between economy as origin of conflict (arab spring, ukraine conflict and similar public movements around the world) and economy as normative good in post conflict countries in transition (iraq, balkan, etc.). post conflict balkan is under strong influence of western liberal-democratic capitalism, namely pluralism proclaimed with tolerance and competition. but, behind every of those conflicts hides political questions related to government change and wider interests. as answer to latest empirical tendencies this paper will clarify some ways media use to interlink public perception of security threats/economy and escalate conflict scenarios by semantic manipulation (linking of notions and making complicated systems of associations). it`s a man`s world the entrepreneur as male gendered from 1989, in basis of new order is conflict of political power and struggle for power inherently linked to discourse of so called ”otherness”. discourse of ”otherness” today is base of mediatized political discourse around the world. these discourses linking economy and conflict, summarize the political and media narrative and encouraging view of the world as divided into economy divisions that are in conflict at national and crossnational level. the role of media in this process is crucial, especially in emotionally strained post conflict societies. but, sometimes ”others” are women! media are intermediaries through which we learn about political attitudes and public policy (news) or covertly (entertainment, movies and other forms of popular culture). thus, the media cannot be neutral participants in the communication. for some theorists (meyer and hinchman, 2002) media colonize politics, and politics now needs to adopt media values or risk ex76 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 71-82) clusion from the public arena, suggesting that the key of political relationships now is in media/politics relations, and not politics/citizens. yet, according to liberal theory of the media, they are autonomous and independent from the state and their function is to supervise the elite – to be gate keepers. public space they create should be a place of debate and discussion so that citizens can make informed judgments about their leaders. however, in a democratic accord appear dissonant tones that claim we receive only selected information and being manipulated the media. at the micro level, every conflict on the planet has its own ”others”, depending on the participants, but from the macro perspective religion and nationality are overcome, so today there is almost no war without economy base (real or attached). previously reserved for specialists, economy becomes a topic for journalists, broadcasters and scientists of various disciplines. it is important to note that certain disdain among economy, scientists and journalists has deep roots. economy, however, has the capacity to serve forces of good and forces of evil. indeed, in many conflict situations, economy is used to justify the objectives, homogenized troops and reinforce a sense of identities, but the public is aware of capacity of economy to work on mediation and conflict resolution, through the preaching of progress and collaboration. this is an ultimate demand of western circles for serbia, especially among requirements for admission to the eu. several authors point out that entrepreneur and entrepreneurship are male gendered concepts, i.e., they have masculine connotations. it is not only the frequent use of the male pronoun (this was standard in science decades ago), but also the way the entrepreneur is described. it could be argued that this is because entrepreneurs have traditionally been men, but several scholars maintain that women entrepreneurs were made invisible, in research as well as in the media. is femininity then constructed as the opposite of entrepreneurship? roots of this question can be found in polarized serbian media. serbian media between politics and economy several concepts and their correlation determined this topic. mass media, as intermediaries in the process of mass communication, become the economic organizations and their corporate character growth stronger as well as market position and invested capital. at the same time, the media are structural element of public sphere and an institutional framework for the promotion of opinions, attitudes ideas, the scene of political influence, of jovanović, d., et al., the invisible entrepreneurs, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 71-82) 77 ten coupled with interest of capital. in such circumstances, the public interest and responsibility to society become increasingly blurred, and the basic role of the media is often distorted to such an extent require redefinition. question: are the media before all means instruments to the open society, its democratization and participation of citizens in the social process that precedes or no business organization, in whose activities the profit is a basic motive and not wellbeing of public. especially, as it is evident that both aims can hardly be equally successfully exercise. the basic motive of existence and work in media should be based on, essentially, the utopian vision of humanity, equality, loyalty and truth, where all clearly knows what is good and what is not and where everyone, including media professionals, stick strictly to the basic legal and moral principles. on the other hand, if mass media became media industry, than basic human action must be interest. modern media are primarily individual and then social. current interest, therefore, can affect the understanding of the concept of accountability and obligation that results from it. when the media every day discover content, messages, attitudes that cause our suspicion, that, if we are previously well-informed, we can conclude that false, incorrect, unprofessional journalists have no sufficient knowledge and that there are obvious malice. also, we are not allowed to disregard possibility that such a way of writing follows a particular interest, which is opposite to general, public interest, and which has the power to express and be publicly mediated. money and power are terms whose meaning is clear to everyone. in practice and in theory, mass media are the most prominent centers of power. essence of media power is penetration in the public sphere, which means survival for political and economy ideas and organizations, and that is why it is necessary to constantly seen economy in relation to the media and their impact to society. there is no free democratic society without a free public sphere, and such sphere cannot exist without a free media, although there is always some form of monopoly over them. such considerations, especially when it comes to political communication, as a key formula for the free flow of information and trust them see the autonomy of media in relation to the environment and support of civil society. ˮmedium of political communication in the public sphere can facilitate deliberative process legitimizing in complex societies only if self-regulated media system to preserve the independence of their social environment and if the anonymous audience pro78 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 71-82) vide feedback link between informed, elite discourse and active civil society.” (habermas, 2004:6). words as weapons emotions in mass media content can be used contrary to communication logic, so it don`t need to be based on objective events or state of mind. instincts provoked by emotional media messages influenced authenticity of communication and communicators use different stimulus to provoke emotions. stimulus can be words, sounds and pictures (both real and imaginary). explicit message leads to desirable behavior. emotions in post conflict societies can be provoked by hope and fear as basic emotions, along with compassion, responsibility, love, etc. different messages have different levels of fear usage, from association to eventual treats to explicit warning. in socially and economically stable countries fear appeal is often used in advertising, but in post conflict countries it is mostly used in average media content, from politics to economy and sport. research conducted from february 03 to 09, 2014 show attitude toward women’s economy engagement in serbia (blic, daily newspaper, circulation around 120.000, kurir, daily newspaper, circulation around 116.000 and politika, circulation around 125.000). table 1: economy questions (general)* date feb. 2014. newsp. % of ec. related topics 03. politika blic kurir 23.41 21.1 14.38 04. politika blic kurir 19.25 37.32 18.2 05. politika blic kurir 30.56 27.51 13.92 06. politika blic kurir 74.82 25.3 15.65 07. politika blic kurir 81.34↑ 17.31 33.75 jovanović, d., et al., the invisible entrepreneurs, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 71-82) 79 date feb. 2014. newsp. % of ec. related topics 08. 09. politika blic kurir politika blic kurir 78.21 26.99 29.81 75.45 32.1 23.7 total 34.24 source: authors *table shows % of economy related topics through daily editions, including those incorporated in articles about politics, foreign affairs, society, culture, entertainment and sport. table 2: comparative review of the texts’ representation in terms of subject areas in analyzed printed media during 7 days politika blic kurir total economy through quality of life 184 30.77% 76 12.71% 7 1.17% 267 44.65% economy 87 14.55% 31 5.18% 7 1.17% 125 20.90% sport 2 0.33% 5 0.84% 1 0.17% 8 1.34% culture 14 2.34% 0 0% 4 0.67% 18 3.01% table 3: texts that belong to the first thematic category in analyzed printed media subgroups politika blic kurir total poverty, health healthcare 115 41 2 158 healthcare 72.78% 25.95% 1.27% 100% social ser. security 49 28 2 79 criminal 62.03% 35.44% 2.53% 100% everyday 20 7 3 30 life 66.67% 23.33% 10% 100% during selected time most of the texts with economy in blic were related to quality of life (44.65%), culture (20.23%), economy (20.%), politics (9.87%) and sport (1.34%). we must underline that serbia was, when this 80 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 71-82) paper was wrote, in the beginning of election campaign (general elections took place on march 16, 2014) so it is reasonable for journalists to pay special attention to economy question. average daily rate of economy subjects in blic during 2013 were 9.17%. same tendencies we can see in case of politika and kurir. during these 7 days there were only 5 contents about women entrepreneurs. conclusion this article is a review of the core of dealing with economy and entrepreneurship issues in serbian media in general, with special wiev on women`s entrepreneurship. findings show that research interest of media in entrepreneurship is increasing, particularly during recent years. in media sectors, the combination of industry deregulation and privatization coupled with technological advancements in information and communication have brought many taught issues. entrepreneurial activities play increasingly important roles in building market business success. we think that the research interest in media and entrepreneurship will keep moving up and also, more issues and research questions will come forth in the coming years, but political influence in media and economy is still too strong, so we do not expect radical changes soon. from the media perspective, male entrepreneurship attracted more attentions, whereas women`s is less addressed and investigated. from the entrepreneurship cove ridge perspective, some entrepreneurship subtopics are studied much often than the others, especially social component of economy. this uneven distribution might be caused by the nature of media industry and entrepreneurship (e.g. family business is a recurrent topic in newspapers, while financing entrepreneurs is common in some other industries). it is found that the entrepreneurship subtopics such as innovation and creativity are more frequently, as they are the joint characteristics of both media and entrepreneurship. also, family business is another focus for research because in serbia companies are mostly small and medium-sized. related to theory, very few efforts have been made to investigate how media affect the woman`s entrepreneurship phenomena. among 5 articles found, journalists were mainly focused two issues: women’s role on entrepreneurship, and the description of wellknown women entrepreneurs. jovanović, d., et al., the invisible entrepreneurs, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 71-82) 81 so, media’s impact on women`s entrepreneurship can`t be helpful to encouraging the female entrepreneurial spirit. in the same time there is lot of evidences for the role of media in influencing political decision-making, the public and individual conception and attitude. from the social and psychological perspective, woman`s entrepreneurship — as an innovative and creative way of conducting business — can be educated, enhanced and affected by the discourse carried by media forms. the message and knowledge conveyed by media are crucial in building the role model, the social-attitudes to the entrepreneurial activity and even the systems to foster or to hinder the entrepreneurship. therefore, using media to encourage entrepreneurship can be very instructive. nowadays, many issues confronted with media industries in a dynamic and changing environment can be discussed and handled through studies and research in the entrepreneurship domain. also, entrepreneurship activities can be encouraged and enhanced by the means of media. therefore, a future research agenda needs to be made to investigate the way by which media and woman`s entrepreneurship can promote the development of each other reciprocally and successfully. references [1] acker, j. (1992). „gendering organizational theory.“ in gendering organizational analysis, ed. a. mills & p. tancred, 248-260. london: sage. [2] ahl, h. (2002). the construction of the female entrepreneur as the other. in b casting the other. the production and maintenance of inequalities in work organizations, ed. czarniawska & h. höpfl, 52-67. london: routledge [3] aldershot; anastasakis o. and bojicic-dzelilovic v. (2002). ”balkan regional cooperation and european integration”. hellenic observatory, lse. [4] bartlett w. (2007). ”europe's troubled region: economic development, institutional reform, and social welfare in the western balkans”, routledge. [5] http://economics.ouls.ox.ac.uk/13631/1/uuid83a31fbc-081c-4392-9f96ab6cdbacc13e-attachment01.pdf, visited 01.02.2014. [6] habermas, j. “the public sphere,” 1974, printed in the information society reader. new york: routledge, 2004: 6 [7] the politics of the new balkan economy, european policy summit, la bibliothèque solvay, brussels, 2004, visited 12.12.2013. on http://www.bhforum.ch/pdf/ foe_eps_balkan_report_2004.pdf 82 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 71-82) nevidljivo preduzetništvo zanemarivanje ženskog poslovanja u srpskm masovnim medijima a p s t r a k t brz razvoj tehnologije i komunikacione nauke omogućavaju visoku mobilnosti ljudi, robe, kapitala, menadžera, radnika na globalizovanom tržištu. preduzetništvo je postalo sinonim za korporativne komunikacije, uključujući odnose sa javnošću, marketing, oglašavanje, korporativnu društvenu odgovornost i srodne discipline. u takvom komunikacionom sistemu gotovo nemoguće je da se izoluju iz ženske od muških komunikacionih aktivnosti. ili nije tako teško? među komunikacionim kanalima neophodnim za unapređenje tržišta, brendiranje i reklamiranje ženskog preduzetništva je za masovne medije često najslabija karika. tema ovog rada su mediji u srbiji, njihov uticaj na ekonomske procese u tranziciji, javno mnjenje, bazirano na koncentraciji vlasništva i neodgovarajućim medijskim zakonima, samocenzuri, stereotipima, predrasudama i slično. analiza sadržaja medija u nekoliko dnevnih novina iz srbije tokom jedne nedelje u februaru 2014, kvalitativno i kvantitativno pokazuje da mediji plasiraju emocije umesto informacija, kada informišu javnost u oblasti ekonomije. ključne reči: komunikacije, ekonomija, emocije, informacije, masovni mediji, žensko preduzetništvo article history: received: 10 may, 2014 accepted: 27 october, 2014 16_jwe_3-4_finalna_ver no. 3-4/2016 no. 3-4/2016 twice a year scientific journal issn 1821-1283 udk 005.64:37:316.344.5 cobiss.sr-id 157987852 publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade special advisor prof. dr. carl edwin lindgren, united states associate editors prof. dr. manuela tvaronaviciene, vilnius gediminas technical university, business management faculty, department of enterprise economics and business management, lithuania prof. dr. lawanna l. blount, vice president of american school of genealogy, heraldry and documentary sciences, united states prof. dr. neila holland, business and entrepreneurship professor, stratford university, baltimore campus, united states of america prof. dr. agota giedrė raišienė, academic association of management and administration (avada), lithuania prof. dr. snezhana ilieva, department of social, work and educational psychology sofia university st. kliment ohridski, bulgaria prof. dr. radmila grozdanić, faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship, serbia prof. dr. imani silver kyaruzi, department of business, london graduate school of management, great britain prof. dr. tara brabazon, professor of education and head of the school – teacher education, charles sturt university, australia editorial office c/o institute of economic sciences 12, zmaj jovina str., belgrade, serbia tel. +381 11 2622-357; 2629-960 www.ien.bg.ac.rs jweoffice@ien.bg.ac.rs business secretary elena jovičić, ma institute of economic sciences, belgrade elena.baranenko@ien.bg.ac.rs editorial board prof. dr. mark hoelscher, associate professor of entrepreneurship in the department of management and quantitative methods in the college of business at illinois state university, united states dr. doan winkel, assistant professor of entrepreneurship, illinois state university, united states dr. jeff vanevenhoven, assistant professor in management, college of business & economics, university of wisconsin whitewater, united states prof. dr. susan coleman, professor of finance, university of hartford, united states prof. dr. hiroko kawamoto kesim, ondokuz mayis university, turkey prof. dr. dragos simandan, associate professor, geography department, brock university, canada prof. dr. raghu bir bista, professor, tribhuvan university, nepal prof. dr. maruti rao rani, channamma university, belagavi, karnataka, india prof. dr. uday kumar, associate professor of entrepreneurship, mangalore university, india prof. dr. beatrice avolio, professor of entrepreneurship and founder of the center for female entrepreneurs at centrum católica, deputy director general, centrum católica, pontificia universidad católica del perú, lima, peru prof. dr. ana maria bojica, departamento organización de empresas, facultad de cc. económicas y empresariales, universidad de granada, espana ass. prof. dr. plama hristova, sofia university st. kliment ohridski, bulgaria ass. prof. dr. agrawal reena, jaipuria institute of management, luckow, uttar pradesh, india prof. isiaka esema, pebble hills university and coordinator of international community education association, nigeria chapter, nigeria prof. dr. krum krumov, 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female entrepreneurship and glass celling.. 1 significance of rural tourism for female entrepreneurship development in the republic of serbia ................................................ 3-19 radović gordana, radović-marković mirjana women entrepreneurship and access to capital ............................. 20-34 bogdanović miodrag intrinsic subtleties of saudi arabian female startups .................... 35-65 khan rahatullah muhammad, sharpe norean investigating women’s attitudes towards gender gap, employment and achieving social positions case study: women between 20-30 and 50-60 years old................ 66-78 barjesteh sarah part ii. entrepreneurial education…...……………………79 strategies for the professional development of executive women: empirical evidence in latin america .............................................. 81-101 avolio beatrice, alcalá patty, rurush mónica, vilca pedro, zelaya david entrepreneurial education as a new paradigm of the development of women entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia ............... 102-116 ravić nenad, nikitović zorana the role of gender, education level and academic degree of the school principals on their selected styles of leadership ............ 117-126 abolfazli elham, nourmand ahmad school plant utilization and entrepreneurial skill acquisition among secondary scholl students in akoko zonal education area of ondo state, nigeria ............................................................ 127-142 alimi olatunji sabitu notes of the editor-in-chief the journal is designed to advance scientific knowledge and to foster new solutions in female entrepreneurship, education, gender in employment policy, leadership as well as gender-specific constraints to entrepreneurship. i have to specially point out the fact that this scientific journal has always focused on those themes which are prioritized because of their actuality. we welcome manuscripts from academics, independent scholars, practitioners and students. authors should submit their manuscripts online at jweoffice@ien.bg.ac.rs. finally, i thank all the authors, reviewers and readers for their support. editor-in-chief acad. prof. mirjana radović-marković, phd microsoft word 09_jwe_1-2.doc letter from the editor-in-chief welcome to the first issue of the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (jwe) in 2009. this is second annual journal that i edited, but the first one which will be published in hard copy version. there is no doubt, that the progress made by women, in entrepreneurship activities around the world represent an important factor to be taken into consideration when studying economic development and social progress. namely, entrepreneurship represents an appropriate opportunity for women all over the world, as entrepreneurship responds flexibly to entry, change and innovation. because that a lot of countries see women entrepreneurs in smes as a hope for providing new blood to the economy. at present, women represent more than one third of all people involved in entrepreneurship activities around the world. different theoretical approaches to female entrepreneurship show that this field of research is considered very broad. according to different theoretical approaches are offered different perspectives through which we can expand and challenge our understanding of the women’s entrepreneurship and education. the most of them will be consider and discuss. jwe welcomes articles from academicians and professionals from all areas related to the outline. it is one of the first international journal in this field of research. in addition, i expect that it will be also the first one which will appear on the isi list among the world’s most prestigious scientific journals. the goal of this journal is to offer more ways of encouraging entrepreneurship, including the role of the education system, developing positive attitudes and an active approach towards female entrepreneurship. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education is published two times a year, april and october. as founder and editor in chief i shall oversee all activities necessary to ensure that each issue of the journal is released in a timely manner. i eagerly await your feedback on this year's journal and your worth contribution with your articles. sincerely, prof. dr mirjana radović-marković 17_jwe_1-2 udc: 005.32:331.1 005.961:005.336.1 jel: l26, m13, m2 cobiss.sr-id: 238898700 original scientific paper small firm owner characteristics and primary employment halil dincer kaya1 northeastern state university, broken arrow, oklahoma, united states a b s t r a c t our objective in this study is to examine the relation between small business owners’ characteristics and their tendency of having their business as their “primary employment”. in order to achieve that objective, we compare owner characteristics in high “primary employment” u.s. states versus in low “primary employment” states. we use the “united states small business friendliness survey” done by kauffman foundation and thumptack.com in 2013. our nonparametric tests show that in the states where relatively high percentage of owners have their business as “primary employment” (i.e. “high primary employment states”), owners run their business in a more professional way (i.e. relatively more owners hire managers to run their business). we also find that, in these states, owners have significantly more previous startup experience. in addition, we find that, in these states, there are fewer “caucasian” owners and significantly more owners from other races. on the other hand, our findings show that there is no significant difference between owner’s gender, age, political view, and education across high and low primary employment states. we advise policymakers to use these findings when formulating policies that support entrepreneurship. 1 northeastern state university, broken arrow, ok 74014, united states, kaya@nsuok.edu kaya, h.d., small firm owner characteristics, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) 41 key words: entrepreneurship, small business, primary employment, entrepreneurial activity, owner characteristics introduction in this study, we examine the relation between small business owners’ characteristics and their tendency of having their business as their “primary employment”. in order to achieve that objective, we analyze u.s. states. first, we differentiate between states that have a higher percentage of small business owners that have their business as “primary employment” (rather than a side job or a hobby), and states that have a lower percentage of owners that have their business as “primary employment”. we call the first group the “high primary employment states” and the second group the “low primary employment states”. then, we compare owner characteristics in “high primary employment states” versus in “low primary employment states”. a small business owner to have his/her business as “primary employment” is important because this form of entrepreneurship reflects a stronger form of entrepreneurship than a business run as a side job/hobby. our purpose here is to differentiate between the characteristics of owners in “high primary employment states” versus in “low primary employment states”. what type of entrepreneurs tends to have their business as their primary employment? we are hoping to answer this question. the answer here will help policymakers with their policymaking process: in order to promote this stronger form of entrepreneurship (i.e. business as “primary employment”), what type of potential entrepreneurs should the policymakers focus their support on? if a state wants to successfully promote this stronger form of entrepreneurship, it needs to be efficient in allocating its resources, therefore it needs to know what type of potential entrepreneurs to support more. in our analysis, we use the “united states small business friendliness survey” by kauffman foundation and thumptack.com in 2013. this survey contains questions for small business owners on whether their business is their “primary employment”. it also asks them questions about their position in their company, their previous entrepreneurship experience, their gender, age, political view, education, and race. 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) the paper proceeds as follows: section 2 goes over the previous literature. section 3 explains the data and the methodology. section 4 shows the empirical results. finally, section 5 concludes. literature review several previous studies examine entrepreneurial activities that start as a hobby. heimonen (2013) classifies some business ventures as supplementary form of income where the entrepreneur seeks both personal and financial success. these entrepreneurs describe their purpose as “have fun, do what you want to do and at the same time earn some money; it is a hobby and at the same time an opportunity to earn money; part time entrepreneurship, small scale business, flexible working hours with long weekends; opportunity to maintain good health and functionality”. giacomin et al. (2011) try to identify the impact of the socio-economic characteristics of entrepreneurs on their opportunity-necessity positioning. the authors show the impact of the socio-economic characteristics of entrepreneurs on the alignment of their project with a necessity or opportunity entrepreneurial dynamics. the authors state that not all jobseekers are necessity entrepreneurs and that new venture creation based on family influence may convey both a necessity and an opportunity dimension. they also describe “hobby entrepreneurship” as a new type of entrepreneurship. cagetti and de nardi (2006) examine the relation between the type of entrepreneur and his/her wealth. the authors argue that the poorest business owners might be the low-wage workers who turn to self-employment for lack of better opportunities or people who are self-employed as a hobby. interestingly, the business owners who do not have an active management role in the business are very rich and are likely to use the business as an investment opportunity. rantamaki-lahtinen and vihinen (2004) discuss the transition of “hobby” entrepreneurs into regular business owners. the authors examine the role of equine industries in finnish rural development and rural entrepreneurship. their objective is to discuss on what kind of role equine industries can have in finnish rural development from rural entrepreneurship and rural policy point of views. according to the authors, equine industries are special among the rural industries because of their interaction between the “rural” and “urban”. kaya, h.d., small firm owner characteristics, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) 43 equine industries bring new people, both customers and entrepreneurs, from urban areas to the countryside. the authors explain that especially young women from southern-finland are keen on cross-country horseback riding as a hobby. the authors state that “these new people bring significant amount of new financial and social capital, new ideas, networks and skills that are very much needed today. entrepreneurs, who move to the rural areas from elsewhere, might see local business opportunities from a different angle. they also have their own social networks that will get attached to local networks. urban customers bring money and their social networks along when they come to have their riding lesson or riding holiday. on the other hand, as trotting races are mostly organised in urban areas, equine enterprises are bringing the rural things to urban surroundings”. rantamaki-lahtinen and vihinen (2004) also explain that the interaction between rural and urban might cause conflicts. for example, local people might not accept new entrepreneur or his/her clients. newcomers may be arrogant or may not understand local norms. block and landgraf (2016) argue that part-time entrepreneurship is often a first step towards full-time entrepreneurship. the authors analyze how financial and non-financial motives of part-time entrepreneurs influence the propensity of part-time entrepreneurs to become full-time entrepreneurs. their results show that “the motivation to supplement wage income or the motivation to achieve social recognition is negatively associated with transition behavior, whereas the motivation to achieve independence or self-realization is positively associated with transition behavior”. they show that the motivation to follow a role model, financial success, and innovation are not significantly related to transition behavior. folta et al. (2010) argue that individuals may take on second jobs where they gain nonmonetary benefits that might not be available in their primary jobs. according to the author, “hybrid entrepreneurship” may be preferred to a second wage position because it provides additional monetary and psychological benefits. kerr and nanda (2009) argue that most hobby entrepreneurs or sole proprietors will never seek to hire someone else, remaining permanently in the lower bubble. in some cases, the start-up will grow much larger, according to the authors, following the path of famous silicon valley firms like hewlett-packard that began in a garage. 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) kourilsky and walstad (2002) surveyed 1,001 owners/founders of high-technology businesses with under 200 employees. their findings suggest an important potential role for education in general and entrepreneurship education in particular. the authors state that “one potential strategy recommended is to craft crosscutting educational partnerships that carefully blend entrepreneurship education, technology content-specific education, and high-technology venture experience at both the high school and college levels”. the entrepreneurs’ top six events towards starting or owning a business are “past job or job experience”, “technology idea or opportunity/inventing the system”, “losing a job or becoming unemployed”, “independence/freedom/be my own boss/work at home”, “technology hobby”, and “need/demand/market at right time”. warnick (2016) states that “entrepreneurship research has, to date, focused on passion in terms of a passion for activities related to the entrepreneurial process (“entrepreneurial passion”), including the identification of new venture opportunities, the founding of new ventures, and new venture development”. the author “expands the conception of passion in entrepreneurship research to include entrepreneurs who engage in entrepreneurial activities not out of entrepreneurial passion, but out of a passion for the domain of their venture and product or service it provides (“domain passion”)”. the author develops a dynamic model of hobby monetization. warnick (2016) shows “the mechanisms by which monetization of domain passion as a hobby-related venture can (1) bolster or (2) erode domain passion”. the author also “demonstrates the importance of founder domain passion and entrepreneurial passion to startup investors, finding that both are important in investors' decision-making in addition to domain and entrepreneurial experience and openness/receptivity to feedback”. the author states that “the appeal of entrepreneurial passion to startup investors was further elevated when accompanied by domain experience, and both passions become even more appealing when investors perceived the founder to be highly open and receptive to feedback”. anwar and daniel (2016) argue that home-based businesses and their founders represent an important, but under-researched facet of entrepreneurship. according to the authors, unlike hobby-businesses with little economic impact, home-based business makes significant contribution to national economies in terms of both turnover and employment. rangarajan and lakshmi (2013) argue that “creativity and innovation are considered to be inseparable from entrepreneurship, which is in turn kaya, h.d., small firm owner characteristics, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) 45 manifested in the act of starting up and running an enterprise. the authors argue that “people become more creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, satisfaction, and challenge of the situation and not by external pressures; the passion and interest a person's internal desire to do something unique to show-case himself or herself; the person's sense of challenge, or a drive to crack a problem that no one else has been able to solve. creative entrepreneurs possess high levels of energy and great degrees of perseverance and inauguration, which combined with a willingness to take moderate, calculated risk, enable them to transform what began as a very simple illdefined idea or hobby into something concrete”. the authors support their arguments by surveying entrepreneurs in chennai, india and by showing that these entrepreneurs’ production reflects a high level of creativity and innovation. according to the authors, “innovation is the key to push entrepreneurship”. according to okpara (2007), creative entrepreneurs possess high levels of energy and great degrees of perseverance and inauguration, which combined with a willingness to take moderate, calculated risk, enable them to transform what began as a very simple illdefined idea or hobby into something concrete. shah and tripsas (2007) develop a “process model of how users, an understudied source of entrepreneurship, create, evaluate, share, and commercialize their ideas”. the authors “compare and contrast our model to the classic model of the entrepreneurial process, highlighting the emergent and collective nature of the user's entrepreneurial process”. according to the authors, users are often “accidental” entrepreneurs who happen upon an idea through their own use and then share it with others. shah and tripsas (2007) contend that “users also tend to engage in collective creative activity prior to firm formation—often within the social context provided by user communities—that results in the improvement of ideas”. according to williams (2007), informal business ventures can often arise from some hobby or interest. according to the author, this is “the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist or volunteer activity that participants find so substantial and interesting that they launch themselves on a career centered on acquiring and expressing its special skills”. tambunan (2009) categorize women entrepreneurs in asian developing countries into three groups: chance entrepreneurs, forced entrepreneurs, and created or pulled entrepreneurs. according to the author, one of the motivations of chance entrepreneurs is their business being their hobby or 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) special interest. van der merwe and lebakeng (2010) investigate women entrepreneurship in lesotho and find that 11% of the entrepreneurs are motivated by the further development and expansion of their hobby. williams and nadin (2012) argue that entrepreneurial business ventures in the informal economy, can be either a spin-off from the formal occupation of the informal entrepreneur, or alternatively, can derive from a hobby or interest. williams and round (2006) interviews 600 entrepreneurs in ukraine and finds that one fifth of them arose out of a hobby or interest that leads them to set up enterprises selling goods produced or services resulting from it. the authors state that this percentage includes those who learned some skill by pursuing some hobby or interest (e.g., painting, carpentry) and then decided to establish an enterprise based on this skill. as we are seeing, there are several previous papers on entrepreneurship as a hobby. these papers explore the motives of the entrepreneurs and explain the process in which a hobby turns into a full-time job. the next section explains the data and the methodology. data and methodology in order to achieve our objective, we compare owner characteristics in high “primary employment” u.s. states versus in low “primary employment” states. for this purpose, we divide the u.s. states into two groups based on the percentage of respondents that have their business as their primary job. the states with a percentage above the mean percentage for all states are classified as “high primary employment” states. the states with a percentage below the mean percentage for all states are classified as “low primary employment” states. then, we use nonparametric tests (i.e. mann-whitney-wilcoxon tests) to compare the respondents’ characteristics (their position in their company, their previous entrepreneurship experience, their gender, age, political view, education, and race) across highand lowprimary employment states. all of the variables are explained below. these variables for each state are computed using the individuals’ responses: − percentageofprimaryemp: the percentage of small business owners that have their business as their primary job. − managerbutnotowner: the percentage of respondents who are the manager but not the owner kaya, h.d., small firm owner characteristics, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) 47 − nonmanageremployee: the percentage of respondents who are an employee but not the manager − ownerandmanager: the percentage of respondents who are the owner and the manager − ownerbutnotmanager: the percentage of respondents who are the owner but not the manager − previousentre: the percentage of owners who has previous entrepreneurship experience − previousstartups1: the percentage of owners who started one previous business − previousstartups2: the percentage of owners who started two previous businesses − previousstartups3: the percentage of owners who started three previous businesses − previousstartups4: the percentage of owners who started four previous businesses − previousstartups>4: the percentage of owners who started more than four previous businesses the other variables are self-explanatory. for example: − female: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are female − age<25: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are less than 25 years of age independent: the percentage of small business owners who are “independent” in their political view − no highschool: the percentage of small business owners in a state who did not attend high school − asian: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are “asian” for each owner characteristic variable (i.e. their position in their company, their previous entrepreneurship experience, their gender, age, political view, education, and race), we compute the percentage values for each state. for example, in oregon, what percentage is female? if twenty percent of the small business owners are female, oregon’s female score is 20. therefore, each state in the survey has a percentage value for each of these variables. there are 41 states in our sample (we eliminated the states with insufficient data). these states are alabama, arizona, arkansas, california, colorado, connecticut, florida, georgia, hacwaii, idaho, 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) illinois, indiana, iowa, kansas, kentucky, louisiana, maine, maryland, massachusetts, michigan, minnesota, missouri, nebraska, nevada, new hampshire, new jersey, new mexico, new york, north carolina, ohio, oklahoma, oregon, pennsylvania, rhode island, south carolina, tennessee, texas, utah, virginia, washington, and wisconsin. wyoming, west virginia, and mississippi have the smallest number of respondents and california has the greatest number of respondents. table 1 shows the summary statistics for variables related to “primary employment”, “current position”, and “experience”. all of the variables are in percentage per state. as we can see in the table, the median value of “percentageofprimaryemployment” across all states is 72.83. this means that, in the median state, 72.83% of entrepreneurs have their business as their primary job. for “current position”, we have four variables. these are “managerbutnotowner”, “nonmanageremployee”, “ownerandmanager”, and “ownerbutnotmanager”. as we can see in the table, the median values of these variables across all states are 3.25%, 0.41%, 94.59%, and 2.01%, respectively. these values indicate that, in the median state, 3.25% of the respondents are manager but not owner of the firm, 0.41% are nonmanager employee, 94.59% are owner and manager, and 2.01% are owner but not manager. table 1: primary employment, current position, and experience variable n mean median stdev min max percentageofprimaryemp 41 71.96 72.83 6.44 52.63 84.21 managerbutnotowner 41 3.39 3.25 1.87 0.00 8.33 nonmanageremployee 41 0.53 0.41 0.72 0.00 3.23 ownerandmanager 41 94.02 94.59 2.80 86.11 100.00 ownerbutnotmanager 41 2.05 2.01 1.80 0.00 8.33 previousentre 41 43.84 43.33 6.78 29.49 57.14 previousstartups1 41 44.74 44.64 12.08 16.67 100.00 previousstartups2 41 30.53 31.51 8.03 0.00 41.67 previousstartups3 41 15.10 14.68 7.42 0.00 33.33 previousstartups4 41 4.18 4.42 3.63 0.00 14.29 previousstartups>4 41 5.45 4.76 4.54 0.00 21.43 note: all variables are in percentage. kaya, h.d., small firm owner characteristics, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) 49 for “experience”, we have six variables. these are “previousentre”, “previousstartups1”, “previousstartups2”, “previousstartups3”, “previousstartups4”, and “previousstartups>4”. the definitions of these variables are provided above. as we can see in the table, the median values of these variables across all states are 43.33%, 44.64%, 31.51%, 14.68%, 4.42%, and 4.76%, respectively. as mentioned above, we first find each of these variables for each state and then we find the mean and the median values for all states. table 2: owner characteristics variable mean median stdev min max female 37.00 36.96 5.96 21.05 52.94 age<25 2.09 2.18 1.67 0.00 8.70 age25-34 18.72 19.21 5.14 5.26 35.48 age35-44 24.27 25.32 3.98 14.29 31.82 age45-54 28.18 28.46 5.88 10.00 46.67 age55-64 21.38 20.45 6.32 8.70 42.11 age>64 5.36 5.71 2.61 0.00 11.43 independent 30.52 28.85 6.62 21.05 52.63 otherpolitical 17.43 16.67 4.80 8.33 34.78 leanconservative 14.51 14.17 4.54 0.00 26.32 leanliberal 12.84 11.79 5.14 5.06 26.47 strongconservative 14.86 14.71 6.70 0.00 26.09 strongliberal 9.84 9.89 3.92 0.00 19.05 no highschool 0.66 0.00 1.06 0.00 4.35 highschool 17.18 17.09 4.73 4.76 34.09 community college 17.99 17.28 6.67 5.26 35.00 technical college 16.00 14.67 5.09 4.35 26.32 undergrad 31.51 31.58 8.11 10.00 61.70 masters 12.88 13.27 4.35 4.26 24.05 doctoral 3.79 3.64 2.59 0.00 15.79 asian 1.67 1.12 2.73 0.00 16.67 otherrace 5.38 4.21 5.34 0.00 26.67 black 7.36 4.84 7.72 0.00 34.71 hispanic 4.95 3.85 4.26 0.00 16.16 white 80.63 81.82 11.33 53.33 100.00 note: all variables are in percentage. 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) table 2 shows the summary statistics for variables related to “gender”, “age”, “political view”, “education”, and “race”. again, all of the variables are in percentage per state. these are the mean and the median values, the standard deviations, the min and the max for each variable for all states. empirical results table 3 shows the results of the mann-whitney-wilcoxon tests that compare survey respondents’ position as well as their experience across highand lowprimary employment states. the table shows the results for the respondents’ current position and the results for their previous entrepreneurship experience. the table shows that small firms in “high primary employment states” tend to be more professionally managed when compared to small firms in “low primary employment states”. while the median percentage of survey respondents that are “managerbutnotowner” for businesses in “high primary employment states” is 3.62%, the corresponding percentage is only 2.59% in “low primary employment states” (p-value of the difference is 0.0745). this implies that “the separation of ownership and management” is more prevalent in “high primary employment states” (i.e. more professional management). the table also shows that the median percentage of survey respondents that are “ownerandmanager” for businesses in “high primary employment states” is 94.23%, while the corresponding percentage is 94.95% in “low primary employment states” (p-value of the difference is 0.0907). again, this implies that “the separation of ownership and management” is more prevalent in “high primary employment states” (i.e. more professional management) because there are fewer owner-managers. the table shows that the owners in “high primary employment states” tend to be significantly more experienced when compared to the owners in “low primary employment states”. while the median percentage of survey respondents that have previous entrepreneurship experience is 45.01% in “high primary employment states”, the corresponding percentage is only 40.68% in “low primary employment states” (p-value of the difference is 0.0275). kaya, h.d., small firm owner characteristics, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) 51 table 3: current position and experience across highand low-score states high-score low-score mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value managerbutnotowner 3.72 3.62 2.93 2.59 *0.0745 nonmanageremployee 0.45 0.40 0.65 0.43 0.4172 ownerandmanager 93.65 94.23 94.54 94.95 *0.0907 ownerbutnotmanager 2.18 2.18 1.87 1.63 0.2703 previousentre 45.46 45.01 41.56 40.68 **0.0275 previousstartups1 41.97 43.30 48.66 47.71 *0.0864 previousstartups2 31.35 31.49 29.36 31.82 0.3654 previousstartups3 16.58 15.24 13.02 14.29 0.1067 previousstartups4 3.91 4.11 4.56 4.76 0.4786 previousstartups>4 6.19 6.07 4.41 3.57 **0.0337 note: *** shows significance at 1%, ** at 5%, and * at 10% level. the table also shows that a significantly higher percentage of owners started more than four businesses in the past in “high primary employment states” when compared to “low primary employment states”. while the median percentage of survey respondents that started more than four businesses in the past is 6.07% in “high primary employment states”, the corresponding percentage is only 3.57% in “low primary employment states” (p-value of the difference is 0.0337). on the other hand, owners with little experience (i.e. just one previous startup experience) are more prevalent in “low primary employment states”. while the median percentage of survey respondents that started only one business in the past is 43.30% in “high primary employment states”, the corresponding percentage is 47.71% in “low primary employment states” (p-value of the difference is 0.0864). so, we can conclude that more experienced entrepreneurs are more concentrated in “high primary employment states”, while entrepreneurs with little or no experience are more concentrated in “low primary employment states”. table 4 shows the results of the mann-whitney-wilcoxon tests that compare survey respondents’ gender, age, political view, education, and race across highand lowprimary employment states. when we look at the table for gender, age, political view, and education, we do not see any significant difference between highand lowprimary employment states. 52 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) therefore, we conclude that these owner characteristics do not differ across highand lowprimary employment states. the table, on the other hand, shows that there are fewer “white” owners in “high primary employment states” when compared to “low primary employment states”. while the median percentage of survey respondents that are “white” in “high primary employment states” is 78.28%, the corresponding percentage is 86.96% in “low primary employment states” (p-value of the difference is 0.0136). the table also shows that there are more owners that are from “other races” (i.e. other than asian, black, hispanic, or white) in “high primary employment states” when compared to “low primary employment states”. while the median percentage of survey respondents that are from “otherrace” in “high primary employment states” is 5.01%, the corresponding percentage is 3.85% in “low primary employment states” (pvalue of the difference is 0.0318). the table shows that there is no significant difference between the two groups in terms of the percentages of asian, black, and hispanic owners. from table 4, we can conclude that only some of the race groups are significantly different across the two groups of states. table 4: comparison of owner characteristics variable high-score low-score mann-w. mean med. mean med. p-value female 36.47 36.79 37.76 38.64 0.2060 age<25 1.85 2.16 2.44 2.27 0.2747 age25-34 17.96 18.97 19.81 19.29 0.2714 age35-44 24.40 25.11 24.07 25.32 0.3506 age45-54 28.49 28.14 27.75 29.55 0.3654 age55-64 22.05 20.36 20.43 20.45 0.3704 age>64 5.25 5.82 5.50 5.45 0.4110 independent 30.08 28.14 31.13 29.49 0.1360 otherpolitical 17.58 17.61 17.22 15.45 0.1806 leanconservative 14.61 14.12 14.37 14.71 0.4059 leanliberal 12.02 10.68 14.01 13.64 0.1419 strongconservative 15.30 15.07 14.25 13.64 0.2892 strongliberal 10.41 10.57 9.03 8.73 0.1949 no highschool 0.70 0.39 0.62 0.00 0.1431 kaya, h.d., small firm owner characteristics, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) 53 variable high-score low-score mann-w. mean med. mean med. p-value highschool 16.29 16.18 18.44 17.74 0.1479 community college 17.84 18.55 18.19 17.28 0.4421 technical college 16.47 14.86 15.33 14.29 0.2937 undergrad 32.54 32.24 30.05 30.19 0.1637 masters 12.02 12.71 14.08 14.91 0.1020 doctoral 4.14 3.70 3.29 3.52 0.2293 asian 2.08 1.16 1.10 0.00 0.1312 otherrace 6.29 5.01 4.09 3.85 **0.0318 black 8.56 5.16 5.68 3.85 0.1634 hispanic 5.70 4.16 3.89 3.23 0.1735 white 77.37 78.28 85.23 86.96 **0.0136 note: *** shows significance at 1%, ** at 5%, and * at 10% level. conclusion in this study, we examine the relation between small business owners’ characteristics and their tendency of having their business as their “primary employment”. in order to achieve that objective, we compare owner characteristics in high “primary employment” u.s. states versus in low “primary employment” states. in our analysis, we use the “united states small business friendliness survey” done by kauffman foundation and thumptack.com in 2013. this survey asks small business owners about whether their business is their “primary employment”. it also asks them about their position in their company, their previous entrepreneurship experience, their gender, age, political view, education, and race. first, we divide the u.s. states into two groups. the first group includes the states that have high “primary employment” (i.e. the states where relatively high percentage of owners have their business as their “primary employment”). the second group includes the states that have low “primary employment” (i.e. the states where relatively low percentage of owners have their business as their “primary employment”). our nonparametric tests show that in the states where relatively high percentage of owners have their business as “primary employment” (i.e. “high primary employment states”), owners run their business in a more 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) professional way (i.e. relatively more owners hire managers to run their business). we also find that, in these states, owners have significantly more previous startup experience. in addition to these findings, we also find that, in these states, there are fewer “white” owners and significantly more owners from other races (i.e. races other than “asian”, “black”, “hispanic”, or “white”. on the other hand, our findings show that there is no significant difference between owner’s gender, age, political view, and education across high and low primary employment states. we advise policymakers to use these findings when formulating policies that support entrepreneurship. business owners’ characteristics are different in many ways in “high primary employment states” versus in “low primary employment states”. in order to promote a stronger form of entrepreneurship (i.e. business as “primary employment”), policymakers need to focus their support on potential entrepreneurs with certain characteristics (i.e. potential entrepreneurs with more previous entrepreneurship experience and potential entrepreneurs from other races). references [1] anwar, naveed, and elizabeth daniel. 2016. "the role of entrepreneurventure fit in online home-based entrepreneurship: a systematic literature review." journal of enterprising culture. [2] block, jörn h., and andreas landgraf. 2016. "transition from part-time entrepreneurship to full-time entrepreneurship: the role of financial and nonfinancial motives." international entrepreneurship and management journal, 12(1): 259-282. [3] cagetti, marco, and mariacristina de nardi. 2006. "entrepreneurship, frictions, and wealth." journal of political economy, 114(5): 835-870. [4] folta, timothy b., frédéric delmar, and karl wennberg. 2010. "hybrid entrepreneurship." management science, 56(2): 253-269. [5] giacomin, olivier, frank janssen, jean-luc guyot, and olivier lohest. 2011. "opportunity and/or necessity entrepreneurship? the impact of the socio-economic characteristics of entrepreneurs." [6] heimonen, tomi. 2013. "entrepreneurship in golden years-creative opportunity or not?." china-usa business review, 12(1). [7] kerr, william, and ramana nanda. 2009. financing constraints and entrepreneurship. no. w15498. national bureau of economic research. [8] kourilsky, marilyn l., and william b. walstad. 2002. "the early environment and schooling experiences of high-technology entrepreneurs: kaya, h.d., small firm owner characteristics, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 40-55) 55 insights for entrepreneurship education." international journal of entrepreneurship education, 1(1): 1-20. [9] okpara, friday o. 2007. "the value of creativity and innovation in entrepreneurship." journal of asia entrepreneurship and sustainability, 3(2): 1. [10] rangarajan, r., and r. lakshmi. 2013. "creativity and innovation in entrepreneurship-a brief assessment." sumedha journal of management, 2(4): 55. [11] rantamaki-lahtinen, l., and hilkka vihinen. 2004. "the role of equine industries in finnish rural development–rural entrepreneurship and policy perspectives." nordic association of agricultural scientists: horse management—premises and landscape (seminar 367). [12] shah, sonali k., and mary tripsas. 2007. "the accidental entrepreneur: the emergent and collective process of user entrepreneurship." strategic entrepreneurship journal, 1(1‐2): 123-140. [13] tambunan, tulus. 2009. "women entrepreneurship in asian developing countries: their development and main constraints." journal of development and agricultural economics, 1(2): 027-040. [14] van der merwe, stéphan p., and mampoi lebakeng. 2010. "an empirical investigation of women entrepreneurship in lesotho." african international business and management conference, nairobi, kenya. [15] warnick, benjamin j. 2016. passion for product, process, or both? expanding our conception of passion in entrepreneurship. diss. indiana university. [16] williams, colin c. 2007. "the nature of entrepreneurship in the informal sector: evidence from england." journal of developmental entrepreneurship, 12(02): 239-254. [17] williams, colin c., and sara j. nadin. 2012. "tackling entrepreneurship in the informal economy: evaluating the policy options." journal of entrepreneurship and public policy, 1(2): 111-124. [18] williams, colin c., and john round. 2007. "entrepreneurship and the informal economy: a study of ukraine's hidden enterprise culture." journal of developmental entrepreneurship, 12(01): 119-136. article history: received: 19 january, 2017 accepted: 25 march, 2017 11_jwe_3-4 ne ovaj statement from the editor-in-chief jwe is not only dedicated to women’s entrepreneurship and education, but also covers the complex interdisciplinary intersections among these disciplines to yield a interconnected synthesis of ideas and best practices. namely, it is intended for both educators and researchers, and includes articles that focus on empirical and theoretical research, reflecting a variety of paradigms and issues affecting women in entrepreneurship and education. the fall issue is an exploration into the nature of labour market and gender gap, motivation, leadership, learning and business practice (case studies). we welcome manuscripts from academics, independent scholars, practitioners and students. editor-in-chief prof. dr mirjana radović-marković, frsa, fwaas, femaas 18_jwe_3-4 doi: 10.28934/jwee18.34.pp34-44 scientific review women as entrepreneurship in algeria ghiat boufeldja1 faculty of ssocial sciences, university oran 2– mohamed benahmed, algeria a b s t r a c t algerian society is undergoing social, economic and cultural changes that have led to the improvement of women’s conditions and their opening on work. at the university, young women are getting to fields of studies, used to be a monopoly for men, such as mechanical engineering, agronomy, civil engineering, etc. in spite of the environmental socio-cultural constraints and as result of unemployment crisis, young women choose the entrepreneurial jobs. women’s entrepreneurship is a new phenomenon in the algerian society that needs to be highlighted. within this perspective, a study was carried out and visits to 30 enterprises led by women, and interviews were carried out with them. that helped to shed light on the characteristics of women entrepreneurs in algeria, as well as activities and profile of their enterprises. it was concluded that most women entrepreneurs are young, with university degrees. they are constraint to start their own businesses as self-employed or set up micro enterprises, employing between 1 and 5 employees, mainly from their families and working informally key words: women entrepreneurship, socio-cultural environment, social change, working women 1 e-mail: ghiat_boufelja@yahoo.fr boufeldja, g., entrepreneurship in algeria, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 34-44) 35 introduction the algerian state gave importance to education and development of human resources without any distinction between genders. that encouraged young women to access to the universities, aspiring for better occupational and social positions. the traditional jobs of algerian women were limited to some female jobs in catering, education and health. but by the end of the twentieth century, educated women accessed different occupational domains, mainly in civil services, education, nursing including higher positions such as doctors and lectures in higher education. algerian society begins to see women in positions of responsibility, as supervisors and managers. many of them chose to be entrepreneurs, which indicate that the country is experiencing profound social and cultural changes. beside the different environmental and socio-cultural inhibitors, several factors pushed women towards entrepreneurship, which can be considered as catalysers, made available by the families and the state as encouragement (ghiat, 2016). entrepreneurship is new in algeria, as she went through a period of socialism where entrepreneurship was the business of the state, before opening on the market economy. men entrepreneurs encounter several clerical and economic barriers. it is a difficult task for men to venture into entrepreneurial activity in an environment full of challenges and constraints. in this difficult environment, women face challenges to venture into an entrepreneurial activity in a male society. the profile of women’s entrepreneurship can be studied from two points of view: − the women entrepreneurs, their ages, their level of instruction, their occupational experiences and their occupational training. − the women’s enterprises, their sizes, their necessity or opportunity, their familial relations with employees and their formality. − the objective of this paper is the study profiles of entrepreneurship in algeria, with special attention to women entrepreneurs and their socio-cultural constraints. strategies developed by women entre36 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 33-44) preneurs to confront the constraints of a male society will be examined. the profiles of female’s enterprises are highlighted. women’s educational and economic developments algerian women are highly motivated to study in order to improve their social and occupational positions. that was encouraged by the spread of education, including higher education. the girls became the majority of students in algerian universities, even in scientific fields of study, known as masculine fields. as a result of these improvements, it became obvious for women to hold social, occupational and political situations. the employment strategy of the state pushed for the inclusion of women in the working market through employment structures. women are also motivated by the will to get rid of their traditional marginal position, tending to get empowered through entrepreneurship (adema, william et al., 2014; dwivedi, n. t., 2013). the availability of education and a reform of education programs according to the needs of this population group affect a decrease in discrimination directly (radović-marković, 2016). several educational, economic and environmental factors helped the propagation of women entrepreneurship, as presented in figure 1. figure 1: factors motivating women towards entrepreneurship after the opening of the market economy in the late 20th century, the majority of entrepreneurs were males. but with the increasing number of female graduated from algerian universities, and because of rampant unemimprovement of women’s’ instruction instruction women getting jobs high rate of unemployment women entrepreneurship social & economic developments economic crisis deficiency in creating jobs boufeldja, g., entrepreneurship in algeria, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 34-44) 37 ployment, girls begin to move more and more towards the business entrepreneurship. the business of entrepreneurship needs entrepreneurial psychological characteristics and an emancipative behaviour, which collide with local traditional culture. culture and entrepreneurship women’s attitudes and behaviours are heavily influenced by the local culture linked with islam and arabian traditions that limit women’s freedom mainly in relation with males (kilani, 1998). being an entrepreneur requires a strong personality and capacity to manage the behaviours and attitudes of people in a complex and often hostile socio-cultural environment. psychological qualities such as patience, perseverance, communication abilities, decision-making, confrontation of administrative, human, technical and material problems, as well as adaption to unforeseen changes are badly needed for women entrepreneurs. this may be contrary to the nature of women in arabmuslim environments. in algeria, women are known for their sentimental characteristics, are often influenced by others, and find difficulties to confront difficulties which are usually left for men. the fact that women became entrepreneurs in algerian society, explain that there is a change in the personality of modern algerian women. figure 2: factors affecting attitudes and women’s behaviours social culture social view towards women women’s behaviour social 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 33-44) the negative attitudes, cultures and the type of socialisation affect the personality of algerian women. as pointed out by rachdi, "the socialisation of girls does not help to develop their confidence, their autonomy, their sense of risk and taste of innovation: skills which are necessary in any individual who wants to develop and manage their own business " (rachdi, 2006). in spite of the persisting constraints, the fact of the expending of women entrepreneurship, prove that fact a change in mentality, culture and behaviour of modern algerian woman, and explains the entry of women into various occupations, including entrepreneurship. environmental constraints and entrepreneurship of necessity the absence of a healthy socio-cultural environment and a culture of entrepreneurship resulted in many complex obstacles facing women entrepreneurs. women are aware of this fact, and are obliged to set up enterprises to face unemployment and financial needs. a conceptual distinction is made between entrepreneurship of necessity or forced and entrepreneurship of opportunity or voluntary (giacomin, et al., 2010 p. 213). according to giacomin, "we need to talk about entrepreneurship or coerced when an individual creates his company, among others, the lack of alternative employment and / or family stress, and opportunity entrepreneurship or voluntary when an individual creates his enterprise in particular following the discovery of an opportunity and / or to the desire for independence "(giacomin, et al., 2010 p. 213). the lack of experience, resources and entrepreneurial culture, has made the majority of businesses created by young people in algeria was by necessity, to avoid unemployment, not results of enthusiasm and motivation. berreziga and meziane have concluded that "entrepreneurship in algeria is qualified as a "survival entrepreneurship" where the entrepreneur creates his company by social constraint, he creates it by necessity and not for purpose of exploiting an opportunity." (berreziga and meziane, 2012, p.1). despite the importance of female entrepreneurship, most of them are forced by necessity. algerian women, like other arab women entrepreneurs, suffer from: “traditional and cultural practices, religion’s involvement, gender inequalities, lack of networking and training, absence of entrepreneurial culture, family responsibility” (bouguerra; 2015, 95). boufeldja, g., entrepreneurship in algeria, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 34-44) 39 that is why most female entrepreneurs activate informally, in order to avoid paying the different taxes, except those benefiting from the state’s financial assistance through (ansej) who are obliged to have a “commerce register”. female entrepreneurship in algeria is not studied enough, in particular its socio-cultural constraints, and management styles of women entrepreneurs in a male environment. research methodology in order to understand the reality of women entrepreneurship, interviews were carried out with 30 women self -employed and entrepreneurs. questions about personal information and profiles of their enterprises were asked. doctoral students in organisational psychology participated in the collection of data. research questions: the objective of this research is to answer several questions about the profiles of women entrepreneurs and their enterprises, as follows: 1. profile of women entrepreneurs − what are their ages? − what are their levels of instruction? − have they followed a training program related to their activity? − have they any occupational experience? 2. profile of women’s enterprises − how big are their enterprises? − are they a result of necessity or opportunity? − what are the kinship relations with employees within the enterprise? − are they formal or informal? results from the collected data, gave the following results. results statistical data about personal information about the interviewed women entrepreneurs and their enterprises as presented in tables (1-6). 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 33-44) profile of women entrepreneurs table 1: sample distribution according to age ages 20 30 years 06 20.0% 31-40 years 13 43.3% 41-50 years 06 20.0% 51 years and more 05 16.7% total 30 100% the age of the majority of women of the sample is between 20 and 40 years old (63.30%). table 2: sample distribution according to marital status marital status single 10 33.33% married 17 56.70% divorced 01 3.30% widow 02 6.70% total 30 100% the sample contains mainly married women (56.70%). table 3: sample distribution according to the level of training. primary secondary university total level of instruction 02 11 17 30 percentage 6.7% 36.70% 56.70% 100 % the majority of surveyed women entrepreneurs have a level of university education (56.70%). table 4: main motivation behind the choice of occupation: reason behind the choice of the business activity frequency % activity of a family member 09 30.00 personal tendencies 09 30.00 specialty study 06 20.00 husband’s activity 04 13.30 profitability of the business 02 6.70 total 30 100.0 boufeldja, g., entrepreneurship in algeria, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 34-44) 41 the majority of firms in the sample (table 3) are activating in service sector, followed by industry. profile of women’s enterprises table 5: sample distribution according to the sector of activity sector of activity frequency % sewing 07 23.31 catering & pastry 05 16.65 nursery 04 13.32 hair dressing 04 13.32 crafts 03 9.99 computing 02 6.66 commerce 02 6.66 public works 02 6.66 chemistry 01 3.33 total 30 100.00 table 5 shows that the majority of activities are in sewing women’s traditional dresses (23.31 %), catering and pastry (16.65 %), nursery (13.32 %) and hair dressing (13.32 %). a limited number of women entrepreneurs are interested in building and public works (3.33 %). table 6: years of activity: years of activity frequency % less than 5 years 14 46.7 5 -10 07 23.3 11-15 02 06.7 over 15 years 07 23.3 total 30 100.0 the majority of businesses touched by this study are small, newly created (less than 5 years), and with a number of workers between (2 and 9). 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 33-44) discussions although there are few women entrepreneurs who manage medium and large companies, there are several women executives and directors of public companies in senior positions. this demonstrates their capacity to manage, and are not less competent compared to men. the women entrepreneurs in algeria are young, less than forty years old in their majority, which is on line with the results of an investigation led by ouadah rebrab and cherif, who concluded that women entrepreneurs in algeria are young (between 25 and 30 years old) (ouadah rebrab and cherif, 2015). the investigated sample showed that (56.00 %) of the studied sample are married, and have family responsibilities. (56.00 %) have university degrees, and their level of education is higher than their male colleagues. the results, as presented in table 5, show that women activate mainly in services, liberal and craft sectors. the same results are reached by (ouadah rebrab and cherif, 2015). most women entrepreneurs are pushed to create their enterprises as a result of unemployment and material needs, they often support financially their families. most enterprises created by women can be classified as constraints enterprises, and that explains the fact that they are microenterprises, and women entrepreneurs do not think of expanding to small or medium enterprises. from the different interviews, it is clear to us that women entrepreneurs are highly motivated and have strong personalities, marked by a spirit of adventure and initiative. these qualities are necessary for the success of entrepreneurship. this proves also that women have personal and professional skills that allow them to overcome the toughest strains. they can even compete with men in fields used to be reserved for them exclusively. the majority of women entrepreneurs complain of socio-cultural constraints. management strategies tailored to their situations, are often developed by women entrepreneurs, in order to overcome their difficulties in managing their business, and to overcome their obstacles. as far as the enterprises created and managed by women, most of them are newly created (less than 5 years), activate in services (46.7 %) and only (13.3 %) activate in public works. boufeldja, g., entrepreneurship in algeria, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 34-44) 43 most interviewed women entrepreneurs reported that they received support and assistance from their friends and family members, and that was a valuable contribution that helped them to overcome the encountered problems. this support is badly needed to overcome these constraints and to succeed in their tasks, in a male society. conclusion women entrepreneurship is a new phenomenon in algeria and special attention should be given to it. algerian women entrepreneurs are constraint to start up their business as a result of complex environmental and sociocultural constraints. several women entrepreneurs have succeeded in their projects as a result of their psychological characteristics and managerial abilities. they have proved themselves as business women, and have a strong will to confront the challenges of a male society. as a result of the increase of the instruction level in general, the development of the communication technology and the globalisation knowledge, the social and cultural attitudes of society are changing slowly but surely. that will help the concretisation of women aspiration for environment of justice and equal opportunities between genders at work. references [1] adema, william et al. (2014) enhancing women’s economic empowerment trough entrepreneurship and business leadership in oecd countries. oecd & cdrf. [2] berreziga a., et meziane a., la culture entrepreneuriale chez les entrepreneurs algériens. colloque national sur les stratégies d’organisation et d’accompagnement des pme en algérie, université k. m. ouargla, 18 et 19 avril 2012, algérie. [3] bouguerra n. (2015) an investigation of women entrepreneurship: motives and barriers to business start up in the arab world. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education. n° 1-2, pp. 86-104. [4] dwivedi, n. t. (2013) women-empowerment through women entrepreneurship (a study of faizabad zone of uttar-pradesh). voice of research. vol. 2, september. 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 33-44) [5] ghiat b. (2016) inhibiting and catalysing factors of women entrepreneurship in algeria, dirassat (human & social studies review), oran university-1, ahmed ben bella, volume n°06 janvier, pp. 53-60. [6] ghiat b., (2015) culture de travail et entrepreneuriat en algérie, publibook, paris. [7] giacomin, o., janssen, f., guyot, j. l. et loest, o., (2010), entrepreneuriat contraint et volontaire: quel impact sur le choix sectoriel des entrepreneurs? revue internationale pme, economie et gestion de la petite et moyenne entreprises. vol. 23, n 3-4, pp. 211-243. [8] kilani, m. (1998) islam et changement social, paris, payot. [9] ouadah rebrab, s., and cherif, a. (2015), l’entrepreneuriat féminin en algérie: etude statistique sur la dispersion de l’entrepreneuriat féminin en algérie. 7e conférence africaine sur la population. johansburg afrique du sud 30 nov04 dec. [10] rachdi, f. (2006) l’entreprenariat féminin au maroc : une étude exploratoire, 8e cifepme, 25 – 27 octobre, haute ecole de gestion, fribourg, suisse. [11] radović-marković, m. (2016). empowering employment of women and marginalized people through entrepreneurship education in serbia, journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, 2016, no. 1-2, 3-17 pp. article history: received: 4 november, 2018 accepted: 7 december, 2018 microsoft word 09_jwe_1-2.doc women in bosnia and herzegovina and starting their own business munira šestić* * sarajevo school of business, sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina a r t i c l e i n f o article history: received 11 march 2009 accepted 27 march 2009 jel: b54, j64, l26, i2 k e y w o r d s: women, unemployment, solving existential problems, starting their own business, education a b s t r a c t this paper gives a comparative overview of the increased willingness of women in bosnia and herzegovina to start their own business, on a turnover from the 20th in the 21st century. there are presented the current state of unemployment of women, as well as their educational structure depending whether or not they are ready to start their own business. alongside there are results of target researches, which lists the reasons why a number of women are not ready to start your own business. introduction women are important, but "unrecognized" forces in the economy of bosnia and herzegovina. in the years after the war, despite the positive legal and political change in favor of women, the fact is that women are still "vulnerable" in its economic status comparing to men. in bosnia and herzegovina, women have significantly lower participation in the labor force of only 35.6%, compared with a global journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 51-59 52 average 52.5%1; it can be said that they are "suffering" from high rates of unemployment and earn on average less than men2. the fact is that women in a small number choose to start their own business.3 according to the results of research from 2007. (2007, labor force survey) only 22.6% of people employed in bosnia and herzegovina are self-employed; of this number 26.9% are women. according to the research, at the same time, women make up 69.3% so called “unpaid family workers”. however, here are listed basic statistical data, but in most domestic and foreign institutions and organizations it is very difficult to obtain information related to the socio economic status of the female population of bosnia and herzegovina. from that very reason, it was difficult in one place to present and objectively assess the willingness of women in bosnia and herzegovina to start his own business and how this change over the years. women and unemployment entrepreneurship creates jobs, which is very important in a country with high unemployment as in case of bosnia and herzegovina. since the bosnia and herzegovina has the lowest share of female labor force in south eastern europe4, women's entrepreneurship may provide significant opportunities up to certain preconditions. table 1.5 participation of women in the population of bosnia and herzegovina expressed in thousands total population working age force employed women 1.645 1.371 317 % 51,2 51,7 35,6 1 ifc, mi-bospo (2008), “voices of women entrepreneurs in bosnia and herzegovina”, washington, usa, pg.6. 2 ibid. 3 ibid. 4 world economic forum, (2007); us census bureau, yemtsov i tiongston, 2008. 5 agencija za statistiku bosne i hercegovine, (2008), “anketa o radnoj snazi 2008“, sarajevo. munira šestić / jwe 1-2 (2009) 51-59 53 the fact is that of the total registered unemployed, a higher percentage is in the female population. all this happens as a consequence post-transition and socialist heritage, but also as a consequence of the general subordinar position of women in bosnia and herzegovina during the war 1992-1995. table 2.6 gender structure of unemployment total number: unemployed unemployment rate in % women 244.096 50,9 men 235.200 49,1 total 479.296 100 even when employed, women are earning significantly less than men. women’s income are much lower than male colleagues in both bosnia and herzegovina’s entities.7 in the u.s., for example, employed women earn on average, 77 cents for every dollar that men employees earn. however, the data in bosnia and herzegovina have shown much greater gap between women and men. table 3.8 the structure of employment expressed in thousands employed self-employed helping members women 230 54 33 total 654 197 48 % 35,6 27,4 68,9 data from 2005. show that women in a smaller entity of bosnia and herzegovina, republika srpska, monthly earn less income when employed: u.s. $ 48, compared with u.s. $ 116 for men. in the federation, second entity of bosnia and herzegovina, women's average monthly 6 agencija za statistiku bosne i hercegovine, (16.01.2009.), “registrovana nezaposlenost u novembru 2008. godine”, issue no.11 7 dfid, (2005),”labor and social policy in bosnia and herzegovina: the development of polices and measures of social mitigation. living in bih: panel study, wave 4 report”, bosnia and herzegovina council of ministers, sarajevo. 8 agencija za statistiku bosne i hercegovine, (2008), “anketa o radnoj snazi 2008“, sarajevo. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 51-59 54 income was higher in 2005. year amounted to u.s. $ 104, compared with u.s. $ 157 for men employees. the specified difference in earnings can be justified partly by the reason that women are less time volume employed, but may also be associated with the fact that women are mostly employed in occupations which are paid less. women in bosnia and herzegovina and starting their own business on the crossing of the 20th in the 21st century the reasons for starting a business can be different from pure intuitions, motives to have more freedom in the earnings until the necessity for self-employment, if there are conditions.9 when we have in mind the economic situation in bosnia and herzegovina at the moment, the last reason gained in significance. there is willingness to start their own business among the female population in bosnia and herzegovina, mainly as a way of solving their own existence and way of dealing with existential issues. table 4. star research 2002. the question of whether to start your own business?10 yes 255 59,58 no 170 39,72 i do not know 3 0,70 total 428 100 in relation to the star research from 1998.11, when over 18% of women reported to the willingness of entrepreneurs, we can say that it made significant progress. even 16.67% of women respondents from the star pilot research in 2002. is in the capacity of private entrepreneurs and have the possibility of opening new jobs.12 9 dostić, prof. dr. milenko, (2002), “management of small and medium entreprises”, sarajevo school of business, sarajevo, pages 57-59,. 10 star pilot istraživanje, (2003), „socio – ekonomski status žena“, sarajevo. 11 star istraživanje, (november 1998.) „žene u ekonomiji: danas i sutra, socioekonomski status žena u bih“, (research conducted by prism research), sarajevo. 12 star istraživanje, (2003), “socio – ekonomski status žena u bih”, sarajevo. munira šestić / jwe 1-2 (2009) 51-59 55 displaying 1. willingness to launch their own business, socio economic status of women in bih, star research 2002. year 34,1 6,5 0,6 22,4 8,8 8,2 21,2 4,1 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 1 i am not sure that i could do it it is not woman's job i do not know how my surronding would accept it i do not have money for starting investment i do not have enough knowledge and information husband/male in my family would not agreee with that something else i do not know/no anwer increase in the percentage of women willing to start their own business, it can be interpreted in the light of the overall economic situation in bosnia and herzegovina. since unemployment represents one of the biggest problems of bosnia and herzegovina, in women, regardless of level of education, increases the willingness to start their own business as a possible way of solving economic problems. pilot study survey, on the willingness of women to start their own businesses in mco organization "women for women", was organized in 2006. (survey period of 23.10-01.11.2006). respondents were female members of the joint household of 18 years and upward. researches are carried out in three regions of bosnia-herzegovina: banja luka, mostar and sarajevo. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 51-59 56 it is necessary to point out that the survey was followed by additional problems: ─ lack of central gender database, ─ lack of uniform statistical data, ─ lack of state jurisdiction in the area of economic, social and cultural rights, etc. in bosnia and herzegovina, there is a very strong connection between the social roles of women, the education and occupations.13 for this reason it is very important to present following view, which compares the level of education are willingness to start own business. displaying 2. a) table. comparation overview of education and willingness to launch own business, research, "women for women", 2006. education yes no no school 1,96 12,35 not completed elementary school 8,63 22,35 elementary school 13,73 19,41 not completed secondary school 14,12 12,94 secondary school 40,00 22,35 faculty 21,57 10,59 total 100% 100% b) picture. willingness to launch own business, research, "women for women", 2006. 0,70% 39,70% 59,60% yes no i don't know/no answer 13 agencija za ravnopravnost spolova bih, (2009), bosanskohercegovački gender akcioni plan, poglavlje vi, page 2. munira šestić / jwe 1-2 (2009) 51-59 57 data of willingness of women to start own business in comparation to their education, presented by research from the star 2002. and compared to the star research from 1998.14, register increased willingness to start own business among women who have primary and secondary education, while at the same time register decreased percentage among women who have higher education. thus 1998. 6.1% of women with a primary education and 24.9% with secondary education, declared willingness to start a business, and 28.4% with a completed university degree. in the group of women who were negatively expressed in connection with the willingness to start a business, it is not difficult to establish a connection with the level of education.15 lack of education, knowledge, information, and etc. impact them to distrust their own abilities on the one hand, and creates objective difficulties on the other side. therefore, it is close to half of women that said that they do not have security in their ability, knowledge, or that do not have the information needed to start independent businesses / uncertainty to be 34.12% and that do not have enough knowledge and information, 8.82%. the reasons that we can subsume under the patriarchal power and that are limit the willingness of women to start businesses we have in 15.30% respondent: this is when business is presented as something that is off from the domain of women's activities (this is not women's work 6.8%) and rejection of such actions by the male members of the family (8.24%). conclusion what can be concluded from the given data is that women in bosnia and herzegovina mostly are not highly educated. often, this is the reason why they can not easily find jobs, but they are more and more willing to create jobs. data show a trend of growth in the previous period, speaking in support of such claims. we can say that the inclusion of women in the sphere of private entrepreneurship in bosnia and herzegovina is a consequence, on the one hand, huge unemployment and the desire to provide their own existence, 14 star istraživanje, (november 1998.)„žene u ekonomiji: danas i sutra, socioekonomski status žena u bih“, (research conducted by prism research), sarajevo. 15 marković radović prof. dr. mirjana, (2005), „žene i mali biznis“, poslovni biro, beograd, pages 54 – 56. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 51-59 58 and on the other hand, efforts to try the business world and implement their ideas. considering that the increasing willingness of women to turn to entrepreneurship, in a situation when a vacancy or new position comes almost five hundredths of unemployed, we need to think about further education and business training of such women. since the major increase is recorded in women with secondary and lower education, it would be very reasonable to give them the knowledge of business skills which would ensure the increase of ability of their business success, and, on the other hand, reduce the risk of possible business failure. it would be possible, through targeted specialized business education seminars and educational workshops, which would make a lot to training women in various spheres and types of businesses. in this regard, the initial activities were made, at least formally. already mentioned the gender action plan set the goals that connect three concepts: entrepreneurs, women, and government held activities. in this regard, in a period of two years from the adoption of the gender action plan set the following goals:16 ─ conduct research on the possibility of self-employment of women in bosnia and herzegovina, ─ develop a strategy for women to utilize planned programs to support entrepreneurship, ─ strengthen the capacities of women entrepreneurs through education in companies, ─ initiate making decision, that at least 30% of users of credit markets that are launched by government are women entrepreneurs, etc. references dostić prof. dr. milenko, (2002), “menadžment malih i srednjih preduzeća”, ekonomski fakultet sarajevo, sarajevo, marković, radović prof. dr. mirjana radović marković, (2005), „žene i mali biznis“, poslovni biro, beograd, ifc, mi-bospo, (may, 2008), “voices of women entrepreneurs in bosnia and herzegovina”, washington, usa, 16 agencija za ravnopravnost spolova bih, (2009), „bosanskohercegovački gender akcioni plan“, poglavlje vi, sarajevo, page 28. munira šestić / jwe 1-2 (2009) 51-59 59 world economic forum, (2007).; us census bureau, (2008), yemtsov and tiongston, agencija za statistiku bosne i hercegovine, (2008), “anketa o radnoj snazi 2008“, sarajevo, agencija za statistiku bosne i hercegovine, (16.01.2009.) “registrovana nezaposlenost u novembru 2008. godine”, issue no.11, dfid, (2005), ”labor and social policy in bosnia and herzegovina: the development of polices and measures of social mitigation. living in bih: panel study, wave 4 report”, bosnia and herzegovina council of ministers, sarajevo. star istraživanje, (november, 1998), „žene u ekonomiji: danas i sutra, socioekonomski status žena u bih“, (research conducted by prism research), sarajevo, star istraživanje, (2003) „socio – ekonomski status žena u bih”, sarajevo, agencija za ravnopravnost spolova bih, (2009), „bosanskohercegovački gender akcioni plan“, poglavlje vi, sarajevo. microsoft word 10_jwe_1-2.doc udc: 316.6 jel: b54, i2 scientific review the women in science in the countries of european union* šimková helena**, technical university in košice, faculty of economic, košice a b s t r a c t we live in a time, when few people concern of that, why is so few women in the science; although nowadays is coequality between men and women. we would not to forget the reality; that women could have to study on the universities only from the 19th century. that could be one of the reasons, why nowadays is so few women in science. certainly, the other reason is the fact; that women in history didn´t signify more in the society. their maximal success in their life was to perform the position of the mother and wife. their role was the nascence children, so that the parentage would be well-preserved and would not threaten the decrease of population; and not last one reason was the care about the household. the resource to employ was the utopian soon. the man was the bread-winner. in 19th century were the women too, those attended the educational institutions, the private or the public too. they were the women; those had to perform the wife-position of some officer, higher positioned man, in the future. the thinkers of enlightenment performed the opinion, that women can´t study and to develop the science, because they are very emotional. this description belongs to antipoles in the science, those the scientists’ couldn´t have to know. the most important in the science is the rationality and the objectivity; and especially these descriptions have men better developed. kew words: women, science, research, education, european union * this backlog knots on the research project vega project 1/247/08: “analysis of actual problems of management leading the man resources” ** address: b. němcovej 32, 040 01 košice, e-mail: helena.simkova@tuke.sk journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 81-90) 82 the position of women in science intra-european union the european commission and the general management of european union for the research concern of the trouble of womeninfluence in science. their basic target is to back-up the women in science and in research. so creates the group of women-experts – the active standardized workers from the different science-departments and scienceresearch from more countries (for example bulgaria, czech republic, hungary, poland, romania, slovak republic, slovenia, serbia, the land of ex-german democratic republic, lithuania, latvia, estonia). this group had the name enwise (enlarge women in science to east) and its influence is dating from 1st january 2003. the basic role was to give a full account of the position and situation of women in science and research in these countries. it was the group, which knotted on the antecedent works of expert groups as for example: etan (european technology assessment network) – it informed about the situation in science of european union´s country. helsinki´s group – developed for the back-up of the patronymic coequality in science intro-europe. nowadays are most women – scientists employed in the sciencedepartments, where the costs for the science and research are lowest. women aren´t adequately substituted in the leader positions, in the critical authorities, in the commissions, or in the crest functions on the universities. the stats confirm, that the probability to achieve the higher academic positions, the strategical positions and first of all the approval by science community is for women in average three times smaller than by men. despite these realities, the science women-workers go actively into european experimental space and they wire into the science-research activities. the other situation is with today’s younger generation of women-workers, which break some regalia’s in the demonstration of their potential and in the growth to the authority. this barrier is universally double or tipple role of woman (mother – wife – science woman-worker). because of this is the substitution so low between the women-holders of scientific title csc. and pedagogical titles docent, or professor. because of triple role of woman, this gender often occupies only these positions; those are placed lower in the leader hierarchy. it is caused, that wife has already the other responsibilities than the free woman, for example she have to care for the household, to cook, to bake, to clean, etc. when she gets šimková, h., the women in science, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 81-90) 83 married, then she has the children, her sorrows grow up and she hasn´t enough time for education. so the more women don´t try to grow up along. the barriers in women self-improvement every woman certainly thinks about that, what she would do in the future. generally is it the time after the ending of high school. especially in this moment she makes a decision that she will continue after the achievement of the academic title in the study or she will domiciliate and set up family. these two possibilities connect to the one isn´t always easy, because the day has only 24 hours. we couldn´t forget the reality, that the life of free person is another than the life in marriage. we care not only for me, in marriage, but for the spouse and for the children too. so we talk about the barriers, those inhibit the women to purchase the higher position. they are a lot, so we reduced them to four barriers: 1. factor of the understatement many people meet in their work, home or in the circle of their knowns with the method of understatement. as the same time it could be enough only some honorable words and the person now begin to believe in themselves and although he is good in his work, he would try to be better. women frequently understated, that influences their output. men bigger professional onset; identification with profess; the interest for the higher scientist positions . 2. factor of the low pushingness it´s not enough only want to be good, but important is to show that the others, in what we are good, too. we could be good painter, but when our pictures don´t go along than to our atelier; nobody will not notice us. we have to know “sell” us and to stay face to face with our competition. women the self-depreciation, small assertively, problems with the performance on the public places. men the possibility to achieve the heads tart, when the woman is on the maternity leave. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 81-90) 84 3. factor of habit we are led from the childhood to this, that the father is the head of family, because he is the man and he is the person, who have secure us before all bad. women usually stay in the shadow of the man. it is the unwritten rule that the leading have to be on the arms of the man. it could be, that it is influenced by that too; that nowadays media describe the women only in the positions of models, cover girls, prophetesses, rarely in the positions of women-leaders. it´s the shallow image of actual woman, witch that is intent on the beauty and on their emotional problems. women they have to face the same barriers than the man in science. men the stereotype dominates, that men have to lead; the questions of workplace consult at first with the separated men in the background and only then on the public and official forum, where the women participate too. 4. factor of “men´s world” science we can thank for the most of devises to the men, for example the sadiron, computer, television. they can think more technically than women and it´s conditional by this, that women don´t have a time to address oneself to the research of something new, because they usually have to care for the family more than men. women there hold the other "unwritten" rules for women than for men. men in some profession dominate the men. despite of all these remembered barriers, the women push oneself gradually always more in science and in research. in every country act (acted) some responsible women-scientists. šimková, h., the women in science, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 81-90) 85 maria agnesi: (*1718 +1799) italy she was considered a first presontator of the modern math, in the time when the european people don´t take for women as the equivalent in the education. the handled 5 languages: hebrew, latin, greek, spanish and france. she was the woman that published two alliances of math: the bases of math and the math for the forward. marie curie (*1867 +1934) france her biggest success was the theory of radioactivity, the technic of partitions the radioactive isotopes and the discovery of new chemical components: radium and polonium. thanks of these new-discovered components she won the nobel price. under her leading toke place the first researches of therapy the cancer with the help of radioactivity all around the world. lise meitner: (*1878 +1968) austria she lingered upon physic and chemistry and together with otto hahn and fritzo strassmann discovered the uraniumlysis. she had worked up the exact methods of measuring the energetic spectrum of electrons ejected by beta decay. with her nephew otto frisch had explained the atomic nucleus fission. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 81-90) 86 the women representation in particular science branch for the science settlers we can consider the philosophers form the antic greek, those their opinions deduced from the spy and logic. the creation of modern science we date only from 17th century, when the scholars tried for the first experiments and their declarations so to verify. gradually all actual science branches separated from philosophy. in this time we know this partition: − natural sciences, − technical sciences, − medical sciences, − agricultural sciences, − social sciences, − human sciences. these charts treat about the women representation in particular science branch, where we had compared the quantum of women-scientists in countries of european union (chart 1) and in slovakia (chart 2). chart 1: women in science in countries of eu as we can see from the chart 1, the most women in eu are substituted in social sciences, it declares 50%. on the second place are the human sciences and after them the medical sciences. the low percents have the natural, technical and agricultural sciences, that concerns about the representation in science by female gender. šimková, h., the women in science, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 81-90) 87 chart 2 shows the woman representation in particular science branches in slovakia. in the comparasion with the antecedent chart the quantity of women in social sciences is higher. we can pride with 72% population of female gender in these sciences in slovakia. the other sciences are around on the same level as in countries of eu, they different only with the low percent. chart 2: women in science in slovakia the suggestions for increase the motivation of women in science we detected after the analysis, that women have the liberty to study on universities, but not always feel they the need this study to graduate. on the base of detected knowledge so we suggest these arrangements; on base of them women could be better motivated to this, that they will have an interest to address oneself to the science work after the ending of study: journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 81-90) 88 1. time severity more women are dissuaded from the other science work by the time oppression. it begins to emerge the fear in their unconscious that they will not be able all to chase so, than they planed. suggestion: − determining the own priorities – every woman has to define, what she want to achieve in her life, what will maximally to fill her. − planning of work-time – it´s important, that women have to perceive, those tasks are important for them and those not. they could to order them from the most important to less important. − definition the time for the family and for friends – the womenlife can´t consist only of the work, co it´s needs, that they have to find the time for fun, for relax and friends too. 2. work time the work for the scientists means to make the researches daily 24 hours, 7 times in a week. they don´t know the word relax, and when they know it, they use it only in small measure, because the work is all for them. suggestion: − it would be advisable to afford opportunity the flexible work time. 3. the woman in the role of wife, mother and scientist more married women are dissuaded by the fear from the science work that they will not to be chase in the time the needed deadlines; or to perform the work responsibilities liable. they will to make a decision, what they will do, to be with spouse and with family or the work is the first. suggestions: − to afford the opportunity for women to work from home. − to increase them the salary of the amount, for that they could provide for the babysitter, that women can quiescent address oneself to science work. šimková, h., the women in science, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 81-90) 89 4. health the women in science and research are often under the great stress, because they have to perform diverse deadlines and also to perform a great quantity of the other tasks. this all reflects in quality of their work and their organism is exposed to stress, that is opened after it for the diverse illnesses. suggestions: − mutual substitutability of women in the case of the sickness absence. − the possibility of recondition placements and using the sauna, pools or gyms, those would be paid by employer. − season-tickets from the employer for the diverse cultural or sport undertaking in the case of workers-relax. summary every woman has the possibility to decide, what does she do in her future and in which realm she wants to perform. it´s on each of us, that we choose the simpler way and right after the ending of study we find the suitable work, or we choose the way, that isn´t so simple, because we have to work on us all life hard and faithfully. when we want to discover, how abilities we have, the best result is to venture at way of science work. we have to remember: “throughout we are only the small blobs in the sea, we will be these blobs; those will change the ocean”. references [1] piscová m., women in science – or the holey tubing?, bratislava, institute of sociology sav, 2004, s. 11, isbn 8085544369. [2] wyer m., women, science, and technology, routledge, 2001, isbn 0415926068. [3] díaz – andreu m, díaz – andreu garcía m, stig srensen m. l., excavating women, routledge, 1998, isbn 0415157609. [4] němcová b., how to become successful woman, grada publishing a.s., 2006, isbn 802471597x. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 81-90) 90 [5] available on internet: http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/women/enwise/pdf/enwise-report12-expert-group_2.pdf http://www.czso.cz/csu/2006edicniplan.nsf/t/330035d1a7/$file/10050601.pdf received: 6 january 2010 article history: accepted: 6 march 2010 15_jwe_3-4 udk: 005.574-055.2 cobiss.sr-id 219395340 professional paper why do women fail in negotiation more than men do andrievici ioana1 a b s t r a c t the negotiation process occurs in many situations of our daily lives, in business, in society, whenever we have human interaction. knowing to negotiate effectively is a soft skill, which we can learn and improve permanently. contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be born with this skill. we are two genders: females and males, men and women, involved in so many interactions and relationships. as we are different from many point of views, we tend to act and react differently, and thus to negotiate in different ways. this differences is not just due to the fact that we are women or men, but how the society made us act in certain ways. across the years, women showed some lack of negotiation skills comparing with men, due to the fact that they were raised up differently, and have some inner image about themselves which is formed based on the experiences they have in society. this article points out some of the reasons why do women fail in negotiation more than men do, based on the direct observation of the women negotiation styles, researches in the field, books and articles regarding the process of negotiation. key words: negotiation, skill, women, fail, society 1 office@ioana-consult.ro 108 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 107-115) introduction we negotiate every day. whenever we want something from someone, or someone wants something from us and we cannot get it simply by asking, most of the time we negotiate, whether we realize it or not. when comes to negotiating, according to researchers, women seem to have the same basic skills as men, they just don’t use them effectively. when asked to describe an experience of negotiating, women used words like “scary” and “like going to the dentist, and men said “fun,” “exciting” and “like winning a ball game.” as a result, women in business often watch their male colleagues pull ahead, receive better assignments, get promoted more quickly, and earn more money. observing these inequities, women become disenchanted with their employers. when a better offer comes along, rather than using that offer as a negotiating tool, women may take it and quit. this happens even in organizations that make concerted efforts to treat women fairly. literature review the literature addressing the subject about women and men is so vast, covering many areas of our lives, from sexuality to business and thus, to the negotiation field. the authors, both men and women, tend to write objectively but also speak from their experiences of males or females, which helps us make a big picture of the similarities and differences in both genders. thus, we can read books written by men, or by women or by men and women together. authors like sonya friedman, write about subjects like ”how learning to be a women with a life of your own can rich the life you share with a man” in ”men are just desserts” (1983). this subject will always be of great interest for girls and women of all types, especially for those lonely ones. on the other hand, there is a current in literature regarding the way you could win, no matter what. in their book ”how to manipulate men”(2005), the authors natalia baratova and maria ripinskaia write about ways in which women could lead and be on top over men. but most of all, the authors concentrate themselves on the differences between the two genders. thus john gray in ”men are from mars, women are from venus” (1992), ”mars and venus in the bedroom” (1995), or allan pease and barbara pease in ”why men don't listen and women andrievici, i., way do women fall, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 107-115) 109 can't read maps” (1998), stress the main differences between women and men in everyday life situations. a very important subject is the psychology of the adolescent girls, which mary bray pipher talks about in ”reviving ophelia” (2005), a starting point to understand how girls are raised up and trained to think, and how they deal with the boys in early years. in the field of negotiation, we find books like ”the good girls guide to negotiating”, (2001), by leslie whitaker and elisabeth austin, or ”women don’t ask: negotiation and the gender divide” (2003), by linda babcock & sara laschever, which are perfect guides for women into the negotiation process. all the books are very interesting and of a great help in learning the differences between both genders. in my personal opinion, an important starting point is the psychology. thus so the psychology books like ”brain rules” – john medina (2008), helps us understand how we make decisions. because, apart from being different, men and women have many similarities and both are human beings which function under the same psychological rules. the differences occurs mainly in the way we are raised up and the way the society makes us act. methodology this article is based on the direct observation of women around me, analyising their styles of negotiation in different areas like: business, workplace, society, family, etc. the women that i observed were between 25 and 65 years old, students, college graduated or without any collage, business women, working women and even pensioners. some of the women having children and facing the need to return to work after the maternity leave. some points are also made form studying the literature in the field. thus, i came up with a number of ten reasons for which i bealive women fail in negotiation more than men do. empirical findings being a woman myself and a negotiator, too, i asked myself why generally women fail in negotiation more than men do. after studying the 110 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 107-115) subject and observing the women around me, here are some reasons i want to stress: 1. they tend to keep ”the peace”, in most of the cases. being nest and family oriented, women are more inclined to preserve the good relationships, many times even giving up their own interests. this makes them have a tendency of ”pleasing people”, and not speaking their word. ”many girls are empathy sick”, psychology mary pipher says in her bestseller about adolescent girls ”reviving ophelia”. ”that is, they know more about others feelings than their own”. girls are particularly uncomfortable about stating their needs to boys and adults, pipher says. ”they worry about not being nice, or appearing selfish”. 2. they are raised to be ”good girls”. they want to be nice, to be polite, not to be called ”bitches” and these make them have the same tendency of ”pleasing people”. ok, so what is wrong about pleasing people? well, it is nothing wrong when you try to make somebody feel better, lets say a guest or a friend, but when you put yourself always on the second place, when you renounce your own interest and needs just to keep the other person satisfied, this might become a habit and in the big world it is not a good habit at all. a lot of women are polite and they confuse asking for what they want with conflict. they confuse assertiveness with aggressiveness and hostility. they think asking for things means you are taking advantage of others. women often have difficulties in saying no, particularly when they are dealing with someone they care about. the trouble is, women can worry to much about keeping everybody else happy. 3. they tend to ”sacrifice themselves”. this tendency comes also from trying to be ”good girls”, trying to be perfect: perfect mothers, perfect wives, perfect friends, perfect neighbours, etc. they want to be liked, and sometimes they irrationally want to be liked by everybody, forgetting the fact that this is impossible. women see this ”sacrifice” around them, to the women in their lives. by the time an average girl reaches adulthood, she has spent years surrounded by vision of women as self-sacrificing saints. as leslie whitaker and elizabeth austin say in their book ”the good girls guide to negotiating”, ”we have all seen mothers solve an angry dessert dispute by handing over their own treats, just to keep peace in the andrievici, i., way do women fall, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 107-115) 111 family. maybe that’s not so bad as a picnic-table strategy. but when it comes to negotiating with the outside world, mum needs to remember to keep at least one popsicle for herself.” 4. they don’t ask and they don’t even like to ask. in many cases, they take what they are offered. this thing also has a background in the early childhood, when they were raised to be ”good girls”. they might remember their moms telling them when visiting somebody ”take a cake and don’t ask for more, just be polite.” in the book ” women don’t ask: negotiation and the gender divide”, the authors linda babcock and sara laschever sustain that women lagged behind their male colleagues in salaries, bonuses, promotions, and perks simply because they hadn’t “asked for it.” well, i think they were right. this means women tend to leave opportunities untouched, and raises, challenging projects, and promotions are given to the men who ask for them. 5. they try to be different and adopt a negotiation style that doesn’t reflect who they are. women often think that a good negotiation is tough, screams and uses a lot of ugly tricks. so, if they think to be successful negotiators they try to be like this. usually this doesn’t work. because a lot of women haven’t learned that there are other successful negotiation styles, they avoid negotiating or think they don’t have an aptitude for it. the truth is, how you negotiate needs to reflect who you are. you must be authentic or you will lose all your credibility. 6 they don’t see a situation as an opportunity to negotiate. many women don’t recognize that opportunity to negotiate exist in many situations. they look at the situations in terms of decisions that have to be made, rather then opportunities to negotiate. 7. they don’t like to negotiate. most of the time, women avoid negotiating simply because they don’t like it. the truth is not everybody like to negotiate, negotiation process is not something to get pleasure from, but when it comes to your needs and interests it is good to learn how to do it and just do it, without thinking if you like it or not. 112 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 107-115) instead of thinking if you like it, you should think that this is something normal, as long as you don’t look after cheating the other party but to find win-win solutions instead. 8. they think they are not as good as men. many women think that negotiation is for men, not for them. they associate negotiation with business and think that this domain is mostly for men. the truth is, we negotiate every day, and this process is far for being used in business only. this is the reason why in many cases women think they are not as good as men are in negotiation. and this thought simply make them weaken their power in the negotiation process. and the power is a perception: if you think you have it, then you have it. if you think you don’t have it, you don’t have it. perceiving themselves in the inferiority, they tend to lose simply by that, by thinking that they don’t have a chance anyway, 9. sometimes they rely more on their feminine charm then on their knowledge. on average, men succeed better in business then women simply because they are thinking more on business then women. they make more money because they think more about money then women do. it is a fact, regarding the reasons: because women have to think about children, housekeeping, and so on. whatever the mind is focused on, that thing tends to materialize, the person being more determined to take actions toward his goal. so is the case with preparing a negotiation. whereas men use more time in preparing the facts and arguments before entering a negotiation, women tend to use their time on their outfit and outside look. it is nothing wrong with that, the look counts, we all know about the influence of a good appearance. but sometimes, this ”good looking appearance” takes time to be prepared: going to the hairdresser, looking after cloths in shops, etc...it takes time. so, sometimes women lose time to invest in their look and appearance rather then preparing to negotiate. they might get something because they look dazzling, but they don’t have arguments for what they ask for and on the long run they might not be regarded as trustworthy or competent. 10. they don’t know their value and tend to underestimate themselves. andrievici, i., way do women fall, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 107-115) 113 in many cases women don’t know how to appreciate themselves and they tend to underestimate themselves. not knowing their true value make them negotiate bad for themselves, and make many bad concessions. this underestimation is more accentuated after the maternity leave, when women have to come to work after a long absence in the field. being at home with the child make many women feel that they lost contact with the working world and they are not that good at it when they come back. ”i’m just lucky to have a job”, says the mum returning to work when her kids hit kindergarten. this reflects for example the salary negotiation, where women don’t have the courage to ask for more because they simply believe they don’t deserve more. women don't know their market value: women reported salary expectations between 3 and 32 percent lower than those of men for the same job. men expect to earn 13 percent more during their first year of full-time work and 32 percent more at their career peak. they also undervalue themselves and assume the first offer is all they are worth. self-ratings of schoolgirls after performing a task were 30% to 78% below boys. women report salary expectations up to 32% lower than men for the same job. conclusion women have some natural skills who can be used in their advantage or against it: their tendency to keep relationships, to keep the peace. this is a good negotiating skill, one has to know how to use it properly. comparing with women, men are more inclined to look for their advantage, their goal and succeed. of course, they too do mistakes in negotiation, many of them due to their competitive styles, and yes, both genders can learn how to improve their negotiation skills. they both need to learn to be assertive. they need to know what they want and get prepared when facing an important negotiation they know about. they have to know themselves, know their own style in negotiation, and use it in their own advantage, and avoid trying to be someone else. they have to know their batna (best alternative to negotiated agreement), and know their opponent, try to put themselves into the opponent shoes and see the world through his eyes. 114 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 107-115) they have to separate the people from the problem, concentrate on interests not on the position and of course, know their goal (interest), and avoid fighting over position, in other words to ”keep their eyes on the prize.” and most important, they all have to know that negotiation is not a bad thing, is a normal process in business, as well as in the social world, and try to find win-win solutions, whenever they can. because, like it or not, this is life: a big negotiation field. as the author chester karrass said ”in business as in life you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.” references 1. andrievici, ioana. 2014. how to negotiate better a practical guide for success in negotiations, p.44-45. 2. babcock, linda & laschever, sara. 2003. women don’t ask: negotiation and the gender divide. princeton university, p.5, 56, 59. 3. cohen, herb. 1995. you can negotiate anything, p.49-50. 4. harvard business essntials. 2002. hiring and keeping the best people, p.73, 125. 5. miller e. lee and miller jessica, (careerjournal.com), four negotiating mistakes that women often make. 6. pipher, mary bray. 2005. reviving ophelia, p.287. 7. research women in higher education. published by jossey bass, a wiley brand (2002), www.wihe.com. 8. ury, william & fisher, roger. 2001. getting to yes negotiating an agreement without giving in, p.16-17. 9. whitaker, leslie & austin, elizabeth. 2001. the good girls guide to negotiating. random house business books, p.18. andrievici, i., way do women fall, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 107-115) 115 zašto su žene slabije u pregovorima od muškaraca? a p s t r a k t proces pregovaranja se javlja u mnogim situacijama našeg svakodnevnog života, u poslovanju, društvu, kada god imamo ljudsku indterakciju. efikasno pregovaranje je meka veština, koja se može učiti i kontinuirano poboljšavati. ovaj stav je suprotan od popularnog verovanja da se sa ovom veštinom moramo roditi. mi smo kao dva roda: muški i ženski, muškarci i žene uključeni u veliki broj interakcija i odnosa. kao što se po pitanju mnogih aspekata razlikujemo, skloni smo da se ponašamo i reagujemo različito, pa samim tim i pregovaramo na različite načine. ove razlike ne leže samo na činjenici da smo žene ili muškarci, već i tome kako društvo utiče da da naše ponašanje ide u određenim pravcima. kroz vreme, žene su pokazale neke nedostake u pogledu peregovaračkih veština, u poređenju sa muškarcima, zbog činjenice da su odgajane drugačije i imaju neku neku unutršanju sliku o sebu, formiranu pod uticajem društva. ovaj rad ukazuje na neke od razloga zašto žene u pregovorima pokazuju lošije rezultate od muškaraca, na osnovu direktnog posmatranja stilova ženskog pregovaranja, istraživanja na terenu, knjiga i članaka u vezi sa procesom pregovaranja. ključne reči: pregovaranje, veštine, žene, društvo article history: received: 10 october, 2015 accepted: 15 november, 2015 17_jwe_1-2 udc: 005.336.1:334.722-055.2 005:647(497.2) jel: l26, j16 cobiss.sr-id: 238905100 scientific review women in forestry sector in bulgaria rossitsa chobanova*1 economic research institute, bulgarian academy of sciences, sofia, bulgaria daniela georgieva2 bas/international business school, bulgaria a b s t r a c t this paper aims to characterize the employment rate, performance as well as economic and social work conditions for women in forestry sector in bulgaria. it also aims to characterise the impact of factors affecting competitiveness and productivity corresponding to females employment, such as: formation of wages; education and training, insurable earnings for women in the sector, etc. at the end, some conclusions and policy recommendations are drown. the study is based on literature and legal framework survey, as well as on statistical analysis and individual interviews. key words: forestry, competitiveness, labour productivity, women, bulgaria * corresponding author: r_chobanova@iki.bas.bg, rossitsa.chobanova@gmail.com 1 economic research institute, bulgarian academy of sciences, 3 aksakov st., bg 1040, sofia, bulgaria & university of telecommunications and posts, sofia 2 bas/international business school, 14 gurko str. botevgrad, bulgaria 102 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 101-113) introduction one of the main strategic objectives of the european union (eu) is to achieve inclusive economic growth by increasing the level of female employment in the member states of the union. there are some specifics of employing women in forestry sector. on the one hand a major challenge to the forestry sector development in bulgaria is the loss of competitiveness that results to negative consequences such as slowing the economic growth and ineffective utilization of forest resources in the country (chobanova r., 2016, p.61). on the other hand, the different activities in forestry are not equally attractive for women and this has to be taken into account when identifying where increasing the employment is leading to better labour productivity and competitiveness of the sector. in this respect it is important to characterize the employment rate, performance as well as normative and real work conditions for women in bulgarian forestry sector and factors affecting them. employment of women in the forest sector in bulgaria generally in europe the employment rate is lower among women3. the eu strategy aims to achieve 75% employment rate of females and males at the age between 20 and 64 years, by 2020. on a national level, a priority objective of bulgaria is to increase the employment rate of people at the age between 20 and 64 years, up to 76% by 2020 (europe 2020: national reform programme, 2015, р. 49). the number of employed women is approximately 9 percentage points more than the number of employed men in 20154. such kind of data could be considered as positive when it comes to the participation of females in the labor market, which as noted, is almost equaled to that of males. employment of women in forestry sector differs from the general employment in the economy. for the period 2008 2015 the employment of women in forestry sector is lower, more specifically in "forestry and logging"; "manufacture of wood and of products of wood and cork, except 3 employment rate is 63% among women and 76% among men at the age between 20 and 64 years. 4 the data is based on published information in national statistical institute for employed men and women in the northwest, north central, northeast, southeast, southwest and south central regions of bulgaria. chobanova, r, et al., women in forestry sector, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 101-113) 103 furniture; manufacture of articles of straw and plaiting materials"; "manufacture of paper and paper products"; "manufacture of furniture” (see figure 1)5. the highest number of employed females is reported in the "manufacture of furniture” but their share, however, is only 1/5 of the total number of the employed in the industry. one of the most underdeveloped industries based on women employment’s rate is "forestry and logging". in addition, for the time period that is analyzed, all considered sectors reports an outflow of female labor force. the lowest employment rate of women is for the years 2014 and 2015. therefore, although at national level there is overall improvement in employment rates, the data for the forestry sector indicates lower activity in the labor market. figure 1: employed women in "forestry and logging"; "manufacture of wood and of products of wood and cork, except furniture; manufacture of articles of straw and plaiting materials"; "manufacture of paper and paper products"; "manufacture of furniture”, 2008-2015, thousands source: calculated using data from eurostat, 2016, [online]: http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=for_emp_lfs&lang=en, last update on 21.12.16, extracted on 27.01.17 education and training of women working in the forestry sector among the main factors affecting productivity and competitiveness is education. for that purpose by 2020, 40% of women and men who are at the age between 30 and 34 years should acquire tertiary or equivalent education 5 the data is from eurostat for the period 2008-2015 on the basis of analysis of employed men and women only for the periods for which there is published data in these sectors. 104 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 101-113) (europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, p.13). the national contribution to achieve this objective concerns the target by 2020 to increase the percentage of people, falling in the age group between 30 and 34 years old, who have tertiary education up to 36%. in 2016 this percentage is 33.4%, which marks a positive trend. the impact of education in forestry sector to the growth differs from the national level. taking into account the fact that women who are employed in the forestry sector in bulgaria have low level of education and skills (see figure 2) the impact of this factor could not be defined as positive for improving competitiveness in the forestry sector. in addition, none of the considered forestry sectors reports data for employed women that have tertiary education. figure 2: educational level of women in "forestry and logging"; "manufacture of wood and of products of wood and cork, except furniture; manufacture of articles of straw and plaiting materials"; "manufacture of paper and paper products"; "manufacture of furniture", 2008-2015, thousands source: calculated using data from eurostat, 2016, [online]: http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=for_emp_lfs&lang=en, last update on 21.12.16, extracted on 27.01.17 in order to identify the reasons for such lower level of female employment in forestry sector we will examine the impact of general for the sector development factors such as minimum wage, minimum monthly insurance income, as well as specific for female employment factors such as differences in salaries and maternity leave. chobanova, r, et al., women in forestry sector, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 101-113) 105 gross national minimum wage and minimum monthly insurance income of women employed in forestry in bulgaria there is a common understanding, supported by several arguments that the correlation between women's participation in the labor market and the payment they receive is positive (cuberes d., m. teignier, 2011, р. 9). on other hand, there are no significant deviations from the way of forming the wage of employees working in the forestry sector in bulgaria compared to other economic sectors. employees in the forestry sector that are receiving additional remunerations for working overtime and on sundays are almost twice less than the country's total number of people receiving additional payments (stefanova bogdanska d., 2014). in this context, women that are employed in the forestry sector relay mainly on the gross wages that are specified in their employment contracts. for the purposes of forming the contracted gross wage significant influence have the minimum wage6 for the country per year and the minimum monthly insurance income by professions and positions per year. the minimum wage regulates the minimum amount of salary, which women who are employed in the forestry sector must receive as remuneration. as a result of changes in economic, political and social level, the amount of the minimum wage (for all professions and positions in the country) increases annually and in 2017 it is 460 leva. it should be noted that bulgaria is in the group of countries in europe in which the monthly minimum wage is below 500 eur 7. this in turn is a factor that affects the income of employed women in the forestry sector. the annual changes of the minimum wage are essentially a prerequisite for changes of the average annual salary which employed females in "agriculture, forestry and fishing”8 receive. from 2010 6 the minimum wage is the lowest wage on an hourly, daily or monthly rate that employers may legally pay to their employees. it has gross nature, must be form based on market principles and is annually determined by the state. 7 in the scope of the group of countries in europe where the monthly minimum wages are below eur 500 except our country falls further romania, lithuania, hungary, the czech republic, latvia, slovakia, croatia, estonia, poland and albania, montenegro, fyr macedonia/ republic of macedonia and serbia. from all the countries that are included in this group only albania and fyr macedonia/ republic of macedonia have less monthly minimum wages than bulgaria. 8 in terms of national statistics it should be noted that the statistical data published in the nsi includes the information for the entire sector "agriculture, forestry and fishing." there is no published detailed data concerning only the forestry. therefore, the following data and 106 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 101-113) to 2015 there is insegnificant increase of the average annual salary of women who are employed in the sector (see figure 3). figure 3: average annual wages of men and women employed in sector "agriculture, forestry and fishing", 2010-2015, in leva source: calculated using data from national statistical institute, 2016; [online]: http://www.nsi.bg/bg/, last open on 15.04.2017 the gender equality can enhance competitiveness and economic productivity, which is a prerequisite for achieving higher economic growth (cuberes d., m. teignier, 2015, p.1; revenga a., s. shetty, 2012, р. 40-43). in the forestry sector in bulgaria there is a pay gap between men and women which is increasing through the years (see figure 3). as main reasons for the existence of such gap the following factors can be mentioned the presence of discrimination in the workplace; different working tasks that are given to men and women; various practices that employers provide to men and women regarding their career development and skill training; underestimation of the kind work and skills women can develop or already have, and the opportunities to reconcile work and family responsibilities (tracking the gender pay gap in the european union, 2014, p. 5-7). the minimum monthly insurance income is introduced in bulgarian legal framework in 2003. it serves as a basis for calculating the compulsory and voluntary contributions that are made for and by the insured person. for conclusions are made for the whole sector "agriculture, forestry and fisheries" in which forestry is included. chobanova, r, et al., women in forestry sector, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 101-113) 107 the representatives of female sex social security contributions have an important role in determining the amount of compensations that must be paid by the national insurance institute in terms of general sickness and maternity. for the period 2010 2017 an increase of the minimum insurance income is noted among all qualifying groups of professions employed in forestry sector (see table 1). this increase is largely due to changes in the minimum wage during the years. for forestry jobs that do not require special qualification from 2010 to 2013 (inclusive) the amount of minimum monthly insurance income is higher than the amount of minimum monthly wages for the same period. from 2013 to 2017 (inclusive) both indicators are aligned. for the period 2016 2017 the amount of the minimum monthly insurance income for skilled workers in forestry is similar to that of the minimum wage for the country. in this basis, the legislature introduces equal insurance relations to the qualified and unqualified staff. in terms of minimum monthly insurance income, fishing and agriculture (covered by sector "agriculture, forestry and fishing") offers better opportunities than those of forestry for women – managers, specialists and workforce, who does not occupy managerial positions. this conclusion is based on the fact that for the period 2012 2017 the amount of the minimum monthly insurance income for qualified and unqualified staff in fishing and agriculture is higher than in forestry (social security fund budget act, appendix № 1 to art. 9, para. 1, p. 1, by years). the low rates of the minimum insurance income have negative effects to maternity leave and the opportunities for raising a child. in order to increase female participation in the labor market in the forestry sector, it is appropriate and helpful to increase the minimum insurance income and to bind it to the wages and qualifications of employees. this could help women towards reconciling work, private life and motherhood. t a b le 1 : m in im u m m o n th ly i n su ra n ce i nc o m e in f or es tr y, 2 0 1 0 – 2 0 1 7, i n l ev a years managers specialists t ec h n ic ia n s an d a ss oc ia te p ro fe ss io n al s a d m in is tr ati ve s u p p or t e m p lo ye d i n p u b li c se rv ic es , tr ad e an d se cu ri ty s k il le d w or k er s in a gr ic u lt u re , fo re st ry , h u n ti n g an d fi sh in g q u al if ie d w or k er s an d cr af ts m en m ac h in er y op er at or s an d as se m b le rs p ro fe ss io n s re q u ir in g sp ec ia l q u al if ic at io n s 2 0 1 0 6 2 1 4 4 4 3 9 2 3 8 0 3 2 0 3 5 2 3 9 2 3 9 7 2 7 0 2 0 1 1 6 5 5 4 6 6 4 1 2 4 0 0 3 3 6 3 7 0 4 1 1 4 5 7 2 8 3 2 0 1 2 6 8 4 4 8 7 4 3 1 4 1 8 3 5 1 3 8 7 4 2 9 4 7 8 2 9 6 2 0 1 3 7 0 0 5 0 0 4 5 0 4 3 0 3 9 0 4 0 0 4 4 0 4 9 0 3 2 0 2 0 1 4 7 5 0 5 2 5 4 7 2 4 5 1 4 0 0 4 0 0 4 5 0 4 9 0 3 4 0 2 0 1 5 7 8 0 5 4 6 4 9 1 4 6 9 4 1 6 4 1 6 4 6 8 5 1 0 3 6 0 2 0 1 6 9 0 0 6 2 0 5 3 0 4 8 0 4 5 0 4 2 0 5 2 0 5 0 0 4 2 0 2 0 1 7 9 0 0 6 2 0 5 3 0 4 8 0 4 6 0 4 6 0 5 2 0 5 0 0 4 6 0 s o u rc e c o ll ec te d f ro m s o ci a l s ec u ri ty f u n d b u d g et a ct , a pp en d ix № 1 t o a rt . 9 , pa ra . 1 , p . 1 , p er y ea rs chobanova, r, et al., women in forestry sector, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 101-113) 109 maternity leave as factor for increasing women's employment in 2014 employed women in bulgaria between 20 and 49 years old who have children under the age of 6 are approximately 13.5 percentage points less than employed women without children. this data is above the eu average for the same period (13.2%) (labor force participation of women, 2015, p.4). it is believed that parenting has a significant impact on female employment (country report bulgaria, 2016, p.38), which is a factor that has strong impact on the productivity and competitiveness of the forestry enterprises. main factors that affect the participation of women with children under the age of 6 in the labor market are: legal rights of women, regarding their rightful maternity leave and compensations for it; access to services related to child care; working hours and the opportunity for parttime work; and working conditions in the workplace. in accordance to the european legal framework (council directive 2010/18/eu), bulgarian legislation defines the pregnant women and mothers as a risk group, providing them specific legal protection. in this regard female employees in forestry sector have the right to leave for 410 days due to pregnancy and childbirth for each child (labor code, article 163). during maternity leave, women are paid compensation, which is 90 % of the average gross wage or the average daily insurance income, on which the social security contributions for a period of 24 calendar months before the month of the maternity leave are calculated. however, the amount of financial support provided by the state and calculated on this basis is below the necessary parental resources that are needed for raising a child. it is so, because of the fact that the compensations are directly related to the social security income which minimum rates (see table 1) are equivalent or close to the gross national minimum wage. the legislature allows the maternity leave of 410 days to be transferred from the mother to the father who should take care of the child. this provision does not encourage fathers to take maternity leave, despite the fact that the leave is paid and recognized as working experience. such circumstances can be seen as main reasons women to refuse to terminate their maternity leave and to return to work, despite the low amount of compensation provided by the state for raising up a child1. 1 the conclusions are based on conducted individual interviews with women, working in forestry sector, who are currently on maternity leave, pending their pregnancy and birth, or parents of children up to 6 years old. 110 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 101-113) in bulgaria for the period 2007-2014 the percentage of women who does not work due to maternity leave or to take care of elderly has increased by 5 percentage points (labour force participation of women, 2015, p.15.). it should be noted that there is a risk of loss of skills and competencies related to protracted maternity leave (european commission 2013 employment and social developments in europe; oecd (2012) closing the gender gap). because of that childcare services could help mothers to raise their children while working and by that to reduce the percentage mentioned above. however, childcare services in our country are underdeveloped and only 11% of children under the age of 3 attend kindergartens for more than 30 hours per week (country report bulgaria, 2016, p. 38). this is 23 percentage points below the target of the european council in this area. fees of childcare services are identified as the main reason for the underdevelopment in this area. in this regard, fees in bulgaria for childcare for all-day service for one child in 2012 are approximately 5% more than the net income of a family with two members (labour force participation of women, 2015, p.18). the lack of childcare facilities is the second most important reason pointed out as a factor negatively affecting the use of such kind of services. when the maternity leave is over and the mother must return to work she has the rights to offer her employer, for a certain period of time, to change the employment relation in connection to the duration and distribution of working hours (labor code, article 167, p. b). this legislative rights helps mothers through the adaptation process from maternity leave to perform well on their job. however, part-time work is not a common practice in bulgaria and less than 5% of employees do not work full-time jobs (labour force participation of women, 2015, p.5). it should be noted that till now, the awareness of women regarding their legislative rights on issues concerning maternity leave was not an object of reproductive population attitudes study. because of that, there are no data on women who benefited from the legislature rights for mothers, imposed by the law. economic literature claims that a factor indirectly affects competition on the labor market is the reproductive behavior of women (gencheva, m., j. marinova, p.70). this behaviour is mainly connected to concerns over the negative impact of workflow and working conditions on the embryo (fetus). in this regard, some possible reasons for miscarriage among women are hard physical labor tasks, presence of harmful working conditions and workplace stress. for the period 2006 2010 accidents in forestry sector are mostly chobanova, r, et al., women in forestry sector, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 101-113) 111 associated with loss of control over the machine, vehicle or forklift trucks; loss of control over hand tools or objects; movement of the body during physical load (normally leading to an internal injury); movement of the body that can lead to fracture, cleavage, sliding, falling, collapsing; slipping or tripping to fall; falling. however, only small share of employees in forestry sector feels that their health is at risk during work and that their job has a negative impact on their health. in this regard, although there are work accidents reported in forestry sector, there are relatively low rates of absences because of health reasons ("prevention safety and health at work" job security, life, p.7). in addition, the legislature imposes the requirement enterprises to have rooms for personal hygiene of females and for rest of pregnant women. there is a legislative prohibition women to participate in difficult and hazardous work tasks. because of that, enterprises must transfer females to suitable jobs or must alleviate the working conditions for all pregnant women or nursing mothers that are employed in the organization. therefore, forestry sector in bulgaria is a sector with a low risk in terms of safety and security for women. conclusions and recommendations as a main conclusion it could be notted that participation of females in the forestry labor market is lower than of males.this state of the art is resulting from the influence of several factors such as economic, legal and social. in order to stimulate employment rate among femaes in forestry sector it should be eliminated the pay gap between genders. the foregoing can be accomplished through increase of the wage and the monthly insurance income. this should not be done lightly, but the rise must correspond to the specifics of the tasks performed by woman as well as her education, skills and competences. it is appropriate to introduce requirements in the job description for each position, regarding not only the level of education but obligation for yearly increase the level of knowledge and skills of workers (skilled and unskilled). the obligation should not be interrupted during maternity leave. because of that, development and implementation of virtual educational platforms (vep) could be seen as a form of a long distance learning that could benefit all workers that must be absent from work for a long period of time. 112 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 101-113) the main social factors that are having an impact on women's employment rates may be linked to the possibility females to combine work tasks with their personal lives. this has strong impact mainly to future and current mothers and mothers of children under the age of 6. by providing childcare services, creating work environment conducive to the maintenance and development of the social status and introducing flexible full-time working hours for mothers, employers can support the balance between women's work and their family obligations. it is appropriate during safety briefing on labor safety, some of the lessons to have focuses on women and maternity rights legislation. in particular, females' rights for diferent working conditions and prevention of risk factors that can lead to miscarriage. such social policies must be disclosed in the non-financial statements and anual forestry enterprises's reports, which would promote and enhance the image of organizations that have adopted them. from the legislative point of view it should be noted that despite the process of harmonization between national and european legislation, no substantial progress in women employment in forestry sector, was achieved. acknowledgements: this paper is based on preliminary results of the work undertaken in the frame of the project № cb006.1.31.070 “innovative cooperation initiatives in cross-border region”. this project is co-financed by european union through interreg-ipa cbc cci number 2014tc16i5cb006. references [1] chobanova, r. 2016. intensifying smes business networks in forestry, 9th international scientific conference woodema 2016, the path forward for wood products: a global perspective, p.61-66. [2] council directive 2010/18/eu of 8 march 2010 implementing the revised framework agreement on parental leave concluded by businesseurope, ueapme, ceep and etuc and repealing directive 96/34/ec [3] country report bulgaria. 2016. a thorough review on the prevention and correction of macroeconomic imbalances, brussels, 26/02/2016, the swd (2016) 72 final [4] cuberes d., m. teignier. 2011. world development report 2012: gender equality and development, world bank chobanova, r, et al., women in forestry sector, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 101-113) 113 [5] european commission. 2013. employment and social developments in europe [6] europe 2020: national reform programme. 2015. republic of bulgaria, ministry of finance [7] europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, brussels, 3.3.2010 com (2010) 2020 final [8] labour force participation of women. 2015. european commission, 2015 [9] labor code, promulgated. sg. br. 26 from 1986, last amended and supplemented. sg. 105 from 30 december 2016 [10] revenga a., s. shetty. 2012. “empowering women is smart economics.” finance & development, 49(1) [11] stefanova bogdanska, d. 2014. specifications management salaries in the furniture industry [12] tracking the gender pay gap in the european union. 2014. luxembourg: publications office of the european union [13] ***: emplayment rate, age group 20-64, european countries. url: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/europe-2020-indicators [14] ***: statistics on minimum wage url: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statisticsexplained/index.php/minimum_wage_statistics/bg [15] ***: presidency conclusions (2002).barcelona european council url: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/7102 5.pdf [16] ***: sectoral characteristics of working conditions url:http://bilsp.org/documents/551_5_%d0%90%d0%bd%d0%b5%d0 %ba%d1%81%20c%20%20%d0%a1%d0%b5%d0%ba%d1%82%d0%be%d1%80%d0%b8. pdf [17] ***:gencheva, m., j. marinova the status of mothers in bulgarian legislation: developments and trends or how legislation imposes discriminatory norms and attitudes towards women url: http://www.cwsp.bg/upload/docs/63.pdf article history: received: 10 may, 2017 accepted: 10 june, 2017 microsoft word 10_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 331.1(497.11) jel: b54, j21, l26 scientific research paper female employment in formal and informal sectors of the serbian economy radović-marković mirjana*, beraha isidora, jaško ana, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t with the economic crisis acknowledged in 2008, unemployment strongly increased – mostly due to the fall in the industrial sector – which indicates the possible emergence of a new poor and extremely poor population, alongside the decrease of trade deficit and foreign direct investment. serbia has a large informal sector estimated at 35 per cent of gdp in 2007, fuelled by a weak regulatory framework, inappropriate tax and expenditure policies, and weaknesses in law enforcement, including the fight against corruption. it remains an important challenge as it reduces the efficiency of economic policies. the government should now focus on the following three issues to attract entrepreneurs in the formal sector: (i) contract enforcement (especially the functioning of the courts); (ii) access to finance (particularly bank credits); and (iii) clear title to land real property. kew words: women, employment, unemployment, informal economy, entrepreneurship, employment policy, serbia introduction the world economic and financial crises that had a negative impact upon the economic growth and economic activities in serbia in the second half of 2008, have also resulted into the fall in the employment rate and the rise in the unemployment trend. in addition to the economic and financial * address: zmaj jovina 12, belgrade, serbia, e-mail: mradovic@gmail.com radović-marković, m., et al., female employment, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 18-27) 19 crises, three groups of factors are considered to be the most plausible causes of ever-worsening conditions in the labour market in the past few years – the transition and privatization processes, the labour legislation and institutions in the labour market, and the pay taxation systems. the employment rate of 40.8% in serbia (october 2009) is significantly below the goals set by the lisbon strategy of 2000, the employment rate of 70%. in 2009, the employment rate fell by 3.1% compared to 2008. in comparison with the previous year, the employment rate in october 2009 was 48.5% for men, and 33.7% for women. the highest employment rate for the period was recorded in central serbia and amounted to 42.0%, followed by belgrade, 41.0%. the lowest rate was recorded in vojvodina – 38.3%. employment in informal economy1 in serbia in transition economies and in developing countries, informal work emerges primarily for existential reasons and the need to survive, while in the developed countries, it spreads from chances and opportunities, although the contribution of women to the informal sector of economy in all countries is rather marginalized. in the majority of transition economies, in fact, those employed in the informal sector are not protected by the currently ruling laws. here we have in mind primarily the unfavourable conditions of work and long working hours, as well as the rewarding system and the pay for the job accomplished. in the majority of transition economies evident is the growth in inequality as regards earnings, which is brought into relation to the informal sector share in the economies of these countries (rutkowski, 1996). between 1990 and 2000, serbia underwent a transition from a centrally planned and job security economy to an open market, alongside all other countries of the black sea. movements on the labour market and the privatization process since 2000 led to job losses. in addition, job creation in the private sector has been slow and could not absorb a greater amount of unemployed people. thanks to a good economic conjuncture, 1 employed in informal economy are all the individuals without a formally and legally regulated employment status, i.e., those not employed in registered firms or estates, are not owners of a registered firm or estate/farm and are entitled to no insurance on the basis of their work. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 18-27) 20 the registered unemployment rate fell to 14.8 per cent in 2008 compared to 18.3 per cent in 2007. this rate rose back in april 2009 to 16.4 per cent. however, the numerical drop in unemployment between 2007 and 2008 was mainly due to methodological changes in order to harmonize methodology with eu standards. without these changes the rate would have stood at around 17.5 percent in 2008. (commission of the european communities, 2009). despite mentioned changes, the registered unemployment rate tends to be higher than the rate obtained from labour force surveys (lfs) in serbia2. these discrepancies might be explained by the fact that a large number of registered unemployed is in de facto self-employed in agriculture or works in the informal economy or registered unemployed are often not actively seeking a job to the register in order to be insured (unece 2003, p. 75). namely, registered unemployment rates significantly exceed survey-based unemployment since registration as being unemployed might be a precondition for free access to health insurance or social assistance for many who are de facto inactive or informally employed (survey of serbia, working paper, oecd, 2010). the global economic crisis had a negative impact upon the dynamics of the economic activity in serbia in the second half of 2008. activities of all sections recorded decrease and rate of employment in them (figure 1). figure 1: employment by sectors, period 2007 – 2009, number of employees 0 100000 200000 300000 400000 500000 2007 2008 2009 agriculture construction wholesale and retail trade transport hotels, restaurants financial intermediation real estate other services source: republican labor market bureau, 2009 2 the registered unemployment rates were by 7 per cent higher than the lfs rate according the survey of economic and social challenges in south east europe (2003) radović-marković, m., et al., female employment, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 18-27) 21 the drop of production in processing industry, including wood processing industry and furniture production, had the biggest impact on the drop of industrial production. the fall in the industrial sector also triggered a most significant fall in employment among all the sectors. in january 2010, the national employment agency recorded 751,590 unemployed, 2.9 per cent more than in december 2009. the unemployment growth rate, according to the october 2009 workforce questionnaire, was 16.6 per cent, which is by 2.3 percentage points higher compared to the same period 2008. the retail sector declined by 6.2 per cent in 2009 compared to 2008. agriculture traditionally has an important role in the serbian economy. namely, a large proportion of the population in serbia their work has involved in this sector. the rate of employment in agriculture is among the highest in the eu (21% in 2008.). it reflects the ubiquitous importance of agriculture in national economy as well as low level of diversification of economic activities in rural areas of serbia. as a consequence, lack of employment opportunities makes and impact on the growing poverty in rural areas (plan strategy of rural development in serbia, 2009-2013). education should play an important role by empowering people in rural areas to improve their well-being and participate actively in nation building. education and training help to build human capacity for both men and women. it is a key priority area for unemployment and poverty reduction (radovic markovic, m., 2009). tourism provides employment for people with different degrees of expertise, from those involved in that directly provides the service (waiters, maids, etc.), to those working in various technical processes (chefs, confectioners, animators), and to those with higher education who develop the sector (e.g. economists, jurists, scholars, architects). in addition to these employees, seasonal workers should be added. they are usually employed in other activities which are induced by tourism. it is hard to achieve continuity in the work for them, even for permanently employees which earnings are susceptible to seasonal variation. there is also a lack of highly qualified labour force for a more intensive development of alternative types of tourism as medical tourism or rural tourism. this is why the rate of employed people has decreased in tourism since 2007. a reform of the system should be achieved in relation to human capital and employment opportunities. high rate of unemployment, low wages and non-payment of salaries have led to the rapid growth of informal employment. more than 30% of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 18-27) 22 the economy is informal (etf country plan, 2009). the informal economy has been increasingly absorbing unqualified and unskilled labour, since as many as 53 per cent of informal workers have primary education, about 39 per cent have secondary education and about 8 per cent have tertiary education (living standards measurement survey, “employment status” belgrade, 2008). figure 2: unemployment and indices, 1994-2009 moreover, the study showed that informal employees earned 22 per cent less, ceteris paribus, compared to the formal employees in 2007, suggesting that serbia is moving towards a more mature market economy (global development network southeast europe, 2009). the differences in the presence of the informal sector across the region are significant too. the lowest percentage of employed in the informal sector is recorded in belgrade, 21%, while the highest is in western serbia, over 47%, where the highest percentage of employed (55%) is recorded simultaneously. all the above presented data corroborate the fact that the economic position of the employed with formally regulated employment status has significantly improved. despite these results, efforts should be continued towards reducing informality. reducing informal economy and job creation in formal economy will depend on sustainable economic growth, the development of small and medium-sized private enterprises and the ability of serbia to succeed in attracting foreign investment. radović-marković, m., et al., female employment, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 18-27) 23 female employment women didn’t obtained an equal standing to men with respect to job opportunities, wage, ownership of real estate and decision-making positions in government and the business sector. it is a consequence of the implementation of the law on prohibition of discrimination with delay in march 2009. the difference in average earnings of women and men per hour in 2004 amounted to 16 per cent. women usually wait longer for employment than men and lose their jobs and income source more quickly than men in time of crisis. unemployment affects specially women over 50 year of age (20 per cent of unemployed people). in addition, most widely represented in the structure of informal employment are women. namely, the women that remained in the work process in the impeding conditions of economic activities were predominantly engaged in the least profitable industries or in the informal (residual) sector. a modest family budget often prevented women from starting their own business, with their own funds or savings, which women typically use in launching new businesses. the aid from the society was also missing – there were no special purpose loans nor credits, which further prevented women from implementing their obvious entrepreneurial and managerial potentials. the majority of them, hence, settled to doing marginal jobs in informal economy or working at certain, predominantly non-managerial, work posts in state or public firms. despite some positive trends in gender equality in serbia there are still lower rates of female employment, a significantly smaller share of women among entrepreneurs and self-employed; in particular, women from vulnerable groups like roma women and women with disabilities.3 the difference between the employment rates of women and men of working age (15-64 yr) decreased in 2005-2009, but still remains very high. in 2005 the employment rate for men was 61.2 per cent against 40.8 for women, while in 2009 the employment rate for men decreased to 58.7 per cent while women’s increased to 43.3 per cent. this trend reflects the increasing number of women in the agricultural sector (40.2 per cent in 2005 against 42.4 per cent in 2009). it also shows the increase in the 3 unfortunately, the data on the position of vulnerable groups in the labour market and gender differences within these groups are not adequately registered in the form of regular monitoring, and thus the basis for interventions aimed at improving the position of these groups remains low on quality. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 18-27) 24 number of entrepreneur women and self-employed. in this category, women’s participation increased from 23.8 per cent in 2005 to 28.4 per cent in 2009. however, data on the participation of women in the number of entrepreneurs and self-employed should be accepted with a certain amount of caution due to different data definition. the participation of women in the central legislative and executive authorities has increased, while in local governments we can observe stagnation; the share of women mayors being extremely low. according to some opinions, gender inequality is very pronounced in the field of entrepreneurship in serbia, i.e. there is an obvious disproportion by gender between employers and employees. in this regard, the ratio for women is 1 to 2, while for men is almost 1 to 1 (handalić.m, 2009). despite, the participation of women is forecasted to increase by at least 30 per cent in 2015, on all the levels of political decision-making. the data obtained from the business registers agency show that the accession of women to the directorial or managerial positions in serbia is rather low. among the directors of business enterprises in 2009, only 20.6 per cent were women. taking all this into account, the government of serbia is committed to addressing the different aspects of gender equality in the forthcoming period. the law on prohibition of discrimination was adopted in march 2009. this law marks a step forward in protection of human rights. employment policy implications policy-making in serbia tends to be too sector-based and would profit from a better coordination of strategies between economic, trade, employment, social and educational policies. a functional view on vet and adult learning as central instruments for achieving overall national development goals would be an important stimulus for the education sector. however, the education and training sector could do more on its own to serve employment, employability, personal development, active citizenship, and social inclusion. the key policymakers and stakeholders in vet reform could try to foresee what the key employment challenges would look like in 2020. there is no doubt that facing demographic change already foreseeable, prospering in global competition, education for innovation and addressing threats to social inclusion are among the challenges which will have to be faced. radović-marković, m., et al., female employment, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 18-27) 25 the national employment strategy was adopted in april 2005 and is a strategic document on employment incentives in serbia, for 2005-2010. the period of its implementation, therefore, largely coincides with the implementation of the economic development strategy in serbia, which stretches up till 2012. the national employment strategy is inspired by the european employment strategy and includes three goals stated in the lisbon employment strategy, namely: 1) full employment, 2) quality and productivity at work, 3) social cohesion and entering the labour market. other important documents include the so far adopted official strategic documents of the republic of serbia, the poverty reduction strategy and the strategy of supporting small and medium-sized enterprises. the key role of this strategy is to point out to the specific directions in solving the unemployment problem in probably the most sensitive phase of the transition process in this country, as well as to offer the solutions adjusted to this phase and to the currently available human and financial resources, to be further specified in detail in the action plans of employment. conclusion in serbia, potentials had not been completely used for entrepreneurship development and self-employment. this unusual possibility is especially related to those women who, despite their high education and high participation in labor market, became entrepreneurs to twice an extent as men. namely, the opportunities for self-employment in serbia are not exploited to a satisfactory extent. rural entrepreneurship is an enormous employment potential. women see it as an employment possibility near their homes which provides independence and a reduced need for social support. farmers see it as an instrument for improving farm earnings and better standard of living. however, the acceptance of entrepreneurship as a central development force by itself will not lead to rural development and the advancement of rural enterprises. what is needed in addition is an environment in rural areas conducive to entrepreneurship (radovic markovic, m., 2010). competitive economy is the key to higher growth and employment rates. at the moment, the education and training system in serbia does not sufficiently support female employment and the labour market. serbia’s vocational education and training system (vet) faces major challenges. the serbian labour market is still in process of transition from a job journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 18-27) 26 secured system to a competitive and challenging labour market. the serbian work force is slow to adjust to the changing economic situation. as a result, the demand for skilled employees is increasing faster than the supply. specialists, such as financial analysts and controllers, internal auditors, it and marketing specialists, are in short supply, increasing competition among companies. the long-term perspective of the labour market status explained that the problems on the labour market, and especially unemployment, will be actively present, until serbia is admitted into the european union. references [1] commission of the european communities, (2009), brussels, 1339/2 [2] etf country plan, 2009 [3] doing business in 2006., world bank survey, 2006. [4] european bank for reconstruction and development, earnings inequality and the informal economy evidene from serbia) http://www.ebrd.com/pubs.econo/wp0114.pdf, approached on 18.03.2010. [5] handalić, m.,”the position of female entrepreneurs in the european union and transition countries”, journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (jwe)”, institute of economic sciences, no. 1-2, 2009., pages 13-25. [6] living standards measurement survey, “employment status” belgrade, 2008 [7] plan strategije ruralnog razvoja srbije, (2009-2013), ministarstvo za poljoprivredu, šumarstvo i vodoprivredu , februar, 2009. [8] 8. radović marković m, (2006), ”samozapošljavanje”, magnus, beograd, str. 211. [9] radovic markovic,m. (2007), entrepreneurship for women, magnus,belgrade [10] radović-marković, m. perspectives and possibilities for small business development in serbia in new economy condition, state and perspectives of serbian economy, the scientific gathering at the institute of the economic sciences, belgrade, 2006,pp. 225 -231 [11] radović-marković, m. et.al., ”the new alternative women’s entrepreneurship education: e-learning and virtual universities”, journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (jwe)”, institute of economic sciences, no. 1-2, 2009., pages 1-13. [12] radović-marković, m. (2010), contribution of rural entrepreneurship to sustainable economic development in serbia (working paper). [13] rutkowski, j., (1996), ”changes in the wage structure during economic transition in central and eastern europe“, world bank, tehnical paper no. 340, world bank group, 2010. [14] survey of serbia, working paper, oecd, 22.july, 2010 [15] living standards measurement survey, “employment status” belgrade, 2008 radović-marković, m., et al., female employment, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 18-27) 27 [16] workforce questionnaire, rzs, 31.12.2009. [17] workforce questionnaires (october, april 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009), http://webrzs.statserb.sr.gov.rs, approached on 18.03.2010. received: 12 april 2010 article history: accepted: 8 september 2010 18_jwe_3-4 doi: 10.28934/jwee18.34.pp1-19 original scientific paper constraints and challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in emerging market economy and the way forward reena agrawal1 jaipuria institute of management, lucknow, india a b s t r a c t it is well acknowledged fact that entrepreneurship is an engine of economic growth and social development. women entrepreneurship though has been growing around the world, but the evidences suggest that women entrepreneurs continue to be adversely affected by the numerous socio-economic issues in the male dominated business societies, which hugely undermine the morale of women entrepreneurs. the current study was taken up to investigate the working of twentyseven women entrepreneurs working on micro and small levels, in different areas of uttar pradesh (india), who have created employment opportunities for thousands of people living at grass root level and also created new prospects for the rural artisans in their region. the study aimed to explore the various the obstacles faced by the women entrepreneurs working in different areas of uttar pradesh (india), analyze the impact of the prevailing constraints and challenges on the progress of these women entrepreneurs, and recommend the aspects that he to be looked into by the policy makers, to address the issues and challenges. it is also anticipated that the findings will bring to light valuable insights, which might be used by the policymakers, organization and institutions who intend to assist more and more entrepreneurs, especially women entrepreneurs, to venture into businesses. the study revealed multifarious constraints and challenges faced by the women during their entrepreneurial journey. in the current study, we have tried to 1 assistant professor, address: vineet khand, gomti nagar, lucknow – 226010, india, phone: +91-522-2394296, 97, fax: +91-522-2394295, e-mail: reena.agarwal@jaipuria.ac.in 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 1-19) classify these constraints into four broad categories: socio-cultural issues; economic issues; psychological issues and managerial issues. key words: cultural constraints, inadequate finance, gender discrimination, risk averse, lack of leadership introduction entrepreneurship is a good source of generating economic growth and social development (venkat subramaniam, 2003). it is a universally accepted fact, that entrepreneurs are the engine for economic growth. the better we understand the elements of successful entrepreneurship, the superior will be the betterment of society and brighter future (harold and loren, 2009). ever since entrepreneurship was a male-dominated activity, but with the change in time, women also are proving to be inspiring entrepreneurs. some of the statistics validate that women’s participation in economic activities, play a decisive role in the growth and development of many economies across the world (minniti et al., 2005; roomi et. al., 2009). in usa, twenty five percent of the total businesses are possessed by women, while in france and canada one-third and 20% small businesses are owned and operated by women entrepreneurs respectively. in asia, women comprise forty percent of the total workforce, whereas in china womenfolk are leading men by at least two-fold and comparable trend has been observed in japan as well (rao et al, 2011). according to brush and cooper (2012) women entrepreneurship is growing very fast around the world. women entrepreneurs make noteworthy contributions in terms of generating employment opportunities and creating wealth in all economies (acs and audretsche, 1990; reynolds et al., 2002; brush and cooper, 2012). in spite of the obvious benefits that women entrepreneurs offer to an economy and country as a whole, the actual potential of female entrepreneurship has yet not been unconcealed. women entrepreneurs across the world still continue to encounter innumerable constraints and challenges which limit their performance and profitability. objective of study women entrepreneurs are yet to accomplish their full potential in men controlled business world. the current study was taken up to investigate the agrawal, r., constraints and challenges, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 1-19) 3 working of twenty-seven women entrepreneurs working on micro and small levels, in different areas of uttar pradesh (india), who have created employment opportunities for thousands of people living at grass root level and also created new prospects for the rural artisans in their region. the study aims to: (1) explore the various the obstacles faced by the women entrepreneurs working in different areas of uttar pradesh, the most populous state, in the republic of india, (2) analyze the impact of the prevailing constraints and challenges on the progress of these women entrepreneurs, and (3) recommend the aspects that he to be looked into by the policy makers, to address the issues and challenges. research methodology an empirical research was conducted to find out the challenges and constraints encountered by the women entrepreneurs in the emerging economy (pavlovic, ljumovic, 2016). according to dörnyei, (2007), the most popular method of collecting the qualitative data used by researchers is through interviews and questionnaires. interviews – in comparison to questionnairesare more powerful in drawing descriptive data and it allows researchers to explore and examine people's views in greater depth (kvale, 1996; 2003). cohen et al (2007) added that interviewing is “a valuable method for exploring the construction and negotiation of meanings in a natural setting”. initially, i briefly reviewed the literature concerning the use of interviews, the interviews' types and understood the used of this method in eliciting vital insights. then the research methods that i decided to use were personal interviews and group interview. a detailed schedule with open ended questions was prepared after gathering insights from the available. convenience sampling was used, it was decided to interact with women entrepreneurs in the state of uttar pradesh. identified twenty-seven women entrepreneurs, who were involved in the manufacturing of jute bags, other jute products, home-made traditional snacks, pickles, spices, embroidered clothes, bedsheets, table-cloth, artificial jewelry, handicrafts and pottery items in uttar pradesh (india), the most populous state, in the republic of india. these entrepreneurs have successfully provided employment to thousands of illiterates, un-skilled and semi-skilled people, living at the grass root level in their local community. personal interviews of all the twenty-seven entrepreneurs were conducted. the workforce was also interviewed to understand the basic busi4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 1-19) ness operations and the hurdle faced by them in their day to day operations. the research questions that were used to extract vital insights include the following: 1. did you face any family, societal, cultural constraints in operating your own enterprise? 2. did you face any problem in arranging necessary funds for your business enterprise? 3. what is your education level? 4. did you take any formal training before starting your venture? 5. did you have market exposure prior to initiating your venture? 6. how do you keep yourself updated about the fast moving changes? the information collected from series of interviews helped in inferring valuable insights. the secondary data was collected from online journals, reports of government departments and research reports of private agencies, surveys, and other online resources. implication of research it is expected that the findings of this study will draw the attention of the, towards the obstacles that hamper the progress and advancement of the businesses owned and managed by women entrepreneurs. it is also anticipated that the findings will bring to light valuable insights, which might be used by the policymakers, to address the ongoing problems and create a more enabling environment for the women entrepreneurs. the output of this research is likely to benefit women entrepreneurs who intend to initiate and develop their businesses and also to the organization who intend to support entrepreneurs, especially women entrepreneurs, to venture into businesses. review of the literature women entrepreneurs in contrast their male colleagues are usually subject to numerous obstacles which render the business environment unconducive to operate. the passages that follow elaborate on the constraints and challenges face by the women entrepreneurs across the world: agrawal, r., constraints and challenges, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 1-19) 5 cultural constraints traditions and conventions pose hurdles in the smooth operation of business, by women in the society. the social belief holds that males are the bread winners in families. according to roomi and parrot (2008) women are majorly compelled to take care of home (roomi and parrot, 2008). and if a woman exhibited her desires for entrepreneurial pursuit, it was assumed that she wanted to undertake the leadership role in family. a study by barwa (2003) disclosed that women confront added handicap owing to the prevalent societal and traditional gender-based inequities and prejudices. although women have been making efforts to attain equality with their male counterparts, in areas like workplace and education, their role in family, in terms of homemaking and parenting, remains somewhat unmoved (winn, 2004; mcgowan et al., 2012). according to calas and smircich (1992) and morris et. al., (2006), ethnically enforced outlook toward femininity acts as blockades to females attaining greater economic benefits and recognition in the corporate world. the key factor that confines women from business are biases based on gender and lack of support from community (afza, hassan and rashid, 2010). inadequate finance a variety of studies found that often lack of adequate funds was the major reason for a women entrepreneur to discontinue their business rather than failure in business (boden and nucci, 2000; du rietz and henrekson, 2000; karim, 2001; watson, 2003). the women entrepreneurs did not have access to credit, from formal institutions, due to: lack of formal education, limited ownership of property, lack of negotiation skills and limited social mobility (ayadurai, 1987). united nations industrial development organisation (unido, 2003) report suggested that though it is a proven fact that loan repayment ratio of women is far better than that of men still, women confronted problems in arranging funds frequently because of the biased approach of the finance institution. starcher (1996) submitted that women entrepreneurs in emerging countries had little availability of funds, due to their poor financial position and their inability to provide tangibles securities. according to indarti and langenberg (2005), banks often overstated the probability of default of women entrepreneurs, and therefore levied whimsically high collateral requirements, which resulted in limited credit. a num6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 1-19) ber of studies displayed that the poor access to capital and financial restraints were the main obstacles to women entrepreneurship and success in developing economies (marsden, 1992; meier and pilgrim, 1994; steel, 1994). the findings of brush et. al., (2004) and fielden et al., (2003), the opinion about women entrepreneur that they do not have desire for growth, lack leadership and managerial acumen, seemed to inhibit availability of credit to them. hisrich and brush (1984), karim (2001) and ndwandwe (1998) noticed that funding problems encountered by women entrepreneur resulted in limited prospects to graduate into larger organization. verheul and thurik (2001) and kuada (2009) suggested, women entrepreneurs had little knowledge of financial management. lack of information access to right information is equally vital to operate business unit. singh and krishna (1994), in the study, stated that keenness to seek vital information is one of the necessary traits to become successful entrepreneur. access to new information is crucial for commencement, existence and progress of business enterprises (mead and liedholm, 1998; kristiansen, 2002; swierczek and ha, 2003; duh, 2003). one of the key limitation of women entrepreneur is limited access to vital information, (afza, hassan and rashid, 2010). poor networking networks represent a means for minimizing the threats and operating costs, improving reach to unique business ideas and funds (aldrich and zimmer, 1986; indarti and langenberg, 2005). kristiansen (2003) found that social network has significant relationship with business adaptability. through networking entrepreneurs can get counsel (bruderl and preisendorfer, 1998) cooperation (greve and salaff, 2003), obtain implicit understanding (linehan and scullion, 2008), form tactical coalitions (tonoyan et. al., 2010), come across new business prospects (farr-wharton and brunetto, 2007), and attain reliability and acceptability for them and their enterprise (carter and shaw 2006). it has been noticed that women entrepreneurs were poor in developing business networks, effective networking can offer significant benefits to the women entrepreneurs (linehan and scullion, 2008) through comparative advantage in business (miller et. al., 2007). agrawal, r., constraints and challenges, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 1-19) 7 it was observed that women had inhibition in sharing their business ideas and secrets with others as the apprehension was that it might lead to creating competitors (knouse and webb, 2001; mcgowan et al., 2012). women entrepreneurs who intermingle with business associates are perceived negatively by the society (ayadurai, 1987). knouse and webb, 2001; mcgowan et al., 2012 found that marginalization from male subjugated networks have proved to be chief barrier to the advancement of women entrepreneurs in the business world. tonge (2008) said women lack confidence, this makes hesitant towards interacting with male members and making new linkages (mcgowan and hampton, 2006). duty towards family fasci and valdez (1998) and birley (1989) stated that numerous family duties leave less time with women entrepreneurs for their business endeavours (rao, rao and suri ganesh, 2011; mcgowan et. al., 2012). having responsibility towards home, children, elderly dependent, and women fail to devote majority of energy and time in business (starcher, 1996). stoner et al. (1990), maysami et al. (1999) and karim (2001) observed women stressed out because of dual responsibility of taking care family and handling business enterprise. women`s approachability to the vital capabilities, talents and know-hows for enterprise is unfavorably influenced by limitations on their movement, their duties towards household-businesscommunity, due to which they fail to pursue their personal likings and benefit from their abilities (ayadurai, 1987; longstreth et. al., 1987; mcgowan et. al., 2012; morris et. al., 2006 and stoner et. al., 1990). low education and skill previous researchers found that the performance of entrepreneurs what greatly affected by their abilities, separation and business understanding (cheston & kuhn, 2002; akanji, 2006; kuzilwa, 2005). people who are better educated, have necessary skill-set, have exposure and are good at networking are able to exploit the entrepreneurial opportunities (shane, 2003). in developed nations as well as developing nations several women entrepreneurs are short of necessary educational base and required training (ibru, 2009; afza, hassan and rashid, 2010). hadary (2010) argues that time constraint resulting in low education, lack of training and inexperience reduces the chances of success among women entrepreneurs. 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 1-19) inadequate business understanding and lack of managerial acumen resulted in inefficient productivity and poor competitiveness among the women entrepreneurs. because of lack of technical expertise, self-reliance, strong singular participation and the readiness to take risks, women often were inept to institute and withstand success in venture (ayadurai, 1987). richardson et. al., (2004) and adoram (2011) revealed that numerous women entrepreneurs sensed that they lack capabilities, talents and proficiency in operating venture profitably, majorly due to lack of practical exposure to the business world. unido document, (2003), emphasized the need for training and advisory services for women entrepreneurs to update their technical and managerial abilities, thus improving productivity and profitability. low risk-taking ability according to yordanova (2011) risk taking ability has significantly influences entrepreneur’s readiness to tap the tangible, intangible and financial resources required for an organization`s growth. low education results in low self-reliance and low self-sufficiency among the women entrepreneur to participate in venture that involves continual risk-taking. both continuing business activities and generating of surpluses, entail high risk-taking ability and attitude. as cited by robinson (2007) women were extra risk averse (anna et al., 1999; cooper, 1993; cliff, 1998; yordanova, 2011; adoram, 2011) and were less concerned about monetary gain (rosa et. al., 1996; brush, 1992). women entrepreneurs cited that could not assume huge risk because of the limitations as women and their background thus they avoid risky ventures (morris et. al., 2006). poor access to markets women were not capable to market services and goods tactically, because they frequently lacked access to knowledge, expertise, contacts, exposure and training. in addition, women entrepreneurs lacked exposure to international market, could not bear the cost of creating linkages in overseas markets were big deterrent for women-owned businesses (hookimsing & essoo, 2003). market liberalization has amplified the competition and that requires prompt response to market demands, enterprises encounter extensive competition from multinational companies and low-cost producers, and therefore women entrepreneurs need to upgrade skills, technology and professional competence to remain viable (nayyar et. al., 2007). marketing agrawal, r., constraints and challenges, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 1-19) 9 requires means confidence in dealing with outside world, and the social conditions have discouraged the development of both in women (starcher, 1996). gender discrimination coleman (2000) revealed that men were more engaged in ventures in comparison to women, as customary duty of women, could dissuade them to take up the opportunity to accumulate start-up capital. and that women entrepreneurs were under-served by financial organizations. hafizullah et al (2012) stressed domination of men in society, created difficulties for women entrepreneurs. besides the socio cultural and religious elements women also faced trials of on account of gender biases (ahmad, 2011; afza, hassan and rashid, 2010). lack of leadership and management skills findings of research that displayed that inadequate leadership, insufficient planning and inefficient allocation finances were a few of the problems which women entrepreneurs face win operating their venture (palaniappan, ramgopal and mani, 2012). the other key restraints included lack of trust in one`s abilities and poor access to resources (afza, hassan and rashid, 2010). mayoux (2001) noted that business women lacked aptitude to exploit existing prospects and that lead to failure in business (kantor, 1999). according to mayoux (2001) and united nations (2006) the constraints faced by women entrepreneurs were: inefficient financial management, issues of liquidity, naivety, inability in management, inadequate record keeping, problem in sales, marketing and staffing, difficulties in dealing with workforce, limited networking (coleman, 2000; parihar and singh, 2006). findings & discussion the interaction with the women entrepreneurs and the discussions with their teams revealed that though the society and economy are undoing huge changes still the women entrepreneurs face innumerous constraints related to accessibility of funds, struggles between family and work, networking challenges, lack of knowledge and managerial abilities. the figure 1 on ‘challenges faced by women entrepreneurs and the way forward’ clearly portrays the multifarious constraints and challenges faced by the women 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 1-19) during their entrepreneurial journey. in the current study, we have tried to classify these constraints into four broad categories: socio-cultural issues; economic issues; psychological issues and managerial issues. a. socio-cultural issues: women entrepreneurs shared that they encounter cultural constraints and gender discrimination. they told that their duty towards their families often did not let them concentrate fully in their ventures. lack of family support was one of the reasons for the low risktaking ability of the women entrepreneurs and the societal barriers often were the cause for poor networking. this was in concurrence to the earlier research which stated that women confronted added handicap due to the prevalent societal and traditional gender-based inequities and prejudices (calas and smircich, 1992; barwa, 2003; morris et. al., 2006; afza, hassan and rashid, 2010) and that multiple family duties leave less time with women entrepreneurs for their business endeavours (fasci and valdez, 1998; birley, 1989; karim, 2001; morris et. al., 2006; mcgowan et. al., 2012). b. economic issues: issues such as inadequate finance, poor access to markets and lack of information often restrained the growth of women entrepreneurs. it was told that banking institutions hesitated to sanction loans to women entrepreneurs as they doubted their risk-taking ability and their entrepreneurial expertise. women entrepreneurs also faced difficulties in accessing the markets and keeping themselves updated with the latest developments across the globe. this was in congruence with finding of the previous studies which disclosed that women confronted problems in obtaining credit due to bias and perception of credit agencies (marsden, 1992; coleman, 2000; meier and pilgrim, 1994; verheul and thurik, 2001; fielden et al., 2003; steel, 1994; brush et. al., 2004; kuada, 2009). c. psychological issues: the research also revealed that low level of education and formal professional training were some of the common reasons for the psychological issues such as lack of confidence and low risktaking ability amongst women entrepreneurs, which adversely affected their performance. this was analogous to the findings of the previous researchers who documented that many women entrepreneurs lacked in education, practical exposure and appropriate training both in advanced and emerging nations which eventually affected the entrepreneur`s performance (richardson et. al., 2004; ibru, 2009; afza, hassan and rashid, 2010; hadary, 2010; adoram 2011) and lack of technical expertise, self-reliance, strong singular participation and the readiness for risk exposure, women often were inept to start and withstand business success (ayadurai, 1987). agrawal, r., constraints and challenges, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 1-19) 11 d. managerial issues: the research also disclosed that lack of formal training and practical exposure lead to lack of leadership skills, lack of management skills, lack of information and poor networking amongst women entrepreneurs which resulted into managerial inefficiencies. findings of research was concurrent to previous disclosures which displayed that the lack of appropriate managerial and leadership skill and financial acumen, women entrepreneurs faced problems during execution of businesses (coleman, 2000; parihar and singh, 2006; afza, hassan and rashid, 2010; palaniappan, ramgopal and mani, 2012) and they were poor in developing business networks and national as well as international linkages (hookimsing & essoo, 2003; nayyar et. al., 2007; linehan and scullion, 2008; miller et. al., 2007). figure 1: challenges faced by women entrepreneurs and the way forward the valuable insights drawn from the research suggest that the ongoing issues and problems should be tackled in four different fronts (figure 1): a. socio cultural reforms: socio cultural reforms in the form of elimination of gender-based inequities and prejudices, reform of outdated ethical outlook, building progressive family policies, inspiring strong com12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 3-4, 1-19) munal support need to be initiated to support women`s participation in economic growth through entrepreneurship. a societal revolution can be brought about with a large number of women stepping frontward in the arena of entrepreneurship, which can increase their financial liberation and poise and open up new horizons for them. thus, the socio cultural reforms would help in addressing the societal and cultural constraints and psychological issues confronted by women entrepreneurs. b. education and professional training: the policy framework and institutional infra-structure for developing entrepreneurial abilities, imparting vocation education and training would broaden the horizon for financial enablement for women. it is desirable that the state and non-state institutions and organizations individually and jointly need to develop entrepreneurship development and training programs for the women entrepreneurs to build desired competencies amongst the women entrepreneurs and equip them appropriately to combat competition, both locally and in overseas markets. thus, the formal education and professional training on one hand would minimize the psychological inhibitions and on the other would resolve the managerial challenges encountered by women entrepreneurs. c. creating an enabling environment: it is also necessary that there should be increase in the momentum of the ongoing regulatory, policy, institutional and technological reforms. unbiased approach towards women, simplification of the procedures and processes, making the systems transparent and fair, would boost an enabling environment, empower the women entrepreneurs, and this would subsequently lift growth in economy. preventive vigilance by the regulators can further improve the system of governance and can help in ensuring efficiency and effectiveness. the government machinery can also think of helping the women entrepreneurs in gaining access to international markets. thus, the enabling environment would help in addressing the economic constraints and also to some extent the managerial challenges faced by women entrepreneurs. d. support from existing entrepreneurs: it is also necessary that established entrepreneurs should create new platforms for: (1) facilitating networking, (2) assisting in market outreach (both domestic and international markets), (3) gaining from new financing options, (4) sharing market intelligence, (5) providing hand holding support and (6) assisting in trouble shooting, to help women entrepreneurs to guarantee that their enterprises grow smoothly. thus, support provided by the existing entrepreneurs can be agrawal, r., constraints and challenges, jwee (2018, no. 3-4, 1-19) 13 instrumental in tackling economic constraints as well as managerial challenges confronted by women entrepreneurs. conclusion in the history of humankind, woman has been as important as man and the status, employment and work performed by women in society are the indicator of a nation’s overall progress. without the participation of women in national activities, the social, economic or political progress of a country will be stagnated. in the wake of economic liberalization and globalization, women entrepreneurship is gaining importance. there are no bigger initiative nations can take to speed up the jump of economic growth, than to boost more and more women to take part in the entrepreneurial activity. limitations and future research agenda the current research was limited to investigating the women entrepreneurs, in the state of uttar pradesh (india). a similar study can be replicated in the other states of the country to get a holistic perspective. further research can be taken up to understand how cross-cultural trade affects women entrepreneurs across the world, how women entrepreneurs are managing their survival and growth in today`s era of globalization. there is also a need to use a mix of quantitative and qualitative techniques to reach realistic conclusions. references [1] acs, z. and audretsch, d. 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[83] winn, j., (2004). “entrepreneurship: not an easy pathway to top management for women”. women in management review. vol 19. no 3. pp 145153. article history: received: 3 october, 2018 accepted: 28 november, 2018 16_jwe_3-4_finalna_ver udk: 005.32:331.1-055.2(497.11) 005.94 jel: 010, b54 cobiss.sr-id: 227964172 original scientific paper entrepreneurial education as a new paradigm of the development of women entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia ravić nenad1, nikitović zorana faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t women entrepreneurship in serbia has been facing numerous problems and it has been unjustly neglected in comparison with men entrepreneurship. the development of women entrepreneurship is of great importance for the economic growth of the country. in order to enhance the state of women entrepreneurship in serbia, it is necessary to take a series of measures directed towards the improvement of economic activities, but also to continually work on the strengthening of crucial factors of competitiveness and the growth and development of entrepreneurship. entrepreneurial education plays an extremely important role in the development of entrepreneurship because it implies progress and improvement of employees in regards to their entrepreneurial activities, it develops the entrepreneurial way of thinking, and it encourages entrepreneurial spirit and increases the usability level of creative potentials. long-term growth and development of women entrepreneurship in serbia should be based exactly on the promotion of entrepreneurial education and on the development of knowledge and skills that would enable us to generate innovations. 1 vuka karadzica 6a, beograd. nenad_ravic_bps@yahoo.com ravić, n., et al., entrepreneurial education, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) 103 this paper shows current trends in the entrepreneurial education in women entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia. key words: women entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial education, knowledge, skills introduction business skills and knowledge as a collection of information, ideas and experiences are a part of the intellectual capital which is the most significant resource in modern business conditions. the expansion of information technologies and the internet tore down the communication barriers and enabled wide availability of knowledge. investing in knowledge and innovations is the only safe way to create sustainable competitive advantage. the most powerful world economies are economies that are based on knowledge, the most successful organizations are organizations that learn, and experts are those who make a certain organization successful. in the structure of the national economy of the republic of serbia, from the total number of economic entities, the most frequent are entrepreneurs, i.e. entrepreneurial activities. entrepreneurship, as the bearer of the sector of small and medium enterprises, represents the main engine of a country’s economic growth and its achievement of economic growth and development. in order to ensure long-term growth and development of entrepreneurship in serbia, and consequently achieve economic growth, it is necessary to increase the investments in the creation of new knowledge, in the development of entrepreneurial skills and in the introduction of innovations. that is the only safe way towards the process of strengthening the competitiveness of the national economy. speaking in percentages, women entrepreneurship in serbia is far less present than men entrepreneurship, so it is necessary to invest special efforts to create an ambience that will encourage women to be involved in entrepreneurship more intensively. entrepreneurial education is important for the development of women entrepreneurship as much as it is important for the development of men entrepreneurship. the objective of this paper is to examine the current state in women entrepreneurship in serbia when it comes to entrepreneurial education and to the attitude of entrepreneurs to this very important factor for the development of entrepreneurship. 104 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) brief look on the existing literary sources about women entrepreneurship theories about women entrepreneurship occurred primarily on the basis of studies carried out in developed countries in which there were specific social norms and values in regards to the participation of women in economic activities (khan, 2014). there are many different definitions of women entrepreneurs, i.e. women entrepreneurship. in a recent doctoral dissertation (popovic-pantic sanja, 2012), women entrepreneurs are defined as the owners of more than 50% of companies who are actively involved in their management and who employ workers. authors (russel and stephen, 2000) define women entrepreneurs as women who establish companies in the aim to achieve growth and development of business and profit. numerous definitions of women entrepreneurs which can be found in professional studies don’t describe precisely enough the concept of women entrepreneurship because they don’t define in what way the ownership over companies was acquired and the motives for founding a company. likewise, they don’t clarify enough certain dilemmas such as, for example, situations in which a woman is a minority owner of a company and at the same time has a very high function in the company, but is not a top manager. could that woman be considered a woman entrepreneur to same extent as a woman who is a 100% owner of a company and performs all managerial activities? this and many other questions lead to a conclusion that, in the existing literature, we don’t have a comprehensive definition of women entrepreneurship that consistently describes all aspects and the essence of the term women entrepreneurship. reasons why women decide to start their own business vary from their dissatisfaction because of the inability to find a job to the need to search for a job that will enable flexibility and a chance for selfactualization (holland, 2014). an important motive for starting up personal business is the need to ensure the means for the family livelihood. types of business women most often start are from the field of trade (retail sale) and different types of services (holland, 2014). the service sector requires the smallest startup capital, so women entrepreneurs can easily replace one business with another. numerous statistical data show data women entrepreneurs are more present in these economic branches than in production and high technologies (holland, 2015). ravić, n., et al., entrepreneurial education, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) 105 the best time and years for starting up personal business are the final years of our twenties and the first years of our thirties because entrepreneurs are then ready to learn, make progress, take the risk, they are more courageous and energetic, have more free time and if they make a mistake, they learn from it, correct it and move on. it is very important to recognize the moment when it is good to start a personal business. numerous examples from practice are showing that women entrepreneurs were employed before starting up the business and that they worked in the sector they later on chose for their business. often do entrepreneurs start their business out of necessity, but with experience. in order to be successful in work, entrepreneurs should work on the promotion of their skills from the field of business, to constantly learn and improve themselves. entrepreneurial education as a driving force of the development of entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia for quite some time, entrepreneurship in serbia has been facing numerous problems, such as: lack of available (and primarily affordable) financial sources, bad legal regulations, inadequate systemic support to entrepreneurship, low purchasing power of citizens, high percent of grey economy etc. (vujicic, ivkovic, 2013). women entrepreneurship in serbia is undeveloped and it is insufficiently using its potential (vujicic, ivkovic, 2013). economic crisis has a negative effect on the state of entrepreneurship in serbia, and in conditions of crisis the state’s expectations are growing (ivkovic et al, 2012). education is a continuous process and its objective is to pass on knowledge and skills necessary for an active involvement in social processes and economic flows (vidakovic, scepanovic and scepanovic, 2012). knowledge, as a resource, is specific in a way that it is undrainable (it doesn’t lose its value after it has been used) and indefinite (unlimited number of individuals can exploit the same knowledge), and it is also difficult to estimate the costs of its creation and real market value (ravic, 2016). experiences of developed countries have showed that investing in education contributes to the increase of economic efficiency (ravic, 2016). entrepreneurial education can be defined as “the concept of education and training that supports entrepreneurial way of thinking and is based on perfecting the individual, including the basic principles of efficiency in 106 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) everyday life without a special focus on starting up a business – all that leads to entrepreneurial literacy for the society as a whole” (heder, ljubic and nola, 2011, p. 15). entrepreneurial education encourages entrepreneurial spirit in society, opening of new companies and more efficient use of creative potentials. as such, entrepreneurial education is a priority of eu countries and transition countries, among which is the republic of serbia (ravic, 2016). strategy for education development in serbia until 2020, adopted in 2012, treats education as a key driver of economic growth and as an important factor of the development of entrepreneurial spirit. what is said in this strategy is that development of entrepreneurial spirit and the orientation towards production is of the utmost importance for the achievement of economic growth (ravic, 2016). in the year 2015, an action plan for the realization of this strategy was adopted and it involves the following: − “the development of entrepreneurial education program in the secondary vocational education based on the standard of qualifications; − strengthening the entrepreneurial component of higher education by adopting the amended standards for accreditation; − the establishment of the fund for the promotion of high-tech entrepreneurship and − development of the model for including the entrepreneurial component in higher education.” (cekic-markovic, 2016, p. 27) there are several organizations in serbia that gather women who want to work in entrepreneurship, such as: “the first women club”, “european movement in serbia”, society of business women in serbia”, etc. their objective is the development of women entrepreneurship in serbia through supporting hardworking and talented women and through increasing their involvement in entrepreneurship. empirical research on entrepreneurial education in women entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia the research was carried out by using a surveying technique on the representative sample of interviewees on the basis of an open-ended questionnaire. a number of 38 women entrepreneurs, women owners of companies and entrepreneurial enterprises in the republic of serbia were interviewed. the size and structure of the target group are such that the ravić, n., et al., entrepreneurial education, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) 107 sample can be considered representative and it truthfully shows the condition of women entrepreneurship in serbia when it comes to the education of women entrepreneurs and to their attitude towards learning and excelling. the questions and the answers obtained are showed illustratively in the form of graphs. 1. type of business activity in the sample structure, the most present are smes that deal with services, then trade, while production smes and especially catering industry are significantly less present. data are showed in graph 1. graph 1: type of business activity source: research by the author 2. interviewees’ level of education when it comes to the education structure of interviewees, the research results showed that a great majority of interviewees finished only secondary education. data are showed in graph 2. 22% 65% 3% 10% trade services catering industry production 108 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) graph 2: interviewees’ level of education source: research by the author 3. interest in education and professional development when asked how interested they were in further education and professional training, most of the interviewees (71%) pointed out that they were averagely interested and that they occasionally did something about their professional improvement. data are showed in graph 3. graph 3: interest in further education source: research by the author 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% secondary education higher vocational education higher educational (faculty) 68% 20% 12% 26% 71% 3% very interested in my education and i permanently work on my professional improvement; i am averagely interested in my education and i occasionally work on my professional improvement i am uninterested in my education and i don’t work on my professional development ravić, n., et al., entrepreneurial education, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) 109 4. opinions about lifelong learning the research showed that most of the interviewees thought of the importance of lifelong education as averagely important, which can be seen in graph 5. graph 4: opinions about lifelong learning source: research by the author 5. activities after work hours as far for the activities after work hours, the research showed that women entrepreneurs spent most of their time on house and family duties (61%), while 23% spent their free time on working on professional improvement. other activities are significantly less present. data are showed in graph 6. 25% 70% 5% lifelong learning is necessary for business successes i think of the importance of lifelong learning as averagely important i am not keen on lifelong learning 110 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) graph 5: activities after work hours source: research by the author 6. the choice of education field in the structure of women entrepreneurs who are involved in learning and improving themselves, the most numerous are those women who are making improvement in their professions (87%) which can be seen in graph. graph 6: the choice of education field source: research by the author 61% 23% 3% 5% 8% house and family duties work on mu professional improvement sport and recreation socializing with friends watching tv or reading books or newspapers 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% making improvement in my profession learning new languages trainings for working on the computer 87% 9% 4% ravić, n., et al., entrepreneurial education, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) 111 7. the use of knowledge acquired throughout schooling the research results showed that most of the interviewees (70%) think that the knowledge acquired throughout schooling in the performance of work is used to small extent, while only 5% of interviewees think that the knowledge acquired in school is used to great extent. check graph 8. graph 7: the use of knowledge acquired throughout schooling source: research by the author 8. if you would make a decision to attend a certain course, what dynamics of training would best suit you? majority of interviewees (82%) said that a weekend training would best suit them because they were too busy in workdays. 5% 19% 70% 6% to a great extent averagely to a smaller extent not at all 112 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) graph 8: the dynamics of training source: research by the author 9. do you find it important to get a certificate of completion of course? when asked a question about the importance of certificates, a great number of interviewees (89%) points out that it is very important for them to get the certificates of completion of course, which can be seen in graph. graph 9: the importance of gaining a certificate source: research by the author 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% on work days in the evenings only on weekends 18% 82% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% yes no 89% 11% ravić, n., et al., entrepreneurial education, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) 113 10. to what extent does entrepreneurial education contribute to the growth and development of entrepreneurial business? the research showed that more than half of interviewees thought that entrepreneurial education contributed to great extent to the growth and development of entrepreneurial business, while the number of those who found that influence insignificant was quite small. data are showed in graph. graph 10: the influence of entrepreneurial education on the growth and development of entrepreneurial business source: research by the author the analysis and interpretation of the results obtained in the structure of the sample, the most present are smes that provide services, which is in accordance with historical data that show that women entrepreneurship is most present exactly in the service sector. the results obtained show that women entrepreneurs in the republic of serbia primarily finished secondary education (data of other research studies show that the same goes for men entrepreneurs), while only 12% of interviewees finished higher education. that shows that there is a significant potential for the development of women entrepreneurship through the promotion of formal education of women entrepreneurs. faculty education would enable women 37% 58% 5% to a great extent averagely to a smaller extent 114 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) entrepreneurs to broaden their basic knowledge and to learn about entrepreneurship, management, marketing, human resources, technologies and other significant aspects of business when asked a question about their interest in education and professional improvement, almost three quarters of women entrepreneurs said that they were averagely interested in that, with and explanation that they didn’t have enough time for learning and improving their skills and knowledge. on the other hand, only one quarter of women entrepreneurs said they were interested in education and professional improvement. there is an important potential for the development of women entrepreneurship in this field, and in the direction of a more intense improvement and development of entrepreneurial skills. skills and knowledge represent the most important resource in modern business and women entrepreneurs should be convinced that that is the only approach and way of thinking that can enable long-term growth and development of the business. related to the previous question is the question about the attitude of women entrepreneurs towards lifelong learning. 70% of interviewees thought of the importance of lifelong learning as averagely important, which speaks in favor of the stated claim that the significance of knowledge and skills isn’t sufficiently recognized in women entrepreneurship in serbia. women entrepreneurs were asked an interested question about their activities after work hours. the results showed that women entrepreneurs in serbia spend most of their time on house and family duties (61%). on the other hand, only 23% of their time is spent on working on their professional improvement which leads us to a conclusion that women entrepreneurs, regardless of their numerous business duties, don’t want to neglect their house and family. they are paying special attention to their families by balancing between work and house and family duties. when it comes to the choice of the education field, 87% of women is educating and improving themselves in their professions. in other words, they are focused on gaining professional knowledge and skills in the job they are performing. learning new languages and trainings for working on the computer are far less frequent. a highly important question refers to the opinion of women entrepreneurs about the possibilities of using the knowledge acquired throughout schooling in performing the entrepreneurial business. a total of 70% of interviewees think that usability of knowledge acquired during schooling is small, while only 5% of interviewees thinks that this ravić, n., et al., entrepreneurial education, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) 115 knowledge can be used to a great extent. responses like these lead to a conclusion that the system of formal education in serbia is insufficiently adapted to the needs of the economy and that the knowledge acquired in schools and faculties is insufficiently functional. women entrepreneurs are pointing out that they are interested in their education through attending certain courses, but that they have very little free time and that that is the main reason why they rarely make a decision to get involved in this type of personal improvement. if, however, they would make a decision to apply for some course, a weekend type of training would best suit them, because they have too many responsibilities during work days. certificates of completion of courses are very important for them because they would like to have a written proof which they could enclose if the need for that occurs. conclusion theoretical researching on the existing literary sources leads us to a conclusion that knowledge and skills play a crucial role in modern business conditions, as well as that entrepreneurial education is the driver of entrepreneurial growth and development. empirical research provided us with the data that lead us to a conclusion that the importance of entrepreneurial education for the growth and development of entrepreneurial business is not sufficiently recognized in women entrepreneurship in serbia. in order to achieve sustainable development of women entrepreneurship in serbia, it is necessary to, among other things, more intensively promote the necessity of entrepreneurial learning for market competitiveness and the growth and development of the business. references [1] čekić-marković, j. 2016. preduzetničko obrazovanje – komparativni pregled obrazovnih politika, modela i prakse. beograd: tim za socijalno uključivanje i smanjenje siromaštva, vlada rs. 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[10] vujičić. s, and ivković, d. 2013. „female entrepreneurship in serbia and opportunities for its development“. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 3-4: 126-136. article history: received: 12 may, 2016 accepted: 18 september, 2016 16_jwe_3-4_finalna_ver udk: 005.322-055:316.46 005.941 jel: m12, l20 cobiss.sr-id: 227964684 original scientific paper the role of gender, education level and academic degree of the school principals on their selected styles of leadership abolfazli elham department of educational sciences, allameh tabatabaei campus, farhangian university, ardabil, iran nourmand ahmad department of social sciences, allameh tabatabaei campus, farhangian university, ardabil, iran a b s t r a c t the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between leadership styles, gender, level of education and academic degree of school principals of sari. the method of the study was causal comparative (ex-post facto) and the population consists of all school principal of sari which was about 200 among which 145 subjects were selected through random sampling method and krejcie & morgan table. the data gathering tool was the luthans’ leadership questionnaire with the reliability of 0.72. in this research the f and t test was used for data analysis. the results showed that the relationship oriented style and the task oriented style is not different among principals of different levels of education and there is no difference between the relationship orientation of male and female principals. also, there is no difference between the task orientation of principals with different degrees and relationship orientation of the principals with different academic degrees. 118 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) key words: task-oriented leadership style, relationship-oriented leadership style, gender, academic degree introduction most theorists of management and organization consider the twenty first century as organizational leadership century. the researchers have demonstrated organizational behavior in which that leaders can be the distinguishing factor among people. in fact, the leaders suggest their followers to recognize the optimal way and ask them to attempt to identify their leader and achieve a desirable situation he has determined. peterson states that organizations with dedicated leaders will achieve significant organizational achievements. the dedicated leaders have the same value for all members and provide the context for professional participation in organization for all. according to manner wise leasers create new leaders through their own leadership (quoted in farhangi, mehregan and damghanian, 2011). leadership style consists of clear behavior patterns that frequently occurs in the flow of work in an organization and whereby others know the person (hersey & blanchard, 2005). in recent decades there have been a flood management theories most of which aim to describe the conduct of leaders in special occasions. that is they try to indicate a number of values, attitudes and behaviors that leaders show. a number of pioneering works in the field of leadership styles have expressed three main clusters or styles (ehrhart & klein quoted in moss, s. a., dowling, n. d., callanan, j, 2009). − the first cluster includes the task oriented leaders who are focused on work planning, coordinating and providing the necessary resources to ensure that plans and ideas are implemented and likert is one of them. − the second cluster includes the relationship oriented leaders that emphasize the importance of trust and confidence in subordinates and act based on gratitude, respect and kindness. − the third cluster includes charismatic leaders who strive to spread overall challenging, inspiring, shared and innovative goals and objectives (quoted in moss, s. a., dowling, n. d., callanan, j, 2009). abolfazli, e., et al., the role of gender, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 117-126) 119 much research has been done on leadership styles. however, research and studies that have been conducted since 1940 have shown that there are two types of management roles: relationship oriented and task oriented. the relationship oriented behaviors focus on the interests, feelings and consent of the group members while task oriented behaviors focus on the satisfaction of organizational goals rather than the needs of group members. “the task-oriented leaders rely solely on their legal obligations. in or bureaucratic management style the focus is strongly on regulations, hierarchies and formal relationships and there is a kind of self alienation and apathy among the employee and it causes depression, anxiety, and frustration in long term. the inappropriate management style causes the students to lose their balance and creates a sense of outward fear and inward rebellion, they feel helpless and ignorant, and keep away from the school principal and become attracted to other situations“ (mirkamali, 2005: 269). almasian & rahimikia (2001) found that there was a significant positive relationship between the leadership style and personal performance of subordinate staff and the more orientation of the leaders toward relationship oriented leadership, they will see better personal performance of the employees and also there is no significant relationship between managers' leadership style, age, work experience, education, gender and marital status. shokri (2009) showed that there is a relationship between leadership style and personality type and the age, gender and management experience of directors has an interactive rile in this regard. there is a relationship between gender, personality, and task-oriented leadership style, in the sense that men with type (a) personality are more likely to have taskoriented leadership style than other groups. jafari (2009) found that there were a great difference between male and female managers in agreeableness and conscientiousness. female managers were more agreeable and conscientious than male managers. female managers were more relationship oriented than male managers. there was no significant difference in task orientation of male and female managers. also seyyed gharaini & seyyed abaszade (2008) in their study “the relationship between leadership styles and frustration among high school teachers in urmia” which was conducted on 152 teachers and 30 principle found out that there is a significant difference (0.001 level) between male and female leadership style and male principles are more relationship oriented than female principals but there was no significant difference between the leadership style and academic degree. seyyed kalan (2007) 120 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) showed that there was no significant difference between the leadership style of men and women in the analyzed population. based on the above discussion we are going to answer the following research questions: research questions: 1. is there any difference between male and female leadership style? 2. is there any difference between the leadership styles of different educational levels? 3. is there any difference between the leadership style of the principals with different academic degrees? methodology the study population included all school principals in elementary, middle and high school in the northern city of sari in 2012-2013 school year among which 145 subjects were selected through random sampling method and krejcie & morgan table. the data gathering tool was the luthans’ leadership questionnaire with the reliability of 0.72. in this research the f and t test was used for data analysis. in the present study statistical methods used for data analysis is descriptive and inferential and in order to analyze the data the spss16 software was used. thus for the 1st question the t-test (two groups) and for 2nd and 3rd questions the f test were used. the data gathering tool was the luthans’ leadership questionnaire. this 35-item questionnaire using a 5 degrees examines three styles of leadership including task-oriented leadership style (autocratic), humanism (liberal, relationship-oriented) and synthetic (humanitarianism and task-oriented). on this scale 20 items (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33) measure task-oriented leadership style and 15 items (3, 5, 8, 10, 15, 18, 19, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 35) to measure humanitarian leadership style. about scoring luthans suggested that if the principals choose rarely or never to questions 35, 34, 30, 19, 18, 12, 8, and 17 they get 1 point, and if the answer is always, often, or sometimes they do not get any point. if they choose always or often for other questions they get 1 point otherwise they get no point. the highest point of the principals in humanitarianism is 15 and in task orientation is 20 which is totally equal with 35. abolfazli, e., et al., the role of gender, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 117-126) 121 if the score of a principle which is obtained through linking humanitarianism and the task-orientation on luthans’ synthetic axis of leadership profile is less than 5.95 it means that the principle is using the weak synthetic style. if it is less than 10.99 it means that the principle is using the medium synthetic style and if the principle’s score is above 11 it means that the principle is using the strong synthetic style. but in this study the synthetic style is withdrawn. “the validity of luthans’ leadership questionnaire (1985) is confirmed in many studies by the researchers. the validity of this questionnaire is also confirmed by brdner7 metzkas and moghimi has mentioned it in his book” (moghimi, 2007: 278). findings 1. is there any difference between male and female leadership style? since in this research, relationship-oriented and task-oriented leadership styles have been studied and the principals may possess both characteristics. so, both characteristics are compared between male and female principals individually. 1-1is there any difference between male and female relationship oriented leadership style? 1-2is there any difference between male and female task oriented leadership style? table 1: the comparison between male and female leadership style style gender number mean standard deviation t df sig mean difference relationship orientation female male 69 78 9.07 8.6 2.3 2.48 1.18 145 0.24 0.47 task orientation female male 69 78 11.86 11.4 2.72 2.97 1.02 145 0.3 0.48 based on the data in table 1, the mean of relationship orientation of female principals is 9.07, with a standard deviation of 2.3 and the mean of relationship orientation of male principals is 8.6 with a standard deviation of 2.48. in which t(145)=1.18 with p0=0.24>0.05 indicates that there is no significant difference between male and female relationship orientation. also the mean of task orientation of female principals is 11.86, with a standard deviation of 2.72 and the mean of task orientation of male 122 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) principals is 11.4 with a standard deviation of 2.97. in which t(145)=0.3 indicates that there is no significant difference between male and female task orientation. 2. is there any difference between the leadership styles of different educational levels? as discussed before in this research, relationship-oriented and taskoriented leadership styles have been studied and the principals may possess both characteristics, so, both characteristics are compared between principals of different levels of education. 2-1is there any difference between relationship orientated leadership style of principals of different levels of education? 2-2is there any difference between task oriented leadership style of principals of different levels of education? table 2: descriptive indicators of leadership styles of principals of different levels of education level number mean standard deviation task oriented/ relationship oriented task oriented/ relationship oriented primary school 52 10.99 9.02 2.9 2.4 middle school 33 11.94 8.67 2.98 2.7 high school 61 11.8 8.8 2.8 2.27 total 146 11.53 8.84 2.9 2.41 based on the data in table 2, the mean and standard deviation of relationship orientation of principals of primary schools are 9.02 and 2.4 and more than other groups and after that we have middle school principals with the mean of 8.8 and standard deviation of 2.27. the mean and standard deviation of task orientation of principals of middle schools are 11.94 and 2.98 and more than other groups and after that we have high school principals with the mean of 11.8 and standard deviation of 2.8. abolfazli, e., et al., the role of gender, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 117-126) 123 table 3: the comparison between relationship and task oriented leadership styles of the principals of different levels of education style source df total squares mean square f sig relationship orientation between groups 2 2.95 1.48 0.252 0.777 within groups 143 837.1 5.9 total 145 840.05 task orientation between groups 2 24.7 12.4 1.52 0.223 within groups 143 1167.6 8.2 total 145 1192.4 relationship oriented: levene statistic: 0/505, sig = 0.6 task oriented: levene statistic: 0/085, sig = 0.92 in relationship orientation f(2,143) = 0.252 with p = 0.777 > 0.05 which is not significant at 95% level. this means that we cannot say that that there is a difference between relationship orientated leadership style of principals of different levels of education 95% sure. in task orientation f(2,143) = 1.52 with p = 0.223 > 0.05 which is not significant at 95% level. this means that we cannot say that that there is a difference between task orientated leadership style of principals of different levels of education 95% sure. 3. is there any difference between the leadership style of the principals with different academic degrees? just like the research question 1 & 2 the relationship and task orientation of principals with different academic degrees are discussed separately. 3-1is there any difference between relationship orientated leadership style of principals with different academic degrees? 3-2is there any difference between task orientated leadership style of principals with different academic degrees? 124 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) table 4: descriptive indicators of leadership styles of principals with different academic degrees level number mean standard deviation task oriented/ relationship oriented task oriented/ relationship oriented primary school 9 11 9.11 3.64 2.62 middle school 116 11.73 8.72 2.78 2.41 high school 20 11 9.25 3.09 2.24 total 145 11.58 8.82 2.87 2.39 based on table 4, the mean and standard deviation of relationship orientation of principals with associate’s, bachelor and master degree are (9.11± 2.62, 8.72±2.41, 9.25±2.24) respectively and the relationship orientation of the principals with master degree is higher than the principals with associates degree. the mean and standard deviation of task orientation of principals with associate’s, bachelor and master degree are (11± 3.64, 11.73±2.78, 11±3.09) respectively and the task orientation of the principals with associates degree is higher than the principals with master degree. the total mean of the relationship oriented principals is 8.82 with the standard deviation of 2.39 and the total mean of the task oriented principals is 11.58 with the standard deviation of 2.78. table 5: the comparison between relationship and task oriented leadership styles of the principals with different academic degrees. style the source changes total squares df mean square f sig relationship orientation between groups 5.52 2 2.763 0.479 0.621 within groups 819.81 142 5.773 total 825.33 144 task orientation between groups 12.45 2 6.228 0.753 0.473 within groups 1174.716 142 8.273 total 1187.172 144 relationship oriented: levene statistic: 0/138, sig = 0.871 task oriented: levene statistic: 0/904, sig = 0.407 in relationship orientation f(2,142) = 0.479 with p = 0.621 which is not significant at 95% level. this means that we cannot say that that there is a abolfazli, e., et al., the role of gender, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 117-126) 125 difference between relationship orientated leadership style of principals of different levels of education 95% sure. also in task orientation f(2,142) = 0.753 with p = 0.473 which is not significant at 95% level. this means that we cannot say that that there is a difference between task orientated leadership style of principals of different levels of education 95% sure. conclusion 1. there is a difference between the leadership styles of men and women. the results of this study show that there is no significant difference between the relationship oriented leadership style of men and women. also there is no significant difference between the task oriented leadership styles of men and women and the hypothesis is rejected. this finding is in line with steinberg & shapiro (2006), almasian & rahimikia (2011), jafari (2009), seyyed kalan (2007), jafari & yousefnejad (2002) and ashkavndy (1992) showing that there is no difference between male and female principals' leadership style. based on the mentioned studies and the conflicting results of two recent studies (seyyed gharaini & seyyed abbas zade 2008; ardalan, 1991), the results of this study are logical. because any organization demands its own leadership style, and insightful and logical managers take a step forward towards achieving organizational goals by selecting the appropriate leadership style. cook & russel claim: today’s world requires that managers, regardless of gender, to be a leader and show their creativity and imagination to improve their leadership qualities, it can be said that both qualities are necessary for a good leader. every male or female principle starts his/ her path of leadership from somewhere. no way is wrong but they are different and we need to know them. we need leaders who can think like others, put themselves in their shoes, know their position and see others with their own perspective (translated by irannejad, 2006). 2. there is a significant difference between the leadership styles of different educational levels the results indicate that there is no difference in relationship and task oriented leadership styles of the principles of different educational levels. 3. there is any a significant difference between the leadership style of the principles with different academic degrees. the results of this study show that there is no significant difference between the relationship and task oriented leadership styles of the principles 126 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 102-116) with different academic degrees. although in this study the mean of relationship orientation of principles with master's degree was higher than other managers and the mean of task orientation of principles with bachelor’s degree was higher than principles with associate’s and master’s degree, but there was no significant difference between the relationship and task orientation of the principles with different academic degrees. references [1] farhangi, aa, rastegar, abbas ali. 2006. “formulating incentive-based model for staff spiritually.” journal of daneshvar, 13 (20): 24-1. [2] asadpour, z. 2008. the relationship between thinking styles, creativity, personality and leadership styles of men and women. masters thesis. university of mohaghegh ardabil. [3] mirkamaly, sm. 2005. leadership and management training. tehran: publication of ramin. [4] almasian, a, rhymykya, a. 2011. investigating the relationship between managers' leadership styles and burnout staff frustration in 2011. lorestan university of medical sciences, lorestan university of medical sciences research journal, 14 (1): 79-69. [5] shokr, a. 2009. eexamining the relationship between leadership style and personality type principals in tehran. msc thesis shahid beheshti university of tehran. [6] jafari, leila. 2009. the relationship between personality traits, leadership styles and elementary, middle and secondary school principals in shiraz. master's thesis. shiraz university. [7] seyyed gharaini, kh., seyyed abbaszade, m. 2008. “examining the relationship between leadership styles and frustration among urmia high school teachers in 2004-2005 school year.” journal of education, number 97. [8] moss, s. a., dowling, n. d., callanan, j. 2009. “towards an intergrated model of leadership and self regulation.” leadership quarterly, 20: 162 176. [9] steinberg, s. & shapiro, s. 2006. sex differences in personality of female and male master of business asminstration students. mac gill counseling service, montreal. canada. article history: received: 10 july, 2016 accepted: 18 october, 2016 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.pp16-36 jel: l26, j16, l1 original scientific paper 1bthe application of strategic foresight in women's entrepreneurship development aidin salamzadeh1f1 faculty of management, university of tehran, tehran, iran haniye rezaei2 f2 faculty of management and accounting, college of farabi, university of tehran, qom, iran morteza hadizadeh3f3 faculty of management and accounting, shahid beheshti university, tehran, iran naveed yasin4 f4 faculty of communications, arts and society, canadian university dubai, dubai, united arab emirates golnoush ansari5f5 hu university of applied sciences utrecht (hogeschool utrecht), utrecht, the netherlands a b s t r a c t strategic vision guides governments and societies to overcome gender biases to extol entrepreneurship and achieve targeted business performance. in order to change women's entrepreneurship in societies, strategic foresight is one of the most important resources to be utilized. strategic foresight offers relevant solutions to 1 corresponding author, e-mail: salamzadeh@ut.ac.ir 2 e-mail: haniye.rezaei@ut.ac.ir 3 e-mail: morteza.hadizadeh72@gmail.com 4 e-mail: naveed.yasin@cud.ac.ae 5 e-mail: golnooshansari1994@gmail.com a. salamzadeh, h. rezaei, m. hadizadeh, n. yasin, g. ansari 17 these changes for achieving socio-economic benefits and creating sustainable value. although several studies have been conducted on women's entrepreneurship, identification of its influential factors, and their effect, none has yet studied how strategic foresight can play a role in developing women's entrepreneurship in different countries. therefore, this study aims to explore the relationship between strategic foresight and female entrepreneurship. the purpose of this study is to examine the link between women's entrepreneurship and strategic foresight capabilities by reviewing relevant literature and background theories. the dimensions of the framework were verified quantitatively using a delphi research process, spss software, and analysis of the gathered questionnaires. the results show that strategic foresight significantly affects women's entrepreneurship through business sustainability. keywords: strategic foresight, women's entrepreneurship, women's network, business sustainability introduction for researchers to fully understand the importance of women's entrepreneurship, all the aspects related to this issue should be assessed thoroughly and exhaustively with the purpose of analyzing its key records (rovenská, 2020). entrepreneurship plays a crucial role in the growth and development of both national and international economies (agarwal & lenka, 2018; anggadwita et al., 2017). the emergence of entrepreneurs in any environment results in a dynamic and diverse economic environment, given that entrepreneurship is at the core of organizational innovation and transformation today. entrepreneurship, developing unique businesses, and raising the economy create new opportunities in the market (bosma & sternberg, 2014; canestrino et al., 2019). for a society to develop widely, it must give its members, especially women, a chance to grow and flourish (saritas & kuzminov, 2017; tan et al., 2019). yet, women are still responsible for developing their businesses while emphasizing the importance of supporting female entrepreneurs (heath et al., 2017). as a result, women's entrepreneurship has been globally at the center of attention for the last decades (crittenden et al., 2019; yu et al., 2020). additionally, with rapid changes in the business environment and a more competitive marketplace, women entrepreneurs must adapt to these changes, either by acquiring new skills or by adapting to those changes (vecchiato, 2015). due to the environmental complexity and rapid changes, 18 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 16-36) entrepreneurs need a new method of strategic design and change management to shape their desired future. therefore, women entrepreneurs can adapt themselves to the competitive environment by applying future studies and predicting future developments (sarpong et al., 2019). strategic foresight analysis plays a significant role in guiding and planning the development of women's entrepreneurship; because strategic foresight analysis looks at the unpredictable future and is potentially capable of giving a sight into using the opportunities and limitations (salamzadeh et al., 2022). foresight-specific scenario planning has been used increasingly by researchers, civil society organizations, and governments to address several social challenges in the past few decades (wiebe et al., 2018). despite the numerous studies on women's entrepreneurship, none focuses on how to maximize their efficiency in the future. as compared to developed societies, this gap is more noticeable in developing countries. while international law tries to eradicate gender attitudes and ensure equal entrepreneurial opportunities for all, developing countries are still struggling with patriarchy and its effects. furthermore, despite the extensive literature review on women's entrepreneurship, we find that there is no futuristic perspective on the subject. the current research addresses this gap with a fundamental objective, and the findings provide a comprehensive model for strategic foresight in developing women's entrepreneurship. most previous studies focus on the effect of factors such as the development of women's networks, gender equality, business sustainability, and the growth of women's education (salamzadeh & ramadani, 2021). in this research, we investigate the suggested factors from the strategic foresight perspective to create a comprehensive new framework for the study. focusing on the women's entrepreneurship literature published in the women's entrepreneurship journal from 2018 to 2022, we looked at the development of women's entrepreneurship from a strategic foresight point of view. this research contributes significantly to women's entrepreneurship literature as an enhancing strategy for leaders and rulers. first, it is a new attempt to comprehensively analyze women's entrepreneurial activity. second, this perspective analysis of women's entrepreneurship uses a mixed research method. after reviewing the relevant literature, the following section describes the chosen method for examining women's entrepreneurship studies. then the results are presented and discussed, and finally, topics for future studies are suggested. a. salamzadeh, h. rezaei, m. hadizadeh, n. yasin, g. ansari 19 literature review women's entrepreneurship entrepreneurship as a tool for economic development and job creation is prevalent in many countries, and the socio-cultural environment and encouragement play a significant role in women's success in business. female entrepreneurs are the new drivers of economic growth in developing countries. for many stakeholders, they serve as a valuable source and an opportunity for economic growth and development (minniti & naudé, 2010). according to jennings and brush (2013), women's entrepreneurship first emerged in the late 1970s. the term "women's entrepreneurship" refers to businesses founded by women (sultana, 2012), where they manage their investments through product and service innovations (okafor & mordi, 2010). in 1976, schwartz published the first academic article on women entrepreneurship in the journal of contemporary business, and the first academic book on women entrepreneurs was published in 1985 (goffee & scase, 2015). in primary research on entrepreneurship, the general assumption was that male and female entrepreneurs are generally the same, and there is no need for separate research on each gender (bruni et al., 2004). there has been a growing interest in women entrepreneurs due to their role as drivers of economic development and growth. since women often spend more than men, they often play a special role as drivers of economic development (duflo, 2012; minniti, 2010). today, women have a greater opportunity to develop their own businesses. research in this area shows that women often start their businesses with fewer assets and a lower level of debt than men (fauzi et al., 2020). it is mainly because women prefer to work in the service sector, where they need less money, and it is easier for them to develop their businesses. it is also harder for female entrepreneurs to gather funds (oecd, 2013). several studies have been conducted to discuss women's entrepreneurship in developing countries (ogundana et al., 2021; m. m. radović-marković, 2018; rashid & ratten, 2020). a study found that female-owned companies have certain factors related to their growth. according to this research, money (availability and use), market (customer intelligence), and management (education and unofficial experience) are the most influential factors concerning the growth of businesses owned by women. also, motherhood (home responsibilities) and middle and macro environment (cultural and socio-economic factors) affect the growth of such 20 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 16-36) businesses, preventing women's access to money, management, and markets (ogundana et al., 2021). another research studies the factors affecting the ability of female entrepreneurs. according to this study role of women, motivation, and networks are considered to be the most important factors in entrepreneur women's capability. motherhood is a critical element in women's entrepreneurship which enables them to use their identity as an asset to make value-driven products, services, and structures. along with their motivation and definitions of success, the family structure also affects female entrepreneurs and the results they expect to achieve through their business ventures (king, 2020). women's networks in a network, all the connections between people are mapped, and these connections are what make a network unique. there are a lot of new jobs that require networks for success (king, 2020). as a result of the networks' perceptions and their role in facilitating business transfers and predicting business results, some characteristics of the network, such as social capital, centrality, density, and strength of the relationships, seem to influence the success of new investments (king, 2020). women's entrepreneurship relies heavily on family members, social networks, and connections that can be beneficial for their businesses (marshall & flaig, 2014). an individual's centrality describes their position in a network, and people with a higher rank of centrality are connected to more members in the network. the density of a network is the ratio of the total number of links to the total number of possible links in it (king, 2020). reachable information and networks of peers and consultants are crucial for entrepreneurs of any gender (nel et al., 2010). women specifically believe that their career is related to a set of information networks or connections. besides traditional networks, women's networks are also observable in social networks, which are a valuable source for their investment growth. female entrepreneurs use a different type of connection and resources than male entrepreneurs when it comes to online networks (redd & wu, 2020). social networks are important as entrepreneurship channels considering the ecosystem of each country. depending on entrepreneurial behavior, marketing, and different platforms in social networks, online businesses can influence the customer's buying behavior (bouzari et al., 2021). as local community members, female entrepreneurs can contribute to the network's development (roos, 2019). women in entrepreneurial societies, with their entrepreneurial spirit, a. salamzadeh, h. rezaei, m. hadizadeh, n. yasin, g. ansari 21 understanding of the requirements of the digital era, and benefiting from a suitable social platform, seek to provide potential solutions or at least ideas that can help female artists in the era of digitalization. online art markets give women the opportunity of working from home. there are many opportunities for selling art pieces on online platforms, participating in online art markets, and creating online courses and training. nowadays, online learning cannot be separated from education (andre & tomos, 2020). women entrepreneurs succeed when they learn entrepreneurial skills through powerful technological networks. sexism gender equality issues belong to the foundations of human rights and are one of the major research topics in many developed countries (brnjas & đukić, 2018). bias against women hinders the potential of an economy, and sexism is not only an alert for a malfunctioning economy but reveals the current and potential disparities in society. a non-discrimination gender viewpoint is what creates competitiveness. competitiveness has always been a fundamental part of the growth in sustainable and stable economies. additionally, developing countries that have created a non-sexual perspective have made significant progress in terms of innovation capacity, the judicial rule of law, and fiscal policy. equality of men and women is the foundation of united nations countries. in many societies, however, gender inequality still exists; this is due to the fact that gender inequality is the result of a variety of factors rather than just gender. we still live in a world where inequality exists, and injustice occurs in every aspect of our lives. women are facing discrimination and injustice every day. there was more than loneliness and solitude prevailing during the covid-19 pandemic; injustice was also growing. researchers assume that the workplace generally has an injustice attitude towards women. the meager wages and benefits they receive at work represent how the system has no respect for their career growth and how the pandemic has made the matter worse (rovenská, 2020). research and development communities have accepted the challenge of explaining and solving the gender gap in entrepreneurship as well as the promise of women entrepreneurs as sources of economic growth. a large number of development practitioners, policymakers, and private sector stakeholders have created advocacy programs to address gender gaps in entrepreneurship (vossenberg, 2013). 22 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 16-36) sustainable business in today's world, entrepreneurship plays a key role in expanding economic capabilities. women's entrepreneurship is one possible direction of entrepreneurship development. companies and businesses owned by women are increasing. as empowerment to social and economic growth, entrepreneurship is a competitive advantage (jovanovic & lazic, 2018). traditionally, women did all household chores, delivered children, and cared for the family, while men were just financial supporters. the institution of the family has changed, blurring gender roles as couples share domestic and economic responsibilities (salamzadeh et al., 2015). in their daily business activities, female entrepreneurs face greater challenges, especially pertaining to accessing potential and technology markets and finding sponsors. at the same time, they are engaged in family-related activities and are suppressed by the norms of their society. it is important to create a supportive and encouraging environment for entrepreneurship, especially for businesses owned by women during economic expansion (jovanovic & lazic, 2018). innovation is also important for women-owned businesses' survival. a dynamic business environment requires women entrepreneurs to be innovative to adapt, grow, and survive (omolekan & alli, 2020). government intervention in the form of loans is necessary for the survival of low-income businesswomen in border communities, according to a study (odunaike & ajiboye, 2020). investing in information and communication technology (ict) also increases profits and returns. business innovation in emerging markets can be fueled by international markets and new digital technologies (dana et al., 2022a). financing women who are willing to enter the world of entrepreneurship, providing a better environment for women's entrepreneurship by encouraging investors, giving them easier access to capital resources, and supporting women through supervision and consultation, will assist women in establishing sustainable businesses by facilitating their entrepreneurial activities. educability through the use of digital technologies and online infrastructure, entrepreneurial education will expand in the future (salamzadehet al, 2021). encouraging entrepreneurial culture and expanding entrepreneurship education are key elements for advancing modern economies. the number of female entrepreneurs is increasing, but it is still not as high as it should a. salamzadeh, h. rezaei, m. hadizadeh, n. yasin, g. ansari 23 be. enabling women to become entrepreneurs by educating them about business is a practical way to achieve gender equality in entrepreneurship (ljumović et al., 2019). research on women's entrepreneurship has attracted a lot of attention. empowering women through education is a necessary component of human resource development (salamzadeh et al., 2019). the covid-19 pandemic had its effects on organizations' daily business as well as their education system. in fact, the pandemic had no negative effect on education and even opened new doors for it in the future. female entrepreneurs should be better supported through courses and organizational training programs. to have a significant positive impact on female entrepreneurs' success, we need to adopt an e-learning approach that is flexible and social. as an effect of social media, it no longer makes sense to separate asynchronous networking from education or to separate technology from networking in entrepreneurial learning (andre & tomos, 2020). in particular, education for young women has a lot of benefits: at the micro level, educated women have a significant impact on institutional growth and improvement. to participate in entrepreneurial education and activities, participants must possess characteristics such as the desire for success, selfconfidence, creativity, and innovativeness (ljumović et al., 2019). a third factor contributing to institutional growth and improvement is the homogenization of educated women's level of education. in developing countries, women have lower levels of education and skills than men. in such countries, women entrepreneurs face several challenges, including safety and protection for women, especially those in the informal economy (m. radović-marković & achakpa, 2018). by investing in young women's education, we are investing in their future. educational opportunities for girls have a significant impact. investment in girls should be recognized as a high-return investment, particularly with dwindling resources. strategic foresight today, companies are facing more and more dynamic environments where unexpected changes are becoming the norm rather than remaining an exception. the new requirements demand a change in the role or function of human resources, acting as a partner in the strategic planning process to make the strategic foresight process a powerful but large commitment by combining different foresight methods and integrating expert opinions (durst et al., 2015; crumpton, 2015). the purpose of strategic management and planning is to assess the potential outcomes of the business and its long24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 16-36) term goals. typically, strategic planning revolves around market and financing elements, which require extensive research and preparation (morris et al., 2009). strategic planning systematically considers the futuristic outcomes, making sure that the current choices are suitable for facing possible future challenges and opportunities (glenn, 2009). it is important to remember that strategic planning is not a substitute for strategic thinking, action, learning, or leadership. in fact, strategic planning is a leadership tool intending to foster strategic thinking, action, and learning (ramadani et al., 2022). the process of strategic planning can be approached in various ways. some approaches emphasize process, and others emphasize content. strategic management is a broader concept that links planning and implementation (tzuriel & trabelsi, 2015). by examining possible futures and their outcomes, strategic foresight can help promote a more desirable future. in long-term strategic planning and capacity building, governments and businesses are increasingly using foresight tools, such as horizon projection and scenario planning (cook et al., 2014). strategic foresight is a structured process for designating the most desirable future and illustrating the most efficient and effective ways based on it to elevate the future, using tools that emulate creative thinking. there are six steps to this process: setting the scope, gathering inputs, analyzing signals, interpreting the information, determining the course of action, and implementing results. strategic foresight is ideal for searching, identifying, and achieving protective opportunities because it provokes a wholesome and futuristic view of the issue. conservation issues are rarely addressed through foresight, and previous efforts have largely failed to influence politics (cook et al., 2014). in strategic foresight, changes in the environment are examined and interpreted to determine their meaning and impact on the future. as a result, it helps to protect against uncertain events that can't be accurately predicted. the implications of strategic foresight can be examined in four directions: (i) planned learning, (ii) increasing individual and systemic capabilities, (iii) the ability to interpret and change, and (iv) environmental scanning (dana et al., 2022b). methodology the objective of this research is to conduct applied research using mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative). in its qualitative part, the research is developmental and is based on a systematic literature review in a. salamzadeh, h. rezaei, m. hadizadeh, n. yasin, g. ansari 25 the women's entrepreneurship journal publications from 2018 to 2021. as part of the structure of the study, previous research on women's entrepreneurship is systematically reviewed. yet, it isn't merely the conterminous review of the qualitative literature of the subject area and analyzing the primary and secondary data of the selected works; in fact, it is the analysis of the results of this research. in other words, this research is a combination of the analysis of the interpretations of the selected papers. this requires a deep and precise reconsideration to mix and match the results of the qualitative research, which gives the researcher a comprehensive view of the subject chosen. it is the text of previous papers that serves as the data for arranging the gist of the research for the researcher. in this method, we have used library sources to extract influential drivers in the field of women's entrepreneurship, and by using experts and applying the delphi method, we verified the validity of the drivers and their semantic connection to the subject (rahman et al., 2022). researchers in this study consulted 16 university professors with expertise in entrepreneurship at the universities of isfahan, qazvin international university, and the islamic azad university of iran. they were invited to cooperate in this regard. once the relevant drivers had been identified, a quantitative questionnaire was presented to the chosen experts. it is crucial to select the right respondents to obtain accurate data for testing the specific relationships between the variables in the research model (dana et al., 2022). consequently, the study population of women entrepreneurs from iran's isfahan and qazvin provinces was shaped. based on cochran's formula, 91 women entrepreneurs are found out of 120 with a standard deviation of 0.05. to address the research question, an online questionnaire was used over a one-year period in 2022. table 1: statistical information of the study population education under graduate bachelor's degree master's degree phd 12 (14%) 48 (52%) 27 (30%) 3 (4%) type of entrepreneurial activity art and handicrafts social works it services educational services 34 (37%) 26 (29%) 14 (15%) 17 (19%) duration of work experience less than two years 2 to 5 years 5 to 8 years more than eight years 29 (32%) 39 (43%) 17 (19%) 6 (6%) 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 16-36) to ensure reliability, the questionnaire was examined by experts in every field and refined to eliminate ambiguities and errors. tau-equivalent reliability (cronbach's alpha) was conducted in spss using the formula given below. table 2: the first and second rounds of delphi calculations of woman's entrepreneurship drivers and strategic foresight delphi component driver average of experts' grades consensus percentage weight score the first round of delphi woman's entrepreneurship women's networks 3.9375 43.75 0.115808824 8 sexism 4.4375 56.25 0.130514706 1 sustainable business 4.0625 50 0.119485294 7 educability 4.1875 43.75 0.123161765 6 strategic foresight planned learning 4.375 62.5 0.128676471 3 increasing individual and systemic capabilities 4.25 56.25 0.125 5 the ability to interpret and change 4.3125 56.25 0.126838235 4 environmental scanning 4.4375 68.75 0.130514706 1 the second round of delphi woman's entrepreneurship women's networks 4.5625 62.5 0.124361158 5 sexism 4.625 62.5 0.126064736 3 sustainable business 4.3125 56.25 0.117546848 8 educability 4.5625 56.25 0.124361158 5 strategic foresight planned learning 4.75 75 0.129471891 1 increasing individual and systemic capabilities 4.625 68.75 0.126064736 3 the ability to interpret and change 4.5 62.5 0.122657581 7 environmental scanning 4.75 81.25 0.129471891 1 a. salamzadeh, h. rezaei, m. hadizadeh, n. yasin, g. ansari 27 table 3: validating the questionnaire using cronbach's alpha components data volume number of questions cronbbach’s alpha results women's networks 91 4 0.71 reliable sexism 91 4 0.82 reliable sustainable business 91 3 0.83 reliable educability 91 3 0.84 reliable planned learning 91 3 0.87 reliable increasing individual and systemic capabilities 91 4 0.79 reliable the ability to interpret and change 91 3 0.82 reliable environmental scanning 91 3 0.83 reliable the entire questionnaire 91 27 0.87 reliable findings and data analysis after calculating the dispersion coefficient, this table prioritizes the indicators based on the components with the smallest dispersion coefficient. as for the other columns, 95% interval confidence and t-student test statistics were calculated to generalize the statistics to the parameters of the society. those indicators with test statistic values greater than 1.64 (t table number for 95% confidence level) were confirmed. using the chi-square test, a test for qualitative variables, it was verified that the results obtained were accurate. to define the relationships between strategic foresight, business learning, and value creation, we calculated the average of the related components, performed the chi-square test, and determined the contingency coefficients. the following table presents the intensity of the relationship between strategic foresight dimensions and drivers of women's entrepreneurship. 28 jo ur na l o f w om en ’s e nt re pr en eu rs hi p an d e du ca tio n (2 02 3, s pe ci al is su e, 1 636 ) ta bl e 4: d es cr ip tiv e st at is tic s re la te d to th e qu es tio nn ai re d ri ve r in di ca to r a ve ra ge v ar ia nc e di sp er si on co ef fi ci en t p ri or it y t st ud en t r es ul ts c hi sq ua re c ri ti ca l va lu e c on ti ng en cy co ef fi ci en t woman's entrepreneurship w om en 's ne tw or ks w n 1 3. 34 1. 32 0. 34 3 3 2. 67 c on fi rm ed 6. 57 9. 46 3 0. 26 2 w n 2 3. 45 1. 28 0. 32 7 2 1. 72 c on fi rm ed 9. 76 9. 46 3 0. 34 7 w n 3 3. 46 1. 52 0. 35 6 4 4. 89 c on fi rm ed 12 .3 2 9. 46 3 0. 43 8 w n 4 3. 58 1. 36 0. 32 5 1 1. 69 c on fi rm ed 16 .8 5 9. 46 3 0. 40 2 se xi sm g a 1 3. 25 1. 72 0. 40 3 4 3. 43 c on fi rm ed 11 .9 4 9. 46 3 0. 34 9 g a 2 3. 47 1. 29 0. 32 7 3 5. 96 c on fi rm ed 22 .1 4 9. 46 3 0. 34 19 g a 3 3. 75 1. 34 0. 30 8 1 6. 12 c on fi rm ed 17 .6 4 9. 46 3 0. 29 33 g a 4 3. 86 1. 52 0. 31 9 2 17 .2 1 c on fi rm ed 9. 23 9. 46 3 0. 37 52 su st ai na bl e bu si ne ss b s1 3. 42 1. 44 0. 35 0 1 19 .8 2 c on fi rm ed 8. 14 9. 46 3 0. 24 75 b s2 3. 25 1. 72 0. 40 3 3 14 .2 8 c on fi rm ed 17 .0 1 9. 46 3 0. 41 24 b s3 3. 67 1. 69 0. 35 4 2 9. 62 c on fi rm ed 8. 16 9. 46 3 0. 37 81 e du ca bi lit y e 1 3. 48 1. 55 0. 35 7 3 15 .2 c on fi rm ed 5. 17 9. 46 3 0. 31 45 e 2 3. 78 1. 46 0. 31 9 1 4. 82 c on fi rm ed 6. 85 9. 46 3 0. 21 78 e 3 3. 94 1. 77 0. 33 7 2 3. 98 c on fi rm ed 14 .3 8 9. 46 3 0. 38 91 strategic foresight pl an ne d le ar ni ng pl 1 3. 74 1. 29 0. 30 3 1 1. 98 c on fi rm ed 10 .7 6 9. 46 3 0. 27 14 pl 2 3. 12 1. 62 0. 40 7 3 12 .2 8 c on fi rm ed 11 .0 5 9. 46 3 0. 31 47 pl 3 3. 36 1. 37 0. 34 8 2 9. 01 c on fi rm ed 8. 91 9. 46 3 0. 39 62 in cr ea si ng in di vi du al a nd sy st em ic ca pa bi lit ie s is 1 3. 74 1. 58 0. 33 6 4 3. 67 c on fi rm ed 13 .2 3 9. 46 3 0. 29 18 is 2 3. 91 1. 46 0. 30 9 2 11 .1 3 c on fi rm ed 10 .1 4 9. 46 3 0. 35 27 is 3 3. 42 1 1. 24 0. 32 5 3 7. 34 c on fi rm ed 24 .1 4 9. 46 3 0. 37 85 is 4 3. 93 1. 36 0. 29 6 1 12 .6 8 c on fi rm ed 9. 62 9. 46 3 0. 31 96 t he a bi lit y to in te rp re t a nd ic 1 4. 21 1. 58 0. 29 8 1 4. 25 c on fi rm ed 10 .3 3 9. 46 3 0. 38 92 ic 2 3. 17 1. 27 0. 35 5 3 8. 09 c on fi rm ed 10 .4 2 9. 46 3 0. 34 96 a . s al am za de h, h . r ez ae i, m . h ad iz ad eh , n . y as in , g . a ns ar i 29 d ri ve r in di ca to r a ve ra ge v ar ia nc e di sp er si on co ef fi ci en t p ri or it y t st ud en t r es ul ts c hi sq ua re c ri ti ca l va lu e c on ti ng en cy co ef fi ci en t ch an ge ic 3 4. 12 1. 80 0. 32 5 2 4. 18 c on fi rm ed 8. 12 9. 46 3 0. 40 37 e nv ir on m en ta l sc an ni ng e s1 3. 62 1. 71 0. 36 1 3 16 .1 2 c on fi rm ed 20 .1 6 9. 46 3 0. 27 81 e s2 3. 78 1. 35 0. 30 7 2 8. 84 c on fi rm ed 11 .2 9. 46 3 0. 33 91 e s3 3. 92 1. 42 0. 30 3 1 9. 17 c on fi rm ed 17 .8 9 9. 46 3 0. 31 78 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 16-36) table 5: the correlation matrix between the dimensions of foresight and the drivers of women's entrepreneurship component dimensions of the strategic foresight relation to the entire process planned learning increasing individual and systemic capabilities the ability to interpret and change environmental scanning women's networks 0.6671 0.6398 0.6341 0.6758 0.6632 sexism 0.2892 0.3811 0.4326 0.3279 0.3816 sustainable business 0.6891 0.6012 0.6538 0.6981 0.6721 educability 0.4216 0.3420 0.2893 0.3218 0.3472 based on the contingency coefficients between strategic foresight and the components, there is a strong correlation between strategic foresight and business sustainability drivers in women's entrepreneurship (contingency coefficient= 0.6721) and women's networks (contingency coefficient= 0.6632). conclusion and suggestions while the 20th century has come to an end, women's entrepreneurship still faces several hardships and obstacles. past solutions did not solve this issue because they failed to provide women entrepreneurs with adequate education, accessible women's networks, sustainable businesses, and the foundation of a non-sexist society. a more than expected increase in strategic foresight projects requires organizations and institutions to create value and long-term effects as a result of implementing strategies and seeking solutions to fulfill strategic foresight so that women entrepreneurs can grow through it. foresight supports reconsideration in politics, making this contemplation vital for a transition to an ideal state. in this regard, the main purpose of this research was to find the relationships between strategic foresight and women's entrepreneurship, considering the drivers of women's entrepreneurship to facilitate the value-creating process in women's entrepreneurship. a. salamzadeh, h. rezaei, m. hadizadeh, n. yasin, g. ansari 31 research indicates that the sustainability of the business and women's networks are related to the relationship between strategic foresight and women's entrepreneurship. in other words, results show that the businesses which benefit from strategic foresight, especially in women's entrepreneurship, collaborate through networks and share a lot of knowledge. the results of this study are consistent with those of previous research (ribeiro et al., 2021). this study examines how government organizations and suppliers moderate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance. results indicate that entrepreneurial orientation positively affects social connections, resource acquisition, and company performance (tajpour et al., 2020). also, shaping a solid connection with governmental entities results in more sources for women-owned businesses. according to the research, business sustainability is another key driver of women's entrepreneurship. both factors play a crucial role in the installation and successful implementation of strategic foresight, which contributes to women's entrepreneurial success and competitive advantage. in this research, one of the main innovations that distinguish it from other studies is its analysis of women's entrepreneurship drivers alongside their strategic foresight. it is possible to facilitate the development of women's entrepreneurship by creating appropriate organizational processes to implement all the strategic foresight capabilities. accordingly, suggestions have been made regarding unconfirmed indicators of women's entrepreneurship: 1. society must formulate policies and strategies to deal with gender inequality in business to develop women's entrepreneurship. generally speaking, gender inequality refers to the fact that women's and men's roles are not considered to be equal in society. as a result, both genders experience unequal conditions in their quest for social rights, the chance to participate in and benefit from development, and participation in planning. gender inequality refers to the lack of equal access to facilities and social situations for men and women. family, education system, gender cliché, mass media, formal and informal social norms, division of labor, and distribution of valuable resources are effective in the gender transition process. 2. a variety of financial assistance (low-interest loans, tax benefits, insurance discounts) for women entrepreneurs to start and develop their businesses. 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 16-36) 3. aiding women entrepreneurs in obtaining government financial credits. 4. organizing conferences to exchange knowledge and information to cultivate women's presence in social arenas and encourage them to participate as much as possible in entrepreneurial activities. 5. conducting long-term, mid-term, and short-term ongoing expert educative, cultural, and promotional programs in the form of a comprehensive system to increase the concepts of creativity and self-confidence in children, especially young girls. 6. aligning the training courses with woman's professional needs to increase their capabilities for 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[48] wiebe, keith, monika zurek, steven lord, natalia brzezina, gnel gabrielyan, jessica libertini, adam loch, resham thapa-parajuli, joost vervoort, and henk westhoek. 2018. "scenario development and foresight analysis: exploring options to inform choices." annual review of environment and resources, 43: 545-570. article history: received: march 28th, 2023 accepted: may 8th, 2023 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.pp1-15 jel: l26, i25 scientific report 0bconfidence and character: the future of women’s entrepreneurship education? mark pruett0 f1 university of south carolina, usa a b s t r a c t entrepreneurship education research shows that women and men often differ in entrepreneurial attitudes, motives, barriers, circumstances, and actions. drawing on such research, we explore the role of intrinsic, internal, and psychological dimensions. first, female students often report lower entrepreneurial self-efficacy and are less likely to report entrepreneurial aspirations and intentions. second, intrinsic motives and barriers, not extrinsic ones, play a significant role in the entrepreneurial aspirations of women. third, evidence suggests that faculties often do not share the same perceptions as female students on issues related to entrepreneurship. strengthening curricula and programs to address intrinsic, internal, and psychological factors may bring positive outcomes—more successful support for entrepreneurial interest among women students, more effective education, and students with stronger psychological attributes beneficial for entrepreneurship. we offer an unusual and intriguing place to look for inspiration—the character and confidence-building techniques of military academies. keywords: confidence, character, self-efficacy, intentions, women 1 guest editor, e-mail: mark@markwpruett.com 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 1-15) introduction entrepreneurship education for women has become a key focus of research, analysis, and experimentation. for example, the journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (jwee) has been publishing on this subject for fifteen years, with authors and research settings from around the world. our own experience with education, with entrepreneurship, and with a large body of research from the last couple of decades, including the results and ideas from articles in jwee, leads us to believe that entrepreneurship education for women should make a deliberate effort to expand its traditional emphasis on teaching skills and concepts by integrating a second core theme—shaping students by focusing on developing self-confidence and personal character. we conclude that: − student self-confidence is crucial. − women view entrepreneurship differently than men. − curricula should be linked better with students’ issues. one solution is to pay more attention to shaping and strengthening students’ sense of self-confidence and personal character, as will be discussed later. we recommend shifting from a relatively narrow focus (teaching skills and concepts) to a broader focus specifically to shape and strengthen human character, not just for entrepreneurship education in business schools, but for universities, basic education, technical schools, continuing education, and in-house training and education in companies or other organizations. if we can build self-confidence for independent learning, we will have more time in the curriculum to help students apply their self-gained knowledge. the underlying premise of entrepreneurship education is that it can help develop entrepreneurs, and extensive research supports that premise. in particular, early research showed that intrinsic (personal) factors matter— the strength of a person’s entrepreneurial intentions to start a new venture is a good predictor of whether someone begins entrepreneurial actions (e.g., ajzen, 1991; davidson, 1995; krueger and carsrud, 1993; robinson, stimpson, huefner and hunt, 1991). subsequent research showed that a person’s entrepreneurial intentions and decision-making can be positively influenced by entrepreneurship education and an entrepreneurial university environment (e.g., fayolle 2008; katz 2003; solomon, duffy and mark pruett 3 tarabishy, 2002). the issue is not if entrepreneurship education works, but how it can work better. the focus of this particular paper is education for developing women entrepreneurs. we believe research provides three clear messages to improve entrepreneurship education for women, and we offer an unusual but intriguing direction for educators and researchers to consider. discussion women’s lower self-efficacy affects intentions, but education can have an influence entrepreneurial self-efficacy seems to be the most important predictor of entrepreneurial intentions. when self-efficacy is higher, it is more likely that a student is actively developing or carrying out an entrepreneurial plan (pruett et al., 2009). however, women generally have lower levels of entrepreneurial selfefficacy and intentions. for example, in one research study, women in bosnia and herzegovina listed obstacles to entrepreneurship. problems with money, knowledge, and family support were important, but the single biggest obstacle was self-efficacy: the women were “not sure that they could do it” (šestić, 2009). jwee published the first multinational study of differences between female and male students in a full model of how culture and perceptions of motives and barriers influence entrepreneurial intentions in a four-country comparison of belgium, china, turkey and the united states (şeşen and pruett, 2014a). that study found substantial differences between men and women, and the sex of a student was found to be more important than culture when predicting entrepreneurial intentions. women in each country except china displayed significantly lower entrepreneurial self-efficacy and lower entrepreneurial intentions than men. jwee also published the first (and probably still the only) study of afghanistan university female and male students regarding entrepreneurship and self-efficacy, intentions, and perception of motives and barriers (pruett, şeşen, et al., 2018). afghanistan is relatively unstable, poor, and uneducated, but the sample group came from a well-off and influential segment of society which at that time believed that this small student cohort would be influential in their country’s future. the recent taliban takeover 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 1-15) probably ended that expectation. despite the privileged position these female afghans held as college students before the return of the taliban, they were similar to women in other countries in terms of expressing lower entrepreneurial self-efficacy and lower entrepreneurial intentions than their male classmates. however, age may be a better predictor of self-efficacy and intentions than gender (sánchez and licciardello, 2012). a study of an adult entrepreneurship program (pruett, 2012) found that women did not score lower on entrepreneurial dimensions. about two-thirds of the respondents were women, and they had similar self-efficacy and intentions compared to men. it seems possible that the differences that we see between young college-age men and women may become less significant as men and women get older, and thus for typical younger women students, it may be especially important to make entrepreneurship education more effective. much research supports the positive relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial behavior and activity, so we must look for ways to raise the self-efficacy of young women. to focus on students’ sense of self-efficacy, we must make a more deliberate effort to integrate intrinsic or psychological factors into the stated objectives of entrepreneurship programs, into the structure and content of the curriculum, and into the ways we teach skills and concepts. it is important to teach skills and concepts, yet it may be as or more important to focus on building students’ sense of self-awareness and confidence—to change not just what they know, but how they view themselves. barriers, especially intrinsic ones, matter to women many countries have deep cultural biases and economic barriers against women who want to be entrepreneurs (ibeh, 2009). this is an issue in many countries with varied mixtures of economic development and cultural conservatism (cvetić et al., 2017; dechant and al-lamky, 2005; ibeh, 2009; khan and sharpe, 2017). in multiple countries, men appear more influenced by entrepreneurship motives, and women appear more influenced by barriers (şeşen and pruett, 2014a). men are more influenced by their perceptions of extrinsic, practical barriers like economic conditions and lack of competence. women are influenced more by their perception of intrinsic, psychological barriers like mark pruett 5 lack of self-confidence, risk-aversion, and fear of failure. and women generally see barriers as more important than men do. barriers and motives can be seen as intrinsic (or subjective, like fear of failure and desire for independence), and those that are extrinsic (or objective, like the lack of financing and the chance to earn money). in multiple studies, internal barriers and motives influence students more than external ones. regarding motives for entrepreneurship, intrinsic motives are consistently very important. money and potential success matter, but the intrinsic motives are generally more influential. these include independence and the opportunity to create something. regarding barriers to entrepreneurship, intrinsic barriers are consistently either very important or the most important barriers. these include a lack of self-confidence, risk aversion, and fear of failure. for example, in turkey, female students reported particularly high levels of risk-aversion and lack of self-confidence (şeşen and pruett, 2014b), and in afghanistan, female students were especially concerned about problems managing employees (pruett, şeşen, et al., 2018). in societies in which decision-making is heavily dominated by men, women have good reason to worry about implementing entrepreneurial ideas and decisions. education should consider intrinsic psychological motives and barriers to address the frequent differences between young men and women in attitudes, values, and beliefs. are differences between men and women constant and universal? of course not, but if the educational design does not address common differences between the sexes, then it is less effective than it could and should be. this message is especially important given that women now outnumber men in many colleges and universities. of course, psychological barriers may be partly cultural. a five-country comparison of students in the relatively highly developed countries of belgium, china, india, spain, and the united states (giacomin et al., 2011) found that national culture influences how students view the path forward in entrepreneurship, but that culture does not dominate students’ entrepreneurial aspirations and intentions. still, one obvious conclusion is that entrepreneurship education should adapt to local circumstances by understanding and addressing students’ perceptions of motives and barriers in their particular cultural context. continued culture-entrepreneurship research may uncover interesting special concerns. for example, there is the potential for conflict in families 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 1-15) who are indifferent or opposed to women entrepreneurs—this seems like a very relevant topic for women’s education research. even in a country like turkey which has made substantial legal strides in women’s rights, some cultural biases against women remain deeply entrenched (yildirim, 2010). in other places, the situation is even more difficult some parts of subsaharan africa (ombati and ombati, 2012) and the mid-east and northern africa (bouguerra, 2015) are openly hostile (both bureaucratically and violently) toward women’s rights. other than patient and continuing work on women’s rights, it is not clear how the education field can help reduce this kind of hostility (pruett et al., 2009; pruett, 2012). on the other hand, some countries are very different: even a decade ago, it was already estimated that women were in charge of one-fourth of all serbian firms (vujičić, kvrgić, ivković and vujadin, 2012), and serbian women’s economic power is likely even higher now. faculty may misperceive student interest and views evidence suggests that faculties underestimate student interest in entrepreneurship (shinnar, pruett and toney, 2009). further, men and women often respond differently to entrepreneurship education. for more effective education, we believe it is important to have a clearer understanding of students’ perceptions and differences. from an administrative standpoint, conducting student surveys which demonstrate interest can have dramatic effects on an entrepreneurship program. quantitative support can help entrepreneurship administrators gain political support, secure resources, and create stronger operational relationships with faculty and students across campus. perhaps more important is that faculty and students often have very different perceptions of entrepreneurship, education, and about students (pruett and şeşen, 2017). students express higher entrepreneurial selfefficacy than the faculties perceive and often are more interested in entrepreneurship than their faculties recognize. the bigger issue, though, one which can make female students feel disconnected, is that faculties often focus more on discussing entrepreneurship’s extrinsic motives and issues, while female students especially focus on intrinsic motives and barriers which probably do not get enough attention in the educational process. mark pruett 7 implications and conclusions we believe there are clear implications for women’s entrepreneurship education. building psychological strengths a lack of entrepreneurial self-efficacy may explain why intrinsic motives and barriers seem especially important to students. intrinsic/psychological factors should be integrated into program objectives, curriculum structure, and the ways we teach skills and concepts. entrepreneurship education already puts great effort into teaching skills and concepts. we believe it should also place explicit focus on developing students’ psychological strengths. other scholars have long supported the idea that education needs to focus more on the psychological dimensions of students (dinis et al., 2013; edwards and muir, 2012; marques, ferreira, gomes, and rodrigues, 2012; van gelderen, 2010). we have clear evidence that students’ entrepreneurial intentions are influenced by intrinsic, psychological factors like selfefficacy, fear of failure, and risk aversion. still, education is largely focused on skills and knowledge. it seems to be rare for education to focus explicitly on psychological factors, but they are important (taatila, 2010). we agree with van gelderen (2010) that a core part of entrepreneurship education should be the development of self-confidence. entrepreneurial self-efficacy, self-confidence and risk-aversion/fear of failure deserve primary attention when designing entrepreneurship programs. otherwise, it is more likely that programs will simply help students who are already highly confident and may even discourage students who are less certain of their abilities, rather than making them psychologically stronger. addressing women’s views on intrinsic motives and barriers gender equality or “mainstreaming” has long been an eu goal (šestić, 2009), and has been addressed in other regions known for policy shortcomings regarding women (in nigeria, for example, by abar, muhammed, and gbenu, 2009). still, we must recognize that women and men often have different confidence and risk attitudes (dawson and henley, 2015). especially at the 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 1-15) college student level, we find frequent differences. women generally are less likely to consider university support and relevant curriculum for entrepreneurship, and women respond differently to entrepreneurship education. so, even with gender equality as a social goal, entrepreneurship education must take these differences into consideration. for example, intrinsic motives may matter more to women than to men, but these motives are not always linked to the entrepreneurial intentions of women. university curricula often emphasize extrinsic rewards, particularly in large entrepreneurship programs aimed at the capitalization and growth of relatively large start-ups. young men seem to care more about extrinsic rewards than intrinsic rewards. is this instinctive, or have they been taught to think this way? what are the benefits and disadvantages of the “male” and the “female” ways of thinking? on the other hand, to be fair, we must acknowledge that a great deal of women-owned micro-enterprises is driven by economic necessity, not psychological satisfaction (pandi, 2011). as with motives, barriers are perceived differently by women. do men underestimate barriers? perhaps underestimating barriers leads to a lower success rate but more attempts. do women overestimate them? perhaps overestimating barriers leads to fewer attempts but a higher success rate. it also is interesting to consider what one entrepreneurship researcher recently suggested to us—the popular idea that women are risk-averse might just be a male-centric and misleading way of saying that women may be more riskaware. the afghanistan study mentioned earlier poses questions particularly relevant to women. should entrepreneurship education help prepare women to deal with societies and cultures that may actively hinder or even punish them? and, can we actively engage entrepreneurship students to help other potential entrepreneurs outside the business school, or even outside the university? this seems particularly important in countries which have low female participation in entrepreneurial business. we believe that one important part of addressing women’s views on barriers is for entrepreneurship education to help foster the kinds of social networks that prove valuable for business start-ups, particularly social networks designed and consisting of women (redd, 2014). in serbia, for example, there are already several such organizations (ravić and nikitović, 2016, p. 106), and women entrepreneurs in developed countries tend to create associations supportive of female entrepreneurship (longoria, 2018, 77-78). mark pruett 9 understanding students better we need a clearer understanding of what motivates students, what inhibits them, and how education can be improved based on those factors. schools will benefit from learning more about how their students view themselves and entrepreneurship. the benefit may be especially strong if schools can address students’ concerns about intrinsic barriers like selfconfidence and fear of failure. faculty may not necessarily perceive what research has shown—that self-confidence has the biggest influence on how entrepreneurial a student feels, and thus raising self-confidence may be one of the school’s most important targets. as another example, the cultures women come from are important. education should help women understand how culture influences their own thought patterns and how it influences their path to entrepreneurship. for example, a woman in a highly masculine culture faces distinct difficulties. these concerns are already in entrepreneurship research; they should be considered in the curriculum as well. an idea from military schools: focus on confidence and personal character the study of women’s entrepreneurship is indeed broad (radovićmarković, 2013), so in that spirit, we suggest that perhaps entrepreneurship education for women can do more—much more—to develop the aspirations and confidence of students. encouraging an entrepreneurial “spirit” among female students is not a new idea, but it receives continued attention, usually recommending things like exposure to female entrepreneurs, case studies of women-run businesses, emphasizing the value of female personality traits, and so on (vukmirović, 2019, 97). perhaps we need to do even more and make psychological development a specific and leading theme in the entrepreneurship curriculum. we suggest entrepreneurship education should also consider something new by looking at how military education programs emphasize psychology to train young entry-level officers. of course, entrepreneurship education is not to create military officers, but there may be much to learn from such colleges. military colleges around the world may have different approaches, from short-term programs to four-year educations, but they share a basic foundation of traditional classroom courses, field training, physical activity and, especially, emphasis on personal behavior. 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 1-15) for example, serbia’s university of defence military academy pursues “high moral personality traits”, turkey’s national defence university wants “analytically-minded, well-equipped, and self-confident” graduates and the republic of georgia’s national defense academy seeks to upgrade the “personal, moral, intellectual and professional level” of students. in other words, building personal confidence and character is a central part of such education. for a more detailed example, let us look at the u.s. military academy, better known as west point, a four-year college for young future army officers, where the curriculum consists of four specific, detailed components or “pillars”: character, academic, military, and physical. the “academic” component is a traditional university curriculum with general education and a specialty, and the “military” component (like field training) is similar to the way entrepreneurship education uses company visits, workshops, speakers, internships, and applied projects. the military college “physical” component has no common parallel in entrepreneurship education. many military programs emphasize physical fitness; some, including west point, require team sports. maybe team-based physical activity should become an element of women’s entrepreneurship curricula. after all, the central purpose of team sports in military school is to build leadership, confidence, trust, delegation, and persistence— psychological dimensions which are highly relevant for entrepreneurship. sports research supports this idea. for example, young people participating in team sports are less likely to experience anxiety or depression than those participating in individualized activities (pluhar et al., 2019). another wideranging review of international sports research concludes adult team sports are associated with numerous psychological and social benefits, including emotional support, a sense of belonging, and self-esteem (andersen, ottesen and thing, 2019). however, the character pillar is the very first element discussed in west point’s educational mission. personal character is the school’s central message, not fitness, not field training, not classroom content. the school explains five ways it intends to shape students’ personal character: − moral character: “the knowledge, integrity, and awareness to assess the moral-ethical aspects of every situation and the personal courage to take appropriate action regardless of consequences.” mark pruett 11 − civic character: “demonstrating empathy, loyalty, respect, and humility that enable an individual to treat others with dignity and to display selflessness.” − social character: “behaving with proper decorum in all professional, social, and online environments.” − performance character: “sense of duty, resilience, and grit.” − leadership character: “a safe, positive climate where everyone thrives while achieving results.” the study of character-building in a military education environment is not new (berkowitz and bier, 2007), but is gaining interest from a broader research point of view (murray, berkowitz and lerner, 2019), particularly in terms of assessing student character and designing curriculum elements to foster specific elements of personal character (callina et al., 2017). studying specific methods from military colleges which could be adapted to women’s entrepreneurship education seems highly relevant for future entrepreneurship research and education. at the least, we think it might be interesting for the large community of people interested in supporting women’s entrepreneurship to talk with faculty in military academies about the development of self-confidence and personal character. indeed, the author of this paper was told by one military college professor that it was a source of pride to watch frightened eighteen-year-old boys and girls enter a difficult four-year program which paid much attention to the unique personal characteristics of each student as an individual, and emerge as capable men and women, unafraid of challenges, acting with integrity and confidence. we conclude this paper with three simple questions: how can young women (and men) benefit from incorporating a character “pillar”, and perhaps a team-oriented physical component into entrepreneurship education, and how might we do it? how can we do more to instill students with positive entrepreneurial attributes and character? should entrepreneurship education continue with its typical implicit focus on teaching skills and concepts, or would it better serve the needs of students, both women and men, by adopting an explicit focus on shaping self-confidence and personal character? 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 1-15) references [1] ajzen, i. 1991. 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"social changes and their impact on women in turkey and its membership to the eu." journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, (3-4): 80-93. article history: received: march 5th, 2023 accepted: may 1st, 2023 microsoft word 10_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 331.262 jel: j16, m12,o52 original scientific paper european integration and position of women in business enterprise sector (bes) maliková zuzana*, techical university of košice, faculty of economics, slovak republic a b s t r a c t the purpose of this article is to describe gender gap in a field of research and development (abbr. r&d) and to investigate the changes after entry to eu. the research on gender gap is mainly focused on business enterprise sector. the paper presents comparative and descriptive statistics by using a secondary data and information across a period between 2004 and 2007. first part presents an overview of r&d personnel and r&d expenditures in each country. consequently it compares three groups of countries. next part investigates the honeypot indicators and the correlations between personnel and expenses on r&d. due to using different base for calculation of personnel, diverse results of correlation were achieved. the results confirmed that statement mentioned in introduction is still valid after 6 years and entry to eu. the last part deals with the main findings regarding women researchers in business enterprise sector across european countries. key words: generation gap, personnel of r&d, expenses on r&d, comparative study, honeypot indicator, correlations introduction according to report „science, technology and innovation in europe“, women as r&d personnel are still underrepresented. especially, it is in business enterprise sector (abbr.bes) with only 22,6% [3, p41]. one of * adress: nemcovej 32, 040 01 košice, slovak republic, e-mail:zuzana.malikova @tuke.sk journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 7-17) 8 the obstacles for women to enter in science and technology (abbr.s&t) is a stereotyped perception of s&t as a man´s world [4]. in usa, one of the main rivals of european union (abbr. eu), several programs were implemented to close gender gap (e.g. advance program of the national science foundation to support women at universities [6]. eu is aware of the importance of women in r&d. european platform of women scientist (abbr. epws) add that “to fully achieve commission’s objective of empowering people in inclusive societies, the consideration of gender is essential” (european platform of women scientist, 2010, p.2). european commissar for science and research, janez potocnik said about the women´s underrepresented that everybody should be concerned with it [eu business, 2009]. many studies look on a social aspect of gender gap. according to zimmer et al (2007) male professors have at least 2 children, on the other side female professors are mainly single or divorced [7]. women need to face a decision to choose career or private life. studies propose several possibilities how to improve work life balance (e.g šimková (2010) advises to increase salary to pay babysitter [10]). this article looks at gender gap by explanatory variable “expenses on r&d”. the result of enwise report presented by velichova, indicates the less investment in research and development, the more female researchers are in this country [11]. enwise report was created to provide insight into the female scientists in eu pre-accession countries and baltic states (bulgaria, czech republic, estonia, hungary, latvian, litva, poland, rumania, slovakia, and slovenia ). this article describes the situation of women researchers in business enterprise sector (bes) in chosen countries in period 2004 to 2007. methodology the article examines the secondary data from eurostat database by using the software r (project for statistical computing) and excel. the aim of this paper is to give an overview of women researchers mostly in business sector from a comparative perspective and descriptive analysis. the researchers are defined by eurostat “as professionals engaged in the conception or creation of new knowledge, products, processes, methods and systems and also in the management of the projects concerned [9]. maliková, z., european integration and position, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 7-17) 9 they are one of three categories of r&d personnel (i.e. researchers, technicians and other supporting staff) “. comparative study is oriented on three groups of countries. one group is composed of countries that entered to eu in 1995(austria, finland, sweden) (hereafter abbr. as eu1995), countries that became members of eu in 2004 are in second group (czech republic, estonia, cyprus, hungary, latvia, lithuania, malta, poland, slovakia, slovenia) (hereafter abbr. as eu2004) and the last one consists of new members eu (rumania, bulgaria) (hereafter abbr. as eu2007). the review is restricted on the period 2004 to 207 to discuss how the women’s situation has changed in specific countries after entry to eu. r&d personnel all data about women’s proportion on three diverse bases in chosen countries are shown in table 1. table 1: women´s proportion on three diverse bases % of women on total r&d personnel %of women researchers on total researchers in bes %women researchers in bes to average population geo/year 2004 2007 2004 2007 2004 2007 cy 38,88% 38,36% 22,57% 22,38% 0,008% 0,010% mt 27,77% 27,57% 19,46% 22,90% 0,011% 0,015% ee 48,64% 46,73% 23,93% 32,41% 0,020% 0,039% lv 54,25% 54,32% 50,55% 57,31% 0,012% 0,026% lt 53,71% 54,51% 33,28% 28,86% 0,006% 0,013% hu 47,43% 43,47% 23,76% 22,35% 0,013% 0,019% cz 34,62% 33,99% 19,25% 14,61% 0,022% 0,020% pl 43,42% 42,61% 25,13% 25,46% 0,007% 0,008% sk 43,44% 44,66% 32,28% 25,61% 0,013% 0,010% sl 37,40% 38,72% 24,93% 25,89% 0,024% 0,037% at 29,53% 29,70% 12,59% 14,24% 0,032% 0,042% fi 33,60% 34,72% 16,99% 17,31% 0,088% 0,087% se n/a 35,63% n/a 24,27% n/a 0,093% ro 45,06% 46,00% 41,49% 40,06% 0,018% 0,015% bg 51,80% 50,81% 45,12% 38,47% 0,008% 0,008% source: own background research from eurostat data journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 7-17) 10 the further analysis of data by using function “median”, demonstrate that percentage of women on total r&d personnel is higher in countries eu 2007 and eu 2004 than in countries eu 1995. it means that countries which are longer member of eu have less women representative in r&d. the results are same for percentage of women researchers on total researchers in bes (table 2). the results are opposite if same figures of women are calculated to average population of country. the female proportion in bes is seen to be higher in eu 1995 than in group eu 2004 and eu 2006 (table 2). table 2: median median % of women on total r&d personnel %of women researchers on total researchers in bes %women researchers in bes to average population eu 2004 43,04% 25,53% 0,02% eu 1995 34,72% 17,31% 0,09% eu 2007 48,41% 39,26% 0,01% source: author’s elaboration from the data in the table 1 the closer look on women’s position expressed by percentage change between years 2004 and 2007, reflect that countries eu 2004 reached huge growth (e.g. in lithuania, % of women researchers in bes to average population increased in 2007 by 125,4% in comparison to year 2004) except slovakia and czech republic (table 3) table 3: % of women researchers in bes source: author’s elaboration from the data in the table 1 maliková, z., european integration and position, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 7-17) 11 expenses on r&d despite the one of targets of lisbon strategy (2%gdp invested by bes in r&d), the amount of expenditures for science and research in countries eu 2004 and eu 2007 does not reach 1% of gdp (see table 4). on the other side, countries eu 1995 overreach 1,5 %. the worst situation is in cyprus where investment in r&d is less than 0,1% of gdp and the best situation is in sweden with 2,66% of gdp in 2007. table 4: comparison of expenditure by bes in 2004 /2007 source: author´s elaboration from the data table 5: increased in r&d intensity source: author´s elaboration from the data journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 7-17) 12 the highest increases in r&d intensity (r&d expenditure by bes as a percentage of gdp) between years 2004 and 2007 were found in estonia 57,58% (from 0,33% to 0,52% of gdp). the opposite situation appears in slovakia, where r&d intensity decreased by -28% (from 0,25 to 0,18 % of gdp), in slovenia by -7,45% (from 0,94 to 0,87% of gdp. despite the fact that sweden has the highest spending in r&d between chosen countries, decreasing happened as well in sweden by -0,37% (from 2,67 to 2,66% of gdp). in summary, r&d intensity reached highest number in group eu 2007, after eu 2007 and eu 1995 is on the last position. honeypot indicator the impulse for the calculations of honeypot indicators and correlation coefficients is one of results of enwise report [8] which specifies that less investment in research and development, the more female researchers are in enwise countries. the research was conducted in 2001. for countries eu 2004 and eu 2007, it was before their entry to eu. the aim of author’s analysis is to find out if this statement is still valid after 6 years and entry to eu. the creator of honeypot indicator is marge fauvelle. this indicator is “showing the rate of correlation between concentration of women/men and expenditure on science and research in separate sectors. it quantifies the loss of access to the financial support facing women scientists due to the fact that they are concentrated in the less funded sectors (government sector, education) and in the less supported scientific fields [1]”. the formula of honeypot indicator is: where h is honeypot indicator, e is total expenditure on r&d, ep= total % of female researchers, o= expenditure in each sector, oi= % female researchers in each sector. there are 4 sectors: government, business enterprise sector, high education and non profit sector. if h > 10%, it indicates significant disadvantage for women in r&d. if h > 10%, it indicates significant advantage for women in r&d system. maliková, z., european integration and position, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 7-17) 13 this part of article compares the honeypot indicators of chosen countries in 2007 with results of enwise report. indicators in enwise report were calculated from data of the year 2001. the worst situations were in czech republic (h= 16%), in slovakia (h=15,05%) and hungary (h= -9,96%). only in latvia and bulgaria, the indicators reached positive values. in this article, indicators are positive only for cyprus, latvia and bulgaria. for the rest they are negative (table 6). countries eu 1995 have worse results than eu 2004 and 2007. the better situation is in group eu 2007. in comparison with the results of enwise, the situation worsens in each country between 2001 and 2007. table 6: honeypot indicators source: author´s elaboration from the data correlation between expenses and r&d personnel the final part of article analyses the relation between data mentioned above, between the number of women in the area of r&d and expenses on r&d. the honeypot indicators were calculated for all sectors, correlations are centred on bes. six correlations, illustrated in table 7, were executed to test enwise statement. the significantly different results were obtained depending to the base to which the number of women was calculated. first method used the number of women calculated as a percentage on total r&d personnel (the correlation coefficients r1, r2, r3, r4). second method used the number of women calculated as a percentage on an average population (the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 7-17) 14 correlation coefficients r5 and r6). the correlation coefficients were not calculated for countries eu 2007 because of missing data. according to mathematician spearman's rank correlation coefficient, correlation below 0,3 is weak. correlation is characterized as moderately strong with value between 0,3 and 0,8 and it is strong with value over 0,8. in the case of coefficient of countries eu 1995, the analysis discovered strong positive correlation and coefficients approached to 1. contrary, coefficient of countries eu 2004 reached very low values, even negative values in two cases. the correlation coefficient between % of women on total r&d personnel and expenses is r1= -0,18473 what is weak. for data of bes, the coefficient is r2= -0,38174. this moderately strong negative correlation means that in countries eu 2004, the percentage of women is decreasing with increased expenses in r&d. in the case of counting number of woman researchers as a percentage of average population, the correlations are positive and moderately strong for eu 2004 (r5= 0,616) and strong for eu 2007 (r6= 0.999). it means that with higher expenses on r&d, number of female researchers expressed as % of average population arises. table 7: correlations between two variables: r&d personnel and expenses in 2007 % of women on total r&d personnel and total expenses on r&d in 2007 2004 r1= -0,18473 1995 r2= 0,99953 % of women researchers on total r&d personnel in bes and expenses on r&d in bes 2004 r3= -0,38174 1995 r4= 0,83542 % of women researchers in bes to average population and expenses on r&d in bes 2004 r5= 0,61649 1995 r6= 0,99831 source: author´s elaboration from the data in the table 1,4,5 maliková, z., european integration and position, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 7-17) 15 tables 8 and 9 descriptively show relation between expenditure on r&d in 2007 and female researchers calculated by both methods. tables outline that countries of one group are closer to each other. in table 8 using first method, countries eu 1995 are on the left side at the top what expressed higher expenditure and low number of female researchers. group eu 2004 is at the bottom in the same level of women scientist except lithuania. in table 9 using second method, countries eu 1995 are on the right side at the top what expressed higher expenditure and higher number of female researchers in bes to average population. group eu 2004 is on the left side at the bottom with smallest number of women scientist. table 8 a table 9: source: author´s elaboration from the data in the table 1,4,5 conclusion comparative research of this report has generated some insights into women’s position in r&d in chosen countries of the eu. countries which are older members of eu have less female researchers (to total r&d personnel). by contrast, opposite result was obtained by using second method of calculation number of female researchers (to average journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 7-17) 16 population). closer look on percentage of female representative on average population demonstrates that countries eu 1995 reached higher number in comparison with eu 2004 and eu 2007 (table2). diverse results can be explained by the fact, that countries eu 1995 spend more on r&d what create more work position. higher r&d spending permit pay more researchers included female representative. moreover, the reason of less female representative to total r&d personnel in countries eu 1995 can be attractiveness of higher salary (see last paragraph of this part). these possible explanations can be proved by further analysis. in the case of expenses, countries eu 1995 spend the most and countries eu 2007 spend the least. however further analysis showed that new members are in progress and their r&d intensity increases. r&d intensity reached highest number in group eu 2007, after eu 2004 and eu 1995 is on the last position. honeypot indicators which express relation between expenses and female researchers, reached negative values (except cyprus, latvia, bulgaria). in 2007, they are negatively higher in comparison with the results in enwise report from the year 2001. in determining the relationship between expenditure and the number of female researchers in bes, negative correlations were indicated. in countries eu 2004, the percentage of women to total r&d personnel is decreasing with increased expenses in r&d. it confirms the statement of velichova research conducted in 2001. contrariwise, the number of female researchers on average population is increasing with arising of expenditure on r&d in countries eu 1995 as well in countries eu 2004. it demonstrates that using of diverse base for expressing number of women in research has various correlation coefficients. it is explained at the beginning of this part of article. graphical presentation of relations outlined that countries of one group are closer to each other. countries of groups eu 2004 and eu 2007 are in the same level, however in comparison to eu 1995 they are in different position. negative correlation can be explained by attractiveness of remuneration. according to fernandéz polcuch [9], unesco specialist, in latin america low salaries in a field of research reduce attractiveness for male representative. higher expenses in r&d permit improve salaries of maliková, z., european integration and position, jwe (2010, no. 3-4, 7-17) 17 researchers. therefore better incomes attract more men and proportion of women representative decreases. references [1] castella sofie -timmernann, stine: european women in mathematics. 2005. [online]. accessible from: <www.math.helsinki.fi/ewm/news/news05.doc> [2] eubusiness. 2009. gender imbalance in science “a waste of opportunity and talent” – she figures 2009. [online] accessible from: <http://www.eubusiness.com/topics/research/women-science.09/> cordis community r&d information services [3] european commission. 2009. science, technology and innovation in europe. [online] accessible from <http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ity_offpub/ks-30-09-148/en/ks30-09-148-en.pdf >.isbn978-92-79-12347-4, issn 1830-754x [4] european commission. 2009. women in science and technology> creating sustainable careers. [online] accessible from http://ec.europa.eu/research/sciencesociety/document_library/pdf_06/wist2_sustainable-careers-report_en.pdf [5] european commission: women in industrial research: a wake up call for european industry, 2005. [online]. accessible from: <http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/women/wir/report_en.html> [accessed 1th march 2010] [6] european platform of women scientists. 2010. response if the european platform of women scientists to the public consultation on the future :eu 2020: strategy. [online] accessible from http://enterthecompany.org/epws/links/epwsresponseconsultationfuture eu2020strategy.pdf [7] le feuvre, n., latour, e. (2007), "understanding women's academic careers in france", in siemienska, r., zimmer, a. (eds),gendered career trajectories in academia in cross-national perspective, scholar, warsaw, pp.43-74 [8] piscová, magdaléna: slovak national report on women and science. 2001. [9] susan horton: news and tips for women in science. 2009. [online]. accessible from: <http://www.underthemicroscope.com/blog/women-researchers-arecommon-in-latin-america-less-so-in-europe-and-asia> . [10] šimková, h., the women in science, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 102-111) [11] velichová, d: premárnene talenty: od osobných zápasov k veci verejnej. ženy a veda v krajinách enwise. bratislava: sav, 2004. 39p received: 15 june 2010 article history: accepted: 30 august 2010 15_jwe_3-4 udk: 005.342:338.48(81) 305-051.1/.2 cobiss.sr-id 219379724 original scientific paper profiling the contemporary brazilian tourism entrepreneur: a gender analysis carlos costa1, zélia breda, fiona bakas, durão marilia, isabel pinho aveiro university, aveiro, portugal a b s t r a c t drawing on the contemporary shift in tourism research to a sociological focus on the producers within tourism, this study profiles brazilian tourism entrepreneurs through a gender lens. empirical evidence collected via online questionnaires administered to tourism managers on a nation-wide scale, provides the data on entrepreneurial characteristics such as age, income and educational level. quantitative analysis utilizing spss to correlate variables and test statistical significance is combined with a thorough interweaving of literature on tourism entrepreneurship and gender. this results in a uniquely insightful account of how tourism entrepreneurs’ profiles are influenced by gendered socio-economic structures. findings, ranging from the high number of male entrepreneurs that earn more than 13 minimum wages, the low number of female entrepreneurs aged 35-39, to the occupational segregation as manifested in a male-dominated transport industry, illustrate how gender silently operates to define entrepreneurial positions. new conceptualizations of entrepreneurship evolve to incorporate the conflicting pressures between the need to conform to entrenched gender roles and simultaneously provide economically in the increasingly unstable and demanding economic landscape. these alterations prompt for the development of tourism policies that recognize and address these gendered influences within tourism development. 1 santiago campus, universidade de aveiro, aveiro, 3810-193, portugal; ccosta@ua.pt 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) key words: entrepreneurship, gender, brazil, gender, producers, tourism development, economics, profile introduction gender orders social dynamics and pervades all aspects of economic and personal life by being the product of sex-related and socially accepted behaviours, which have become internalised as a natural way of being (beauvoir et al., 2000; fenstermaker & west, 2013). as tourism is “built of human relations” (aitchison, 2001: 134), the impact of gender relations on tourism is an interesting and under-researched topic. the role gender plays within tourism is of special interest as women are often encouraged to enter tourism employment due to its flexibility and its ‘suitability’ for women to engage in this activity without challenging gender norms regarding women’s roles as home-based carers (bakas, 2014). an example of the type of tourism entrepreneurship that conforms to gendered norms surrounding feminine subjectivities of care, is the engagement in the production of handicrafts to sell in the tourist-souvenir market, as in the case of mexican weavers (cohen, 2001) and mayan craftswomen (cone, 1995). whilst there is conflict regarding the definition of entrepreneurship, in this study the loose definition of an entrepreneur is “someone who perceives an opportunity and creates an organisation to pursue it” (bygrave, 1997: 2) is adopted. tourism has high concentrations of entrepreneurs as small and medium sized enterprises are numerically dominant and a key distinguishing feature of the tourism industry (morrison et al., 2010). this makes the study of tourism entrepreneurs’ profile useful in creating a more realistic picture of contemporary tourism. looking at the ways in which gender permeates entrepreneurs’ motivations to enter entrepreneurship and the constraints they face during entrepreneurship, are essential in order to properly inform tourism development policies that encourage tourism entrepreneurship. female entrepreneurs are one of the fastest growing entrepreneurial populations worldwide (brush et al., 2009), and tourism in particular is an industry which attracts large numbers of female employees, with female representation within the tourism and travel industry being expected to rise to 36.5% by 2023 (world travel & tourism council, 2013). however, currently, the majority of tourism entrepreneurs in most countries are still men (kelley et al., 2013). carlos, c., et al., profiling the contemporary brazilian, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) 3 this paper begins by providing the reader with background to how brazilian tourism entrepreneurs are represented within current literature, critically reviewing how gender and entrepreneurship interact. following the literature review, the methods used within this study are presented. then, the results from questionnaires answered by brazilian tourism entrepreneurs are presented and discussed. the discussion builds a profile of the contemporary brazilian tourism entrepreneur with regards to age, gender, income, region, sector, educational and marital status. finally, conclusions are drawn regarding tourism entrepreneurs in brazil, and suggestions are made for tourism development policies that take into consideration the issues raised within this paper. background many development programs, such as the ones implemented by the world bank, specifically target women, encouraging them to engage with entrepreneurship, in fulfilling their objectives to increase economic growth (griffin, 2010; ferguson, 2011). however, as women are often encouraged to partake in economic growth initiatives but continue to be held responsible for all household labour (momsen, 2004), conflict arises. ‘gender’ encapsulates all the cultural markers a society uses to account for biological difference; however gender’s meaning goes beyond this. gender is not exactly something that someone is or something that a person has, it is the mechanism by which notions of what constitutes masculine and feminine are produced and normalised. enacting or “doing” gender is the act of performing complex “socially guided... micropolitical activities” (bruni et al., 2005: 37) that are taken as expressions of what is seen as gender-related natural behaviours. searching for the reasons why women are underrepresented as tourism entrepreneurs, it is necessary to look further than a simple justification of it being a matter of ‘choice’. as the concept of ‘free’ choice in a capitalist society governed by the overpowering need to accumulate is a utopic term, it is necessary to look deeper into the politico-economic and socio-cultural structures influencing people’s choices. examining traditional definitions and theories of entrepreneurship reveals a male-dominated bias (green & cohen, 1995), which is reflected in the prevailing historical discourse that “to think entrepreneur, was to think male” (marlow et al., 2009: 139). while diverse theories have been presented to explain women’s lower levels of 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) entrepreneurship, the traditional definition of ‘entrepreneurship’ has been comparatively less challenged (kerfoot & miller, 2010). social studies of female entrepreneurs “implicitly reproduce male experience as a preferred normative value” (bruni et al., 2004: 256), while female notions about what constitutes entrepreneurship are neglected or seen as different from the norm (ateljevic, 2009). hence, one reason for the lower representation of female entrepreneurs is that entrepreneurship theories favour masculine interpretations of this economic structure. recently, there has been a trend in the cultural turn towards tourism studies, suggesting a focus on both the material and the cultural as being the space where gender roles and relations are re-worked, focusing on the “socio-cultural nexus” (aitchison, 2009: 632 ). tourism entrepreneurship is increasingly conceptualised as a legitimate arena to apply development programs aimed at gender equality, which is indicated by the wealth of funding for tourism projects around the world (ferguson, 2007). tourism offers many opportunities for women to become employed as there are lowbarriers to entry and there is the option for part-time or informal work which will not disrupt gender roles that dictate women’s primary responsibility is towards their family (unwto-un, 2011). however, although women do become involved in paid work because of tourism development, gendered dynamics often prevent tourism development being as beneficial to them as it is to men (tucker, 2007). rietz and henrekson (2000: 9) claim that “female entrepreneurs […] tend to run smaller firms, be underrepresented in manufacturing and construction, be less export-oriented and to be disproportionately reliant on households as customers”, but “no gender differences is found for profitability”. the study of rosa et al. (1996: 475) also found that female business owners were “less likely to own multiple businesses, less eager to plan expansion and where expansion is planned, their strategies for growth will be rather different from their male counterparts”. past literature paints the profile of a woman choosing to pursue high-growth entrepreneurship as a highly educated parent with high levels of entrepreneurial intensity whereas the profile of a man choosing to pursue high-growth entrepreneurship is a young person with no experience in the business’s industry (davis & shaver, 2012: 507). these gender differences in entrepreneurial profile are illustrative of how gender operates within entrepreneurship. carlos, c., et al., profiling the contemporary brazilian, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) 5 however, limited research has been done on the ways in which gender permeates entrepreneurship in the brazilian context where the combination of patriarchal values, which are reinforced by strong religious elements, and the competitive pressure to accumulate, clash, creating new interpretations of entrepreneurship. this paper investigates the emerging paradox created by tourism as feminine roles of caring and producing in the neoclassical economic sense are moulded, by using quantitative methods as described next. methods the material presented in this paper draws from empirical research conducted in the form of an online survey applied to brazilian tourism enterprises registered in cadastur. cadastur is a database of individuals and enterprises that operate within the tourism field administrated by the brazilian ministry of tourism (in cooperation with the official federal tourism bodies). a convenience sampling technique was used. the survey was carried out from april 2014 to december 2014 and a total of 471 questionnaires were collected. although the generalization of results to the population is not possible, the sample size allowed for consistent findings and the identification of important and statically significant trends. the software ibm spss (v. 21) was used for the quantitative data analysis. univariate and bivariate statistical techniques were applied, through exploratory and inferential methods, and a 5% level of significance was adopted. quantitative analysis was applied in order to explore patterns of entrepreneurial involvement and furthermore to investigate the role of gender in participant-entrepreneurs’ profiles, by applying a gendered angle to statistical data generated from the questionnaires regarding the entrepreneurs’ age, marital status, income, sector of activity, region, education and parenthood whilst we accept that providing a profile of a ‘typical’ entrepreneur is essentialising (mirchandani, 1999), since men and women are increasingly perceived as not having shared realities (kabeer, 1999), the profile presented here is a representation of brazilian tourism entrepreneurs within the study’s specific context. in this study’s sample, of the total number of managers (n=311) who answered that their occupation was the “result of creating [their] own company/business” (segment of question from the 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) questionnaire), 59.4% were male and 40.6% were female. this is in line with general trends for entrepreneurship in brazil, where there are more male entrepreneurs than female (52.2% vs. 47.8%) (macedo et al., 2014). analysis the results presented and discussed in the section relate to the sociodemographic characteristics (‘profile’) of brazilian tourism entrepreneurs, viewed through a gender angle. the aim is to explore how gender roles and relations feature within a contemporary representation of the brazilian tourism entrepreneurship reality. findings from the most recent global entrepreneurship monitor (gem) report from brazil (macedo et al., 2014) suggest that entrepreneurship is not gender-sensitive, as globally, both the propensity for engaging in an entrepreneurial activity among men and women (17.2% and 17.4% respectively). however, when looking at established business owners, entrepreneurial activity is more clearly dominated by men, which suggests that cultural, societal and economic factors influence entrepreneurs’ profile (macedo et al., 2014). in this study’s sample, of the total number of managers who answered that their occupation was the “result of creating [their] own company/business” (segment of question from the questionnaire), 59.4% were male and 40.6% were female. this is in-line with general trends for entrepreneurship in brazil, where there are more male entrepreneurs than female (52.2% vs. 47.8%) (macedo et al., 2014). age the entrepreneurs have an average age of 45 years old (m=44.68, sd=10.74), although it can be observed that men tend to be younger (m=44.33) than women (m=45.19). although not specific to the tourism sector, a study conducted by smith-hunter and leone (2010) shows that most business owners globally have an average age of 42 years. the age group 45-49 concentrates the highest number of female entrepreneurs (20.5%), while the age group 35-39 concentrates the highest number of male entrepreneurs (21.0%). differences among female and male entrepreneurs concerning age are not statistically significant (t(311)=0.696, p=.487). carlos, c., et al., profiling the contemporary brazilian, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) 7 figure 1: age of brazilian tourism entrepreneurs when we observe the age of the respondents related to gender (figure 1) two main observations can be made. the largest difference in male and female entrepreneur ages is 11.5% for the 35-39 group, (21.0% are men versus only 9.4% women). however, past literature shows that ten years ago, things were different, with a limited number of female entrepreneurs in the age group 20-30, in line with lower average age of mothers at first birth (machado, st-cyr, et al., 2003). on the other side of the reproductive age spectrum, jonathan (2005), describes the female entrepreneurs who participated in her study as ‘mature’ women, with an average age of 46.5 years old. the evolving difference in age distribution of female entrepreneurs can be explained by fact that the ages of 35-39 have become the prime childbearing and childrearing ages. current research illustrates how it is now global trend for women to have children after 35 years of age (cooke et al., 2012). this is an interesting finding from the study as it shows that entrepreneurial profiles (eg age) are closely linked to women’s contemporary gendered economic roles. another observation is that in the age group 45-49, there are more female (20.5%) than male (14.0%) entrepreneurs. this higher entrepreneurial activity later in life may reflect a reaction to some changes in women’s personal lives and be a means for women to become reintegrated in the labour market after a period of absence due to childbirth and care. female entrepreneurs interviewed by jonathan (2011) refer to this, mentioning the desire of becoming ‘useful’ once the children grow up, of 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) gaining independence after getting divorced or finding entrepreneurship as the only employment opportunity since no company hires ‘old people’. another observation related to figure 1 is that more women than men are involved in tourism entrepreneurship in brazil at a very young age. as can be seen in figure 1, there is a larger proportion of female (1.6%) entrepreneurs than male (0.5%) entrepreneurs in the age group 19-24, indicating how a change may be occurring in the younger generations. elaborating on these statistics, it is plausible that more women are involved in tourism entrepreneurship than men in the age group 19-24 because the contemporary economic environment makes it more feasible for women to engage in entrepreneurship, as there is an increased need for two incomes to support familial needs. social norms governing women’s entry into paid labour are becoming more flexible because of the economic pressures demanding women’s input into the family income with an intensity like never before (mannon, 2006). it would be of interest to delve deeper into the reasons behind the statistical difference between male and female entrepreneurial involvement at a young age, which could be a fruitful avenue for future research using in-depth qualitative analysis of how the entrepreneurs in this age group perceive themselves. marital status most of the respondents are married (51.0%). of the total number of entrepreneurs, there are more male (38.3%) than female (15.3%) entrepreneurs who are married. about one fifth (20.1%) of the entrepreneurs are single, of whom 10.9% are female and 9.3% are male. the remaining entrepreneurs in the sample are either divorced, have unmarried partners or are widows/ers. figure 2 shows the relative percentages of male to female entrepreneurs who are married, single, divorced, widowed or have unmarried partners. as can be observed from the figure, there is some variation in marital status percentages according to gender. in fact, the differences observed concerning the marital status of female and male entrepreneurs are statistically significant ( 2χ (4)=33.909; p<.001). carlos, c., et al., profiling the contemporary brazilian, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) 9 figure 2: marital status of brazilian tourism entrepreneurs the higher percentage of male entrepreneurs who are married (64.5%) when compared to married female entrepreneurs (37.8%), is related to gendered responsibility to maintain a work-family balance. female entrepreneurs who are held responsible for social reproduction which includes household tasks and caring, often face the dilemma of having to prioritize family over work, which results in lower numbers of married female entrepreneurs (brush et al., 2009; de bruin, brush, & welter, 2007). past studies show that most brazilian women entrepreneurs are married (machado, st-cyr, et al., 2003; jonathan 2005; machado, barros, et al., 2003). however, our study comes into conflict with these reports, as it shows that only 37.8% of total female entrepreneurs are married, with large percentages of female entrepreneurs being either single (26.8%) or divorced (23.6%). the high percentage of divorced female entrepreneurs in the present study follows general trends of increased global divorce rates, which are fuelled by divorce becoming more socially acceptable (frimmel, halla, & winter-ebmer, 2013). however, for female tourism entrepreneurs in south american countries, increased divorce rates are also attributed to the fact that women who are financially independent do not feel the need to look after a non-contributing husband who is unemployed and not helping with household tasks and often choose single motherhood instead (mannon, 2006). marital status is related to the number of children respondents have, which is analysed next in terms of how gender roles affect brazilian tourism entrepreneurs’ fertility. 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) children most of the respondents have children (68.7%). of the total number of respondents with children, 63.3% are male entrepreneurs and 36.7% are female entrepreneurs. of the 215 respondents that say they have children, the majority (93.0%) have up to three children. figure 3: percentage of female and male entrepreneurs who have children looking specifically within each gender group, it can be observed that 62.2% of all female entrepreneurs have children versus 73.1% of all male entrepreneurs (figure 3). the association between gender and parenthood among entrepreneurs proved to be statistically significant ( 2χ (1)=4.180; p=.028). this variation between male and female entrepreneurs, can be explained by the reasoning that although male entrepreneurs have children, they are rarely limited by childcare responsibilities, as female entrepreneurs are. however, studies report that in latin america married women are more likely to become self-employed than men, especially women with young children, perhaps out of increased monetary needs. at the same time, women with young children are also more likely to quit their businesses voluntarily (minniti & naude, 2010), a factor which can be related with the high dependence of children at young ages. verheul, stel and thurik (2006) found that high family values negatively influence entrepreneurial activity. this is because, although self-employment represents an opportunity for both men and women to adjust their schedules to their family needs, “entrepreneurship involves high risk and time investments” and may not be a “viable option” for people to whom family is very important (verheul et al., 2006: 170). carlos, c., et al., profiling the contemporary brazilian, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) 11 considering his study’s finding that there are fewer female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs with children, together with past literature that on one hand suggest entrepreneurship to be a good way of combining work and family but also involves high time investments, illustrates the complexity of gendered socio-economic structures that affect female entrepreneurship rates. our data suggests that women who have children are less likely to become entrepreneurs than men who have children. this decreased participation of mothers within entrepreneurship can be explained by the operation of gender roles connecting femininity to primary responsibility to motherhood, which prevents women with children taking up roles with the productive economy. social penalties in the form of gossip are often used to maintain stereotypic gender roles such as those surrounding female entrepreneurs prioritizing working over childcare. an example of this is how female tourism workers in central america were criticized for letting their children play on the streets when they were at work, whereas their husband’s role in childcare was not questioned (lucy ferguson, 2011). the presence of children often influences the employment rates of women and men in opposite directions: parenthood negatively influences female employment, while positively influencing male employment. mothers are less likely to be employed full-time than are women without children. hence, family situation (e.g., marriage and children) may have a differential effect on entrepreneurial activity of women and men. whilst entrepreneurship is often presented as a solution to combine work with family, this is not always possible in practice. female entrepreneurs interviewed by jonathan (2005) also referred to the difficulty of having free time, not only to dedicate to their families but also to themselves as individuals (for hobbies, well-being or grooming activities), as one of the down-sides of being self-employed. this prioritisation can have varying effects on family structures and is highly related to gender roles changing as contemporary ideals of ‘working mother’ replace those of ‘mother’. for example, within the european context this type of prioritisation of career over childbearing has led to a decrease in fertility rates. tanturri and mencarini (2005), for example, highlight how the drop in fertility rates in italy are attributed to persisting gender roles dictating women’s primary responsibility for social reproduction coupled with pressures to work and contribute financially to the family income. 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) one of the effects of decreased fertility is a decreased labour power, whereas the implications for global business are many-fold, including effects on the welfare system. whilst some economists suggest that the increasing rates of female labour force participation (which have resulted in low fertility rates) will off-set the negative effects that a drop in fertility rates brings, others are sceptical about the validity of this assumption, especially in light of an increasingly aging society with increased welfare needs (prettner et al., 2013). even though ageing now tends to be ‘active ageing’ due to increased pension age, we live in an ageing society because of a combination of declining fertility and falling death rates, together with decreases in disease and disability. in combination with decreasing fertility levels, due to increased prioritisation of economic engagement, this phenomenon has serious economic implications on the welfare state (walker & maltby, 2012). this illustrates the interdependence of economic and social processes, the role of gender within this relationship and by extension the ways in which involvement in tourism can alter these. income tourism stands out in the 6th position both in the ranking of activities that create more formal jobs, accounting for more than 712,000 in a total of more than 24 million jobs, and in the ranking of average remuneration, with 3.14 minimum salaries (in relation to a national average of 3.68) (árias & barbosa, 2007). with regards to gender, men have higher average remunerations than women, as illustrated in the global gender gap report (world economic forum, 2013). with regards to the income that the entrepreneurs in this sample earn, this was calculated by asking participants to express their income in terms of multiples of minimum wage, which makes it easier to present income variations to an international audience (figure 4). carlos, c., et al., profiling the contemporary brazilian, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) 13 figure 4: income of male and female entrepreneurs measured in minimum wages the distribution of both male and female entrepreneurs’ personal incomes (figure 4) is mainly concentrated in the 3-6 minimum wages (23.1% men and 33.9% women) and 1-3 minimum wages range (18.8% men and 29.9% women). in the lower end of the wage spectrum, we notice an equal number of male (6.5%) and female entrepreneurs (6.3%) earn just one minimum wage, indicating that at this level there is less of a gender pay gap2. this observation questions the extent to which the gender pay gap is related to class. recent research shows a link between low levels of education and a decreased amount of gender pay gap, hence suggesting that class and gender pay gap are related (i.e. there is more pay gap within higher paying, than lower-paying employment) however there are limited studies that investigate how class affects entrepreneurs’ gender pay gap in tourism (korpi, ferrarini, & englund, 2013). although in 2012, brazilian women also benefited of a higher increase in their salaries (2.4% in comparison with the 2.0% for men), a wage gap still exists, with women earning about 20% less than men (r$ 1,697.30 vs. r$ 2,126.67) (ibge, 2014). looking at brazilian patriarchal structures, it is speculated that these play a role in the observed wage differential between genders (smith-hunter & leone, 2010). in the present study, it can be observed that female entrepreneurs prevail in the lowest income categories, while male entrepreneurs prevail in 2 the ‘gender pay gap’ refers to the difference in remuneration of similarly qualified and experiences individuals based on gender. a significant measure of a country’s socioeconomic development, the gender pay gap is monitored by the world economic forum through the global gender gap index (schwab et al., 2013). 14 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) the highest income categories; differences concerning entrepreneurs’ personal incomes are statistically significant (u=14,692.500; w=32,083.500; p<.001), confirming a worse salary situation for female entrepreneurs. addicionally, it is observed that there are gender differences in the pay gap, depending on the level of income. as the level of income increases, more visible differences in income between men and women are obvious. a striking example of this gender gap in the present study is the high percentage (13.4%) of male entrepreneurs who earn over 15 minimum wages, compared to only 2.4% of female entrepreneurs earning this amount. past literature has indicated that the reason for male entrepreneurs reaching high salaries is because of improved access to credit and economic opportunity whereas female entrepreneurs who value social factors such as work–life balance/flexible working, parenthood, childcare concerns and esteem issues have lower amounts of profit, often being classified as ‘underperforming’ (marlow & mcadam, 2013). indeed, a very recent study on spanish workers, finds that women’s career interruptions in order to adhere to feminine gender roles of caring, account for a 7.4% daily gender wage gap in spain (cebrián & moreno, 2015). questioning macro-economic factors such as welfare provision and unemployment rates, can also provide a powerful explanation for the entrepreneurial pay gap (saridakis et al., 2014). in the current study, it is suggested that a combination of a highly patriarchal brazilian society that constitutes male entrepreneurship as a ‘legitimate’ discourse, hence more acceptable and recognisable in society; coupled with macro-economic factors such as limited state-childcare facilities, which encourage women to prioritise family over business, account for female entrepreneurs’ lower earnings within tourism entrepreneurship. sector of activity in this section, the significance of gender in the tourism sectors brazilian entrepreneurs occupy, is explored. sectors are classified as public and private, and within the public and private sectors, various classifications of tourism activities are used to distinguish tourism sector occupations. the majority of tourism entrepreneurs in this study characterise their businesses as belonging to the travel agency and tour operator sector (44.1%), followed by the accommodation sector (15.3%). this finding is inline with general trends within brazilian tourism for consumer-oriented services industry to be the activity sector that more brazilian entrepreneurs carlos, c., et al., profiling the contemporary brazilian, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) 15 choose to engage with, with ‘accommodation and food & beverage’ -related activities leading the list of preferences, for entrepreneurs in general (árias & barbosa, 2007). in contrast to what is observed in other countries in which the tourism workforce is highly feminized, most (around 70%) of the brazilian tourism workers are men (árias & barbosa, 2007). this may be due to occupational segregation, as the most relevant employing sub-sectors (i.e. transport) in brazil are male-dominated (around 80% of transport employees are men). in brazil, the accommodation, food and beverage, and travel agencies sub-sectors are the most gender-balanced because work in these sectors mimics tasks considered as feminine (e.g. laundry, cleaning, cooking, clerical). in fact, in brazil, the service industry is dominated by female entrepreneurs (smith-hunter & leone, 2010). looking at figure 5, the distribution of tourism entrepreneurs per sector can be seen. tourism entrepreneurs largely operate in the private sector (89.0% of female entrepreneurs vs. 91.0% of male entrepreneurs). figure 5: sector of activity of brazilian tourism entrepreneurs figure 5 shows that one sector in which male entrepreneurs predominate is that of transport. 16.0% of male entrepreneurs engage in transport-related entrepreneurship, whereas only 4.0% of female entrepreneurs are in the transport business. this reflects general trends of gendering within tourism work which is manifested in women converting socially ascribed gender roles of caring into tourism work related to 16 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) accommodation, cleaning and cooking. men ascribe to similarly gendered roles within tourism labour by taking on entrepreneurial work to do with transport, management and other masculine-gender related occupations (baum, 2013; unwto, 2011). the higher percentage of female entrepreneurs in the accommodation (18.0% women compared to 13.0% men) and travel agency (49.0% women compared to 41.0% men) sectors in our study is characteristic of occupational segregation within tourism labour. gendered occupational segregation is a major source of labour market rigidity and economic inefficiency due to a waste of human resources (french, lloyd-walker & crawford, 2014). internationally, occupational or horizontal segregation, together with tourism labour’s characteristics of being seasonal, low-paid work often completed at antisocial hours, contribute to a ‘talent gap’ which can cost millions to the tourism industry. a recent report calculated this cost to enumerate to us$270 billion by 2024 (wttc, 2014). hence, the present study suggests that tourism development policies aiming at decreasing occupational segregation by targeting the gendered nature of transport entrepreneurship which is heavily dominated by men, could constitute an efficient profit-maximising initiative. occupational segregation begins at an early age. in brazil, the areas of study chosen by women are increasingly those related to managerial skills (e.g., management, law, accounting, trade, economics, informatics, marketing and tourism) (machado, st-cyr, et al., 2003; machado, barros, et al., 2003). previous research on brazilian tourism graduates shows that these areas are traditionally perceived as masculine areas of study, with high concentrations of male graduates (costa et al. 2013). women in brazil are trying to attain qualifications in areas traditionally perceived as masculine as it is these areas that also provide the highest financial rewards and social recognition. this skewed perception of the value of labour, relates to longstanding undervaluing of feminized work (i.e. anything that mimics social reproduction activities such as caring and household work) (federici, 2012). an interesting observation from the distribution of brazilian tourism entrepreneurs per sector ( figure 5) is that whilst 6% of female entrepreneurs engage in entrepreneurship that falls under the category of ‘tourism business association’, there are no male entrepreneurs in this category. the ‘tourism business associations’ category comprises largely of people who create and maintain associations representing the sector. since we do not have carlos, c., et al., profiling the contemporary brazilian, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) 17 accompanying qualitative empirical data regarding the exact nature of these associations, it is difficult to draw conclusions, but this female-led forming of business associations illustrates the need women have for formal networking. linehan & scullion (2008, p. 36) found that there are two main obstacles for female managers regarding networking: “(i) access to male network, and (ii) having less time available for networking due to domestic commitments”. women are excluded from formal networking due to gendered reasons, such as the often unsocial hours networking often takes places at, our results hint at women creating their own tourism networks, in order to network on their own terms. in latin america, one type of network that is quite common are women’s cooperatives (stephen, 2005). women’s cooperatives are a collective type of entrepreneurship that allows entrepreneurs to join forces and market their products jointly, forming a significant part of the tourism industry, operating largely in the area of souvenirs, food and accommodation. these are possibly what the femaledominated ‘tourism business associations’ are in this study. further research, in the form of in-depth interviews, into the nature of the female entrepreneurial public tourism businesses could yield interesting results from a gendered network angle on collective entrepreneurship. region regions in brazil, whilst unified by the portuguese language and the brazilian identity, are characterised by great social inequality and cultural diversity. whilst southern regions are more industrial, northern regions predominately rely on agriculture, are more influenced by the african slave culture and host many indigenous nations (bichara, da rocha lordelo, santos, & pontes, 2012). these socio-economic differences also affect gender roles controlling the entry of women into female entrepreneurship. strong beliefs that women should be confined to the private sphere and prioritise the family, are some of the ways in which gender influences entrepreneurial engagement. for example, female tourism entrepreneurs in turkey, either avoid engaging in tourism entrepreneurship or engage in types of work that can take place within their homes (tucker, 2007). hence, the number of female entrepreneurs in the regions within the present study, is an indicator of how gender roles influence tourism’s economic structures, such as entrepreneurship, on a regional scale. however, there are other factors influencing female entrepreneurship rates, as illustrated by the fact that there are higher female entrepreneur’s rates in developing countries 18 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) because of the increased barriers women face for formal employment and who utilise entrepreneurship as a way out of poverty, rather than actively negotiating gender roles (minniti & naude, 2010). this study finds that the majority of tourism entrepreneurs in brazil are located in the southeast region (40.9% of total entrepreneurs – table 1). this finding is in line with the trend of the southeast region concentrating more than half of the tourism workforce, followed by the northeast, the south, the central-west and the north (árias & barbosa, 2007). table 1: distribution of tourism entrepreneurs in brazil region in brazil female male total freq % freq % freq % north 5 1,6 16 5,1 21 6,7 northeast 26 8,3 52 16,6 78 24,9 midwest 12 3,8 22 7,0 34 10,9 southeast 62 19,8 66 21,1 128 40,9 south 22 7,0 30 9,6 52 16,6 total 127 40,6 186 59,4 313 100,0 regarding the regional gender distribution of tourism entrepreneurs, more female (48.8% of total female entrepreneurs) than male entrepreneurs (35.5% of total male entrepreneurs) are found in the southeast region (error! reference source not found.). this is a region in brazil where more female than male entrepreneurs are found, contrary to the country’s norm of more male than female entrepreneurs overall within tourism (árias & barbosa, 2007). the south and southeast of brazil are highly developed and industrial with the large metropolitan areas of rio de janeiro and sao paulo. there is a strong european influence in these southern areas of brazil because of immigration in the nineteenth century and they are characterised by higher income and education levels. since greater gender equality in linked to higher education and income levels, these regional characteristics may account for the higher number of female entrepreneurs in this region. the northeast region, characterised by villages and coastal areas, shows the second highest number of entrepreneurs (24.9%). the high number of entrepreneurs in the northeast is the result of increased investment by national tourism development plans in the past two decades, which resulted in a steep increase in tourism infrastructure (puppim de oliveira, 2003). indeed, since the 1980s, tourism development in the carlos, c., et al., profiling the contemporary brazilian, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) 19 northeast focused on environmentally-friendly types of tourism development such as ecotourism which has social as well as environmental goals, encouraging locals, both men and women, to engage in tourism entrepreneurship. educational level several studies suggest that formal education has a strong positive influence in becoming self-employed and successfully pursuing an entrepreneurial activity (robinson & sexton, 1994). with regards to the educational background of entrepreneurs in our sample, most (52.7%) of respondents have completed higher education, out of which women comprise 23.3% and men 29.4%. of the total number of entrepreneurs, only 19.4% of entrepreneurs have an educational background in tourism, illustrating how tourism often has low requirements for entry, which is also why it is promoted as a rural development tool. past studies have shown that female entrepreneurs are a highly educated group, with the majority of business owners having university educational experience, which is true for both male and female brazilian entrepreneurs (vale et al., 2011; machado, barros, et al., 2003; jonathan, 2005, 2011; smith-hunter & leone, 2010). more specifically, in the study conducted by machado, st-cyr et al. (2003), in brazil, the majority of interviewed entrepreneurs had graduated from university or held a post-graduate degree, with only limited cases not progressing beyond the primary education level. figure 6: education level of female and male tourism entrepreneurs 20 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) in a study developed by smith-hunter (2010), 33 women entrepreneurs in the city of são paulo (southeast region) were interviewed, revealing that their high education level was connected with motivational factors, such as the gender pay gap in brazil. the smith-hunter study observed that the paygap in brazil influences female entrepreneurs in brazil by observing that, “the majority of the women entrepreneurs indicated frustration in not earning as much as their equally (and sometimes less) qualified male counterparts” (smith-hunter, 2010:95). a recent study on tourism graduates in brazil, placed the gender pay gap at 29.7% (costa et al. 2013). so, a feeling of injustice that women are being paid less than men, encourages women in brazil to study more, in order to have better paid work opportunities. the present study confirms these numbers (figure 6), as more female entrepreneurs (57.0% of female entrepreneurs) have higher education than male entrepreneurs (49.0% of male entrepreneurs), although gender differences concerning educational level are not statistically significant (u=10,810.000; w=28,201.000; p=.142). more specifically, related to tourism, women again are more educated than men, as 11.5% of total number of entrepreneurs with tourism-related degrees being female versus 7.9% male entrepreneurs with a tourism-related degree. conclusion this empirical study on tourism entrepreneurs in brazil shows that it is not merely the genetic identity which determines an individual's propensity to become an entrepreneur, but the values attached to gendered characterizations of feminine and masculine stereotypes. these stereotypes are perpetuated through economic, political and socio-cultural structures, highlighting gender’s cyclical influence on entrepreneurial discourse. initially, profiling of ‘the brazilian tourism entrepreneur’ was completed, using the answers provided via online questionnaires on age, marital status, number of children, income, sector of activity, region and education. these statistics provided the basis for the critical analysis of how gender influences entrepreneurial profiles. for example the observation that there are fewer female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs with children, also suggests that women who have children are less likely to become entrepreneurs than men who have children. the high percentage (25.0%) of participants that say the main reason for not having children is because they want to concentrate only on their professional career highlights how carlos, c., et al., profiling the contemporary brazilian, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) 21 entrepreneurs are subjected to, and influenced by, economic forces that encourage people to prioritize productivity over creating a family. this prioritisation can have varying effects on family structures and is highly related to gender roles changing as contemporary ideals of ‘working mother’ replace those of ‘mother’. various limitation of the study were also uncovered whilst completing the analysis. for example: although 10-12 years old children are considered dependent in western societies, a more precise definition of ‘dependent children’ within the questionnaire would have perhaps made the present study more comparable to studies using children’s age as an indicator of ‘independence’. looking at the income entrepreneurs earn through engagement in tourism in brazil, in the lower end of the wage spectrum, there are an equal number of male (6.5%) and female entrepreneurs (6.3%) earn just one minimum wage, indicating that at this level there is less of a gender pay gap. however, as the level of income increases, more visible differences in income between men and women are obvious. a striking example of this gender gap in the present study is the high percentage (13.4%) of male entrepreneurs who earn over 15 minimum wages, compared to only 2.4% of female entrepreneurs earning this amount. a possible explanation for this is the combination of a highly patriarchal brazilian society that constitutes male entrepreneurship as a ‘legitimate’ discourse, hence more acceptable and recognisable in society; 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rezultat se javlja pronicljiv prikaz načina na koji rodna socio-ekonomska struktura utiče na profil turističkog preduzetnika. podaci, počevši od velikog broja muških preduzetnika koji zarađuju više od 13 minimalnih plata, malog broja žena preduzetnika starosti od 35-39, do segregacije zanimanja koja se manifestuje kroz dominaciju muškaraca u transportnoj industriji, pokazuju kako pol iz senke utiče definisanje preduzetničkih pozicija. carlos, c., et al., profiling the contemporary brazilian, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 1-27) 27 nova konceptualizacija preduzetništva ide u smeru ugrađivanja suprostavljenih pritisaka između potrebe da se prilagodimo ukorenjenim rodnim ulogama i istovremeno ekonomski obezbedimo u sve nestabilnijem i zahtevnijem ekonomskom okruženju. ove promene utiču na razvoj javnih politika iz oblasti turizma koje prepoznaju i bave se uticajem odnosa polova na razvoj turizma. ključne reči: preduzetništvo, odnos polova, brazil, proizvođači, razvoj turizma, ekonomija, profil article history: received: 25 august, 2015 accepted: 15 october, 2015 15_jwe_3-4 udk 004.738.5:005.32-055.2 005.961:005.914.3 jel: l26 cobiss.sr-id 219391756 preliminary report the importance of information and communication technologies in the development of women entrepreneurship prljić stefan1 faculty of engineering university of kragujevac, kragujevac, serbia vučeković miloš singidunum university, belgrade, serbia vujičić slađana faculty of business economics and entrepreneurshp, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t global trends in the labor market have led to an increase in women's participation in entrepreneurship so that women entrepreneurship is increasingly expanding. as information and communication technologies in recent years experienced a big rise, they spread opportunities to access markets in large numbers and thus reduce barriers to access to information and the costs of the classical business. the rapid spread of information and communication technology offers tremendous opportunities and poses a special challenge for the empowerment of women because women are the ones who have time constraints and reduced mobility. the aim of this study is to investigate the importance of information and communication technologies in the development of women entrepreneurship and to point out the opportunities for its development of their application. this study concluded that the use of computers by women and men have only confirmed the need to constantly point to the benefits of using information and communication technologies in the acquisition of new knowledge and the development of female entrepreneurship. 1 email: stefanlapovo@gmail.com 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 65-76) key words: information and communication technology, women entrepreneurs, internet introduction in recent years, women's entrepreneurship is attracting increasing attention and has become an important factor of economic development of countries. women entrepreneurs not only contribute to economic growth and development but also help create new jobs, so that is the legitimate aspirations of women to have equal access to all available resources. the contribution of female entrepreneurship as a social and economic phenomenon in serbia is undeniable but we should seek ways to develop it because, in serbia, there are only 26% of companies owned by women and they are mostly owned by smaller companies, which shows that the economic potential of women is rarely used, ie only one in four women is the owner of a small business. information and communication technologies (ict), which is usually related to communications systems, applications and devices such as computers, mobile telephones and the internet, have a great capacity to stimulate new economic opportunities for women. for most organizations, the use of these technologies not only led to better and faster business but also to improving competitiveness. review of the literature today entrepreneurship is considered one of the most important factors that can contribute to initiating sustainable economic development. at the beginning of the seventies in the oecd countries there has been a massive entry of women in the business world that quickly spread to the whole world. since the 1990s, female entrepreneurship has been one of the most important and increasing sources of economic development, contributing significantly to wealth creation in all economies (brush et al., 2006; langowitz, minniti, 2007). many authors have in their papers pointed to the importance of female entrepreneurship. although men and women have demonstrated similar entrepreneurial motivations, women are characterized as being more motivated by non-economic goals than men (orhan, scott, 2001). and ufuk, ozgen (2001) suggests that women choose selfemployment primarily because of the flexibility which allows them to balance family and work. allen et al. (2007) finds that female prljić, s., et al., the importance of information, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 65-76) 67 entrepreneurship is making a significant contribution to the world economy, especially in lowand middle-income countries. female entrepreneurship has been considered as a fundamental driver for creating, running and growing businesses, and consequently for economic growth (acs et al., 2011). women entrepreneurs in small and medium enterprises have become the driving force in promoting and strengthening the role of women (panda, 2011). starting and maintaining their own business is one of the strategies for economic development of women-oriented entrepreneurship (nziku, 2012, p.73). some of the widely used ict tools that have proved to promote entrepreneurial activities which include: mobile phones, the internet, personal computer (pc), radio broadcasting, television broadcasting and cloud services (ahmad, xavier, perumel, nor and mohan, 2011). through both traditional and new icts, female entrepreneurs are now offered new opportunities to comparatively start and grow enterprises easily despite society-centered cultural, financial and educational constraints (unctad, 2014). according to the latest trend of ict, women, includes women entrepreneurs face many barriers preventing them from taking full advantage of emerging economic opportunities, increasing productivity in their enterprises and accessing more productive and higher value added jobs and higher income generating employment opportunities (international labour office, bureau for gender equality, 2010). according to the material, and previous research, it is the application of information technology in organizations, in four broad places. the dimensions are given in table 1, and as researchers (shaemibarzaki et al., 2014) 68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 65-76) table 1: assess the use of it in organizations names of researcher's the factors studied dimensions of it omar &lascu, 1993; paul & kotha, 1998; premkumar & roberts, 1999; rashid & qirim, 2001; frank et al, 2003; martinez-lorente et al, 2003; kramati,2007 stock control systems, billing system, payroll systems, databases, cost accounting systems. it administration and pecuniary affairs omar & lascu, 1993; paul & kotha,1998; frank et al,2003; martinez-lorente et al, 2003; kramati,2007 email, fax, telephone, internet access, internal network within an organization internet web sites for advertising agencies, intranet, electronic data interchange with suppliers and buyers (edi), teamwork and temporary working groups through data exchange. information technology in communication omar & lascu, 1993; paul & kotha,1998; frank et al, 2003; martinez-lorente et al, 2003 support systems of decision, techniques for data analysis and predictive software it support to this dimension omar & lascu, 1993; paul & kotha, 1998; thong,1999; rashid & qirim, 2001; frank et al, 2003; martinez-lorente et al, 2003; salmeron and bueno, 2006; shin, 2006; alam and noor, 2009 computer-aided production planning (capp), manufacturing equipment planning (mep), human resource planning (hrp), computer aided design (cad), computer aided manufacture (cam), computer aided engineering (cae), numerically controlled machines, ligaments, electronic product identification systems, electronic systems, quality control, flexible manufacturing systems (fms). your storage system work. information technology in production and operations source: shaemibarzaki et al., (2014) prljić, s., et al., the importance of information, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 65-76) 69 indicators of women's entrepreneurship in serbia the development of women's entrepreneurship is trend of the xxi century stands after the fact that the world's growing number of companies is headed by women (vujicic et al, 2012). based on the interviews and analysis from unctad (2014), six indicators were noted as measurement of successful female entrepreneurship. these indicators are: 1. work-life balance: the ability of a female entrepreneur time to overcome poverty. 2. independency and the ability to earn income: the ability of a female entrepreneur to earn income independent of help from family. 3. easy access to funding for expansion of their businesses: the ability of a female entrepreneur to easily access capital for the expansion of her business. 4. increased literacy and education skills: characterized by improved access to business education, as a result of networking. 5. easy access to customers, suppliers and business partners. 6. global presence (international recognition of the business). figure 1: indicators of successful female entrepreneurship suorce: motilewa et al.,(2015) women's entrepreneurship in serbia in the last decade marked a significant shift. the impact of women in entrepreneurship in serbia can be 70 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 65-76) evaluated on the basis of their share among business owners, top executives among companies and among entrepreneurs. table 2 shows the percentage of active enterprises run by women and men as well as the percentage of companies in which they perform this role together. if we compare data on the number of active enterprises run by men with a number of enterprises run by women leads to the conclusion of a significantly higher participation of men in corporate governance. table 2: active enterprises by gender entrepreneurs the number of active enterprises participation in the total number of active enterprises businesses that are owned and managed by men 205.202 63.4 businesses that are owned and managed by women 83.490 25.8 companies in which entrepreneurial roles are performed by men and women 8.570 2.6 companies with unknown gender of the person who performs entrepreneurial role 26.294 8.1 total 323.556 100 source: rso, 2011 the study "the situation, needs and problems of small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurs" which is carried out every year showed that in 2011 in managerial positions and the role of the owners and founders of businesses were usually men (67%). in 2012 indicated the study found that in management positions in the role of owner and founder of the company is still usually men (table 3). prljić, s., et al., the importance of information, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 65-76) 71 table 3: gender owners / founders and entrepreneurs to form a business entity micro small medium entrepreneur total men 71.2% 71.9% 63.3% 61.5% 67.2% women 28.8% 28.1% 36.7% 38.5% 32.8% total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% source: report on small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurship for 2012 in august 2014, according to data from the business registers agency, a total of 168,158 business entities had been registered, of which 113,765 are active which had 217,290 equity stakes. only 26.8% stake was owned by women while 73.2% were owned by men. looking at the gedi index for serbia (acs et al., 2014), which amounts to 33.9 and ranked 68, with the exception of bosnia and herzegovina, serbia is the lowest positioned country in the region. figure 2: gedi index source: global entrepreneurship and development index 2014 one of the weaknesses of serbia has been related to an inappropriate part of female entrepreneurship within the framework of the activities of entrepreneurs. 72 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 65-76) the use of information and communication technologies in the development of women entrepreneurship information and communication technologies have been present in all spheres of human life for a long time and have a very large impact on communication and relationships between people. these technologies especially mobile phones, computers and the internet are critical for business development and improving competitiveness. the role of ict in entrepreneurship is manifold, ranging from facilitated communication between the two sides to online sales. it systems affects the firm` with products and services, markets, product cost, and product differentiation. thus, the success of innovative firms critically depends on the implementation and creative use of it (deans, kane, 1992). today's progress of technology and technology is making the global market closer to each individual and therefore increased volume and an online store. however, this way of doing business is still under-utilized, because of resentment of people towards art, because of lack of awareness of what opportunities are available to them. the use of information technology in the company is possible for increasing productivity, faster to share information between people and to have better communication between employees within the company. the high level of mobile phones usage in developing countries and increased availability of internet services have enabled many companies to expand their operations. research conducted in serbia by telephone in 2014 on the use of information and communication technologies on a sample of 1,200 companies showed that 100% of companies use computers in their business operations and 100% of companies had internet access, which is 0.4% more compared to 2013 and 2.3% more than in the year 2012 while samo74% of companies have a website (national bureau of statistics, 2014). year after year the use of computers in serbia is growing. the study "research on the role of knowledge in the field of ict and the position of women in the labor market" was carried out in 2014 as a project of the ministry of labour and social policy in the implementation of activities of the national action plan (nap) for the implementation of the national strategy for the advancement of women and promoting gender equality supported by the kingdom of sweden, through the international development cooperation agency (idca) has shown that women can be classified as a vulnerable group when it comes to the use of ict which are not related to access to these technologies, but their low level of computer prljić, s., et al., the importance of information, jwe (2015, no. 3-4, 65-76) 73 literacy. in figure 1 we can see the use of computers by men and women in the period from 2006 to 2013. it is noticeable that the growth of home computers and the internet in serbia and that the difference in numbers between men and women decreases with time. figure 1: use of computers by age and gender source: sbs, (2006-2013) but when it comes to the level of computer literacy, men have higher computer literacy than women (figure2). figure 2: computer literacy by gender and region source: //popis2011.stat.rs the same study indicates that the internet in serbia is used in information and communication purposes, while e-mail and online 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 65-76) platforms for social networking sites are the most frequently used communication tools but also internet users in serbia are not too inclined to use the internet, which means finding work or training, education, shopping, and payment for goods and services, administrative affairs, and the like. all this leaves the possibilities for development of women entrepreneurship by massive use of the internet to improve business functions and increase market share. the internet allows that the door is open 24h companies to consumers around the world as well as the existence of services according to customer measures. this contributes to the creation of the creation of new entrepreneurial opportunities especially for companies headed by women. conclusion in serbia, only 25% of companies are owned by women, and they are mostly owners of smaller companies, which show that the economic potential of women is rarely used. however, the fact is that the development of women entrepreneurship creates the conditions for job creation, which also allows economic development and the development of society as a whole. how the progress of information and communication technologies has enabled the convergence of world markets to every individual a chance for the development of entrepreneurship should be sought in ever greater use of these technologies. studies that are listed in the work on the use of computers by women and men have only confirmed the need to constantly point to the benefits of using information and communication technologies in the acquisition of new knowledge and the development of female entrepreneurship. references [1] ahmad, s.z., xavier, s.r., perumel, s., nor, m. l. and mohan, c. j. 2011. the transition from corporate careers to business ownership: the case for women entrepreneurs in malaysia. international journal of business administration 2(3) retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/ijba.v2n3p148 [2] allen, i. e., elam, a., langowitz, n., dean, m. 2007. report on women and entrepreneurship,, global entrepreneurship monitor, babson, london. 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[14] vujičić, s., kvrgić g., ivković, d., vujadin r., vujadin, n. 2012. “the development of female entrepreneurship in the function of overcoming unemployment of women in serbia.” journal of female entrepreneurship and education (jwe), 3-4/2012: 1-16. 76 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 3-4, 65-76) značaj informaciono-komunikacionih tehnologija u razvoju ženskog preduzetništva a p s t r a k t globalni trendovi na tržištu rada doveli su porasta učešća žena u preduzetništvu tako da je žensko preduzetništvo u sve većoj ekspanziji. kako su informacione-komunikacione tehnologije poslednjih godina doživele veliki uspon proširile su se i mogućnosti da se pristupi tržištima u velikom broju i na taj način smanje barijere u pristupu informacijama kao i troškovi klasičnog poslovanja. brzo širenje informaciono-komunikacionih tehnologija nudi ogromne mogućnosti i predstavlja poseban izazov za osnaživanje žena jer su žene te koje imaju ograničenost vremena i smanjenu mobilnost. cilj ovog rada je da istraži značaj informaciono-komunikacionih tehnologija u razvoju ženskog preduzetništva i da se ukaže na mogućnosti za njegov razvoj njihovom primenom. ključne reči: informacione-komunikacione tehnologije, žensko preduzetništvo, internet article history: received: 15 september, 2015 accepted: 17 novemeber, 2015 microsoft word 09_jwe_3-4.doc review book review women entrepreneurs: new opportunities and challenges mirjana radović-marković first edition, iap, books, new delhi, india, 2009, 206 pp. the book is composed of five parts, which are made up of fourteen chapters beginning with an exploration of the history of entrepreneurship, followed by a systematic guidance for creating successful ventures. these five themes include: i. an overview of entrepreneurship ii. designing entrepreneurial skills iii. the small business start-up iv. business opportunities for women v. entrepreneurship and the informal economy in the first part of the book, the author indicates that in recent years, “a record number of women have been breaking out of corporate life and embracing entrepreneurial careers as an alternative to inflexible work practices and outdated systems. although women still face “glass ceiling” and somehow fail to achieve maximum potential, there are evidences to suggest that most countries have now realized the potential contributions women make to the nations’ economic growth in fact, it is true that women's advancement and participation for instance, in project management is a function of the type of organizational culture which has traditionally characterized the industry sectors which employ the skills and yildirim, k., book review, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 106-113) 107 techniques of project management.” (page 3). on one hand ,knowing that the development of the nations’ economic growth is of great significance , we may expect that organizations will be able to recognize the unique problems women are faced as well as minorities and the necessity of addressing these problems .professor radovic markovic stresses that female entrepreneurship has brought in a new revolution as we witness women emerging as business owners in economic sectors they have not previously occupied. (page 3). she also expresses that there are more flexible work arrangements allowing women to balance both work and careers. on the business side, however, businesses that women entrepreneurs run from their homes are relatively new. these are usually smaller businesses dealing with basic products and providing other online services. against the belief of many people who assume that these are temporary settings, these businesses are very stable and are proving to have higher survival rates. (page 8). in my the worklife policies should be on legal grounds and organized by the trade unions .the fact is that work and life balance policies are those policies which help workers in combining employment with their family life, caring responsibilities and personal and social life outside the workplace. this definition includes statutory entitlements such as maternity, adoptive, force majeure, parental and carrier's leave and other non-statutory measures such as childcare and employee assistance schemes. the author specially pays attention in first section of the book to the concept of the entrepreneurship ,which has a wide range of meanings. but in spite of different point of view we may understand that entrepreneur is a person with high aptitude to work for himself or herself. dr radovic markovic has basically accepted schumpter’s concept of entrepreneurship as a chief description and reminded us that schumpeter gave two theories, sometimes called mark i and mark ii. in the first one, the early one, schumpeter argued that the innovation and technological change of a nation comes from the entrepreneurs, or wild spirits. he coined the word unternehmergeist, german for entrepreneur-spirit. he believed that these individuals are the ones who make things work in the economy of the country. in mark ii, he asserted that the actors that drive innovation and the economy are big companies which have the resources and capital to invest in research and development. both arguments might be complementary today. however, entrepreneurship could be defined with one of those principles given below: journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 106-113) 108 the introduction of a new good or standard of quality; the introduction of a novel method of production; the opening of a new market; the acquisition of a new source of new materials supply; and the carrying out of the new organization in any industry. the entrepreneurial role, can belong to the owners of one or another factor of production (i. e., to either workers or capitalists) or to a specific factor of production whose role consists of combining capital and labor. capital can certainly be either privately owned or state owned on the basis of ownership ,capitalists (whether private individuals or the state) may thus organize the process of production. there may be an alternative also for many others that capital may be leased to either workers or entrepreneurs who organize the production. a particular single combination of ownership and entrepreneurship may be called a sort of type or mode of the production. the author stresses also that beside schumpeter`s theory there is a large number of entrepreneurial theorists which have attempted to present economic theory based on “rational postulates of human behavior” after schumpeter and to synthesize selected (page 19). having reviewed a number of theories and approaches, it is clear that it is not simple to answer the question of what entrepreneurship is, and how to distinguish one definition from the other. there is no single way of defining entrepreneurship, concluded dr radovic markovic in first chapter. in chapter two which is dedicated to types of entrepreneurship, the choice of entrepreneurship styles and gender and entrepreneurship, the author has classified types of entrepreneurship using one of the classifications of entrepreneurship, given by gartner (1986). according to this definition we are supposed to distinguish eight different types of entrepreneurship. she notes separately that “there is no uniform or universally-accepted form or style of entrepreneurship”. (page 21). finally it seems that entrepreneurs tend to exhibit unique styles making it difficult to conceptualize this phenomenon. dr radovic markovic also stresses that many researches are still oriented towards men as entrepreneurs. the reason for this can be found in the fact that there are fewer women entrepreneurs compared to male entrepreneurs. she has yet concluded in one of her books,” the yildirim, k., book review, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 106-113) 109 perspectives of women`s entrepreneurship in the age of globalization”, that the recognition of the capacity of women entrepreneurs in our global community is no longer a matter of debate, but is a realization that female entrepreneurship is now forming one of the major factors contributing to the development of many countries (radović marković, 2007). due to different approaches to female entrepreneurship, the author has also reached concrete conclusions. in my opinion, the author took into account the various theories while she has reached the concept that, ”women entrepreneurs see their businesses more realistically and they make attempts to develop them in family environments, while men gravitate more towards developing a business hierarchy with defined rules and working business procedures.” (page 26). in addition, she also believes that a shift in thoughts and research in the field of female entrepreneurship would be an imperative. in chapter three the entrepreneurial education: virtual learning as a means to enhance entrepreneurship among women, the author believes that it is widely known that a correlation exists between entrepreneurship and economic performance. but from the other hand, it seems that the author pretends that entrepreneurship may bring more than this correlation to our societies, because the science is also a vehicle for personal development. in spite of importance of entrepreneurship for personal and social development, finally the author believes that the all potentials are not fully being exploited, particularly in the european union (eu).on the other hand, the author has also given a good example that the eu has failed to encourage an abundance people to become entrepreneurs. according to the eurobarometar, although 47% of europeans prefer selfemployment, only 17% actually realize their ambitions (european commission [ec], 2007). regarding new entrepreneurial initiative, only 4% of europeans state to be engaged in creating a business, and 29% of europe’s sme declared growth as their main ambition (ec). (page 30). she has outlined all the research questions as follows: a) how do we gain skills, which will meet newrequirements of societies? b) is high quality traditional entrepreneurship education the most effective choice for obtaining 32 new skills for entrepreneurs or necessary to foster alternative ways of education? c) which factors should become educational components to emphasize when devising an academic entrepreneurship journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 106-113) 110 program: perceptions, financial factors, productivity factors, product development, self-awareness, or self-motivation? why? d) if entrepreneurship in taught in an online learning environment, what evaluation tools or measures should academia use to determine or identify success factors or traits to becoming an entrepreneur? the author evaluates entrepreneurship development as a process which is an important segment of economic growth. in addition, she has stressed well that entrepreneur is a catalytic agent of change, which generates employment opportunities for others. therefore, paying attention to improving skills of entrepreneurs and their education is necessary in order to increase their competencies. considering the importance of education for entrepreneurs, recently it becomes evident that entrepreneurship is one of the fastest growing science in today’s undergraduate curricula in the united states and worldwide (page 32 ). she has widely provided evidences according to other authors that the concept of using on-line modules has several advantages compared to the traditional university courses for full time employees. the author concludes that serbia does not have extensive experience deploying online studies and virtual faculties. forming an international learning network of women may enhance entrepreneurship opportunities in serbia as well as in countries that are developing or in transition (radović marković, 2006b). because the author has determined that functionality of the technologies and the benefits of virtual learning to learners and professors have been misunderstood but as a result the author has concluded that learners as well as educators may be able to effectively discern the pros and cons of how e-learning enhancing entrepreneurship the author has also made a comprehensive survey on case study of serbia (page 43). as a result of all these findings and surveys she believes that further research may explore how and when online instruction is most effective for female learners who are entrepreneurs. course descriptions and prerequisites have all been explained and outlined well. finally according to the author, she has given a broad explanation that e-learning is now an essential component of education. e-learning has changed the face of education, training and vocational learning forever. but also should be pointed out that in education, e-learning is not only changing the way students learn or how teachers teach; it is rather changing how knowledge is delivered and where educators train in could be expected in the near yildirim, k., book review, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 106-113) 111 future that open communication and management approaches will become the driving techniques to enhance learning skills in virtual environments, which will meet new requirements of societies.(page 40) . in the chapter four the entrepreneurship process: generating ideas, the author has generated well ideas by classifying that they all are the currency of entrepreneurs and therefore they must play with many ideas to identify the ones which bring money and success. at the same time, she noted here that not all business ideas contribute to businesses profitability. but other business ideas are simply unmarketable in some business areas or there might be too much competition already. so according to the author it is important to provide the tools which can either help us to identify right business ideas and make decisions to either go on to set up/own a small business or not. the author has contributed the reader by many ways such as she provided a source which is very important for the new ideas to be formed. she has focused very well on how to concentrate on the target groups. dr radovic markovic has also helped the reader with explanation of creative problem solving techniques. the chapter five is dedicated to planning a new business and feasibility study. the author well defined the main advantages and disadvantages of starting a new business. she has outlined that by setting personal goals one can accomplish better organization of life and work. in other words, entrepreneur can obtain better life style. in chapter six business strategy and business plan creation, the author expresses that as well as the business strategy and business plan are of an importance at the same time the creation employees’ salaries may thus be connected to their work efficiency. but she questions that what happens when the problem of poor motivation appears or when productivity decreases? in that case, she believes that it is of great importance to find the causes as quickly as possible. according to author, they can be numerous and sometimes not easily identifiable. however, the author believes that employees’ needs are determined with recognition to their age, work experience, marital status and family size because different benefits appeal to different people since all the employees have different motivations. in the chapter seven starting a business, the author concludes that women start businesses in order to accomplish flexibility, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 106-113) 112 independence and to free themselves from corporative boundaries. but we have keep in mind that women of today face a lot of problems to engage in business which varies from one to another region .the author has made concrete statistic fort he women in business compared to male in business sector. i certainly agree that there are significant differences between women and men entrepreneurs, which she noted and well explained in this book. the chapter eight is dedicated to business opportunities for women in which the author has expressed her opinion that,”it is not really that much easy to work from home, although it seems so at the first sight. with increased costs of business premises and needs for flexibilities, many people have a vision of setting up business in their homes, which should provide plenty of time for rest, socializing, dealing with family and other personal activities. they expect that in this way, they will avoid long business meetings, boss’ critics if they are late for work etc. l also agree with the author with her statement, ”business owners think that they can keep everything under control and usually they relate to the business as overprotective parents. actually, they think that no one can do a job better then themselves. such a relationship may certainly be a limiting factor for further growth and business success” (page 112). in the chapter nine setting an office at home, the author mentions some rules which should be followed during the home office setup: i. work style ii. available space iii. necessary equipment for office furnishings iv. consider financing matters this indicates that the work style is important with available space and necessary equipment but the final phase seems to be the most important factor to shape all others . the chapter ten the future of home businesses: new market expansion possibilities for small home-businesses and chapter elevensetting up a business venture: key decisions are very interesting. i agree well with author that ,”doing activities at home has become very popular in the past few years and there appears to be more and more women who opt for this type of self-employment, a huge interest appeared among numerous companies for hiring employees who will do activities needed for the company’s business from their homes. the main desire to yildirim, k., book review, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 106-113) 113 achieve one’s personal goals should be backed by a thorough research into what the current market needs are. finally, it is necessary to estimate how much time one needs in order to run one’s own business and then to double that time.”(page 166). in the chapter twelve appearance and professionalism, i discovered how clothing seems to be important for the businesswomen. advice has been given to the businesswomen and selection must be in direct correlation with the type of job performed and the frequency of contacts with customers and business associates. in the chapter thirteen franchising, a well definition has been given by the author into the context that the franchising is defined as a type of business arrangement where the product (service) producer or distributor gives the exclusive rights to the local distributor to do the sales himself, according to the standardized business procedure. thus the person offering the goods or service to be franchised is referred to as the franchiser (products or services owner) the author also stressed that several types of franchising exists according to the author women’s interest in franchising is not proportional to the possibilities it provides. it is still considered that this is a man’s area of business. it could be concluded that professor radovic markovic systematically introduced readers to the basic laws of entrepreneurship by providing them theoretical knowledge on entrepreneurship which is supported with practical examples and experiences. it is very inspirational book. it will get you thinking. you may learn some things that help you be smarter about deciding which business to start, and how to get it off the ground, so that you have the best possible chance for success. because that ,i highly recommend this book to both men and women, students ,researcher and especially entrepreneurs who plan to start up and operate some business tailored to modern economy trends. at last i wish to thank to the author professor mirjana radovic markovic, ph.d for giving me the opportunity to review her book. kemal yildirim, ministry of education, istanbul, turkey 12_jwe_3-4 notes from the editor-in-chief jwe provides a refereed source of information in the field of female entrepreneurship and education and related topics. we publish original papers and conceptual and empirical articles including national and international studies of female enterprise creation, small business management, minority issues in entrepreneurship, learning styles and learning modalities and more. this issue of jwe is especially focused on case studies of female entrepreneurship and education around the world. however, in upcoming issues we will also strive for a greater number of articles that will include case studies because the case study methods in entrepreneurship expand the current knowledge-base by creating a space for dialog on the subject and bringing together diverse approaches. two types of cases are welcome. one is the case studies of policy implementation and the other is the firm level cases. the issue contains seven articles from studying the barriers of women's progress in the organization & its impact on organizational commitment and job satisfaction: a case study at tehran tax organization to female entrepreneurship and an emerging conceptual framework of based on the peruvian case. we invite potential authors to send us a high quality original research papers, case studies and book reviews from both academicians as well as practitioners. submitted manuscripts will be peer reviewed. double blind review system will take about two months and the journal reserves the right to make necessary editorial amendments in the final manuscript to suit journal’s format. there is no submission fee. finally, i am thankful to authors from united states, great britain, italy, spain, turkey, pakistan, india, bangladesh, iran, peru and serbia who expressed their interest for our peer journal and published their articles in jwe this year. thank you! editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković, fea, frsa, fwaas, femaas 15_jwe_1-2 udk: 005.922:09.013 005.591.1 jel: l26 cobiss.sr-id: 215909388 original research paper the impact of different types of regulations on entrepreneurial activity and owner composition dincer kaya halil1 northeastern state university, broken arrow, oklahoma, united states a b s t r a c t our objective in this study is to determine how different regulations affect the entrepreneurial activity in u.s. states. we also examine whether firm/owner characteristics are different in the states with more favorable regulations versus the other states. we use the “united states small business friendliness survey” done by kauffman foundation and thumptack.com in 2013. this survey asks small business owners their opinions on six different types of regulations including “employment, labor and hiring regulations”, “tax code and tax-related regulations”, “licensing forms, requirements and fees regulations”, “zoning regulations”, “health and safety regulations”, and “environmental regulations”. we ran several nonparametric tests to see if there has been more entrepreneurial activity in states with a high score in each regulation category compared to the states with a low score. our results show that “employment, labor and hiring regulations” has a significant impact on the entrepreneurial activity in a state. “tax code and tax-related regulations” is also marginally significant. these findings indicate that states and cities that want to improve their environment for small businesses should specifically focus on improving their “employment, labor and hiring regulations” and “tax code and tax-related regulations”. 1 northeastern state university, broken arrow, ok 74014, united states, e-mail: kaya@nsuok.edu 28dincer, k. h., the impact of different types of regulations, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) key words: entrepreneurship, small businesses, regulations, entrepreneurial activity, owner characteristics introduction in this study, we have two objectives: first, we aim to find the determinants of the entrepreneurial activity in u.s. states. by doing so, we aim to provide each state’s officials with guidance regarding how to improve the environment for small businesses in their state. our results will guide the states in terms of where to focus. our second objective is to see how each policy variable affects the composition of entrepreneurs in each state. we focus on small business owners’ perceptions on several regulations including “employment, labor and hiring regulations”, “tax code and taxrelated regulations”, “licensing forms, requirements and fees regulations”, “zoning regulations”, “health and safety regulations”, and “environmental regulations”. for this purpose, we use the “united states small business friendliness survey” done by kauffman foundation and thumptack.com in 2013. the survey asks small business owners their opinions on their state’s regulations. it also asks respondents questions on the type of business (i.e. the age of the firm, the number of employees, etc.) as well as on the owner characteristics (i.e. gender, race, previous entrepreneurial experience, etc.). first, we test for the impact of each type of regulation on the entrepreneurial activity in each state. since resources are limited, knowing which regulations matter is crucial. if we know that certain regulations matter and others do not, we can spend our time and money more efficiently. here, we are asking the following question: is there any significant difference between states that receive high marks from the small business owners operating in that state in, for example, “employment, labor and hiring regulations”, and states that receive low marks from the small business owners? which regulations matter? if “employment, labor and hiring regulations” have a significant impact on the entrepreneurial activity in a state, we will argue that states need to focus on improving these regulations. if, for example, “health and safety regulations” do not matter, our suggestion for the states will be to not focus on improving these type of regulations. after measuring the relation between each type of regulation and the entrepreneurial activity in a state, we do additional tests to see if certain journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) 29 regulations discourage certain types of businesses or business owners to operate in a state. for this second objective, we are asking the following question: do certain regulations deter prospective female small business owners? or do certain regulations deter black entrepreneurs to do business in a state? in other words, how does each type of regulation affect the composition of small business owners in a state? the paper proceeds as follows: section 2 discusses the previous literature. section 3 explains the data and the methodology used in this study. section 4 shows the empirical results. section 5 concludes. literature review several previous papers have examined the link between regulations and entrepreneurial activity, although in this study, we focus on the link between regulations and entrepreneurial activity at the state level in the u.s. acs et al., (2009) develop the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship. according to this theory, entrepreneurship contributes to economic growth by acting as a conduit through which knowledge created by incumbent firms spills over to agents who endogenously create new firms. their model considers factors such as risk aversion, legal restrictions, bureaucratic constraints, labor market rigidities, taxes, lack of social acceptance, etc. one of the main predictions of their model is that entrepreneurial activities decrease under greater regulation, administrative burden and market intervention by government. acs & szerb (2007) examine the relationships among entrepreneurship, economic growth, and public policy and variations of these relationships according to the stage of economic development in a country. they find that middle-income countries should focus on improving technology availability, increasing human capital, and promoting enterprise development. according to the authors, for developed economies, reducing entry regulations, in most cases, will not result in more high-potential startups. in these countries, to support growth of high-performance ventures, labor market reform and deregulation of financial markets may be needed. aidis et al., (2008) use a comparative perspective to explore the ways in which institutions and networks have influenced entrepreneurial development in russia. they use global entrepreneurship monitor (gem) data to study the effects of the weak institutional environment in russia on entrepreneurship, comparing it first with all available gem country samples 30dincer, k. h., the impact of different types of regulations, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) and second, in more detail, with brazil and poland. their results suggest that russia's institutional environment is important in explaining its relatively low levels of entrepreneurship development, where the latter is measured in terms of both number of start-ups and of existing business owners. in addition, russia's business environment and its consequences for the role of business networks contribute to the relative advantage of entrepreneurial insiders (those already in business) to entrepreneurial outsiders (newcomers) in terms of new business start-ups. aidis et al., (2007) compare from an institutional perspective two countries at different stages in the process of transformation (i.e. lithuania and ukraine). lithuania followed a rapid transitional path leading to european union membership, while ukraine is on a much slower development path. the authors argue that women entrepreneurs in lithuania and ukraine share many common features and problems; however, there are important differences in the experiences of women in these two countries. according to the authors, this indicates a need to recognize the diversity that exists among transition countries, reflecting different inheritances from the soviet past as well as differences in the pace of change during the transition period. they suggest that interaction among various economic, institutional, and transitional influences affects female entrepreneurship. they conclude that although formal institutions such as rules and regulations allow for the possibility of female business development, informal institutions such as gendered norms and values that reflect the patriarchy observed during the soviet era restrict women’s activities and their access to resources. bergmann & sternberg (2007) examine “the changing face of entrepreneurship in germany”. according to the authors, recently, germany developed a range of initiatives and programmes to support entrepreneurial activities. hopes in germany are that the numerous promotional programmes at national, bundesland (state) and municipal level will make a positive contribution to the development of the labour market. start-ups became a hot topic in politics partly out of conviction (ambitions to create an “entrepreneurial society”) and partly out of necessity (the realisation that large companies in the past have made job cuts, while start-ups really can only grow). there has been an absolute and relative increase in necessity entrepreneurship in germany as a response to changes in the prevailing economic conditions and new policy measures affecting the labour market. their results furthermore show that policies without any regional focus can have substantial regional implications. the individual start-up propensity in journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) 31 regions with rising unemployment is different from that in regions with stable or decreasing unemployment. recent policy changes aimed at startups from unemployment have the greatest impact in regions with rising unemployment. branstetter et al., (2014) examine the relation between entry regulations and entrepreneurship. they employ data from portugal, a country, according to the authors, which implemented one of the most dramatic and thorough policies of entry deregulation in the industrialized world. their results indicate that the reform resulted in increased firm formation and employment, but mostly among "marginal firms" that would have been most readily deterred by existing heavy entry regulations. these marginal firms were typically small, owned by relatively poorly-educated entrepreneurs, operating in the low-tech sector (agriculture, construction, and retail trade). the authors argue that these firms were also less likely to survive their first two years than comparable firms that entered prior to the reform. the authors conclude that the social impact of entry deregulation may be limited by the quality of the firms it creates. bitzenis & nito (2005) examine the obstacles to entrepreneurship in albania. they show that the most important obstacles faced by entrepreneurs in albania include unfair competition, changes in taxation procedures, lack of financial resources and problems related to public order. bureaucracy and corruption do not appear to represent significant barriers to entrepreneurship. bock (2004) examines dutch farmwomen’s entrepreneurial activities. she first examines how and why farmwomen started new economic activities on and off the farm. she shows that dutch farmwomen share a specific approach to rural entrepreneurship and paid labour, which is characterised by fitting in and multi-tasking. women add the new activities to their regular tasks and fit them into the already existing working scheme because they want to make sure that neither family nor farm is troubled by their initiatives. then she focuses on the development of new on farm activities over the course of time and follows five female rural entrepreneurs from 1995 to 2001. she demonstrates that women may change their approach and expand their business when they experience that work and care may be successfully combined and that their new business is rewarding financially as well as emotionally. according to bock (2004), understanding women's specific approach to entrepreneurship is important in order to more effectively support them. so far, rural development policies are of little help 32dincer, k. h., the impact of different types of regulations, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) to women as they usually promote a type of entrepreneur and an approach to entrepreneurship most common among men. dreher & gassebner (2013) investigate the question of whether corruption might ‘grease the wheels’ of an economy. they investigate whether and to what extent the impact of regulations on entrepreneurship is dependent on corruption. they first test whether regulations robustly deter firm entry into markets. their results show that the existence of a larger number of procedures required to start a business, as well as larger minimum capital requirements are detrimental to entrepreneurship. secondly, they test whether corruption reduces the negative impact of regulations on entrepreneurship in highly regulated economies. their empirical analysis, covering a maximum of 43 countries over the 2003– 2005 period, shows that corruption facilitates firm entry in highly regulated economies. for example, the ‘greasing’ effect of corruption kicks in at around 50 days required to start a new business. their results thus provide support for the ‘grease the wheels’ hypothesis. garcía-posada & mora-sanguinetti (2015) examine entrepreneurship and enforcement institutions in spain. they analyze the determinants of entry, focusing on the role of the design and efficacy of enforcement institutions (the judicial system), an aspect traditionally overlooked. they find that higher judicial efficacy increases the entry rate of firms, while it has no effect on the exit rate. that impact only occurs in the case of the entry rates for entrepreneurs, defined as self-employed, but not in the case of limited liability corporations. according to the authors, this finding may be due to the fact that judicial (in)efficacy can be regarded as a fixed cost to be paid by the agents that litigate. hence, the economic activity of entrepreneurs – and specifically, their entry into the market – is expected to be more affected than that of larger firms. gartner &. shane (1995) argue that the factors that drive changes in the rate of entrepreneurship are not likely to be manifest over short time periods. changes in values, attitudes, technology, government regulations, and world economic and social changes have a significant influence on changes in entrepreneurship over time. according to gartner & shane (1995), studies that have measured entrepreneurship over recent time periods are, therefore, likely to miss the influence of these variables. they introduce a measure of entrepreneurship (organizations per capita) based on a theory of entrepreneurship as ownership. this measure shows the stock of organizations in the u.s. economy over time (from 1857 to 1992). they journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) 33 examine the problems and the advantages of using a measure based on organizations per capita as an indicator of entrepreneurship. they conclude with some suggestions for improving entrepreneurship research by recognizing the limitations of particular longitudinal entrepreneurship measures and by challenging the field to seek convergent validity among measures. ghani et al., (2014) examine the spatial determinants of entrepreneurship in india. they find that local education levels and physical infrastructure quality play the most important roles in promoting entry. they also find evidence that strict labor regulations discourage entrepreneurship, and better household banking environments are associated with higher entry in the unorganized sector. according to the authors, policy makers wishing to encourage entrepreneurship in their local areas have several policy levers that can be exploited: investment in both people and places is an easy call for policy makers, while reducing unnecessary regulations and restrictions is also warranted. they conclude that their findings raise the importance of correct policy design for local areas. klapper et al., (2006) examine the relation between entry regulation and entrepreneurship. using a comprehensive database of european firms, they study the effect of market entry regulations on the creation of new limited-liability firms, the average size of entrants, and the growth of incumbent firms. they find that costly regulations hamper the creation of new firms, especially in industries that should naturally have high entry. these regulations also force new entrants to be larger and cause incumbent firms in naturally high-entry industries to grow more slowly. the authors argue that their results hold even when they correct for the availability of financing, the degree of protection of intellectual property, and labor regulations. kreft & sobel (2005) show that entrepreneurial activity causes an inflow of venture funding, and not vice versa. according to the authors, because entrepreneurial activity tends to be the underlying factor that automatically and naturally attracts more venture capital to an area, economic development policies should focus on creating an environment attractive to individual entrepreneurs, rather than on attracting venture capital. they also show that an area’s degree of economic freedom significantly impacts the underlying level of entrepreneurial activity. they conclude that an environment of low taxes, low regulations, and secure 34dincer, k. h., the impact of different types of regulations, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) private property rights is what is necessary to encourage the entrepreneurial activity that is vital to produce economic growth. lee (1991) shows that competition among entrepreneurs does not stimulate economic growth but promotes the freedom from economic regulation. the author also shows that competition among regulators for the administrative control of markets leads to faster economic growth and greater economic freedom. these favorable effects also attend deregulation and greater resistance to new regulations. lee (1991) finally shows that the preferential financial treatment of innovations does not necessarily encourage innovations; it ultimately results in more regulation. manolova et al., (2008) examine latvia, hungary, and bulgaria’s institutional environments for entrepreneurship. they find that despite the absence of any differences in aggregate institutional profiles, there were significant differences in the underlying dimensions comprising the institutional environment among the emerging economies studied. they find that latvia topped the list in the normative dimension, while hungary scored the highest on the regulatory dimension and the lowest on the cognitive dimension, and bulgaria scored the highest on the cognitive dimension and the lowest on the regulatory dimension. the authors contend that even though respondents perceived the overall institutional environment for the development of entrepreneurship as less than favorable in all three countries, the underlying reasons were different. while respondents in hungary and latvia were worried about the availability of requisite knowledge and skills to engage in entrepreneurship, in hungary they were also skeptical about societal attitudes toward entrepreneurship, whereas in bulgaria the respondents were dissatisfied with the laws, regulations, and government policies promoting entrepreneurship. they conclude that aggregate measures of institutional environment for entrepreneurship may mask subtle and persistent differences, especially in the role of deeply embedded and less readily observable influences such as legal and cultural traditions, or social norms and values. comparisons of the overall institutional framework across countries should, therefore, be used as a first approximation only and interpreted with great care. nawaser et al., (2011) use a survey given to researchers related to iran’s entrepreneurial environment. according to the survey participants, laws, the present regulations and motivational factors are the obstacles for achieving appropriate entrepreneurship development in the country. in addition, the survey participants believe that the motivational factors are journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) 35 more important than legal factors in the failure of entrepreneurship development in iran. the authors recommend state organizations and institutions to develop appropriate rules for maximum efficiency of the entrepreneurial activities. nyström (2008) investigates the relation between the institutional setting, in terms of economic freedom, and entrepreneurship, measured by self-employment in 23 oecd countries. she shows that a smaller government sector, better legal structure and security of property rights, as well as less regulation of credit, labor and business tend to increase entrepreneurial activity. ovaska & sobel (2005) focus on entrepreneurship in post-socialist economies. they show credit availability, contract enforcement, low government corruption, sound monetary policy, high foreign direct investment, and policies (such as low regulations and taxes) that are consistent with giving citizens a high degree of economic freedom are important factors for entrepreneurial activity. they show, however, that credit availability and government corruption tend to be more important factors affecting the creation rate of new smaller firms than for the creation rate of new larger firms. they also show that having policies that simply help the rate of new firm creation do not automatically also promote the high rates of technological innovation necessary for economic growth. of the two measures, patent and trademark activity is more highly correlated with economic growth in these countries than is new firm creation. to be successful, these countries not only need to institute policies consistent with fostering the creation of new businesses but also have in place policies conducive with fostering new high-tech innovation. according to the authors, one of the most important of these factors is the presence of economic freedom – low taxes, low regulations, and secure private property rights. parker (2007) shows how the law interacts with entrepreneurship in two principal ways. first, legal structures shape organizational forms in entrepreneurship. second, legal rules and institutions carry public policy implications for entrepreneurship in at least three areas: regulation; bankruptcy legislation; and the broad area of property rights, corruption, and the efficiency of courts. he reviews the literature on each of these issues. smallbone et al., (2010) contend that governments play a particularly important role for entrepreneurship development in a transition context, particularly with respect to their role in creating the institutional framework 36dincer, k. h., the impact of different types of regulations, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) that enables and/or constrains entrepreneurship. they explore how institutional change in ukraine, resulting in institutional deficiencies, triggered new opportunities for small firms in the emerging business services sector. sobel et al., (2007) argue that while entrepreneurs benefit from unrestricted free entry into markets, they have a time-inconsistent incentive to lobby for government entry restrictions once they become successful. bad political institutions yield to these demands, and growing barriers are placed on domestic and international competition. good institutions do not, and this effort is instead channeled toward further wealth creation. they find that productive entrepreneurship depends on both the freedom to succeed and discipline of failure that free markets provide. trade barriers result in fewer combinations of goods and inputs attempted, and less productive entrepreneurial resource use. they also provide evidence on the value of business failure. stephan & uhlaner (2010) do a cross-national study testing a framework relating cultural descriptive norms to entrepreneurship in a sample of 40 nations. they find that opportunity existence and the quality of formal institutions support entrepreneurship. stephen et al., (2009) examine the responsiveness of entrepreneurs to working time regulations. they find that higher enforcement formalism mitigates the negative impact exerted by rigid working time regulations on the number of entrepreneurs. they show that entrepreneurs are less sensitive to labor regulations the higher the level of enforcement formalism in which they operate. the authors argue that encouraging labor flexibility might not improve conditions for entrepreneurial activity in procedurally formalist countries. valdez & richardson (2013) examine the institutional determinants of macro‐level entrepreneurship. this multi-country study empirically explores the institutional determinants of macro-level entrepreneurship. their findings suggest that a society's normative, cultural-cognitive, and regulative institutions are related to entrepreneurial activity. normative and cultural-cognitive institutions' descriptive power in explaining entrepreneurial activity is higher than regulative institutions' or per capita gross domestic product. according to the authors, this suggests that differences in values, beliefs, and abilities may play a greater role than purely economic considerations of opportunity and transaction costs. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) 37 stel et al., (2007) examine the relationship, across 39 countries, between regulation and entrepreneurship. they find the minimum capital requirement required to start a business lowers entrepreneurship rates across countries, as do labour market regulations. however the administrative considerations of starting a business – such as the time, the cost, or the number of procedures required – are unrelated to the formation rate of either nascent or young businesses. welter (2004) examines the environment for female entrepreneurship in germany. in germany, most relevant support policies concentrate on extending and stabilizing the financial base of new female-owned ventures. relevant consultancy appears to play a less important role, although there has been a shift towards integrated packages in recent years. however, access to mainstream support is implicitly gender biased. the author argues that an integrated strategy for fostering female entrepreneurship also needs to consider that there are shortcomings in the institutional (political and societal) environment, possibly restricting women’s interest in entrepreneurship and thus determining the extent of female entrepreneurship. the author concludes that there is a need for business organizations such as chambers, business support gencies and associations, to adapt their approach towards women entrepreneurs, ensuring that they address their needs without an implicit gender bias. wennekers & thurik (1999) focus on the link between entrepreneurship and economic growth. they argue that both culture and the institutional framework are important conditions codetermining the amount of entrepreneurship in an economy and the way in which entrepreneurs operate in practice. according to the authors, technological, demographic and economic forces are also important. wilhelm (2002) examines the impact of corruption. according to the author, corruption is increasingly seen as a barrier to development and economic growth. he argues that sustainable economic development is very dependent on a constant, virtuous cycle that includes corruption fighting, and the maintenance of trust and innovation, all reinforcing each other. zahra & garvis (2000) examine the relation between international corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance by taking into account the moderating effect of international environmental hostility. they argue that u.s. companies’ opportunities abroad, are tempered by the constraints imposed by the competitive forces that exist in international environments. aggressive government intervention, technological changes, and fierce local 38dincer, k. h., the impact of different types of regulations, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) rivalries all contribute to hostile international environments for u.s. firms' global expansion. the authors show that there are upper limits to the potential gains a firm achieves from its aggressive pursuit of international corporate entrepreneurship when the international environment in which it competes is hostile. data and methodology in this study, i use the “united states small business friendliness survey” done by kauffman foundation and thumptack.com in 2013. the survey asks small business owners their opinions on their state’s regulations like “employment, labor and hiring regulations”, “tax code and tax-related regulations”, “licensing forms, requirements and fees regulations”, “zoning regulations”, “health and safety regulations”, and “environmental regulations”. it also asks respondents questions on the type of business (i.e. the age of the firm, the number of employees, etc.) as well as on the owner characteristics (i.e. gender, race, previous entrepreneurial experience, etc.). my main objective in this study is to see how a state’s different types of regulations affect the total entrepreneurial activity in that state. i also test to see if a state’s regulations affect the business and owner characteristics. for business characteristics, i look at firm size (i.e. single-employee small business or not) and firm age (i.e. established less than 1 year ago or not). for owner characteristics, i look at owner’s gender, owner’s race (i.e. whether the owner is black or not), and owner’s previous entrepreneurial experience (i.e. previous experience or not). in order to access the entrepreneurial activity index for each state, i use kauffman’s website (http://www.kauffman.org/multimedia/infographics/2013/kiea-interactive). all other variables including states’ scores on “employment, labor and hiring regulations”, “tax code and tax-related regulations”, “licensing forms, requirements and fees regulations”, “zoning regulations”, “health and safety regulations”, and “environmental regulations”, and firm and owner characteristics are available in the survey itself. all of the variables are explained below: entreactivity: the entrepreneurial activity index for each state (from kauffman’s website) healthandsafetyreg: each state’s score on health and safety regulations as computed by the survey journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) 39 employreg: each state’s score on employment, labor and hiring regulations as computed by the survey taxcode: each state’s score on tax code and tax-related regulations as computed by the survey licenreg: each state’s score on licensing forms, requirements and fees regulations as computed by the survey environreg: each state’s score on environmental regulations as computed by the survey zoningreg: each state’s score on zoning regulations as computed by the survey ageofbuslessthanone: the percentage of small businesses in a state that are less than 1 year old (computed from the individual responses in each state) employeesone: the percentage of small businesses in a state that are single-employee businesses (computed from the individual responses in each state) previousentre: the percentage of small business owners in a state that have previous entrepreneurial experience (computed from the individual responses in each state) female: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are female (computed from the individual responses in each state) black: the percentage of small business owners in a state that are black (computed from the individual responses in each state) each state’s scores on “employment, labor and hiring regulations”, “tax code and tax-related regulations”, “licensing forms, requirements and fees regulations”, “zoning regulations”, “health and safety regulations”, and “environmental regulations” are available in the survey. however, the survey uses letter grades like a+, a, a-, b+, and so on. i convert these letter grades into numbers: a+ becomes 12; a becomes 11, and so on. the lowest letter grade is f. after the conversion, f becomes 1. for each firm/owner characteristic variable (i.e. ageofbuslessthanone, employeesone, previousentre, female, and black), i compute the percentage values for each state. for example, in maryland, what percentage is female? if twenty percent of the small business owners is female, maryland’s female score is 20. therefore, each state in the survey (i.e. a total of 41 u.s. states) has a percentage value for each of these variables. in order to do the analyses, i ran nonparametric tests that compare states with highand low-scores in each category. to divide between high 40dincer, k. h., the impact of different types of regulations, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) and lowscore states in each category, i use the mean value. the states with scores higher than the mean are classified as high-score states, and the states with scores lower than the mean are classified as low-score states. first, i divide the 41 states in the survey into highand low employment regulations score, using the mean employment regulations score among the 41 states as the dividing point. then, i compare highand lowemployment regulations score groups’ entrepreneurial activity. are they significantly different? i also compare the two groups in terms of firm size (i.e. single-employee small business or not), firm age (i.e. established less than 1 year ago or not), owner’s gender, owner’s race (i.e. whether the owner is black or not), and owner’s previous entrepreneurial experience (i.e. previous experience or not). then, i do the same for the tax code score. do highand low-tax code score states differ in terms of entrepreneurial activity? do they differ in terms of firm and owner characteristics? then, i do the same analysis for licensing, zoning, health and safety, and environmental regulations scores. is there any significant difference between the highand lowscore states in terms of entrepreneurial activity, firm and owner characteristics? table 1 shows the summary statistics for our variables. all of the variables are in percentage per state. table 1: summary statistics (all variables in %) variable mean median stdev min max entreactivity 0.25 0.25 0.07 0.11 0.40 healthandsafetyreg 6.95 7.00 3.49 1.00 12.00 employreg 7.02 7.00 3.52 1.00 12.00 taxcode 6.95 7.00 3.51 1.00 12.00 licenreg 7.02 7.00 3.55 1.00 12.00 environreg 6.93 7.00 3.53 1.00 12.00 zoningreg 7.00 7.00 3.46 1.00 12.00 ageofbuslessthanone 6.16 6.02 2.84 0.00 11.90 employeesone 53.03 52.17 6.98 36.11 68.18 previousentre 43.84 43.33 6.78 29.49 57.14 female 37.00 36.96 5.96 21.05 52.94 black 7.36 4.84 7.72 0.00 34.71 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) 41 empirical results table 2 compares the entrepreneurial activity and firm and entrepreneur characteristics across highand lowscore states. panel a compares high and low-employment regulations score states, and panel b compares high and low-tax code score states. in both panels, the last column shows the results of the mann-whitney wilcoxon test. table 2: the impact of employment regulations and tax code panel a. employment regulations high low mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value entreactivity 0.2768 0.2975 0.2340 0.2180 0.0216 ageofbuslessthanone 5.86 5.56 6.45 6.08 0.2830 employeesone 49.78 50.68 56.12 55.00 0.0010 previousentre 46.45 45.49 41.36 41.38 0.0069 female 37.03 37.30 36.97 36.94 0.4174 black 9.26 6.20 5.56 4.24 0.1148 panel b. tax code high low mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value entreactivity 0.2638 0.2620 0.2422 0.2050 0.1143 ageofbuslessthanone 6.28 5.89 5.99 6.02 0.3457 employeesone 50.73 51.12 56.26 55.00 0.0021 previousentre 45.58 45.49 41.38 41.38 0.0189 female 37.99 38.14 35.61 35.90 0.0886 black 9.34 5.59 4.57 3.85 0.0475 as we can see from panel a, the employment regulations score has a statistically significant impact on the entrepreneurial activity in a state. the median entrepreneurial activity index is 0.2975% in high-score states versus 0.2180% in low-score states (the p-value of the difference is 0.0216). we are seeing that the employment regulations score also has a statistically significant impact on some firm and entrepreneur characteristics. when we look at the medians, we are seeing that in highscore states, a lower percentage of firms tend to be a single-employee firm (50.68% of the firms versus 55.00% of the firms; p-value=0.0010), a higher 42dincer, k. h., the impact of different types of regulations, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) percentage of entrepreneurs tend to have previous entrepreneurial experience (45.49% versus 41.38%; p-value=0.0069), and a marginally higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be black (6.20% versus 4.24%; pvalue=0.1148). therefore, we can conclude that the employment regulations score of a state significantly affects both the total entrepreneurial activity in a state and the composition of the small firms and the entrepreneurs operating in a state. panel b shows that the tax code score has a marginally significant impact on the entrepreneurial activity in a state. the median entrepreneurial activity index is 0.2620% in high-score states versus 0.2050% in low-score states (the p-value of the difference is 0.1143). we are seeing that the tax code score also has a statistically significant impact on some firm and entrepreneur characteristics. when we look at the medians, we are seeing that in high-score states, a lower percentage of firms tend to be a single-employee firm (51.12% of the firms versus 55.00% of the firms; p-value=0.0021), a higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to have previous entrepreneurial experience (45.49% versus 41.38%; pvalue=0.0189), a higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be female (38.14% versus 35.90%; p-value=0.0886), and a higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be black (5.59% versus 3.85%; p-value=0.0475). table 3 also compares the entrepreneurial activity and firm and entrepreneur characteristics across highand lowscore states. however, this table looks at licensing regulations in panel a, and at zoning regulations in panel a. table 3: the impact of licensing regulations panel a. licensing regulation high low mann-w. variable mean med. p-value med. p-value entreactivity 0.2592 0.2700 0.2507 0.2471 0.2964 ageofbuslessthanone 6.09 5.98 6.23 6.02 0.4792 employeesone 50.95 51.12 55.01 54.31 0.0184 previousentre 46.09 45.49 41.70 41.18 0.0112 female 37.97 37.80 36.09 36.94 0.1673 black 8.43 5.13 6.35 4.44 0.3191 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) 43 panel b. zoning regulations high low mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value entreactivity 0.2571 0.2436 0.2527 0.2584 0.3240 ageofbuslessthanone 5.49 5.56 6.81 6.67 0.0875 employeesone 51.91 51.69 54.09 53.65 0.1423 previousentre 44.97 45.20 42.76 41.46 0.1029 female 37.72 38.90 36.32 36.73 0.1367 black 8.04 4.92 6.72 4.44 0.4377 as we can see from panel a, the licensing regulations score does not have a statistically significant impact on the entrepreneurial activity in a state. the median entrepreneurial activity index is 0.2700% in high-score states versus 0.2471% in low-score states (the p-value of the difference is 0.2964). on the other hand, we are seeing that the licensing regulations score has a statistically significant impact on some firm and entrepreneur characteristics. when we look at the medians, we are seeing that in highscore states, a lower percentage of firms tend to be a single-employee firm (51.12% of the firms versus 54.31% of the firms; p-value=0.0184), and a higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to have previous entrepreneurial experience (45.49% versus 41.18%; p-value=0.0112). therefore, from panel a, we conclude that although the licensing regulations do not significantly affect the total entrepreneurial activity in a state, they have a significant impact on the percentage of single-employee firms and on the percentage of firms with experienced owners. panel b shows that the zoning regulations score does not have a statistically significant impact on the entrepreneurial activity in a state. the median entrepreneurial activity index is 0.2436% in high-score states versus 0.2584% in low-score states (the p-value of the difference is 0.3240). we are seeing that the zoning regulations score has a statistically significant impact on some firm and entrepreneur characteristics. when we look at the medians, we are seeing that in high-score states, a lower percentage of firms tend to be a newly-founded firm (5.56% of the firms versus 6.67% of the firms; p-value=0.0875), and a marginally higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to have previous entrepreneurial experience (45.20% versus 41.46%; p-value=0.1029). from panel b, we 44dincer, k. h., the impact of different types of regulations, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) conclude that although the zoning regulations do not significantly affect the total entrepreneurial activity in a state, they have a significant impact on the percentage of newly-founded firms and on the percentage of firms with experienced owners. in table 4, panel a looks at health and safety regulations, and panel b looks at environmental regulations. as we can see from panel a, the health and safety regulations score does not have a statistically significant impact on the entrepreneurial activity in a state. the median entrepreneurial activity index is 0.2452% in high-score states versus 0.2528% in low-score states (the p-value of the difference is 0.4015). table 4: the impact of health & safety and environmental regulations panel a. health & safety regulations high low mannw. variable mean med. p-value med. p-value entreactivity 0.2549 0.2452 0.2547 0.2528 0.4015 ageofbuslessthanone 6.16 6.08 6.16 5.97 0.3565 employeesone 51.20 51.61 55.37 54.27 0.0319 previousentre 44.78 45.24 42.65 41.80 0.1109 female 38.09 38.64 35.62 36.42 0.0901 black 9.21 5.92 5.01 3.94 0.0572 panel b. environmental regulations high low mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value entreactivity 0.2589 0.2584 0.2496 0.2326 0.2515 ageofbuslessthanone 6.19 5.66 6.13 6.14 0.4895 employeesone 51.09 50.94 55.50 54.94 0.0073 previousentre 44.83 44.90 42.58 42.57 0.1824 female 37.68 38.64 36.14 36.00 0.1036 black 9.43 5.26 4.72 4.34 0.1131 on the other hand, we are seeing that the health and safety regulations score has a statistically significant impact on some firm and entrepreneur characteristics. when we look at the medians, we are seeing that in highscore states, a lower percentage of firms tend to be a single-employee firm (51.61% of the firms versus 54.27% of the firms; p-value=0.0319), a journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) 45 marginally higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to have previous entrepreneurial experience (45.24% versus 41.80%; p-value=0.1109), a higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be female (38.64% versus 36.42%; p-value=0.0901), and a higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be black (5.92% versus 3.94%; p-value=0.0572), therefore, from panel a, we can conclude that although the health and safety regulations do not significantly affect the total entrepreneurial activity in a state, they have a significant impact on several firm and owner characteristics. panel b shows that the environmental regulations score does not have a statistically significant impact on the entrepreneurial activity in a state. the median entrepreneurial activity index is 0.2584% in high-score states versus 0.2326% in low-score states (the p-value of the difference is 0.2515). we are seeing that the environmental regulations score has a statistically significant impact on some firm and entrepreneur characteristics. when we look at the medians, we are seeing that in highscore states, a lower percentage of firms tend to be a single-employee firm (50.94% of the firms versus 54.94% of the firms; p-value=0.0073), a marginally higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be female (38.64% versus 36.00%; p-value=0.1036), and a marginally higher percentage of entrepreneurs tend to be black (5.26% versus 4.34%; p-value=0.1131), from panel b, we conclude that although the environmental regulations do not significantly affect the total entrepreneurial activity in a state, they have a significant impact on several firm and owner characteristics. conclusion our objective in this study is to determine how different regulations affect the entrepreneurial activity in u.s. states. we use the “united states small business friendliness survey” done by kauffman foundation and thumptack.com in 2013. this survey asks small business owners their opinions on six different types of regulations including “employment, labor and hiring regulations”, “tax code and tax-related regulations”, “licensing forms, requirements and fees regulations”, “zoning regulations”, “health and safety regulations”, and “environmental regulations”. we ran several nonparametric tests to see if there has been more entrepreneurial activity in states with a high score in each of these categories compared to the states with a low score. 46dincer, k. h., the impact of different types of regulations, jwe (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) our results show that “employment, labor and hiring regulations” has a significant impact on the entrepreneurial activity in a state. when “employment, labor and hiring regulations” are seen as more favorable in a state, there is significantly more entrepreneurial activity in that state. we find that “tax code and tax-related regulations” is also marginally significant, meaning that if a state’s tax code and tax-related regulations are seen as more favorable in a state, there is significantly more entrepreneurial activity in that state. on the other hand, we find that the results for the other four categories of regulations (i.e. “licensing forms, requirements and fees regulations”, “zoning regulations”, “health and safety regulations”, and “environmental regulations”) are insignificant. in other words, they do not significantly impact the 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"international corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance: the moderating effect of international environmental hostility." journal of business venturing, 15(5): 469-492. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2015, no. 1-2, 27-49) 49 uticaj različitih vrsta pravilnika na preduzetničku aktivnost i vrstu preduzetnika a p s t r a k t naš cilj u ovoj studiji je da se utvrdi kako različiti propisi utiču na preduzetničke aktivnosti u sjedinjenim američkim državama. takođe, cilj je bio da ispitamo da li se povoljniji propisi u nekim zemljama odražavaju na preduzetnike u poredjenju sa drugim državama. u našem radu smo koristili istraživanje koje je radila kauffman fondacija i thumptack.com u 2013. na osnovu sprovedene ankete koja se zasnivala na mišljenju preduzetnika o šest različitih vrsta propisa, uključujući zapošljavanje, poreske propise, licenciranje, urbanističke propise, propise u oblasti zdravstvenog osiguranja i ekološke propise. korišćeno je nekoliko neparametrijskih testova kako bi se utvrdilo da li je došlo do više preduzetničkih aktivnosti u zemljama s visokim rezultatom u svakoj kategoriji regulacije u uporedjenju sa zemljama s niskom ocenom. dobijeni rezultati pokazuju da su propisi u sferi zapošljavanja imali značajan uticaj na preduzetničke aktivnosti u državi. takođe su poreski propisi imali značaj. ovi rezultati ukazuju na to da države i gradovi koji žele da unaprede svoje poslovno okruženje za male preduzetnike posebno treba da se usredsrede na poboljšanje propisa iz domena rada, zapošljavanja i poreza. ključne reči: preduzetništvo, mala preduzeća, propisi, preduzetnička aktivnost, karakteristike vlasnika article history: received: 2 april, 2015 accepted: 25 may, 2015 microsoft word 10_jwe_1-2.doc udc: 338.31 jel: d21, l20, b54, l26 scientific review proposal to increase productivity of work* puchá nikoleta**, malega peter, technical university of košice, faculty of mechanical engineering, department of management and economy, košice, slovak republic a b s t r a c t a team work is a way of the organization work based on common connection, mutual co-operation and a responsibility of the team members’ work. as benefits of the team work are considered e.g.: bigger amount of improvement optimalization processes and decreasing cost, more effective solving problems, bigger motivation and personal growth. in the article it is reviewed the team works according to buy and sell term. we define conflicts and suggest their elimination between members of team with use of mediator. it wills positive influence on efficiency of the company. kew words: knowledge companies, teamwork, cooperation, conflicts, mediation introduction nowadays in the time of constant market changes, fast development and spread of technology, multiply competition, and successful companies became those who create new knowledge, spread it out trough the entire company and implement it rapidly in the new technologies and products. “these activities define company as knowledge – creating organization * the contribution is part of the solution vega1/0679/08 grant project "integrated system for innovative design, planning, organizing and managing production. ** address: němcovej 32, 042 00 košice, slovak republic, e-mail: nikoleta.pucha@tuke.sk, peter.malega@tuke.sk puchá, n., et al., proposal to increase productivity, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 101 which only and principal task is ongoing innovation. those are the companies that understood that the learning and new knowledge are the key to success, and that the development is crucial for future survival. the notion of education, development and knowledge creating company, or in other words an organization that develops and learns, in the most pragmatic way expresses the attitude of modern, successful companies versus the development and knowledge of employees. another name for this kind of organization is knowledge – based organization. the most successful companies and national economies are those based on knowledge, or in other words highly educated and trained human resources. high level of inventiveness and innovations, without which a modern market cannot be imagined, can be achieved only in following the path of permanent employee development, which also represents one of the main motivators in accomplishing efficiency and effectiveness of the companies” [1]. the commercial enterprises (productive and unproductive) from the point of their planning and culminating the goal, they spent a big energy for production, arrangement and sale of their product to their customers. knowledge companies also use benefits of teamwork. a team work is a way of the organization work based on common connection, mutual co-operation and a responsibility of the team members’ work. a team society is an organizing team in which is all activities (productive and unproductive) based on team works and their mutual cooperation to achieve the goal of the enterprise. in the team, generally, it is set up a big potential for coming innovation. the team work usually comes inside of the enterprise between individual departments or certain. organizing work on a team basis could be a solution to certain complex tasks that require the involvement of team members. the benefits of such teamwork include, for example, process optimization, cost reduction, streamlining of task performance, increasing motivation and personal growth. the other possibility is between the enterprise (the one who buys and the other who sells) and their customers (buyers). in the next part of this article we search the team work in a buy sell term with a point to a positive synergic effect that comes out of mentioned connection. the team work, as mentioned therein before, does not very fit with all its characteristic marks as the team work, but also as this kind of type we can use profits that come from mentioned contact. this effect helps with the set up of an innovation that in the present time means the main competition advantage for the seller. on a base, their being set up the seller can be competitive on a market as well from a long-time point of view. in a sense of a marked model from the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 102 point of clients view the benefits that we see are in a financial valuation for their idea. formation of a positive synergic effect together with the team work the meaning and term of the team work is described in many specialized publications from home and foreign authors. bieliková [2] says, that from a team is expected the effort of certain and must be filled by mutual and that way will show the synergic effect. the results achieved by team work are like that, they could not be achieved even if by one of the most skilful member and they can not be reached even if by mutual work of individual member’s team. evangelu – fridrich [3] pay attention that every person can be as a part of the team if they see a common goal, decided to an individual part of goal for persons. vokorokosová [4] underlines an electronic competitive rival that describes the team work in virtual times often as well many cultural teams. plamínek [5] writes that in case of formation of synergy (phenomenon permanent and considerable) from a group became the team. the synergy is not only the main sign of the function team, but most of the time also a reason and sense to make the team. bělohlávek [6] points, that people in the team are linked with various bonds that leads to fill up their faults before their priority and also that their ideas of ones stimulate thoughts of the others and that makes synergy. synergy is the value that the team work gives the most to work all of certain. krausová [7] underlines, that the team work at this period of time gets more of the sense and from various reasons is thought as the one of the most important factor of competition enterprise. its result should be not only the reduction of the time or financial funds, but also big improvement of quality. merkys [8] presented various types of enterprises with focus on the teamwork. high level of the teamwork is for example on fire departments; local department of education, insurance company, less level of the teamwork is for example in trade-production organization or banks. puchá, n., et al., proposal to increase productivity, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 103 kuzlinková [9] prepares the analyze and she defines that teamwork, as an important instrument of new forms of work organisation, is essentially a specific organisational measure that may display many different features both in the national context and in the context of individual enterprises. working in the team generally means a higher pace of work and working to tight deadlines both in the new and old eu member states. teamwork is thus clearly positive and contributes to the learning environment in the organisation. buying selling terms in economy and international criterion at present in a high competitive environment the suppliers try to adapt to needs of their clients [15,16]. a buyer seller term can become in economy and international criterion. on a true based legislation there can be used between the supplier and buyer, buyer and seller, or exporter and importer the follow contracts: e.g.: consumer’s contract. national commercial contact a buyer’s agreement is most regulated by commercial laws nr. 513/1991 rules in edition of latest novels with a latest novel nr. 19/2007 civil law nr. 40/1964 in version of novels. the buyer’s agreement appears the most on the base which leads to conclude the agreement between the trade subjects. a commercial law describes a buyer’s agreement § 409 and follow. the main part of the buyers agreement is to point both of contracts part (supplier, buyer) and that is exactly by their commercial name after the one in trade or commercial register. in contract is listed the identification number ičo and the buyer’s and supplier’s seat. the other part of contract is to define the subject of contract and the obligation for the supplier to deliver for the buyer the subject of contract and also with changing the owner of the goods to pay the contract price. pointing price is the main part of the contract if the both partners do not express in contract the determination to make the one without describing the price after the law. except the main parts in the contract there could be mentioned also others terms: pay terms, delivery terms, delivery period, and other duties. the buyer’s agreement has not been written but in practise there is a standard of its writing model. in a rule of a civil law is made by § 588and follow. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 104 a buyers agreement an international trade there are some differences for a buyer’s agreement in international business comparing the one in domestic. it is necessary to pay attention to international contracts that make slovak republic to be bound. we use the statement of our rules only if the international contract is for a slovak republic binding and was listed in a brochure of laws and doesn’t not contain different message. one of the basic contact documents of international character that are used to adjust for the contracts in a whole international business is agreement of osn that says about the contracts of international type of buying the consignment. slovak republic is binding by vienna agreement from 1.1.1993, when it was follow to rules and obligations of last čsfr. even the specific vienna agreement admits for the partners a possibility to avoid it. so, in this kind of contract is allowed to mention the point that the contract is not written after the vein agreement. according to above mentioned parts not all contracts are going to be considering after a vienna agreement. so, in case that both partners will avoid the vienna agreement it will be necessary to point within the ambit of international trade the critical law by which the contract will be valid. this critical law may to be used under the conditions of slovak republic to point mainly thought the law about international one private and process nr. 97/1963 in edition of latest novels. on a base of mentioned law it will point a clause about the choice for the right one under which a contract will be conduct. it must be the right law -valid and effective in a time of choice. in case of absence of the law the contract will be under the one that is used for the both reasonable contact partners. buyers agreement in this case, will be arrange by the low of the suppliers seat in time of making the contract. from the point of view of law security there are used written laws international commercial contracts without verification of both partner’s signatures. consumer contract the civil novel pointed a new term consumer’s contract. it is a type of civil law and commercial contracts, where the other partner is consumer. a consumer law is described as with precedence of relative norms to increase a protection the partner of contract which is a consumer. for these kind of contracts is used statements of commercial law or a civil law depends on what kind of consumer’s contract will be. puchá, n., et al., proposal to increase productivity, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 105 a proposal of a model buyer supplier term by using a positive synergie effect according to a team work a buy seller is generally based on trade contract that i do describe in an article. a possibility of growing up for team work and its positive benefits in searching terms shows the picture 1. picture 1: teamwork 1. a buyer has an interest about the seller’s product and is contacting him. on a base of mutual terms they sign (by had or by electronic signature) a commercial contract. we must think about beginning to create the innovation so that a team work is set up and in a commercial contract it will be mentioned a clausal about possibility of innovation. this clausal says, in case of proposal for innovation from the part of buyer and its confirmation from the part of seller the innovator will get certain financial valuation. 2. a buyer will send an innovation proposal to seller. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 106 3. continuously, the innovation is passing through the classic team work in a producer enterprise. the innovation is valuated from many viewpoints, e.g.: a law department will result an innovation from the law viewpoint, department of it will check an innovation from the view of program and technical instrument. a production department will announce the result after checking the productive process. a controlling department will calculate the price of product and a in final phase a marketing department will check a sale proposal innovation. 4. in case of positive calculation for the innovation it will be paid a financial reward described in contract. proposed model is very important in the point nr.1. because in case of clausal in contract about innovation, the buyer can start to think according to its further use. in case, that the innovation is suggested, he sells it to the seller, as it is described on picture, or he uses it in some other way. the buyers in 96% of case for unsatisfied conditions with product change the competition. the producers would manage to keep their own consumers with proposal model and at the same time they would manage to be on market from the competitive view. conflicts among men and women and their solution in the team knowledge company conflicts between the team members can contribute to faster team development. teamwork between men and women presented stenzel [10]. she analyzed two different incentive schemes, revenue sharing within the team and competition between the teams. she with her team varied the gender composition of the teams. her results are based on a real experiment and suggest that gender differences in performance depend on the composition of the teams. she found that female and male performance differ significantly in mixed teams with revenue sharing between the team members as well as in team competition when male teams compete against male teams and female teams compete against female teams. ibeh [11] define that „entrepreneurship is usually part of the informal sector in both developed and developing countries and the success rate of gender in this arm of business is dependent on a variety of factors. there are similarities in gender performance between different economies but also big differences in their cultural and socioeconomic environment“. puchá, n., et al., proposal to increase productivity, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 107 kuzlinkova [9] say that teamwork is more characteristic for male employees. gender differences to the disadvantage of women are particularly apparent in mediterranean countries. by contrast, in scandinavian countries and in the netherlands, a balanced proportion of men and women work in teams. according to most experts, teamwork should contribute to the higher quality of working life for employees, as well as improving productivity. employee autonomy is considered sa an important attribute of the work quality. we think that the comparing between men and women in teamwork are very hard. in our opinion in team must be all belbin roles and than team has possibilities for good teamwork. when the team members (women or men) stop manage these conflicts, then the team output will be disturbed. consequently it requires offering the new strategy, which doesn’t disturb the team productivity1. in this article it is proposed the strategy to survive, but also on the productivity increase in the team. conflicts between the team members have to lead to common research of optimal problem solution as well as the achievement of the positive synergic effect. utilization of the six sigma methods in the connection with the conflict creation six sigma methods are based on the six basis principles, which support by the start of the six sigma method implementation initiative in the manufacturing corporations or in the service establishment. the methodology title appears from the gauss normal distribution. it is researched the medium value and consequently it is evaluated the variability in the activities or in the processes round the medium value. the goal of this process is the increase of the quality, productivity and efficiency of the activities. the process can be considered in general as the six sigma process, when shows maximally 3.4 errors on million opportunities (defects per million opportunities dpmo). process, which 1 the labour productivity expresses the volume of produced values, which fall on the unit of consumed work for certain period (year, month, day, and hour) according to the fact in what period is this productivity detected. the labour productivity can be separated according to unit jobs. in the connection with team co-operation the worker productivity influence working conditions, organizational conditions and individual conditions. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 108 has normal distribution is six sigma then, if it will have 3.4 sections from million behind the point, which is away 4.5 sigma from diameter. six sigma drift is named spare 1.5 sigma, which expresses the fact, that every process (their diameter) is shifted with time at ± 1.5 sigma. this shift was first-time mentioned by harry mikel, which it defined following to longtime process research [12,14]. dpmo was at the beginning one of the major six sigma target. the measurement of the dpmo is defined as follows: total opportunities to to = total number of product units x opportunities 1.1 defects per opportunity dpo total number of defects dpo = -------------------------------- total opportunity 1.2 defects per million opportunities dpmo dpmo = dpo x 1,000,000 1.3 defects per million opportunities or dpmo can be then converted to sigma values using yield to sigma conversion table2 example we assumed that team company has 20 workers. we will test the influence of the output (productivity) in the connection with conflict creation (number of conflicts) in the selected company. consequently we will suggest the possibilities for productivity increasing3. we regulated the dpmo calculation following to defined research. 2 the results are approximated, we come out from the conversion table available on http://www.sixsigma.sk/tabdpmo.htm 3 we assume that the conflict creation directly affects the labour productivity of workers and the conflict between the two people in the team company can be maximally once in following period. maximum numbers of conflicts at setting parameters are 380 (20*19). puchá, n., et al., proposal to increase productivity, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 109 0000001* creation conflict on the iesopportunit ofnumber *effort man total period followingfor conflicts rising ofnumber dpmo= calculation calculations present us the following table. table 1: conflicts sigma level2 yield estimated achievable turnover 1 000 000 eur loss of earnings 1 4,3 99,74% 997 400 2 600 12 3,4 97,1% 971 000 29 000 24 3 93,3% 933 000 67 000 52 2,6 86,4% 864 000 136 000 90 2,2 75,8% 758 000 242 000 135 1,9 65,5% 655 000 345 000 180 1,6 54 % 540 000 460 000 216 1,3 42,1% 421 000 579 000 270 0,9 27,4% 274 000 726 000 the results were consequently tested in the connection with the assumed (possible) turnover 1 000 000 eur. table 1 present us the reached income at estimated level of sigma as well as the volume of eur, which fall on loss. at level e.g. sigma 3 loss introduces 67 000 eur and e.g. at level sigma 1,3 loss introduces 579 000 eur. proposal for the productivity increasing we expect, that the company could have the higher sigma level, when in their organizational structure will be the position "mediator"4. what is mediation? 4 mediation comes out from law about the mediation no. 420/2004 in the statutory text of latest amending acts. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 110 mediation is an activity in which a neutral third side, the mediator, guides and regulates structured discussion to facilitate reaching consensus on a disputed issue. the aspects of mediation commonly are [13]: – difference of positions between the respective parties; – desire on the part of the parties to find a positive solution to the dispute and to accept a discussion about respective interests and objectives; – intention of achieving a positive result through the help of an independent, neutral third-party not connected with any of the involved parties; – intention of achieving a stable result, preferably a long-lasting agreement between the parties. the mediated agreement is described as the consensus of the parties on a proposal that has been developed with the help of the mediator. the mediator may or may not set out a formal agreement for the parties to accept; some mediators prefer to help guide the parties towards developing their own agreement. agreement to mediate does not obligate the parties to accept any proposed agreements. mediation aims at working with the users in conflict to incorporate the information or viewpoints of both, while ensuring that the result conforms to all applicable policies. at the same time, it endeavours to produce sufficient peace between the parties to allow amicable discussion and prevent the need for future dispute resolution. who are mediators? each mediator is granted the freedom to develop his or her own method, and to apply it to the specific case at hand. the role of the mediator is unlike the role of an arbitrator; mediators are facilitators of voluntary discussion, while arbitrators hear evidence and issue binding rulings, including the ability to issue sanctions against users. mediators are permitted and encouraged to use their own best judgement to recommend a solution to the disputants, one that is in the best interests of the project [13]. the mediation process in the company can be designed as follows: 1. each worker, which has conflict, gets the continual time on explanation its sight of the matter in controversy. but the target is not to seek the reasons of the controversy, but the generation of the sure situation, in which each party person can show their puchá, n., et al., proposal to increase productivity, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 111 understanding and living of the controversy. in conclusion of this section the mediator with the indifferent style reformulate the hearing considerations in the way that enables to form the conditions for research the solution. 2. in the next section both sides try to find through communications understanding the position and posture of adverse and look for relative acceptable solution. mediator helps the participator of mediation meeting openly discuss about the problem and identify the suitable solution, which is acceptable for both sides. 3. solution has to be specified in the connection with the goal of team company. and after that step is the mediation process completed. costs quantification on proposed strategy explanatory report to law about mediation defines, that mediator provides their services in the mediation area for repayment, which is differentiated in dependence from his legal, or contract relation. slovak chamber of mediators suggest at common pleases charge the price 16, 60 eur per hour. when we predict, that mediator will be use an hour per day, costs for his activity during the year (270 working days) introduce sum 270*16,60 eur= 4482 eur. when we compare costs on mediator with assumed utility, following to table 1 we can see, that when we have 12 conflicts, than we have loss 29 000 eur and the price for mediator services is 4482 eur. the company would with proposed strategy with exploitation the mediator services at existing level 3, 4 reach 24 518 eur. conclusion within the team work it would be solved some operations of complex character, on which many experts from various fields are interested in, operations of creative characters, where the buyers can offer a creative propose which leads to next results. it is creating a space to talk about and look for an optimal way to goal. it is necessary a high realizing and work motivation of the people, so all of them will be the part for making a plan and to accept in intensions of innovator proposal. in the article a reviewed team works according to buy and sell term would bring innovations that would come from acceptable lisbon strategy. lisbon journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 112 strategy points as the goal to make from eú till 2010 the most dynamic and competitive knowledge oriented economy. the mediation is without question the strong motivational factor on the resolution of controversy, which rise within the company. the important aspect at the mediation process is also the change of style of the solution of conflicting situations, improvement of human relations and aware of the fact, that also by the different sights and postures is possible to reach feasible effect with acceptable as so as that it hasn’t got negative effect on the labour productivity of the team. in this article we tried to quantify the side of conflict, even though we know, that human factor is can’t be evaluated exactly. the results could serve as the possible recipe on the raising productivity in the team company if it is straight influenced with conflicts between the team members. references [1] kolakovič, k, marinkovič, v., stefanovič, s.: employee development and knowledge-based organization, economic analysis, 3-4/2009, institute of economic science, serbia, issn 1821-2573, download http://www.ien.bg.ac.rs/journal_jwe.html [2] bieliková, m.: how to implement a project successfully. published by vydavateľstvo stu, bratislava. [3] evangelu, j. – fridrich, o.: 111 games for motivating and developing a team. published by grada 2009. [4] vokorokosová, r.: the minimum wage and competitiveness. published by vydavateľstvo elfa, košice. [5] plamínek, j.: cooperation and evaluation of people. published by grada 2009. [6] bělohlávek, f.: how to lead your team. published by grada 2008. [7] krauszová, a.: factors determining the efficiency of teamwork in: trendy v systémoch riadenia podnikov [trends in corporate management systems]. 10th international science conference, košice, tu sjf 2007. [8] merkys, g.: teamwork disfunkciton at large scale enterprices, download http://internet.ktu.lt/lt/mokslas/zurnalai/inzeko/46/1392-2758-2006-1-46-51.pdf [9] kyzlinková, r.: time work and high performance work organization, download http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/reports/tn0507tr01/tn0507tr01_11. htm [10] stenzel, r.: gender different in team work and team competition, download http://www.wzb.eu/mp/vam/publications/papers/genderdifferences.pdf [11] ibeh, e.: factors affecting performance of women entrepreneurs, journal of womenś entrepreneurship and education, 1-2/2009, serbia, issn: 1821-1283 puchá, n., et al., proposal to increase productivity, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 100-113) 113 [12] kačmár,j: six sigma and their influence productivity of company, download on http://www.iam.fmph.uniba.sk/studium/efm/diplomovky/2007/kacmar/diplomov ka.pdf [13] wikipedia, mediation, download http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wikipedia:mediation [14] grzybowski, a.: real size of risk base on jamesa – steinab in econometricom modeling in: modelowanie preferencji a ryziko´06, t.trzaskalik (red.), wydawnictvo ae v katowiciach, katowice 2006 [15] slusarczik,b., henzel,t.: handel electroniczny szansa rozwoju przedsiebiorstw sektora msp. pragmatyzm strategii marketingowych w zarzadzaniu msp, czestochowa, 2009. isbn 978-83-61118-72-5. p. 85 – 96. [16] szkutnik j., benchmarking in the development of enterprises, energy and enviroment in knowledge based economy, edited by tomasz nitkiewicz & ralph lescroart, haute ecole “blaise pascal”, arlon 2008,, library number: depot legal: d/2008/9727/6, edited in belgium, pp.37-42 received: 7 january 2010 article history: accepted: 21 march 2010 18_jwee_1-2 doi: 10.28934/jwee18.12.pp17-30 scientific review employment women through entrepreneurship development and education in developing countries priscilla achakpa1 water supply and sanitation collaborative council, abuja, nigeria mirjana radović-marković2 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t women entrepreneurship is today one of the major factors contributing to a country’s prosperity and to the global market in general. however, females still own and manage significantly fewer businesses than men. especially, women in developing countries face disadvantages and discrimination. compared to their male counterparts, women in developing countries have a lower level of education and skill training. another important challenge for female entrepreneurs in developing countries is the issue of safety and protection of women, especially those operating in the informal economy. the most female entrepreneurs in developing economies are motivated to start their businesses out of necessity, reflecting lack of employment alternatives or dissatisfaction with existing employment. the overall nature and extent to which female entrepreneurship can develop in developing economies is greatly influenced by project to strengthening them. in line with this, the aim of our research was to explore the impact of one of these programmes gwin project and its effect to empowering women in nigeria. based on the findings, it was concluded that gwin project plays a significant role in the economic development of women in nigeria through the benefits of various supports to them. 1 executive director of women environmental programme, nigeria, e-mail: pmachakpa@gmail.com 2 prichilla`s ph. d mentor, e-mail: mirjana.radovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 18 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) key words: female entrepreneurship, empowerment, education support project, nigeria introduction women’s well-being is determined by self-esteem and harmony in relationships. radović-marković, nelson-porter and omolaja (2009) defined entrepreneurship as the formation of entrepreneurial affiliations, which planned to guarantee the improvement of crucial economic, social, and different changes in rural areas through people making innovations and governmental systems frameworks concocting a provincial improvement strategy in light of putting resources into rural entrepreneurship. major challenges facing the nigerian women include: cultural boundaries as in many other countries, nigerian has conservative traditional values and customs in doing business activities. cultural beliefs remain an obstacle in hindering women from being entrepreneurs in nigeria.it has been misconcepted that entrepreneurship is a business for men, whereas women should stay home and be housewives. nigeria is also a patriarchal society as it is mentioned, “the asymmetry and ascendency of makes over female in the labor market are clearly seen in patriarchal communities, whereas in nigeria there is a large power distance and high masculinity. this cultures form a barrier for nigerian women entrepreneurs and are growing under unjust cultures and male dominated society. lack of access to finance another major limitation to women entrepreneurs is that they experience lack of access to finance. studies by vossenberg (2013) for instance, reveal that african women do not possess the necessary skills to adapt to the impact of globalization, evolving technologies and changing patterns of trade. vocational training has become an important source for forming entrepreneurial ability in women and often age, experience and background can compensate for lack of formal education in the success of the venture. in their research garciacabrera & garcia-soto (2008) also found that women in developing countries rely more than their counterparts in developed countries on extended families which, in many rural settings are often their only or major social network. this is often constraining since their decisions and incomes many times become dependent on different people, which also limit their ability to take risk, diversify and/or innovate. the benefits of entrepreneurial learning are multifaceted. entrepreneurship education can, from a young achakpa, p., et al., employment women through, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) 19 age, awaken entrepreneurial spirit and can foster a positive attitude towards independence, risk-taking and learning from failure for females engaged in entrepreneurial activities resulting in a boost for other females who intend to participate in same. the growing number of initiatives aimed at promoting entrepreneurship and empowering women in developing countries reflects a generally growing interest in the role played by entrepreneurship in the economic development process. the aim of this study was to examine the methodological impact of g– win project for strengthening women economic empowerment in nigeria. many researchers have tried to capture this based on their individual studies, but they were limited to their own kind of study for example study have been done both internationally (india and kenya) and locally (ondo and nasarawa). further opportunities can surface by studying impact of gwin project for strengthening women economic empowerment in africa with focus on nigeria. theoretical overview many reviews have been led on women business visionaries with reference to different nations. so, nachimuthu and gunatharan (2012) analyzed the enterprise of women they thought to be a successful instrument to the financial advancement and strengthening of women. the self improvement gatherings is thought to be institutional advancement that cultivates strengthening of financially and socially denied women. the review by nachimuthu and gunatharan (2012) talks about the contrasts between women in different types of endeavors and the self improvement gatherings, and endeavors to distinguish the quality of these two types of venturesome in engaging women. in another review, huntley (1985) utilized a contextual investigation way to deal with investigate the life occasions and encounters that had impacted women to pick business enterprise as a vocation elective. most wandered into enterprise due to a craving to be free and to be in control of their lives. rahman and naoroze (2007) led a review on women strengthening through support in aquaculture in bangladesh. the creators utilizing various regression investigations watched that of the five chose measures of strengthening; access to resources and assets alone was in charge of 59.8% of the variety in general strengthening. the aftereffect of the review 20 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) utilizing different relapse investigation uncovered that lone four autonomous factors were noteworthy indicators of women’s strengthening. these were investment in aquaculture (represented 14.9%), instruction (represented 9%), expansion media contact (represented 4%) and preparing (represented 2.5%) of varieties in strengthening. a huge relationship was found between women’s training and their strengthening which suggests that instruction upgrades women’s strengthening both in the family and the general public. upadhye and madan (2012) analyzed business enterprise and women’s empowerment: confirmation from pune city. as per the authors, women from the lower strata of the general public however taught, cannot discover work in urban india. it is enterprise that clears the way of advancement of these women specifically and society all in all. the review considers women from such lower strata of society transforming into business people in city of pune, maharaastra india. the review depicts a photo of change in the identity, monetary and economic wellbeing of women from the lower strata of the public. the authors make an endeavor to profile the same with the advancement of a record. the review reasons that there is a stamped change in the identity, the financial and the societal position of these ladies. the outcomes are observed to be factually noteworthy. in any case, the reality remains that abilities, profit, respect, work proficiency and even the raised monetary status of women business people require not really change the approach of society towards women. the male predominance in the public arena is hesitant to change their state of mind towards women. sathiabama (2010) in his review expressed that strengthening of women has risen as a vital issue as of late. the monetary strengthening of women is being viewed nowadays as a sine-quo-non of advance for a nation; henceforth, the issue of financial strengthening of women is of fundamental significance to political masterminds, social researchers and reformers. the self-improvement gatherings (shgs) have made ready for monetary autonomy of provincial women. the individuals from shgs are included in small scale – business enterprises. through that, they are turning out to be financially autonomous and giving work chances to others. the writer in his article manages strengthening of country women through business enterprise and the points of interest business among the rustic women. strengthening of women must be accomplished if their monetary and societal position is made strides. the review expressed this could be achakpa, p., et al., employment women through, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) 21 conceivable just by receiving unequivocal social and monetary arrangements with a perspective of aggregate advancement of women and to make them understand that they can possibly be solid individuals. be that as it may, so as to make a reasonable world, we should start to enable women. likewise, proposed that need ought to be given to the training of women, which is the grassroots issue and mindfulness programs should be composed for women. at long last, the review infers that entrance to instruction; business and change in social structure are just the empowering elements to women strengthening in the review range. ovute, dibia and obasi (2015) in their endeavor to re-accentuate and re-stir the brain of mankind on the undisputable part of women in national improvement portrayed women strengthening as the arrangement of sufficient chances to women to build up their possibilities and add to the advancement of the country specifically and the world when all is said in done. as indicated by the researchers women have been sabotaged since creation. endeavors made so far towards women strengthening has yielded little organic products. the creators in this way analyzed difficulties obstructing nigerian women’s successful commitment to national advancement, parts of women in national improvement, endeavors made so far towards women strengthening and how nigerian women could be enabled to add to national advancement. the paper at last recommended that since the part of ladies in national improvement is vital in the advancement of any nation, the nigerian government owes it as an obligation to evacuate those counterfeit and institutional hindrances in view of religion, culture, or conventional contemplations which have cripple nigeria women in taking an interest adequately and uninhibitedly in national undertakings especially, at the political and financial levels so they will contribute their standard to national advancement among others. ejumudo (2013) made an evaluation of the level of achievement of sexual orientation equality and women strengthening utilizing three basic pointers to be specific: enrolment in training at the essential, auxiliary and tertiary levels, business and political basic leadership, used important optional wellsprings of information. the writer contended that, at the heart of the risky of sex dissimilarity in nigeria, is the activity situation by the nigerian government which has intensified the issue of extending the limit level that is required to upgrade the chance of pleasing the fluctuating needs of both male and female sexual orientation additionally fights that the fulfillment of sex correspondence in nigeria which is now time-banished, 22 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) will be a hallucination due to multi-dimensional compelling variables. the author pivoted the completion of sexual orientation uniformity and women strengthening on tile allure and certainty of a down to business approach, presumed that building up a sex well-disposed and sex touchy society that is without all remnants of segregation and disparity in order to outfit the true abilities of every single social gathering and advance the standards of major human rights is the pushed of the thousand years improvement objective of sex equity and women strengthening. accomplishing the above objective is not just fundamental for supportable advancement endeavors in nigeria: it likewise requests a down to business way to deal with fitting approach definition, program configuration, centered usage and compelling checking and assessment in an agreeable atmosphere of political will, bona fide duty and national re-introduction. ibrahim (2013) analyzed women strengthening in the north-eastern part of nigeria making utilization of two direct pointers in light of optional information acquired from the 2008 nigerian statistic wellbeing study. the specialist concentrated on the north-east geopolitical zone comprising of six states viz; adamawa (1018), bauchi (1008), borno (990), gombe (1005), taraba (1217) and yobe (979). a sum of 6217 women were met in this zone. likewise, he uncovered that far under half of women in the north-east geopolitical zone of nigeria can settle on choices on a few issues of significance in the family units. he proceeded with that local settings of women (urban/rural) influence the level of acknowledgment of spouse beating, such less rate of women living in urban district of the north-east nigeria concur with the idea of wife beating for some other reason, while more noteworthy rate of physical assault was found in the country women. the examination gave a conclusion that women’s level of instruction apparently was in a roundabout way relative to the avocation of spouse beating for the expressed reasons. that is, women with no instruction concur with the idea more than the ladies having advanced education. ibrahim, zumilah and laily (2013) directed a review on enabling provincial young women through instruction: method for decreasing powerlessness and enhancing family financial prosperity in rural northern nigeria with an emphasis on katsina state. as indicated by the researcher, there is recorded confirmation that larger part of rural young ladies in northern nigeria does not finish elementary school talk less of auxiliary schools and tertiary foundations. these demonstrate that the rural young ladies are falling behind instructively. the issue is the need to teach the achakpa, p., et al., employment women through, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) 23 young girl child and young women in the provincial territories of the nation on the grounds that rural women are the biggest and helpless gathering. there are four key components distinguished for enabling rustic young ladies and young ladies; subjective, asset control, social capital, and mindfulness or access to data. these essential components have been analyzed on the prosperity of ladies among the groups of the enabled country young women through quantitative review utilizing organized survey. examination of these surveys indicates solid positive relationship between the training strengthening and their monetary prosperity level and huge contrast (p<.005) in their lives. the review adds light to comprehension effects of teaching young ladies and ladies for family and group success and dismissing these can prompt to the backwardness. it is additionally some portion of developing assortment of writing from provincial sub-sahara africa on sex issue. it adds to the future review on comparable subjects. adekanye (2014) inspected data needs, usage and financial strengthening of material market ladies in southern nigeria. an overview examine plan and purposive testing system were embraced for the review. two geo-political zones in nigeria were chosen. discoveries of the review demonstrated that there was a relative impact of data needs, looking for, sources, and use on the financial strengthening of the material market women. it was likewise found that data looking for has the most astounding critical impact on the financial strengthening of the material market women. alongside this was data sources and distinguishing proof of data needs. however, data utilize had no noteworthy impact. the outcome showed that the nigerian material market women were inventive, alterable and imaginative in their entrepreneurial exercises when they are enabled with data, which constantly would bring self-maintainability and societal advancement. in view of the discoveries, it was presumed that the data conduct of nigerian material market women as far as requirements, looking for, and sources have huge impact on their financial strengthening. kelly (2013) inspected sexual orientation equity and women strengthening in nigeria. he made an appraisal of the level of fulfillment of women strengthening and sex equality utilizing three basic markers to be specific: enrolment in instruction at the essential, optional and tertiary levels, business and political basic leadership, used profitable auxiliary wellsprings of information. the main marker uncovered that mdgs report appears there is change in regard of achieving widespread fundamental 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) training and the essential six consummation rate expanded altogether from 65 percent in 1998 to 83 percent in 2001; it declined in 2002 and expanded again to 94 percent in 2003 and 95percent in the vicinity of 2004 and 2005. in any case, enrolment at the elementary school level has reliably been higher for young men who have 56 percent contrasted and the 44 percent for young ladies. second marker likewise uncovered accomplishment of mdgs in regard of sexual orientation uniformity and women’s strengthening is business. women association in the mechanical part is evaluated at 11% contrasted and the 30% for men. additionally, in the government common administration, which is the biggest single-element business in nigeria, 76% of government employees are men and 24% are women. in the interim, women constitute fewer than 14% of the aggregate administration level positions, while 17.5% of those occupied with the therapeutic field are women contrasted and the 82.5% men. what is more, the last marker uncovered the achievement of sex equality in accordance with the thousand years advancement statement is association in political basic leadership. as indicated by him, the proportion of ladies association in basic leadership is 38.2% contrasted with men 61.8%. in his discoveries, he found the imperatives in completing sexual orientation correspondence and women strengthening in nigeria; patriarchal culture, defilement, mal-administration and false open speculation, insufficient limit, political will and honest to goodness duty. likewise found routes in which sexual orientation uniformity and women strengthening in nigeria can be completed; friendly atmosphere, investment and organization by legislative and nonadministrative partners, socio-social re-introduction, political will and honest to goodness duty and satisfactory human, institutional and infrastructural limit. he presumed that administration at all levels in agreeable association with different partners in nigeria needs to venture up endeavors so that calculable advance could be accomplished in a formative approach. osirike and egbayebo (2012) inspected the participatory part of women in group advancement in the country territories in ilaje, ondo state. the scientist clarified that ilaje nearby government region of ondo state was the objective populace for the review. it included the choice of groups from each of the four kingdoms that constituted the nearby government region. in light of this approach, 3 groups each was browsed both ugbo and mahin kingdoms; while 2 groups each were looked over both etikan and ahasi kingdoms individually. 15 women each were spoken to the 6 groups chose from both ugbo and mahin kingdoms, though 10 respondents each were achakpa, p., et al., employment women through, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) 25 spoken to the 4 groups chose from both etikan and aheri kingdoms separately. in light of arbitrary inspecting, 130 ladies chose from ten (10) groups in ilaje neighborhood government zone of ondo state, nigeria. the researcher credited the low support of women in group advancement endeavors to poor level of instruction and absence of part displaying among the women. his discoveries uncovered that there is a huge relationship between the instructive status of rural women and their interest in group advancement and to guarantee viable investment in group improvement, the study suggested that women in the provincial zones ought to be given the fundamental training with a specific end goal to upgrade their adequacy in group advancement ventures. they ought to likewise be given the correct consolation, good and material backings on the grounds that without these backings, any projects being set out upon would yield insignificant effect. vimal and gagandeep (2016) analyzed sex balance and women strengthening in india. in their investigation, they expressed that sexual orientation fairness and women’s strengthening is human rights that lie at the heart of improvement and the accomplishment of the thousand years advancement objectives. research by garcia-cabrera and garcia-soto (2008) has shown that when it comes to generating innovative business ideas, the environment in poor countries is such that women, in particular, face very high opportunity costs for turning attention away from pressing matters to seek or perceive new business opportunities. the same research reveals that for households at subsistence level may be unacceptable to assume the high risk of exploiting opportunities subject to uncertainty as the potential losses may outweigh the potential gains. employment of women in the informal sector has risen rapidly in the developing world. in her research radovic-markovic (2009) found that the estimated size of this sector of the economy goes up to 50% in developing countries, making up 48% of the non-agricultural employment in northafrica, 51% in latin america, 65% in asia and 72% in sub-saharan africa. this growth however, has taken place in the context of an unemployed and underemployed population with very limited social support, particularly for poor women (radovic-markovic, 2013). in recent years a new area of research has been gaining interest as the prevailing method to foster rural development, particularly in regions with inadequate infrastructure, low levels of education and low incomes. rural 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) entrepreneurship is the creation of entrepreneurial associations that will ensure crucial economic, social and other changes in rural regions and improve these regions (radovic-markovic, 2009). as such, rural entrepreneurship represents a very significant employment opportunity for women of rural communities who can work near home, improving their earnings and elevating their standards of living. however, national policies and programs to aid development, as well as education and empowerment of women must take place in order for these types of enterprise development to succeed. research methodology the methodology of the study was an integration of quantitative and qualitative methods based on data collected from four villages of meskan woreda. five key indicators of empowerment covering five dimensions were chosen for this purpose. data were collected from 120 respondents during june-august 2013. finally, women empowerment in agriculture index (weai) was developed adding the obtained scores of five empowerment indicators. descriptive statistics and regression analysis were used to analyze the collected data. the regression analysis shows that there were strong positive effects of age, formal and nonformal education, information through media exposure, farm income, training and extension service on the empowerment, while socio-economic status in the agricultural communities have a strong negative effect. key findings and discussion this research has been limited to six-political zones in nigeria. the aim of this study was to examine the methodological impact of g–win project for strengthening women economic empowerment in nigeria. this research was limited to five objectives which are; evaluate the extent of awareness of the g–win project in nigeria, examine the g–win projects implementation as a basis for strengthening women economic empowerment in the study area, investigate the constraints on the implementation of the g–win project to strengthen women economic empowerment in the study area, investigate the constraint or hindrances that might pose a threat to replicating the g-win to other parts of the world and examine the extent to which institutional framework plays out in achakpa, p., et al., employment women through, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) 27 strengthening women economic empowerment in nigeria and in other countries. the study was justified by the gap it fills in literature. most studies in this area have been offshore. past researchers both within the country and various part of the world had undergone research on this study, but none has undergone such on growing women and girls in nigeria (gwin). in achieving the aim of this project, effort was made through questionnaire, physical observation and phone calls to obtain the most reliable information for this study. questionnaire was administered to 2400 beneficiaries of gwin project but 1934 were retrieved, 120 copies of questionnaire were administered to pioneer ministries but 114 were retrieved. the information obtained was analyzed according to the objectives of this study. objective 1: to evaluate the extent of awareness of the g–win project in the study area. different means of awareness were evaluated using frequency distribution for both the beneficiaries and the pioneer ministries both respondents admitted that gwin project gets to the ears of the public was through the use of local government support. objective 2: to examine the g–win projects implementation as a basis for strengthening women economic empowerment in the study area. diverse forms of basis were examined in this study using frequency distribution. after comparing responses from both beneficiaries and pioneer ministries, findings confirmed that most of the basis which the project has emulated to touch the lives of women in the study area was majorly through skills acquisition. objective 3: to investigate the constraints on the implementation of the g–win project to strengthen women economic empowerment in the study area. various forms of constraints were investigated using frequency distribution, findings reveals majority of respondents confirmed that all (insufficient fund, cultural belief and low turnout) these challenges are the limitations to gwin project. objective 4: to investigate the constraint or hindrances that might pose a threat to replicating the g-win to other parts of the world. various forms of constraints the project is likely to encountered were investigated using frequency distribution, findings reveal that most of the respondents thought that most of the challenges that gwin project is likely to face if replicated to other parts of the world are insecurity, insufficient funds, corruption, gender disparity and nongovernmental acceptance. objective 5: to examine the extent to which institutional framework plays out in strengthening women economic 28 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) empowerment in nigeria and in other countries. various forms of institutional framework were examined using frequency distribution, findings reveal most respondents admitted that mostly all the institutional framework (enlighten the populace, socio-cultural re-orientation, genial climate, participation and partnering by governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders and women political will) plays out in strengthening women economic empowerment in the study area. based on these findings, it is recommended that: conferences, seminars and workshops should be organized for women in the study area so as to give them an in-depth knowledge about what participation economic development entails current trade in computer technology, such as computer appreciation should be introduced, while active participation in politics by women should be promoted. the women in the area should be given the necessary education (they deserve) in order to enhance their effectiveness in economic development projects. it will also promote the empowering of women towards achieving one of the growing women and girls in initiative nigeria (gwin) 2014. women should be selected from the various communities for training as trainee trainers. these women should be appointed later as extension officers or community development officers so that they can as well train others and help them to solve their communal problems. acknowledgements this paper is part of the research projects number 47009, ministry of science and technological development of the republic of serbia. conclusion considering the importance of entrepreneurship for empowering women, it is pertinent that our educational institutions (both formal and informal) step up to the challenge of helping our females to develop their entrepreneurial acumen towards sustainable development of livelihoods and the economy at large. in view of the foregoing, we recommend the following; 1. women should be given equal opportunities to showcase their skills and abilities, and this could be effectively enhanced when they are adequately educated achakpa, p., et al., employment women through, jwee (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) 29 2. technology comes exposure, it is amazing how so many female entrepreneurs are still keeping their head in the sand about using the most basic technological aid. it is important that female entreprenuers in order to foster their business must be knowledgeable about the different technologies that would enhance their business and here the role of education in is key 3. “women entrepreneurs play a substantial role in growing their economies. when a country does not achieve its full potential, the economy suffers. fewer ‘high potential’ female entrepreneurs result in fewer ideas being realized, less innovation, less export potential, and fewer jobs created,” the report said. 4. “through their entrepreneurial activities, female entrepreneurs increase their own economic welfare and generate job creation, innovative products, processes, and services, and cross-border trade. references [1] adekanye, e. 2014. information needs, utilization and socio-economic empowernment of textile market women in southern nigeria. library philosophy and practice (e-journal), 1093: 1-22 [2] ejumudo, k.b. 2013. gender equality and women empowerment in nigeria: the desirability and inevitability of a pragmatic approach. developing country studies, 3(4): 59-67. [3] huntley, r. l. 1985. women entrepreneurs and career choice. dissertation abstracts international. [4] garcia-cabrera, a.m. & garcia-soto, m. 2008. cultural differences and entrepreneurial behavior: an intra-country cross-cultural analysis in cape verde. entrepreneurship and regional development, 20(5): 451–483. [5] ibrahim, a. 2013. women’s empowerment in north-eastern nigeria and factors affecting it. international journal of innovative research and studies, 3(1): 36-48. [6] ibrahim, a., zumilah, z., & laily, b. p. 2013. empowering rural girls through education: way of reducing vulnerability and improving family economic wellbeing in rural northern nigeria, iosr journal of humanities and social science (iosr-jhss), 18(1): 57-61. [7] kelly, b. e. 2013. gender equality and women empowerment in nigeria: the desirability and inevitability of a pragmatic approach. developing country studies, 3(4): 59-67. 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2018, no. 1-2, 17-30) [8] nachimuthu, s.s., & gunatharan, b. 2012. empowering women through entrepreneurship: a study in tamil nadu, india. international journal of trade, economics and finance, 3(2): 143-147. [9] osirike, a.b., & egbayebo, t.e. 2012. women empowerment for community development in nigeria. jorind, 10 (3), 5-11. [10] ovute, a.o., dibia, n. g., & obasi, s.c. 2015. empowering nigerian women for national development: state of the art, challenges and prospects. journal of research in business and management, 3(1): 04-10. [11] radović-marković, m., nelson-porter, b. l., & omolaja, m. 2009. the new alternative women’s entrepreneurship education: e-learning and virtual universities. journal wojde (july 2012 ed.). retrieved from http://wojde.org/fileupload/bs295854/file/complete.wojde.pdf on 18th february, 2017 [12] radovic-markovic, m. 2009. women entrepreneurs: new opportunities and challenges. delhi, india: indo-american books [13] radovic-markovic, m. 2013. female entrepreneurship: theoretical approaches. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 1-2: 1-9. [14] rahman, m. h., & naoroze, k. 2007. women empowerment through participation in aquaculture: experience of a large-scale technology demonstration project in bangladesh. journal of social science, 3(4): 164171. [15] sathiabama, k. 2010. rural women empowerment and entrepreneurship development. ess student papers. [16] upadhye, j., & madan, a. 2012. entrepreneurship and women empowerment: evidence from pune city. international conference on economics, business and marketing management, 29, pp. 192-197. [17] vimal, v., & gagandeep, s. 2016. gender equality and women empowerment in india. international journal of multidisciplinary research and development, 3(12): 112-116. [18] vossenberg, s. 2013. women entrepreneurship promotion in developing countries: what explains the gender gap in entrepreneurship and how to close it? (working paper no. 2013/08). retrieved from www.msm.nl/getattachment/e94b7b38-e17b-4c5d-b497-c4135be7ec86 article history: received: 14 march, 2018 accepted: 31 may, 2018 microsoft word 09_jwe_1-2.doc the position of female entrepreneurs in the european union and transition countries merdža handalić* * governance accountability project (gap) bih, gap office tuzla, 75 000 tuzla , email: mhandalic@yahoo.com a r t i c l e i n f o article history: received 10 february 2009 accepted 2 march 2009 jel: b54, l26, 052 k e y w o r d s: gender mainstreaming, female entrepreneurship a b s t r a c t in the european union at the level of the european commission the principle of gender equality, called gender mainstreaming, has been introduced in all areas of activities and policy. the term "gender mainstreaming" is the key and it has been accepted for the implementation of policies of gender equality in the eu member states, that, according to the definition of the council of europe means reorganization, improvement, development and evaluation of political processes in a way that the perspective of gender equality is included in all policies at all levels and degrees, by the actors involved in political decision-making. although women constitute the majority of the world's population, in the field of entrepreneurial activities they constitute the minority due to their socially, economically and politically inferior position with regard to men. sex-related inequalities on the labor market and in entrepreneurial activities are connected to unequal educational and training opportunities which are further reflected to their choice of profession and possibilities for advancement. the change in social paradigms has radically altered the balance of powers between women and men in society at large, as well as in business. however, the fact is that there are fewer women entrepreneurs in relation to men. the aim of the paper is to identify the major obstacles encountered by women in a business. this paper also serves to support the entrepreneurship of women and to promote its development. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 13-24 14 gender policy of the european union and the obligations of the integration countries anti-discrimination framework was established by the convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in 1950. ehcr, as well as a series of appropriate protocols. except protocol no. 12, european convention on human rights from 2000 came into force in 2005. it refers to the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of gender. activities related to achieving actual gender equality have been determined also with other recommendations and resolutions. starting from the importance of full political participation of women as a central part of policies of gender equality, the committee of ministers of the council of europe adopted recommendation in 2003 on the well-balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision making1. member states should encourage the promotion of balanced representation of women and men, publicly recognizing the equal sharing of decisionmaking powers between women and men with different origin and ages strengthens and enriches democracy. also, congress of local and regional authorities of the council of europe especially emphasized importance of implementation of gender equality policies at the local level by adopting the resolution 176 of 2004 on the introduction of the principles equal of gender at the local and regional level, based on the promotion strategy of equality of women and men in cities and regions. in addition to these basic documents, there is a series of directives, which also treated the equality of women and are one of the secondary legislation in the eu. in accordance with the above charter and protocol, the european commission was introduced the principle of gender equality in all areas of activities and policies. the term "gender mainstreaming" is the accepted term for the implementation of policies of gender equality in the eu member states. also, members of the eu adopt special measures or positive action measures such as legal policy measures, mandatory parental leave for both parents, equal measures of employment gender, etc. 1 council of europe: recommendation of the committee of ministers to member states on balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision making explanatory memorandum, (strasbourg: directorate general of human rights, 2003) 17-18 medrža handalić / jwe 1-2 (2009) 13-24 15 for the coming period, significant is document named "roadmap for equality of women and men, 2006.-2010."2 adopted by the council of ministers of the eu in 2006, which sets out priority areas of work to accelerate the process of achieving real gender equality in europe. the following areas have been designated as a particulary important: ─ achieving equal economic independence of women and men; ─ increasing the compliance of work and private life; ─ promotion of equal participation in decision-making; ─ abolition of gender qualifying violence and trafficking in persons; ─ the removal of gender stereotypes in society; ─ promotion of gender equality outside the eu. this roadmap is based on the community framework strategy for achieving equality between women and men from previous period of 20012005 / 6, and their enforcement is an integral part of the community. economic independence is an important precondition for gender equality and the women rights respect. it is, therefore, a key challenge to include more women in the labor market in the eu. the eu has contributed to that development of policies through the promotion of the empowerment of women. this is part of a strategy for growth and jobs set up by the heads of state and government in lisbon in 2000. the goal of this strategy is to have the european union converted to a dynamic and competitive economic society which is capable of sustainable growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. further, the strategy entails full participation of women in economic life, with the encouragement of women to participate in the labor market, and achieve an employment rate of women to 60% in 2010. in the european enlargement policy gender equality also occupies one of the main areas. equality of women and men is common and one of the fundamental values of the eu member states, ensured even in the provisions of the eu treaty, which stipulates the promotion of gender equality as a permanent objective of the european community in all its activities. policies of the eu member states in the field of gender equality, which obliges also the integration country, are contained in chapter’s common policies. the most important of those common eu 2 commission of the european communities, a roadmap for equality between women and men 2006-2010, (brussels: eur-lex, 2006), 3-9 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 13-24 16 policies in the area of equal opportunities between men and women are contained in chapter 19 social policy and employment, chapter 22 regional policy and coordination of structural instruments, and chapter 23 judiciary and fundamental rights. the level of alignment of legislation in transition countries, the european commission estimated in its annual reports. those countries are obliged to harmonize the provisions, for example, in connection with removing the excessive protection of women in terms of night work, heavy physical work, work underground etc. the attention should also be devited to deficiencies in terms of maternity leave, fees and excessive duration of maternity leave as well as all other difficulties faced by pregnant women and mothers of small children in the area of employment. further, need to adapt the provisions in respect of the difference in the age as a margin of going to a pension for men and women employed in the police, army and civil service. for all these provisions, it is necessary to ensure appropriate measurement of statistical indicators, so in that sense, still need to adapt statistics. regardless of these eu recommendations, the european commission evaluated that the action plan for gender equality devoted insufficient attention and it expected to be greater influence to national policies to promote gender equality in the period of 2006 thru 2010, and implementation of equal opportunities policies. in the period immediately after the war, to encourage women's startup, bosnia and herzegovina has helped to include the equality of women in the legislature. positive changes include the ratification of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and the adoption of key laws on the rights of women, including the law on gender equality, the family law and law on protection from domestic violence by b&h institutions. the condition that the third candidate on party lists during elections must be women helped empowerment of participation of women in politics. a similar situation is in other countries in the integration. in the text below the analysis of female entrepreneurship in the world shows that there were a lot of work to do in regard to women's entrepreneurship to increase the benefit of women. there are a number of different organizations that are engaged in lobbying for gender equality. medrža handalić / jwe 1-2 (2009) 13-24 17 women's entrepreneurship in europe and in the world according to the global entrepreneurship monitor (gem)3, entrepreneurs are the most important contributors to economic growth of lower medium-developed countries like those in latin america and the caribbean. in these countries the participation of women in the entrepreneurial population is two to three times higher than in most developed countries in the eu. on the other hand, the growing eastern europe have not yet developed a consciousness about female entrepreneurship which our neighborhood puts on the bottom scale of the participation of women among the owners of the company. according to gem's study, countries with small or medium-low income per capita recorded greater entrepreneurial activity than the advanced countries. this is especially true in latin america, which has the highest rate of women in entrepreneurship compared with all other countries. research also highlights that advanced countries have a higher rate of male owner of the company. only japan and peru had greater activity of women in the category of establishment of new enterprises in 2007. in latin america, the rate of women entrepreneurs is 24%, and entrepreneurs with a longer work experience are only 57.1%. as a rule, women are starting businesses in the service sectors which are most attractive for them around the world. also, women, for example, keep companies much easier in developed countries, while keeping financial stability of business is more difficult in countries with lower gdp and a "lifetime" of women's enterprises is shorter. according to the age criteria, the usual age of the women who starts own business range from 25 to 34 years in less developed countries, and greater success and respect they can expect only from the age of 35 to 44 years. in developed countries the situation is worst; women choose to start with own business from age of 25 to 44 years, while the culmination of her career reaches only between the age of 35 and 54 year. according to education criteria, women are far more educated in developed countries than their colleagues from countries with weaker gdp per capita although the level of education, most often, is not associated with the success of entrepreneurial ideas. when it comes to motivation, women are, regardless of the nation, less optimistic and less positive than 3 bosma n. at al., global entrepreneurship monitor, 2008 executive report, (babson: college babson park, ma us, 2008) 22-23 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 13-24 18 men when they start their own business. also, women earn on average 15% less than men in the eu. similar problem is with representation of women in leading positions (32%)4 regardless of what they, on average, have a better education than men have. discomfiture is the fact that this percentage increased for 1% only in the last 5 years. in germany, for example, women earn 22% per hour on average less than men5. for this reason germany is one of the eu country, which have a maximum difference in regard to income between the sexes. only estonia, cyprus and slovakia women reach equally high or even greater income. the reason for such large differences is that a large number of women work only half of the working hours in germany. in this regard, the european commission requires better solutions for harmonization of family and work, and increase number of women on leading positions. according to the reports of the european commission, the employment of women is constantly increasing in the past few years. part time work using every third woman, while only 8% of men are employed on this way. employment rate of women with children is 62%, while in men, even 91%. in the transition countries of central and eastern europe, women has adverse economic status thanks to a reduced number of employees in the public sector, a higher rate of unemployment, greater job insecurity and poor system of social protection. in the process of transition from communist / socialist regimes and the centralized management of economy towards a free market economy most experiences have been negative. these effects include increasing poverty, insecurity, unemployment, crime and corruption, the disappearance of middle-class, arising new economic and political elite from the war profiteers and the former communist leader. furthermore, expanding the gap between poor and rich and the registered unemployment rate is very high. equality of men and women in politics also in business was an important feature of all communist societies. participation of women in the number of employed persons was much higher in comparison to other economies in the world, as well as their representation in professional and management bodies. large number of women in political and scientific life 4 european commission, women and men in decision-making 2007 analysis of the situation and trends (luxemburg: directorate general for employment, socila affairs and equal opportunities, 2008) 35 5 eurostat site3-tgm table, gender pay gap in unadjusted form in % (structure of earnings survey source – 2002 and 2006 onwards), (on line). medrža handalić / jwe 1-2 (2009) 13-24 19 was one of the key arguments for the assertion of the equality of women in the communist system6. at present, transition period, there is still a tendency to equality between women and men considered to be inherent features of these societies, where gender as such is not considered important for social analysis at all. any questions related to gender equality, which had been asking by economists and sociologists, were ignored. such a trend is further supported by a strong tendency to favor different psychological explanations for the lack of women in management positions. in croatia, women constitute 52% of the total croatian population; their share in employment is 45%, i.e. 52% in the public and 39% in the private sector. women in the enterprise are represented with 30%, on managerial positions 27%, and only they were 19% in the supervisory boards of companies. rate of women employees in the ‘gray’ economy is 65%, while the employment rate of female population on the basis of a contract for part time is even 86%. in bosnia and herzegovina, the rate of women participation in the total number of employees is 43% which is extremely low compared with the global standard of 52.5%. usual, they earn less than men and they are represented in the lowerer number in the enterprise. women spend a less time in their business than men. more precisely, women entrepreneurs are working 29,2 hours per week, while men spend 46,9 hours. in 2007, female unemployment rate was 32.9% versus 26.7% of men. this rate is alarmingly high in the category of young women aged from 15 to 24 years, where the rate is 63.1%, compared with 55.6% of men in the same age categories.7 gender inequality is very pronounced in the field of entrepreneurship in the serbia also. according to the data that were published in the study, women and men in serbia, published by the republic statistical office of serbia8 , there is an obvious disproportion by gender between employers and employees. in this regard, the ratio for women is 1 to 2, while for men is almost 1 to 1. also, the number of women employers is less than half of 6 metcalfe b. d. et al., gender, work and equal opportunities in central and eastern europe, women in management review, 2005, 399 7 agencija za statistiku bosne i hercegovine, anketa o radnoj snazi, tematski bilten, (sarajevo: 2008) 21, 24, 26 8 republički zavod za statistiku srbije, žene i muškarci u srbiji, (beograd: službeni glasnik, 2008) 65 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 13-24 20 men from the same categories and that relationship in the last five years has not significantly changed, as the indicator of the lack of supporting female entrepreneurship in serbia. further on, men and women are divided by profession, working hours, the level of position, industrial sector, employers, and other forms of contractual status. women are, more often than men, employed in lower paid positions for which is creating a rational economic basis that women are responsible for unpaid housework, which puts them in a position of greater risk of poverty compared with men. in order to determine the gender differences in the conditions of work, the most important is to take into account the high degree of segregation in employment of men and women. furthermore, the assessment of the impact of gender differences in policy should be conducted to ensure that the measures strengthen the equality of women and men. this direction should be used by the states of the eu and countries that want to be members when creating their strategy of equal opportunities for women and men. obstacles and challenges of female entrepreneurship the biggest obstacles and difficulties for the development of enterprises are located within the availability of financial resources, information, education and markets. the basic challenge is to effectively identify and resolve problems employed through the prioritization of the legislature and other public policies of the countries, and to implement the government measures. similarly, it is important to develop the national strategy that will effectively confront the problems specific to equal opportunities, which requires the development of other social attitudes about gender and their inclusion in the structures, institutions and policies that relate to self-employment and small enterprise. as mentioned in most member states, accession countries, and all other countries in the world, the rate of participation of women in the labor market is lower and unemployment of women is higher than men. there are large number of cases where women had to choose: career or family. previous analysis also shows that significantly more women are working on part time than men, and usually that is not their will. many women have more qualifications than required by the position in which they work. employers prefer to employ men because women are seen as work force that do not guarantee stability in the job, due to the fact that women have medrža handalić / jwe 1-2 (2009) 13-24 21 traditionally been burdened by family and household obligations. statistical data and reports do not treat women in the number of unemployment in his country, because women are not actively looking for a job, so most of this information is not true. also, it is important to note, that women are generally paid less than men. in many countries there are large differences in educational level and the amount of wages. all this have for result fewer pensions for women who, on average, live longer than men. bearing in mind the costs to start a business, the next problem is financial independence, so it must intensify efforts to improve access to finance. for women it will be more difficult to ensure the initial capital for the establishment of new businesses. this may be the reason why women often create new jobs in the service sector; in fact they create small businesses that need less initial capital. women often cannot provide a guarantee for loans from their own property, so they are forced to hold to some form of self, i.e., using other sources of funding, such as savings, loans from family or friends, or micro-lending. similar situation is in existing business, women are harder to reach new sources of funding because of difficulty of access to informal financial networks. although it is considered that the existing business have easier access to bank loans, women often lack information about potential investors, support and understanding for their business ideas. successful stimulation of women's entrepreneurship can be achieved through: ─ development of lobbying activities of women's professional and non-profit associations, which will be especially focused to create the legal framework in order to impact on the positive environment for faster development of female entrepreneurship; ─ organize the exchange of experience between successful entrepreneurs and beginners, introducing mentoring and public presentations of their own experiences; ─ to provide a variety of programs supporting women's enterprises which provide training, education, subsidies for obtaining bank loans for starting business; ─ encourage networking of women entrepreneurs with developing local and regional networks; ─ provide free or subsidized consulting services of foreign or local consultants to entrepreneurs. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 13-24 22 countries, which have recognized the advantages of the development of female entrepreneurship, resources and opportunities that it provides for the overall social and economic development, successfully implemented all of these activities. however, the previously mentioned results of the reports show that there is still a lot to be done to improve women's entrepreneurship. in the process of promoting and implementing policies of gender equality and empowerment of women, non-governmental organizations and networks play an important role and their actions and advocacy of public policy affecting the public and participate in proposing and / or solving particular problems. strengthening civil society is a permanent goal and an imperative prerequisite for the advanced society in the field of human rights of women, what is extremely important to further improving the system of cooperation, coordination and partnership of ngos with state institutions at national and local level. although, in the last few years, the eu policy directed towards establishing the institutional framework and the promotion of inclusion principles of gender equality in different areas of policy within and outside the union, it is evident that necessary to continue work on the development and strengthening of these institutions and forms for cooperation with a unified activity to more effective enforcement of legislation and implementation goals of eu and national policies. in order for such policies, and created measures and activities based on them can be really effective, it is essential to improve the collection system of statistical data, conducting research and gender analysis as well as the inclusion of the perspective of gender equality in the planning process, adoption and implementation of the budget. employment, in essence, has a double meaning: for workers it means income, building personal skills, work satisfaction, and social status, on the other hand, for society, it is the main source of prosperity. therefore, the objectives of employment should have a significant place in making economic and social policy. incompatibility of labor force availability in the labor market is widely diffused, particularly for women, because they are not included within. many of the skills and knowledge of women have been outdated due to changes in the structure of production, developed technologies and new forms of work organization. therefore, it is necessary to pre-skilled women with outdated skills and knowledge, because the new knowledge and skills are missing. reform of the national educational system, especially in transition countries, has not progressed medrža handalić / jwe 1-2 (2009) 13-24 23 enough to be flexible, or able to respond to changes in labor force for knowledge and skills. because of this, the exchange of experiences and the organization of seminars by the well-organized enterprise network are essential. conclusion female entrepreneurs have a significant role in domestic and international economic scene at all, and represent a potential for development of the economy. in developed countries, women have special incentives and support for the development of their own entrepreneurship. for example, in addition to policies that apply, which protect women against discrimination and inequality, in these countries there are also many organizations and associations dealing with the issue of women and provide them with various forms of support. in less developed countries and countries in transition, the situation is, however, different. women are still not economically involved to the importance they deserve, and often, the initiative that they run on the face of economic, political or cultural barriers that discourage development of female entrepreneurship. pursuant to the importance of this segment for the development of entrepreneurship at all, and other obstacles that women face on the establishment of their own affairs, the european union and the national economy should provide an adequate support to the development of female entrepreneurship. this is particularly relevant for countries in the process of integration where these barriers are particularly marked and there is no organized activity of business associations that support women and provide them the necessary support. references agencija za statistiku bosne i hercegovine, anketa o radnoj snazi, tematski bilten, sarajevo, 2008. available from http://www.bhas.ba/arhiva/2008/tb/lfs/lfsbh.pdf. accessed 15 january 2009 bosma niels, acs zoltan j., autio erkko, coduras alicia, levie jonathan, global entrepreneurship monitor, 2008 executive report, college babson park, ma us, babson, 2008 commission of the european communities, a roadmap for equality between women and men 2006-2010, brussels, 2006. available from eur-lex, http://eurjournal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 13-24 24 lex.europa.eu/lexuriserv/lexuriserv.do?uri=com:2006:0092:fin:en:doc. accessed 15 january 2009 council of europe: recommendation of the committee of ministers to member states on balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision making explanatory memorandum, directorate general of human rights, strasbourg, 2003. available from http://www.coe.int/t/e/human_rights/equality/pdf_rec(2003)03_e.pdf. accessed 20 january 2009 european commission, women and men in decision-making 2007 analysis of the situation and trends. report on line. directorate general for employment, socila affairs and equal opportunities, office for oficial publications of the european communities, luxemburg, 2008. available from http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/publications/2008/ke8108186_en.pdf. accessed 20 january 2009 eurostat site3-tgm table (on line), gender pay gap in unadjusted form in % (structure of earnings survey source – 2002 and 2006 onwards) available from: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&plugin=1&langu age=en&pcode=tsiem040. accessed 21 january 2009 jalušič, vlasta, antic milica, women – politic sequal opportunities, prospects for gender equality politics in central and eastern europe, research for the project, peace institute ljubljana, 2001. available from: http://www.mirovniinstitut.si/eng_html/articles/jalusic_antic.doc. accesed 20 january 2009 metcalfe beverly dawn and afanassieva marianne, (on line magazine) gender, work and equal opportunities in central and eastern europe, women in management review, volume 20, number 6, emerald group publishing limited, 2005, pg 397 411 republički zavod za statistiku srbije, žene i muškarci u srbiji, službeni glasnik, beograd, 2008. doi: 10.28934/jwee23.pp37-57 jel: l25, l26, m12 original scientific paper 2bimproving business performance through entrepreneurship orientation and management capacity for women entrepreneurs fauziah umar6 f1 abdul rahman kadir7 f2 andi reni8f3 rianda ridho thaha9 f4 romi setiawan10 f5 hasanuddin university, faculty of economics and business, departement for management, makassar, indonesia a b s t r a c t human resources (hr) is very important for the organization because various things that influence attitudes and behavior must be well understood to make their contribution to the organization optimal. this study aimed to find out and analyze the effect of entrepreneurial orientation and management skills on women entrepreneurs' business performance. the type of research used is descriptive verification by literature studies and field research. the influence model will be analyzed using path analysis (part analysis). the results showed that entrepreneurial orientation significantly affects women entrepreneurs' management capabilities and business performance. management capability also 1 e-mail: fauziah.umar@fe.unhas.ac.id 2 e-mail: rahmankadir@fe.unhas.ac.id 3 e-mail: andireni@fe.unhas.ac.id 4 e-mail: ridho.thaha@unhas.ac.id 5 corresponding author, e-mail: romi.setiawan@fe.unhas.ac.id 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 37-57) significantly affects the business performance of women entrepreneurs. in the end, entrepreneurial orientation indirectly affects business performance through the management capabilities of women entrepreneurs. the theoretical and practical implications are discussed below. keywords: entrepreneurial orientation, management capability, business performance, women entrepreneurship introduction improving the economy will require the growth of small and mediumsized enterprises (smes). several small and medium-sized enterprises (smes) have made significant contributions but continue to struggle with issues like inadequate technology, insufficient funding, and inadequate management. low productivity and frequent business failures can be traced back to factors such as inadequate human resources and a lack of scale. to compete in the global market, smes need to enhance their technical capabilities, education and training, licensing, access to capital, product promotion, product quality control, standardization of technology, and the development of resources. in the manufacturing sector, notably, small and medium-sized enterprises (smes) play a crucial role in the national economy and exports other than oil and gas. according to statistics from indonesia's ministry of cooperatives and small and medium businesses, women run as much as 60% of the country's msmes. yet, most women business owners operate on a micro or modest scale, notably in the textile, clothing, and food and beverage manufacturing sectors (tambunan, 2012). women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises in indonesia contribute 9.1% to gdp (international finance corporation, 2016). yet, women company owners confront challenges in advancing their enterprises, such as the juggling act of fulfilling numerous tasks, a lack of confidence, a deficiency in formal education and management expertise, and unhelpful regulations from the government. in order to succeed in today's business world, women business owners need to do everything they can to boost their companies' productivity. businesses should encourage female business owners by treating them with respect and trust. a company's performance is evaluated based on its level of accomplishment over a specified time frame (glancey) (1998). a small business's success can be gauged by examining how its profits and sales f. umar, a. r. kadir, a. reni, r.r. thaha, r. setiawan 39 have changed over time (jauch & glueck, 1988). according to figures collected by the bps in makassar city between 2013 and 2015, the total number of micro, small, and medium enterprises reached 119,494. the company's success depends on its employee's ability to increase sales and profits (jauch & glueck, 1988). in makassar, the growth of the processing industry is stunted by a lack of entrepreneurial spirit and established administrative roles (sekar & rofiq, 2017). according to scarborough & zimmerer (2008), the low performance of small and medium-sized industries is attributed to outdated technology, a lack of funding, and ineffective management. business failure can be attributed to a lack of competent management, poor decision-making, lowquality employees, insufficient company size, or lax financial controls. management skills and a strong sense of initiative are essential for success as a business owner (scarborough & zimmerer, 2008; lee & peterson, 2000). a more entrepreneurial mindset can lead to more aggressive business practices such as constant reinvention, risk taking, proactivity, and competition (lee & peterson, 2000). increased productivity and the ability to outperform rivals are two outcomes that might result from adopting an entrepreneurial mindset (lee & peterson, 2000). evidence from the academic literature shows that an entrepreneurial mindset can boost company performance, but this effect varies among settings and cultures (wiklund & shepherd, 2005; chow, 2006; coulthard, 2007). according to suci's (2008) research, management competence significantly affects business output and effectiveness. therefore, researchers are interested in studying the effect of entrepreneurial orientation and management skills on women entrepreneurs' business performance. the primary aim of the paper is centered on analyzing how the influence of entrepreneurial orientation on the management capabilities and business performance of women entrepreneurs, as well as exploring the effect of management capabilities on the business performance of women entrepreneurs and the indirect effect of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance through the management abilities of women entrepreneurs. this study also assesses each attribute that is designed to form a construct variable. 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 37-57) literature review business performance business performance is commonly defined as the level of achievement or accomplishment of a company within a specific period. the achievement of the company's goals is usually linked to the level of performance that it achieves. according to glancey (1998), performance refers to the level of achievement or accomplishment of a company within a specific period. a company's performance is crucial to its development, and its objectives are typically to maximize its value, as reflected in various performance metrics. small business performance can be seen through profit and growth levels, as pointed out by jauch and glueck (1988), who define performance as the level of achievement or accomplishment of a company within a specific period. gitman (1994) notes that business performance is used to measure the impact of a company's strategy. performance is always directed toward achieving the company's goals, whether in marketing or finance, using financial ratios to measure efficiency, liquidity, profitability, and market value, as noted by keown et al. (2005). small and medium-sized business performance can be measured by evaluating the respondents' perceptions using a likert scale of several financial measures, such as sales growth, gross profit, return on investment, and net income (covin & slevin,1989). therefore, business performance measurement depends on the validity of the measures used, as this research uses three indicators to measure business performance, including sales growth, profit growth, and asset growth. entrepreneual orientation entrepreneurial orientation (eo) is a widely studied concept in entrepreneurship research. lumpkin and dess (1996) define eo as a set of beliefs, behaviors, and values that facilitate creating or recognizing opportunities for new products or services and the allocation of resources to pursue those opportunities. covin and slevin (1989) also describe eo as a strategic posture emphasizing innovation, proactivity, and risk-taking. these characteristics enable firms to respond effectively to dynamic environments and to capitalize on opportunities. according to miller (1983), eo can be measured through five dimensions: autonomy, innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness, and competitive aggressiveness. f. umar, a. r. kadir, a. reni, r.r. thaha, r. setiawan 41 furthermore, wiklund and shepherd (2005) argue that eo positively affects firm performance and is a key predictor of the success of small and medium-sized enterprises (smes). rauch and frese (2007) also suggest that individual entrepreneurial orientation (ieo) plays a significant role in creating new ventures. they define ieo as a set of individual-level characteristics influencing an individual's likelihood to engage in entrepreneurial activities. overall, eo is considered an essential characteristic of successful entrepreneurial firms and entrepreneurs, and it has become a crucial topic in entrepreneurship research. h1: entrepreneurial orientation significantly affects the management skills of women entrepreneurs. entrepreneurial orientation is a key factor in the success of an organization, as it reflects the extent to which the organization is willing to take risks, innovate, and pursue new opportunities. according to covin and slevin (1991), entrepreneurial orientation is the tendency of a firm to engage in activities characterized by innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness, autonomy, and competitive aggressiveness. on the other hand, management capability is managers' capacity to make effective decisions, organize resources, and lead the organization towards achieving its goals. a study by hmieleski and baron (2009) found that entrepreneurial orientation has a significant positive effect on the management capability of an organization, as it fosters a culture of innovation and risk-taking that enables managers to make effective decisions in dynamic and uncertain environments. h2: entrepreneurial orientation significantly affects the business performance of women entrepreneurs. rauch, wiklund, lumpkin, and frese (2009) found that entrepreneurial orientation positively impacts firm performance, and lumpkin and dess (1996) found that firms with higher levels of entrepreneurial orientation are more likely to achieve superior financial performance. additionally, covin and slevin (1991) found that firms with higher entrepreneurial orientation are more likely to succeed in new product development and achieve greater profitability. h3: entrepreneurial orientation indirectly affects business performance through the management capabilities of women entrepreneurs. according to hmieleski and baron (2009), entrepreneurial orientation fosters a culture of innovation and risk-taking, which enables managers to 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 37-57) make effective decisions in dynamic and uncertain environments. these management skills, in turn, can positively impact business performance. in support of this, a study by wiklund and shepherd (2005) found that management skills mediate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. management capacity management skill is the ability to effectively plan, organize, lead, and control resources within an organization to achieve its goals. effective management is crucial for the success of any organization, and numerous studies have examined the various skills required for effective management. katz (1974) categorized managerial skills into three categories: technical, human, and conceptual. technical skills refer to the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise in a particular area, while human skills refer to the ability to work with and through people. conceptual skills refer to thinking and conceptualizing abstract and complex situations. other studies, such as those by mintzberg (1975) and kotter (1982), have identified additional skills required for effective management, including communication, decision-making, problem-solving, and leadership. moreover, a study by hmieleski and baron (2009) found that entrepreneurial orientation significantly positively affects management capability, as it fosters a culture of innovation and risk-taking that enables managers to make effective decisions in dynamic and uncertain environments. therefore, management skills are crucial for effective organizational performance, and organizations should prioritize developing and enhancing the skills of their managers. h4: management capability significantly affects the business performance of women entrepreneurs. according to kossek (2016), a good work-life balance strategy is only effective when linked with good performance management and adaptability. this statement highlights the importance of effective management practices in creating a positive work environment and improving employee performance. additionally, a study by armstrong and baron (2018) found that effective performance management is crucial in improving employee motivation and productivity, which is achieved by setting clear goals, providing feedback, and rewarding good performance. f. umar, a. r. kadir, a. reni, r.r. thaha, r. setiawan 43 furthermore, the impact of management capability on business performance can also be seen in the context of workforce resilience. as vila (2019) discussed, workforce stressors can significantly impact performance, and effective leadership and management practices can help mitigate these stressors and improve resilience. the research model can be seen in figure 1 below. figure 1: the hypothetical model of the variables methodology research design this study will use a quantitative research design using quantitative data collection and analysis techniques. the quantitative method will use surveys to collect data on the relationship between management capability and business performance. the survey will be administered to a sample of female entrepreneurs in makassar, indonesia, selected through stratified random sampling. the survey will consist of closed-ended questions that will be analyzed using statistical tools such as correlation and regression analysis. participants and data collection the target population in this study were all female entrepreneurs, small and medium enterprises (smes) engaged in the culinary, fashion, and craft 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 37-57) businesses in makassar. the sampling technique used was purposive sampling, which is a sampling technique that is adjusted to the needs of the research. the sampling criteria were women entrepreneurs registered as members of iwapi, totaling 85 entrepreneurs. the implementation of distributing questionnaires in this study was carried out by accidental sampling, namely conducting research when researchers met directly with respondents. (situmorang, 2011). data analysis as stated previously, this research employs a quantitative research design. the data was analyzed with statistical analysis techniques to evaluate descriptive analysis and regression using spss version 26. the authors began by analyzing the characteristics of the respondents based on several parameters, including age, marital status, level of education, ownership status, type of business, duration of business, and business activities. after analyzing the characteristics of the respondents, the authors conducted multiple regression tests to analyze the respondent's responses based on the survey responses on the research variables. the results of these analyses are provided in the next section below. result analysis of respondent characteristics the characteristics of research respondents are based on age, marital status, education level, ownership status, type of business, length of business, and business activities. in each of the characteristics, it can be seen that the composition of the respondents adequately represents the population. consequently, 41% of respondents ages are between 46 and 55, 78% of respondents are married, 22% are not married, and 75% of respondents are business owners. similarly, 53% of respondents have a culinary business, and 72% perceive it as their primary income source. the characteristics of these respondents are quite representative of the population as a whole. f. umar, a. r. kadir, a. reni, r.r. thaha, r. setiawan 45 descriptive analysis this study uses a likert scale, with the highest weight in each statement being five (5) and the lowest weight being one (1). value categories = 𝐻𝐻𝐻𝐻𝐻𝐻ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 𝑒𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑒− 𝐿𝐿𝑠𝑠𝐿𝐿𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 𝑒𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑆𝑆𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑠𝑠𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝐻𝐻𝑒𝑒 value categories = 5− 1 5 = 0,8 so that the value category for this research is 0.8, including: 1,0 – 1,8 = very low 1,8 – 2,6 = low 2,6 – 3,4 = neutral 3,4 – 4,2 = high 4,2 – 5,0 = very high table 1 indicates that respondents' perceptions of entrepreneurial orientation (x) fall into the high category, with an average score of 4.02, indicating a high level of entrepreneurial orientation. the dominant indicator shaping entrepreneurial orientation is competitive aggressiveness, with the highest score of 4.21, while productiveness has the lowest score of 3.87. table 1: entrepreneurship orientation test results (x) no indicator answer average infomation td d n a a f f f f f % % % % % 1 autonomy 1 7 15 34 28 3.95 high 2 innovativeness 1 1 11 41 31 3.94 high 3 risk taking 1 1 10 46 27 4.14 high 4 productiveness 1 4 25 30 25 3.87 high 5 competitive aggressiveness 1 0 15 33 36 4.21 very high total 4.02 high source: spss 2023 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 37-57) based on table 2, respondents' perceptions towards the management capability variable (y1) are categorized as high, with a mean score of 4.10, indicating that respondents have high management skills. the dominant indicator forming the management capability variable is the ability to organize and coordinate, with the highest score of 4.29. meanwhile, the lowest indicator is the ability to handle information, with a score of 3.83. table 2: management capability test results (y1) no indicator answer average information td d n a a f f f f f % % % % % 1 ability to organize and coordinate 1 0 10 36 38 4.29 very high 2 ability to handle information 2 2 26 33 22 3.83 high 3 able to motivate and influence others. 1 1 16 36 31 4.11 high 4 able to solve strategic problems. 1 2 14 36 32 4.12 high 5 able to manage time and stress. 1 3 10 36 35 4.18 very high total 4.10 high source: spss 2023 based on table 3, respondents' perceptions of the performance variable (y2) were in the high category, with an average score of 3.97, indicating that they have high business performance. the dominant indicators forming the business performance variable are job quality, with a score of 4.25, and adaptability, with a score of 4.25. meanwhile, the lowest indicator is the level of return on investment, with a score of 3.71. f. umar, a. r. kadir, a. reni, r.r. thaha, r. setiawan 47 table 3: business performance test results (y2) no indicator answer average informa-tion td d n a a f f f f f % % % % % 1 job quantity 0 1 7 46 31 4.25 very high 2 quality of work 1 2 18 43 21 3.95 high 3 independence 2 3 26 39 15 3.72 high 4 adaptability 0 1 7 46 31 4.25 very high 5 sales geographic expansion 1 2 18 42 22 3.96 high 6 return on investment 2 3 26 40 14 3.71 high total 3.97 high source: spss 2023 path analysis path analysis consists of direct and indirect influence. the research employs regression analysis with variable intervention to determine effect magnitude. table 4: path coefficient (1st model) sources: spss, (2023) 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 37-57) table 5: path coefficient (2nd model) sources: spss, (2023) table 5: path coefficient (2nd model) sources: spss, (2023) then to determine the error value in the model, the following calculations are carried out: 𝒆𝒆1 = �1 − 𝑅𝑅1 2 = �1 − 0,581 = 0,647 𝑒𝑒2 = �1 − 𝑅𝑅2 2 = �1 − 0,821 = 0,423 from the two models, the path analysis model is obtained as follows: f. umar, a. r. kadir, a. reni, r.r. thaha, r. setiawan 49 figure 2: path analysis information: ________ = direct effect = indirect effect based on figure.2, the following equation is obtained: y1 = 0.762x + e1 (1) y2 = 0.319x + 0.639y1 + e2 (2) from the path analysis, the equations can be interpreted as follow: 1. p1 = 0.762, indicating that a 1% increase in entrepreneurial orientation leads to a 0.762 increase in management capability. 2. p2 = 0.319, indicating that a 1% increase in entrepreneurial orientation leads to a 0.319 increase in entrepreneurial performance. 3. p3 = 0.639, indicating that a 1% increase in management capability leads to a 0.639 increase in entrepreneurial performance. assessment of total, direct, and indirect effects table 4 shows the following results where the variable entrepreneurial orientation towards management capability has a p-value of 0.000 < 0.05, meaning that entrepreneurial orientation significantly influences management capability, with a path coefficient (x → y1) of 0.762. the 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 37-57) variable management capability towards business performance has a p-value of 0.000 > 0.05, meaning that management capability significantly influences business performance, with a path coefficient (y1 → y2) of 0.639. the variable entrepreneurial orientation towards business performance has a p-value of 0.000 > 0.05, meaning that entrepreneurial orientation significantly influences business performance, with a path coefficient (x → 𝑌𝑌2) of 0.319. additionally, the r-squared value for entrepreneurial orientation towards management capability in table 4 is 0.581, meaning that entrepreneurial orientation can explain 58.1% of management capability, while other unexamined variables explain the remaining 41.9%. similarly, the r-squared value for entrepreneurial orientation and management capability in table 5 is 0.821, meaning that they can explain 82.1% of business performance, while other unexamined variables explain the remaining 17.9%. table 6: direct effect test results direct effect path coefficient p-value r2 (coefficient of determination) entrepreneurial orientation  management capability 0,762 0,000 0,581 management capability business performance 0,639 0,000 0,821 entrepreneurial orientation  entrepreneurial performance 0,319 0,000 0,821 source: spss 2023 the indirect effect of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance through management capability (𝑋𝑋1 → 𝑀𝑀 → 𝑌𝑌) is (0.762 × 0.639) = 0.487. the total effect of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance through management capability is obtained by adding the direct effect of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance with the indirect effect of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance through management capability (𝑋𝑋1 → 𝑀𝑀 → 𝑌𝑌) = (0.319 + 0.487) = 0.806. the significance of the indirect effect is determined using the sobel test, with the coefficients and standard errors as follows: = 0.771 (regression coefficient of entrepreneurship orientation on management capability), 𝑏𝑏 = 0.639 (regression coefficient of management capability on business f. umar, a. r. kadir, a. reni, r.r. thaha, r. setiawan 51 performance), 𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆 = 0.072 (standard error value of entrepreneurship orientation on management capability), 𝑆𝑆𝑏𝑏 = 0.076 (standard error value of management capability on business performance). 𝑧𝑧 − 𝑣𝑣𝑆𝑆𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑒𝑒 = 𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑎 �𝑎𝑎2𝑒𝑒𝑎𝑎 2+𝑟𝑟2𝑒𝑒𝑏𝑏 2 (3) 𝑧𝑧 − 𝑣𝑣𝑆𝑆𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑒𝑒 = (0,771)(0,672) �(0,672 𝑥𝑥 0,072)2+(0,771 𝑥𝑥 0,076)2 𝑧𝑧 − 𝑣𝑣𝑆𝑆𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑒𝑒 = 7,3281 table 7: model assessment results indirect effect zvalue information entrepreneurial orientation on business performance through management capability 7,3281 z-value > z-absolute 1.96 (indirect effect is significant) source: spss 2023 the results show that managerial competence indirectly affects entrepreneurial success through entrepreneurial orientation. the z-value is 7.3281 > z-absolute 1.96. the significance of each partial regression coefficient was tested using the t-test with a significance level of 0.05. the results showed that the orientation towards entrepreneurship (x) had a significant effect on management capability (y1), which in turn had a significant effect on business performance (y2). the direct effect of x on y2 was also significant. furthermore, the sobel test found that the indirect effect of x on y2 through y1 was significant. these findings support the hypotheses that x has a significant impact on y1, y1 has a significant impact on y2, and x has a significant impact on y2 through y1. discussion the study found that entrepreneurial orientation significantly and positively affects management capability among female entrepreneurs, with a p value less than alpha. the findings supported lee & peterson's (2000) concept of applying management functions in line with entrepreneurial 52 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 37-57) orientation. the average values for both variables were in the high category, indicating a positive relationship. the results are consistent with suci's (2008) earlier study, which also found a significant and positive effect of entrepreneurial orientation on management capability. entrepreneurial orientation and management capabilities work together through innovation and creative ideas to achieve performance and profit. this result suggests that entrepreneurial orientation should be nurtured to avoid common mistakes entrepreneurs make. the analysis found that entrepreneurial orientation significantly affects the performance of female entrepreneurs, meaning that the better the entrepreneurial orientation of female entrepreneurs, the higher their business performance. this finding is consistent with the theory proposed by lin (2022), stating that developing entrepreneurial orientation concepts is crucial for small businesses. personal attributes of owners that form entrepreneurial orientation strongly impact business performance, whereas the dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation, including autonomy, risk, innovation, and aggressive competition, positively affect business performance. the description of the entrepreneurial orientation variable shows a high average value of 4.02, while the business performance variable has a high average score of 3.97. this result indicates that business performance will also increase when entrepreneurial orientation is good. the research findings support previous studies by wiklund and shepherd (2005), chow (2006), and coulthard (2007) that entrepreneurial orientation significantly improves business performance. high entrepreneurial orientation is closely related to the main driver of profit, which creates opportunities for entrepreneurs to profit from emerging opportunities. based on interviews with female entrepreneurs in makassar city, they believe it is necessary to have a courageous attitude to try new things, accept orders beyond capacity, introduce new processed products, and improve product quality to improve business performance. by looking at market opportunities based on the risk-taking attitude of female entrepreneurs in makassar city, they can continue to strive to improve their business performance. the analysis found that management capability significantly influences female entrepreneurs' business performance. the results of the hypothesis test show that the better the management capability, the higher the business f. umar, a. r. kadir, a. reni, r.r. thaha, r. setiawan 53 performance. this finding is consistent with previous research by suci (2008), which found that management capability significantly affects the productivity and performance of small manufacturing companies. the average value of the management capability is high (4.10), and the business performance is also high (3.97), indicating that good management capability leads to good business performance. female entrepreneurs in makassar generally have good management capabilities but face challenges such as solving employee problems, motivation and influence, and innovation to improve business performance. the analysis results show that entrepreneurial orientation indirectly affects business performance through management capabilities, meaning that the better the management capabilities of female entrepreneurs, the more able they are to mediate the influence of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance. developing entrepreneurial orientation in small businesses is highly influenced by management capabilities. this finding is consistent with previous research by suci (2008), which found that entrepreneurial orientation and management capabilities can improve business performance. conclusion the present study investigated the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, management capability, and business performance among female entrepreneurs in makassar city. the findings showed a significant positive effect of entrepreneurial orientation on management capability and business performance and a significant influence of management capability on business performance. furthermore, the study revealed that management capability mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and business performance. these results support previous research and highlight the importance of fostering entrepreneurial orientation and management capability for small business success, especially for female entrepreneurs. theoretical implications the study's findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, management capability, and business performance, particularly among female entrepreneurs. the results supported the concept proposed by lee and peterson (2000) that applying management functions in line with entrepreneurial orientation is 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 37-57) essential for business success. additionally, the study's findings align with the theory proposed by lin (2022), emphasizing the significance of developing entrepreneurial orientation for small businesses. the research also contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the mediating role of management capability in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and business performance. practical and policy makers implications the study's findings have practical implications for female entrepreneurs and policymakers. the results suggest that female entrepreneurs need to cultivate entrepreneurial orientation to avoid common mistakes made by entrepreneurs and improve business performance. policymakers can support female entrepreneurs by providing training and resources to develop entrepreneurial orientation and management capability. additionally, policymakers can consider developing policies that promote gender equality in business ownership and access to resources, which may contribute to increasing female entrepreneurs' success rates. to sum it up, the study's findings support the importance of entrepreneurial orientation and management capability in improving business performance, particularly among female entrepreneurs. these findings have theoretical implications for understanding the relationship between these variables and practical implications for female entrepreneurs and policymakers. female entrepreneurs can enhance business performance by fostering entrepreneurial orientation and management capability, contributing to economic growth and development. limitations and suggestions for further research the studies mainly focus on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, management capability, and business performance among female entrepreneurs in makassar, indonesia. therefore, the generalizability of the findings to other contexts or regions is limited. the studies do not consider the socio-cultural factors affecting women entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial behavior and performance, such as gender stereotypes, limited access to resources, and institutional barriers. moreover, the studies do not differentiate the impact of specific dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation, such as risk-taking or innovation, on management capability and business performance among women f. umar, a. r. kadir, a. reni, r.r. thaha, r. setiawan 55 entrepreneurs. thus, it is unclear which dimension of entrepreneurial orientation is more critical for improving female entrepreneurs' management capability and business performance. finally, the studies do not address the potential reverse causality or feedback loops between entrepreneurial orientation, management capability, and business performance. successful business performance may enhance the development of entrepreneurial orientation and management capability rather than the other way around. in conclusion, while the studies provide valuable insights into the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, management capability, and business performance among female entrepreneurs, they have some limitations mentioned earlier. further research is needed to address these limitations and provide a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence the success of women entrepreneurs in various contexts. references [1] brush, candida g., and sarah y. cooper. 2012. 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"azas-azas manajemen dan kepimpinan". penerbit salemba. article history: received: may 5th, 2023 accepted: july 7th, 2023  13_jwe_1-2 ne ovaj notes from the editor-in-chief the journal of women`s entrepreneurship and education (jwe) belongs to that rare group of scientific journals, which encourage multidisciplinary approach in the field of gender aspects of entrepreneurship and education. therefore, in its content one can find most current topics which are being analysed from the economic, social, psychological, political and other aspects. that makes this scientific journal interesting and useful reading material for scientists, experts and other readers, which are interested in the same or similar scientific disciplines. this journal is an international one, considering its international editorial board and authors. it comes out twice a year in english and it is published by institute of economic sciences from belgrade. editorial board is open to all interested parties that want to participate in the role of reviewer, as well as to those willing to contribute to the journal by their suggestions. we also invite everybody interested to have their paper published in this journal to follow the author's guide and to send in their papers to the e-mail of the journal. editor-in-chief professor dr. mirjana radović-marković, fellow of ea, waas, emaas, rsa, skanu doi: 10.28934/jwee19.12.pp71-79 professional paper assessing institutional founding sources and challenges facing women entrepreneurs in nigeria ann terngu makar vandefan1 university business academy, fimek, novi sad, serbia a b s t r a c t this paper examines the institutional and other funding sources available for women entrepreneurs in nigeria and the challenges faced by them in accessing these funds. the paper reveals various policies from previous governments that were aimed at exposing women entrepreneurs in nigeria to funds through establishment of micro credit institutions in realization of the pivotal role women have in economic development most especially in small scale enterprises within ruler communities. key words: nigerian women entrepreneur, institutional funding sources introduction female entrepreneurship long went virtually ignored in the academic literature and real life of many countries (radovic-markovic, 2013).there is a general belief that entrepreneurs are people who take advantage of an existing economic opportunity or investment at a small scale and are passionate about their investment and what they do according to hefsky (2011), this encourages them to take the risk to realize their dreams. 1 address: cvečarska 2, novi sad, serbia, e-mail: magtvan@gmail.com 72 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 71-79) in developing economy such as nigeria ,women are known to play vital roles in keeping the family going through their entrepreneurs are skills where they seems to augment men who are low income earners or those who lost their jobs. this is done through creative ideas and capital input in the economy by establishing microenterprise. nigerian women entrepreneurs are a perfect match for this description as they are continually engaging in new economic ventures like tailoring, sewing, food venturing and a host of other areas like water packaging in sachets and garri production using cassava tubers. it is based on these narratives that many researchers are of the opinion that an entrepreneur is not just someone who take risk and creates new ventures but is actually someone that ensures the growth of his business by being innovative and applies strategic principles that can guarantee the survival and growth of her investment. according to miskin and rose (2015), an entrepreneur is indeed one who is innovative in pursuing the economic investment to make profit and realize some growth and is willing to be risk averse. this is the reason why women contributes significantly to the economic growth of any nation through the establishment of all kinds of economic ventures at the small and medium scales to support the family, society and the country where they resides. iyiola and azhu (2014) captured this development as a process where women create ideas that create job opportunities for suppliers and other business ventures. in nigeria, women engaged in micro business to support their husbands’ low earnings where garba (2011) concludes that they do this for the family survival besides their motherly roles of reproduction. this has been recognized by many donor agencies as a pivotal agent of poverty reduction hence most international organizations now support women to finance their investment to augment their income and reduce dependency on men alone as observed by carrington (1994) this viewpoint is based on the challenging economic difficulties that women are faced with in poor and developing african countries like nigeria. it is based on this realization that iyiola and azhu (2014) agreed that women in nigeria are major players in economic development as they generate employment opportunities in rural areas thereby reducing poverty. this is why miskin and rose (2015) portrayed entrepreneurs as the inventors and an ‘innovative’ economic organization that targets gains and growth under condition of risk and uncertainties. vandefan, a. t., facing women entrepreneurs in nigeria, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 71-79)73 there are numerous sources of funding available in nigeria for women who are engaged in small scales enterprise over the years since the inception of democracy in 1999. however, there are bureaucracies associated with accessing these funding and also the questions of where to get the needed collaterals. this is worrisome because women hardly owe properties moveable and immovable in their names so it became an obstacle to meet the security needed by such institutions to release funds to women in nigeria to invest. majority of operators of informal businesses like street fruits shops to apple and food vendor shops are operated by women in nigeria. this is also confirmed by research that this informal sector accounts for almost half of economic activities in the country (soetan, 1997; thomson, 2002; aina, 2003; garba, 2011). there are other factors that limit the full potentials of women in investing in small business in nigeria which ranges from political, socio economic, cultural and family factors. despite all these, women are seen as opium of change in the nigerian economic development as they are also considered less corrupt and more committed in avoiding failure in their chosen entrepreneur skills where most of them focused essentially on preventing hunger in the family by eating the profit and rolling over the capital so as to keep the family happy and prevent them becoming a problem to the immediate communities where they resides. this accounts for the reason why most women do their business along the streets, bus stops and motor parks in nigeria. literature review /conceptual frame work nigeria has an estimated population of about 190 million people within which about 162 million are poor and out of this figure, women account for the highest number of the poor (adepelumi, 2011), this represents one of the world highest and worst poverty level. although there have been many poverty alleviating programs for women entrepreneurs in nigeria since the oil boom era of the 1970s, these programs were to augment the sources of funding for women entrepreneurs in nigeria. these programs were named according to the successive military regimes as operation feed the nation (ofn), green revolution (gr) among various agricultural guarantee schemes and agricultural credit facilities that were specifically targeted towards women entrepreneurs. peoples bank was 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 71-79) also introduced to target rural women and community banks too to give small credits to women in rural areas, these projects were between 1970 and 1999. according to adepelumi, (2011), these programs are classified as pre and post structural adjustment programs (sap).various governments in nigeria introduced rural electrification programs and free adult education to encourage nigerian women entrepreneurs to embark on micro businesses in communities to reduce poverty and encourage increased agriculture programs. the military regime has to complement these programs by establishing the national commission for women (ncw) where women project related programs could be coordinated so that women will have more access to entrepreneur skills and financing. the democratic dispensation of 1999 created a federal ministry for women affairs to compliment the role of nwc where all issues inhibiting the effective involvement of women in economic development will be addressed. the buhari administration of 2015 introduced other social intervention schemes like the market money where women are given 10000 naira as interest free loan and the only collateral is that a woman must owe a shop where she sells. the regime introduced graduate employment scheme known as n-power that hires mostly young women graduates to offer complementary support services to communities. although government at all times has tried to make available some incentives to support nigerian women entrepreneur to succeed, but a number of factors inhibits their success and access to these funding lines due to several challenges such as low capital start off business, high degree of failure rates by women in similar ventures, low productivity and difficulty accessing available credit lines. these factors have limited the successes of nigerian woman enterprise even though some have overcome these challenges and are making tremendous stride in their businesses. (soetan, 1997; thomson, 2002; aina, 2003; farrington, 2006; barrett, 2006; mordi, simpson, singh and okafor, 2010; arenius and minniti, 2003). these challenges are similar in all the states selected in the six geopolitical regions in nigeria. these challenges can be overcome if the literate levels of nigerian women who are involved in entrepreneurship are enhanced (aina, 2003).nigerian women enterprises are also not conscious of environmental and economic risk in their investment program. garba (2011) correctly observed that, men have more propensities to risk taking than women in nigeria and this accounted for the reason why men are more suc vandefan, a. t., facing women entrepreneurs in nigeria, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 71-79)75 cessful in entrepreneur business than women in nigeria and since women are also poorer than men, it becomes difficult for them to approach banks for facility to invest in their business. (iheduru, 2002; thomson, 2002) since banks structure their loanable funds strictly for short term business and rigid collaterals with high interest rate and sometimes unexplained and concealed administrative charges. family constraints and religion are also factors that prevent effective involvement in business enterprise in nigeria since men seem to prevent them from being victims of sexual intimidation and cruelty associated with business environments. this in most cases encourages women to depend largerly on finances of the father, husband or relation and creates dependency syndrome both on their needs and on the part of decision making. (ghosh, gupta and dhar in konungo, 1998; mordi, simpson, singh and okafor, 2010; arenius and minniti, 2003), the high degree of failed businesses has discouraged others from venturing in similar enterprise in nigeria. this has been largely due to women’s inability to develop an alternative plan b for their business as opined by mullins 2011. social classification between men and w0omen is another area of constraint as men are always seen more involved during meetings and always seems to prevail over women in meetings and negotiations, presentation and competitions; arenius and minniti, 2003) this suggests that nigerian women entrepreneurs naturally disadvantaged by this moral issues which adversely contributes and result to inferiority complex increasing her feelings of dependency which obviously affects her entrepreneurial growth rate and success (lorber and farrell, 1991; mordi, simpson, singh and okafor, 2010; arenius and minniti, 2003). these sometimes result in the question about the self confidence level of women towards their business as posited by kirkwood, 2009 that men are more confidence in exploiting baseness opportunities than their female folks and more so men are also exposed to investment information than women and this inhibits the entrepreneurial prospects of women as lack of information is key to identifying available opportunities.(mordi, simpson, singh and okafor 2010) both of them also agreed that. family structure too is a constraint on the nigerian woman enterprise as the married women are most a tome restrained from business venture to look after children and other domestic needs of the family. finally emmanuel (2013) concludes that apart from the identifiable challenges stated here, nigerian woman entrepreneur are constrained by 76 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 71-79) inadequate government support, lacked access to land, religious and cultural restrictions ,weak networking among women and gender discriminations financial support for women as entrepreneurs the major sources of founding in all the geo political regions in nigeria is local thrift and loans cooperative societies and the contributions from churches and other age grade associations. it is also noticed that most women have large children so it has been difficult making profit from the trade they engage in due to financial needs of the children for hospitals and other educational related expenses, these has been a problem for them meeting up the payment schedules stipulated in the loan agreements. the restriction of some women by religion and family cultures makes it difficult for loanable funds to be granted some of them as guarantors have to come from the family members. violence and relocation of married couples is another area that restrict women having access to loanable funds as it is required for them to stay for a minimum period in a location before qualifying for the loans. in summary, emmanuel (2013) sums the challenges facing women entrepreneurs in nigeria as family issues, lack of supports from governments and donor agencies, personal characteristics peculiar with women physiological nature, lack of access to capital, markets and adequate information. other challenges identified to be peculiar with nigerian women are gender discrimination, lack of adequate contacts and weak networking power, lack of access to critical assets such as land and equipment, cultural and religious barriers (soetan, 1997; aina, 2003; olutunla, 2001; emmanuel, 2013). discussion nigerian government should encourage women by providing more loanable opportunities to them that will not be difficult to access by removing all bureaucracies attached to the application and processing of such loans. loans to women entrepreneurs should be made as easy as similar credit institutions in indonesia, china and bangladesh since they are adjudged to have the world’s most successful and efficient banks in the world in dealing with micro credit (aina, 2003; todaro and smith, 2009). vandefan, a. t., facing women entrepreneurs in nigeria, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 71-79)77 there should be frequent information to women about available investment potentials to improve the level of women participation in micro and medium businesses. women should not be restricted from forming associations or net working groups so that they can be able to access and evaluate existing business potentials available and sources of grants and funding. women should form cooperative societies supported by international donor agencies and relevant government institutions, these can make them know the available markets and type of investment they can explore that will be more productive and profitable to limit loss and high risk. conclusion based on the geo political analysis in this study, women entrepreneurship in nigeria has different variation as those in the north are more protected by family and religious beliefs than the women from the southern east, south west and south parts of nigeria. there are variations in the levels of women empowerment in the country as women in the southern part of the country are more free from family restrictions than the ones in the north and national policies seems to favor them in places like lagos and calabar more than their counterparts in benue and taraba where religion and cultural values seems to make women less business active. women from the southern part of nigeria and the north central states are more business minded than the women from the north west and north east where religion restrict rural women from trading and other open market trading activities references [1] adepelumi, p. a. 2011. women entrepreneurship as a tool for economic development in nigeria, african centre for advocacy and human development (acahd) [2] aina, o. i. 2003. small enterprises owned by women in nigeria, policy and practices in africa, idrc publications, vol. 14, no. 29, 1-90. [3] arenius, p., and minniti, m. 2003. women in entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial advantage of nations: first annual global entrepreneurship symposium, united nations headquarters, 29 april 2003. [4] barrett, m. 2006.women’s entrepreneurship in australia: present and their future in c. brush, n. 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 71-79) [5] emmanuel, c.l. 2013. entrepreneurship, a conceptual approach, second edition, pumark nigeria limited: 3 53-358. [6] farrington p, r. 2006. women entrepreneurs: how important are their perceptions? academy of entrepreneurship journal vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 1-15. [7] garba, s. a. 2011. stumbling block for women entrepreneurship in nigeria: how risk attitude and lack of capital mitigates their need for business expansion, european journal of economics, finance and administrative sciences, vol. 36, pp 38-49. global entrepreneurship monitor (2012). gem 2011 global report. published online, http://www.gemconsortium.org. [8] gosh, gupta and dhar in konungo. (1998). entrepreneurship and religion [9] hefsky, l. 2011. entrepreneurs are made not born. mcgraw hill professional, new york city, ny [10] iyiola, o. o. & azuh, d. 2014. women entrepreneurs as small-medium enterprise (sme) operators and their roles in socio-economic development in ota, nigeria. international journal of economics, business and finance (2,1), 1-10. [11] iheduru, n. g. 2002. women entrepreneurship and development: the gendering of microfinance in nigeria. a paper presented at the 8th international interdisciplinary congress on at makeree university, kampalauganda women, 21-26 july. [12] laurie j. mullins. 2011. management and organizational behavior. [13] lorber, j. & farrell, s. a. 1991. the social construction of gender. sage publication, inc. california usa. [14] minniti, m. & arenius, p. 2003. women in entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial advantage of nations: [15] miskin and rose. 2015. enabling agric-entrepreneurship and innovation: empirical evidence and solutions for conflicts regions and transitoning economics. [16] mordi, c., simpson, r., singh, s. & okafor, c, 2010. the role of cultural values in understanding the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs in nigeria, gender in management: an international journal, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 5-21 2015 43(2 ) 21 [17] ogundele, o. j., & opeifa, a. z. 2003. factors that influence the emergence, behaviour and performance of entrepreneurs in nigeria, the abuja management review, (1, 2) june. [18] ogunleye, g. a. 2004. small and medium scale enterprises as foundation for rapid economic development in nigeria, in small and medium enterprises development and smieis, effective implementation strategies (ed.), by ojo, a. t. lagos, maryland finance company and consultancy service ltd. vandefan, a. t., facing women entrepreneurs in nigeria, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 71-79)79 [19] olutunla a. 2001. “emerging issues on micro and rural financing in nigeria” in bullion, a publication of the central bank of nigeria, volume 25 no. 1 january/march, pp64-71 [20] radovic/markovic, m. 2013. female entrepreneurship, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 2013, no. 1-2, 1-9. [21] singh, s., mordi, c., okafor, c., & simpson, r. 2010. challenges in female entrepreneurial development – a case analysis of nigerian entrepreneurs, journal of enterprising culture: an international journal, (18, 4), 435 – 460. singleton, [22] soetan, f. 1997. entrepreneurship and nigerian women is there any meeting point? small enterprise development, vol.8, march. spss, inc. (2003). spss 12.0 for windows. [statistical analysis computer software] chicago. [23] todaro and smith. 2009. economic development, 10th edition [24] thomson 2002. the future of globalization: first published; 17 december 2002, https://doi.org/1111/1467-8594.00145. published by blackwell publishing.inc.350 main street. malden ma 02148, usa and 108 cowley road, oxford ox4 ijf.uk article history: received: 15 april, 2019 accepted: 16 june, 2019 publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade associate editors aidin salamzadeh, faculty of entrepreneurship, university of teheran, iran hiroko kawamorita kesim, ondokuz mayis university, turkey editorial office journal secretaries dejana pavlović, ma elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by donat graf, beograd jelena petrović0f snežana radukić1f introduction literature review methodology data – analysis of economic growth and entrepreneurial activity in republic of serbia results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references milica slijepčević2f karolina perčić3f creating fashion creative process in fashion creation the process of fashion diffusion, creation of identity and fashion product image life cycle of a fashion product fashion, style, hit fashion product pricing cost-based pricing market-based pricing promoting a fashion product fashion magazines fashion blogs conclusion olabisi, s. yusuff4f introduction brief empirical literature patterns of land ownership in developing countries conceptual framework interpretation study areas data presentation and analysis challenges of women in accessing land in ado-odo community women’s perception on improvement of patterns of ownership of land recommendation references daniela petríková5f tatiana varadyová6f introduction objectives the concept of financial literacy financial literacy components financial education financial literacy and financial education in slovakia methodology results practical implementation of the inclusion of financial literacy in the teaching process discussion conclusion ann terngu makar vandefan7f introduction literature review /conceptual frame work financial support for women as entrepreneurs discussion conclusion references victoria burgess8f introduction theoretical overview discussion conclusion references an analysis of the development of entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia with a special focus on female entrepreneurship fashion product development process with reference to women's participation local government in ogun state, nigeria preparation of future teachers at vocational secondary schools and financial literacy assessing institutional founding sources and challenges facing women entrepreneurs in nigeria being a female entrepreneur case study 14_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.961:005.914.3(540); 334.722-055.2(540) jel: l26, b54, d63 cobiss.sr-id: 211198220 original scientific research opportunity recognition and growth dynamics of an msme unit – a case of women entrepreneurship in india agrawal reena1 jaipuria institute of management lucknow, india a b s t r a c t this case study showcases the initiative and hard work of a woman entrepreneur from india, who was conscious of the growing concern for pollution, caused by the plastic bags and had a passion to establish a venture to produce and market jute products. this case study discusses in detail the education acquired by the entrepreneur, her vision, initiative, development and operation of the venture, growth enjoyed in the last few years and the plans for future expansion. it also showcases how this woman entrepreneur was successful in creating innumerable jobs in the society, besides earning a livelihood for herself. key words: social exclusion, women entrepreeurship, opportunity recognition, business operations, organizational structure, growth dynamics introduction social exclusion and discrimination refer to the process and outcome of keeping a social group outside the power centers and resources. it is the manifestations of physical inequity, societal prejudice, social discrimination 1 assistant professor, jaipuria institute of management, vineet khand, gomti nagar, luckow, uttar pradesh, india-226010, m: +91 9956990217, email: reena.agarwal@jaipuria.ac.in 84 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 83-94) and economic biasness in the society. women are generally perceived as homemakers with little to do with trade or economy. even as women are receiving education, they face the prospect of unemployment. the prospects open for them to develop into business professionals is an area still quite unexplored and needs lots of attention and the transition from homemaker to sophisticated business woman is not that easy. but there is a gradual change in the current scenario. it has been observed that in recent times, more and more women are taking up entrepreneurial activity and are contributing in promoting economic development, reducing poverty, increasing employment opportunity and self dependence. literature review globally women are considered as weaker gender physically and emotionally wennekers, (1999) and india is no exception. the discrimination against women reflects not only in the social, political, cultural and educational arena, but also in commerce and economic field. mcclelland’s theory of the need to achieve suggests that individuals with a strong need to achieve often find their way to entrepreneurship. entrepreneurship plays an important role in exploring the knowledge and utilizing it to provide goods and services. acs and armington , (2006) define entrepreneurship as "the process by which agents transform knowledge into wealth through new firm formation and growth, and then reconstitute wealth into opportunity for others". according to marlow, (2002) entrepreneurship is not just confined to any one gender, the multi-faceted economic pressures borne by women have forced them to retrospect and realize that the survival of their families and their own potential is possible only if they move shoulder to shoulder with the men. the need for achievement and autonomy, risk-taking, control of business and self-efficacy are other vital characteristics of women entrepreneurs (shane, 2003). women entrepreneurship is expanding around the world and generations of women from very different backgrounds are showing very encouraging sign of entrepreneur spirit. delmar, (2000). overpowering the challenges of business world is more grueling, strenuous and arduous for women rather than for their male counterparts. they undergo innumerable steeplechases to achieve success in their business. allen truman, (1993). fortunately technological advancements have opened up new avenues for wom agrawal, r., groeth dynamics of an msme unit, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 83-94) 85 en. it has facilitated them to explore their potential aptitude, and also to identify and exploit new business opportunities. carter, (2001). studies have shown that women owned businesses comprise between one-quarter and one-third of businesses in the formal economy and are likely to play even greater role in informal sectors. over two hundred million women are employed across all industry sectors, with half of this number is in developing countries. gem report, (2007). in recent years female entrepreneurship has been attracting increasing attention, because of the concrete evidences of new business creation by them, which has enhanced the economic growth and development (acs et. al., 2005; langowitz and minniti, 2007). not only does female entrepreneurship contribute to economic growth and employment creation, (verheul et al., 2006) but it also provides avenues for female expression and potential fulfillment (eddleston and powell, 2008). it is to be hoped that governments at all levels will work to provide an environment in which this spirit may flourish. this story is about a women entrepreneur named anjali singh who was aware of the growing concern for pollution caused by the plastic bags and strict action being taken by the countries across the globe including india to ban the use of plastic bags. so anjali decided to create a venture to produce and market jute bags and other jute products. methodology the methodology adopted includes the following: visiting the project site, conducting series of interviews of the entrepreneur and interacting with the other stakeholders. a questionnaire was drafted and then those questions were administered on the entrepreneur and the other respective groups. a rough draft was prepared and then it was refined. the entrepreneur`s endeavours, experiences, hardships, success and other nuances of business have been developed by way of a case and the vital learning’s drawn have being illustrated by way of figures and diagrams. findings of the study about the entrepreneur after completing her graduation in arts anjali decided to pursue masters in business administration. after completing her post graduation she 86 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 83-94) took up a marketing job. for nine years she worked in service industry and looked after marketing of services and customer support division. her basic task was to promote the product, evolve new strategies to tap the right people and convince them about the product and finally sell the product to them. the learnings drawn during the process were (1) that the buyers/customers are no fools, (2) customer satisfaction is vital for success (3) developed the skill to convince the customers (4) positive outlook was a pre-requisite for success. the job helped her to become candid and instilled in her lots of confidence. though initially she did get job satisfaction, but eventually she felt an inner urge to create a venture of her own, which would render social benefits and also help her to earn livelihood. as there was no one in anjali`s family who ever did business she had a little hesitation. but on doing self assessment she realized that she had innovative ideas, initiative, courage, firm determination and was also good in marketing and sales etc, and these attributes would surely help her to become a successful entrepreneur. figure 1: entrepreneurial traits in anjali agrawal, r., groeth dynamics of an msme unit, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 83-94) 87 entrepreneurial vision planet earth is becoming increasingly contaminated by the unnecessary use of plastic carry bags. it is difficult and costly to recycle all such bags and the result is that most end up on landfill sites, where they take years to photo degrade. besides choking drains, contaminating soil and water, if burned they release highly toxic cancer-causing gases. paper, jute and cloth are eco-friendly and are considered as suitable substitute for the plastic. though paper bags are cheaper yet they are less durable. cloth bags are durable but are expensive too. jute is one of the strongest natural plant fibers, which is durable and re-usable. it is a 100 % natural material that consumes carbon dioxide and releases oxygen into the atmosphere. fabric made of jute fibers is therefore carbon dioxide neutral and are naturally decomposable. anjali singh was fully aware of the growing concern for pollution caused by the plastic bags and strict action being taken by the countries across the globe and especially india to prohibit the use of plastic bags. anjali first found out that paper, jute and cloth are eco-friendly and any of these can be used as substitute for plastic. she further analyzed that though paper bags would be the cheapest they were least durable. cloth bags were durable and reusable but they were very expensive. jute bag was the most viable option in terms of durability and cost. she knew jute had immense scope in domestic as well as international market. she was able to foresee that with the increasing thrust on reducing pollution, going green, and adopting measures of sustainable growth, there would be a huge demand for jute products. she was also conscious of the fact that jute industry was labour intensive and the increase in demand for jute products would have immense potential of enhancing the employment opportunities in jute industry and would also open new avenues for rural artisans, who were skilled in producing jute products. since childhood she saw her father, work in ngo sector. his work was to develop vocational skills in the rural women and help them to generate livelihood for themselves. he organized training programme for rural women to teach them tailoring, food preservation, making soft toys and jute bags etc; educated them about micro finance facilities; helped them to form self help groups; assisted them to fetch necessary funds and thus made them capable of earning their livelihood. though the rural women became skilled and could produce different products, yet they did not succeed in selling those products. the major impediments were low level of educa88 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 83-94) tion, lack of general awareness, lack of proper networking and lack of marketing skills. so every effort done for them and by them was a total waste, because it did not improve their financial and economic condition. anjali decided to engage such women in her venture. figure 2: route to entrepreneurship adopted by anjali anjali planned to establish “jute women artisans” an organization for the manufacturing and sale of jute bags and she decided to employ skilled rural women artisans in her venture. thus she decided to embark upon two of the most pressing issues in the indian society first pollution and second unemployment of rural women. business preposition anjali contacted number of women artisans, who were trained in tailoring and making of jute bags, and wooed them to join her project. she was successful in convincing these women and started her venture in the name of “jute women artisans”, in her residence. with an initial investment of inr one hundred fifty thousand, a small set up was created which comprised of a mini workshop and an office. anjali decided that in preliminary stage she would manufacture simple products, which did not require much technicali agrawal, r., groeth dynamics of an msme unit, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 83-94) 89 ty, and then gradually she would create the products that required greater intricacy and classiness. in india jute manufacturing was concentrated in west bengal so anjali procured jute from jute mills in kolkata and the accessories from lucknow and kanpur markets. she employed rural women, who had undergone training and development programme conducted by government of india under ‘jute mini mission iii’. though these women had the basic skill-set, they did not have practical experience. anjali knew very well that two things were important for success of any business quality and timeliness. so from the beginning, she made it a point to keep a check on quality of the product and also timely delivery of the same. she procured all the rawmaterials directly from the suppliers and avoids the intermediaries; this helps her to get the superior quality raw material at reasonable cost. to commence with she decided to contact local offices government as well as private to check the requirement for bags and folders for seminars, conferences etc. her target was to visit atleast one-two clients per day and show them the samples designed by her. this continued for two-three months and she met approximately two hundred people in three months time. besides this, she distributed thousands of pamphlets through courier services and postal services, to all such locations where physical visit was not feasible. she also advertised in local directories but unfortunately, though there was not much success. the usp of her products was that they were bio-degradable and eco-friendly and were reasonably priced. so her products appealed to the clients and whenever she approached them they were quite receptive and forthcoming. her project took off well because besides targeting financial profits, it also aimed to address two social problems which were increase in environment pollution and unemployment. it (1) promoted the use of jute bags and thereby discouraged the use of polythene bags which contributed in controlled the pollution caused by polythene bags and (2) gave employment to rural women artisans, thus promoted inclusive growth in the country. to begin with she designed a few samples which she displayed to her potential clients. often clients specified their requirement and the design they were looking for, this also lead to new product development. eventually she hired a fashion designing graduate as in-charge creativity and innovation. initially anjali tapped uttar pradesh, then she moved towards ncr and delhi and recently she has bagged several foreign orders as well. till date has procured orders from and delivered goods to approximately innu90 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 83-94) merous institutional clients in india and several institutional clients from asia ,europe and america. anjali has a well-designed organization structure wherein there are three different level at which people operate. anjali being the proprietor and head of the organization looks after the marketing of products; procurement of order, arrangement of raw material, human resource management, arrangement of funds, quality management and customer relationship management. there are two people who work under her, they are the chief designer and the head artisan. the chief designer is responsible for developing new designs and products; supervising the worker to prepare those products and checks the quality of production. the head artisan ensures that the workforce arrives at work place on time, does efficient production, fixes the problems faced by floor workers, and ensures availability of raw material and the maintenance of machines. figure 3: organizational structure at ‘jute women artisans’ workers are provided good working condition and environment. along with good salaries, the staff also gets good incentives as well. social get together are arranged for workers and gifts are distributed to them on festivals. best performer of the day is announced every day and this is taken into account at the time of annual appraisal. workforce is considered as agrawal, r., groeth dynamics of an msme unit, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 83-94) 91 figure 4: growth dynamics of jute women artisans family member and treated with empathy. anjali personally visit their homes ensure the children of these artisans attend schools and procure basic education. if necessary she moves an extra mile and arranges such facility 92 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 83-94) for the children. also organizes family picnics for her team. so the artisans are majorly content and satisfied. special measures taken by the organization for the training and development of the workers includes taking membership from national centre for design & product development, new delhi , which educate the artisans in the latest global technology and design .anjali sponsors such programs every quarter. besides infusing new skill and expertise such programmes also help in the enhancing the motivation and confidence of the workforce. the workers are also provided with opportunities to participate in the trade melas and export fairs organized in the national capital. this makes them aware of the products required across the globe .they come to know about the standards of quality and designs are required to meet the expectation level of international buyers. the venture which started in the form of a mini workshop within the house with five workers and a few sewing machines has grown in size and stature in the last few years. anjali established a full fledged workshop at chinhat, at the outskirts of lucknow city, so that rural artisans can easily reach their work place. this workshop has four fabric cutting machines and more than seventy sewing machines and employs approximately hundred workers. starting with a small annual turnover of inr one hundred thousand, today she has reached a mark of inr four million. anjali says that satisfied and self-motivated employees are the most precious assets for the organization. she claims that by providing employment to the rural women she has assisted them to lead a respectable life. these rural artisans have become self-dependant, strong and confident. they could easily meet the basic necessities of life, give their children good education and save for contingencies. agenda for future growth anjali plans to establish a factory which would have approximately four hundred women jute artisans. replace the conventional sewing machines with sophisticated hi-tech sewing machines and install a genset for power generation. keep in touch with the constantly changing trend and style; design novel utility products with improved quality, develop new designs and color schemes; introduce innovative methods of sales and promotion; tap overseas buyers by participating in the trade exhibitions and trade fairs organized in india and foreign countries; make use of online marketing portals and social networking sites to improve the outreach. agrawal, r., groeth dynamics of an msme unit, jwe (2014, no. 3-4, 83-94) 93 anjali wants that when the company grows the staff should also grow with it. she thus plans to offer to the workforce ownership rights in her venture, so that it creates a better bonding with the organization and they work with a greater zeal and enthusiasm. learnings drawn according to anjali the basic traits required by a potential entrepreneur are self belief; initiative; energetic; perseverance; hard work, innovation and excellent marketing skills. in order to succeed it is important that the entrepreneur offers a good-quality innovative product which is rationally priced; has positive attitude; has ability to keep staff motivated and satisfied; has the capability to handle change; has the ability to cope with failures and to learn from his mistakes. anjali was greatly inspired by shiv khera`s word “winners don’t do different things, they do things differently” and she also believes that there are no short cut to success. if one works religiously with an idea and also has social cause in mind one would surely succeed. anjali`s organization is an ideal example of social entrepreneurship on one side it provides a substitute to poly bags and thus helps check soil pollution on the other hand it generates employment opportunities for hundred of rural women and thus help them enjoy the basic amenities of life. references [1] acs, z.j., and armington, c.b. (2006). entrepreneurship, geography and american growth. n.y.: cambridge university press. [2] allen, s., and truman, c., eds. (1993), “women in business: perspectives on women entrepreneurs”, london: routledge press. [3] carter, s (2000). „gender and enterprise.“ in enterprise and small business: principles, practice and policy, ed. s. carter and d. jones-evans. london: ft prentice hall. [4] delmar, f. (2000). „the psychology of the entrepreneur“. in enterprise and small business: principles, practice and policy, ed. s. carter, & d. jones-evans, 132154. harlow: england: pearson education ltd. [5] eddleston, k. and powell, g. (2008), “the role of gender identity in explaining sex differences in business owners career satisfier preferences”, journal of business venturing, 23: 244-56. [6] global entrepreneurship monitor (gem), 2004, report on women entrepreneurship, 2007. 94 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 3-4, 83-94) [7] langowitz, n. and minniti, m. (2007), “the entrepreneurial propensity women”, entrepreneurship theory & practice, 31(3): 341-64. [8] marlow, s. (2002). “women and self-employment; a part of or a part from theoretical construct?” international entrepreneurship and management journal, 3(2): 83-91. [9] shane, s. (2003). a general theory of entrepreneurship: the individualopportunity nexus. uk: edward elgar. [10] verheul, i., van stel, a. and thurik, r. (2006), “explaining female and male entrepreneurship at the country level.” entrepreneurship & regional development, 18: 151-83. [11] wennekers, s., & thurik, r. (1999). “linking entrepreneurship to economic growth”. small business economics, 13(1): 27-55. prepoznavanje prilika i dinamika rasta malog biznisa slučaj ženskog poduzetništva u indiji a p s t r a k t ova studija slučaja pokazuje inicijativu i naporan rad žene preduzetnice iz indije, koja je bila svesna rastućeg zagađenja nastalog zbog upotrebe plastičnih kesa i stoga je želela da pokrene biznis i proizvodi kese od jute. autorka u studiji slučaja detaljno raspravlja neophodno obrazovanje preduzetnice, njenu viziju, inicijativu, radne poduhvate,razvoj biznisa, kao i planove za buduću ekspanziju posla. ona takođe prikazuje kako je ova žena preduzetnica bila uspešna u stvaranju bezbroj novih radnih mesta u društvu, osim što je zarađivala za sebe i vlastiti život. ključne reči: socijalna uključenost, žene preduzetnice, prepoznavanje prilika, poslovanje, organizaciona struktura, dinamika rasta. article history: received: 14 march, 2014 accepted: 10 september, 2014 17_jwe_3-4 notes from the editor-in-chief the jwee seeks the input of top quality scientific contributions. we expect the original scientific papers of even higher quality and in a larger number. all publications in the journal are in english language. authors whose first language is not english should make sure their manuscript is written in idiomatic english before submission. at last, we want to remind you to follow the author's guide. on behalf of our editorial board, we appreciate your interest in the jwee and look forward to hearing from you soon. best wishes and thank you in advance for your contribution in the new year 2018! november, 2017. editor-in-chief acad. prof. mirjana radovic-markovic, phd 16_jwe_1-2 udk: 005.322:316.46-055.2(497) jel: l26, b54 cobiss.sr-id: 222331404 original scientific paper prospects and challenges for female leaders from the balkans pavlović dejana1, ljumović isidora institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t the aim of the paper is to show the position of female leaders in business and political spheres in serbia and surrounding countries. women fought for their equality in society in the early 21st century, but not so successfully in some countries of eastern europe. the parliaments of several eu member states have almost equal number of men and women (finland, sweden, iceland), while bosnia and herzegovina has about 17% of female mps. this problem is present not just in the political but also in the business sphere. the paper specifies the reasons such as traditional attitude and mentality of the balkan people as well as the lack of trust that women can coordinate a group of people and act as leaders in society. the literature review shows that other authors explain it by inadequate implementation of the strategy on gender equality and government’s inability to solve the problem. key words: women leadership, balkan, labour market 1 e-mail: dejana.pavlovic@ien.bg.ac.rs pavlović, d., et al., female leaders, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) 59 introduction in business and politics, leaders’ role is primary for achieving prosperity, because they are able and can motivate their associates, contribute to achieving the organization’s goals (company’s growth and increased profits) and thus affect the reduction of unemployment and the growth of economic indicators in the country. an individual or a leader can realize goals and achieve success if there is a certain group of people that trust him/her and are selflessly devoted and committed to work and organization. given the above, it is obvious why the study on leadership has become popular among researchers since the beginning of the twentieth century (jevtic, 2007). in recent decades, women have successfully fought for their equality in society and proved they are capable of great achievements. naturally, with the development of leadership, women's leadership gains in importance and becomes an interesting phenomenon for analysis. over time, the research on leadership has shown that both sexes can equally contribute to the improvement of company’s operations if they possess leadership skills, knowledge, experience, education, despite a small number of women in leading positions in companies and in public administration for years. many global companies have recognized the contribution women can provide to the private sector and acted towards reducing the gap between men and women. studies also showed that companies with a higher representation of women in their management or boards have better business performance (djulic & kuzman, 2013). therefore, an initiative was launched to increase the number of women in leadership positions around the world. national strategies, created and implemented in the balkan countries at the beginning of the 21st century, had a great impact on increased participation of women in the labour market. the national strategy for improving the position of women and promoting gender equality in the republic of serbia emphasized the need for increasing the number of women in higher positions as well as for improving the economic position of women, achieving gender equality in education, improving the health of women and promoting gender equality in health policy, prevention and combating violence against women and improving the protection of victims and eliminating gender stereotypes and promoting gender equality in the media (the national strategy for improving the position of women and promoting gender equality, 2009). 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) bearing in mind the current trends in world literature, the aim of this paper is to present the status of women in leadership positions, i.e. to provide a clearer picture of the participation of women in leadership positions in the public and private sector of the republic of serbia and selected countries in the region. special attention has been paid to the processing of actual statistical data from publicly available providers like statistical office of the republic of serbia, world bank and the international labour organization. literature review significant interest for analyse of the leadership phenomenon is demonstrated by hunt (1991), who, in his study in the 1990s, stated there are more than 10,000 of empirical studies on the topic of leadership, and that most of the studies are carried out in the period from 1978 to 1985 (jevtic, 2007). there is no universal definition of leadership, although its essence is known to all. some of the first studies on this subject show leadership as the interaction between people using different impact for achieving the goals of the organization (yukl, 1989). authors define leadership as the mobilization of labour resources, such as institutional, psychological, political ones, so as to satisfy the motives of followers (burns, 2003), while others define it as a process of joint and voluntary effort invested to fulfil the objectives (jacobs & jacques, 1990). attitudes have changed over time, depending on the climate, participants in the process, time, but the common element is that leadership requires the presence of a person who is ready to lead a group of people in order to realize common goals. based on the global research conducted by bullough et. al. (2012), we can conclude that developed countries that invest in the business environment, social development, economy, technology and infrastructure, political freedom and culture are positively associated with the participation of women in political leadership. this indicates that developed countries will have a higher percentage of women in leadership positions and in political life. despite the fact that leader is quite an affirmative concept around the world; this term in serbia and the balkan countries often has a negative collocation, while leaders themselves are faced with negative comments and their disputed role in business. studies on the analysis of leadership in serbia showed that successful entrepreneurs, at leading pavlović, d., et al., female leaders, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) 61 positions in serbia, gained their status thanks to factors such as timing of the commencement of operations, financial positionof the family or marital status, while age is not identified as an important factor for leadership. the most important factor of leadership is timing, since the best climate in serbia was in the early nineties, more precisely at the beginning of the transition, when social and political environment was favourable for starting business (glomazic, 2011). another study of leadership in serbia analysed the other side of this phenomenon and showed that citizens do not have a high opinion of leaders (ajdukovic, 2007).the research by ajdukovic (2007) showed that about 60% of the respondents answered there are no leaders in serbia. the most significant factors that influence (under)development of leadership in women are environment, tradition and mentality of the balkan people. here, women have fought for their place at important, top-level positions for years, whether these positions are in public state bodies or in private companies. data from the labour markets of developed countries show that highest percentage of women in leadership positions is in scandinavian countries. according to the latest statistics from january 2015, women on average participate in parliamentary life with about 40% in scandinavian countries.for instance, out of the total number of members of the parliament (mps) in sweden 43% are women, 41.5% in finland, while this percentage is significantly lower in the other countries of the eu. in the usa, this participation amounts to around 26.7%, asia 19%, europe about 25%, pacific 15.7% (inter-parliamentary union, 2015). in the nineties, women in the nordic countries were almost equal in the parliament, unlike in the us senate that had a small number of women until 1995. looking at the global picture, the presence of women in politics has doubled since 1995 (centre for american women and politics, 2015). despite the progress women have made in the public and private sectors in recent decades, they remain under-represented in management positions and their position is unfavourable compared to male population (adler, 2001; davidson and burke, 2000).according to the research from catalyst inc. knowledge centre, the results indicate that in just four countries women represent over 20 per cent of board members (finland, sweden, norway and united kingdom); in 13 countries between 10 and 20 per cent; in 14 countries between five and 10 per cent and in 13 countries less than 5 per cent (quick take: women on boards, ilo, 2015). besides holding a small number of leadership positions, women earn less than men, 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) as shown by the research conducted by a group of authors considering the period from 1983 to 2000. the results show that women on average earn about 44% less than men (krishnan and park, 2005; carter, simkins and simpson, 2003). in central and eastern europe, the gender pay gap is about 21%. for instance, in turkey, women can expect to earn just 25 per cent of men’s income over their lifetime (progress of the world’s women, un, 2015). in the period 1993 to 2000, the countries in central and eastern europe were going through the process of transition from socialist to market economy, which caused high unemployment rate and low participation of women in the labour market. women were not able to combine work and family life. however, after the transition, some countries have managed to decrease labour force participation rate (lfpr). for example, in the republic of moldova women’s lfpr decreased from 61.1% to 37.6% in period between 1990 to 2013 (progress of the world’s women, un, 2015). methodological notes the paper pays special attention to the countries of the former republic of yugoslavia, with special emphasis on countries that have not accessed to the eu. analysis of the labour market in bosnia and herzegovina, macedonia, montenegro and serbia demonstrates significantly different patterns of active participation of women in the private and public sector. all four analysed countries were created after the dissolution of sfr yugoslavia. some of the countries separated peacefully, while others went through wars. these characteristics with specific market factors defined their economic systems that are essentially inherited, noting that they entered the process of transition in different periods. although in various stages of transition, the problems they face are generally similar and relate to the difficulty of establishing (sustainable) economic growth, attracting investments, solving the problem of high unemployment, achieving gender equality and servicing public and private debts. the issue of gender equality is the most sensitive when observing and analysing labour market. unemployment is one of the most acute social problems in all countries. even in developed european countries, the solution of this problem is of great importance. in order to solve the aforementioned problem the european union member states implemented the public policies on the labour market, with the primary aim of reducing the period of unemployment and inactivity of the working-age population. pavlović, d., et al., female leaders, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) 63 to examine the role and prospects of female leaders in the balkan countries, it was necessary to examine their position on the labour market, taking into account the global economic crisis that is still a significant factor. it is important to emphasize that the implementation of the strategy since 2010 has significantly increased the number of female leaders and reduced unemployment among women. all this is in accordance with the adopted europe 2020 strategy, which was implemented in 2010 by the european commission, in order to increase employment. at the same time, the strategy for equality between men and women from 2010 to 2015 states that it is impossible to realize the objectives of the europe 2020 without utilization of potentials and talents of the female gender. analysis and monitoring of the employment rate for women enables determinationof the movement of female leaders in developing countries. in addition, it was necessary to analyse labour force participation rate in relation to gender, which is defined by international labour organization as the proportion of the population ages 15 and older that is economically active: all people who supply labour for the production of goods and services during a specified period. raw data for this research were obtained from the international labour organization, while the systematization and analysis were conducted by the authors of this paper. we analysed all available surveys in the selected countries, to better examine the role, position and potential of women as leaders. unfortunately, hardly any country conducts this kind of research, and we were limited to data obtained from serbia and montenegro. analysis of employment with respect to fender in bosnia, macedonia, montenegro and serbia chart 2 shows trends in the number of unemployed in relation to gender in the analysed countries in 2006-2008. although female unemployment is increased in all analysed countries, the trend of unemployment rate coincides with both sexes. the highest unemployment rate is registered in macedonia, followed by bosnia and herzegovina, serbia, and finally montenegro. 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) chart 1: unemployment female and male (% of female and male labour force) in chosen countries source: international labour organization the labour market of bosnia and herzegovina has felt significant effects after the breakout of the global economic crisis, more precisely since 2008. the unemployment rate fluctuated from 23.9%, to 24.1%, 27.2%, 27.6%, 28.1%, 27.4%, 27.9% from 2008 to 2014. within the working-age population, women make up 51.1% of the total population and 51.8% of the working-age population. according to the data of the international labour organization, the unemployment rate for women in the period from 2008 to 2014, on average is around 28.4%, while for men this percentage is lower by 4%. within the working-age population, 8% of women and 9.7% of men have a university degree, masters or doctoral degree. out of the total employed population in bosnia and herzegovina, 31.3% are self-employed or entrepreneurs, where women make up 24.9%, which is comparable to regional averages. at the same time, women represent 71% of unpaid workers in family (agency for statistics of bosnia and herzegovina, 2012). the labour market of fyr macedonia recorded a slight decline in the unemployment ratein the period from 2008 to 2014, but the country is still struggling with the highest number of the unemployed population in the balkans. the unemployment rate was extremely high in 2008, amounting to 10.00 15.00 20.00 25.00 30.00 35.00 40.00 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 serbia serbia bosnia and herzegovina bosnia and herzegovina macedonia macedonia montenegro montenegro pavlović, d., et al., female leaders, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) 65 33.8%, but it fell after six years to 27.9% (ilo, 2015).unemployment rates among women and men were not dramatically different and in the period from 2008 to 2014 amounted on average to about 31%. the highest rate of unemployment among women was 34.2% and 33.5% for men in 2008. inactive female population reached 63.7% at the end of 2012, while male inactive population for the same period reached a rate of 36.3%. the difference becomes even more dramatic when observing data on education of men and women, which makes it clear that significantly more women have a university degree (26% versus 14.7%). furthermore, only 8.9% of men with a university degree were unemployed, compared with 25.7% of women (statistical office of fyr macedonia, 2013). following the adoption of the law on gender equality, since 2007, the unemployment rate among women in montenegro has not changed drastically in last few years. since 2008, the unemployment rate among women was 18%, and after the onset of the financial crisis, from 2009 to 2014, mild changes were observed from 20.5%, 20.7%, 20%,20.4%, 20.5%, 20.1% (ilo, 2015). the position of women changed significantly in the republic of serbia, after the establishment of the council for gender equality of the government of the republic of serbia, after formed special internal organizational units of the ministry of labour and social policy, office of gender equality and the committee for gender equality of the national assembly of the republic of serbia in 2000. in this way, the priorities of action and measures for improving the position of women and promotion of gender equalitywere established. changes made at the beginning of the 21st century significantly affected the decline in the unemployment rate for women in the period from 2005 to 2008, when the unemployment rate in women ranged on average around 22.25 (ilo, 2015). however, since 2008, the labour market of the republic of serbia felt the consequences of the economic crisis. in five years, the unemployment rate for women increased from 19.5% to 22.4% in 2010, but reached the highest unemployment rate in 2012 among women in the republic of serbia amounting to 28% (ilo, 2015). 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) analysis of the activity of women in the labour market in bosnia, macedonia, montenegro and serbia graph 2 shows labour force participation rate in selected countries in relation to gender. at first glance, several significant facts can be identified. first, women are significantly less active in the labour market in all the countries. a significant difference is obvious in the activities of women and men, as women's participation in any country does not exceed 60%, whereas the activity of men in any country is not less than 60%. these inequalities are presented in the graph by a great gap that separates these two segments in two halves. second, the number of the least active women is in bosnia and herzegovina, while women are the most active in serbia.the chart also shows that in the period 2006-2014 there were no significant changes to the intensity of the activities of women and men in the labour market. chart 2: labour force participation in chosen countries source: international labour organization country analysis shows that women in bosnia and herzegovina are present in the private and public sector at a very modest extent. furthermore, in this country they face discrimination in the labour market and receive lower wages, although they often support their families (djulic 35.00 40.00 45.00 50.00 55.00 60.00 65.00 70.00 75.00 80.00 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 serbia serbia bosnia and herzegovina bosnia and herzegovina macedonia macedonia montenegro montenegro pavlović, d., et al., female leaders, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) 67 & kuzman, 2013). in order to eliminate stereotypes and prejudices and to ensure gender equality in the society, bosnia and herzegovina embarked on key legislative reforms in 2003. the gender equality law was adopted in 2003 and then amended in 2009 (law on gender equality in bosnia and herzegovina, 2009). the labour market participation of women has increased in the last 6 years, and according to data from 2014, 42.1% of women are present in the lab or market, while this percentage dropped to 39.4%in 2008 (international labour organization, 2015). the adoption of the strategy on gender equality in fyr macedonia 2013-2020 enabled a major step for women's participation in the labour market. this strategy makes gender equality a social and political priority of the country, but it remains to be seen whether it will give more impressive results compared to previous initiatives (djulic & kuzman, 2013). participation of women in the labour market over the past 6 years on average was about 50.66%, while the rate of participation of men in the labour force was on average 77.1% (ilo, 2015). although the unemployment rate, according to official data, is the lowest in montenegro, there is a significant number of studies on gender inequality in the labour market. the research conducted by the centre for entrepreneurship and economic development of montenegro, shows that more than half of the surveyed women believe that men find employment easier than women. the reasons stated is that they primarily have a greater choice and the existing prejudices that are not in favour of women. in addition, over 60% of female respondents believe that there is a division of "male" and "female" jobs in montenegro. the majority of women interviewed in this study agrees that they find a satisfying, well-paid jobwith more difficulties than men.they reveal the most common cause is the family responsibility as a women’s priority, while men have a better interrelationshipsand mainly play the roles of decision-makers. over 40% of female respondents said that gender of an employee is an important factor for an employer (centre for entrepreneurship and economic development of montenegro, 2015). data obtained in this research suggest that employers assign tasks relating to decision-making preferably to men. out of the total number of respondents who believe that women find a satisfactory job with more difficulty than men, the majority of women as possible reasons for the fact that women occupy “second-class” positions mentions“the employer is a man” or “male connections and acquaintances”. in order to eliminate the extremely pronounced gender inequality, montenegro adopted the law on 68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) gender equality in 2007. the report on the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women was prepared, and the office of gender equality, various associations and organizations has been successfully working since 2003, which are involved in issues of gender equality and improving the status of women in montenegro (law on gender equality in montenegro, 2003). interesting research results on the topic of women's leadership in montenegro could be found at masnic (2011). on the basis of the surveyed, the results showed that 44.4% of respondents fully supports the statement that a woman leader is a threat to the birth rate, 66.1% fully agrees with the view that a woman's place is at home, and 58.6% stands behind the statement that if women were in leadership positions, the country would be in a mess. analysis of the position of women and their prospects on leadership positions in serbia and neighbouring countries position of women in the broader region varies drastically, and ranges from one extreme where a woman is the head of a country, to another where a large population of girls does not even finish elementary school. although croatia has the lowest percentage of female leaders in the market, women have traditionally had great influencein politics. it is the fact, that this is the only country in the region with a female president. unlike croatia, the report on the millennium development goals in 2004 points out to the great inequality of women and men in albania. this report proposes specific measures to increase the representation of women in decisionmaking bodies, with the aim of empowering women to participate in economic development and reducing the dropout rates among girls, especially in rural areas. civil society organizations have actively participated in the formulation of local objectives and development priorities. a growing trend in the number of educated women was noticed in serbia and montenegro, which has a significant impact on increasing the participation of women in public life and in leadership positions.according to the latest united nations women progress report 2015, bosnia and herzegovina is faced with the largest percentage of uneducated women (5%) and a small percentage of highly educated women 36%, while this rate in montenegro is 54%, and 52% in serbia. however, there is aparadox,since bosnia and herzegovina and macedonia have the highest percentage of pavlović, d., et al., female leaders, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) 69 women as top managers in private companies, 24% and 26% respectively, while this percentage is only 19% in montenegro, according to world bank data from 2013 (world bank, 2015). table 1: educational of men and women by country, 2015 (in percentage) women men no education onlyprimary education secondary or higher education no education only primary education secondary or higher education bosnia and herzegovina 5.0 59.0 36.0 2.0 42.0 56.0 montenegro 4.0 42.0 54.0 1.0 30.0 69.0 serbia 4.0 44.0 52.0 2.0 37.0 60.0 source: unw progress report, united nations, 2015 note: data on macedonia are not available the situation in bosnia and herzegovina drastically changed after the conclusion of the dayton agreement. although women were active participants in the peace process, they were barely represented in the new political structures.the law on gender equality was adopted in 2003 and was amended in 2009 with the aim to protect and promote gender equality in bosnia and herzegovina in all spheres of society. however, statistics show that in 2008 women accounted for 13.33% of the representatives of the house of peoples and only for 11.90% of the representatives in the house of representatives of the parliamentary assembly of bosnia and herzegovina (institute of statistics of bosnia and herzegovina, 2009). according to the data from december 2015, women in the parliament of bosnia and herzegovina accounted for 21.4% of the representatives, i.e. out of 42 seats in the parliament 9 seats were occupied by women. in serbia, there are 43% of female mps, i.e. out of 250 seats in parliament 85 are held by women, with the similar situation in macedonia where women’s representation is 33.3%. the lowest percentage of women in parliament is noted in montenegro (17.3%), where women have 14 out of 81 seats in the parliament. 70 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) table 2: the percentage of women in national parliaments 2015 the percentage of women in national parliaments country seats women % women bosnia and herzegovina 42 9 21,4% montenegro 81 14 17,3% serbia 250 85 34% macedonia, fyr 123 14 33,3% source: inter-parliamentary union statistics 2015 according to the latest data of the international labour organisation, the participation of women in leadership positions in serbia is 31% out of the total number of top positions in the business world. unlike serbia, the largest percentage of women in leadership positions in the region is foundin bulgaria, amounting to 36.7% in 2014 and 36.5% in 2013. the situation in the eu member states is quite similar for 2014, and the percentage in croatia, macedonia and romania was 23.2%, 29% and 31.7% respectively. table 3: percentage of female leaders in chosen countries country 2013 2014 bulgaria 36.5 36.7 croatia 24.4 23.2 macedonia 27.3 29 romania 31.2 31.7 serbia 31.5 source: ilo, 2015 according to the research conducted in april 2014, only 18 women are heads of state, 22.9% participate in parliaments around the world. although the number of women in managerial positions is significantly increased in recent decades, it is expected to grow in the future. however, in serbia there is a trend of decline in the number of women in leadership positions. the results indicatea drop by 5.1% in recent years, namely from 2009 to 2012, while the participation of women in leadership positions increased by 1.6% from 2012 to 2013. pavlović, d., et al., female leaders, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) 71 chart 3: participation of women in leadership positions in serbia source: ilo, 2015 interpretation of results women leaders in the territory of the balkan peninsula are struggling with the negative impact of a patriarchal environment. mistrust is still present as well as the opinion that a woman cannot represent a group of people and therefore the bosnia and herzegovina parliament is represented by a small number of women, while the participation of women in parliamentary life in serbia and macedonia is at the eu average. women successfully fought for gender equality, which was supported by the strategies implemented at the beginning of the 21stcentury. although the strategies aim to reduce unemployment and to reform the education system in developing countries, bosnia and herzegovina is still struggling with a small number of highly educated women, which is one of the preconditions for increasing the number of women leaders in the public arena. the main problems causing an unsatisfactory number of women in leadership positions include: insufficient number of educated women; a small percentage of women in the labour market resulting in high unemployment; the mentality and tradition of the balkan people; mistrust and prejudice. having analysed the data of this study, it was observed that a 35 33.3 32.8 29.1 31.5 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 serbia 72 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) prerequisite for the development of women's leadership is an adequately established gender equality strategy that would provide women with the prospects for education and easy access to the labour market and the consequent impact on reducing unemployment. chart 4: the process of increasing women's leadership conclusion nowadays, being a good leader is a challenge for both men and women. the role of a leader is attached to the delegation and achievement of objectives, and also the stimulation of certain groups of people towards their realization.a good leader possesses responsibility, dominance, confidence, integrity, intelligence, determination, perseverance, and more, but everything that a woman can have too. numerous studies, which are analysed in this paper, show a strong link between the level of development of society and involvement of women in public and private, or political and economic life of a country. practically, this can be proved by the analysis of data on women's participation in parliament in the countries covered by this study. countries with the highest proportion of women in parliament are sweden, finland, denmark, norway which has 40% of participation of women, egypt with 3%, kuwait 1%, pavlović, d., et al., female leaders, jwe (2016, no. 1-2, 58-75) 73 while the presence of women in in saudi arabiaparliament is unthinkable. on the other hand, we can conclude that the participation of women in the usa which is one of the economically developed countries is at a high level because many factors affect the growth of women’s participation. women that are at leading positions motivate and encourage other women and they are role models for other women to run for leading positions. we can believe that the struggle for gender equality will be completed in the future, 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[29] bullough, a, kroeck, k.g. & renko, m. (2012). “expectancy theory and nascent entrepreneurship.” small bus econ (2012) 39:667–684. izgledi i izazovi žena lidera sa balkana a p st r a k t cilj rada je da prikaže položaj žena lidera u poslovnoj i političkoj sferi u srbiji i zemljama u okruzenju. žene su uspele početkom 21. veka da se izbore za ravnopravnost u društvu ali u nekim zemljama istočne evrope nedovoljno. pojedine zemlje članice eu u narodnom parlamentu imaju skoro izjednačen broj muškaraca i žena (finska, švedska, island) dok je u bosni i hercegovini ovaj podatak oko 17% žena u parlamentu. problem je prisutan i u poslovnoj sferi, a ne samo u političkoj. u radu se kao razlozi navode tradicionalni stav i mentalitet balkanskog naroda kao i nedovoljno poverenje da žena može da rukovodi grupom ljudi i preuzme ulogu lidera u društvu. dok pregledom literature, drugi autori navode kao razlog neadekvatna implementacija strategije o ravnopravnosti polova i neumeće vlade da reši problem. ključne reči: žensko liderstvo, balkan, tržište rada article history: received: 25 january, 2016 accepted: 25 february, 2016 microsoft word 11_jwe_1-2 udc: 37.095.2 jel: b54; i2 original scientific paper factors which affect the career and subject preference of the female students of business schools singh swapnika*, mba indore, kapse manohar, vaishnav institute of management indore, sonwalkar jayant, institute of management studies, davv indore a b s t r a c t this study is concerned with career and subject preference of the female students of management institutes of indore city. the main objective of the study is to find the factors of selection of specialization. the other objective is to find the factors of carrier choices for the female students. other than this, the study also works to find the effect of other demographic variables which affect the subject and carries choices of the female students. for the study data has been collected data from few of the renowned management institutes of indore kew words: management education, female education, carrier options, optional subjects, electives introduction now a day managerial skills become crucial for organizations to achieve success in a competitive and turbulent business environment, there has been a sharp rise in the demand for managerial professionals worldwide. sturges et al. (2003) proposed that the mba degree imparts certain key competencies to students. these competencies may be of key * dms, hcl infosystems, mumbai, email: singhswapnika@gmail.com, cell 9987055917, address flat 202, tara c wing shrishti complex, opp. l&t gate 7, powai, mumbai 400076 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 90 significance in the career success of students as “management” has gained in importance over other forms of professions. in recent years, india has experienced a large increase in the number of institutions offering graduate management programs. in 1980 the number of b-school in india was 200. there was a 55 percent increase in the number of institutes imparting management education in india between 1999/2000 and 2005/2006. in the year 2009 a total of 1750 aicte approved b-school and 350 b-school without aicte affiliation were running in india. as per aicte the total number of students intake is 1,37,343 and the number of institutes 1817 for the year 2010 in india. in madhya pradesh itself the number of management institutes has increased from nearly 120 in the year 2008 to 225 in 2010, which is nearly twice of the year 2008. the number of students is nearly 28000 in madhya pradesh itself. this shows that importance of management education in india. as the number of institutes increases the competition also increases. in india also the number of b-schools will rise nearly that of america. out of all these b-schools and iims which has to be chosen by the students, parents, investors, recruiters for admission or recruiting in short differentiating a bschool from the other b-school is the major concern now a day for students, parents even for faculties and recruiters. in madhya pradesh itself the number of management institutes has increased from nearly 120 in the year 2008 to 225 in 2010, which is nearly twice of the year 2008. the number of students is nearly 28000 in madhya pradesh itself. business factors coupled with several socio-cultural changes have led to changing career preferences among young people in india. an individual's choice of career is likely to be influenced by several factors, including personal and cultural values, family background, career expectations, etc. studies have been conducted in different cultural contexts to determine the range of factors that influenced students in making career choices (özbilgin et al., 2005; kyriacou et al., 2002; ozkale et al., 2004). however, very less is done for females among management students in india in order to understand their subjective view about why they choose to pursue a career in management. female's education in india women constitute almost half of the population in the world. but the hegemonic masculine ideology made them suffer a lot as they were denied singh, s., et al., factors which affect the career, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 91 equal opportunities in different parts of the world. the rise of feminist ideas has, however, led to the tremendous improvement of women's condition throughout the world in recent times. access to education has been one of the most pressing demands of theses women's rights movements. women's education in india has also been a major preoccupation of both the government and civil society as educated women can play a very important role in the development of the country. higher education of women: the data clearly reveal that the overall representation of women in higher education is poor, and that they are poorly represented in the faculties that lead to prestigious and lucrative occupations such as engineering and management. however it is significant that the decadal increase of enrolment in higher education has consistently been larger for women than for men. the figures are as follows. in the 1950's enrolment of women in higher education increased by 275% and of men by 126.4%, in the 1960's women's enrolment increased by 187.33% and men's by 108.78%, in the 1970's women's by 73.55% and men's by 31.60%, and in the 1980's women's by 92.11% and men's by 49.18%. women's representation, in all disciplines, has also gone up substantially. today one sees increasingly larger numbers of women in every field, including those from which they were practically excluded until a few years also. in fact women are moving steadily towards equality in higher education. review of literature according to carol ackah norma heaton, gavin mc whinney (1999) the management careers of men and women did differ significantly in a number of respects and that there were differences between male and female graduates in their perceptions of how the mba has affected their careers. it also found that women, in particular, experienced barriers to their careers which mediated the effects of obtaining a higher level qualification. the paper discusses how a more “level playing field” might be created and pressures reduced for both men and women in management careers. the study of pixley, joy (2005) reveals little evidence that those professional women who are strategic in ordering their family and career roles, or in seeking or developing relationships in which their careers are not secondary. rather, these women are similar to the male students in their choices to make family commitments before their careers are journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 92 established, and are more traditionally female in how they balance their careers with their partners’ careers. both behaviors are likely to put them at a disadvantage compared to their male peers. despite, or perhaps because of, certain structural similarities between male and female professional students, they are unlikely to reap the same benefits from their educational investments. sue shaw, catherine cassell (2007) examines gender differences in how academics make sense of performance within university business schools in the uk. according to them gender differences exist in the ways women and men define the academic role and in what they think is important both to themselves and the institution. a study was done by catherine r. smith (1998), to comparing women and men students’ perceptions of learning advantages and disadvantages in management education. they suggested a masculine bias, which disadvantages both female and male learners. issues of concern to male students give much greater concern to their female counterparts. gender paradigms of male educators appear to particularly disadvantage women’s learning experiences. eugenia petridou, aikaterini sarri and lida p. kyrgidou (2009) conducted a study to find the effect of entrepreneurial programs, they revealed that there were differences in participation rates, attitudes towards entrepreneurship education and perceptions about required skills between the two genders. the attitudes towards participation in entrepreneurial educational programs, females demonstrate a stronger interest in acquiring knowledge, developing skills, facing career competition and networking with local business, to a significantly higher degree than their male counterparts. in addition, females rank all skills as of higher significance in successful entrepreneurial activity, assigning lower value only to communication skills, compared to men. the opposite holds for males, who ranked communication skills as of greatest importance among all other skills. the study defines the factors that male and female students consider to be most important in issues of entrepreneurship education are identified, providing a framework for the effective design, quality and delivery of such programs. business/management schools may be currently using an exclusive approach to the study and development of management; by ignoring gender in this arena sharon mavin, patricia bryans (1999) previously there was a masculine bias in management education, which disadvantages both singh, s., et al., factors which affect the career, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 93 female and male learners and which may discourage managers from capitalising on gender diversity in the workplace. both men and women were perceived as more suitable for a job that is more typical of the opposite gender. these decisions were mediated fully for women and partially for men by the impact of the gender typicality of the candidate's career on their perceived masculinity or femininity. in addition they also found that, men who had a gender atypical career history were perceived as less suitable for gender typical jobs. thus, for men a gender atypical career history can serve as a “double edged sword.” shlomo hareli, motti klang, ursula hess (2008) as per the report, "pipeline's broken promise," is one of a series of publications by catalyst, an organization dedicated to advancing women in the workplace female mba graduates earn, on average, $4,600 less in their first jobs than their male peers and lag in pay and advancement throughout their careers orlando sentinel(2010) according to the business week a roundup of organizations focusing on expanding the role of women in business school and the workplace of us are working such as forte foundation: this group was founded in 2001 after a landmark research study titled "women and the mba: gateway to opportunity" .other then this national association of women mbas: this national not-for-profit holds an annual conference and career fair ever year for mba women. it also publishes a magazine, the group's mission is to educate women on career opportunities available and help them find their way into leadership positions in the business world. ascent is also one such group, according to it women being one of the largest segments of the workforce in the u.s., multicultural women are disproportionately underrepresented in the workforce. ascent, a nonprofit dedicated to helping multicultural women rise to top management positions. the group focuses on developing multicultural women's skills and talent through research, executive education, networking opportunities, and corporate sponsorships. kalin, janice linden, u minnesota (1998), suggest that line women were significantly higher on three msq scales: ability utilization, achievement, and responsibility. generally the women were satisfied with their careers and lives. they also suggest that women choosing a career in business need to consider the nature of the position, i.e., line or staff, and the implications of their choice regarding future advancement. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 94 there is influence of culture and gender on the choice of a management career among men and women mba students in israel, the usa, the uk, turkey, cyprus, hungary and india ayala malach-pines and oshrit kaspi-baruch (2008). they also found a large cross-cultural differences and small gender differences in the influences and aspirations associated with a career choice in management. “skills, competencies, and abilities” was the most important factor and “father” was the most significant individual influencing the career choice of indian management students tanuja agarwala(2008). a study reveals that attachment was relevant for females' career decision selfefficacy but not for men's. authoritarian parenting styles were predictive of women's career decision self-efficacy. locus of control was important for male students but not for females lease, suzanne h. and dahlbeck, david t.(2009) objectives the objectives of the study are as follows: 1. to find out the factors affecting the subject preference (specialization) of women candidates in a business school 2. to find out the factors affecting the carrier preference decision of women students in a business school 3. the effect of demographic variables on the choice of specialization and preferred carrier of the female students these days many families which did not earlier let their daughters go for higher studies but they are now allowing as well encouraging higher and modern education for all their kids irrespective of the gender. but still there are many career decisions which are highly influenced by family, societal and economic background of a female student. the study tries to get an insight as to what extent each of these factors actually influence their decisions research methodology this is an exploratory research study conducted to find the factor which affects the career and subject preference of the female students. a pilot survey was conducted with a sample of 40 respondents and the singh, s., et al., factors which affect the career, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 95 questionnaire was revised. after that a survey was conducted and data was collected with the help of the revised questionnaire. population indore is one of the important city of the state madhya pradesh, it is also known as a education hub of central india. the number of affiliated management institutes in madhya pradesh is nearly 250, nearly one third of the total colleges i.e. 77 are in indore itself due to which we had chosen indore as the study area. the total number of students in indore seeking management education is 10,000. nearly 50% of the students are females, so the population of the study is 5000 students. sample a convenient simple random sampling was done from the following management institutes ims, iips, gujrati samaj, vikrant institute indore etc. a sample of 200 was considered for the study with 95% level of confidence and confidence interval of 7-8% questionnaire/tool the questionnaire has two part, the first part of the questionnaire is to grasp the demographic details of the respondents which may affect their choice of carrier and specialization. the second part of the questionnaire involves the 5 point likert scale with 9 variables on subject preference and 12 variables on carrier preference. data analysis and interpretation factor analysis the main applications of factor analytic techniques are: (1) to reduce the number of variables and (2) to detect structure in the relationships between variables, that is to classify variables. therefore, factor analysis is applied as a data reduction or structure detection method (thurstone, 1931). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 96 we for the factor analysis standardized the variables and after that used the standardized variables for further analysis. with the help of factor analysis we can find the factors which are important for the sales from different stores. we had used bartlett’s test of speriocity it is a test statistics used to examine the hypothesis that the variables are uncorrelated in the population. in other words, the population correlation matrix is an identity matrix where each variable correlates perfectly with itself but has no correlation with other variables. a large value rejects the hypothesis and makes the factor analysis appropriate. kmo measure of sampling is an index used to examine the appropriateness of the factor analysis. high value (0.5 -1.0) makes the factor analysis appropriate from the table kmo and bartlett’s test of spericity it is clear that factor analysis is appropriate since both the criterion are satisfied by the data objective 1 to find out the factors influencing the subject preference (specialization) of women candidates in a business school we have used kmo and bartlett’s test to find weather the factor analysis is to applied or not from the table below the value of kmo is 0.737 and bartlett’s test value is 461.798 with 0.0001 significance hence we can use factor analysis. table 1: kmo and bartlett's test kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy. .737 bartlett's test of sphericity approx. chi-square 461.798 df 36 sig. .000 from the table total variance explained it is clear that the 63% of the variance is explained by the three components table 2: total variance explained component rotation sums of squared loadings total % of variance cumulative % 1 2.541 28.235 28.235 2 1.785 19.829 48.064 3 1.350 15.005 63.069 singh, s., et al., factors which affect the career, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 97 extraction method: principal component analysis. the factors are rotated in order to find new factors that are easier to interpret. here we have used varimax rotation. varimax rotation tries to maximize the variance of each of the factors, so the total amount of variance accounted for is redistributed over the extracted factors. from the rotated component matrix the variables which form the first component easy to score, easy to understand, opinion of parents relatives, opinion of peers and influence of your mentor someone you admire. second component availability of faculty and availability of option and third component job opportunities and interest the table below shows the rotated component matrix with the variables and there loadings table 3: rotated component matrix (a) component 1 2 3 easy to score .869 easy to understand .839 opinion of parents relatives .629 opinion of peers .558 influence of your mentor someone you admire .515 availability of faculty .841 availability of option .773 job opportunities .751 interest .731 extraction method: principal component analysis. rotation method: varimax with kaiser normalization. a rotation converged in 4 iterations. interpretation factor 1: ease and external influences ease to understand, ease to score, parents’ opinion, peers opinion and influence of mentors. all these factors are more related to external influences like opinions of the peers and parents, the ease to score and ease to understand also included in the factor journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 98 factor 2: the management institute the second factor is basically about the attributes of the management institute. the component consists of the availability of faculty and the availability of subject options. these factors broadly can be dealt by the improvisation of the institute itself and rendering to the need of diverse subject preferences factor 3: individual’s benefit interest and job opportunities in the market come under the third factor, which basically are upon individuals benefit. subject preference come from ones individual interest and job opportunity. individuals’ benefit comes solely from individual’s personality and perception objective 2 factors affecting the carrier preference decision of female students in a business school we have used kmo and bartlett’s test to find weather the factor analysis is to applied or not from the table below the value of kmo is 0.705 and bartlett’s test value is 343.009 with 0.0001 significance hence we can use factor analysis. table 4: kmo and bartlett's test kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy. .705 bartlett's test of sphericity approx. chi-square 343.009 df 66 sig. .000 as in the previous objective we have used varimax rotation. from the rotated component matrix the variables which form the first component the table below shows the rotated component matrix with the variables and there loadings singh, s., et al., factors which affect the career, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 99 table 5: total variance explained component rotation sums of squared loadings total % of variance cumulative % 1 2.518 20.983 20.983 2 1.729 14.411 35.395 3 1.376 11.470 46.865 4 1.341 11.171 58.036 extraction method: principal component analysis. table 6: rotated component matrix(a) component 1 2 3 4 parents financial situation .737 social and cultural pressures .717 marriage plans .634 family opinion .615 educational background .599 company brand .733 career growth .677 salary .633 job security .444 interest in work .792 work environment .790 location of work place .590 extraction method: principal component analysis. rotation method: varimax with kaiser normalization. a rotation converged in 9 iterations. the first component include parents financial, situation, social and cultural, pressures, marriage plans, family opinion and educational background. the second component company brand, career growth, salary and job security. the third component is interest in work. the fourth component is work environment and location of work place. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 100 interpretation factor 1: external influences the external components are influences like family opinion, social and cultural influences, parents’ financial situation, marriage plans and educational background are categorized under factor 1 on the basis of the rotated component matrix. factor 2: the job offerings these are the factors under the control of the firm which offers a job to an individual, these include: salary, career growth, company brand and the job security. factor 3: interest the component 3 covers only one factor of the study that is individuals interest, hence we might conclude that individual’s interest on a very strong level can influence ones career decision all on its own. factor 4: the place the factor four is all about the place one wants to work, that is the location of the office( the city) and the work environment (the overall ambience, friendliness etc.), objective 3 the effect of demographic variables on the choice of specialization and preferred carrier of the female students to find the effect of family income, father education, father s’ profession, mothers’ highest education, mothers’ profession, number of family member, position among sibling, medium before mba, graduation before mba, work experience before mba, specialization and preferred career on the choice of specialization we have applied chi-square test. hypothesis h01: there is no effect of family income on choice of specialization h02: there is no effect of father education on choice of specialization h03: there is no effect of father profession on choice of specialization h04: there is no effect of mother highest education on choice of specialization h05: there is no effect of mother profession on choice of specialization singh, s., et al., factors which affect the career, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 101 h06: there is no effect of number of family member on choice of specialization h07: there is no effect of position among sibling on choice of specialization h08: there is no effect of before mba medium on choice of specialization h09: there is no effect of before mba graduation on choice of specialization h010: there is no effect of before mba work experience on choice of specialization h011: there is no effect of preferred career on choice of specialization h012: there is no effect of family income on preferred career h013: there is no effect of father education on preferred career h014: there is no effect of father profession on preferred career h015: there is no effect of mother highest education on preferred career h016: there is no effect of mother profession on preferred career h017: there is no effect of number of family member on preferred career h018: there is no effect of position among sibling on preferred career h019: there is no effect of before mba medium on preferred career h020: there is no effect of before mba graduation on preferred career h021: there is no effect of before mba work experience on preferred career the table 7 gives the chi-square value, degree of freedom, and p value for the hypothesis created to test the effect of demographical variables on choice of specialization journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 102 table 7 hypothesis chi-square d.f. p value accept/reject null hypothesis h01 18.745(a) 16 0.282 reject h02 24.236(a) 16 0.084 accept h03 22.491(a) 16 0.128 reject h04 22.169(a) 16 0.138 reject h05 13.576(a) 16 0.63 reject h06 19.257(a) 16 0.256 reject h07 25.564(a) 16 0.06 accept h08 .137(a) 4 0.998 reject h09 1.600(a) 4 0.809 reject h10 12.094(a) 4 0.017 accept h11 25.202(a) 16 0.066 reject h12 35.948(a) 16 0.003 accept h13 15.971(a) 16 0.455 reject h14 18.352(a) 16 0.304 reject h15 17.744(a) 16 0.339 reject h16 26.265(a) 16 0.05 accept h17 21.983(a) 16 0.144 reject h18 26.163(a) 16 0.052 reject h19 5.876(a) 4 0.209 reject h20 16.362(a) 4 0.003 accept h21 10.981(a) 4 0.027 accept a few cells have expected count less than 5. from the above table the hypothesis 2, 7, 10, 12, 16, 20 and 21 are accepted where as the other hypothesis are rejected that means there is no effect of the above hypothesis, where as the other variables have affect on specialization and carrier preferences of the female students. conclusion the factors which affect the subject preferences i.e. specialization of females are ease and external influences that means ease to understand the subject, and get good score and the views of the parents, peers and mentors. here the parents and effortless learning are more important. the institute, which includes the faculty and the availability of subject options are also important. the individual’s benefit which includes interest and singh, s., et al., factors which affect the career, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 103 job opportunities is the last factor which the females consider while choosing the subject. the study also studies the factors which affect the carrier preferences of females. the external influences such as the family opinion, social and cultural influences, parents’ financial situation, marriage plans and educational background are affecting the most. that means still the family affects the decision of the females while choosing a carrier. the company which offers the job i.e., salary, career growth, company brand and job security is also important but it is the next preference; then the interest of an individual and the work place and its environment. we have also found that there is no effect of family income, position of sibling and work experience on the choice of specialization. but the other variables has effect on it, these variables are father education father profession, mother education, mother profession, medium of education, graduation and preferred carrier has effect on the choice of specialization. similarly family income, mother profession, graduation before mba and work experience has no effect on the preferred carrier were as father education father profession, mother profession, medium of education, position of sibling has effect on preferred carrier. the limitation of the study is the data which is collected from management institute of indore, whose number is very few; though indore is also known as an education hub of the state madhya pradesh. references [1] adelina broadbridge, gender and management: lessons from recent research, women in management review, 2007, 22, issue: 6, issn: 0964-9425 [2] carol ackah norma heaton, gavin mcwhinney, women in management: the case of mba graduates, women in management review, 1999, 14 , 4, 136 – 145, issn: 0964-9425 [3] catherine r. smith, best practice 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[19] sue shaw, catherine cassell, “that's not how i see it”: female and male perspectives on the academic role, women in management review, 2007, 22, 6, 497 – 515, issn: 0964-9425 singh, s., et al., factors which affect the career, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 105 [20] tanuja agarwala, factors influencing career choice of management students in india, career development international, 13, 4, 2008, pp: 362-376 [21] lease, suzanne h. and dahlbeck, david t., parental influences, career decision-making attributions, and self-efficacy, journal of career development ; dec2009, vol. 36 issue 2, p95-113, 19p appendix questionnaire part 1 demographic variable name (optional): ________________________________ college: ________________________________________ family income a) less than 1 lac ___ b)1-3 lac ___ c) 3-5lac___ d) 5-10 lac ___ e) more than 10 lac __ father’s highest education a) less than 10th std. b) more than 10th std c) graduation d) post graduation e) doctorate father’s profession a) service (job) b) professional (practicing lawyer, doctor etc) c) business d) retired e) none of the above (please mention) ________________ mother’s highest education a) less than 10th std. b) more than 10th std. c) graduation d) post graduation e) doctorate mother’s profession a) service (job) b) professional (practicing lawyer, doctor etc) c) business d) retired e)none of the above(please mention) or housewife ________________ number of family member a) you and one parent/ one sibling/ one guardian b) you and both your parents c) you, your parents and siblings (1-2 siblings) d) you, your parents and siblings (more than 2 siblings) e) you live in a joint family journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 106 your position among your siblings a)1st (you are the eldest) b)2nd (you have one elder to you) c)3rd (you have two elder to you) d)4th (you have three elder to you) e)5th(you have four elder to you) education english medium schooling before mba hindi medium schooling before mba graduation before mba post graduation before mba work experience of more than 6 months before mba no work experience specialization what is your subject of specialisation? a) finance b) marketing c)hr d) other (ha, tourism, dm, ecom etc) e) you do not have specialisation preferred career? a) office oriented b) you don’t mind going into the field c) academics d) whatever opportunity you get e) do not plan to work section 2 please rate the following factors as per the degree to which it influences your subject preferences (please tick) very important important ok not so important not at all important your interest job opportunities easy to understand easy to score opinion of parents/relatives opinion of peers availability of option availabilty of faculty influence of your mentor/ someone you admire singh, s., et al., factors which affect the career, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 89-107) 107 section 3 please rate the following factors as per the degree to which it influences your career preferences very important important ok not so important not at all important salary career growth the company’s brand the work environment job security your family opinion the location of your work place interest in your work your educational background (your stream of graduation etc.) social and cultural pressures your parents’ financial situation marriage plans article history: received: 15 october 2010 accepted: 10 april 2011 17_jwe_1-2 udc: 005.9:336 005.336.1-055.2 jel: g31, l11, o11 cobiss.sr-id: 238895884 original scientific paper financial management strategies of women-owned micro, small and mediumsized entreprises (msmes) gizelle guadalupe macías gonzález1 universidad de guadalajara, centro universitario de los altos tepatitlán de morelos, méxico josé g. vargas-hernández2 university center for economic and managerial sciences universidad de guadalajara, mexico a b s t r a c t the intention of this article attempts to take in consideration the financial and administrative strategies and calculations carried out by the women-owned msmes in a region altos sur of jalisco, mexico. the document intends to go deeper into the financial management strategies and women organization in the culture of savings, investments and credits, as well as correlation established financial resources of the company and those which are linked to their home. the methods used to gather the qualitative research and information were made through by depth interviews with five female-entrepreneurs and observations by the researcher, data was collected and analyzed according to set codes and categories in the qualitative data analysis software maxqda program. in general, women entrepreneurs are unique owners and their businesses are mostly in the third 1 gmaciasg@cualtos.udg.mx y ggmg261@yahoo.com 2 periférico norte 799 edificio g-201-7, núcleo universitario los belenes cucea, tel y fax: +52(33) 37703340, 37703300 ext 25685, josevargas@cucea.udg.mx, jgvh0811@yahoo.com, jvargas2006@gmail.com 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) sector, although they have participation in the primary and secondary sector. only one woman owns having partnership with the rest of her family: parents, sisters and brothers who own several companies belonging to the two sectors. the results of this study showed the peculiarity and the similarity between women-owned msmes interviewed and the findings of international researches according to company sizes and ownerships. key words: financial management strategies, micro, small and medium enterprises (msmes), women-owned business introduction women studies could be directed toward an interdisciplinary field of study, like theory and methods. in this article it is analyzed the topic since the approach of the business administration, economic anthropology and finance. girón (2012) mentioned that the most interest from various researchers in the field of woman-owned businesses is the high rates of growth in the number of such enterprises and their increasing participation. this paper is a contribution to gender studies concerning the participation of woman in business activities, in the area of access to financing. this is one of the factors that can determine and explain the success or failure of a business, as well as its prospects for expansion. the object of the research is to analyze the lack of financial products for small and medium size companies which can be an obstacle to growth and expansion of woman-owned businesses. to achieve the overall objective of this study first of all, a review will be made of the main ideas raised in the literature about the woman entrepreneur and woman-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (msmes): the profiles, the finances, the culture of money management (credit, savings, investment, loans and income, and financial formality and informality in businesses), the strategy and financial management, the planning and the decision making, and the financial links of business and household. later it appears the design research, rescuing a methodology based on qualitative method where depth interviews and field notes of five owners of msmes were used. the data analysis was performed using the software maxqda (qualitative data analysis software) and the main findings were presented. the results show that semantic networks were obtained by analyzing the codes that were established and their repetitions, as well as some tables that gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 3 identify the profiles of entrepreneurs, enterprises, planning, decision making, savings and debts. the intention of the networks is to create a collective meaning of a concept with the experiences of the case studies; the five cases of the women owners of msmes are presented. at the end of the investigation a summary is made as a way of conclusion. profiles of the businesswomen nowadays the increasing numbers of women have entered the labor force, some of them have elected to start and operate their own businesses. for over 30 years the interest in women entrepreneurs as research subjects has been developed. the research of hisrisch & brush (1984) showed that studies for male entrepreneurs have the same questions for female and the risk perhaps even greater for a woman entrepreneur, who has all the usual business problems as well as the problems associated with being a woman in a male dominated field. the article reported three studies about female entrepreneurs in general throughout the united states. one study mentioned of hisrisch & brush (1984) was about the new female frontier of schwartz who in 1979, where twenty female entrepreneurs found that their major motivations for starting a business were: the need to achieve, the desire to be independent, the need for job satisfaction, and economic necessity. the main point was that they tended to have an autocratic style of management, and their major problem during start-up was credit discrimination and underestimating operating and/or marketing costs were a subsequent problem. another study cited by hisrisch & brush (1984) was carried out by de carlo & lyons in 1979, it was about 122 black, white, hispanic and american indian women entrepreneurs. they found differences between minority and non-minority women entrepreneurs, with minority entrepreneurs reporting that they started their businesses at a later age than the non-minority woman. the last study that was reported by of hisrisch & brush (1984) was researched for hisrisch & o’brien in 1981, it was about twenty-one women indicating that they had particular problems with their collateral; obtaining credit and overcoming society´s belief that women are not as serious as men about business. the characteristics of women entrepreneurs varied according to the type of business. female entrepreneurs in non-traditional business areas (finance, insurance, manufacturing, and construction) also differed from their counterparts in more traditionally “female” business 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) areas (retail and wholesale trade). they were older and more educated than the general society and had very supportive parents and husbands. they had particular difficulty in gaining access to external financial sources. the result of the investigation of hisrisch & brush (1984) included the sample of 468 women entrepreneurs. the woman surveyed indicated that: a) the biggest problems during start-up were lack of business and financial training, obtaining credit, and the presentation of collateral issues; these problems are also related to lack of specific business education and work experience. b) the “typical” woman entrepreneur is the first-born child of middle class parents, after obtaining an arts degree she marries a college educated man who works as a professional or has a skill. she has children, and works as a teacher, administrator, or secretary. she does not start her own business until the age of forty or later. c) her biggest business start-up problems are with finance, credit, and lack of business training. d) once the business is in operation, lack of financial planning experience is her greatest difficulty. e) most of their businesses are small and young with accompanying low revenues. f) some women entrepreneurs may prefer to maintain small, easy-tomanage businesses. g) they are aware of changes in women own attitudes and goals, including a willingness to learn finance. h) women need to have access to seminars about specific topics: finance, cash flow management, preparation of business plans, loan applications and general business organization. i) they should avail themselves to all of the information services now available and should seek assistance from experts in the field, from colleagues and from friends in order to establish both formal and non-formal networks. experienced mentors could be drawn from these networks to act as advisors, particularly on financial matters. the women entrepreneurship research of jennings & brush (2013) showed the entrepreneurs often pursue goals beyond economic gain. female entrepreneurs do not view their businesses as separate economic entities but rather as endeavors entwined with other aspects of their lives (particularly their family relationship and responsibilities) in the hopes of attaining a gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 5 better balance between work and family (parada, 2013; macías, 2013) (yong, 2013). the conditions about household level, as well as familyoriented initiatives with policies at state level, will impact the likelihood that woman will pursue self-employment. in some cases, the reason was an early widowhood that required some woman bring home income urgently. having a self-employed business was perceived as more successful by the flexibility offered (serna, 2003). the case of mexico, oecd (2012) reported that 30 percent of all female-run businesses operate from home, compared with only 11 percent of male-operated businesses. mexican women are under-represented (oecd, 2015), women hold 31% of senior management positions in mexico (32% in the oecd); just 7% of the members of the boards of mexican firms are women (10% in the oecd), and only 2% of mexican working women are entrepreneurs (compared with 6% of men). the proportion of sole-proprietor enterprises which are owned by women is comprised between 20 and 40%. the average size is significantly lower for women enterprises in all countries with the exception of sweden. the proportion of women enterprises is relatively higher in wholesale and retail trade, transportation and accommodation, while it is relatively lower in manufacturing. the research of zabludovsky (2015) shows the mexican reality, the participation of the women-owned and directives of their own companies has grown significantly from 25% to 36% in the period 1991 to 20133. she considered the addition of amount of this kind of occupation and she realizes the specific kind of woman´s work self-employed and employers was characterized mostly of cases is related to self-employment or lowercase units in subsistence sectors occupations. the specific amount about women employers has grown from 19% to 21%, during the years 1991 to 20134. women employers are the women who employ at least one worker and themselves. confined to a ghetto (berbel, 2013) where they state most of the business woman, reinforcing the idea of borders, the term glass ceiling (llibres, 2013; zabludovsky, 2015) appears. in the case of women´s businesses in mexico, zabludovsky (2015) states that the vast majority of 3 zabludovsky (2015) estimated the growing quantities about the data of census reported “encuesta de ocupación y empleo (enoe, 2013)” reported by instituto nacional de estadística y geografía (inegi, 2013) 4 ibídem. 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) these businesses are small in size, the larger the company is the lower participation of women. therefore, government recent trends have a tendency to support the development of women microenterprises, where we have more women and intended to encourage the economic development of societies through these subsidies. the characteristics of these microbusinesses are precarious and informal. they have formed even form new social enterprises and generate public policy, being the case, the new law on social economy in mexico. the analysis that the author zabludovsky made based on the results of the national survey of employment enoe by inegi in 2013 on areas where women businesses are concentrated shows 30% in the service sector, 28% in trade, 20% in industry and manufacture, 2% in the primary sector and 1% in construction sector respectively (zabludovsky, 2015). most women-owned businesses in mexico have a family character. these women are the motor of the family through business life and therefore the support as a responsibility for the future of their children. the family business is chosen by women because of their condition, they have a flexible schedule, the possibility of conciliation of family and domestic responsibilities are inserted in male sectors. also in this type of family businesses some cultural barriers are exacerbated, these family ties in their companies are detrimental, for example, in the case of some societies to which they belong they have to keep a low profile, occupy subordinate positions and / or less than their male relatives ranges. however, their responsibilities are important -and male relatives does not perform their duties as suchlikewise highlights zabludovsky (2015), much of the work developed in this type of family businesses remain invisible. the results obtained from girón (2012) about mexican entrepreneurs women in texas reported that women have higher educational levels than men and the age range of the businesswomen are about 10 years less than for the businessmen, between 35 and 45 years of age. the finances of woman-owned msmes women-owned msmes make significant contributions to the economies in which they work. the resource point of the world bank group (wbg) issued by the international finance corporation, ifc (2014) reported that lack of finance is a major constraint to the growth of female-owned enterprises and there are legal constraints in family law gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 7 and inheritance can determine a woman's ability to own a property and the possibility to access to financing. in this case was important to analyze the credit gap and ifc´s portfolio gender baseline to provide women with opportunities to finance their businesses. the international finance corporation ifc (2014) related that one of the biggest barriers for increased access to finance women owned enterprises is the lack of reliable data disaggregated by gender: this further hinders the opportunity to make the business case to financial institutions on supporting woman-owned enterprise. it is necessary that commercial banks have a better understanding of the existing market potential as well as constraints facing woman-owned msmes –at urban and rural level-, in order to design strategies and offerings that will allow them to improve. the research was based on the findings from the ifc´s enterprise finance gap assessment database. the investigation in women entrepreneurship is essential for economic growth. the gender equality is a strategic priority for the society. the business opportunity of the women entrepreneurship market was considered for the wbg, because they realized the importance of establishing a baseline of data for access to funding. the report of the international finance corporation ifc (2014) offers recommendations to support the strategic women focus across the wbg demonstrates that increasing women-owned msmes access to finance is not only good for women, but a growing and profitable opportunity for financial institutions. the investigations that they found at national and international level have conducted the issue of the relationship of finance and banking culture of women-owned msmes. saparito, elam & brush (2012) presented a study which examines how the gender of the business owner and of the bank manager influences perceptions about the banking relationship. the united states experience allowed them to realize they can have different types of relationships according to size, sector and age companies. they found that the female–female pairs had the lowest levels of trust, satisfaction with access to credit, feelings that the bank had the low levels of knowledge about their firm, and the most likelihood of switching to an alternative bank. using a large sample of european msmes, moro & piotr (2014) investigated the relationship between gender and credit constraints. no evidence is found about the bank financing, those financial institutions are based against female managers, and since the loan turndown rates are remaining steady rest, statistically indistinguishable across gender. female8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) run firms are however less likely to file a loan application, as they anticipate being rejected. as a consequence, firms managed by women obtain less bank financing. in the case of certain population groups such as immigrants or women, researchers have noted the difficulties to access financial services; girón (2012) showed that the degree of bank penetration of latin american immigrants in the united states is very low. the types of financing received by the women are supplier credit and loans from relatives. women are dependent on informal sources of financing and most of the women established their companies based on their savings in the united states. a contradictory case mentioned the findings where 100% of women used banks while only 89% of men did so. the nonformal institutions such as micro-finance institutions, savings and loan associations, and pawnshops were not used by this group of businesspeople. a different approach characterized by the level of attention to smaller businesses is linked to microfinance (bazán & saraví, 2012; conde, 2009; girón, 20015; mayaoux, 2011; robles c, alviter l & littlewood h, 2015; sampayo, 2008; villareal & angulo; 2012; zabludovsky, 2015). the microfinances contribute to the formation of an enterprising culture among the persons who use them (sampayo, 2008). since the nineties for the case of mexico there are huge requests of financial services from millions of economically disadvantaged people. conde (2009) and others (alpízar, svarch & gonzález-vega, 2006; bazán & saraví, 2012; girón, 2015; macías, 2013; morduch & rutherford, 2003); rutherford, 1999; villareal & angulo, 2012) mention that microfinance is linked to the provision of all kinds of financial services for low-income segments. distinguishing the popular personal finance, administration and finance are carried individually and the segment of low-income population that characterize them. on the other hand, social finance has solidarity principles. supporting the development of social projects establishes a relation between microeconomics and microfinance, classifies traditional banking, such as commercial banks and social development and banking, as linked to the popular sector and the development of micro, self-employment and support for msmes medium low. in the analysis of investigations that have been conducted cutting microfinance and grouped villareal & angulo (2012), have demonstrated that economic strategies include ways and lifestyles (status, identity, values), their relationships and social networks. they are often an important part of economic transactions, resources and capabilities of business and gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 9 different types of markets in which they are not always visible. the realities analyzed reveal the assignment and appreciation of the value of the finished product by producing and selling handicrafts, where social status interferes in their sales. women owner micro-business have success and struggle to compete without appearing to be very prosperous for social effects (jealousy) which this can lead them. the business owners use various techniques and strategies to achieve their sales; they attract clients to the business establishment and according to their income allow them to make an ongoing investment in local business. savings preferences are linked to their accessibility, to cover emergencies and to have liquidity. the similarities in mexican micro financial practices led by women show similarities in the culture of savings and credit, in its financing, the possibility of investing in remittance income and in homogeneities in the work of women in certain areas. jude (2006) mentions that microfinance is market oriented without starting prioritizes social justice for women. financial inclusion details villareal (2014) mentioning the idea of ferguson and yunus on access of people to a piece of capitalism, to democratize finance and bazan & saraví (2012) of monetize. research that integrates villareal (2014) rescued the essence of the ideal of microfinance to associate mainly to the promotion of entrepreneurship in order to help people purchase productive assets and working material to start their business, but it is not always the case. microfinance is considered a micro level as well as the financial amount for the content, linked to formal or semi-formal institutions, some more social and altruistic disclaim microfinance and in the case of informal are considered to be fostered among families, friends, credit unions, remittance or micro banks. the average amount was set at twenty thousand pesos (about twelve hundred dollars), and as mentioned previously directed to sectors that do not have access to formal banking sector (villareal & angulo, 2012). bazán and saraví (2012) define the key triggers of ascending and / or descending on household welfare processes. that could equally apply to women-owned businesses. on the one hand people have a portfolio of assets as economic, human, social and cultural capital, and on the other hand people will have different levels of opportunity structure, e.g. utilities, type of community, labor market, local economy, formal financial institutions, security levels and community integration. the interaction of financial services could be presented according to either one or several parts of the 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) business women, to their portfolio of assets or opportunities structure and this would result in opportunities or constraints on firm performance women. according to chains or relations established by women and their positive and multiplier effects that the author mentions quoting rutherford (1999), relating to the initiation or expansion of the business. culture of money management and financial formality and informality in businesses owners (credits, savings, investments, loans and incomes) the financial experts say that it is good to have a debt. they explain that credit feeds economic growth, stimulates the production and creates jobs (villareal, 2004). for some credit it is linking to an undesirable situation. the authors morvant-roux & guerin (2012) rescue the importance of the concept of economic anthropology where according to this view people borrowed and paid rebates based on their own hierarchies and their calculation scenarios. customers, overindebted debtors, among others: equally in the different characterizations credit frameworks as they arise. the women entrepreneurship when planning a business could be found in some barriers when making the decision to conduct a business, as regard to financial capital there are: lack of financial capital and fear of banks. some studies have found that companies manage a fear of the risk of investment in capital for financing, women used prior savings as the primary source of funding rather than soliciting credits, for example, which could coincide with the idea that: women have greater risk aversion (girón, 2012; rodriguez & rodriguez, 2013). these authors state claim that is vital for them to have no fear in seeking external financing, either through investors or by a commercial loan if they want to see their businesses grow in size. women who did not use their own personal financial capital or that from their partners, and therefore used external financing are those with the larger firms in number of employees. using internal capital – own savings or partner’s savingsat the start-up of business does affect by the size of the firm. to women a man is considered more reliable for money management in general they are good managers. according to the study (macias, 2013) on financial practices of woman who earn income from employment or selfemployment, it was found that woman is inclined to the non-formal sector, gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 11 to stay this way for lack of funding, and they represent their markets credit to be semi-formal and non-formal mostly be used as in urban areas. the terms and relationships that are involved in financial processes of debt of villareal (2004) could be utilized for financial administration of the women-owned msmes, (see table 1). it is important to mention the definitions of these terms used in everyday language and in the business context. table 1: terms and relationships that are involved in financial processes of debt terms and relationships that are involved in financial processes of debt debt it can be referred to a formal bank financing or a lender, as well as nonformal borrowing from friends and relatives. its use is generally willingness to pay within a short period without involving too much effort. a loan is a favor. people feel grateful to borrow in times of difficulty. loan it can be described as an established balance in cash or in kind (such as a favor to be paid). there is more involved in the term commitment. a debt should not be forgotten. the term is also used commitment this way: a debt that involves a degree of pressure. but having a debt is not stronger. you feel the weight of debt and struggle to liquidate. credit it is commonly used for more formal relationships with banks or other institutions. often a notion of rights is assumed. they have the right to receive certain funds and the obligation to pay an interest rate is recognized. credit can also refer to the potential of acquiring a debt. having a store credit or bank means that you can get a loan if required. aid it can be referred to credit from a bank, but is often used in reference to government institutions or support. it comes with the purpose of helping specific and may or may not use. deal (fiado) it is a deferred payment, it is used with reference to goods that are not settled immediately, particularly at local stores or street vendors, but also in regional shops that sell fertilizers and other agricultural inputs, and for example, where the customer is known and reliable. the debt must be liquidated at short notice. it is interesting to note that the term "fiado" is used for small negotiations. despite being a recurrent mechanism in most business relationships, in large establishments or at other times and spaces chains agro products marketing, it speaks rather deferred payment or credit. source: own elaboration based on villareal (2004) 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) in the anthropological literature there is a popular financial strategy called rosca (rotating saving a credit associations) circular ambivalent one embodiment, a portion may be a loan and other savings. in which each member contributes a usually weekly, biweekly or monthly amount, and coming in turn, receives the sum of the contributions of the participants. considering a credit when the shift is the first to be circumvented and savings when is the last number (villareal, 2004). in popular terms these informal savings and credit mechanisms appear in different forms; they are placed under the name of runs, raffles, pool or cow, cundinas5 and guardadito6 (villareal, 2004; bazán & saraví, 2012). the use of non-formal financial services is used for emergency situations, because they tend to be more flexible and less demanding negotiable governed by social relationships, while formal are more compromising, dangerous and strict conditions, governed by purely economic relations (bazán and saraví 2012). challenges of women in management are shown by villaseñor in 2004, about the control of debt and the saving. the research over the women group (cooperative campo in jalisco) has participated in the management and investment account in setting interest rates for savers. one limitation here is the little freedom to organize their time and activities, which directly influences the decision making. the participation of women is more intense in the management and control resources than the access to them. jennings & brush (2013) claim that in general businesses headed by women tend to be financed at a lower level and by different means than those headed by men: 1) women tend to start their business with lower levels of: initial financing and, to operate with lower of debt and equity beyond the start-up stage. 2) female entrepreneurs are less likely than male entrepreneurs to use formal, external sources of financing during start-up and less likely to utilize debt financing. research experiences by the authors mentioned are: cases where the bank loan officers tended to rate women significantly lower than men. the greater dissatisfaction was expressed by female entrepreneurs with respect 5 circular form of savings and loan in anthropological literature is known like rosca (rotating saving an credit associations) (villareal, 2004) 6 informal savings generally performed in the household. the microfinance market has used its popularity and integrated it as a name for the products they offer. gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 13 to banking experiences, their lower propensity to apply for various forms of financing and they tend to charge higher interest rates for female than male. strategy and financial management of women-owned msmes the use of internal financial capital at the start-up of the business has significant difference in the size of the company. sometimes financial funds are obtained to initiate savings or support from parents of the owner or some families (rodriguez & rodriguez, 2013). the female entrepreneurs have preference to start creating companies with their own personal or family loans using savings (guzmán & rodríguez, 2008). in the research of coleman (2000, 2007) was shown that the ability to secure financial capital had a positive impact in the growth rate of men-owned firms, but did not appear to affect the growth rate of womenowned-firms. the programs at promoting entrepreneurship and small business ownership among women should be designed to address human and financial capital needs. similarly, the study on the profitability and financial strategies of womenowned small businesses of emrich (2015) showed the importance of small business which is vital for countries and likewise the strategies they use in their financial management is vital for countries and likewise the strategies they use. the fastest growing segment of business development in the united states comes from small business start-ups, with 42% of these businesses being women owned. women-owned businesses are annually 25% less profitable when compared to the average small business in the united states. the data from the results indicated, within this one particular context, women small business owners and their employees used financial resources for networking, motivation, and innovation. focusing on these practices could result in increased profits for other women-owned small businesses. the research of jennings & brush (2013) shows that over the past three and a half decades, there are notable differences with respect to the strategies of female and male-led firms; few organizational and managerial differences have been documented. some features about women-owned businesses run by women tend: 14 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 1) to be over-represented in the retail and personal service sectors and under-represented in the manufacturing, extraction and business services sectors. 2) to be more likely than those headed by mentor pursue social as well as economic missions. 3) to be home-based and less likely to be engaged in exporting. 4) to be as likely to run their firms with a mix of feminine and masculine approaches. 5) they are as likely as men entrepreneurs run their businesses with a mixture of male and female approaches. the ambitious women entrepreneur consists of having a high-growth and a wider range of financing sources, compared to lower-growth entrepreneurs, according to research of gundry & welsch (2001). in the article of romo & rangel (2010) is mentioned that to have a business strategy in terms of changes in the organization and labor relations in a minor of terms of technological innovations. the research of girón (2012) about mexican women entrepreneurs & gender asymmetries in houston, texas shows a sample of 25 entrepreneurs, 28% (7) were women and 72% (18) were man. she confirms that women in the region of latin america often turn to the non-formal sectors and personal endeavors to becoming entrepreneurs. the women who run companies posted a growth rate that were significantly higher than those of the rest of the businesses; that is including men and women. the women use collateralized loans and mortgage loans in similar proportions. the financial experience of companies in jalisco is mentioned by arechavala (2014) because he works in a consulting business. he demonstrates that the use of financial information is as follows: approximate expenses and cash flows are known, but historical budgets are not funding from the provider’s support, it injects capital when there is no liquidity and financial statements are used to make statements to the government, not considered in decision making by making it clear that these tools must be handled. another research on financing strategies of msmes as the study of alvarez & abreu (2008) out of ten msmes established in monterrey, mexico state that companies use 95% of financing suppliers to represent them at a much lower cost and in this case only two of them have a bank financing. gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 15 the utility profits administered in various ways, suárez (2011) mentioned that most of the women entrepreneurs try to generate future pension income derived from savings in fixed assets. in relative terms girón (2012) claimed that women invest slightly more in property or real estate in the united states; they are more cautious and prefer to see their business grow more slowly, unlike man. the latter could be linked to the fact that businesswomen request fewer loans from “formal” sources and prefer to resort to the use of their "own resources" if they require financing. the type of financial services used by women after checking accounts is the personal health insurance. among the five financial services most used by women are investment accounts, which are not included among the five most commonly investments used by men. in order to analyze the impact of gender relations on issues of financing that establish women and men in the figure of businessmen and bankers, madill & riding (2012) conducted a study where the research shows that the gender of the sme ownership team does not affect either loan to turndown rates or rates of loan application. the research does show a significant gender difference in the length of lender-borrower relationships. even when controlling for age of the firm, the study showed that male sme owners have significantly longer relationships with lenders—suggesting that male entrepreneurs may benefit more from relationships with their lenders than female do with entrepreneurs. a financial practice relates to the economies of the people and transforms their lives. people perform calculations: time, money, costs, benefits and decisions to assess what would have greater profits according to possibilities, restrictions and significance. these decisions are not always rational (santana, 2012). such strategies at the micro level are linked to monetary behavior which participates in batches and credit unions (rodríguez & villareal, 2012). the strategies that women business owners are worth in order to overcome economic difficulties and seize opportunities includes on the one hand the use of family labor, recurrent deferred payment systems and installment sales (villareal & angulo, 2012) (chaganti, 1986). another important fact is the effort to stretch their budget, reducing spending, engaging in productive activities and using different types of loans and face problems that have to cleave funds for productive projects (villareal, 2004). the financial experience to grant financial benefits to women who mention armendáriz & morduch (2011) shows a benefit, because it fits well 16 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) with the dual goals of obtaining high repayment rates and meeting social objectives. in principle, providing women with more capital can strengthen their growth. bank managers may supervise at lower cost, they are less mobile and are more conservative in their choice of investment projects and they provide greater reliability and security for payment of the debt. although it is found that young men and women entrepreneurs tend to be more aggressive in generating employments, in the case of differences for business men and women have different forms of credit, no involvement was found to generate gross sales revenue. planning, organization, accounting and decision making the detail of the financial management functions for business women is characteristic of other companies, which varies according to size and sector where they belong. the planning, organization, accounting records and making financial decisions of companies are actions involved in financial management. to zutter (2012) finances are defined as the art and science of managing money. on a personal level finance affects individual decisions on how much money to spend in revenues, how much to save and how to invest in savings; while in the business environment, finance involve the same type of decisions: how to increase investors' money, how to invest the money to make a profit, and what is the best option of reinvesting in company profits or distributing the investors. to make the best financial decisions the process is very similar for both businesses and individuals. to know and apply the techniques of good financial analysis will help to understand the financial implications of major business decisions and equally as a consumer. the financial terms of the business depend on the size and importance of the company. in small companies the accounting department usually makes the finance function. if the company is higher the finance function normally becomes an independent office and as valued directors is assigned. however, the staff in all areas of responsibility should have a basic understanding of financial management functions, so that it can quantify the consequences of their actions. an activity of hiring employees, advertising budgets, an acquisition of technology and machinery involves understanding financial. every one of the actions that certainly contributes to obtain the resources needed to succeed aspects. linking finance and accounting zutter (2012) notes detailing a reality where the counter frequently performed the finance function, and in large gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 17 enterprises, financial analysts often help gather accounting information. the two basic differences between finance and accounting reside in cash flows and decision-making. counters gather documentations and prepare financial statements. financial managers evaluate the financial statements. the financial links and resources of business and household linking msmes businesses owned by women and home concerns gender relations. the stage of the work of women, loaded with the roles of their responsibilities that have been socially assigned, and that in the field of paid and unpaid work has provided greater visibility. today remains that domestic linking woman at any stage to be located. therefore, the issues of reconciliation to be performed to carry out parallel appear in parallel. some evidence of research on women-owned businesses and the characteristics of their owners in domestic reconciliations will be addressed from various circumstances. on the other hand, the document on women and business statistics in mexico centro de investigación de la mujer en la alta dirección (research center of woman in top management) recovers the data of the asociación mexicana de mujeres empresarias, ammje (mexican association of women entrepreneurs), which makes clear that women spend more than 70% of their profit to the community and his family. unlike men for this purpose it represents between 30 and 40% (instituto panamericano de alta dirección de empresa, ipade business school 2013) the representation of the increased income in families is another tangible circumstance that is reconciled. the access of women to income has given them a personal and financial autonomy that was previously unknown as such. this incorporation was as entrepreneurs or employees. the join obtaining financial resources influenced generate new dynamics in families. meanwhile in other incomes households allows members to have higher incomes or revenues to continue or increase their participation in consumption and debt cycles (galvez & torres, 2010) were reported. these issues of labor, family and personal reconciliation of women have occurred in contexts of crisis. moreover, issues and requirements of home care are circumstances linking temporary arrangements to be solved on a daily basis by women and according to different cultures these are administered to continue fulfilling its corporate responsibilities and partner to home. the research of nugroho (2015) expressed: nevertheless, there are limitations in mobility for women 18 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) entrepreneurs to take care of their family and the values or customs, especially in muslim countries. the technology solutions can reduce these limitations. women entrepreneurs contributed to the household economy. research design the contribution of the gender studies and women studies to research methodology has been from different angles. woodward & woodward (2015) affirm that qualitative methods have continued from the feminist tradition of highlighting the importance of lived experience through to gender studies. the possibilities of the describing of lived experience and of excluded voices, as well as understanding of dominant structures are the means through which exclusions an inequalities are perpetuated. in this line and according to woodward & woodward (2015) intend to use qualitative research in this study based on in-depth interviews, field notes and their analysis using software maxqda allowed to file a purer reality and less biased. considering the benefits of woman's studies and gender about academic-based studies it was considered important to assess the innovation in methods as well as having established a tradition of mixed methods in response to social change. in the case of women-owned msmes in mexico there is no statistical information available. there is no government database on women and men entrepreneurs. there are some associations or chambers that some are grouped. the instituto nacional de estadística y geografía (inegi) has some list of business entrepreneurs in the region altos sur, mexico, but in the national statistics directory of economic units, denue does not have specific information by women or men owned. it is necessary to note that, although due to the sample size the results cannot be generalized for the total population of women-owned msmes. this investigation seeks to serve as a reference framework for identifying the characteristics and gender differences of these businesspeople, uncovers lines of discussion, and generates broader studies whose samples are more representative of the universe of women-owned msmes. this study will seek to account for financial and administrative strategies and calculations carried out by the women-owned showing evidence of an approach made with owners of five businesses that are in the state of jalisco, mexico. and the results will be compared with the major gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 19 issues raised concerning the differences in the characteristics of womenowned msmes. the transcript of the interviews was done and was analyzed according to certain predetermined codes. the information was compiled and verified pertaining to each case and presented widely in a semantic network that brings together the collective vision of the concepts related to the financial management of the owners of msmes. results semantic networks are presented on a pair with the characterization of the five case studies, on the financial management of the owners of msmes. the networks are derived from: the profiles, the finances, the culture of money management (credit, savings, investment, loans and income; and financial formality and informality in businesses), the strategy and financial management, the planning, the decision making and the financial links of business and household. profile the results on the demographics and profile of each business owner are discussed in the following tables. table 2: profiles of women-owned msmes profiles of women-owned msmes professional activity origin level of education age sons marital status role in the ownership of the company role in the company linking or family support brothers, sisters or parents couple poultry woman altos de jalisco university (not finished) 30 40 4 widow owner manager yes no merchant altos de jalisco high school 4050 3 married owner and partner with her sister coadministrator yes no hair stylist altos de jalisco high school 3040 3 married owner manager yes no 20 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) profiles of women-owned msmes shareholder altos de jalisco bachelor´s degree 4050 2 separated partner with her father and brothers shareholder, manager and coadministrator yes no veterinary estado de méxico masters student 4050 1 separated owner manager no no source: own elaboration. table 3: family environment and personal career in business professional activity family business work experience poultry woman father and brothers 18 months responsible owner and administrator merchant brothers and sisters 11 years employed and 18 years owner and manager responsible. hair stylist no 2 years employed and 14 years owner and manager responsible. shareholder father, sisters and brothers 19 years owns and operates business herself and 10 years in the family business. veterinary no 15 years of owning and manager responsible. source: own elaboration company features table 4: the company features of the studios cases are different company features sector economic activity location number of employees size company overview relatives working primary poultrywoman and livestock altos sur de jalisco 18 small three farms in total (two are rented) two brothers willingly help thirdly footwear trade and leather goods altos sur de jalisco 2 microenterprise two boutiques her sister is her partner thirdly beauty shop. aesthetics altos sur de jalisco 3 microenterprise beauty shop her nieces secondary & thirdly meat processing, purchase and sale of meat (butchery) and leasing altos sur de jalisco 126 and 8 small – microenterprise meat processing, purchase and sale of meat and leasing a ballroom her brother is the director of the processor company, sometimes she replaces her brother and she is always responsible of gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 21 commerce.7 thirdly veterinary services altos sur de jalisco 1 microenterprise veterinary clinic and pet stylist no one source: own elaboration the strategy and financial management of women-owned the semantic networks show key concepts constituting the frequency of repetitions of the interview on financial strategies of women-owned msmes8. figure 1: networking. financial management strategies of women-owned msmes source: own elaboration 7 the interviewed mentioned that the percentage of participation of actions of the members of the family is different for family tradition to men than to women. if the partner is a son (man) the percentage has a significant difference much larger in relation to which it corresponds to the daughter being a woman. preference is given to man to be the director of the company by the fact of being so. officially he is the director. 8 in the figures that contain semantic networks of financial strategies, savings and credit, appear in parallel of each key concept quantities between parentheses. these amounts represent the total number of times that these concepts were mentioned in the comments made by the five women interviewed. 22 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) information of respondents about financial strategies used in business detailed below naming them in the case studies according to their professional activity as entrepreneurs. 1er.case: poultry woman she manages all her company's financial and brothers willingly support her, one in construction, personal management and planning and other issues in veterinary medicine. she checks several times a week every chicken shed, monitors from the light, food, water, leaks, she can notice when workers do not do things, etc. she sends the egg freight orders to various cities. she modified her farms and moved the same staff. she always brings business money to cover expenses that are offered out of the business bank account. she used to listen to her husband that if the business goes wrong she had to invest not much but only the necessary. she takes control in office (write down her sales in a notebook, she has on files her records), makes calls to the sales office in guadalajara city -to which she will monitor once a week and in the evening she revises invoices and checks as well as her calls. she uses the internet bank, and makes notes in her notebook. she uses email and whatsapp. she says it is a wonder to communicate with her customers and suppliers. a salary is not assigned for her. she values the flow enough to buy or invest in pastures for example. she has several relatives with different professions who advise her in the areas needed. she listens and makes her decisions. she says her workers are her team, she motivates them. almost all of her employees live in houses which were built in her farm. if the team workers do not work, she goes to work as a secretary with her father, but the question is what they will do in the future without job? as being so close to always knowing the reality of her company, so she knows what she has, where it is and how she cares. she started with two hen booths, now she has six. 2nd. case veterinary she first takes her debt costs, syringes, light services, income and salaries that she must pay, representing the base, to realize that more money should go. at first she did not know how much to charge, earnings were noted only she worked to remove costs, her mini-salary was only given to survive, not to live. she writes in her notebooks utility rates she receives. records per day are made and compared -as realized the best times-, and she makes promotions reviewing laboratory offers. everything is handled in gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 23 cash. she put aside part of her money to buy a computer. when she sees his brother, he lends her some money, and not with a bank deposit, because it charges taxes. there are providers that let her team up and they allow her to make a deferred payment one month later, this is a supportive financial service for her. at veterinary supplier exhibitions she only pays the half of the equipment she is buying at that moment and the other half is financed. every year she does the same and sometimes she has higher costs and sometimes these can be paid in cash, this transaction is important because the more services are given, more opportunity to make a profit. for example, the x-ray service was done through an intermediary, not now because she bought this machine. with duplicate equipment she intends to open a new branch and renew the current business. her salary was not assigned before. sometimes she lends money to the business, and sometimes it is no longer charged. everything is performed at an empirical level since she has knowledge of administration, however she thinks to be important to get a master on business administration, therefore she is studying this now. when she needs money to grow she asks her brother. prices are in dollars, such as chemotherapy, where the price moves in the exchange rate and she sees that charge so it is not as expensive service. she has not been able to raise prices because of marketing competition but she offers more services to make money. she performs the medical work helped by her assistant, and both also do the pet stylist service. in the notebook she does the expenses and profits calculation using a calculator. 3rd case: shareholder the shareholder woman said she is bad for finance. the operating part of a company is what she likes most: “what is missing, what is needed, customer services, quality of products, supervise and look for errors. you cannot leave things; you have to be well tuned that everything is just right.” she is always checking the competition, trying to have little lower prices. her sister makes all payment processes. she waits until the month is over to generate new strategies; with vendors she pays attention how they are selling and how to be supportive in order to have better sales. she worries about to prepare the breakeven to know how to keep it. all the company life, where she is a shareholder, has had a bank credit; this has used it from the beginning by her father. he says: “it is important to 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) have an open line in banks because you cannot have a bad image with the providers, because the company earns more if it pays cash to the suppliers and it is the opportunity for best prices.” sometimes the government has supported her company. she is seeing all the time on the computer the amount that the company owes and the money it has. she is checking the inventory. sometimes they have received government support. since the company was formed in companies and she is a member, each member receives a fixed amount at a certain time. in the previous business (a shoe store), she was the only owner, she went to bankruptcy, because she had no shoes and she had no money to pay suppliers. in the new group of company, the personal meets when it is needed, usually every friday and someday if it is necessary. she does not have need to work, but prefers to do so. she proposes strategies to her brother director and the manager, they are a team. if the company needs to borrow money, her father has always told them that they should only get 10 % the value of the company; it would be as much to ask. she believes that businesses are not made with relatives and friends because feelings are involved. 4th. case: hair stylist she administers by herself, in her notebook records the services makeup, hairdresser, etc. and calculates a percentage of what was spent on materials and labor, and thus she calculates the profit; so she learned to get profit in the job where she worked before. from monday to wednesday she pays material suppliers or basic services, she puts in a small can or container the money that she makes in the week and the profit after paying expenses. if she has surplus money after making payments, she takes it to invest or takes it for what she wants. on saturdays she pays salaries and hers too. she gives to her accountant the receipts of the expenses. about the profit of the beauty salon, she sets aside money for saving in a tanda (rosca), and each year or six months she buys with this money, which she collected in a tanda, some materials for the beauty salon like a chair, among others. she estimates her inventory of materials and when she has 10 percent of them, she asks for more products to providers. she does not have inventoried her necessary things to work; since these materials are tangible she can calculate when she will need more. she began to sell beauty materials, but her customers no longer visited her by not paying their debts about materials and beauty equipment. gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 25 when there are not many customers, she agreed with her employees to have that day off and later they will reintegrate it. her providers give her a month to pay. with the profit of her job, the family and she go on vacation. her clients are from different cities in jalisco either she visits them or they go to her beauty salon. 5th. case: merchant the merchant interviewed and her sister works together in their business. the respondent commented that she has more profile for sales and purchase of goods; she is more administrative, she makes payments, accounts records, etc. her sister likes to treat customers and sell. they separated their boutiques one for each one. she had an electronic inventory system but can no longer handle it, because it is not updated. some products sold are imported and the exchange rate affects the cost about shoes. last three years she has lived a very difficult situation, because she does not have much profit, she said that her money depends on the debt of her clients. the profits that were obtained each month are removed at the end of the year. she participates in exhibitions every six months; she takes pictures of products and orders records. in her notebook she writes down the orders. she purchases a minimum of shoes from suppliers because if she does not buy constantly the providers will no longer sell her. she makes calculations about how much she has to ask to the bank in order to pay her suppliers. she posts pictures of her new products and asks for promotions to her suppliers. out of season she makes a sale of the last remaining items. she feels limited in her store, because she has a small warehouse for her products, but she also says that she does not need more if there are not many sales. planning table 5: planning planning poultry woman my philosophy is if i win ten pesos i will reinvest the money, i will save it and money will accumulate. when business is not giving me to reinvest or to hold the same, i have to put money of my savings -my guardadito-. the vaccination and blood schedule helps me to know that the hens are fine. merchant she performs a planning. there is an exhibition every six months, in which she goes and asks for all the products for season. she takes pictures to the products 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) and she asks her suppliers all orders, she makes a record of her order, what products (shoes) she will receive and what is needed, she said “to check whether i asked more or less products.” she performs strategies to sell off products which are already offseason. hair stylist she manages her inventories and orders the products according to the season either high or low. she purchases machinery and accessories in the beauty exhibition. then she plans to withdraw profits for personal expenses, but it depends of the money recollected according to the services that she requested. shareholder she is aware of the plans of the company in the long term (projections), she takes into account the record of the historic numbers and she knows what will be needed for new investments. she believes the company is well structured for everyone's support. she has a budget currently to start another business and now she tries to find the best longterm option. she makes planning strategies at the end of the month based on analysis of statements and behavior values for sales promotions. veterinary she makes promotions in times when there is little work flow, like a hook to pull customers. her clinic has grown to avoid relying on externals, for example now she has her own x-ray equipment. she is accessible to her customers and when a consult is expensive, she asks for the money by parts, first the application of vaccines and after the consultation. she brings planning and managing fixed prices, where the haircut charges the same for many years. source: own elaboration accounting and decision making table 6: accounting and decision making accounting and decision making poultry woman she is responsible for the financial (money), her brothers support her in making decisions. she registers in logs data of the week, taking into account the sales of egg and payments. she has a record in a calendar of blood samples and vaccines for everything are well. she has binders with sale invoices and bank statements. she reconciles the bank statement to allow her to know her earnings. her brother brings the variability of costs, they have historical records; she does not have this knowledge but she does mental calculation and she understands them. she has an accountant who handles tax paperwork, payroll and social security. merchant she delivers her accountant registration policy stapled with the check and the bill, she records the report of inputs and outputs. all sales are invoiced. she manages banks and checks the outputs by invoices. she is supported with funding from her suppliers. she used an electronic system for accounting, but she did not upgrade it, because it came gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 27 with flaws. each year, she performs conciliations with her banks, suppliers and customers, and verifies her inventory, to know her profit. she manages product lines to calculate cash sales. hairstylist she keeps track of orders to suppliers, writes everything down in a notebook. she participates in savings with her friends and family: tandas (rosca) to purchase products on credit and to purchase raw materials from suppliers. in the exhibitions she buys in cash with the money from her savings –guardadito-. the accountant is only responsible fiscally and registers her expenses. financial statements are required only in special situations, such as when she would arrange a visa or when her husband and she asked for credit. she manages her daily notes and income. shareholder in the butchery business she is in charge of giving results, she is in charge of sales. one person performs the income statement and she analyses the register monthly. she pays attention on the profit or loss that has each month (must have a good margin by each product because it is difficult to make a profit because the costs are very high) and she performs comparisons for periods of time. suppliers of other products take them to the butchery for free consignment sale. in the meat processing company, she is responsible for directing the sales agents, their spending and selling. her receptionist records the movements and she values the proceeds to take action and implement strategies. she authorizes and checks payments. time ago when she was the total responsible of the company of meat processing (when her brother was not the director); she decided on the purchase of equipment, on the acquisition of domestic machinery or imported. she and her manager always researching all information about the equipment, because in the beginning she knew nothing. veterinary she separates fixed and medicine costs and the sale of accessories. she has medical fees for services. she keeps a daily control of customers and is organized by month to perform comparative. her suppliers provide the products and then they charge her. she logs all movements in a notepad (inputs and outputs), which are only kept for two years. she has an empirical knowledge about. she estimates the cost of certain equipment and substances in american dollars and informs her clients to avoid money exchange loss. she has identified the seasons where there is greater workflow. she makes savings by periods to buy fixed assets. she uses the self-financing with her suppliers. she tries to avoid relying on external factors, to reach accurate diagnoses and maximize profits. source: own elaboration 28 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) savings figure 2: savings source: own elaboration table 7: savings savings formal savings informal savings saving to invest poultry woman she says: “i have very good advisers in the bank”. she bought a debt to the bank, but she did not like it. she tells that she did not have a profit or a loss, after that experience she thinks it is better to have a traditional saving. she does not like. she would make a bank withdrawal when there is fixed term and only if she has the sufficient amount which allows her to buy land. merchant she has never managed bank savings. she collects earnings monthly and at the end of the year she decides what to it is just the savings because it is not reinvested; someday “i gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 29 do, she uses only one batch. her savings in dollars no longer exist because she no longer has foreigner customers. would like to invest.” business does not give enough profit. hairstylist she had a savings account, but not anymore. she takes part of her salary for savings –tanda (rosca). in a bowl she keeps her daily earnings. the savings of tanda (rosca) is an investment in 6 months, used to buy something for the beauty salon, when she needs something during the year she takes a credit to pay it one month later. share holder she likes to save. for several years she has saved in dollars for a scholarship for her children. she does not like the savings named: tandas (rosca). she always likes to have a saving, she calls it colchoncito9 “a little mattress” (a colloquial word to name a small saving at home). she has educated her children teaching them the importance of saving. there is an authorized budget; i am looking to buy a farm. veterinary she says: “at the beginning i used to save in the bank, later i noticed that the bank does not give absolutely anything, and besides it gives you deadlines. i have a part of my money on a fixed term, and i did it with the intention of not spending it”. i am keeping bills in a bag. she saved money to pay and to reinvest. she attends a congress every september where she buys equipment by giving a half of the total amount. with her savings she bought a land. source: own elaboration 9 prevention for difficult situations, especially in the economic aspect (saving money for contingency) 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) debt figure 3: networking. debt of women-owned msmes source: own elaboration table 8: debt debt poultry woman she said: “i do not like the savings of friends or family –tandas(rosca) because once i did it and i did not do well”. my dad taught me: “daughter if you have money, spend responsibly but have a small saving, never spend what you do not have, never buy in installments, if you have money buy if you do not have money do not buy”, then i am not friendly with credit cards. if something might happen someday i would ask my dad to lend me and then i would pay with my investment. my plan is to have that money saved that is my savings, my colchoncito “little mattress “(small saving). i hate being in debt or to pay interest, i do not need it; i am not friendly with paying money. merchant an occasion she used the personal credit of her husband to pay a debt, but her husband says that it is better to have her own credit, then she got a credit card, she has her payment schedule. she sends even small amounts of debt payment to each supplier so they continue considering her as a good client; she tries to be fulfilled in their credit payments. she says each person can earn a credit and decide whether to continue this, or not. "i can afford it when i want and have it when i need it, i have a credit limit and i will only stop at the bank, and i will make a withdrawal.” gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 31 hairstylist she says: “if i will buy something on credit, i will just buy one thing, i do not purchase several, i buy only what i can pay for that month.” she has debts but only the receipts that she has to pay to her suppliers. her sisters sometimes lend her money, but not a business loan, a personal loan. “once i owed money to a friend, it was very difficult. on another occasion i wanted to ask to the government for money, to change the beauty salon, furniture, dryers, but i did not because it was too hard and finally i did not get the money.” shareholder she says: “as a person i have no credit or i do not like going into a debt or to have to pay credit cards or anything. my dad gave me the money when i needed. my dad advised me not to go into debt. my father always used in his life bank loans, but always previses the amount of the debt ratio. the credits are a must; you always have to have open lines of credit in the bank. her dad said that "money in the hand has other price and it is better to pay everything in cash." veterinary she says: “i have a list of customers who their payments are due, i consider them a loss. sometimes my brother lends me money but i always pay him, the loan from him is what has helped me to grow. although it is slow but a steady pace and not indebted. there are companies that finance me several months to be good to pay, they leave me the equipment for several months and support me and i will pay them”. she sees a bank loan for big purposes that could be to buy a car, a house or something bigger, she used it to buy a car, and in the case of cooperatives she could use it for something small. the decision making and the financial links of business and household table 9: business connection between home and personal issues business connection between home and personal issues poultry woman she receives money from several companies to cover their expenses. she spends money from the sales for home expenses and gas, she has to get invoices. “school tuition is paid from fiscal bank account, so this also goes to expense account farm.” merchant she says: “i have no salary for my personal use. i do not take money from the business. the salary could be spent on the phone that i pay. if my daughter needs money from the business, she knows she cannot withdraw more than a hundred pesos (about more than five american dollars). the profit gives me for personal expenses and to bring some money in my bag, it does not give me enough to eat.” 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) hairstylist “i take my salary of my business because i have my expenses from my saving – tandai take my salary on saturday. i involve the money from my home and from my personal expenses, sometimes my husband asks me to help him with the beauty salon money. i also support my home and my family, and there might be a profit.” shareholder she has salary as a partner. her daughter and son are students but they work days off and holidays and receive payment from the company. in the former job she spent all the profit in the business, she had to support home, she sold shoes, clothes , etc. veterinary when she started the business, she began to finance it with her own money. then she realized it was a mistake. she already has his salary and sometimes lends to the business and does not charge it. her profits are obtained from the surgeries, her business support her. her business is next to her home, so both have the same expenses of electricity, water and telephone. source: own elaboration summary and conclusion in conclusion, based on the results from the sample obtained being studied, it can be reported that the women-owned msmes are between 40 and 50 years old. most of them studied high school. they are the only owners of the business or share a partnership with her parents, brothers and sisters. only two women entrepreneurs live with a partner at home but the couple is not linked to the business of the entrepreneur and their family supports their businesses. three of five women entrepreneurs have family entrepreneurs, most of these women have more than fifteen years of work experience. some women began their professional career as employees in companies and now they are owner of businesses, categorized according to size: micro, small and medium. most are in trade and services and the rest in agricultural and industrial issues. in msmes owned by women relatives work in one of the business without compensation, only for supporting her sister. in the other businesses most consultants are relatives who have a payment as consultants. strategies for financial management, calculations, association with money, savings, credit, financial behavior and perceptions of investment of interviewed women entrepreneurs have similar features. gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 33 in other studies, about women business owner, as manifested they have an aversion to risk, some of them continue using banks daily. it is a situation that has already been submitted for several years. most are alerted to the recommendations of external, like family, to overcome their knowledge in the area of administration. they stay in tune to perform hard work, however it is required to perform monitoring efforts and be aware of what is required at all times, without fixed schedules or hours that they cannot consult. some of them have to do their calculations in dollars for raw materials and equipment, trying not to have a loss in the exchange rate without affecting their customers. all women are managers responsible that everything is in order, and they have valuable knowledge to promote or implement marketing strategies as required. although several years have passed from the first studies, about thirty years, features and profiles of entrepreneurs remain the same. for some entrepreneur women going to the bank represent an undesirable situation, to request money. they set their records in time to reach comparisons between seasons and dates and zooming to a reality. decision-making is made by entrepreneurs who understand financial statements and in some other cases there are businesswomen who do not understand them. they value their registers in books or computer, or on file folders and can know at the moment registers and inventory accounts. for four businesswomen their accountants only organize the documents and financial statements and make tax payments. shareholder entrepreneur can analyze and propose action strategies based on the analysis of product lines and their ups and downs. the culture of formal savings from investments and managements of banking account development occurs only in proprietary business more affluent. for most women who have microenterprises to save in a bank represents at no time an option to deal with a financial crisis or even to have a profit, bank account is not an opportunity. on the contrary ambivalence occurs, entrepreneur women attending informal savings mechanisms as batches, the stash, the bags etc., save gradually. and whenever possible monthly savings contract commitments to purchase fixed assets or equipment they need to improve their business or services they offer. in the case of credit, it is re-submit the same trend. the entrepreneurs of medium and small level have the opportunity to acquire credits, but they show a familiar culture in which they learned that the loan is presented individually and not a viable alternative because they have been taught that if you do not have enough money to buy goods on all intangibles, it is not 34 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) considered purchase by credits, no money to pay for interest in using this money, because the cash always has another price. except in the case of very heavy investment as a new business, they could be considered as necessary supported by bank loans and a family loan. the micro entrepreneurs present another picture, a different opinion, two of them mention not to use government support for all the tedious paper work and embarrassing for those who function as collateral requirements. so credit facility used as batches and ultimately the financial support of credit with its suppliers. suppliers of raw materials and resources that require daily and pay on time and where the provider supports them or expects them to do some more. the support of her family remains a valuable contribution that allows them to grow. for the case of a small business owner she accepted that is already very familiar with bank loans to msmes. linking business with household and personal incomes remains at all times. the owners of msmes do not hesitate to make a mental separation and some records as well as strategies to separate them. but by the nature of the tuition accounting, when ample gain can pay some issues of food or daily, or sometimes vice versa, micro level entrepreneurs sometimes invest in their business with other revenues, but their frame calculations no longer consider that there is a mental separation of the two records. the methodology allowed knowing in depth the details of finance and administration of financial resources to perform the business owners, the commitment they have to create jobs, taking care of their self-employment, their businesses, their good credit history with suppliers, family and banks. and the opportunities that they generate for growing strategies, promotions in their businesses and to keep the support of other resources such as family loans and their perseverance and responsibility in their role as owners, managers and supervisors of their business. similarly, the financial and business culture which encourages developed by their family who support them with their work, guidance and resources loans. interestingly the participation of women in business remains outside of the two companies that have a proprietary husband. as mentioned above the relationship reaches the moral and financial support recommendations in credit history among others. this research allowed to address a thorough review of related literature, that has conducted over the past thirty years, from the entrepreneur businesswomen, since sociological, anthropological and economic approach gonzales, g.g.m., et al., financial management, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 1-39) 35 and it tried to have a first pilot approach to verify the current situation in a territory of the state of jalisco, mexico, corroborating that they have similar characteristics among themselves and with entrepreneur women from different nations. references [1] alpízar, c. a., svarch, m& gonzález-vega. c. 2006. el entorno y la participación de los hogares en 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[52] zutter, l. j. 2012. principios de administración financiera. méxico, d.f.: pearson. article history: received: 30 march, 2017 accepted: 14 may, 2017 untitled-1 udc: 005.51(55) jel: l26 original scientific paper the impact of entrepreneurship on employment empowerment: a case study at irib darvish hassan*, payame noor university, department of public administration, tehran, i. r. iran -a a b s t r a c t entrepreneurship is the most important factor in economic development is called as process of making wealthy opportunity, innovation and creativity and process of leading to new organizations making without respect to the kind of the organization potential and related limitations. drucker (2000, p 23) has had key role in development and growth of economic. today, the human capital is brought out an unlimited source and is essential for any development. for this reason, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs play effective role in process of economic development. so, knowing the two concepts is valuable and explaining their relation influence certainly and effectively recognition of main factors to develop societies and, especially, organizations. the paper considers the meaningful relation in a sample including statistical community of experts and employees of financial and administration assistance of islamic republic of iran broadcasting who are working in the office and it has been investigated correlations among variables. to measure the variables in the study two questionnaires had been determined in literature investigation of researches have been used. results of the data have been analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistical approach. the results indicate the point not only is there meaningful relation between organizational entrepreneurship and empowerment of the employees but reinforcing empowerment components such as * corresponding author, address: 19395-4697 tehran, i.r. of iran, e-mail: dr_darvish@pnu.ac.ir darvish, h., the impact of entrepreneurship, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 62-75) 63 management support from entrepreneurship, decision making power (autonomy), considering reward and encouragement for the employees by managers and increasing accessibility time to the mangers result in reinforcing the concept of organizational empowerment. kew words: entrepreneurship, employment, organizational empowerment, islamic republic of iran broadcasting (irib), iran introduction in the developing world, prosperity belongs to the societies and organizations which create meaningful relation between rare sources and management abilities and entrepreneurship of human source. in other word, the society and organization can rest in way development, movement to forward and with speed have been become equipped human sources with knowledge and skills of entrepreneurship to use the valuable empowerment to lead other society sources and organization toward creating value, growth, development, and management. for this reason entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs influence effectively on economic development. as the researches has shown there is a positive correlation economic growth and number of the entrepreneurs in a country, because the countries possess many entrepreneurs have more powerful commercial and economical stimulations. according to role and importance of the developments of many countries as well as the economical difficulties in the present world we stretch our hands to any way. thus, dissemination of the organizational entrepreneurship, providing conditions of the entrepreneurship culture and training entrepreneurs are essential and vital for all of the societies especially the developing societies such as iran. literature review and hypothesis entrepreneurship entrepreneurship is named entreprendre in french and means commited in british and is translated boss in persian and entrepreneurship nomical literature has meaning different from what we image in the religious and journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 62-75) 64 molar literature. a human who has ability to understand and find opportunities and alter his/her ideas to new product and service make value from nil and is called as entrepreneurs (mosavi s.j., 2000). there are some considerable points in entrepreneurship definitions: entrepreneurs start a new business: they are recognized through new works and business. the innovation is shown in forms of producing new goods,increasing quality, new product technology, opening a new market, providing sources and new way for supplying primary material or collecting elements of a product, reorganizing an industry and starting a new business through innovative and creativity. the entrepreneur risks. for this reason, he/she passes methods arrive to the purposes. entrepreneurship can be said to include process of new recognition opportunities business and organizations and utilizing of the known opportunities. in result, the new goods and services are supplied the market (arcook, 2006). one of the multi-dimension process models is comprehensive entrepreneurship model from hornsby and his colleagues. they recognize the main factor of entrepreneurship in three domains; unexpected events, individual characteristics and organizational characteristics. also, they have noticed some intervening variables. briefly, their model is below form. figure 1:research model,hornsby, et al.(1993:31) darvish, h., the impact of entrepreneurship, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 62-75) 65 empowerment the oxford dictionary defines the verb of the empowerment to make motivate individuals who perform their duties through growing self capability. according to management theorists, empowerment is to providing necessary sources to employees as well as is to reinforce the important feelings. as it was said, conger and kanungo (1988) know delegation of authority as the main basis of employees empowerment process, but for complete achievement to it,other conditions is necessary. so, empowerment consists of process of reinforcement of organization individuals self sufficiency through recognition and introduction of the conditions result in lack of the power. there are some efforts to obviate it by formal actions of the organization and enjoyment from informal texts and information helping in the organization (conger and kanungo 1998,p475). employees empowerment performes through employees encouragement for actively participation in decision making. employees through empowerment can find more recognition about the organization and its involvement with their work to make a valuable work, as a result it increases job satisfaction and improves work moral (wilson 1996, p 3). empowerment means individuals undertake their actions and decisions, but determination of duties means what people must do (vilkaks, 2001, p 6). it is one of the new management salient concepts. the most important purpose of empowerment is guidance and training necessary skills to employees to decide independently based on organizational culture criteria (ala mope and his colleagues, 2006, p 74). empowerment is a fact that provides opportunity for decision making nal hierarchy of organizational structures, because line employees are close to problems and difficulties and have authority to resolve them (blanchard and his colleagues, 1996, p 39).the different definitions of the empowerment demonstrate it is applied to internal emotion in who can make decision independently in their works. research model one of the empowerment models is spreitzer and mishra model. spreitzer has determined four dimensions for empowerment. according to journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 62-75) 66 mish sion was added his model. to managers can reinforce them successfully, they must create the five characteristics into them. successful empowerment means to establish: 1. feeling of competence 2. feeling of self-determination 3. feeling of impact 4. feeling of meaningfully 5. feeling of trust to others research methodology research design and instrument decision making about research method depends on the purpose of the study, the nature of the case study and various investigation methods. thus the research method must be chosen according to case study. the study has selected the correlation method according to this case study. this kind of the research is for collecting data from the relationship considered importantly. the correlation research emphasizes on relationship among two groups of the data. data is collected from a variable in two societies or two different situations and or from two variables or more in a society. in the study, the researchers want to know if there is relation and correlation among two groups of data and or no, that is, if a variable is followed by other one or no, if there is such relation how much and which of kind it will be. the correlation among variables relies on where variable direction is in investigated variables (dependent and independent variable) directly and inversely, they are called as positive and negative correlations. after determination of the correlation and direction, correlation coefficient will be calculated and its numerical variation is linear correlation among the variables. some variable changes direction of correlation, and correlation coefficient . to analyze data of the study, the paper uses descriptive and inferential statistical methods. the descriptive statistical methods are used to calculate mean, variance and distribution tables of the data about crowd. the inferential statistical method from the multiple regression method is darvish, h., the impact of entrepreneurship, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 62-75) 67 used to determine share of the organizational entrepreneurship elements in explaining employees. hypothesis there is a meaningful relation between organizational entrepreneurship and empowerment of the employees hypothesis1:there is meaningful relation between entrepreneurship and empowerment of broadcasting employees hypothesis 2:there is meaningful relation between consideration of reward and encouragement by manger and empowerment of broadcasting employees hypothesis 3: there is meaningful relation between consideration of reward and encouragement by manger and empowerment of broadcasting employees hypothesis 4: there is meaningful relationship between organizational obstacles and limitations and hypothesis of broadcasting employees. the sample respondents of the study are experts and employees of financial and administrative assistant of islamic republic of iran broadcasting. the minimum samples are chosen by the correct formula of the cochran population. the minimum respondents are 211 in the study. measurement to measure the variables in the study, two questionnaires have been determined to consider research literature has been used. also, some the questionnaires have been given some respondents who were asked their journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 62-75) 68 viewpoints about text and meaning of the items to ensure honesty of the translation and understanding them. it included 31 items to measure the entrepreneurship. they are planned by horne bi and spretizer to estimate five variables, management support from the entrepreneurship, decision making (freedom of action), considering rewards and encouragement for employees by manager, and bureaucracy. the spectrum of likert (five points) was used completely disagreement (1) to completely agreement (5). to ensure the correctness of the items, validity analysis was used. to measure empowerment, a questionnaire including 18 items was used. the items were designed by spretizer and mistral to assess five variables; meaningfulness, competence, selection right, effective, and trust to ensure the accuracy of the items, validity analysis was used. analysis of the reliability was performed by the software spps. according to the results from reliability analysis one of the four items related to the reliability and validity of questionnaire table: reliability analysis of factors in entrepreneurship factors elements of measurement management support from entrepreneurship ms_01~ms_11 0.792 decision making power (freedom of action) da_01~da_06 0.726 reward and encouragement for staffs by manager r_01~r_09 0.827 time of accessible ta_02~ta_04 0.706 meaningful m_01~m_03 0.713 competence c_01~c_05 0.737 right to choice sa_01,sa_03~sa_04 0.775 effectual a_01~a_02 0.704 trust others t_01~q2_18 0.917 darvish, h., the impact of entrepreneurship, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 62-75) 69 analysis and presentation of findings population analysis 233 questionnaires of the 264 questionnaires were returned and coefficient of replying reaches 81% table 1: descriptive statistics of know population characteristics items abundance percent gender man 122 59.7 woman 92 42.8 age 21-25 9 4.2 30-26 34 15.8 31-35 47 21.9 36-40 52 24.2 40-45 22 10.2 46-50 12 5.6 51-55 7 3.3 56-60 4 1.4 61-65 4 1.9 educational degrees diploma 9 4.2 junior college 38 17.7 bachelor 129 60.0 m.a 35 16.3 p.h.d 2 0.9 activity place administrative services 12 6.4 retirement 9 4.8 financial 54 28.9 goods affairs 17 9.1 legal 11 5.9 comfortable affairs 36 19.3 human resources 23 13.9 informatics 3 1.6 past record 1-5 63 29.3 6-10 45 20.9 11-15 55 25.6 16-20 15 7/0 21-25 3 3.3 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 62-75) 70 26-30 4 1.9 31-35 2 0.9 36-40 2 0.9 cooperation of staffs formal 121 56.3 experimental 0 0 contractual 59 27.4 others 32 14.9 married single 32 14.9 married 182 84.7 analysis of correlation among variables before investigation of hypotheses, we look at measured variables at glance in table 2 and we can accept or reject them. to consider all of the hypotheses multi-step by step regression was used. table 2 indicates the final results from regression. ms da r ta bl m c sa a t ms 1 d 0.585** 1 a r 0.573** 0.623 1 ta 0.281** 0.382 0.420** 1 bl 0.238* 0.278 0.272** 0.176* 1 m 0.153* 0.272 0.212** 0.252** -0.014 1 c 0.079 0.156 0.111 0.13 0.047 0.431** 1 sa 0.322** 0.585 0.569** 0.348** 0.165* 0.325** 0.168* 1 a 0.319** 0.322 0.368** 0.200** 0.041 0.252** 0.265* 0.550** 1 t 0.259** 0.197 0.313** 0.250** 0.025 0.149* 0.082 0.306** 0.266** 1 meaningful correlation in 0.05 level meaningful correlation in 0.01 level investigation and hypothese step by step regression was used to investigate the main hypothesis. organizational entrepreneurship is our variable in the stage. the table 4 indicates results of the regression in spss. according to the results from the regression, the main theory was confirmed. according to the up darvish, h., the impact of entrepreneurship, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 62-75) 71 statistical results it can be stated there is a meaningful relation between organizational entrepreneurship (amount 0. 519) and employees empowerment changes the meaningful level of less than 0.001. investigation of effect of entrepreneurship elements on empowerment the first step by step regression was used to consider the subsidiary hypotheses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. the common theories try to determine the relationship between elements of organizational entrepreneurship and support from entrepreneurship, decision making power(freedom of action), reward and encouragement stage. the table 5 shows results multi-step by step regression in spps. according to the results from the third model of multi-step by step regression, the 2, 3, 4 hypotheses were confirmed and the 1 and 5 hypotheses were rejected (according to include or exclude the independent variables to model). all of the above data explains there is meaningful relationship between decision making (freedom of action), reward and encouragement by manger ble time (0. 281,0.215,0.169, respectively) and employees empowerment changes meaningful level 0.009 and less. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 62-75) 72 conclusion and recommendations for future reasearch according to influence of the entrepreneurship elements on it ,we will investigate two sections; the first investigation of effect of organizational entrepreneurship on empowerment of the employees of the broadcasting and then consideration of effect of organizational elements on empowerment of broadcasting employees. the simple regression was used here. in the study, organizational entrepreneurship has impact on empowerment of the employees considerably (b=0.226). according to step by step regression results, three variables among ng reward, predicate empowerment of broadcasting employees (external variables). there was positive relationship between reward and encouragement time of accessible and empowerment of broadcasting employees. in the study, decision making ability (freedom of action) is the second variable among the three variables which has effect on empowerment of the broadcasting employees (b=0.215). also, the correlation between the variable and the four elements of the employees empowerment verifies the validity of the results.. in the study, decision making ability (freedom of action) was defined as the first effective variable on empowerment of broadcasting employees (b=0.281). also the correlation between the variable and the four elements of empowerment of the broadcasting employees. third and final variable has effect on empowerment of the broadcasting ability. (b=o.169). here, there is forceful correlation between the variable and the four elements of employees empowerment.thus, the obstacles and limitations are recognized one of the two variables without effect on the employees empowerment. lack of the correlation among the variable with each of the empowerment elements of the broadcasting employees corresponds with the results. darvish, h., the impact of entrepreneurship, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 62-75) 73 recommendations as the results shown, some suggestions can be used in two parts, practical and scientific, based on executive and academic fields. considering rewards and encouragement by manger is the most effective organizational entrepreneurship element on the employees empowerment. because organizations have authority over paying rewards and encouragement with mangers, the field can offer helpfully increasing zations , planning for time increasing the variable can help considerably raising employees empowerment if organizational rules and regulations are changed in such a manner that employees decision making power can be increased and or they obtain freedom of action in their duties they can develop their empowerment.(the second subsidiary: there is a meaningful relation decision making power (freedom of action) and the broadcasting employees empowerment) regards of the organizations to effective factors in organizational entrepreneurship and their reinforcement can play key role on increasing their making potencystudying the similar research in organizational environments where have different functions can make more careful attitudes to effect of the activity on the relation between organizational entrepreneurship and employees empowerment. if the research is held in more expanded dimensions and more fit distributions, it can provide more accurate attitude to effect of balancing the relation between organizational entrepreneurship and employees empowerment the groups of the variables. it is need analogous research about effect of organizational entrepreneurship on employees empowerment with consideration of forming elements of employees empowerment to obtain more accurate understanding amount of the impression. a additional research needs to investigate effect of organizational entrepreneurship on employees empowerment with taking into consideration of three aspects of organizational entrepreneurship (communication, motivation, recognition), simultaneously to obtain more journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 62-75) 74 references [1] alampay r.a, ma. r. hechanova,& e.p. france, (2006), psychological empowerment, job satisfaction and performance among filipino services workers, asian journal of social psychology no.9, p.72 [2] arcook, james, (2006), toward entrepreneurship, translator: mitra teyymori , amozeh press [3] belanchard, kent, (2002), three keys for increasing ability, translator: fazlolah amini, tehran, farda press. [4] blanchard, k., carlos, j., & randolph, a. 2001. three keys to empowerment. san francisco: berrett-koehler. [5] conger, j.a.,& kanungo, r.n, (1998) the empowerment process: integrating theory and practice. academy of management review, 13,471-482 [6] drucker, peter, (2001), management challenges in 21 century, abdoalreza rezainejad, farda press. [7] mcclland. d.c, (1975), power thinner experience. new york: i ruington press. [8] mishra, a. k. & spreitzer, g. m. 1998. explaining how survivors respond to downsizing: the role of trust, empowerment, justice, and work redesign. academy of management review, 23 (3): 568-588. [9] mohammadi, mohammad, (2002), employees empowerment , approaches and processes, management study magazine(periodical), no. 33 and 34, p. 1,2-175 [10] mosavi, seyyd jalal, (1378), determination of entrepreneurship and instructional planning norms in iran according to comparative study of global analogical plans, thesis for m.a of industrial management organization. [11] robbins, t.l, crino, m.d, fredendall, l.d (2002), an integrative model of the empowerment process, human resource management review, no 12, p 419420 [12] shahrani, abbas, (2006), investigation of employees empowerment obstacles in bahman group, thesis for m.a of government management, accounting and management college , alameh tabatabaie university [13] spreitzer g.m, (1996), social structural characteristics of psychological empowerment, academy of management journal, 39,483-504 [14] source: spreitzer, g.m. (1995). psychological empowerment in the workplace:dimensions, measurement and validation. academy of management journal,vol. 38, no 5, 1442-1465. [15] stueart robert. d and barbara b. moran, (2006). library and information center management, engliwood cliff, llibraries unlimited,inc. [16] thomas, k & velthouse b,(1990),cognitive elements of empowerment :an interpretive model of intrinsic task motivation. academy of management review, no.15, 666-681 [17] vilkaks, graham, (2002), technic of empowerment, translator: mohamadi, tehran, yesavli press [18] wallach, v.a., & mueller, c.w. 2006. job characteristics and organizational predictors of psychological empowerment among paraprofessionals within darvish, h., the impact of entrepreneurship, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 62-75) 75 human service organizations: an exploratory study. administration in social work: 30: 95-115. [19] wilson, patrick, (1996), empowerment the self-directed, first published in usa, gower. a p s t r a k t vodi do stvaranja novih organizacija bez obzira na vrstu njihovog potencijala i cija. ovaj rad razmatra korelaciju izme u ovih varijabli. -televizije irana. dobijeni podaci, analizirani su prema deskriptivnom i organizacio televizija islamske republike iran (irib), iran article history: received: 20 may 2011 accepted: 7 september 2011 << /ascii85encodepages true /allowtransparency false /autopositionepsfiles true /autorotatepages /none /binding /left /calgrayprofile (gray gamma 1.8) /calrgbprofile (apple rgb) /calcmykprofile (photoshop 4 default cmyk) /srgbprofile (srgb iec61966-2.1) /cannotembedfontpolicy /error /compatibilitylevel 1.3 /compressobjects /off /compresspages true /convertimagestoindexed true /passthroughjpegimages true /createjdffile false /createjobticket false /defaultrenderingintent /default /detectblends true /detectcurves 0.0000 /colorconversionstrategy 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() /pdfxoutputconditionidentifier () /pdfxoutputcondition () /pdfxregistryname () /pdfxtrapped /false /description << /enu () >> >> setdistillerparams << /hwresolution [2400 2400] /pagesize [2069.185 1927.460] >> setpagedevice microsoft word 10_jwe_1-2.doc udc: 005.4 jel: l26, d83 scientific review the mobility of business knowledge bartha zoltán, university of miskolc, miskolc, hungary, institute of economic theory a b s t r a c t different aspects of business knowledge’s mobility are analysed in the paper. we define business knowledge as action-related skills, and codified messages that contribute to the effective combination of inputs. in other words business knowledge can be explicit at times, but also may appear as highly implicit. the mobility of the factor is extremely important: if it is found that certain elements of business knowledge are immobile, enterprises may only get access to it if they move to regions where it can be found in abundance. the paper shows that the more implicit the business knowledge is, the less mobile it is likely to be. the relative immobility is explained with the special influence of innovation systems. companies in the visegrad-countries may also be affected by the phenomenon, as they will also find that the easiest way of getting access to certain elements of business knowledge is by investing in knowledge intensive regions of central and eastern europe. kew words: innovation systems, knowledge mobility, tacit knowledge importance of factor mobility the investment strategy of transnational corporations (tncs) is often driven by the continuous search for better quality, and/or cheaper inputs. the presence, or lack of certain inputs in certain regions can motivate tncs to get access to them through foreign direct investment, a method we call indirect, because it does not bring the resources to the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 91-99) 92 company (a direct method), but rather it brings the company to the resources. one of the inputs companies are looking for is business knowledge. we define business knowledge as action-related skills, and codified messages that contribute to the effective combination of inputs. most authors break down knowledge into two main categories: into a tacit and an explicit one. this paper takes a dual approach in the analysis of foreign direct investment: – we assume that foreign direct investment can be motivated by the scarcity, or abundance of business knowledge in certain regions; – and it is also assumed that the mobility of business knowledge may at least partly explain the decisions made over choosing a direct or indirect way of acquiring it. the core of the paper addresses the problem of mobility of business knowledge. first of all it argues that the duality of knowledge (tacit and explicit form) affects its mobility as well. explicit knowledge is partly separated from the human dimensions, and many of its characteristics therefore make it similar to capital, a mobile factor. tacit knowledge however cannot be separated from its owner – individuals. this fact makes it more similar to labour, a factor that has several mobility limitations. apart from the similarities drawn between the different forms of business knowledge, and traditional factors of production, mobility, or, better put, the lack of mobility is also explained by the presence of so called innovation systems. innovation systems offer a special atmosphere for the creation and sharing of knowledge. the best qualified people are educated in such innovation systems, and they hesitate to leave them, because the system helps them to get access to knowledge they can use during their professional career. in other words the creation of tacit business knowledge is highly concentrated, and it does not spread out either (through mobility), because it can be used much more effectively within the system. the very fact of interaction between the creation and use of knowledge makes these innovation systems so powerful. if companies want to get access to tacit business knowledge, they can be forced to choose the indirect way, and acquire it through foreign direct investment. by doing it, they not only will establish a new corporation, but they will also became a part of an informal network of the innovation system. zoltán, b., the mobility of business knowledge, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 91-99) 93 foreign direct investments and the mobility of factors foreign direct investments (fdi) have been the driving force behind the economic development of many developing countries. still, much of the invested capital has flown towards the three most developed regions (unctad 2004). there are many theories addressing the reasons of capital flows, however they can be categorised into three main groups: 1. into the first group fall those theories that explain fdi with the securing of certain advantages. they analyse the endowments of the country of destination, and try to identify elements that may explain the investment. such element can be the presence of some scarce factors, favourable input prices, or market conditions. the argument of this paper can also be referred into this group. 2. the second group of theories is related to the use of existing competitive advantages. they do not address the issues concerning the creation of such advantages and only deal with the challenges arising when a company already has an edge over its competitors. 3. finally, into the third group fall the theories that explain fdi with the tncs attempt to avoid certain disadvantages. they are much the same as the ones in the first group, but this time the characteristics of the emissive country are analysed (szentes 1999, 456-478). the typology above suggests that fdi is often determined by the scarcity of resources in a region. if an input is not locally available, companies have three options: 1) substitute the input with another; 2) import it directly from other regions; or 3) choose the indirect way, and get access to it through fdi. if the first option is excluded, the decision will depend on the mobility of the given factor. it is generally accepted that capital is the factor that is most mobile, land is immobile, and labour is somewhere in between the two. among these classical factors business knowledge is not listed. the restricted size of the paper does not make it possible to argue for, or against the inclusion of business knowledge, so here we will assume that business knowledge is an important input of the company, and strategies concerning its acquisition do not differ from those of the other factors. if journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 91-99) 94 this assumption is taken into consideration, then the decision again will depend on the mobility of business knowledge. this paper adopts a comparative approach in the analyses of mobility of business knowledge. comparing its characteristics to those of capital and labour, we can find the elements determining its mobility. figure 1. shows us a theoretical rank of factors in terms of their mobility. knowledge related to labour is tacit knowledge, while that related to capital is explicit knowledge. the distinction between the two forms of knowledge was introduced by michael polányi (1966), and later on adopted by most authors researching knowledge management issues. the knowledge of every person is made up of two spheres: one that is related to facts and arguments (explicit); and another much deeper and complex one that comprises beliefs, feelings, experience etc (tacit). although the latter is more important, often only the first can be shared with others. the reason for that is that only explicit knowledge is separated from individuals, in other words only explicit knowledge is available in a form that anyone can have access to. the similarities with labour and capital are apparent. just as the labour force cannot be separated from individuals, tacit knowledge cannot be either, and, on the other hand, capital and explicit knowledge can flow easily from one individual to another. this is the reason why first the characteristics of the labour, and capital flow is examined. figure 1: mobility of factors knowledge knowledge labour related to related to capital labour capital mobility zoltán, b., the mobility of business knowledge, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 91-99) 95 capital the dynamic growth of capital flows among regions is both explained by instrumental and institutional conditions. i call instrumental the conditions that are directly related to the given factor. such an instrumental condition is the fact that the owner and the user of capital can be separated. capital can easily find its way to those who are willing to invest it – domestically or internationally. another instrumental condition is that capital is more or less independent from the variants of the environment. when investment options are examined the only relevant factors considered are the risk and the expected profit. no regional characteristics can really get among the important factors considered. however, risk is something that might vary from region to region. so there might be regions that are excluded from the options of good investment destinations because of intolerably high risks. institutional conditions of capital movement are the one that guarantee that the risk of investment is within a tolerable range in most parts of the world. such institutional conditions are – amongst others – the international agreements guaranteeing the rights of investors, the convertibility of currencies or other legislative guarantees taken in most developing countries of the world. labour the international flow of labour has its instrumental, and institutional conditions, too. first of all, the owner and user of labour is the same individual – they cannot be separated. therefore labour not only has to be available in abundance in a region, the owner of the labour has to be willing to use it, or if the demand is stronger in other regions, has to be willing to move it across borders. that is a significant limitation to the flow of labour, because many people do not like to move at all. besides, the use of labour is largely dependent on the variants of the environments. the language can be different, also the tempo, the intensity, the timing of work. finally, another instrumental condition of labour flow is the difficulty related to the mobilisation of individual assets and properties. despite these difficulties, many choose to try and find a job in a different country. they are not limited by the instrumental conditions, however they most often are by institutional ones. countries defend their journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 91-99) 96 domestic labour market with many administrative regulations. usually only a limited number of foreign employees are allowed to legally apply for a job, no wonder labour is much less mobile than capital. business knowledge as suggested above, the instrumental and institutional characteristics of capital and labour flows can be used to explain the mobility of business knowledge as well. as figure 1. shows explicit business knowledge is closest to capital as regards to its mobility characteristics, yet it is less mobile. although explicit knowledge can be separated from individuals, it is not independent from environmental variables. knowledge is only valuable if it is understood, so it can only be used in an environment where adequately qualified people are available who are able to interpret it. but institutional conditions are even more restricting. capital markets are well developed and solutions are available to all parties at calculable prices. such markets of explicit business knowledge do not exist. owners of knowledge often fear that their property can be copied illegally, so they hesitate to offer it on the market. on certain fields the markets of knowledge work well (licensing in pharmaceutical or chemical industry, franchising in certain areas of services), but these areas are very limited. in most cases prices are difficult to foresee, and this leads to a general mistrust towards the commercial exchange of knowledge. thus explicit business knowledge can be mobile (due to its instrumental characteristics), but it is by far not as frequently transferred over borders as capital is. tacit business knowledge on the other hand is more like labour. it cannot be separated from its owner, and so if its owner is not willing, or not allowed to move to another country, it will not become mobile. but tacit business knowledge is also different from labour. one of the main problems with the flow of labour is the differences in language and lifestyles. tacit knowledge however is typically carried by individuals who are well educated, speak foreign languages and can flexibly adjust themselves to changing conditions. they are also much less restricted by legislative and administrative restraints. most countries will happily be willing to admit highly qualified employees, because they know that it makes a country more powerful. if neither the instrumental, nor the institutional conditions restrict the free flow of tacit business knowledge, then what is the reason behind its zoltán, b., the mobility of business knowledge, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 91-99) 97 limited mobility? the limited mobility is explained by the special atmosphere of innovation systems. mobility of tacit knowledge and innovation systems the idea of innovation systems was introduced by freeman (1987), and developed further by lundvall (1993), and nelson (1993). they imagined systems that integrated the whole economy of a country. innovation systems are characterised by intensive formal and informal links among companies, government agencies, universities, r&d institutions, financial banks, organisations of different sectors etc. later, the idea of regional innovation systems was developed (cooke 1997). a significant characteristic of the latter is that it is highly specified. companies and other organisations involved in cooperation within the framework of a regional innovation system belong to the same sector of the industry. therefore the knowledge needed by the companies of the regional innovation system is also specified, specific to the given sector of the economy. companies that are connected to an innovation systems have a competitive edge over others, because they have access to the best qualified people that there is. specialised innovation systems have great affects on the mobility of tacit business knowledge. just as companies, employees also benefit from regional innovation systems. their benefits can be sorted into two groups: benefits during education, and benefits while sharing knowledge. as arrow (1962) pointed out in his paper on learning by doing, the efficiency of education can be much higher if students are not only given a strong theoretical background, but they also have the chance to try out the newly learnt material in practice. in an innovation system, where schools and universities engage in intensive relationships with companies, students have an excellent chance to learn by doing things. when graduated, these students posses much valuable knowledge than those, who did not have the chance to learn by doing. this is why the highly qualified workforce is often concentrated in small regions. one might think that once these students have graduated, they will move to other regions in search of better jobs. surprisingly however, they often want to get a job within the innovation system. this is because they have actually realised that the sharing of knowledge is much easier in such a system, than outside it. most employees nowadays cannot stop learning journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 91-99) 98 once they left the academia. most industries are changing very rapidly, and employees are often faced with new situations. when an employee is faced with a new problem, he can either try to find a solution on his own, or alternatively he can ask others to help. the second option is much less time consuming, so it is a much more efficient way of getting things done. but it cannot be applied all the time, mainly for two reasons. first, the people who posses the knowledge that can help have to be found, and secondly, somehow they have to be persuaded to help. in an innovation system it is not so difficult to find knowledgeable people. companies have strong formal relationships with many other organisations, and the employees also have many informal relationships they formed during their life. the help of these people however is nothing like a market transaction. they are not paid, are not offered anything specific in exchange. if they will help, that is based on mutual trust. people help each other not because they want something specific in exchange, but because they know that if they need help, others will help as well. mutual trust is a phenomenon that cannot be explained, however we know that it can only be sustained within a group if the members of the group are in a direct contact with each other. so if someone leaves the innovation system, he loses the direct contact with those who might help. this is why tacit business knowledge is not a mobile factor. it can work more efficiently in concentrated systems of innovation. conclusion we have found that tacit business knowledge is immobile for two main reasons: – it cannot be separated from humans carrying it, therefore some issues preventing the mobility of labour also affect the flow of it; – it is most valuable when is integrated in a network of specialised knowledge called innovation system, and because innovation systems are localised, tacit business knowledge tends to be localised as well. if companies want to get access to tacit business knowledge, they can be forced to choose the indirect way, and acquire it through foreign direct investment. by doing it, they not only will establish a new corporation, but they will also become a part of an informal network of the innovation system. concentrating on the development of such innovation systems zoltán, b., the mobility of business knowledge, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 91-99) 99 therefore can be one of the most beneficial methods of economic development. references [1] arrow, k. j. (1962): the economic implications of learning by doing. review of economic studies, no. 29, 155-73. [2] cooke, p., urange, m.g., extebarria, e. (1997): regional innovation systems: institutional and organizational dimensions. research policy 4/5, 475– 493. [3] freeman, c. (1987): technology policy and economic performance: lessons from japan. pinter publishers, london. [4] lundvall, b. a. (1993): national systems of innovation. frances pinter, london. [5] nelson, r. (1993): national innovation systems: a comparative study. oxford university press, oxford. [6] polányi, m. (1966): the tacit dimension. routledge and kegan, london. [7] szentes, t. (1999): világgazdaságtan elméleti és módszertani alapok. aula kiadó, budapest. [8] unctad (2004): world investment report, geneva. received: 12 january 2010 article history: accepted: 22 march 2010 doi: 10.28934/jwee19.34.pp1-16 original scientific paper aspirations towards entrepreneurship and self-awareness among young female population in the north kosovo & metohija isidora ljumović1 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia krsto jakšić2 university of pristina, temporary seated in kosovska mitrovica, faculty of economics, kosovska mitrovica, serbia ivana lečovski-milojkić3 university of belgrade, faculty of organizational sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t encouraging entrepreneurial culture and developing entrepreneurial education are key factors for the development of modern economies and society as a whole. although the number of female entrepreneurs is growing, it is still relatively low, and one of the ways to achieve the gender balance in the field of entrepreneurship is the entrepreneurial education that will introduce women with the ability of the business venture through the phenomena of education. the aim of this research is to examine the aspirations and intentions towards entrepreneurship in female undergraduate students and to understand which factors influence students’ entrepreneurial intention and behavior. the survey was conducted among the female students' population of the final years of the university of pristina temporary seated in kosovska mitrovica as well as female students of 1 address: zmaj jovina 12, belgrade, serbia, e-mail, isidora.ljumovic@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381 63 462486, 2 address: kolašinska 156, kosovska mitrovica, serbia, e-mail: krsto.jaksic@pr.ac.rs, tel. +381 66 6662811 3 address: frana levstika 4, belgrade, serbia, e-mail: ivana.lecovski@gmail.com, tel. +381 62 222115 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) the fourth year of secondary schools in the north kosovo and metohija (the north k&m). we find that the half of respondents never engaged in entrepreneurial activities and that one-third of them were involved in such activities by helping parents, friends or acquaintances. female students in north kosovo & metohija generally recognize and highly rank qualities such as a desire for success, confidence, creativity, and initiative as very important for engaging in entrepreneurial activities. their previous experience and positive attitude towards entrepreneurship are promising factors for the future growth of the number of female entrepreneurs in north k&m. key words: entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship, economic growth, employment, development, kosovo & metohija introduction the recent global trend is increasing attention towards supporting different initiatives in promoting entrepreneurship, creating new entrepreneurial ventures and new jobs. this trend is a direct consequence of the evidence that has shown that entrepreneurial endeavors contribute to economic growth, increased productivity, and increase of employment. different studies, including gem (global entrepreneurship monitor) report, demonstrate the ability of entrepreneurship to solve different problems related to unemployment (storey, 1994; white & reynolds, 1996) economic and regional growth (neck et al., 2003). this positive impact has led many countries worldwide, to paid serious attention to entrepreneurship, as a potentially fundamental solution to various problems, including a lack of economic growth, increasing employment rates, as well as possibility of providing work for graduating students. while entrepreneurship has been viewed as crucial to economic growth and development in developing countries, surprisingly little research has been conducted on the factors that influence individuals’ intentions to start new businesses (karimi et al., 2010; 2013), in particular intentions of those who are still in the educational system. therefore, it is crucial to understand what factors influence college students’ entrepreneurial intention and behavior within sound theoretical frameworks in order to develop and implement effective educational strategies. in other words, understanding determinants of entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors can help entrepreneurial educa ljumović, i., et al., young female population, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) 3 tors, consultants, advisors and policy makers to find the right way to foster entrepreneurship at universities and consequently in society. despite the increasing the number and share of women entrepreneurs (de bruin et al., 2006; brush, 2006), entrepreneurship is still a malestereotyped domain and associated with masculine traits (ahl, 2006; lewis, 2006) while number of female entrepreneurs is still significantly lower than male (blanchflower, 2004; langowitz & minniti, 2007; marlow, 2002). according to the world bank, globally only 25% to 33% of all private businesses are owned or operated by women. there are global trends that show the insufficient number and share of women entrepreneurs (kelley et al., 2013). one of the ways to achieve the gender balance in the field of entrepreneurship is the entrepreneurial education that will introduce women with the ability of the business venture through the phenomena of education (jones, 2014). policy-makers and entrepreneurship educators believe that entrepreneurial education (ee) can promote the accumulation of entrepreneurial skills and knowledge in students of both sexes (european commission, 2008; jones, 2014; kuratko, 2005). it is very important to find out if university students have any intention to start up their own business, and the way the universities can influence on students’ attitudes and their knowledge about entrepreneurship with the aim to facilitate a tendency to create their own business in the future (wang & wong, 2004). in the last few years, the number of female entrepreneurs is growing, therefore, many researchers and the academic community pay more attention to this phenomenon. female entrepreneurship is of particular importance from various reasons (welter, 2004). first, female entrepreneurs create jobs for themselves, thus offering an alternative to unemployment that will give women the opportunity to balance work and family responsibilities, while improving family welfare and social cohesion. also, the establishment of small enterprises owned by women can help in increasing women’s autonomy and provide them the opportunity to have a more active and representative role in the country’s economic and political life. the development of female entrepreneurship could result in a more successful and faster transition process by the improvement of innovative capacities and private sector development. the northern part of kosovo and metohija (k&m), as well as its whole territory, has become un protectorate after the 1999 nato bombing. from then on, the formal power is in the hands of unmik administration and temporary kosovo institutions. then, on february 17, 2008, kosovo pro4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) claimed independence which most of the western countries have soon recognized. in the meantime, till the moment of signing the brussels agreement made between governments of serbia and kosovo, most of the institutions of the republic of serbia has existed at this area, especially at the north of the province. after making the brussels agreement, a significant number of these institutions has been integrated into the system of kosovo. at the north of k&m, only health and education system are still integrated within the system of the republic of serbia. in the middle of economic and social devastation and constant political crisis, the lack of economic activities in this region surely could be noticed. the constant crisis and weak rule of law bring to the fact that there are almost any interested investors and investments for this area. thus, the most of young people who graduated, try to employ themselves in the public institutions. as it is not possible that all those young people get employ in the public institutions, the idea of researchers was to examine the aspirations of the female student population as its most sensitive category. the aim of this research is to examine the aspirations and intentions towards entrepreneurship in female undergraduate students at the university of pristina and high schools’ students. for this purpose, we applied the survey method, in order to get information from the female student at the final year of studies, which will help us clarify the analyzed phenomenon. the article has the following structure. after the introduction, the literature review is presented. the second part gives the literature and hypothetical frameworks. based on literature review, defined hypotheses and identified constrains, we structured questionnaires, and the third part of the paper relates to data analysis and research results. the conclusion unambiguously shows that female students in north k&m generally recognize and highly rank those qualities that are necessary for starting a job or engaging in entrepreneurial activities. this gives a promising light to entrepreneurial culture and environment in north k&m. literature review and methodological framework besides more evident importance that female entrepreneurship achieves during the past decade, there are still no clearly defined factors which could help females to engage in entrepreneurship. one of the ways that will encourage female’s participation in business activities is to examine intentions and aspirations in women while still being at the faculties. it is necessary to ljumović, i., et al., young female population, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) 5 explore which determinants have a key influence on female students’ intention for entrepreneurship. various studies show mixed results about the factors that influence entrepreneurial intention. adnan et al. (2012) showed that attitude and perceived behavioral control are major determinants of entrepreneurial intention with significant positive effect. in a related study, tong et al. (2011) using multiple regression analysis, showed that entrepreneurial intention is predicted by the need for achievement, family business background, and subjective norm. the result suggests that students will choose to become entrepreneurs if there is a need for achievement when they come from a family that engages in business and if there is support from close individuals such as family members and friends. peng et al. (2012) provide findings for entrepreneurial intention among university students in china with the use of the chi-square tests. they showed that subjective norm, entrepreneurial attitude, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy had a positive influence on entrepreneurial intention while entrepreneurial resistance caused by lack of funds, time, family support, business skills and entrepreneurship education negatively affect students’ entrepreneurial intention. using descriptive statistics, kume et al. (2013) provided evidence of the positive effects of subjective norm on entrepreneurial interest among undergraduate students in albania. students whose parents had entrepreneurial experience were the majority of respondents who indicated interest in starting their own business after graduation. a study by khuong and an (2016) showed that prior entrepreneurial experience, external environments such as availability of loans and access to target markets as well as perceived feasibility, positively influenced students desire to engage in entrepreneurship in vietnam. on the other hand, personal traits, the need for autonomy and achievement surprisingly deter interest in entrepreneurial engagement. in the turkish republic of northern cyprus, obembe et al. (2014) tried to identify the factors that influence on career choices in students and how university entrepreneurship education may affect on the conscience of students to start-up business. also, they determine that gender differences do not substantially affect the perception of entrepreneurship. ekpe and mat (2012) examine the influence of entrepreneurial orientation (self-efficacy and education) on intentions in students at three universities in nigeria. results show that entrepreneurial orientation have a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial intentions among the students. they also 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) determined that social environment moderates the relation between the entrepreneurial orientation and intentions among the students. rakićević et al. (2015) examined the entrepreneurial readiness in students in serbia. they were exploring the relation between particular students’ characteristics and their readiness on entrepreneurship that is measured through 5 dimensions: entrepreneurial intentions, readiness on entrepreneurship, the attractiveness of this profession, study orientation, and passion at work. results show that students of management have more entrepreneurial readiness and they have expressed higher intentions in regard to students of engineering. ninković and knežević florić (2016) examine the presence of entrepreneurial intentions in students of social and humanistic science at the university of novi sad, as well as having the insight in expressing the entrepreneurial preferences in regard to sex and academic achievement in students. results show that students mostly express the focus on achievement, then acceptance of risks and at least the confidence in their own abilities. it is not defined whether there are statistically important sex differences in the level of entrepreneurial aspiration presence. also, the measures of manifesting the entrepreneurial inclinations in regard to academic achievement of students were not determined. based on our previous experience and literature review, we have formulated our hypotheses: h1: female student do not have entrepreneurial experience and rarely engage in entrepreneurial activities h2: previous entrepreneurial experience is important in developing personal characteristic for entrepreneurship h3: students have qualities that are necessary for starting a job or engaging in entrepreneurial activities. based on literature review, defined hypotheses and identified constrains, we structured questionnaire. for the purpose of data collection, structured questionnaires were distributed to female students of all faculties in the northern part of k&m. questions included in the questionnaire were stipulated in a way that allows further processing and statistical analysis. the questionnaire consisted of three parts. in the first part, respondents gave answers that reflect their socio-demographic characteristics: age, urban or rural surrounding, attending high school or university, type of institution, and average grade. the second part of the questionnaire contained questions that were used to test respondents attuites towards entrepreneurial experience. the last part contained questions about the self-perception of capabili ljumović, i., et al., young female population, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) 7 ties for entrepreneurship. each question in the questionnaire is given with a concise explanation, in order to eliminate possible errors and ambiguities of the respondents. the survey was conducted at the university of pristina and high schools in the northern part of k&m. the study included 110 respondents, 48 from high schools and 62 from the university. the response rate was rather high, at the level of 56%. the collection of primary statistical material was carried out from november 2018 to february 2019. the table 1 shows the distribution of basic characteristics of the sample. table 1: socio-demographic characteristic of the sample age frequency percent 18 42 38,2 19 6 5,5 21 16 14,5 22 26 23,6 23 20 18,2 living in urban area 60 54,5 rural area 50 45,5 go to frequency percent high school (hs) 48 43,6 faculty (f) 62 56,4 type of institution high school f=48 faculty f=62 frequency percent frequency percent economic hs 15 31.3 faculty of economics 18 29 gymnasium 19 39.6 faculty of technical sciences 18 29 technical hs 14 29.1 faculty of arts 4 6.5 faculty of philosophy 8 12.9 faculty of natural sciences 14 22.6 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) average grade average grade frequency percent frequency percent excellent 32 66.7 6-7 10 16.13 very good 10 20.8 7-8 24 38.71 good 6 12.5 8-9 18 29.03 9-10 10 16.13 source: author(s) based on research results the vast majority of respondents from high schools were at the age of 18, while from university the age ranged from 21 to 23. over 50% of respondents are living in a urban area. students from three high schools participated in the research economic, gymnasium, and technical school. regarding university students, five institutions were included: faculty of economics, faculty of technical sciences, faculty of arts, faculty of philosophy, faculty of natural sciences. data analysis and results data analysis was performed by using ms office excel and spss. the primary purpose of this research was to examine the aspirations and intentions towards entrepreneurship in female undergraduate students. first, two questions were created co we can directly approach them and determine did they have any entrepreneurial experience. the respondents could choose multiple answers when asked about initiatives towards entrepreneurship. since it was a multiple-choice question, we here have 114 initiatives in total. to our surprise, almost 50% of respondents have never engaged in any kind of entrepreneurial activities. those who have, most often help their parent in running their private business (32.73%). twenty percent of respondents have worked at other entrepreneurs or found additional ways to earn money. out of 62 entrepreneurial initiatives, most of the respondents have proven themselves that they have the ability to earn (34.48%). this characteristic is building on their entrepreneurial character and is increasing the probability that they will engage in entrepreneurial activity in the future. about 24% of them increased their motivation, learned to appreciate money, or earned money. ljumović, i., et al., young female population, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) 9 table 1: results of the attitudes of entrepreneurial experience (part i) question number percentage have you demonstrated incentives towards entrepreneurship in your lifetime? (multiply answers) yes, i have helped my parents (relatives, friends, acquaintances) in running their private businesses 36 32.73% occasionally, i have worked at other entrepreneurs to earn money 12 10.91% i found additional ways to make money 10 9.09% i have other entrepreneurial initiatives 4 3.64% no, i did not have entrepreneurial experiences/i did not earn money myself 52 47.27% total 114* are you satisfied with the effects of your entrepreneurial incentives? (only those who had entrepreneurial experience n=62) yes, i have earned some money 14 24.14% yes, i have proven the ability to earn 20 34.48% yes, my motivation for achievement has increased 14 24.14% yes, i learned to appreciate money 14 24.14% total 62** source: author(s) based on research results in examining the entrepreneurial tendencies of students one of the tasks was to examine the perception of students about the necessary qualities that should be held by an entrepreneur. the respondents were asked to evaluate offered psychological characteristics of entrepreneurs on likert's five-step scale. students first assessed how previous entrepreneurial experience has influenced the development of the personal characteristic. the results show that they rated the highest desire for achievement (4.72), self-esteem (4.31), creativity and initiative (4.23), ability to control (4.04). other characteristics 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) were rated lower than 4. it is interesting that student rated, rather high all characteristics, indicating that they consider previous entrepreneurial experience important in developing personal characteristic for entrepreneurship. next, we examined the psychological characteristics, necessary for the founders of own business. results show that students consider self-esteem (4.75), desire for achievement (4.63) and persistence (4.62) as three most important. all other characteristic, except tendency towards risk are rated with scores higher that 4. however, standard deviation on the characteristic tendency towards risk is the highest and at the level of 1.15, indicating that student have different opinions on this characteristic. finally, we tried to determine do the students have defined characteristics need for entrepreneurial activities. results show, that the respondents identify needed characteristics for entrepreneurial activities in themselves. they claim their three major characteristics are desire for achievement (4.61), persistence (4.58) and commitment (4.56). however, in this case scores are much lower. they rated following personal characteristics below three: ability to concretize ideas, tendency towards risk, independency and autonomy, and financial motivation (table 3). table 2: results of the self-perception of capabilities for entrepreneurship total sample n=110 high school respondents n=48 respondents from university n=62 min max mean std. deviation min max mean std. deviation min max mean std. deviation please rate how much the previous entrepreneurial experience has influenced the development of the following personal characteristic (from 1 – the least to 5 – the most) self-esteem 1 5 4.309 0.896 3 5 4,542 0,713 1,00 5,00 4,129 0,983 desire for achievement 3 5 4.718 0.577 4 5 4,792 0,410 3,00 5,00 4,661 0,676 ability to concretize ideas 2 5 3.991 0.963 3 5 4,146 0,875 2,00 5,00 3,871 1,016 tendency towards risk 1 5 3.527 1.115 2 5 3,750 1,101 1,00 5,00 3,355 1,103 ability to control 1 5 4.036 1.057 1 5 4,208 1,030 1,00 5,00 3,903 1,067 creativity and initiative 2 5 4.227 0.895 2 5 4,208 0,922 2,00 5,00 4,242 0,881 ljumović, i., et al., young female population, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) 11 total sample n=110 high school respondents n=48 respondents from university n=62 min max mean std. deviation min max mean std. deviation min max mean std. deviation independence and autonomy 1 5 3.909 1.138 2 5 3,708 0,922 2,00 5,00 3,871 1,000 please rate which of the following psychological characteristics, in your opinion, are necessary for the founders of your own business (from 1 – the least to 5 – the most) self-esteem 3 5 4.746 0.549 3 5 4,792 ,582 3 5 4,710 ,524 desire for achievement 2 5 4.627 0.788 3 5 4,750 ,601 2 5 4,532 ,900 ability to concretize ideas 2 5 4.336 0.881 2 5 4,292 ,944 3 5 4,371 ,834 tendency towards risk 1 5 3.864 1.145 1 5 4,000 1,238 2 5 3,758 1,066 ability to control 1 5 4.100 0.986 1 5 4,417 ,964 2 5 3,855 ,938 creativity and initiative 2 5 4.227 1.037 2 5 4,313 ,949 2 5 4,161 1,104 independence and autonomy 2 5 4.236 0.845 2 5 4,438 ,897 3 5 4,081 ,775 financial motivation 2 5 4.364 0.885 2 5 4,458 ,874 2 5 4,290 ,894 energy 1 5 4.382 0.898 3 5 4,625 ,703 1 5 4,194 ,989 optimism 2 5 4.446 0.841 2 5 4,500 ,967 3 5 4,403 ,735 persistence 2 5 4.618 0.717 2 5 4,708 ,743 3 5 4,548 ,694 commitment 1 5 4.527 0.854 1 5 4,667 ,907 3 5 4,419 ,801 which of these characteristics do you see in yourself? self-esteem 2 5 4.273 0.877 3 5 4,500 ,799 2 5 4,097 ,900 desire for achievement 1 5 4.609 0.779 3 5 4,687 ,552 1 5 4,548 ,918 ability to concretize ideas 2 5 3.936 0.921 2 5 4,083 1,108 2 5 3,823 ,736 tendency towards risk 1 5 3.509 1.147 1 5 3,500 1,368 2 5 3,516 ,953 ability to control 2 5 4.155 0.848 3 5 4,417 ,800 2 5 3,952 ,895 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) total sample n=110 high school respondents n=48 respondents from university n=62 min max mean std. deviation min max mean std. deviation min max mean std. deviation creativity and initiative 2 5 4.091 0.973 2,00 5 4,042 1,166 3 5 4,129 ,799 independence and autonomy 2 5 3.882 0.875 2 5 3,875 ,981 2 5 3,887 ,791 financial motivation 2 5 3.991 0.883 2 5 4,125 ,866 2 5 3,887 ,889 energy 2 5 4.264 0.842 2 5 4,375 ,890 2 5 4,177 ,800 optimism 1 5 4.282 0.997 1 5 4,396 1,0466 2 5 4,193 ,955 persistence 2 5 4.582 0.871 2 5 4,625 ,799 2 5 4,548 ,935 commitment 1 5 4.564 0.894 2 5 4,604 ,764 1 5 4,532 ,987 source: author(s) based on research results ranks for high school respondents and respondents from university are almost the same, with the note that high school respondents on average rated higher all characteristics (table 4). table 3: ranks for results of the self-perception of capabilities for entrepreneurship how much the previous entrepreneurial experience has influenced the development of the following personal characteristic which of the following psychological characteristics, in your opinion, are necessary for the founders of your own which of these characteristics do you see in yourself? self-esteem 2 1 5 desire for achievement 1 2 1 ability to concretize ideas 5 8 10 tendency towards risk 7 12 12 ability to control 4 11 7 creativity and initiative 3 10 8 independence and autonomy 6 9 11 financial motivation / 7 9 ljumović, i., et al., young female population, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) 13 energy / 6 6 optimism / 5 4 persistence / 3 2 commitment / 4 3 source: author(s) based on research results conclusion the culture that supports entrepreneurship and economic development sets up education on entrepreneurs as the central theme of the value system and is the foundation of the socio-economic progress. only dynamic education and knowledge can foster and develop creativity and innovation in modern society. encouraging entrepreneurial culture, developing entrepreneurial education, a constant search for innovative solutions are a key precondition for the development of modern economies, and society as a whole. the practice has shown that societies that are capable and willing to invest into the entrepreneurial education, stimulate the development of innovations, and are capable to commercializing these innovations or valorizing them on the market through entrepreneurial activity, have a chance for growth and development. in this context, it is crucial to understand the determinants that stimulate young people to engage in entrepreneurial activities. institutional factors play a key role that influences affirmative and incentive measures on entrepreneurial intentions and aspirations, above all, among young people. the paper analyzes factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions and aspirations among students of the female population of the final years of the university of pristina temporary seated in kosovska mitrovica as well as female students of the fourth year of secondary schools in the north of k&m. the specificity and diversity of research is the field of research, bearing in mind the social and political context of this environment. due to the turmoil over the legal status of this region, there are problems of insufficient or almost no investment. under such conditions, the researcher's idea is to determine whether there are intentions or aspirations for young females for self-employment by engaging in entrepreneurial activities. emphasis is placed on female students at the final years of schooling at universities of high schools as a socially endangered population. modern research shows that by engaging in entrepreneurial activities, the autonomy of women is increased and provides them with a more representative role in society. 14 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 1-16) in this paper, we used the survey method to analyze research phenomena. the results of the survey show that half of the respondents never engaged in entrepreneurial activities and that one-third of them were involved in entrepreneurial activities by helping their parents, friends, or acquaintances. when asked how the previous entrepreneurial experience influenced the development of personal qualities related to entrepreneurial activities, most of them rated as the most important characteristic, desires for achievement (4.72), self-esteem (4.31), creativity and initiative (4.23). also, other stated characteristics were also rated high. when asked which psychological characteristics an entrepreneur should have, the highest rated are self-esteem (4.75), desire for achievement (4.63) and perseverance (4.62). finally, when they were asked which of these characteristics, they can recognize in themselves, the most common answers were the desire for achievement (4.61), perseverance (4.58) and dedication (4.56). a comparative analysis for students and secondary school students shows that values are similar, with slightly more grades given by secondary school students. it is interesting that female students recognize that participation in entrepreneurial activities has developed their desire for success, confidence, creativity, and initiative to the fullest extent. also, the female students assessed that self-confidence is very important for the start-up of entrepreneurial activities. however, they did not recognize this characteristic among themselves and ranked it only in the fifth place. they have a desire for achievement and consider it important. persistence and commitment are recognized as important characteristics which they have and rank it in second and third place respectively. in essence, students generally recognize and highly rank those qualities that are necessary for starting a job or engaging in entrepreneurial activities. this gives a promising light to entrepreneurial culture and environment in north k&m. references [1] adnan, iqbal, melhem yahya, and kokash husam. 2012. “readiness of the university students towards entrepreneurship in saudi private university: an exploratory study.” european scientific journal, 8(15). 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[27] welter, frederike. 2004. “the environment for female entrepreneurship in germany.” journal of small business and enterprise development, 11(2), 212-221. article history: received: 15 august, 2019 accepted: 23 september, 2019 12_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.336.4 (669) jel: j24; i2 scientific review economic returns on investment in intellectual property by university lecturers in nigeria sabitu olatunji alimi∗, iyiomo akinrotimi oyetakin, adekunle ajasin university, faculty of education, department of educational management, akungba-akoko, ondo state, nigeria a b s t r a c t the paper has identified the rationale and modus operandi for writing of text book, copyright, and patenting by university lecturers with some prescriptions for improving the returns from such investment e.g. avoiding the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, forensic auditing of the creations of ideas in print. as a descriptive research design, it makes use of some indicators for measuring the returns on university lecturers’ investment in print in nigeria. data were collected through the use of a validated self-developed questionnaire tagged, returns on investment on intellectual property questionnaire (riipq), with a reliability coefficient of r = 0.71. the study covered three federal and three state universities in south west nigeria selected through stratification. the participants cut across 300 academic staff of the sampled universities. data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics tools to test the research hypotheses for the study. the result reveals that there is a significant difference between monetary and non-monetary returns on university lecturers’ investment in intellectual property in print and that the copyright acts do not adequately protect the intellectual property of university lecturers in nigeria. a cull from the findings denotes some recommendations such as strengthening the copy right act to assist in the returns from investment in writing and that appropriate sanctions against erring individuals and institutions drastic reduction of waste and graft adherence to due process on intellectual display and finally the need for moral and ethical rebirth for all and sundry the education industry ∗ e-mail: ailimiolatunji@yahoo.com sabitu, o.a, et al., economic returns, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 102-113) 103 kew words: human capital, capacity building, intellectual ideas, literary works, patenting, and returns on investmen introduction human capital theorists all over the world have convergent views that investments in human beings are productive investments in human skills, knowledge, and capabilities which yield significant benefits to the individual and the society at large. the acquisition of education and university education in particular, is a form of investment in human capital which provides and increases the much needed human resources to accelerate the growth and development of the economy since knowledge is valued as a major determinant of economic growth and development. the protagonists of human capital were of the view that ability to think in a logical way and putting it down in form of writing, modeling, or production denotes the surrender value of a fermented brain. the federal government of nigeria (2004) in its national policy on education spelt the objectives of higher education that it is expected to contribute to national development through training of high level relevant manpower; inculcating proper values for survival; promoting and encouraging scholarship and community service. the strategies by which these objectives are to be achieved is teaching, research and development, virile staff development, generation and dissemination of knowledge, and a variety mode of programmes. conceptual view of intellectual properties the world intellectual property organization (2010) defined intellectual properties as the creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works and symbols, names, and images used in commerce. according to oxford advance learner’s dictionary (2005), intellectual property is an idea or a design created and that the law prevents other people from copying. modern usage of intellectual property goes back to at least as far back as 1888 with the establishment of the bern of the swiss federal office for intellectual property. the merger of paris convention and berne convention in 1893 gave birth to the united international bureaux for the protection of intellectual property which subsequently journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 102-113) 104 relocated to geneva in 1960 and was succeeded in 1967 with the establishment of the world intellectual property organization (wipo). intellectual property is divided into two categories: industrial property which includes patents for inventions, trademark, industrial designs and geographical indications. copyright, this includes literary works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic work. intellectual property rights like any other property rights allow the creator, or owner, of a patent, trademark, or copyright to benefit from his or her own work or investment. orji in review of the nigerian system of intellectual property (2009) reports that in nigeria, intellectual property can be traced back to the colonial era when the english trademark ordinance was introduced into the colonies even before the amalgamation of the then british northern nigeria and southern nigeria protectorates. the system of trade trademark registration is governed by the trademarks act 1965 found in cap 436 laws of the federation of nigeria 1990. patents and designs registration on the other hand are governed by the patent and design act 1970, to be found in cap 344, laws of the federation of nigeria 1990. the trademarks, patents and designs laws are currently administered by the commercial law department of the federal ministry of commerce and industry. copyright on the other hand is protected in nigeria by the copyright act and the nigeria copyright commission (ncc), an agency under the supervision of the federal ministry of justice. (review of the nigerian system of intellectual property, 2009). the nigerian copyright commission introduced the copyright notification scheme, which allows authors of copyright works to notify the commission of the creation and or existence of works and all other information relating to the work. this is a strategy to guide against the return to investment of a copyright owner. the unfortunate byline is the low patronage of the scheme by authors and copyright owners. literary works ranked the highest patronage of 64.42% followed by sound recordings, cinematograph, artistic works, transfer of rights with 21.01%, 11.56%, 2.01%, .80% respectively while musical works ranked the least with 20%. sabitu, o.a, et al., economic returns, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 102-113) 105 table 1: application received by nigerian copyright commission between 2005 and june 2008 type of copyright no of application percentage literary works 641 64.42 sound recordings 209 21.01 cinematograph film 115 11.56 artistic works 20 2.01 musical works 2 0.20 transfer of rights 8 0.80 total 995 100 source: review of the nigerian system of intellectual property (2009:10) figure 1 depict a curve showing the percentage strength in the application received by nigerian copyright commission on intellectual property. figure 1: a graph showing the application for copyright protection by inventors of intellectual property in nigeria between 2005 and june 2008 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 lw sr cf aw mw tr lw= literary work, sr=sound recordings, cinematograph film, artistc works, mw=musical works, tr= transfer of rights p er c en ta g e a p p li c a ti o n series1 source: derived from table 1. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 102-113) 106 the low patronage of operations of the ncc by authors and copyright owners is a cause for serious concern for any well meaning nigerian in the education industry because the low figure of 995 of received applications does not reflect the capacity of the creative industries today in nigeria. this low patronage corroborated oyewale (2006) submission that nigerian universities generated and research institutes generated some inventions but few of the inventions have been patented due to the fact that patent education is poor in nigerian institutions and researchers are not sufficiently motivated. nigerian university lecturers and intellectual properties through various capacity building programmes and selfdevelopment, several achievements have been recorded in the intellectual display of human resources globally (oyetakin and oyeyemi, 2011). the individuals that have consumed more of university education and engaged in teaching and research work have invested heavily which has direct and indirect costs implications. these humongous costs on the investments in writing and research reflect commitment and importance attached to education compared to other investment priorities which are usually determined by the choice of an individual (oyetakin, 2011). the author of a book is the person who writes it. therefore, it is safe to describe an author as the writer of a book. microsoft encarta dictionary (2009) describes an author as “somebody who writes a book or other text such as a literary work or a report”. this position is a bit restrictive as we have observed that most contemporary writers have their main occupations aside writing. the nigerian society is replete with writers who are professionals in fields other than writing. examples are late cyprian ekwensi, who was a pharmacist, wale okediran, a medical doctor, aluko, t.m., an economist and a host of others too numerous to be mentioned. however, many universities scholars in nigeria, such as wole soyinka, chinua achebe, babatunde fafunwa etc. have cultivated intellectual ideas in their various fields of specialization. writing involves making recourse into the recesses of the mind and bringing out what otherwise may remain hidden or dormant there. when one is required to write he does not instantly pick up a pen and begin to write. rather, he takes some time to reflect on the topic and bring out ideas, release words sabitu, o.a, et al., economic returns, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 102-113) 107 and expressions which he must have stored in his sub-conscious mind over the years. the position of the lecturer as an instructor of knowledge confers on him a leverage of authority. he is a custodian of salient facts, which may be called truths, about his area of expertise and therefore reverse an unquestionable action to document such facts. indeed, the university lecturer owns the prerogative of questioning other writers’ claim on the area of his own expertise having been interacted with the syllabus and the challenges of imparting such to the students. given the lecturers’ vantage position, he is considered as a writer who document units of instructions from an insider point of view. he enjoys the honour of authority that could equate that of an oracle because of his length of experience in his subject area. he is accustomed with the principle guiding his profession as well as conversant with the rudiments of field practice. he is therefore an authority in his area of specialization. however, in nigeria today, lecturers/teachers are not availing themselves of the opportunity and honour that attend a lecturer-author due to lack of motivation by the government and uncertainty on the returns to investment in writing a book. it is necessary to note that the task of writing books is at the mercies of interest and returns to monetary and non-monetary investments. statement of the problem intellectual property as a concept is complex, thus, the study focused on the returns to investment on university scholars’ creations in print ideas. the challenge of low patronage by authors to copyright and patenting and the monetary and non-monetary commitment on the ideas put forward by nigerian scholars and the returns from such investment demands a critical appraisal by the researcher for the purpose of drawing conclusion. the main purpose of this study therefore, is to investigate the monetary and non-monetary returns of university lecturers’ investment in print and non-print materials and its impacts on quality services. the importance of this study cannot be over emphasized considering the fact that little research has been documented on comprehensive study conducted on intellectual property returns among university lecturers in nigeria to date. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 102-113) 108 research questions the study therefore is concerned with answering the following questions: 1. is there any difference in the monetary and non-monetary returns to investment in intellectual property by university lecturers in nigeria? 2. does the copyright acts adequately protect intellectual property of university lecturers work in nigeria? hypotheses for the purpose of the study, the following null hypotheses were generated and tested. h.o1: there is no significant difference in the monetary and nonmonetary returns to investment in intellectual property by university lecturers in nigeria? h.o2: copyright acts do not adequately protect intellectual property of university lecturers work in nigeria? methodology design this study is designed to develop an indicator for university lecturers’ returns on intellectual property in nigeria. it specifically adopted the survey method of descriptive research design. the population of this study comprised of all the 5 federal universities and 6 states in south west nigeria as at 2011. sample and sampling techniques nigeria is made up of six geo-political zones namely: north-west, north-east, north-central, south-south, south-east, and south-west. thus, a purposive simple random sampling method was adopted. southwest geo-political zone was selected out of which three federal universities (university of ibadan, university of lagos, federal university sabitu, o.a, et al., economic returns, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 102-113) 109 of technology, akure) and three state universities (lagos state university, adekunle ajasin university, and ladoke akintola university). 50 participants were randomly selected to fill the instrument in each of the universities, in all a total of 300 academic staffs responded to the research instrument. instrumentation the instrument for data collection was a self developed questionnaire titled: returns to investment on intellectual property questionnaire (riipq), which consisted of 21-items based on likert scale format of strongly agree (sa) =4 points, agree (a)=3 points, disagree (d)= 2 points, and strongly agree (sa)= 1 point. the questionnaire was subjected to face and content validity by colleagues, and test-retest reliability method. the reliability value was r = 0.71 which indicated that the instrument is reliable before administration. the researcher with the assistance of four graduate students administered the questionnaire to the respondents. completed copies of the questionnaire were retrieved immediately. the statistical tool used to analyze the data comprised of simple descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation, t-test and chisquare at a level of 0.05. results h.o1: there is no significant difference in the monetary and nonmonetary returns to investment in intellectual property by university lecturers in nigeria? table 2: summary of mean difference in monetary and non-monetary returns on university lecturers’ investment in intellectual property in print source n mean sd sem df t-cal t-tab sig. monetary 300 476.25 312.95 78.24 299 2.12 1.96 p>.05 nonmonetary 300 475.0 276.33 69.08 ns = not significant journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 102-113) 110 in testing this hypothesis, respondents views on their returns after adopting the cost-benefit analysis mechanism was subjected to t-test statistics. table 2 shows that from the t-test analysis on items revealed that there is a significant difference between monetary and non-monetary returns on university lecturers’ investment in intellectual property in print in nigeria (t (299) = 2.12 ; p> .05). thus, the hypothesis is rejected. h.o 2. copyright acts do not adequately protect intellectual property of university lecturers work in nigeria? table 3: summary of the mean difference in the adequacy of copyright acts in the protection of intellectual property of university lecturers work in nigeria source of variations sum of squares df mean square fcal ftab decision between groups 77.8 5 9.64 .263 .610 p> .05 within groups 15938.2 276 7.68 total 16016.0 ns = not significant the one way anova performed indicates that the copyright acts do not adequately protect the intellectual property of university lecturers in nigeria. df = (5, 276) = .263 < f-tab .610; p>.05. thus, the null hypothesis is upheld. discussion the finding from this study reveals that there is a significant difference between the monetary and non-monetary rewards on intellectual properties in writing by university scholars. the classical economic perspective on investments is that it uses current inputs which generate higher level of output in the future. donors and lenders in edwards and todaro (1974) submitted that investment in education have received their share of blame to have been charged with indifference to unjust distribution of educational opportunities by the operators. unlike the demand for education, which is essentially privately determined, and the sabitu, o.a, et al., economic returns, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 102-113) 111 supply of employment opportunities in the modern sector, which is partly privately determined, the supply of educational opportunities is almost universally a government responsibility, an important political variable, and a natural focus of government policy, often to the neglect of educational demand and employment considerations. according to world bank (2002), investment in higher education especially university education is believed to generate external benefits that are crucial for knowledge driven economic and social development. the viability of any investment according to oguntoye and alani (1998), emphasis the importance of determining the viability of any investment before it is made. the situation necessitates the low returns on intellectual properties by university lecturers in nigeria. becker (2002) notes that intellectual works has its initial costs which must generate desired returns. it is however necessary to note that some critics of intellectual property, such as those in the free culture movement, point at intellectual monopolies as harming health, preventing progress, and benefiting concentrated interests to the detriment of the masses and argue that the public investment in education could be harmed by ever expansive monopolies in the form of copyright extensions, software patents and business method patents conclusion and recommendations conclusively, the monetary returns on investment in writing have been eroded by modern technology and this demands that university scholars should be more creative and proactive in developing ultimately, unique ideas that could propel a great monetary reward locally and internationally. to sum it up, there is a big boom in university education in our time which necessitates the following recommendations: [1] government should strengthen the copy right act to assist in the returns from investment in writing by scholars. [2] there should be effective and appropriate sanctions against erring individuals and institutions drastic reduction of waste and graft adherence to due process on intellectual display. [3] there is the need for moral and ethical rebirth for all and sundry the education industry. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 102-113) 112 [4] the use of ict should be rebranded to give room for local examples expected to be addressed by nigerian writers. references [1] beckers, g.s. (2002). human capital, concise encyclopedia of economic. the library of economics and liberty, retrieved 22/9/11 from http://www.econlib.org/library/enc/humancapital.html [2] edward, e.o. and todaro, m.o. (1974). education and employment in developing countries in ward (ed.), education and development reconsidered, new york: praeger publishers. [3] elchanan, c and terry, g.c (1990). the economics of education (2nd edition) usa:pergamon press limited. [4] federal republic of nigeria (2004) national policy of education, 4th edition, lagos: nerdc press. [5] microsoft encarta (2009). dictionary, us: microsoft corporation. [6] nigerian system of intellectual property (2009). a review of the nigerian system of intellectual property, retrieved 17/12/2010 from http://www.casip.org. [7] oyewale, a.a. (2006). nigeria’s research system and the culture of patenting, paper presented at the intellectual property rights for business and society, london conference, september 14 and 15. [8] oyetakin, a.i. (2011). cost of education: determinant of free education and human infrastructure in nigeria, educational thought, faculty of education, adekunle ajasin university. vol. 8 (1), 171-185. [9] oyetakin, a.i. and oyeyemi, k. (2011). managing human infrastructure in nigeria universities for educational development and social reconstruction, a conference paper presented at faculty of education, lagos state university, ojo. 11th -14th october. [10] world bank (2002). constructing knowledge societies: new challenges for tertiary education, retrieved 2/12/11 from http://www.usc.es/economet/aeid.html [11] world intellectual property organization (2010). wipo publication no. 450e, new york: retrieved 23/02/2011 from http://www.wipo.int/ebookshop sabitu, o.a, et al., economic returns, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 102-113) 113 ekonomski prinos na investicije u intelektualnu svojinu univerzitetskih profesora u nigeriji a p s t r a k t danas, ulaganje u intelektualnu svojinu je postalo toliko skupo da je potrebno obezbediti da cilj opravdava sredstva. u radu se identifikuju razlozi istraživača za sprovođenje istraživanja, kao i modus operandi za pisanje udžbenika, autorska prava i patentiranje od strane univerzitetskih predavača uz preporuke za poboljšanje povraćaja takve investicije. kao opisni istraživački projekt, studjia koristi neke od indikatora za merenje povraćaja ulaganja univerzitetskih predavača vezano za štampu u nigeriji. podaci su prikupljeni kroz korišćenje validnih sopstveno razrađenih upitnika, „povraćaji ulaganja u intelektualnu svojinu“ (upuis), sa koeficijentom pouzdanosti r=0.71. studija pokriva tri saveznih i tri državnih univerziteta iz jugozapadnoj nigeriji, izabranih putem stratifikacije. učesnici su tri stotine akademskog osoblja iz ispitivanih univerziteta. kako bi se proverile istraživačke hipoteze studije, podaci su bili analizirani putem deskriptivnih i inferentnih statističkih alata. rezultat pokazuje da postoji značajna razlika između monetarnih i nemonetarnih povraćaja investicija od strane univerzitetskih predavača koje se odnose na intelektualnu svojinu u pisanoj formi i da zakoni o autorskim pravima ne štite u dovoljnoj meri intelektualnu svojinu univerzitetskih profesora u nigeriji. srž istraživanja daje neke preporuke za jačanje zaštite autorskih prava sa ciljem poboljšanja u povraćaju ulaganja u intelektualnu svojinu ključne reči: ljudski kapital, izgradnja kapaciteta, intelektualne ideje, književna dela, patentiranje, povraćaj ulaganja article history: received: 29 june, 2012 revised: 7 september, 2012 accepted: 17 october, 2012 microsoft word 11_jwe_1-2 udc: 005.5 jel: b54, l26; j16 scientific review paper female entrepreneurship theory: a multidisciplinary review of resources loza emile*, center for law, economics, and finance at the george washington university law school in washington, d.c a b s t r a c t the author, a legal scholar, reviews academic literature regarding and otherwise relevant to the study of female entrepreneurship from across multiple disciplines. she reports that the legal academy has only minimally engaged in entrepreneurship scholarship and not at all as to female entrepreneurship. author reviews the origins of female entrepreneurship literature and the compilations describing the emergence of female entrepreneurship as a business and social phenomenon, the women who undertook and led these endeavors, and changes in the characteristics of women entrepreneurs over time. she also presents materials in topical sections on business structure, strategy, and performance; culture, sex, and gender; diversity; economic and social development; essentialization and masculine norms; finance; identity issues; innovation and technology; motivation; personal and professional domains; psychology; social capital; and standpoint theory. author points out the needs for a unified definitional taxonomy for entrepreneurship; for greater study of innovation-driven female entrepreneurship; for the legal academy to enter the field of entrepreneurship study, including as to female entrepreneurship; and for entrepreneurship scholars to approach their work with interdisciplinarity kew words: entrepreneurship, law, innovation, female, gender, international development * emile loza is a fellow of the center for law, economics, and finance at the george washington university law school in washington, d.c., e-mail: emile.loza@gmail.com loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 27 “why do we never hear of a self-made woman?” ~ anonymous introduction for too long, the contributions, attributes, and needs of women entrepreneurs, of self-made women, went unnoticed, unexamined, and the subject of a deafening silence. socialized expectations of the roles that women fulfill and the corresponding antipathy toward women who exercise power and who step beyond those roles; the inequitable burdens upon women as to unpaid work; the masculinization of language, normative standards, and many analytical models that are applied to business generally and entrepreneurship specifically; and other circumstances have underlain and worked to perpetuate this silence. fortunately, pioneers have braved these frontiers and brought female entrepreneurship out of anonymity. scholars, such as dorothy perrin moore, e. holly buttner, candida g. brush, robert d. hisrich, and others took up female entrepreneurship as a subject of research and academic inquiry made significantly more complex by the gendered contexts within which such entrepreneurship occurs. the contextual complexity of female entrepreneurship sits atop the still only partially understood nature of entrepreneurship in general as an economic, business, and social phenomenon. scholarly research and writing regarding entrepreneurship and its more complex sister, female entrepreneurship, continue to grow within business, economic, gender studies, communications, international development, and some other field. in my work on women, entrepreneurship, and the law and my other legal scholarship, i found, to my surprise and dismay, that the study of entrepreneurship within the legal academy is nascent and, further, of female entrepreneurship positively pre-gestational.1 therefore, to examine 1 a student-written paper is the one apparent exception. see athena s. cheng, comment, affirmative action for the female entrepreneur: gender as a presumed socially disadvantaged group for 8(a) program purposes, 10 am. u. j. gender, social pol’y & law 185 (2001) (regarding so-called 8(a) program administered by u.s. small business administration (“sba”) to set aside government business opportunities and provide support services for small businesses certified as being owned or controlled by women or individuals belonging to racial or ethnic minorities or other historically journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 28 female entrepreneurship, i turned to read the field of scholarship about female entrepreneurship without regard for the academic discipline within which that scholarship arose. as a result, my scholarship mirrors my philosophy of practice and intellectual inquiry, calling upon and beginning to integrate multiple disciplines to develop an interdisciplinary approach and understanding of entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship, innovation, and the law. what a stroke of fortuity the lack of legal literature about entrepreneurship and women in such roles turned out to be. indeed, due to the complex contextual backdrop of female entrepreneurship, it seems impossible to adequately and insightfully describe and understand the phenomenon within the traditionally unidimensional perspectives associated with law or any other individual academic discipline. as worthy others have advocated for law to be and become an interdisciplinary pursuit,2 so it is with the study of entrepreneurship and especially as an endeavor undertaken by women. toward that end, i review and comment upon a portion of the english-language literature that i have read across other disciplines and found helpful. i arrange the discussions topically to the extent reasonably possible, given that some writings relate to multiple related subjects, and i generally arrange these discussions chronologically to provide a framework for the literature’s trajectory. i provide extensive footnotes.3 although necessarily incomplete, i hope with this contribution to make the important body of literature on female entrepreneurship more accessible to my sister and fellow legal scholars and others and to advance the understanding of entrepreneurship as an vehicle for women to create their own economic, professional, and social power and to benefit themselves and their families and larger communities. disadvantaged groups); sba, 8(a) business development, <http://www.sba.gov/content/8a-business-development>. 2 see richard a. posner, the decline of law as an autonomous discipline: 1962-1987, 100 harv. l. rev. 761, 763 (1987). 3 i provide extensive footnotes conforming with legal citation standards with minor adaptations. see, e.g., the bluebook: a uniform system of citations (harvard l. review, et al., 18th ed., 2005). i also performed extensive research to augment the citations provided by the reviewed works and parenthetically present those augmented citations. i also refer to some materials in the popular business press for illustrative purposes. loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 29 the origins of female entrepreneurship literature from say’s itinerant knife-grinder4 to georg siemens’ founding of germany’s deutsche bank to fund and bring professional management to entrepreneurial ventures in 1870,5 entrepreneurship long has existed and been recognized as means of producing wealth by calculated risk-taking. entrepreneurship as a studied business phenomenon, however, only began to emerge in the united states in the early 1960s.6 only in the last thirty-some years has entrepreneurship become a concentrated subject of scholarly examination. in an early compendium, researchers writing in the 1982 encyclopedia of entrepreneurship7 said that the dearth of both non-academic and academic publications on entrepreneurship was dire.8 then, peter drucker’s innovation and entrepreneurship did much to move the subject forward in the public consciousness when it appeared in the popular business literature in 1985.9 female entrepreneurship long went virtually ignored in the academic literature, however.10 even into the late 1980s and early 1990s, the 4 see jean-baptiste say, a treatise on political economy; or the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth 78 (c.r princep & clement c. biddle trans.) (6th ed. 1848). 5 see peter f. drucker, innovation and entrepreneurship 12, 25, 113, 115, 118 & 126 (1993) (1985). 6 see id. at 13-14. 7 see generally karl h. vesper, introduction and summary of entrepreneurship research, in encyclopedia of entrepreneurship xxxi-xxxviii (calvin a. kent, et al., eds. 1982) [hereinafter “encyclopedia”]. 8 see james a. constantin & jacquetta j. mcclung, nonacademic literature on entrepreneurship: an evaluation, in encyclopedia, supra note 7, at 122. 9 see generally drucker, supra note 5. 10 see e. holly buttner & dorothy perrin moore, women entrepreneurs: moving beyond the glass ceiling 12-13 (1997) [hereinafter “women entrepreneurs”] (citing lois a. stevenson, against all odds: the entrepreneurship of women, 24 j. small bus. mgmt. 30-36 (1986)). the popular business literature remains deeply myopic as to women in entrepreneurship and their efforts, needs, and opportunities. for example, only three of 215 (1.3%) articles in business periodicals published from august 2006 through july 2007 dealt with women, girls, or even gender. accord 49 bus. periodicals index 887-90 (hiyol yang, ed., 2007) (listing c. christopher baughn, et al., the normative context for women’s participation in entrepreneurship: a multicountry study, 30 entrepreneurship: theory & practice 687-708 (2006); richard demartino, et al., exploring the career/achievement and personal life orientation differences between entrepreneurs and nonentrepreneurs: the impact of sex and dependents, 44 j. small journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 30 literature reported studies of exclusively male entrepreneurs; did not distinguish study participants by gender; studied only small samples of professional women; or had other limitations that affected its utility for understanding women in entrepreneurship.11 a clarion call went out beginning in about 1987 when scholars identified the need and advocated for more research into female entrepreneurship.12 some five to ten years later, in the mid-1990s, responses to this call began to emerge in the literature.13 the literature bus. mgmt. 350-68 (july 2006); n. l. torres, girls club – power lunches aren’t just for the guys anymore, 34 entrepreneur 30-31 (july 2006)). 11 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 14 (citing sue birley & paul westhead, a taxonomy of business start-up reasons and their impact on firm growth and size, 9 j. bus. venturing (1993); lars kolvereid, et al., an exploratory examination of the reasons leading to new firm formation across country and gender – part 1, 6 j. bus. venturing 431-36 (1991); sari scheinberg & ian c. macmillan, an 11 county study of motivations to start a business, frontiers entrepreneurship res. [hereinafter “frontiers”] 669-87 (bruce a. kirchhoff, et al., eds., 1988); daniel denison & joan alexander, patterns and profiles of entrepreneurs: data from entrepreneurship forums, frontiers 578-93 (robert ronstadt, et al., eds., 1986); jeffrey c. shuman, et al., an empirical test of ten entrepreneurial propositions, frontiers 187-98 (robert ronstadt, et al., eds., 1986); arnold c. cooper & william c. dunkelberg, a new look at business entry: experiences of 1805 entrepreneurs, frontiers 1-20 (karl vesper, ed., 1981); robert d. hisrich & marie o’brien, the women entrepreneur from a business and sociological perspective, frontiers 21-39 (karl vesper, ed., 1981)). frontiers of entrepreneurship research publishes the proceedings of the entrepreneurship research conference held annually since 1981 at babson college and the sponsors of which include the kauffman foundation. see babson college, babson college entrepreneurship research conference, <http://www3.babson.edu/eship/outreach-events/fer.cfm>. 12 see id. (citing max s. wortman, jr., entrepreneurship: an integrated typology and evaluation of empirical research in the field, 13 j. mgmt. stud. 259-79 (1987)); id. at 17 (citing theresa j. devine, characteristics of self-employed women in the united states, 117 monthly labor rev. 20-34 (1994); candida g. brush, research on women business owners: past trends, a new perspective and future directions, 16 entrepreneurship theory & prac. 5-30 (1992)). 13 see, e.g., murray b. low & ian c. macmillan, entrepreneurship: past research and future challenges, 14 j. mgmt. 139-61 (1998); suzanne catley & robert t. hamilton, small business development and gender of owner, 17 j. mgmt. dev. 75-82 (1998); robert d. hisrich, et al., performance in entrepreneurial ventures: does gender matter?, frontiers (paul d. reynolds, et al., eds., 1997); candida g. brush & barbara j. bird, leadership vision of successful women entrepreneurs: dimensions and characteristics, frontiers (paul d. reynolds, et al., eds., 1996); ellen a. fagenson, loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 31 then, as now, lacked a precise or unified definitional framework and dealt with female entrepreneurship, small business ownership, and selfemployment largely synonymously.14 nevertheless, a goodly number of non-legal academic articles and books have been published during the last fifteen years or so. a review of female entrepreneurship literature this section first discusses bibliographies, some important sources of empirical data, and other publications that include literature reviews regarding female entrepreneurship. next, it details publications that synthesize and present descriptions of women entrepreneurs and female entrepreneurship compiled from numerous research studies and other writings. the remainder of this section reviews literature regarding female entrepreneurship as organized within topical areas covering the cultural gender constructs and their relevance, finance topics ranging from debt to angel and venture equity funding to microfinance, the importance and role of female entrepreneurship to economic and societal development, business performance measures, and many other relevant subjects. personal value systems of men and women entrepreneurs versus managers, 8 j. bus. venturing 409-30 (1993); brush, supra note 12, at 5-30. 14 see, e.g., maika valencia, past female entrepreneurship with the stress on the future in new economy globalization, in the perspective of women’s entrepreneurship in the age of globalization 15 (mirjana radović marković, ed., 2007) [hereinafter “women’s entrepreneurship & globalization”]; laura lamolla y kristiansen, emprender en femenino: la evolucion de las políticas económicas locales para emprendedoras en cataluña (to undertake in feminine: the evolution of the local economic policies for entrepreneurship in catalonia) (doctoral thesis on file with universitat autónoma de barcelona) (2005); maria minniti, et al., global entrepreneurship monitor (“gem”), 2004 report on women and entrepreneurship (may 27, 2005), <http://www.gemconsortium.org/download/1236571126704/gem_womens_report.pd f> [hereinafter “2004 gem women rep’t”]. in 1997, the united nations, under the economic and social council’s united nations development programme, created a program of “gender mainstreaming” for the purposes of guiding research, policy creation, and program development. see i. elaine allen, et al., gem, 2007 report on women and entrepreneurship 6 (may 1, 2008), <http://www.gemconsortium.org/document.aspx?id=681> [hereinafter “2007 gem women rep’t”]. shortly thereafter, gem was established to provide comprehensive and current evaluations of worldwide entrepreneurship and, in 2004, began reporting on the role and activities of women entrepreneurs throughout the global economy. see generally 2004 gem women rep’t, supra. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 32 bibliographies in 1977, marija matich hughes, then-chief librarian of the united states civil rights commission, produced the sexual barrier – legal, medical, economic and social aspects of sex discrimination.15 this acclaimed bibliography is encyclopedic in scope and content with more than 8000 entries.16 in addition to its annotations for legal, medical, economic, and social literature, it encompasses government documents and even pamphlets published from 1960 to 1975 on matters of sexual discrimination and other women’s rights and issues.17 hughes’ contribution also provides almost one hundred pages of relevant international materials,18 along with other bibliographies on women in a variety of contexts,19 including as to women and their racial or ethnic minority status.20 although dated, hughes’ master work retains its contemporary importance in at least two aspects. first, its multidisciplinary coverage presages the interdisciplinary perspectives necessary to fully comprehend women and entrepreneurship and to develop curricula, teaching methods, improved distribution of funding, and other goals, objectives, and actions needed to expand and energize female entrepreneurship. second, it provides us with a broad historical perspective on the strictures placed upon women within the sharply-segregated gender culture of the american past. it demonstrates how blatant gender discrimination was at the time and as a contrast to the more subterranean profile of this discrimination today. unchanged, however, are gender discrimination’s profoundly negative effects, and a continuation of those effects may be seen by comparison with materials captured by hughes’ compendium. 15 see marija matich hughes, the sexual barrier – legal, medical, economic and social aspects of sex discrimination (rev. ed., 1977). 16 see hughes compendium gets praise from educators, activists, women today 6 (1978). 17 see hughes, supra note 15, at ix; women today, supra note 16, at 6. 18 see hughes, supra note 15, at ix & 452-544. 19 see, e.g., id. at 4-6 (general bibliographies); id. at 68, para. 5.55 (citing center for women policy studies, women and credit: an annotated bibliography (alice rupen, et al., eds., 1973)). 20 see id. at 606-14. loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 33 in 1986, marcia lasota edited a bibliography of women and business ownership.21 lasota’s bibliography will be a helpful resource to those scholars and others who equate entrepreneurship to business ownership. its utility for my work was limited, however, as my conceptual rubric of entrepreneurship rests upon a broader and more finely delineated definitional basis than business ownership alone. some topical bibliographies also contain entries relevant to women entrepreneurs. for example, a 1997 annotated bibliography for the center for creative leadership by valerie sessa and richard campbell provides three entries regarding women executives within the topic of executive selection.22 management and executive experience represents important human capital instrumental to the success of women engaging in entrepreneurship and one that impacts the types and growth potential of entrepreneurial endeavors by women.23 because access to capital, including human capital, and the barriers that women face as to such access are critical features of any study and understanding of female entrepreneurship, such topics as this, wage parity, and membership on boards of directors, for example, are important to consider. 2425 21 see women and business ownership: a bibliography (marcia lasota, ed., 1986). 22 see valerie i. sessa & richard j. campbell, center for creative leadership, selection at the top: an annotated bibliography, rep’t no. 333, 27 (1997), <http://www.ccl.org/leadership/pdf/research/selectionatthetop.pdf>. 23 see devine, supra note 12, at 20-34; anne murphy, the start-up of the ‘90s, 14 inc. 3240 (1992); dorothy perrin moore, female entrepreneurs: new methodologies and research directions in the 1990s, in 38 r. methodology conf. proc. 1-44 (1988) (mount saint vincent university) [hereinafter “new methodologies”]; dorothy perrin moore, south carolina development board, identifying the needs of women entrepreneurs in south carolina, technical rep’t no. 2 (1987) [hereinafter “identifying needs”]; dorothy perrin moore, first and second generation female entrepreneurs – identifying the needs and differences, s. mgmt. ass’n proc. (d. f. ray, ed., 1987) [hereinafter “generations”]; donald d. bowen & robert d. hisrich, the female entrepreneur: a career development perspective, 11 acad. mgmt. rev. 393-407 (1986); gail gregg, women entrepreneurs: the second generation, 22 across the board 10-18 (1985); eric t. pelligrino & barry l. reese, perceived formative and operational problems encountered by female entrepreneurs in retail and service firms, 20 j. small bus. mgmt. 15-24 (1982); hisrich & o’brien, supra note 11, at 2139); see also generally karl h. vesper, entrepreneurship and national policy (1983). the foregoing are cited in women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 2-3 & 14-15. 24 see e. holly buttner & benson rosen, the influence of entrepreneur’s gender and type of business on decisions to provide venture capital, in s. mgmt. ass’n proc. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 34 as a more recent work, a 2001 report to the small business service from sara carter, susan anderson & eleanor shaw of glasgow’s university of strathclyde also provides bibliographies of academic and popular literature and online materials related to female entrepreneurship in the united kingdom.26 forty pages of the report provide reviews of materials under the variously-titled topics of women business ownership, self-employment, and entrepreneurship.27 although the concomitant analysis is outside the scope of their report, the authors do suggest that these topics are not synonymous where they point out the “relatively minor” presence of literature on women entrepreneurship among more than 400 writings on women business ownership.28 data reports several organizations produce data regarding female entrepreneurship, two of which are highlighted here. the most problematic aspect of all entrepreneurship data sources, regardless of gender focus, these sources lack a common understanding of what constitutes entrepreneurship and who is an entrepreneur. the ability to appropriately perform data comparisons across sources is, therefore, greatly limited. the global entrepreneurship monitor (“gem”) provides perhaps the most consistently-delineated longitudinal data available on female entrepreneurship across numerous countries. for example, in its fourth and latest periodic report, the 2007 report on women and entrepreneurship compiles and compares national assessment of entrepreneurial activities by women across forty-one (41) countries29 and the impact of female entrepreneurship on the global economy.30 the economies encompassed by the 2007 gem women report account for more than seventy percent 314-17 (d. f. ray, ed., 1988); women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 2 (citations omitted). 25 see, e.g., lynne d johnson, et al., the most influential women in technology, fast company 72 (feb. 2009) (initial capitalization in original). 26 see sara carter, et al., department of marketing, university of strathclyde, women business ownership: a review of the academic, popular, and internet literature: report to the small business service 75-115 (aug. 2001), <http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file38362.pdf> [hereinafter “strathclyde bibliography”]. 27 see id. 28 id. at 3. 29 2007 gem women rep’t, supra note 14, at 4. although 42 countries participated in the gem, only 41 chose to have their national data analyzed. id. at 4 n.* (united arab emirates opting out). 30 see id. at 6. loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 35 (70%) of the world’s population and more than ninety-three percent (93%) percent of the global gross domestic product for that year. as its principle features, the gem 2007 report analyzes the key characteristics and context for entrepreneurial activity by women. it also considers how such activity may differ from that of entrepreneurial men.31 a 2001 organisation for economic co-operation and development (“oecd”) report summarizes statistics that are useful to illustrate the trends and relative status of female entrepreneurs,32 although its use of that term does not precisely align with the characteristics and endeavors that exemplify and constitute entrepreneurship. catalyst, a long-standing nonprofit research organization emphasizing leadership, diversity, and other issues regarding women in business, provides data and other reports covering the united states, canada, europe, australia, japan, south africa, and other countries.33 other literature reviews as a more historical resource, the first twenty pages of buttner and moore’s 1997 text summarizes a goodly portion, if not all, of the thenexisting academic literature on female entrepreneurship in the united states, along with publications and research conferences on the subject.34 maika valencia reviews more recent literature in her chapter focused on global economic development in the 2007 text edited by mirjana radović marković, the perspective of women’s entrepreneurship in the age of globalization.35 in it, valencia makes excellent use of william b. gartner’s ground-breaking conceptual framework presented in 1985 as the analytical and organizational device for her review of entrepreneurship 31 id. at 1 32 see directorate for science, technology and industry committee on industry and business environment, organisation for economic co-operation and development (“oecd”), issues related to statistics on women’s entrepreneurship workshop on firm-level statistics annex, tbl. a.2, rep. no. dsti/eas/ind/swp/ah(2001)11, 23 & 26-27 (nov. 6, 2001) (citing oecd, labour force statistics (2000)), <http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/11/12/2668264.pdf>. 33 see, e.g., catalyst, canadian women (mar. 2011), <http://www.catalyst.org/publication/229/canadian-women>. 34 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 1-12; see also id. at 13-20 (publications and research conferences). 35 see valencia, supra note 14, at 14-21. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 36 literature.36 in addition to other materials, the following sections make extensive use of the materials referenced in these two publications. compiled descriptions of female entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship as discussed supra, the phenomenon of female entrepreneurship as a subject of academic study is a relatively recent endeavor. that said, jeanbaptiste say, the early economist whom many regard as having originated the term “entrepreneur,” included women within that term when he characterized fourteenth century tradesmen and tradeswomen as western culture’s first entrepreneurs.37 in interesting contrast to more recent cultural perspectives, these entrepreneurial women enjoyed equality in the social regard afforded to them, according to marković’s 2007 book chapter.38 from that smattering of discussion about the origins and original characteristics of female entrepreneurship, i found a detailed and comprehensively-sourced discussion in buttner and moore that maps to emergence of women entrepreneurs as an important business and economic development. these authors review literature published through the late 1980s that principally described self-employed women, so-called “traditionals” being distinctive from women subsequently viewed from more modern perspective as entrepreneurs.39 studies of these self 36 see id. at 14-15 (summarizing & applying william b. gartner, a conceptual framework for describing the phenomenon of new venture creations, 10 acad. mgmt. rev. 696-706 (1985)). gartner’s conceptual model consider new business creation on the basis of four dimensions: (1) the individual dimension of the entrepreneur; (2) the organizational dimension as to the created venture; (3) the process dimension, that is, the activities undertaken to establish the venture; and (4) the external factors that affect the undertaking, that is, the environmental dimension. see id. valencia also calls upon douglas north’s important 1990 text, which explains entrepreneurship as a contextual phenomenon, the practice of which is affected by the surrounding economic, political, cultural, and social environments. see id. at 18 (citing douglas c. north, institutions, institutional change and economic performance (1990)). 37 see say, supra note 4, at 78. 38 see mirjana radović marković, the change of women’s roles through the centuries, in women’s entrepreneurship & globalization, supra note 14, at 5. 39 women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 2 (referring to gregg, supra note 23, at 10-18 (defining “traditional” female entrepreneurship); see generally id. at 2 (citing vesper, supra note 23; james w. schreier & john l. komives, the entrepreneur and new enterprise formation: a resource guide (center for venture management, milwaukee, loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 37 employed women examined their lower income and limited human capital in managerial experience and business or scientific education,40 as compared to men.41 the works examined the impacts of this limited access to human capital upon the motivations, psychology, and managerial styles of these women.42 these early writings on female entrepreneurship also described the sequestration of these traditionals to domestic domains43 and of their ventures to service-based sole proprietorships,44 and the operation of these and psychological barriers making it unlikely for these women to operate in traditionally male-dominated industries,45 such as wis., 1973); buttner & rosen, supra note 24, at 314-17; bureau of the census, u.s. department of commerce, current population reports, series p-23, no. 146 (1986) [hereinafter “1986 census rep’t”]; bowen & hisrich, supra note 23, at 393-407; carol e. scott, why more women are becoming entrepreneurs, 24 j. small bus. mgmt. 3744 (1986); stevenson, supra note 10, at 30-36; judy high diffley, important business competencies for the woman entrepreneur, bus. educ. forum 31-33 (apr. 1983); pelligrino & reese, supra note 23, at 15-24; hisrich & o’brien, supra note 11, at 2139; janice l. demarest, women minding their own businesses: a pilot study of independent business and professional women and their enterprises (1977) (unpublished doctoral dissertation on file with university of colorado boulder); eleanor b. schwartz, entrepreneurship: a new female frontier, 5 j. contemp. bus. 47-76 (1976)). 40 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 2 (citing pelligrino & reese, supra note 23, at 15-24; hisrich & o’brien, supra note 11, at 21-39). 41 see id. (citing 1986 census rep’t, supra note 40); rose dorrance, women are today’s best management bargain, 22 manage 40-44 (sept. 1970) (concluding women’s lower salaries and lower travel expenses and their greater need for employment and thus their willingness to work harder than men make women better bargain for employers), annotated in hughes, supra note 15, at 645, para. 15.346. in 1973, fortune magazine found that there were only 11 women among the 6500 highest-paid officers and directors in the 1000 largest industrial companies and 300 largest non-industrial companies. wyndham robertson, the ten highest-ranking women in big business, fortune, apr. 1973, at 80-89, annotated in hughes, supra note 15, at 655, para. 15.450. 42 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 2 (citing 1986 census rep’t, supra note 40). the women’s training tended to be within the liberal arts. see id. (citing scott, supra note 40, at 37-44; stevenson, supra note 10, at 30-36). 43 see id. (citing vesper, supra note 23; 1986 census rep’t, supra note 40). 44 see id. 45 see id. (citing buttner & rosen, supra note 24, at 314-17; bowen & hisrich, supra note 23, at 393-407).  journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 38 manufacturing, construction, finance, and insurance.46 limitations on venture type and focus, in turn, made access to financial capital, especially through debt, virtually impossible for traditionals,47 a characteristic compounded by the lack of human capital and professional services to facilitate these women’s access to decision-making regarding financial capital.48 predictably, the research showed that these women-run businesses produced only minimal income and owner’s equity growth,49 slower growth, and growth rarely beyond the perpetually small.50 buttner and moore follow their examination of early research on female entrepreneurship as applied to self-employed traditionals and draw out contrasts with research on so-called second-generation women entrepreneurs, or “moderns,” who emerged in the united states in the mid1970s and into the 1980s.51 as those researches showed, these moderns contrasted with traditionals on almost every examined point, including, for example, corporate structure,52 emphases on profitability, new market creation,53 and sustainability,54 more experience with and exposure to women’s use of power in business environments,55 greater social capital in the form of professional networks,56 greater human capital in the forms of 46 see id. at 3 (citing robert d. hisrich & marie o’brien, the women entrepreneur as a reflection of the type of business, frontiers 54-67 (karl vesper, ed., 1982); hisrich & o’brien, supra note 11, at 21-39). 47 see id. at 2 (citing vesper, supra note 23; 1986 census rep’t, supra note 40; pelligrino & reese, supra note 23, at 15-24; hisrich & o’brien, supra note 11, at 21-39). 48 see id. at 3. 49 see id. at 2 (citing vesper, supra note 23; 1986 census rep’t, supra note 40). 50 see id. 51 id. at 2-3 (citing gregg, supra note 23, at 10-18 (“second generation”)); see also id. at 14-15 (citing moore, new methodologies, supra note 23, at 1-44; moore, generations, supra note 23; moore, identifying needs, supra note 23, at 2 (discussing compiled studies comparing modern & traditional women entrepreneurs). 52 see id. at 4 & 16. 53 see id. at 3 (citing radha chaganti, management in women-owned enterprises, 24 j. small bus. mgmt. 18-29 (1986); candida g. brush & robert d. hisrich, the women entrepreneur: management skills and business problems, 22 j. small bus. mgmt. 3037 (1984)). 54 see id. (citing dorothy perrin moore, an examination of present research on the female entrepreneur – suggested research strategies for the 1990s, 9 j. bus. ethics 275-81 (1990); moore, generations, supra note 23). 55 see id. 56 see id. (citing moore, supra note 54, at 275-81; sue birley, female entrepreneurs: are they really any different, 27 j. small bus. mgmt. 32-37 (1989) (training and network loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 39 education and professional and managerial experience,57 greater value assigned to and use of professional services,58 and entry into and pursuit of business in traditionally-male industries.59 interestingly, research discussed by buttner and moore shows that the emergence of these modern women entrepreneurs from 1974 to 1984 coincided with other cultural phenomena, those being a change in perceptions as to whether occupations were masculine, feminine, or gender-neutral; a statistically significant trend toward greater perceived gender neutrality of occupations;60 and the more frequent exhibition by these women in traditionally male fields of behaviors theretofore more frequently associated with male entrepreneurs.61 two studies from the 1990s described the individual characteristics of female entrepreneurs, as discussed in valencia’s 2007 book chapter62 valencia discusses these studies, one published in 1992 by candida brush and another in 1998 by suzanne catley and robert t. hamilton, as being contacts); arnold c. cooper & william c. dunkelberg, entrepreneurial research: old questions, new answers and methodological issues, 11 am. j. small bus. 11-23 (1987); r. duane ireland & philip m. van auken, entrepreneurship and small business research: an historical typology and directions for future research, 11 am. j. small bus. 9-20 (1987); moore, generations, supra note 23); id. at 16 (citing e. holly buttner, et al., stepping off the corporate track: the entrepreneurial alternative, in womanpower: managing in times of demographic turbulence 85-110 (uma sekaran & fred leong, eds., 1992); candida g. brush & robert d. hisrich, woman entrepreneurs: strategic origins impact on growth, frontiers 612-25 (bruce kirchhoff, et al., eds., 1988)); id. at 29 (citing andrea gabor, cracking the glass ceiling in r & d, 37 res.-tech. mgmt. 14-19 (1994)). 57 see id. at 3 (citing moore, supra note 54, at 275-81; birley, supra note 56, at 32-37 (training and network contacts); cooper & dunkelberg, supra note 56, at 11-23; ireland & van auken, supra note 56, at 9-20; moore, generations, supra note 23); id. at 16 (citing buttner, et al., supra note 56, at 85-110; murphy, supra note 23, at 32-40; brush & hisrich, supra note 56, at 612-25); id. at 29 (citing gabor, supra note 56, at 14-19). 58 see id. at 3 (citing moore, supra note 54, at 275-81; moore, generations, supra note 23). 59 see id. (citing hisrich & o’brien, supra note 46, at 54-67; hisrich & o’brien, supra note 11, at 21-39). 60 see id. at 11 (citing dorothy perrin moore & phillip rust, attributional changes and occupational perceptions, 1974-1982, in acad. mgmt. proc. 363-66 (richard robinson & john pearce, eds., 1984)). 61 see id. at 3 (citing hisrich & o’brien, supra note 46, at 54-67; hisrich & o’brien, supra note 11, at 21-39). 62 see valencia, supra note 14, at 15 (citing catley & hamilton, supra note 13, at 75-82; brush, supra note 12, at 5-30)). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 40 similarly-modeled and showing more similarities, as opposed to differences, between entrepreneurial women and men,63 despite important gender differences in the human capital, namely, professional experience, start-up venture experience, and business education.64 female entrepreneurship literature by topic business structure, strategy, and performance as to forms of enterprise ownership, see valencia’s discussion on organization dimension studies including a 1994 study by rosa and hamilton. in her 2007 book chapter, valencia identifies research from 1996 through 2005 as to business strategies. as to business process studies, she calls our attention to their paucity.65 valencia does cite to one 1998 study by alsos and ljunggren of the start-up activities of women entrepreneurs and the relatively equal success of ventures started by women and men, despite differences in their start-up activities.66 she also highlights a 2004 study by srinivasan suggesting differences in start-up activities may account for differences in the survivability of womenand men-started ventures. valencia covers several business performance studies focusing on women entrepreneurs and places those studies into two classes. first, she considers those studies in which women-run ventures appeared to perform better than those led by men. second, valencia considers those in which women-run ventures appeared to perform more poorly, citing an earlier study by srinivasan, woo, and cooper in 1994.67 valencia rightly questions the validity of using these studies to compare entrepreneurship performance by gender, given the wide 63 see id. 64 see id. (citing lamolla y kristiansen, supra note 14; 2004 gem women rep’t, supra note 14; hisrich, et al., supra note 13; brush & bird, supra note 13; brush, supra note 12, at 5-30). 65 see id. at 19. 66 see id. at (citing gry a. alsos & e. ljunggren, does the business start-up process differ by gender? a longitudinal study of nascent entrepreneurs, 6 j. enterprising culture 347-67 (1998)). 67 see id. at (citing raji srinivasan, carolyn y. woo & arnold c. cooper, performance determinants for male and female entrepreneurs, frontiers (william d. bygrave, et al., eds., 1994)). loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 41 divergence of metrics between the two classes of studies. she also points to a 1998 report by emeric solymossy to call out the lack of agreement as to what measures of success are appropriate for application to entrepreneurial endeavors. note, however, that valencia’s critical analysis seems to miss an obvious concern about comparing the two classes of studies, that being, the approximate ten years that separate the periods of study and the significant cultural, educational, and other changes that bear significantly upon entrepreneurial performance, and especially such performance by women. culture, sex, and gender the terms “sex” and “gender” are often erroneously used as synonyms. for discussions of the distinctions between the terms,68 the heritable determinants and behavioral influencers of these determinants of sex,69 and the social and cultural determinants and behavioral influencers of gender,70 and related medical research, a number of useful materials are available. wood also discusses a number of culture-, academic discipline-, and context-specific and cross-cultural studies of gender.71 for a 68 see julia t. wood, gendered lives: communications, gender, and culture 19-28 (5th ed., 2002). 69 see id. at 19-21 & 344 (citations omitted). as an example of sex characteristics influencing behavior, some research suggests that males born with an extra y, or male, chromosome, so-called xyy males, tend to be more aggressive and impulsive and may, as a result of intellectual effects and lower educational attainment, be more prone to criminality. see lois n. magner, randolph fillmore & anne k. jamieson, are xyy males more prone to aggressive behavior than xy males?, 1 sci. in dispute (2002) (citations omitted), <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5204/is_2002/ai_n19124267>.  70 see wood, supra note 68, at 21 (citing anne campbell, men, women, and aggression: from rage in marriage to violence in the streets – how gender affects the way we act (1993); beverly l. fagot, et al., gender labeling and the development of sex-typed behaviors, 4 developmental psychol. 440-43 (1986)); id. at 117-19 (discussing communications in boy and girls’ games) (citations omitted); id. at 47 (citing deborah blum, the gender blur: where does biology end and society take over, utne reader 45-48 (sept.-oct. 1998), <http://www.utne.com/1998-09-01/the-gender-blur.aspx>; deborah blum, sex on the brain: the biological differences between men and women (1997)). 71 see id. at 342 (citations omitted); id. at 33-34 (discussing symbolic nature of human communication); see also id. at 38-58 (discussing theories of gender development, i.e., those based upon biology, interpersonal relations, and cultural influences) (citations omitted); see id. at 52 (citing, generally, l. shapiro, guns and dolls, newsweek, may 28, 1990, at 56-65; nancy j. chodorow, feminism and psychoanalytic theory (1989); journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 42 comprehensive analysis of the roles of women from ancient times to the 1970s, see hughes’ annotated bibliography.72 for the discussion of gender as a social and cultural construct and the intensive importance of gender in western culture and within individuals’ public and private lives, julia wood’s gendered lives: communications, gender, and culture, now in its eighth edition, is stellar and easily accessible.73 wood also examines writings and research on the roles of schools and teachers play in instilling and enforcing cultural gender constructs, including in young children.74 constantina safilios-rothschild, sex role socialization and sex discrimination: a synthesis and critique of the literature (1979); nancy j. chodorow, the reproduction of mothering: psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender (1978)); id. at 52 (citing eleanor e. maccoby, the two sexes: growing up apart, coming together (1998); daniel n. maltz & ruth a. borker, a cultural approach to male-female miscommunication, in language & soc. identity 196-216 (john j. gumperz, ed., 1982)); id. at 52 (citing gendered relationships: a reader (julia t. wood, ed., 1996); julia t. wood & lisa firing lenze, gender and the development of self: inclusive pedagogy in interpersonal communication, 14 women’s stud. comm. 1-23 (1991); bernice r. sandler & roberta m. hall, the campus climate revisited: chilly for women faculty, administrators, and graduate students (1986)). 72 see hughes, supra note 15, at 752-64 (bibliography of sex role and related literature and other materials dating from 1960 to 1975); id. at 37, para. 4.270 (citing vern l. bullough, the subordinate sex: a history of attitudes toward women (1973) (comprehensive study from ancient to then-present times)). 73 see wood, supra note 68, at 23 & 52-57 (citing, in part, elizabeth fox-genovese, feminism without illusions: a critique of individualism (1991); catherine kohler riessman, divorce talk: women and men make sense of personal relationships (1990); wood & lenze, supra note 71, at 1-23) (other citations omitted); id. at 22 (citing michael s. kimmel, the gendered society (2000); michael s. kimmel, what about boys?, keynote address at the center for research on women’s 6th annual gender equity conference (boston, mass., jan. 12, 2000); barbara a. kerr, when dreams differ: male-female relations on campus, chron. higher educ. (mar. 5, 1999); barbara a. kerr, smart girls: a new psychology of girls, women, and giftedness (1997); john m. reissman, intimacy in same-sex friendships, 23 sex roles 65-82 (1990); julia t. wood, engendered relationships: interaction, caring, power, and responsibility in close relationships, in 3 processes in close relationships: contexts of close relationships 26-54 (steve duck, ed., 1993); francesca cancian, love and the rise of capitalism, in gender in intimate relationships 12-25 (barbara risman & pepper schwartz, eds., 1989)); id. at 24-25 (discussing androgyny as increasing liberation from fixed gender roles); id. at 29 (discussing reinforcement of gendered societal views with cultural practices such as advertising). 74 see id. at 48-50 (discussing research showing gender constancy arises by three years of age or earlier) (citing, in relevant part, campbell, supra note 70); see id. at 29-30 (citing  loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 43 for the complexities and linkages between communication, gender, and culture, see wood and the cited materials therein.75 in her paper published in the 2001 proceedings of the entrepreneurship research conference, carin holmquist considers societal and cultural variables as it relates to gender and women in entrepreneurship, as valencia includes76 with citations to similar studies in developing countries.77 diversity on racial and gender discrimination impacts upon women entrepreneurs of color and diversity in entrepreneurship in the united states, consider buttner and moore’s 1997 text and materials cited therein78 and, for materials on minority status up to 1977, hughes’ annotated bibliography, supra.79 regarding the history of diversity in female entrepreneurship in the united states, buttner and moore discuss a 1994 demographic study showing that self-employed women tended to be julia t. wood & lisa firing lenze, strategies to enhance gender sensitivity in communication education, 40 comm. educ. 16-21 (1991); sandler & hall, supra note 71; catherine g. krupnick, women and men in the classroom: inequality and its remedies, 1 teaching & learning (may 1985), <http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/krupnick.html>; myra sadker & david sadker, the report card on sex bias (1984)). 75 see id. at 18; id. at 102-28 (discussing gendered verbal communications) (citations omitted); id. at 130-51 (discussing gendered nonverbal communications) (citations omitted); id. at 226-57 (discussing gendered organizational communications) (citations omitted). 76 see valencia, supra note 14, at 19 (citing carin holmquist, does culture matter for the formation of views on entrepreneurship and gender roles? case studies of women as high-tech (it) entrepreneurs, frontiers (william d. bygrave, et al., eds., 2001)). 77 see id. at 20 (citations omitted). 78 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 5 (repeating calls for new research models and approaches in light of increases in workforce diversity and thus diversity of entrepreneur population) (citing david a. baucus & sherrie e. human, second-career entrepreneurs: a multiple case study analysis of entrepreneurial processes and antecedent variables, 19 entrepreneurship theory & prac. 41-71 (1994); joyce m. beggs, dorothy dolittle & diane garsomke, diversity in entrepreneurship: integrating issues of sex, race, and class, abstract of paper presented at academy of management annual conference (dallas, texas) (aug. 1994)). 79 see hughes, supra note 15, at 606-14.  journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 44 caucasian, older, and married.80 wood discusses comparative research regarding the leadership values of women and men.81 economic and development engine women are critical contributors of our economic growth, as seen, for example, in a comprehensive historical perspective by ester boserup examined in hughes’ annotated bibliography.82 canadian researcher karen d. hughes writes in her 2005 book on the role and importance of women entrepreneurship in the new economy in that country.83 in their 2005 book, anders lundström and lois stevenson discuss wise economic policy as seeking to stimulate entrepreneurship as a vehicle for growth.84 they write that, not only do countries with increased entrepreneurial activity by women have increased economic growth, but that those with higher levels of women business ownership also exhibit higher levels of entrepreneurial activity.85 gem’s periodic reports on female entrepreneurship, discussed supra, provide important economic data and analyses as to returns on investments in women’s entrepreneurship measured by new venture creation; the competitive disadvantages to national economies that fail to fully leverage the economic potential of female entrepreneurship; the vital importance of 80 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 3 (citing devine, supra note 12, at 20-34). 81 see wood, supra note 68, at 49 (citing, as to women, carol gilligan & susan pollak, the vulnerable and invulnerable physician, in mapping the moral domain 245-62 (carol gilligan, et al., eds., 1988); carol gilligan, in a different voice: psychological theory and women’s development (1982)) (citing, as to men, lawrence kohlberg, the development of modes of thinking and moral choice in the years 10 to 16 (1958) (doctoral dissertation on file with university of chicago)). for a popular business writer’s take on these differences and the competitive and sustainability advantages thereof, see generally lois p. frankel, see jane lead: 99 ways for women to take charge at work (2006). 82 see ester boserup, women’s role in economic development (1970) (tracing role of women in agrarian and modern society), annotated in hughes, supra note 15, at 63, para. 5.5. 83 see karen d. hughes, female enterprise in the new economy 147-58 (2005). 84 see generally, e.g., anders lundström & lois a. stevenson, entrepreneurship policy: theory and practice (2005). 85 see id. at 36 (citing paul d. reynolds, understanding business creation: serendipidity and scope in two decades of business creation studies, remarks on receiving the swedish foundation for small business research fsf-nutek award (stockholm 2004); asia-pacific economic cooperation (“apec”) secretariat, apec project 02/1998, women entrepreneurs in smes in the apec region (1999)). loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 45 women’s participation and success in entrepreneurship to sustainable economic development; and other topics.86 for the societal, economic, and equal justice returns of female entrepreneurship, see marković’s chapter on women’s roles in her 2007 edited text.87 in examining research on the returns on microcredit lending, aneel karnani concludes that microcredit does not produce the desired returns of poverty reduction when extended to people with low skill levels, minimal capital, and an inability to create scalable businesses, however.88 essentialization, masculine norms, and patriarchy for discussions of the essentialization of perceptions as to characteristics and behaviors associated with women and men89 and of normative standards,90 see wood. buttner and moore examine a number of studies that suffer flaws of essentialization because they purport to evaluate the values, thought processes, and experiences of female entrepreneurs, but are based upon and controlled against analyses of male entrepreneurs.91 86 2007 gem women rep’t, supra note 14, at 1. 87 see marković, supra note 38, in women’s entrepreneurship & globalization, supra note 14, at 3-5. 88 see aneel karnani, do women benefit from microcredit, in women’s entrepreneurship & globalization, supra note 14, at 130-31 & 136 (citing abhijit v. banerjee & esther duflo, the economic lives of the poor, 21 j. econ. persp. 141-67 (2006), <http://econwww.mit.edu/files/530>; thomas w. dichter, hype and hope: the worrisome state of the microcredit movement (2006), <http://www.microfinancegateway.org/content/article/detail/31747>; face value: macro credit, economist (oct. 19, 2006); jonathan morduch, does microfinance really help the poor?: new evidence from flagship programs in bangladesh (1998), <http://www.nyu.edu/projects/morduch/documents/microfinance/does_microfinance_r eally_help.pdf>; david hulme & paul mosley, finance against poverty (1996)). 89 see wood, supra note 68, at 4-6 & 17. 90 see id. at 38 & 343. 91 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 19 (citing chris koberg, howard feldman & yolanda sarason, minority men and women small business owners: similarities and differences, in u.s. ass’n small bus. & entrepreneurship proc. 41-52 (douglas naffziger & jeffrey hornsby, eds., 1992) (incorrectly citing koberg as kohlberg)) (citing ellen a. fagenson, the values of organizational and entrepreneurial men and women: occupational role and/or gender-related differences, presentation at academy of  management conference, san francisco, calif.) (1990); birley, supra note 56, at 32-37; robert masters & robert meier, sex differences and risk-taking propensity of entrepreneurs, 26 j. small bus. mgmt 3135 (1988); chaganti, supra note 53, at 18-29). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 46 on role models within societal norms of masculinity and femininity92 and stereotypical classifications of women’s gender roles, particularly in western culture,93 see wood. on the privileges of patriarchy94 and the confrontation and challenges that female entrepreneurship represents to patriarchal business leadership cultures,95 see wood and marković. as an earlier example of patriarchy, essentialization, and stereotypical gender thinking by the united states supreme court, see its 1873 decision in bradwell v. illinois.96 finance female entrepreneurship appears to be a more frequently-studied subject within the discipline of finance than in other disciplines, and resources run the gamut from debt financing to equity funding from angel and venture investors to microfinance. in her 2007 book chapter, valencia identifies numerous organizational dimension studies published from 1996 through 2005 regarding the financing strategies of and access to financial capital by women entrepreneurs in the united states. as examples, a 1993 paper by 92 see wood, supra note 68, at 48-49 (citing, in part, carol lynn martin, gender cognitions and social relationships, invited presentation at american psychological association meeting (chicago, aug. 1997); john leo, boy, girl, boy again, newsweek, mar. 31, 1997, at 17; barry j. wadsworth, piaget’s theory of cognitive and affective development (1996); carol lynn martin, cognitive influences on the development and maintenance of gender segregation, in 65 new directions for child dev. 87-116 (fall 1994); campbell, supra note 70; gilligan, supra note 81; jean piaget, the moral judgment of the child (1932 & 1965); kohlberg, supra note 81)). 93 see id. at 227-32 (citing, in relevant part, elizabeth aries, gender differences in interaction, in sex differences and similarities in interaction: critical essays and empirical investigations 65-81 (daniel j. canary & kathryn dindia, eds., 1998); kathleen hall jamieson, beyond the double bind: women and leadership (1995); historical perspectives and revisionist views (b. garlick, s. dixon & p. allen, eds., 1992); julia t. wood & charles r. conrad, paradox in the experience of professional women, 47 w. j. speech comm. 305-22 (1983); rosabeth kanter, men and women of the corporation (1977)); see also id. at 233-35 (discussing male stereotypes) (citation omitted). 94 see wood, supra note 68, at 1. 95 see marković, supra note 38, in women’s entrepreneurship & globalization, supra note 14, at 3. 96 see bradwell v. illinois, 83 u.s. (16 wall.) 130, 21 l. ed. 442 (1873) (regarding woman’s application to practice law) (“the natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life.”).  loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 47 michael fay and leslie williams97 and one published in 1998 by susan coleman98 consider the gender discrimination faced by women entrepreneurs in seeking start-up capital and credit and the proposition that women may employ human and social capital in the forms of education and banking relationship to counter this discrimination. as to equity funding, a 2006 white paper published by the kauffman foundation on the availability of angel investor funding for women.99 richard harrison and colin mason consider the issue of women business angels and venture capital in the united kingdom in their 2007 publication.100 a 1999 study by patricia greene, candida brush, myra hart, and patrick saparito shows that women seeking venture capital funding, which is concentrated in high-growth and high-tech industry sectors, are almost entirely ignored.101 in their 2008 edited book, iiris aaltio, paula kyrö, and elisabeth sundin discuss the under-representation of women in venture capital organizations and in the management of technology businesses.102 they highlight prevalent gender-biased views as to whether women are capable technology leaders and their entrepreneurial enterprises are good candidates for venture capital investments,103 a similar, although more 97 see michael fay & lesley williams, gender bias and the availability of business loans, 8 j. bus. venturing 363-77 (1993). 98 see susan coleman, access to capital: a comparison of men[-] and women-owned small businesses, frontiers (1998) (editors unidentified). 99 see ewing marion kauffman foundation, women and angel investing: an untapped pool of equity for entrepreneurs insight and recommendations from leading women angels (apr. 2006), <http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedfiles/women_and_angel_investing_100906.pdf>. 100 see richard harrison & colin mason, does gender matter? women business angels and the supply of entrepreneurial finance, 31 entrepreneurship theory & prac. 44572 (2007). 101 see generally patricia greene, et al., exploration of the venture capital industry: is gender an issue?, frontiers (1999) (editors unidentified). 102 see iiris aaltio, et al., introduction: women entrepreneurs – creators and creations of social capital, in women, entrepreneurship and social capital: a dialogue and construction 14 (iiris aaltio, et al., eds., 2008). 103 see id.; women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 14 (citing beggs, et al., supra note 78); but see id. (citing fagenson, supra note 13, at 409-30; birley & westhead, supra note 11; chris koberg, et al., supra note 101, at 41-52; chaganti, supra note 53, at 1829) (discussing comparative studies showing fewer similarities than differences between women & men entrepreneurs) (discussing values similarities between women & men entrepreneurs). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 48 generalized analysis being discussed by buttner and moore. these writings demonstrate the problems created and multiplied by persistently-flawed perspectives that male entrepreneurs represent the normative standard. future analyses of these problems also should consider researches examined by buttner and moore104 and by valencia105 that point to similarities, rather than differences, when comparing female and male enterpreneurs. much of the finance literature touching on women in entrepreneurship focuses on microfinance and a subset thereof, microenterprise credit, or microcredit.106 a largely anecdotal 2002 book of case studies by martha shirk and ann s. wadia demonstrates the importance and use of microfinancing to a female entrepreneur within a typically lowincome indigenous culture in the united states.107 the 2007 gem women report looks at the broader returns seen with microcredit investments in female entrepreneurship.108 karnani adds societal cohesiveness and the economic and relational empowerment of women entrepreneurs to the scope of these broader returns.109 identity and power feminism theory buttner and moore’s 1997 text cites to several insightful works that illuminate the self-image and internal identity struggle of female 104 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 14. 105 see valencia, supra note 14, at 15 (citing lamolla y kristiansen, supra note 14; 2004 gem women rep’t, supra note 14; hisrich, et al., supra note 13; brush & bird, supra note 13; brush, supra note 12, at 5-30). 106 microfinance is a broader term than is microcredit, its most prevalent form of funding. 107 see, e.g., martha shirk & ann s. wadia, kitchen table entrepreneurs: how eleven women escaped poverty and became their own bosses 107-29 (2002) (discussing instrumentality of lakota fund and first nations development institute in commencement and ongoing operation of spotted eagle enterprises, a traditional crafts business founded by roselyn spotted eagle on pine ridge indian reservation); see also spotted eagle enterprises ready to provide, lakota country times (june 26, 2008), <http://www.lakotacountrytimes.com/news/2008/0626/tiwahe_wicoiye/029.html>. 108 2007 gem women rep’t, supra note 14, at 1.   109 see karnani, supra note 88, at 129-30 (citing gita sabharwal, from the margin to the mainstream: micro-finance programmes and women’s empowerment: the bangladesh experience (2000) (on file with university of wales), <http://www.gdrc.org/icm/wind/geeta.pdf>). loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 49 executives and entrepreneurs.110 valencia identifies earlier studies on the individual dimensions of women entrepreneurs as including fagenson (1993), low and macmillan (1998),111 brush (1992), and catley and hamilton (1998).112 wood calls upon power feminism theory as a basis for exploring the role of gender socialization and definitions in shaping beliefs as to which behaviors are adjudged right and which wrong and thus shaping internalized perceptions of being experiencing economically or otherwise disadvantaged.113 innovation-driven female entrepreneurship academic inquiry into innovation-driven entrepreneurship by women is profoundly critical, but virtually non-existent.114 we receive a glimpse 110 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 27 (quoting cindy p. lindsay & janis m. pasquali, the wounded feminine: from organizational abuse to personal healing, 36 bus. horizons 35, 35 (1993)) (citing edith gilson & susan kane, unnecessary choices: the hidden life of the executive woman (1987); robin j. ely, the power in demography: women’s social construction of gender identity at work, 38 acad. mgmt. j. 489-634 (1995)). 111 see valencia, supra note 14, at 15 (citing low & macmillan, supra note 13, at 139-61; fagenson, supra note 13, at 409-30). 112 see id. (citing catley & hamilton, supra note 13, at 75-82; brush, supra note 12, at 530). 113 see wood, supra note 68, at 78-80 (citing, in part, naomi wolf, fire with fire: the new female power and how it will change the 21st century (1993); shelby steele, the content of our character (1990)); id. at 27 (“our society defines femininity in contrast to masculinity and masculinity as a counterpoint to femininity. as meanings of one gender change, so do meanings of the other.”); id. at 1, 23 & 28-29.    114 the popular business press also suffers gender myopia in innovation-driven entrepreneurship. for example, in fast company’s 2009 top fifty list of the most innovative companies, women headed only three. see the world’s 50 most innovative companies, fast company 56-97 (mar. 2009) (identifying web merchant extraordinaire for handmade goods etsy; npr, the united states national public radio company; and w. l. gore & associates, which originated the revolutionary fabric, gore-tex); but see npr chief executives quits over hidden camera interview, wash. times (mar. 9, 2011), <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/9/npr-chiefexecutive-quits-over-hidden-camera-video/>. well-known popular business gurus write about women in relation to innovation businesses, but only as a target market labeled “economic opportunity no. 1” and not as entrepreneurs making that innovation happen. e.g., tom peters, the circle of innovation: you can’t shrink your way to greatness 410 (1997). women are indeed a lucrative market, and palm took their advice to heart regarding the design of the handheld pilot device. see tom kelley & jonathan littman, the art of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 50 where buttner and moore’s 1997 book discusses the significant competition that women entrepreneurs pushed out of the ranks subsequently may pose to their former corporate employers,115 perhaps, in part, due to greater innovation of women operating in these entrepreneurial ventures as compared to corporate structures. marković’s 2007 chapter on women’s roles gives us another where it considers the impacts of female entrepreneurship in redefining traditional norms and breaching barriers associated with those norms.116 activities and research under the auspices of the united nations provide an encouraging sign that the need for scholarship on women-led innovation entrepreneurship is gaining in recognition. the global entrepreneurship monitor’s annual reports on worldwide entrepreneurship increasingly incorporate and analyze measurements related to innovationdriven entrepreneurship.117 hopefully, gem’s next reports on women and entrepreneurship also will more substantially present and examine data on the prevalence, activities, contributions, and sustainability of innovationdriven female-led entrepreneurial ventures. in a rare example of more substantive coverage of innovation-driven female entrepreneurship, carin holmquist’s 2001 paper presents case studies of women as entrepreneurs in the information technology industry.118 in addition, the 2008 edited work of aaltio, kyrö, and sundin highlights prevalent gender-biased views as to women’s capabilities as innovation: lessons in creativity from ideo, america’s leading design firm 261-62 (2001). a study by women in technology international, intel corporation, and research giant idc found that women are early adopters of technology, especially mobile technology, that enabled them to be more efficient and productive in their professional and personal lives and more flexible as to when and where they work. see women in technology international, witi and idc’s survey results reveal women are early adopters, mobile, style conscious 2 (may 5, 2005), <http://www.witi.com/center/aboutwiti/press/downloads/witi_idc_survey_results.pd f>. 115 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 17 (citing brent bowers, work-at-home deals help create new entrepreneurs: distance can strain employee-boss relationships, spur independence, wall st. j., jan. 10, 1994, at b2)) (providing example from study cohort). 116 see marković, supra note 38, in women’s entrepreneurship & globalization, supra note 14, at 3-5. 117 see, e.g., donna kelley, et al., gem, 2010 global report, available at <http://www.gemconsortium.org/about.aspx?page=pub_gem_global_reports>. 118 see valencia, supra note 14, at 19 (citing holmquist, supra note 76). loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 51 technology leaders and the attractiveness of their entrepreneurial enterprises as candidates for venture capital investments.119 valencia, in her 2007 book chapter, suggests that social networking theory tends to operate to exclude women from investor networks that concentrate their efforts in high-growth industries.120 these writings stimulate ideas for further research on masculine normative standards in the innovation industry and on the cascading effects of limits on social capital within this industry in erecting barriers to women entrepreneurs’ access to financial capital. earlier research on female entrepreneurship, as discussed elsewhere herein, is also relevant to today’s innovation economy and its future. that earlier work suggests that it may be particularly useful to undertake innovation industry sector-specific studies that relate the emergence of women leaders and entrepreneurs within these traditionally male domains. adjunct studies exploring corresponding cultural, creativity, and performance changes, if any; perceptions of women’s legitimacy to engage in innovation-driven endeavors; and the downstream effects of such perceptions, such as access to venture capital, also would be important. the lack of research and discussion on this game-changing type of female entrepreneurship may be due, in part, to the lack of a unified conceptual framework for entrepreneurship, the special understanding of innovation within that framework, and the role that women play in creating and commercializing that innovation. in addition, women’s historically lesser degree of participation in the human capital-generating activity now or increasingly essential to innovation entrepreneurship, that being education in science, technology, mathematics, and engineering, likely obscures the need to study female entrepreneurship in this context. whatever the causes, the study and, ultimately, the improved engagement and success of women in innovation industries, including through 119 see iiris aaltio, et al., supra note 100, at 14; women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 14 (citing beggs, et al., supra note 78); but see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 14 (citing fagenson, supra note 13, at 409-30; birley & westhead, supra note 11; chris koberg, et al., supra note 101, at 41-52; chaganti, supra note 53, at 18-29) (discussing some comparative studies of research showing fewer similarities than difference between women and men entrepreneurs) (discussing similarities in values between women and men entrepreneurs). 120 see valencia, supra note 14, at 19. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 52 entrepreneurship, are urgent needs in both domestic and international economic, legal, societal, and development contexts. motivating factors buttner and moore discuss and provide extensive supporting citations regarding research into the factors that motivate women and men to become entrepreneurs, namely: independence121; personal development122; improvement in their welfare123; the desire to emulate their role models124; indirect benefits, including, for example, tax reductions125; and the pursuit of opportunity.126 they also point to reports that entrepreneurship produces the liberating benefit of enabling women to achieve greater professional satisfaction127 and the view of women entrepreneurs of their businesses as vehicles for career growth, rather than for supplementation of spousal income.128 121 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 9, 10-11 & 15 (citing kolvereid, et al., supra note 11, at 431-36; eileen kaplan, women entrepreneurs: constructing a framework to examine venture success and failure, frontiers 643-53 (bruce a. kirchhoff, et al., eds., 1988); scheinberg & macmillan, supra note 11, at 669-87); see id. at 19-20 (citing donald l. sexton & nancy bowman-upton, female and male characteristics and their role in gender-related discrimination, 5 j. bus. venturing 29-36 (1990); arnold c. cooper, et al., entrepreneurship and the initial size of firms, 4 j. bus. venturing 317-32 (1989)) (regarding principle entrepreneurship motivators for men). 122 see id. at 9, 10-11 & 15 (citing kolvereid, et al., supra note 11, at 431-36; john a. hornaday & john aboud, characteristics of successful entrepreneurs, 24 personnel psychol. 141-53 (1971); scheinberg & macmillan, supra note 11, at 669-87). 123 see id. at 9, 10-11 & 15 (citing kolvereid, et al., supra note 11, at 431-36; kaplan, supra note 120, at 643-53; scheinberg & macmillan, supra note 11, at 669-87); see id. at 19-20 (citing sexton & bowman-upton, supra note 119 at 29-36; cooper, et al., supra note 120, at 317-32)) (principle entrepreneurship motivators for men). 124 see id. at 15 (citing birley & westhead, supra note 11). 125 see id. (citing birley & westhead, supra note 11). 126 see id. (citing example of laurie moore-moore’s decision to target her speaking and publication to women-rich residential real estate industry); id. at 19-20 (citing sexton & bowman-upton, supra note 119, at 29-36; cooper, et al., supra note 120, at 317-32) (regarding principle entrepreneurship motivators for men). 127 see id. at 3 (citing shirley f. olson &helen m. currie, female entrepreneurs: personal value systems and business strategies in a male-dominated industry, 30 j. small bus. mgmt. 49-56 (1992)); see id. at 4 (citing monica belcourt, from the frying pan into the fire: exploring entrepreneurship as a solution to the glass ceiling, 8 j. small bus. & entrepreneurship 49-55 (1991)). 128 see id. at 4 (citing moore, supra note 54, at 275-81). loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 53 buttner and moore also consider research and writings from 1986 through 1996 that strongly suggest that women have unique motivations to pursue entrepreneurship in the united states and other countries129 and discuss necessity-driven, or “push,” and opportunity-driven, or “pull,” factors that drive women to engage in entrepreneurship.130 valencia identifies later studies published from 1998 through 2003 regarding the push and pull factors that motivate female entrepreneurs.131 in the 2004 gem report on women and entrepreneurship, maria minniti, pia arenius, and nan langowitz discuss empirical and other research as to these push and pull motivators published in the 1994 proceedings of the long-standing entrepreneurship research conference and in a 2002 gem financing report published by babson college and the london business school.132 diane chamberlin starcher’s article revised and republished online in 2008 discusses the entrepreneurial motivations of well-to-do women as to whom the push of financial necessity is lacking.133 129 see id. at 15 (citing eileen m. fischer, et al., a theoretical overview and extension of research on sex, gender and entrepreneurship, 8 j. bus. venturing 151-68 (1993); brush, supra note 12, at 5-30; hélène lee-gosselin & jacques grise, are women owner-managers challenging our definitions of entrepreneurship? an in-depth study, 9 j. bus. ethics 423-33 (1990); barbara presley noble, a sense of self, 7 venture 34-36 (july 1986) (volume number derived)). 130 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 18 (citing judith h. dobrzynski, women pass milestone in the board room, n.y. times, dec. 12, 1996, at c4; cathy trost, women managers quit not for family but to advance their corporate climb, wall st. j., may 16, 1990, at b1 & b4; ann m. morrison, et al., breaking the glass ceiling: can women reach the top of america’s largest corporations (1987)). 131 see valencia, supra note 14, at 15 (regarding push & pull motivations) (citing richard demartino & robert barbato, differences between women and men mba entrepreneurs: exploring family flexibility and wealth creation as career motivators, 18 j. bus. venturing 815-32 (2003), <http://faculty.utep.edu/linkclick.aspx?fileticket=ton1lkulam0%3d&tabid=12093 &mid=26055>; paula kyrö, women entrepreneurs question men’s criteria for success, frontiers (william d. bygrave, et al., eds., 2001); marilyn l. kourilsky & william b. walstad, entrepreneurship and female youth: knowledge, attitudes, gender differences, and educational practices, 13 j. bus. venturing 77-88 (1998)). 132 see 2004 gem women rep’t, supra note 14 (citing, as to pull motivations, w. d. bygrave, financing entrepreneurial ventures, gem financing rep. (babson college & london business school, 2002); raphael amit & eitan muller, “push” and “pull” entrepreneurship, frontiers (william d. bygrave, et al., eds., 1994)). 133 see diane chamberlin starcher, women entrepreneurs: catalysts for transformation (rev. ed. 2008), european baha’i business forum, <http://www.ebbf.org/fileadmin/pdfs/publications/women_entrepreneurs.pdf>. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 54 the so-called “glass ceiling”134 as a euphemism for barriers to career advancement and related systematic disparities in the treatment of women within organizations are significant motivating factors for women to become entrepreneurs, as shown by research discussed and extensively supported by buttner and moore.135 as to formal employment and corporate structures, a 1998 study by sharon a. alvarez and d. gail meyer examines their effects upon women’s decisions to start their own businesses, valencia observes.136 personal domains and integration of personal and professional domains in their 2003 study, robert demartino and robert barbato explore family and related dynamics as to women and men entrepreneurs in the united states.137 for the heavy gender tax paid by women entrepreneurs in terms of family dynamics, relationships, health, and finance as they persist in their ventures, see marković’s 2007 chapter on women’s roles.138 wood discusses the perpetuation of gender myths through family dynamics that place the burden of unpaid household work and family care 134 women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 9 (citing phrase as originating with morrison, et al., supra note 128). 135 see id. at 3-4 (citing birley, supra note 56, at 32-37; arnold c. cooper, strategic management: new ventures and small business, 14 long range plan. 39-45 (1981)); id. at 4 (1997) (citing nancy j. adler, competitive frontiers: women managers in the triad, 23 int’l stud. mgmt. 3-23 (1993); fischer, et al., supra note 127, at 151-68)); id. at 4 (citing jacqueline n. hood & christine s. koberg, patterns of differential assimilation and acculturation for women in business organizations, 47 hum. rel. 159-81 (1994); barbara presley noble, reforming the talk on labor reform, n.y. times, oct. 17, 1993, at f25; alex taylor, iii, why women managers are bailing out, 114 fortune, aug. 18, 1986, at 16-23); id. at 9 (citing adler, supra, at 3-23; linda k. stroh, et al., all the right stuff: a comparison of female and male managers’ career progression, 77 j. applied psychol. 251-60 (1992)); id. at 7-9 (quoting undated statements by ann grogan, bensu, inc. owner, janet bensu, sudha pennathur &  unidentified others) (citing buttner, et al., supra note 56, at 87; birley, supra note 56, at 32-37; trost, supra note 128, at b1, b4). 136 see valencia, supra note 14, at 20 (citing sharon a. alvarez & d. gail meyer, why do women become entrepreneurs?, frontiers (1998) (editors unidentified)). 137 see demartino & barbato, supra note 129. 138 see marković, supra note 38, in women’s entrepreneurship & globalization, supra note 14, at 4. loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 55 disproportionately upon women,139 even to the point of detriment of women’s health, citing materials covering brazil and other countries.140 statistical and macroeconomic analyses in 2003 and 2005, respectively, by antonella picchio and tindara addaboo in italy141 and by alexandra c. achen and frank p. stafford at the university of michigan in the united states142 of the gender allocation of unpaid work and related topics are eyeopening. buttner and moore consider studies showing that female entrepreneurs tend to integrate their business and personal lives to an extent not seen in their male counterparts143 and have done so, including at least as far back as the so-called “second-generation” women entrepreneurs who arose in the united states in the mid-1970s and into the 1980s.144 in her paper presented at the 2001 entrepreneurship research conference, carin holmquist considers the gender differences between 139 see wood, supra note 68, at 53 (citing julia t. wood, who cares? women, care, and culture (1994); jane aronson, women’s sense of responsibility for the care of old people: “but who else is going to do it?”, 6 gender & soc’y 8-29 (1992); sylvia ann hewlett, when the bough breaks: the cost of neglecting our children (1991); arlie r. hochschild, the economy of gratitude, in the sociology of emotions: original essays and research papers 95-113 (david d. franks & e. doyle mccarthy, eds., 1989); susan moller okin, justice, gender & the family (1989); sylvia ann hewlett, a lesser life: the myth of female liberation in america (1986)). 140 see id. at 56 (citing generally mother journeys: feminists write about mothering (maureen t. reddy, et al., eds., 1994); nancy scheper-hughes, death without weeping: the violence of everyday life in brazil (1994); e. ann kaplan, motherhood and representation: the mother in popular culture and melodrama (1992)). 141 see antonella picchio, introduction, in unpaid work and the economy: a gender analysis of the standards of living 1-10 (antonella picchio, ed. 2003) [hereinafter “unpaid work”]; antonella picchio, a macroeconomic approach to an extended  standard of living, in unpaid work, supra, at 11-28; tindara addaboo, unpaid work by gender in italy, in unpaid work, supra, at 30 (text & tbl. 2.1). 142 alexandra c. achen & frank p. stafford, survey research center, university of michigan, data quality of housework hours in the panel study of income dynamics: who really does the dishes?, panel study of income dynamics tech. paper series no. 05-04, 5 & tbl. 1 (sept. 2005), <http://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/publications/papers/tsp/200504_data_qual_of_household_hours-_dishes.pdf>. 143 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 15 (quoting brush, supra note 12, at 16); see also id. at 89 (providing undated quote by marilyn sifford (“i wanted to have a business that really stood for my values[.]”)). 144 see id. at 3 (citing olson & currie, supra note 125, at 49-56). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 56 being an entrepreneur versus an employee, as valencia states.145 citing references dating from 1986 through 1992, buttner and moore discuss research indicating that women exhibit strong tendencies to make entrepreneurship-versus-paid-employment decisions as a closely-integrated part of their personal and family lives.146 psychology, sexual abuse, and perceptions of discrimination hughes annotates a 1975 publication by harriet zuckerman and jonathan r. cole on female scientists, their perceived discrimination, and the psychological effects thereof.147 in a 1994 study, judith briles shows that women often accept discriminating treatment or fail to recognize it or its effects on them, their families, the society at large, and the economy.148 on socialized gender perspectives as they relate to sexual harassment and violence against women in the united states, see materials cited in wood.149 in their riveting 1994 book on sexual terror and violence against women, dee l.r. graham, edna i. rawlings, and roberta k. rigsby examine the clinical psychiatric diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (“ptsd”)150 and graham, rawlings, and rigsby map the effects of chronic ptsd to women who have experienced long-term patriarchal and discriminatory treatment within their cultures. they then posit that these women as a class in the united states suffer from a form of 145 see valencia, supra note 14, at 19 (citing holmquist, supra note 76). 146 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 15-16 (discussing devine, supra note 12, at 20-34; brush, supra note 12, at 5-30) (quoting brush, supra note 12, at 16) (example of vickie henry’s transition of marketing career from banking to own successful market analysis business because continuation in banking industry as too costly to other aspects of life)); id. at 18 (citing taylor, supra note 134, at 16-23). 147 harriet zuckerman & jonathan r. cole, women in american science, 13 minerva 82105 (spring 1975) (discussing, in part, perceived discrimination and psychological impacts thereof), annotated in hughes, supra note 15, at 740, para. 15.386. 148 see generally judith briles, gendertraps: conquering confrontophobia, toxic bosses, & other landmines at work (1996). 149 see wood, supra note 68, at 1; id. at 7 (discussing sexual harassment & domestic violence statistics as support) (citing heike hasenauer, taking on domestic violence, 52 soldiers 34-36 (1997); national coalition against domestic violence (july 10, 1999) (unidentified publication title); julia t. wood, the normalization of violence in heterosexual romantic relationships: women’s narratives of love and violence, 18 j. soc. & personal relationships 239-62 (2001)). 150 see dee. l. r. graham, et al., loving to survive: sexual terror, men’s violence, and women’s lives 124 (1994) (quoting am. psychiatric ass’n, diagnostic & stat. manual of mental disorders 247 (3d ed., 1987)). loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 57 stockholm syndrome,151 which is characterized, in part, by the positive feelings and denial that hostages develop toward their kidnappers,152 and demonstrate their thesis with a cross-walk table in indicators exhibited within the class are compared against indicators exhibited by kidnapping victims who experienced stockholm syndrome.153 whether women’s status in american society reflects the enduring aspects of slavery is an idea dating from at least 1825 and one worthy of critical analysis, as seen in material covered in hughes’ annotated bibliography.154 fascinating future examinations would examine graham, rawlings, and rigsby’s theory of societal stockholm syndrome for its relationship to and impact upon hegel’s standpoint theory as wood applies it in a gendered context and the power feminism theory that she discusses. the potential implications of such examinations for the study of female entrepreneurship seem significant.155 151 see, e.g., id. at 125 (“women are thankful for being permitted to share men’s money, power, and prestige even though it is men who prevent women from having direct access to these things (through lack of equal rights).”) 152 see id. at 50-224 (introducing & elaborating upon graham’s societal stockholm syndrome); but accord m. namnyak, n. tufton, r. szekely, m. toal, s. worboys, e. l. sampson, 117 stockholm syndrome: psychiatric diagnosis or urban myth? acta psychiatrica scandinavica 4-11 (2008) (authors’ first names not provided), <http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119385981/pdfstart>. 153 see id. at 123-27 (text & tbl. 4.1) (citing dee l. r. graham, et al., a scale for identifying stockholm syndrome in young women’s dating relationships: factor structure, reliability, and validity (1993) (manuscript); p. gail allen, separation issues of battered women (1991) (master’s thesis on file with university of cincinnati); dee l. r. graham, b. ott & edna i. rawlings, stockholm syndrome and battered women: a  test of the validity of graham’s stockholm syndrome theory (1990) (unpublished manuscript on file with university of cincinnati); annette nabermorris & gordon e. o’brien, stockholm syndrome in adult abused children: a scale validation project (1990) (doctoral thesis) (quoting i. lisa mccann, david k. sakheim & daniel j. abrahamson, trauma and victimization: a model of psychological adaptation, 16 counseling psychologist 585 (1988)). 154 see william thompson, appeal of one half of the human race, women, against the pretensions of the other half, men, to retain them in political, and thence in civil and domestic slavery (1970) (1825), cited in hughes, supra note 15, at 57, para. 4.510. 155 see, e.g., graham, et al., supra note 148, at 125 (“captive see’s world from captor’s perspective, societal stockholm syndrome theory posits, women see ourselves as men see us: less valuable, less competent, to blame for men’s problems and our own victimization. we express ambivalence to being female and feminine [we attribute success to luck.”). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 58 on gender discrimination as a factor motivating women to leave corporate positions to pursue entrepreneurship, see discussions and materials cited by buttner and moore156 and in the corporate barrier section and elsewhere in this article. social capital as to the social capital essential to entrepreneurial endeavors, valencia calls forth a 1989 book chapter by howard aldrich and cites to buttner and moore’s 1997 text for social networking theory as it comparatively applies to female and male entrepreneurs.157 aaltio, kyrö, and sundin suggest in their 2008 work that female entrepreneurs have special skills and expertise in amassing this type of capital.158 as to highgrowth industries, however, valencia posits that, under social networking theory, women tend to be excluded from investment networks that operate critically therein.159 standpoint theory and gender supported by extensive cited materials, wood’s volume also captivates the imagination as it applies philosopher george hegel’s standpoint theory to examine the nature of the gendered “ocean” in which we are immersed.160 wood’s application includes a discussion of critical social theory and the idea that individuals simultaneously occupy multiple overlapping and interacting standpoints.161 other descriptive, rather than analytical, writings on female entrepreneurship add excellent materials 156 see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 18 (citing trost, supra note 128, at b1 & b4). 157 see valencia, supra note 14, at 19 (citing howard e. aldrich, networking among women entrepreneurs, in women-owned business 103-32 (oliver hagan, et al., eds., 1989); women entrepreneurs, supra note 10). in addition to reporting original research, moore and buttner review studies of women and men’s leadership styles. see women entrepreneurs, supra note 10, at 100-01 (numerous citations omitted). 158 see iiris aaltio, et al., supra note 100, at 13. 159 see valencia, supra note 14, at 19. 160 see wood, supra note 68, at 55 (citing georg wilhelm friedrich hegel, the phenomenology of mind (2d rev. ed., 1931) (j. b. baillie, trans.) (1807)); see generally id. at 54-57 (discussing standpoint theory & research) (citations omitted); id. at 54-55 (citing sandra g. harding, can feminism be multicultural (1998); sandra g. harding, whose science? whose knowledge? thinking from women’s lives (1991); patricia hill collins, learning from the outsider within: the sociological significance of black feminist thought, 33 soc. problems 514-32 (1986); hegel, supra). 161 see id. at 57 (citing craig calhoun, critical social theory (1995)). loza, e., female entrepreneurship theory, jwe (2011, no.1-2, 26-64) 59 with which to illustrate, for example, a native american woman entrepreneur operating within the low income environment of a reservation and occupying gender, ethnic, business, and economic standpoints.162 conclusion because a body of legal scholarship about women in entrepreneurship does not exist upon which to build my scholarship in innovation, entrepreneurship, and the law, i examined literature from a range of other academic disciplines. here, i reviewed a portion of this multidisciplinary literature. i have summarized the origins of female entrepreneurship literature. within the scope of the literature reviewed here, i discussed relevant bibliographies that date from the late 1970s roughly to present. i also identified some reliable sources of empirical data about female entrepreneurship. on this point, i observed the definitional disharmony across data sources and cautioned that this disharmony rendered comparative analyses highly problematic or, at least, requisite of great care to ensure appropriate comparability. i identified other publications that include literature reviews regarding female entrepreneurship and used these materials and sources cited therein, along with other materials, in the remainder of this article. i next summarized excellent syntheses of research and other writings that describe women entrepreneurs and their entrepreneurial endeavors. i then provided topical collections of literature about and otherwise relevant to female entrepreneurship. i emphasized the great need for more scholarship and study as to innovation-driven entrepreneurship and women, an exceedingly unmet and urgent need on economic, social, and human fronts. i also pointed out areas for additional research as suggested by the reviewed materials. through this contribution and others, i aim to facilitate the legal and interdisciplinary study of female entrepreneurship by making available literature more easily identifiable and more accessible to critical analysis and integration into other disciplines. in this way, i hope to help women in 162 see, e.g., shirk & wadia, supra note 105, at 107-29 (2002) (discussing spotted eagle enterprises, a traditional crafts business founded by roselyn spotted eagle on pine ridge indian reservation).  journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 26-64) 60 entrepreneurship create sustainable businesses and to reap and generate the many important benefits that flow from their efforts. references [1] aaltio, iiris, et al., introduction: women entrepreneurs – creators and creations of social capital, in women, entrepreneurship and social capital: a dialogue and construction (iiris aaltio, et al., eds., 2008). 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[68] zuckerman, harriet & cole, jonathan r., women in american science, 13 minerva 82-105 (spring 1975). article history: received: 15 march 2011 accepted: 30 april 2011 doi: 10.28934/jwee19.34.pp73-85 jel: i240, j710, o15, o150 preliminary reports sustainable development through gender equality – a case of higher education of data scientists olivera grljević1 zita bošnjak2 saša bošnjak3 university of novi sad, faculty of economics, department of business informatics and quantitative methods, subotica, serbia a b s t r a c t information and communication technology (ict) sector in serbia is fast growing and in constant high demand for qualified workforce. in order to continuously fulfil the demand, the national strategy for gender equality defined as one of the actions, requalification of the unemployed women for different ict profiles. investing in education is the policy of creating human capital that influences the overall development of the society. women empowerment through education is recognized as one of the prerequisites for sustainable ict workforce generation. data science represents particularly important field of ict which is still in its development phase in serbia. all industries with transaction-based processes and industries that use connected or mobile devices or similar, which generate high volumes of data on a daily basis can benefit from application of data science in terms of increased profits and roi. while developing data science in serbia and during the peak of productivity in the overall ict sector, it is important to acknowledge the lack of women in technology, why that is detrimental to progres 1 segedinski put 9-11, subotica, serbia, e-mail: oliverag@ef.uns.ac.rs, tel.+381 24 628116 2 segedinski put 9-11, subotica, serbia, e-mail: bzita@ef.uns.ac.rs, tel.+381 24 628045 3 segedinski put 9-11, subotica, serbia, e-mail: bsale@ef.uns.ac.rs, tel.+38124628004 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 73-85) sion, and to take intentional actions to overcome this issue. this paper addresses these issues and points to the large gender gap in ict higher education which consequently shapes the ict labor market and the workplace. in the paper we give an overview of the state of the art and perspective actions in the domain of higher education of female data scientists in serbia, and highlight the opportunities for further improvements. key words: gender equality, woman empowerment, education, ict, workforce, regional development introduction modern development trends have shown that education and the creation of human resources are at the top of the priorities of national strategies and policies of social, economic and technological progress. in the case of serbia, reconstruction and transformation of education is one of the prerequisites for the overall sustainable development (government of the republic of serbia [gors], 2005). investing in education and providing adequate human capital that can adapt to changed circumstances has the character of an investment, and education policy is not just a policy of creating human capital, but it is a part of the overall development policy of the society (gors, 2005). action plan for the implementation of the education development strategy till 2020 (gors, 2015) suggests that some of the key actions for the higher education are: a) development of programs for increasing the coverage in priority areas through the adoption of programs with established mechanism for monitoring market needs, analysis of annual or perennial labor market needs and the number of graduates, as well as through the establishment of a body which will assess development and market needs and priorities; b) modernization of study programs in accordance with the needs of the labor market and with the level of achieved scientific and technological development; c) encouraging the development and offering of quality study programs; d) developing the interest of potential students to study at the bachelor level of academic studies. in this paper we focus on information and communication technology (ict) sector as one of the prominent and fast growing sectors in serbia which is constantly in high demand for qualified workforce. different national initiatives and strategies are encompassing requalification of the unemployed in order to drive this sector and within the national strategy for gender equality for the current period (gors, 2014) one of the defined ac grljević, o., et al., a case of higher education, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 73-85) 75 tions is requalification of the unemployed women for different ict profiles. in order to continuously fulfil the demand for workforce in ict sector, the need for women empowerment is recognized as one of the prerequisites for sustainable ict workforce generation. one of the areas of ict with significant perspective is data science. all industries with transaction-based processes and industries that use connected devices, mobile devices, mobile applications, sensors, cameras, online shops, or similar, which generate high volumes of data on a daily bases can benefit from application of data science in terms of increased profits and roi. data science is well-established field in developed countries. in serbia it has just recently became an area of increasing importance and interest, and still much work needs to be done to help the public and companies to truly recognize data science as the driving force of innovation in all sectors. however, important steps are taken and results are noticeable on the labor market as we are witnessing an increase in demand for data scientists, machine learning and ai (artificial intelligence) related roles. we can expect that with time the number of companies in serbia that apply data science and machine learning to their business will increase even more. to successfully respond to this change in the labor market, higher educational institutions have responsibility to help this workforce development by creating and empowering individuals with data science skills. this requires a certain flexibility from universities to innovate and adapt curriculums. while developing data science in serbia and during the peak of productivity in the overall ict sector, it is equally important to acknowledge the lack of women in technology, as that is detrimental to progression, and to take intentional actions to overcome this issue. therefore, the problem should be observed in its whole: from the lack of women in the ict education, through unrepresentativeness of women on ict jobs, to the gap in salaries. the remaining of this paper is structured in three subsections. the first section is devoted to gender equality and its importance for the regional development, with emphasize on gender gap in ict sector in serbia and gender gap at serbian universities and faculties that educate ict students. the second section describes the position of data science as a field of studies at university of novi sad. the last section provides some findings on what has been and could be done to promote women in ict, and consequently in data science. 76 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 73-85) importance of gender equality for the regional development gender-wise diversification of workforce and teams in general, has certain known benefits which point to the essential need of businesses to include women at all levels. various studies indicate that women are better at assessing their capabilities and have less issues with suggestions coming from team members (kuhn & villeval, 2013; williams woolley and malone, 2011). these threads contribute to overall improved collaboration within teams. according to the research (phillips, 2014) women are better at problem solving, while authors of (hunt et al., 2018; hewlet, marshall & sherbin, 2013; noland, moran & kotschwar, 2016) have identified better financial performance of gender diverse workforce and teams. regardless of knowing that benefits of including women in teams and at all levels in companies extend even further from previously stated, an alarming situation is still present in the stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) where, according to boston consulting group (taplett et al., 2010) women make up 25% stem workers globally, and only 9% are at leading positions in those fields. representation of women in stem is characterized as one of the greatest challenges in women’s education. the subject of the research is the evaluation of gender equality at higher educational institutions in serbia with particular focus on the higher educational institutions that educate ict students, on the one hand, and the state of data science as a prominent field of ict which is shaping and changing ict labor market and will contribute to additional broadening of gender gap in the ict field. in order to overcome this issue new curriculums in the field of data science must be developed and initiatives to attract women to the field must be practiced. to set the starting point, our first objective is to examine the current situation among ict students and to evaluate the severance of the present gender gap. the other goal is to examine the situation at the higher education regarding the data science curriculums. for this we use official statistical data provided by statistical office of the republic of serbia. gender equality in ict sector in this paper we are focused on the ict field, as the part of the stem, given that several facts will contribute to further widening of the gender gap in the ict sector that will consequently impact the labour market and that grljević, o., et al., a case of higher education, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 73-85) 77 could be addressed through different approach to women throughout the education. 1. not only that ict organizations recruit less women than man, but the percentage of women who are leaving it jobs is higher than percentage of man (ashcraft, mclain & eger, 2016; scott & kapor klein, 2017). therefore, organizations are losing women at a faster rate. 2. in the forthcoming years, automation will significantly influence labour market. it is estimated that within next two decades, it will displace 10% of jobs. international monetary fund researchers analysed 30 countries and predicted disproportionately higher loses among women given that particularly clerical jobs, which are more often performed by women, will be under the influence of automation (brussevich et al., 2018). 3. on the other hand, automation will also lead to increase of certain it and ai related roles which are highly paid (brussevich et al., 2018). given the previously said that women are less represented in the ict sector this will additionally broaden the gap and contribute to denying women access to highly paid jobs. the issue of gender equity is part of a cultural heritage. it is extremely hard to influence traditional perception on gender roles and universities may not have the power to do that on their own. however, educational institutions, at all levels of education not only universities, have a great responsibility to make necessary efforts to attract women to the field and to provide a steady stream of qualified female students. without that the landscape of ict sector is unlikely to change and improve. gender equality at universities in serbia according to data provided by statistical office of the republic of serbia (for 2017/18 school year), serbia in all regions has more female students enrolled at all levels and types of higher education (bachelor, master, doctoral, vocational studies, public and private universities, faculties, or colleges) than male students. figure 1 illustrates the distribution of students according to their gender in 2017/2018 school year. there was 57% of female students and 43% of male students. similar distribution is present for previous years as well. 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 73-85) figure 1: percentage of students enrolled at all higher education studies and levels in 2017/2018 source: authors based on data provided by statistical office of the republic of serbia figure 2: distribution of students per gender and region source: authors based on data provided by statistical office of the republic of serbia figure 2 illustrates the distribution of students according to regions in serbia and student’s gender for the past three school years. we can see that grljević, o., et al., a case of higher education, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 73-85) 79 serbia has more female students in all its regions and that this imbalance is the least pronounced in the south-east part of the country. not all fields of studies are equally interesting to female students. figure 3 illustrates the distribution of students for the school year 2017/2018 according to the field of studies and student’s gender. we can observe that ict field is the least interesting for female students and that women currently represent 27% of serbia’s ict students. when they enter the business world this number will decrease due to attrition that is present along the career trajectory and the fact that there are large gender gaps from graduation, the entry-level through to the top-executive positions (taplett et al., 2018). figure 3: distribution of students in 2017-2018 according to the field of studies source: authors based on data provided by statistical office of the republic of serbia gender gap in ict education varies through different regions of serbia. figures 4a and 4b illustrate gender gap at universities in serbia according to the region. we can see that gender gap at public universities (figure 4a) is more pronounced in southern parts of the country. public universities from belgrade and vojvodina educate half of the overall serbia’s ict students, while the rest of the students is distributed over other educational institutions. it is promising that belgrade universities have reached almost equal distribution of female and male students. the gender gap is more pro80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 73-85) nounced at private universities, and particularly at professional studies (figure 5a and 5b) than at universities and faculties. considering that professional higher schools or colleges educate approximately 21% of overall ict students these numbers are not to be neglected. figure 4: gender gap at public universities (a) vs. private (b) universities source: authors based on data provided by statistical office of the republic of serbia figure 5: gender gap at public schools of professional studies (a) vs. private schools of professional studies (b) source: authors based on data provided by statistical office of the republic of serbia based on official statistics, the gender gap is evident at serbia’s higher education institutions. although universities do not have the sole power to break society’s or perceptual barriers regarding ict sector as a maledominated filed, they should take mitigating steps through support system and role-model representation. this will be discussed in more detail in the following sections. grljević, o., et al., a case of higher education, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 73-85) 81 the representation of data science as a field of studies in serbia within ict, data science as a field of studies is still in a developing phase in serbia. some of the first steps that universities can do, is to work on developing data science curriculums to provide steady stream of data science workforce. this position allows universities in serbia to make gender diversity in data science a priority from the start. most of the higher education institutions in serbia, which educate ict students, offer data science related courses, while study programs fully devoted to data science are predominantly at master level. this leaves tremendous space for further development of data science curriculums. at the university of novi sad four faculties educate ict students. − faculty of technical science is one of the largest educators of ict students in serbia. approximately 20% of overall ict students in serbia are enrolled at this faculty. they are the only faculty at the university of novi sad that offer data science program at bachelor level with the option to follow through to the master studies. this study program is available since 2015. − since 2017 department of mathematics and informatics at the faculty of science offers two years master program in applied mathematics and data science. − aside of these studies which are fully devoted to data science, both faculties offer various data science related courses within other bachelor and master study programs. the same applies for two other faculties at university of novi sad which educate ict students: technical faculty „mihajlo pupin” in zrenjanin and the faculty of economics in subotica. the university of novi sad, alongside other universities from serbia, is part of the project called advanced data analytics ada. within this project the university of novi sad will accredit a new master program in advanced data analytics in business and make significant contribution to further development of curriculums in data science. development of data science and gender equality at serbia’s universities apart from a really important job of universities, to develop necessary curriculums, universities should address two key challenges: 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 73-85) 1. to increase the number of female students who are studying data science or ict in general 2. to develop business climate that will help retention and support of women. the big question is how to achieve these goals. some of the institutionalized initiatives are: a) requalification of women for ict within national strategy and action plans for gender equality and a certain number of faculties are involved in this initiative; b) opening it programs in high schools. other initiatives are either sporadic or non-institutionalized, while initiatives concerning gender equity most often come from associations, nongovernment entities or projects, or companies devoted to promotion of women in ict. potential directions that will allow academic community and higher education institutions to be more involved include, but are not limited to the following: 1. mentoring programs. having a good mentor who can provide support and adequate challenges is essential both during education and for career advancement (ragins & cotton, 2017; hoa et al., 2019). it is only natural that universities take part in this initiative. by including and connecting prominent scientists and academics, with alumni students and successful women in practice to mentoring other women in ict, to contribute through various workshops and training, a platform for female role models and advocators is created. 2. positive social message around women in data science should be sent to prospective female students that will point to successful women involved in data science, as well as that data scientists work in various fields and people with different preferences can find their place. 3. retention requires proactive development of professional structures, curriculums, trainings, advancement mechanisms, and support that strategically and intentionally promote gender diversity. 4. well established and ongoing scholarships dedicated exclusively to women in ict. conclusion to assure development of higher education curriculums that are in line with market trends and changed demand in ict sector, data science should grljević, o., et al., a case of higher education, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 73-85) 83 be one of the fields in focus. although data science is still in a developing phase in serbia, an expansion of its use in various sectors is expected within the next several years. to proactively address these changes, which are already happening in more developed countries, new data science curriculums should be developed now. this starting position allows universities to set gender diversity a priority from the start. it is essential to promote women in data science and ict, not only because of financial benefits which are linked to gender diversification of teams, but because of the evident lack of qualified workforce and increased demand for ict and data science professionals. gender gap is evident at higher education institution that have ict study programs and issue an ict related diploma, and educational institutions should take more actions to promote women in ict and acquire more women to the field. in this paper we have identified potential starting directions for increased involvement of universities with respect to this important issue. references [1] ashcraft, catherine, mclain brad, and elizabeth eger. 2016. women in tech: the facts. published by 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history: received: 26 september, 2019 accepted: 25 november, 2019 untitled-1 udc: 0055(510) jel:l26; b54 scientific review paper entrepreneurial alertness and spontaneous learning in the market process: the case of mama moon in china* procesu: s mama m kini yu tony fu-lai**, hong kong shue yan university, department of economics and finance, north point, hong kong a b s t r a c t israel neurial alertness follows closely with and argues that the entire role of entrepreneurs lies in their alertness to profit opportunity hitherto unnoticed in the market. in kirzner s subjectivist theory of knowledge, alertness to opportunity is subconscious learning. once subconscious hunch is known, it becomes a resource (knowledge) for the entrepreneur to be utilized to exploit profit. moreover entrepreneurship means profit arbitrage and it is the continual profit exploitation in the market process that drives an economy towards a higher level of capitalist mama moon, a female entrepreneur in tourism, catering and hotel industries in guilin, china. kew words: i.m. kirzner, alertness to opportunity, female entrepreneur, spontaneous discovery, knowledge, mama moon, guilin (china) * acknowledgment: i am greatly indebted to s.m. kwan who has done proof reading for me in this paper, as well as many papers that published previously. i extend my deep gratitude to her. of course, she bears no responsibility for any error that remains in the paper. ** e-mail: flyu@hksyu.edu journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 29-44) 30 introduction apart from joseph schumpeter and frank knight, israel m. kirzner is the most significant scholar contributing to the theory of entrepreneurship in economics during the 20th century (gunning 1997)1. entrepreneurial alertness triggers scholars in searching for the causes and nature of alertness. although kirzner argues that opportunities are out there to be discovered by entrepreneurs, baron and markman (1999:3) contend that entrepreneurs create opportunities more than discover. baron and markman postulate that an existing opportunity can be compared to a raw material that can be molded either into a business concept. the quality of an opportunity is largely a function of the person who discovers it. the more human agents are alert, the more likely that they are able to identify the hidden profit opportunities (see also kandel 2003). yu (2001) subjectivist perspective. he argues that entrepreneurial discovery process is associated with the actor's interpretation framework which is derived relevance to explain the origin of alertness. gunning (2004) interprets neurship in strictly misesian tradition. very few discovery in terms of austrian subjectivism. most empirical applications are in the field of psychology. for example, kaish and gilad (1991) conduct a psychological testing on the theory of entrepreneurial alertness. their results reveal that entrepreneurs raise their alertness to possible business opportunities by using different types of information to project the potential of new s view as adaptive entrepreneurs and applies the concept to explain hong view that entrepreneurial alertness is spontaneous or subconscious learning which cannot be obtained by deliberate search or conscious scientific will be applied to a successful business operated by a female entrepreneur in guilin, china. in what follows, i shall 1 the international award for entrepreneurship and douhan, eliasson and henrekson (2007). yu, t.f., entrepreneural alertness, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 29-44) 31 theory of entrepreneurial alertness. application of , (china) is then given. conclusion will be presented in the last section. alertness, subconscious learning and arbitrageurship the entrepreneurial process in kirznerian perspective involves alertness to profit opportunities, spontaneous discovery and profit arbitrageurship. alertness to profit opportunity is a mind process involving subconsciousness. alertness to profit opportunity is a hunch. once the hunch is known, it becomes a resource to the entrepreneur. with the resource (knowledge), through deliberate learning, search and experimentation, the entrepreneur attempts to exploit profit manifested in price discrepancy. finally, profit arbitrage allows mistakes to be eliminated, economic activities to be coordinated, and the economy to move towards equilibrium. alertness to profit opportunity and spontaneous learning for kirzner (1973), the most important feature of entrepreneurs lies in their alertness to profit opportunities which hitherto have not yet noticed by the others. put it differently, the ability to be alert to opportunities qualifies human agent to be an entrepreneur. kirzner (1985:11) contends that the ability does not come from deliberate learning. instead, it comes from subconscious learning or spontaneous discovery.2 from a cognitive perspective, subconscious learning refers to a collection of mental phenomena that manifest in a person's mind, and yet the person is unaware of at the time of their occurrence. these phenomena 2 kirzner (1979: 144-145) classifies knowledge into two types, namely knowledge that can be obtained from deliberate search and knowledge that cannot be obtained by deliberate search. the former can be obtained by deliberate acquired or search. ignorance of knowledge that might be known through deliberate search or learning can be justified by high cost of search. in other words, to know more of this knowledge means to sacrifice something else. knowledge that cannot be obtained from deliberate search can only be absorbed spontaneously. ignorance of such knowledge cannot be journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 29-44) 32 include unconscious feelings, skills, perceptions, thoughts and habits, and also, automatic reactions, complexes, hidden phobias and concealed desires (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/unconscious_mind; accessed 24 june 2010). subconscious learning can be seen as a source of spontaneous thoughts (which appear without apparent cause); the stored memories which are neglected but nevertheless be accessible to consciousness at some later time. one familiar example of the operation of subconscious learning is the phenomenon where one fails to immediately solve a problem and then suddenly has a flash of insight that provides a solution at days later. hayek (1952) argues that sensory experience in the human mind entails a collection of stimuli in the past. it identifies, imitates and classifies the impulses in conjunction with human senses. sensory order puts a collection of impulses into different folders or archives and creates a linkage between folders (hayek 1952:121). when patterns are created, novel ideas or hunch will emerge. human agent lacks self-consciousness concerning the hunch before the pattern of hunch is organized. in simple words, human agents do not know they possess such a hunch or a vision of the future. they do not act by deliberately utilizing their hunch for profits. instead, their actions reflect their hunch. as kirzner (1985:21discovery of a lucrative arbitrage opportunity galvanizes him into immediate action to capture the perceived gain, it will not do to describe the situation as one in which the entrepreneur has decided to use his alertness to capture this gain. he has not deployed his hunch for a specific purpose; rather, his hunch has propelled him to make his entrepreneurial purchase and sale. the entrepreneur never sees his hunches as potential inputs about which he must decide whether they are to be used. to decide realizes that he has no opportunity-that is, one has become sufficiently convinced regarding the facts of a situation-it becomes virtually impossible to imagine not taking advantage of the opportunity so discovered. entrepreneurship is thus not something to be deliberately introduced into a potential production process: it is, instead, something primordial to the very ideas of a potential production process awaiting possible implementation. entrepreneurial alertness is not an ingredient to be deployed in decision making; it is rather something in which the decision yu, t.f., entrepreneural alertness, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 29-44) 33 itself is embedded and without which it would be unthinkable (italics original). let take kirzner (1985:76) example, assume two goods of higher orders3, each valued at $1 in the market, can be costlessly transformed into a good of lower order which is sold at $12. there is a profit opportunity of $10 available in the market but remains unnoticed. assume a businessman comes across this price discrepancy. due to some unexplained reason, he does not notice this opportunity at once. kirzner (1979:120-136) refers to this as economic error. nevertheless, knowledge of this profit opportunity of $10 has been spontaneously absorbed but will slowly fade away over time. assume that this man later discovers that the same higher order good is sold at the price of $15 elsewhere. in other words, a profit opportunity of $13 exists. the earlier information that comes s unnoticed previously (i.e., a profit opportunity of $10) does not mean that information will remain unnoticed forever. kirzner (1979:146) argues that, as time passes by, human agents may spontaneously increase the is a continual renewal of ignorance. his second experience (i.e., a profit be alert to the profit opportunity. though the man is not at once alert to the profit opportunity in his first encounter (i.e., the $10 gap), spontaneous learning eventually triggers entrepreneurial vision. human agent cannot be said to have planned his learning. rather, it is subconscious that functions in the subconscious hunch) into a recognized contributor to satisfaction. it is also (gunning 2004). kirzner (1979) emphasizes that hunch is never an ingredient for deliberate action. when the agent comes to be aware of the vision, that vision ceases to be entrepreneurial and becomes a resource and can be utilized through deliberate learning. as kirzn 79: 168-169) writes, realization that he possesses this definite information resource may itself be entrepreneurial. as soon as he 'knows' that he possesses an item of knowledge, that item ceases to correspond to entrepreneurial vision; instead, as with all resources, it is [the] belief that 3 menger (1871/1994) classifies goods into two types, namely goods of higher order and goods of lower order. the former is factors and intermediate goods while the latter is consumer goods. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 29-44) 34 he has the resources at his disposal that may now constitute his entrepreneurial hunch". spontaneous learning and discovery of error the (kirzner 1973: 70). yesterday's market experiences can account for changes in plans that might generate alterations in prices, in outputs, or in the uses of inputs...it is necessary to introduce the insight that men...learn from their experiences in the market. it is necessary to postulate that out of the mistakes which led market participants to choose less-than-optimal courses of action yesterday, they can be expected to develop systematic changes in kirzner 1973:71). hence, the scope of entrepreneurship is grounded in the possibility of discovering error. to kirzner, error occurs not because of resource misallocation or inefficiency due to information problem, as portrayed by neoclassical mainstream economists. instead, error occurs when a person fails to be alert to an opportunity that he or she comes across. kirzner provides us a subjectivist theory of knowledge and error. suppose that an individual has mistakenly attached a low valuation to resources or placed an incorrectly low value on labor time. this implies a room for improvement. if this person discovers that he/she can reallocate the time far more valuably by switching production activities, this implies entrepreneurial insight. through entrepreneurial discovery, and hence resources reshuffled, the ends achievable with the same amount of labor time now have higher value than the ends that has previously achieved. the discovery of error brings about pure entrepreneurial profit. assume further that an individual learns from his/her previous subconscious hunch that certain strategy enables him or her to gain in a market. the hunch becomes a useful piece of knowledge to be utilized. later, when the same individual experiences a similar choice situation, knowledge, not hunch, will enable the person to make a correct choice. in hindsight, the individual can be said to have realized that he or she possesses a means of satisfying the wants which was previously unaware of. by the time the person knows the hunch, the hunch transforms into a resource knowledge (gunning 2004). the utilization of this knowledge is then associated with conscious learning. yu, t.f., entrepreneural alertness, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 29-44) 35 furthermo incorrect today. entrepreneurs will constantly be alert to the changing condition in the market and renew their ends-means framework in order to seek pure entrepreneurial profit. thus, the entrepreneurial process in kirznerian sense consists of alertness, subconscious learning and continual adjustment. promoting entrepreneurial alertness according to kirzner (1985), there are two kinds of knowledge. 1. technical knowledge: these are skills in utilising given physical resources which can be obtained by deliberate search or r&d 2. knowledge of opportunities: this knowledge cannot be obtained by deliberate search. it requires entrepreneurial alertness. for kirzner (1985: 73-74), economic growth of a nation occurs in two ways: 1. improvement in technical knowledge: neoclassical growth theories emphasize on this kind of knowledge which can be conducted by r&d. 2. increased awareness of the availability of opportunities: in this category, economic growth occurs not only because of the availability of new opportunities, but because of expanded awareness of unexploited opportunities. hence, economic growth requires not only that expanded productive possibilities, but also needs entrepreneurial alertness and discovery. if entrepreneurial alertness is so important in economic growth, then what are the causes of it? in literature, the problem-solving argument contends that most people will awaken when they encounter a sudden crisis or a rapidly changing external condition (choi 1993). the theory of self-competition argues that people compete with their inner self. it is -temporal competition between future and past selves stemming from the desire of the present self to test self (khalil 1997). in simple terms, human agents have a desire and passion to fulfill a vision, to see things become true. kirzner argues that entrepreneurial vision may not arrive deliberately, rationally, but neither is it arrived purely by chance. it is the human action that tends to ensure, in some degree, that opportunities com 170). spontaneous journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 29-44) 36 learning or alertness to profit opportunity is a subconscious process. it can be encouraged by the p i]f we know anything at all about the process of spontaneous discovery of information, it is that this process is somehow altogether more rapid when the relevant 149). gunning (2004) elaborates that, subconscious learning can be encouraged by institutional arrangements. institutional arrangements determine the gains that are available to different individuals when they subconsciously learn. because subconscious learning in some individuals is superior to that in others, it is important that those who are superior receive higher gains. kirzner (1979:150) argues that institutional arrangements are private property rights, free enterprise and the use of money in calculation. that is, the free market system provides an environment for subconscious learning to occur. this setting allows market participants to translate unnoticed opportunities into the forms that tend to excite the alertness of those most likely to notice (gunning 2004). in t concept of entrepreneurial alertness and its contribution to economic progress will be illustrated by the case of mama moon who is a legendary tourist guide from a well-known tourist attraction in yangshuo, guilin (china). mama moon in guilin, china yangshuo, guilin (china) is well known for its superb landscape. at the foot of mountain moon in yangshuo, there is an old tourist guide called xiuzhen xu who is now around 70 years old. xu had an education equivalent to year 3 and yet had the ability to communicate with tourists in eight foreign languages4 an outmoded brown gingham shirt shouldered by bony body, face tanned and deeply wrinkled a concrete example of women working in farm fields in south china. nevertheless, amazement rose up from my heart when she (http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5c4ea 4610100 bhk0.html, accessed on 2 july, 2010). she is described by many tourists as kind, friendly, warm and 4 she was able to communicate with tourists in english, french, german, danish, korean, italian, swedish and israeli. however, she could not read or write these languages. yu, t.f., entrepreneural alertness, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 29-44) 37 fun, and her hospitality captured the hearts and friendship from people 5, who is like a caring mother for people coming from everywhere. mama moon came from a village nearby the town yangshuo, guilin. she married to a man who was eight years older than her. life in the rural area was harsh and income from the field was barely enough for her family. human agents would like to improve their well-beings whenever possible. more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory. his mind imagines conditions which suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this mama moon was no exception. in 1995, yangshuo city government promoted mountain moon as an international tourist attraction. since then, many overseas tourists poured in. this provided business opportunities for people living in the areas. in order to make daily ends meet, xu, like other villagers, went to the town to cannot kirzner (1973) contends, the role of entrepreneur is to identify hitherto unnoticed opportunity. seeking fortune in a tourist town was too obvious for xu and other villagers to ignore. xu merely surfed on the wave of fortune-seeking in a new place. without any education, skill and business experience, the thing that a farm woman could do in a tourist town was very limited. xu eventually managed to sell soft drinks to the tourists. yet, her business was not good. sometimes, she could not even sell out one bottle of soft drink. on the contrary, her fellow vendors could sell around 30 bottles a day. she sought the reasons and found out that her soft drinks were not cold because she did not have a fridge while other vendors sold icy cold soft drinks from the fridge. secondly, she could not speak english. when foreigners complained that her soft drinks were not cold, she did not understand. she then asked her son-in-law to teach her simple english conversation in order to upgrade her competitive edge. this is deliberate to achieve an end in order to survive in the market. 5 it is reported that the name was given to her by an australian girl, who left complimentary words in xu's notebook: "how i want to call you mama. you are a kind people daily newspaper, august 10, 2000). in this paper, mama moon and xiuzhen xu are used interchangeably. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 29-44) 38 lertness to opportunities and her first spontaneous learning one day, as mama moon felt boring while waiting for customers, there were two italians tourists who did not know the way to enter a stalactite cave (a famous cave in yangshuo). they approached mama moon for help. showing her hospitality, mama moon used simple english words and hand gesture to show them the way as they walked on. as they became familiar with each other, mama moon even voluntarily served as a tourist guide for them. at the end of the day, the italians asked mama moon how much they should pay her. mama moon said no worry. however, they paid 50 yuan to her as a gratitude. after she got the money, she discovered that being a tourist guide was a good way to earn a living. this hunch occur to a profit opportunity. she discovered that her labor was previously put on a low value production activity. this was an error. being a tourist guide for three hours, she could earn 50 yuan, while selling soft drinks for three days could not even get that reward. alertness to the price discrepancy of her labor, mama moon decided to act as a tourist guide. this change represented a kind of arbitrage activity in the sense that she made better use of her labor which was previously valued wrongly. she knew that she needed to improve her english if she wanted to be a tourist guide for the foreigners. she then deliberately learnt english. discovery of a new opportunity (being a tourist guide) was a hunch while seeking english skills was deliberate learning. the process of learning english for an old woman was painful. at the beginning of learning, pronouncing english words by using chinese characters, mama moon memorized some english words via rote learning. after studying hard for several years and frequent conversation with foreign tourists, mama moon could speak basic eight foreign languages. apart from learning languages, mama moon also established good friendship with the foreigners. this helped her business in future. keen competition in the market kindness, honesty and friendliness earned xu a good brand name in of fact, many local tourist guides earned commissions from discounts given by hotels or souvenirs shops. while other tourist guides only aimed at earning commissions from yu, t.f., entrepreneural alertness, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 29-44) 39 tourists, xu stood on the tourist side and bargained with local shops or vendors for the tourists. hence, local people accused mama moon of violating the rule of game in the market. they united together to condemn mama moon and tried to push her out of business. for instance, whenever the tourists made an enquiry of her, they would reply that she was already dead or retired. public choice school argues that a common method to eliminate competitors was to call for government regulation. local tourist and hospitality industry lobbied the city government to issue tourist guide licence. mama moon needed to apply for one in order to be a tourist guide. this made life difficult for an old lady such as xu for she did not have any formal education (http://www.shanghai expat.com/mdforum -viewtopict-44337.phtml, accessed on 5 july 2010). the city government at first refused to issue her a licence for they hardly believed that xu could speak any foreign language. eventually, after a series of appeals, the city government was convinced that she was capable of being a tourist guide. they issued her a licence on a special permission and allowed her to continue to operate as a tourist guide. entering the catering business xu was happy to charge $60 per person as tourist guide fee. at the peak season, she could earn around $200 per day which was quite an income for a farm lady at that time. xu had never considered entering the catering business. she did not know that another opportunity waiting for her to be discovered. one day, five americans finished touring mount moon and walking down the hill with mama moon. one man asked xu where she lived. she pointed to the farm house down the hill. the americans found that her little farm house was surrounded by a green field and creek. the scenery was as charming as s painting. xu then invited them to visit her house. however, five americans hesitated because they were starving after a full-day trip. they asked xu where they could find something to eat before going to see her house. xu replied that they could eat in her farm house. however, she reminded them that what she could provide were only some raw farm foods and nothing could compare with those restaurants in the downtown. the americans replied that they did not mind to try. xu then prepared a meal of typical farm meal, with vegetables and meats freshly obtained from the home farmyard, including pumpkin, eggplant, beans, pork and eggs. five americans enjoyed a very gorgeous farm meal with rice wine and beautiful scenery. at the end of the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 29-44) 40 day, each of them put $15 on the table as a kind of remuneration to xu. this was a good pay off for mama moon. suddenly, a hunch popped up in an also enter into the restaurant business and earn more income by utilizing the manpower of my family members hunch on trial and found that the idea worked. in this way, xu entered the catering i business blossomed because foreigners enjoyed fresh and uncontaminated vegetables and meats, and a beautiful scenery (http://www. yoo66.com/zx/article.jsp?id=865; 2 july 2010). offering full package: from tourist guide, catering to accommodation it has to be noted that those tourists approaching mama moon were mostly backpackers. they can only afford cheap and budget food and accommodation. for rich foreigners, they usually travel by organized tour and stay in relatively expensive hotel. furthermore, backpackers in general prefer to stay in guest house or farm house so that they can experience local lifestyle. fancy hotels and facilities are not their prior importance. villagers such as mama moon were able to fill in this market gap by providing budget food and accommodation. was a large two-storey building with plenty of open space and rooms. with her experience in providing farm meal, mama moon then thought of providing budget accommodation to the tourists at the upper floor of her farm house. her foresight was again proved correct. all rooms at the upper floor were quickly occupied by young backpackers. she called her guest ma moon transformed from a farm lady to an entrepreneur in tourist, catering and accommodation businesses. in unfettered capitalism mama moon is not an isolated case in china. after door policy in 1979, thousands of entrepreneurs in china have moved to the city to look for an opportunity just like mama moon did. many of them have started a small enterprise, but then turned into gigantic multinational firms via their entrepreneurship. among them are wenbing yu, t.f., entrepreneural alertness, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 29-44) 41 lu (little sheep hotpot), jack ma (alibaba.com), qinghou zong (wahaha beverage), shufu li (geely automobile holdings); cheng fei zhang (nine dragons paper)6. these entrepreneurs have emanated their alertness capabilities and exploited profit opportunities for their advantages. as a result of their efforts, china has achieved high income growth in the last decade. again, the crucial issue is what factors stimulate alertness to profit opportunity of mama moon and many other entrepreneurs in mainland china which was once a radical communist society. kirzner (1980) argues that human agents tend to notice that which it is their interest to notice7. in other words, it is the self-interest motive that enhances the entrepreneur to be alert. it follows that, for kirzner, in order to switch on the alertness of potential discoverers, gain must be offered to potential discoverers themselves. accordingly, the free market system is conducive to entrepreneurial alertness for it permits agents to reap gains from their discoveries (kirzner 1979:148-151). china has a huge pool of human resource. during the cultural revolution (1966-76), china pursued radical socialism in which all resources were communally owned and shared. private ownership of property was prohibited. during ten years of extreme communism, private entrepreneurs vanished, though political entrepreneurs participated enthusiastically in unproductive rent-seeking activities. as a result, china became one of the poorest nations in the world. correcting extreme pursued open door policy and four modernizations. one of the most important institutional reforms has been to allow rural farmers to keep apart of their rewards through an incentive device called rural responsibility system . later, the socapitalism in chinese so ed to industrial and service sectors. as a result of the institutional reform, talented entrepreneurs have continued to spring up in mainland china. they identify and exploit profit opportunities and indirectly boosts up national economic growth. in other words, economic growth in china occurs because of expanded awareness of unexploited opportunities by these entrepreneurs. it can be said that profitseeking in mainland china nowadays is relatively unfettered. the change from radical communism to unfettered capitalism is an important institutional change. it enhances entrepreneurial alertness hidden in every 6 see forbe chinabillionaires-09the-400-richest-chinese_rank_2.html, accessed on 5 july 2010). 7 in a cognitive literature, this is called selective entrepreneurial attention (gifford 1992). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 29-44) 42 rightly concludes that, it would be a mistake to imagine...that spontaneous discovery is a wholly unexplainable process...[i]t is clear that opportunities for social improvement will tend to be exploited most fruitfully if institutional arrangements can be patterned so as to translate such opportunities into opportunities that will be encountered by those whose entrepreneurial alertness is the most acute, the most sensitive, the most accurate...entrepreneurial alertness, that is, is sensitive not so much to information per se as to information that can be deployed to one's advantage. economic reform in china has provided an environment for entrepreneurs to achieve self-gain by simulating their subconscious learning, hence indirectly contributing to china economic growth. conclusion there e last decade. this paper focuses on one factor, namely entrepreneurial alertness, recent economic growth. mama moon, a female entrepreneur in tourist, catering and hotel industries in guilin, is a celebrated illustration eory of entrepreneurial alertness and arbitrageurship. it is believed that many interesting cases similar to mama moon in mainland china can be found and worthwhile to be reported. further research on entrepreneurship in kirzn s perspective is called for. references [1] differences between entrepreneurs and nonet al. (eds.), frontiers of entrepreneurial research, babson park, ma: babson college. [2] choi, y.b. 1993. paradigms and conventions: uncertainty, decision making and entrepreneurship, ann arbor: university of michigan press. [3] douhan, robin, gunnar eliasson and magnus henrekson. kirzner: an outstanding austrian contributor to the economics of small business economics, 29(1/2):213-223. [4] journal of economic behaviour and organisation, volume 19, pp.265-283. [5] strian austrians in debate, london: routledge. yu, t.f., entrepreneural alertness, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 29-44) 43 [6] zn available at http://www.constitution.org/pd/gunning/subjecti/workpape/kirz_ ent.pdf, accessed on 28 june, 2010. [7] hayek, f.a. 1952. the sensory order, chicago: university of chicago press. [8] journal of business venturing, 6: 45-61. [9] doi:10.2139/ssrn.388040; accessed on 6 july 2010. [10] ertainty, and self-competition: a kyklos, volume 50, fasc.2, pp.147-163. [11] kirzner, i.m. 1973. competition and entrepreneurship. chicago: university of chicago press. [12] kirzner, i.m. 1979. perception, opportunity, and profit, chicago: university of chicago press. [13] (eds.) discovery and the capitalist process, chicago: the university of chicago press, pp.15-39. [14] kirzner, i.m. 1985. discovery and the capitalist process, chicago: university of chicago press. [15] k what is alertness? journal des economistes et des etudes humaines, 12(1): 3-13. [16] menger, carl. 1871/1994. principles of economics, grove city, pa: libertarian press. [17] mises, ludwig von. 1949/1966. human action: a treatise on economics, chicago: contemporary books, 3rd edition. [18] yu, tony fu-lai. 1997. entrepreneurship and economic development in hong kong, london: routledge. [19] yu, tony fureview of austrian economics, 14(1):47-63. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 29-44) 44 a p s t r a k t znera, oslanja se na mizesovo misljenje njihovoj spremnosti da brzo odreaguju na profitne mogu nosti, koje nisu ranije bile prepoznate u kirznerovoj subjekt na podsvesnom nivou postane poznat na svesnom nivou, on postaje resurs (znanje) koji treba iskoristiti u cilju ostvarenja profita. pored toga, prema kirz stalno procenu i neprekidno stremljenje njegovom ostvarivanju; procesima to uspeha. kirz e prikazana article history: received: 15 june 2011 accepted: 5 october 2011 << /ascii85encodepages true /allowtransparency false /autopositionepsfiles true /autorotatepages /none /binding /left /calgrayprofile (gray gamma 1.8) /calrgbprofile (apple rgb) /calcmykprofile (photoshop 4 default cmyk) /srgbprofile (srgb iec61966-2.1) /cannotembedfontpolicy /error /compatibilitylevel 1.3 /compressobjects /off /compresspages true 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/grayimageresolution 300 /grayimagedepth -1 /grayimagemindownsampledepth 2 /grayimagedownsamplethreshold 1.50000 /encodegrayimages true /grayimagefilter /dctencode /autofiltergrayimages true /grayimageautofilterstrategy /jpeg /grayacsimagedict << /qfactor 0.15 /hsamples [1 1 1 1] /vsamples [1 1 1 1] >> /grayimagedict << /qfactor 0.76 /hsamples [2 1 1 2] /vsamples [2 1 1 2] >> /jpeg2000grayacsimagedict << /tilewidth 256 /tileheight 256 /quality 15 >> /jpeg2000grayimagedict << /tilewidth 256 /tileheight 256 /quality 15 >> /antialiasmonoimages false /cropmonoimages true /monoimageminresolution 1200 /monoimageminresolutionpolicy /ok /downsamplemonoimages true /monoimagedownsampletype /bicubic /monoimageresolution 1200 /monoimagedepth -1 /monoimagedownsamplethreshold 1.50000 /encodemonoimages true /monoimagefilter /ccittfaxencode /monoimagedict << /k -1 >> /allowpsxobjects false /checkcompliance [ /none ] /pdfx1acheck false /pdfx3check false /pdfxcompliantpdfonly false /pdfxnotrimboxerror true /pdfxtrimboxtomediaboxoffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /pdfxsetbleedboxtomediabox true /pdfxbleedboxtotrimboxoffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /pdfxoutputintentprofile () /pdfxoutputconditionidentifier () /pdfxoutputcondition () /pdfxregistryname () /pdfxtrapped /false /description << /enu () >> >> setdistillerparams << /hwresolution [2400 2400] /pagesize [2069.185 1927.460] >> setpagedevice untitled-1 udc: 005.5 (540) jel: l26; b54 original scientific research paper factors for motivating women in small business and micro enterprises s. jagadees pandi*, government arts college, department of economics, tamilnadu, india a b s t r a c t the present study is an empirical in nature and examines the major motivational factor for business. the study has been conducted in coimbatore district, india. the women entrepreneurs, who belong to self help groups (shg) are the sample respondents. a total of 450 sample respondents have been randomly selected and the analysis have been carried out across the field of activities of women entrepreneurs in small business and micro enterprises viz, among the ten motivational factors for choice, three emerged as high as than others. some women deliberately have started the business as a means of supplementing income, whilst others eagerly anticipate for individual self achievement obtained from self employment. the women in small business and micro enterprises have become a entrepreneurs in the study have an average age of 40-60 as they are either settled as housewives or employees of business organisations. on the one hand their primary goal is to get monetary reward and on the other, they receive personal gratification as they are self-employed. key words: women entrepreneurs, small business, micro enterprises * assistant professor, karur -639 005, tamilnadu, india, e-mail: drsjpandi@gmail.com journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 1-16) 2 reliability and factors for motivating women in small business and micro enterprises everywhere in the world, entrepreneurship is seen as one of the most important solutions to unemployment, poverty and low economic growth. the creation of new ventures and growth of existing businesses are vital contributing factors to any economy (botha et. al 2006). the emergence of women on the economic scene as entrepreneur is a significant change in the process of women empowerment and securing them a high place in the society as well. this will result in uplifting the social and economic status of women in the society. micro enterprises play a dominant role in developing country like india. potentially it offers unlimited opportunities to produce goods and services, using local resources and generating employment opportunities (chitsike, 2000). in addition to their domestic responsibilities for family welfare, childcare, care of the elderly, food preparation and other family task, an increasing number of women generating income by way of establishing small business and micro enterprises. the rationale for supporting the development of women headed micro enterprises is two fold. first it contributes to poverty alleviation secondly it promotes economic and social empowerment (ilo 1998). review of related studies having briefly reviewed the concept of women entrepreneurship in perspectives an attempt have been made to examine the aspects related to women entrepreneurship in small business and micro enterprise field. most of the studies dealt were based on the empirical analysis in different part of the world. the studies some of which referred tended to assess women general. muhummad (2008), verheul and roy (2001), lee and rendell (2001), grasmuk and espinal (2000), greg hundley (2000) studies made an attempt for gender comparision and related challenges of women entrepreneurs. the significant findings of muhammad study that almost two-third of respondents had close male relatives working in business at the time of start-up of business. verheul and roy study showed that female entrepreneurs have a smaller amount of start up capital than their male pandi, j.s., factors for motivating women, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 1-16) 3 counterpart, but they do not significantly differ with respect to the composition of financial capital. grasmuk and espinal study examined the income apparently matter at different gender households. when income does matter the impact of income kicks it as a much lower level for women than men. hundley study compared the earnings from self-employment and revealed that female earnings from self employment and revealed that female earnings decreased with marriage, family size, while male earnings are positively associated with the same variables. some studies attempted to reveal the issues and problems in small and micro enterprises. francis et.al (2006) study found that source of finance is a problematic issue among the women in northern ireland. the result of the heino (2006) study indicated that liquidity constraints hinder the creation of micro enterprises in mexico. similar result was found from the study of hisrich (1984) that indicated the biggest problem during start up was lack of finance, training, lack of education and experience in management. the studies of shellon (2006) and loscoco and joyce (1991) reviewed the work family conflict in managing the enterprise. shellon observed that work family management strategies are a significant determinant of venture growth of women owned business. on the contrary loscooco study made an observation that domestic responsibilities are data and method from the above related studies there are divergent views and approaches on the study concept. the present study is an empirical in nature and examines the major motivational factor for women in small business and micro enterprises. the study has been conducted in coimbatore district, india. the women entrepreneurs, who belong to self help groups (shg) are the sample respondents. a total of 450 sample respondents have been randomly selected and the analysis have been carried out across the field of activities of women entrepreneurs in small business and micro enterprises viz, trade: which includes sale of handicrafts, textile and fabric shops, readymade home appliances, sale of leather products etc., journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 1-16) 4 manufacturing: includes coir making, candle making, bakery products, handicrafts, herbal and palm products etc and service. catering, beauty parlors, tailoring etc. concept of the study shg is a small economically homogenous affinity groups of the rural poor, consists of 10 to 20 women members of the same socio economic background residing in same area to work together for their own upliftment, voluntarily coming together to save small amount regularly. organization of small manageable groups, group cohesiveness, sprit of thrift, demand based lending, collateral free women friendly loan, skill training, capacity building and regular saving. it concerned with the enlistment of the women in the society through social and economic aspects. it occupies the major part of the rural development of the nation, which constituted almost all parts of the country. the concept was successfully implemented and achieved in bangladesh. later it has been introduced in india. the southern state, tamilnadu become a large size of shg constituted state in the country. the shgs involvement in self employment activities contributes to individual entrepreneurship and group entrepreneurship at the gross roots level offers an opportunity for acquiring managerial skills and enhancing the income of the women rural poor. the individual or group entrepreneurship through shg is considered to be an investment in the process of socio-economic development results and discussions the demographic factors such as age, educational qualifications, and marital status are repeatedly reported to strongly influence self employment of women. the age of the respondents (table 1) highlight that nearly fifty percent of the respondents are in the age between 31 and 40. a vast majority (67%) belong to the backward class community. it has been found that 92 percent of the respondents are living with common law. no unmarried women have been found in the study. with respect of no.of four to six members. pandi, j.s., factors for motivating women, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 1-16) 5 lowest level of educational status found among the respondents. nearly three fifth of respondents have completed only primary school level, whereas only 1.3 percent of respondents obtained degree/diploma. a vast majority of respondents have completed high school education (58 percent). a simple majority of the respondents belong to labour in farm/non farm family background, next to it, agricultural background. past work were employees of an organization followed by housewives. ns of business are their own house (table 2). nearly fifty percent are doing the business individually without the support of anybody else. it has been found that employment opportunity in these ventures is found to be minimal which reveals that it is not rigorous to create employment opportunity and only helps in generating income of the concerned family members. since the micro enterprises have relatively higher proportion of unskilled workers, creation of such unskilled jobs certainly has got a direct impact on the alleviation of poverty. however, owing to their minimum level of investment, normally they do not require of more hiring labourers, as it is assisted mainly by and confirmed to family members. in the aspect of start-up capital, majority of the respondents have started the business with their own saving along with the financial support of concerned shgs. motivational factors are considered to be very important in all theoretical models of entrepreneurial performance. it is necessary to identify what drives a woman to initiate, organize and manage the responsibilities for a business, which is challenging itself. economic aspirations are crucial for entrepreneurs especially to small business enterprises and it is essential that one should understand the underlying motives for starting a business. there are ten motivational factors opted for choice (table 3). the respondents were asked to choose the main motivational factor and the reason to choose this particular business. the objective of this assessment is to finding out the most important factor for motivation. among the ten motivational factors three emerged as high as others. they are making money and profit (31.3 percent), not want to work under other (30.7 percent) and self achievement (25.1 percent). the least important motivational factors are threat of losing the job (1.1 percent), journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 1-16) 6 family circumstance (0.4 percent), giving employment to others (0.4 percent), and owning a business of own (0.4 percent). table 1: percentage distribution of respondents by the demographic background across their character of work trade manufacturing service total % no % no % no % no age of respondents >30 31 to 40 41 to 50 above 50 1.3 46.2 43.6 9.0 3 108 102 21 3.2 52.4 37.3 7.1 4 66 47 9 2.2 51.1 37.8 8.9 2 46 34 8 2.0 48.9 40.7 8.4 9 220 183 38 community backward class most backward class sc/st others 62.0 7.7 25.6 4.7 145 18 60 11 4.8 69.0 3.2 23.0 87 4 29 6 76.7 2.2 18.9 2.2 69 2 17.7 2 66.9 5.3 23.6 4.2 301 24 106 19 marital status married divorce separated widow 93.16 5.55 1.28 218 13 3 95.22 4.76 0 120 6 0 95.55 2.22 2.22 86 2 2 94.22 4.67 1.11 414 21 05 no.of family members upto three four to six above six 12.4 83.8 3.8 29 196 9 7.9 88.9 3.2 10 112 4 5.6 90.0 4.4 5 81 4 9.8 86.4 3.8 44 389 17 educational status uneducated primary school level high school level higher secondary degree/diploma 16.23 50.86 23.93 6.83 2.13 38 119 56 16 5 7.14 60.31 29.36 2.38 7.93 9 76 37 3 1 5.56 70.00 23.33 1.11 - 5 63 21 1 0 11.6 57.3 25.3 4.4 1.3 52 258 114 20 6 occupation before entrepreneurship house wife student employee/ labour in farm family business social worker 51.7 2.1 40.2 6.0 0 121 5 94 14 0 42.9 0 55.6 0.8 0.8 54 0 70 1 1 38.9 0 58.9 0 2.2 35 0 53 0 2 46.7 1.1 48.2 3.3 0.7 210 5 217 15 3 total 100 234 100 126 100 90 100 450 pandi, j.s., factors for motivating women, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 1-16) 7 it could be concluded that there are different motivations for starting the business as per in this study. some women deliberately have started the business as a means of supplementing income, whilst others eagerly anticipate for individual self achievement obtained from self employment. table 2: percentage distribution of respondents by the business background across their character of work trade manufacturing service total % no % no % no % no ownership of business < one year two to three year three to five year > five year 3.4 23.9 25.2 47.4 8 56 59 111 0 35.7 38.1 26.2 0 45 48 33 0 32.2 45.6 22.2 0 29 41 20 1.8 28.9 32.9 36.4 8 130 148 164 location of business own house stall at the market shop specifically allotted forbusiness land specifically allotted for -business other places 58.1 17.9 18.4 1.3 4.3 136 42 43 3 10 60.3 26.2 11.1 1.6 0.8 76 33 14 2 1 57.8 28.9 11.1 2.2 0 52 26 10 2 0 58.7 22.4 14.9 1.6 2.4 264 101 67 7 11 size of employment only myself one to three employees >3 employees assisted by family members/relatives 50.4 5.1 3.4 41.0 118 12 8 96 49.2 3.2 2.4 45.2 62 04 03 57 50.0 2.2 1.1 46.7 45 2 1 42 50.0 4.0 2.7 43.3 225 18 12 195 source of start-up capital saving by the respondents and -support of family finance by shg only both saving and shg finance borrowing from bank & shg plus own amount shg and other non financial institutions 29.5 17.9 50.4 1.7 0.4 69 42 118 4 1 11.9 17.5 70.6 0 0 15 22 89 0 0 12.2 15.6 72.2 0 0 11 14 65 0 0 21.1 17.3 60.4 0.9 0.2 95 78 272 4 1 total 100 234 100 126 100 90 100 450 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 1-16) 8 table 3: percentage distribution of respondents according to the motivation for business trade manufacturing service total % no % no % no % no .idea given for start the business advice from family inherited property success stories of others others 76.9 8.1 0.4 13.2 1.3 180 19 1 31 3 88.1 6.3 0 3.2 2.4 111 8 0 4 3 86.7 8.9 0 2.2 2.2 78 8 0 2 2 82.0 7.8 0.2 8.2 1.8 369 35 1 37 8 major motivational factor making money/profit did not want to work under want control and freedom to make own decisions better social status self achievement threat of losing job family circumstance giving employment others own a business of own 39.3 2.1 20.9 3.8 2.1 27.8 2.1 0 0.9 0.9 92 5 49 9 5 65 5 0 2 2 23.0 1.6 38.9 7.1 4.8 23.0 0 1.6 0 0 29 2 49 9 6 29 0 2 0 0 22.2 2.2 44.4 5.6 4.4 21.1 0 0 0 0 20 2 40 5 4 19 0 0 0 0 31.3 2.0 30.7 5.1 3.3 25.1 1.1 0.4 0.4 0.4 141 9 138 23 15 113 5 2 2 2 total 100 234 100 126 100 90 100 450 reliability & factor analysis for motivation of business reliability analysis the reliability of scales, which is used in this study, was calculated by cronbach's coefficient alpha. normally ranges between 0 and 1. however, there is actually no lower limit ient is to 1.0 the greater the internal consistency of the items in the scale. the coefficient estimates of internal consistency reliability. the formula is as follows: k is the number of items in the scale. rk kr )1(1 pandi, j.s., factors for motivating women, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 1-16) 9 r is the average correlation pairs of items. as the number of items in the scale (k) increase, the value of alpha becomes larger. if the inter-correlation between items is large, the corresponding alpha will also be larger. table 4: reliability of scales and item-construct loadingsfactors related to motivation for small business s.no items mean std scale mean if item deleted cronbach's alpha if item deleted 1 making money /profit 4.0022 .65562 39.5222 .692 2 did not want to work under other 3.9378 .75841 39.5867 .698 3 want control and freedom 4.0000 .65051 39.5244 .683 4 to make my own decisions 3.9844 .65203 39.5400 .653 5 better social status 3.9978 .64879 39.5267 .651 6 self achievement 3.9867 .65719 39.5378 .691 7 threat of loosing job 3.9933 .65218 39.5311 .570 8 family circumstances 3.9533 .75512 39.5711 .573 9 giving employment others 3.9333 .73111 39.5911 .600 10 to won a business of my own 3.8622 .85138 39.6622 .550 11 any other reasons 3.8733 .88765 39.6511 .550 mean 43.52 variance 14.783 std. deviation 3.766 cronbach's alpha 0.7 no of items 11 as shown in table 4 coefficient alpha values ranged from .550 to .698 for all the constructs. all constructs obtained an acceptable level of a coefficient alpha above .70, indicating that the scales used in this study were reliable. while increasing the value of alpha is partially dependent upon the number of items in the scale, it should be noted that this has diminishing returns. it should also be noted that an alpha of 0.7 is probably a reasonable goal. it should also be noted that while a high value for journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 1-16) 10 scale, it does not mean that the scale is unidimensional. factor analysis is a method to determine the dimensionality of the above scale. factor analysis factor analysis is a set of technique, by which analyzing the correlations between variables and reduces their numbers into fewer factors, which explain much of the original data more economically. even though a subjective interpretation can result from a factor analysis output, the procedure often provides an insight into relevant psychographic variables, and results in economic use of data collection efforts. the subjective element of factor analysis is reduced by splitting the sample randomly into two and extracting factors separately from both parts. if similar factors result, the analysis is assumed as reliable or stable (nargundkar rajendra, 2003) a. methods of conducting factor analysis there are two stages in factor analysis. stage 1 factor extraction process,this process is primarily used to determine how many factors will be extracted from data. stage 2 rotation of principal components.-this is actually optional, but highly recommended. in this study, the rotation of principal component is used. after extracting the factors, the next task is to interpret and title the relevant factors. this is done by the process of identifying which factors are associated with which original variables. the factor matrix is used for this purpose. the rotated factor matrix comes about in stage 2, these rotated factor matrices is used to anlayse and interpret the factors. the factor matrix gives us the loading of each variable on each of the having values between 0 and 1. values close to 1 represent high loadings and those close to 0, denotes low loadings. the normal procedure is to identify the high loading factors and provide a suitable title. c. steps involved in conducting factor analysis the steps involved in conducting factor analysis are as follows, pandi, j.s., factors for motivating women, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 1-16) 11 the first step is to formulate the factor analysis problem and identify the variables to be factor analyzed the next step is to develop a correlation matrix of the variables and the method of factor analysis is selected. the next step involves the researcher's decision on extraction of number of factors and the method of rotation. next, the rotated factors should be interpreted depending on the objective, the factor scores may be calculated, or surrogate variables selected to represent the factors in subsequent multivariate analysis d. statistical tests associated with factor analysis formal statistics are available for testing the appropriateness of the factor model. 1. bartlett's test of sphericity: bartlett's test of sphericity is used to test the null hypothesis that the variables are uncorrelated in the population. the test for sphericity is based on a chisquare transformation of the determinant of the correlation matrix. a large value of the test statistic favours the rejection of the null hypothesis. 2. kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy: this index compares the magnitude of the observed correlation coefficients to the magnitude of the partial correlation coefficients. small values indicate that the correlations between pairs of variables cannot be explained by other variables and that factor analysis will not be appropriate. 3. eigen value: represents the total variance explained by each factor. 4. factor loading: simple correlation between the variables and the factors. 5. factor matrix: contains the factor loadings of all the variables and the factors. kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy (kmo) & relationship among the variables has been significant or not. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 1-16) 12 table 5: kmo and bartletts test kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.805 bart sphericity approx chi-square 2213.407 df 55 sig. .000 table 5 represents the values of approximate chitest of sphericity with 55 degree of freedom, which is found to be 2213.407 since this value is significant at the 0.00, so reject the null hypothesis that the population correlation matrix is an identity matrix. this means that there exist correlations among the variables x1, x2 7. the value of kmo is found to be 0.805 which is more than 0.5. so, factor analysis is an appropriate technique to analyze the data. table 6: loading of factors influenced on motivation for small business entrepreneurs no. variables factor i factor ii factor iii factor iv x1 making money /profit .906 .015 -.045 -.020 x6 self achievement .898 -.114 .025 -.045 x9 giving employment others .885 -.067 -.006 .107 x8 family circumstances .856 -.189 -.015 -.013 x7 threat of losing my job .823 .022 .172 -.017 x2 did not want to work under other -.077 .904 -.006 -.060 x10 to won a business of my own -.130 .879 -.055 -.020 x3 want control and freedom -.091 -.248 .758 -.065 x4 to make my own decisions .120 .144 .711 .156 x11 any other reasons -.112 -.131 -.112 .856 x5 better social status .126 .065 .361 .631 eigan values 3.987 1.711 1.362 1.019 variance (in %) 36.250 15.552 12.383 9.261 cumulative eigan values (in ) 36.250 51.802 64.185 73.445 extraction method: principal component analysis. rotation method: varimax with kaiser normalization. it can be seen from table 6 shows the factors loadings to major obstacles in running the business. it indicates the rotated component pandi, j.s., factors for motivating women, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 1-16) 13 matrix wherein rotation converged in iterations. using the rotated component matrix which is a better matrix for interpreting factors, the factors are interpreted as explained below; factor 1, the variables like making money /profit, self achievement, giving employment others, family circumstances and threat of losing my job have high loading on factor 1 due to high correlation values of 0.906 , 0.898, 0.885, 0.856and 0.823. on factor 2, the variables like have high loading on factor 2 due to high correlation values of 0.904 and 0.879. on factor 3 want control and freedo to make have high loading on factor 3 due to high correlation values of 0.758 and 0.711, and factor 4, the variables like any other reasons and better social status have high loading on factor 3 due to high correlation values of .856 and 0.631. factor extraction process, it was performed by principal component analysis to identify the number of factors to be extracted from the data and by specifying the most commonly used varimax rotation method. in the principal component analysis, total variance in the data is considered. table 7: communalities of factors s.no. variables initial extraction (c2) x1 making money /profit 1.000 0.823 x2 did not want to work under other 1.000 0.827 x3 want control and freedom 1.000 0.649 x4 to make my own decisions 1.000 0.565 x5 better social status 1.000 0.549 x6 self achievement 1.000 0.822 x7 threat of losing job 1.000 0.708 x8 family circumstances 1.000 0.769 x9 giving employment others 1.000 0.799 x10 to won a business of my own 1.000 0.793 x11 any other reasons 1.000 0.775 extraction method: principal component analysis. the above table shows the proportion of the variance is explained by the six factors in each variable. the proportion of variance is explained by the common factors called communalities of the variance. principal component analysis works on initial assumption that all the variance is journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 1-16) 14 common. therefore, before extraction the communalities are all 1.000. then the most common approach for determining the number of factors to 1 to x11 is 1.0 as unities were inserted in the diagonals of the correlation matrix. the c2 represent the communalities column. this is the amount of variance a variable shares with all other variables being considered with all the variables to the extent of more than seventy percent. the importance of a given variable can exactly be expressed in terms of the variations in the variable than can be accounted for by the factor. it is concluded that based important success factors for motivation of small business and micro enterprises by poor and marginalized section of women since these factors are significantly emerged as high than other variables. conclusion for the economic and educational upliftment of the family. formation and participation of women in self-help groups help them to develop of entrepreneurship qualities, increase their employment opportunities and the horizon of their knowledge. on the whole, the women in small business concern of women empowerment. many women entrepreneurs in the study have an average age of 40-60 as they are either settled as housewives or employees of business organisations. on the one hand their primary goal is to get monetary reward and on the other, they receive personal gratification as they are self employed. although their educational backgrounds per se have not shown any positive effect in their business, in the long run it will be managed as they learn the skill through their practical knowledge of business. it is hoped that with more aid of funds, training and skill development from government and other stakeholders, these women can be groome economic growth and social upliftment. pandi, j.s., factors for motivating women, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 1-16) 15 references [1] botha. the international indigenous journal of entrepreneurship, vol 2, no1, october. [2] gender and development, vol 8, no 1, pp 71-77. [3] francis m.hill, claire m.leitch & ric seeking finance? the demand for finance by women owned and led venture capital, vol, 8, no 2, april. pp 159-182. [4] -employment: the effects of marriage, industrial and labour relation review, vol 54, no 1, october. [5] gundry l.k.(2001) "the ambitious entrepreneurs: high growth strategies of women owned enterprises", journal of business venturing, vol 16, no 4, september pp 453-470. [6] autonomy? income, ideology, and empowerment among micro entrepreneurs gender and society, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 231-255 [7] heikki haino (2006 up capital and micro enterprise portuguese economic journal., vol 5, no 1, pp1-30. [8] -up capital small business economics, vol 16, pp329-35. [9] international labour organisation (1998), gender issues in micro-enterprise development: a briefing note, the international small enterprise programme (isep), june. [10] loscocco k.a, robinson a. j, richard h. hell and john. k. allen (1991) social force, vol 70, no 1, september, pp 65-85. [11] -family conflict and venture performance: new insights into the workjournal of small business management, vol 44, no 2, pp285-297. [12] -employment disadvantage in the population research and policy review, vol 20, pp291-320. [13] m the journal of entrepreneurship, vol 17, no 1, pp 59-72 [14] mcgraw hill, new delhi, pp.312 313. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 1-16) 16 [15] journal of small business management, vol 22, no 1, pp 30-37 a p s t r a k t ova studija je po svojoj empirijska, koja se bavi njem osnovnih motivacionih faktora za pokretanje biznisa. studija je sprovedena na koimbatore u indiji.. preduzetnice, koje pripadaju grupama za s 450 preduzetnica, i sprovedena je analiza prema oblastima njihovih aktivnosti u malim i mikro pokretanje biznisa, tri su se izdvojila . jedan broj a su ciljano biznis kao za dopunu prihoda, dok su ostale bile motivisane za vlastitim napredovanjem preduzetnice u malim i srednjim , preduzetnica u studiji kompanijama ili su satisfakcija, a sa druge strane postizanje g zadovoljstva preko : article history: received: 28 june 2011 accepted: 25 august 2011 << /ascii85encodepages true /allowtransparency false /autopositionepsfiles true 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-1 /monoimagedownsamplethreshold 1.50000 /encodemonoimages true /monoimagefilter /ccittfaxencode /monoimagedict << /k -1 >> /allowpsxobjects false /checkcompliance [ /none ] /pdfx1acheck false /pdfx3check false /pdfxcompliantpdfonly false /pdfxnotrimboxerror true /pdfxtrimboxtomediaboxoffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /pdfxsetbleedboxtomediabox true /pdfxbleedboxtotrimboxoffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /pdfxoutputintentprofile () /pdfxoutputconditionidentifier () /pdfxoutputcondition () /pdfxregistryname () /pdfxtrapped /false /description << /enu () >> >> setdistillerparams << /hwresolution [2400 2400] /pagesize [2069.185 1927.460] >> setpagedevice 17_jwe_1-2 udc: 331.445:613(497.11) 159.944.4:331.1-055.2 jel: l26 cobiss.sr-id: 238908684 original scientific paper the impact of stress and health on quality of working life of women in smes in republic of serbia oliver momčilović sports academy, belgrade, serbia tijana cvetić faculty of engineering university of kragujevac, kragujevac, serbia sladjana vujičić1 faculty of business economics and entrepreneurshp, belgrade, serbia aleksandar antonijević faculty of engineering university of kragujevac, kragujevac, serbia a b s t r a c t this paper gives analysis of impact of stress and health on quality of life of female workers in small and medium enterprises in republic of serbia. research was conducted via questionnaire which held statementss regarding stress, health and quality of life, and was distributed to female workers in small and medium enterprises. research results based on proposed model prove that stress and health have significant impact on overall quality of working life and that by altering each one of the variables mentioned or both at once level of quality of working life of female workers changes. total of 198 respondents contributed to this research from all business positions. key words: quality of working life, stress, health, system model 1 corresponding author, e-mail: sladjanakonto@gmail.com momčilović, o., et al. the impact of stress, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 115 introduction in the second half of the twentieth century, the position of women was greatly improved which had direct impact on their quality of life. women entrepreneurs not only contribute to economic growth and development but also help create new jobs, so that is the legitimate aspirations of women to have equal access to all available resources (prljic, vucekovic, vujicic, 2015). speaking in percentages, women entrepreneurship in serbia is far less present than men entrepreneurship, so it is necessary to invest special efforts to create an ambience that will encourage women to be involved in entrepreneurship more intensively (ravic, nikitovic, 2016). legal, structural social changes and raising awareness about the plight of women have contributed to it. one of the crucial facts was the fact that during the second world war, and after its completion the labor market was in deficit with the male labor force, which was replaced by a woman, especially in the post-war period of economic development and expansion of production capacity. negative phenomenon is the fact that their contribution to employment in the household has not changed and neither the requirements of the market in line with their family needs. women who want to develop a career are directed to act as a "surrogate men," as crompton and le feuvre established (1996). judy wajcman (1998) in study of older managers put forward the fact that 2/3 of women-skilled managers do not have children who live with them, while for men is the reverse case where 2/3 of the managers live with their children. reproductive function and role in the family still stand as an obstacle to improving the quality of life of women and particularly women entrepreneurs (galić, 2011). satisfaction of stakeholders (interested parties) of a particular organization undoubtedly affects the competitiveness and image of the same. the term quality of life at work (quality of working life qwl) is given to the importance of the late 1960s as a way of understanding the effects of workplace health and general well-being. by the 1970s, concern of employers was aimed at improving working conditions. 1980s concept of quality of life at work also included other aspects of improving job satisfaction and productivity such as the reward system, employee commitment, and respect of the rights of workers. radical changes in the business world such as globalization, information technology, global business competition and scarcity of natural resources have caused changes in respect of employees in the definition of "good" company. the trend of the past has been to define the image of the company based on its financial 116 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) indicators. today, ethics, quality of life at work and job satisfaction of the workers themselves are the main prerequisites for the sustainability of business organizations. quality of life at work is a broad concept that offers many different perceptions and therefore it is difficult to define. many authors believe that the quality of life at work is based on a subjective feeling of employees in the organization while most psychologists agree that the term quality of life at work relates to the very well-being of employees (indrani, devi, 2011). objective of this paper represents determination of level of quality of working life of female workers in small and medium enterprises in serbia. in this paper, there are several tasks of research, including: determining respondents level of quality of working life, a. defining the system model research, independent and dependent variables perceptive characters based on the question groups from a set of electronic questionnaire, b. to analyze the partial relations of independent variables system model elements observational characters: stress and health, and the dependent variable quality of working life, from which are made following research hypothesis: h1 stress has significant influence on quality of working life. h2 health has significant influence on quality of working life. h3 stress and health have significant influence on quality of working life. research was conducted via questionnaire which holds 11 statements. respondents were female workers from small and medium enterprises. purpose of this paper lays in understanding the connection between forementioned variables and their impact on women’s quality of working life. quality of working life to ensure satisfaction and customer loyalty, organizations must consider the welfare of their employees and work environment, the impact of its operations and processes in the local community. the long-term effects that their products have during and after use must also be taken into account. the situation is very clear: the organization will succeed or it will simply disappear from the market (gavric, sormaz, ilic, 2016). standardized management systems such as iso 9001, iso 14001 and iso 18001 have been developed to meet these requirements. dealing with these momčilović, o., et al. the impact of stress, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 117 three standards separately and ensure that they match with the existing strategy of the organization proved to be extremely challenging, which is why organizations have integrated management systems into its management portfolio. the need for integrated management systems was created as a solution for adding iso 14001 or iso 18001 standards to already existing iso 9001 standard (wilkinson, dale, 1999). quality of life at work does not only represent job satisfaction but it is one of its many aspects. it is generally accepted that different people have different views on what constitutes a high quality of life at work. the impact on the individual's working life is the outcome of many interactive factors, where the character of each individual may vary from group to group and from time to time. an important distinction can be drawn between the subjective and objective aspects of quality of life at work (quality of working life). the subjective aspect of quality of life at work stems from the workers who receive them directly by filling out their duties and indirect actions undertaken, as well as the subjective feeling of wellbeing and satisfaction indicators. the objective aspect of quality of life at work stems from the results, where its main features contribute to creating value both for the individual and for the economy as a whole (greenan, kalugina, walkowiak, 2013). quality of life at work is a multi-dimensional concept that scientists have defined in different ways. some studies link the concept of qwl with the well-being of workers, living conditions at work, sufficient income, the distribution of profits, employee autonomy, social interactions, employee satisfaction, employee involvement, promotion and labor relations. walton (1975) emphasizes eight dimensions of qwl's, 1) adequate and fair compensation 2) safe and healthy work conditions, 3) the permanent possibility of using human resource development, 4) an opportunity for further growth and security, 5) social integration in the organization 6) the constitutionality of a working organization 7) work and the total living space 8) the social significance of working life. levine et al. (1984) suggests seven most important generators of owl, 1) the degree to which superiors treat employees with respect, 2) diversity in the daily work schedule, 3) work challenge, 118 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 4) the feeling that proven work opens future opportunities for advancement, 5) self-respect, 6) degree to which the life outside of work affects the life at work and the degree to which completed work contributes to society (almarsh, 2015). according to various researchers, the quality of life at work represents the degree of employee satisfaction. employee`s activities in the organization are regulated by specific standards and regulations, laid down in social and labor relations in the conditions of risk and uncertainty. researching employment level of young people in russia, as basic elements that form the quality of working life has revealed the specific role of the education system on delay of the release of potential labor force to the labor market. due to the lack of experience of the overwhelming number of applicants of full-time university students, respondents' understanding and expectations concerning quality of their working life is a special method of questioning. quality of life at work is formed as a result of the interaction of many different factors. this determines not only the need for systematization and classification of factors, but also factors critical analysis of the position of formation of quality of working life. quality of working life components are fair wages, safe and healthy working conditions, job security and content of work (safina et al., 2015). measuring quality of working life measuring quality of life at work is not an easy task since the business environment is composed of a large number of components. there is no consensus on a definition of quality of life at work or a consensus on what makes a quality job (kalleberg, reskin, hudson, 2000). as mainly, measurement of quality working life is based on the reports of employees which often encounter potential limitations of this type of measurement to be reflected in the bias of employees themselves (subjectivity). the advantages of this type of measurement are reflected in obtaining first-hand information and subjective feeling. there are subjective and objective indicators of the quality of life at work. the objective often includes salary, benefits, autonomy and control, opportunity for advancement and job security. mostly the components of quality of life at work are subjective because they are based on the analysis momčilović, o., et al. the impact of stress, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 119 of questionnaires. subjectivity may vary due to the choice of the questionnaire and the way the data is collected. objectivization lies in the collection of data of employees from the administration while the subjectivity lies in the data collected from the workers themselves. there are two approaches to measuring the quality of working life: 1. first approach measures the quality of working life through various specific dimensions of work such as wages, internal awards, advancement opportunities and security and then all these components combine to give a general assessment of the quality of working life. 2. the second approach is based on the direct inquiry to employees to assess their job satisfaction. the best example is to question employees about their level of job satisfaction. this approach does not measure all relevant characteristics but already assumes that employees are able to self-rate their general satisfaction. the disadvantage of this approach is the lack of information on the evaluation of various dimensions of the work and environment (dahl, nesheim, olsen, 2009). many authors have measured the quality of life at work using a variety of models, some of them are: model proposed by dupius (1989), qlsi (quality of life systematic inventory), which improves the perception of quality of life and its evaluation. quality of life at work as an element of the quality of life can also be measured with the help of this model, which was labeled qwlsi (quality of working life systematic inventory) (martel, dupuis, 2006). the second, qualitative study was conducted among the severely mentally ill persons in social enterprises through two interviews. data collected in this way were analyzed by colaizzo`s method. the results show that the quality of life and safety of people represents a sense of belonging to the company (lanctôt, durand, corbière, 2011). h. narehan performed the testing of connectivity of the quality of life at work with the quality of life in multinational companies in malaysia. the results from 179 respondents indicate a significant impact on the quality working life to the quality of life and the authors propose to multinational companies planning programs in order to increase the quality of working life (narehan et al., 2014). group of authors from iran indicates a positive link between the quality of life at work and career advancement among iranian academics. the 120 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) results of their study suggest where the possibility of increasing the quality of life of academics at universities had a high impact on the education system and community development in the country (parsa et al., 2014). gayathiri, ramakrishnan (2013) explore the concept and variables of measuring the quality of life at work and connection between employed medical staff satisfaction with their performance. the main idea of this paper is to point out that with increasing the quality of life at work job satisfaction increases which improves the performance of an organization. in today's business environment, organizations must be flexible and must implement strategies to improve the quality of life at work of employees in order to meet the organization's objectives and the needs of employees. quality of life at work has caused great interest and importance to all countries. quality of life at work is related to the level of happiness or satisfaction of a person in their workplace. for those who enjoy their careers and in their workplace is said to have a high level of quality of life at work. organizations that cherish the quality of life at work see employees as a valuable part of the system in the organization and not as an expense. this approach motivates employees that in addition to economic organizations are in pursuit to satisfy their social and psychological needs (das, panda, 2015). analyze of the impact of stress and health on quality of working life in this paper, there are several tasks of research, including: 1. determining respondents level of quality of working life, a. defining the system model research, independent and dependent variables perceptive characters based on the question groups from a set of electronic questionnaire, b. to analyze the partial relations of independent variables system model elements observational characters: stress and health, and the dependent variable quality of working life, from which are made following research hypothesis: 2. h1 stress has significant influence on quality of working life. 3. h2 health has significant influence on quality of working life. 4. h3 stress and health have significant influence on quality of working life. momčilović, o., et al. the impact of stress, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 121 empirical research questions about the profile of respondents with possible responses to an electronic questionnaire are defined as follows: chronological age of the respondents: from 18 to 30 years, from 31 to 50 years, and over 51 years. employment status of the respondents to 10 years, from 11 to 20 years, and over 21 years. koulutus of the respondents primary or secondary school, and college or university. the electronic questionnaire holds the following statements: 1. relations between management and employees in my workplace are good. 2. i don’t feel stressful at my workplace. 3. i don’t feel exploited at my workplace. 4. my health is good. 5. in the past year i didn’t have any problems with sleeping or insomnia. 6. in the past year i didn’t have any back pain daily for one week or longer. 7. in the past year i didn’t have pain in your hands, wrists, arms or shoulders daily for one week or longer. 8. conditions in my workplace provide me maximum productivity. 9. management in my workplace is efficient and peaceful. 10. the overall physical effort i am doing every day on the job is insignificant. 11. i am satisfied with my workplace. the electronic questionnaire holds the evaluation of statements: 1. strongly disagree, 122 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 2. disagree, 3. neither agree neither disagree, 4. agree, and 5. strongly agree. task 1. profile information of the respondents from (table 1 and chart 1) we can see that out of 198 respondents 48 respondents or 24.24% aged 18 to 30 years, 114 or 57.57% of respondents aged 31 to 50 years and 36 respondents or 18, 18% is over 51 years of age. table 1: chronological age of the respondents level count prob from 18 to 30 years 48 0,24242 from 31 to 50 years 114 0,57576 over 51 years 36 0,18182 total 198 1,00000 source: authors chart 1: chronological age of the respondents source: authors from (table 2 and chart 2) we can see that out of 198 respondents 91 respondents or 45.96% of service up to 10 years, 56 respondents or 28.28% of service from 11 to 20 years and 51 respondents or 25.75 % is over 21 years of service. momčilović, o., et al. the impact of stress, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 123 table 2: employment status of the respondents level count prob to 10 years 91 0,45960 from 11 to 20 years 56 0,28283 over 21 years 51 0,25758 total 198 1,00000 source: authors chart 2: employment status of the respondents source: authors from (table 3 and chart 3), we can see that out of 198 respondents 106 respondents or 53.53% have completed primary or secondary school, and 92 respondents or 46.46% completed college or university. table 3: koulutus respondents level count prob primary or secondary school 106 0,53535 college or university 92 0,46465 total 198 1,00000 source: authors 124 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) chart 3: koulutus of respondents source: authors by cross-tabulations of data between the employment status of the respondents and chronological age of the respondents, we can see the frequency and percentage of respondents (table 4 and chart 4). we can conclude that most of the respondents were: − from 18 to 30 years of age and 10 years of service, 47 or 97.92% of the total number of respondents for age 48, and 51.56% of the total number of respondents up to 10 years of service 91. − from 31 to 50 years of age and from 11 to 20 years of service 52 or 92.86% of the total number of respondents for this age, 114 or 45.64% of the total number of respondents from 11 to 20 years of service 56, and − over 51 years of age and over 21 years of service 33 respondents or 91.67% of the total number of respondents, 36 or 64.71% of the total number of respondents over 21 years of service was 51. we can conclude that there is the least subjects with: − from 18 to 30 years of age and over 21 years of service, 0 respondents, − over 51 years of age and 10 years of service, 0 subjects momčilović, o., et al. the impact of stress, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 125 table 4: contingency analysis of chronological age of the respondents by employment status of the respondents from 18 to 30 years from 31 to 50 years over 51 years all to 10 years 47 23,74 97,92 51,65 44 22,22 38,60 48,35 0 0,00 0,00 0,00 91 45,96 from 11 to 20 years 1 0,51 2,08 1,79 52 26,26 45,61 92,86 3 1,52 8,33 5,36 56 28,28 over 21 years 0 0,00 0,00 0,00 18 9,09 15,79 35,29 33 16,67 91,67 64,71 51 25,76 all 48 24,24 114 57,58 36 18,18 198 source: authors chart 4: contingency analysis of chronological age of the respondents by employment status of the respondents source: authors by cross-tabulations of data between chronological age of the respondents by koulutus respondents, we can see the frequency and percentage of respondents (table 5. and chart 5.). we can conclude that most of the respondents were: 126 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) − from 18 to 30 years of age with primary or secondary education, 28 or 58.33% of the total number of respondents for age 48 or 26.42% of the total respondents with primary or secondary school 106, and − from 31 to 50 years of age with primary or secondary education, 60 or 52.63% of the total number of respondents in this age, 114 or 56.60% of the total number of respondents with primary or secondary education 106. we can conclude that respondents over 51 years of age with primary or secondary education 18 or 50.00% of the total number of respondents in this age of 36, or 16.98% of the total number of patients with primary or secondary education 106. also, we can conclude that respondents over 51 years of age who have completed college or university education 18 or 50.00% of the total number of respondents for those age 36 or 19,57% of the total number of respondents with college or university education is 92. we can conclude that there is the least subjects with: − from 18 to 30 years of age and over 21 years of service 0 respondents, − over 51 years of age and 10 years of service 0 subjects table 5: contingency analysis of chronological age of the respondents by koulutus respondents count total % col % row % from 18 to 30 years from 31 to 50 years over 51 years all primary or secondary school 28 14,14 58,33 26,42 60 30,30 52,63 56,60 18 9,09 50,00 16,98 106 53,54 college or university 20 10,10 41,67 21,74 54 27,27 47,37 58,70 18 9,09 50,00 19,57 92 46,46 all 48 24,24 114 57,58 36 18,18 198 source: authors momčilović, o., et al. the impact of stress, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 127 chart 5: contingency analysis of chronological age of the respondents by koulutus respondents source: authors task 2. defining model elements system model in this study is composed of two distinct elements (hereinafter referred to as the independent variables) and a dependent element (hereinafter referred to as the dependent variable). independent variable is made of elements: health and stress and a dependent variable of the element quality of working life (qwl) as shown in (figure 1). figure 1: system model quality of working life source: authors task 3. determination of partial relationships the correlation between the independent variables to the dependent variable interpretation of results of pearson correlations: stress health qwl 128 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) − table 6. shows the descriptive statistics for all variables of the model, where the values of the average score are: • stress 3,506, • health 2,489, i • quality of working life (qwl) 3,743. table 6: descriptive statistics for variables stress health qwl mean 3,506734 2,489899 3,7436869 std dev 0,854773 0,6366744 0,6522301 std err mean 0,0607461 0,0452465 0,046352 upper 95% mean 3,6265301 2,5791286 3,8350966 lower 95% mean 3,386938 2,4006694 3,6522771 n 198 198 198 source: authors in (table 7) is given scatterplot matrix correlations of elements of the model. the number of cases in the sample totals n = 198 is correct and there is no missing data. from the presented diagrams the direction of relationship between variables, as well as the strength of correlation r can be seen. we can note a positive correlation between variables in a number of cases, that it is the largest correlation coefficient between variable stress and qwl and it amounts r = 0.587, these variables are moderately correlated related. table 7: scatterplot matrix correlations source: authors momčilović, o., et al. the impact of stress, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 129 task 4. analysis of the impact of partial variables stress and health for variable qwl in (table 8) summary of fit is calculated coefficient of determination (rsquare) r2 = 0.344537 that indicate what percentage of variance of the dependent variable qwl is explained in model and the multiple correlation coefficient (r) r = 0.586972 which indicates the strength of the connection between variables. it means that 58.69% of the variability of the dependent variable qwl can explain through the influence of independent variables stress. here variables are moderately correlated related table 8: summary of fit for variable stress and qwl rsquare 0,344537 rsquare adj 0,341193 root mean square error 0,529395 mean of response 3,743687 observations (or sum wgts) 198 source: authors in order to assess the statistical significance, observe (table 9) anova. here are the results of tests of the null hypothesis that the r2 in population is equal 0. statistical significance was (sig. = 0.0001), which means that r <0.0005. hypothesis h1 variable stress significantly affect the variable qwl is confirmed. table 9: anova source df sum of squares mean square f ratio model 1 28,873787 28,8738 103,0253 error 196 54,930822 0,2803 prob > f c. total 197 83,804609 <,0001* source: authors from (table 10) coefficients (coefficients) is determined how the independent variable in the model stress contributed to the prediction of the dependent variable qwl. in this case the beta coefficient is 0,586973, which means that the independent variable stress contributes to explaining the dependent variable qwl. column prob> |t|. observes the contribution of 130 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) variables in the equation (the value of sig. <0.05.). in this case, the independent variable stress makes a significant contribution to the equation. table 10: coefficients term estimate std error t ratio prob>|t| std beta intercept 2,1730681 0,159247 13,65 <,0001* 0 stres 0,4478865 0,044126 10,15 <,0001* 0,586973 source: authors linear regression equation reads as follows: or: on (diagram 1) is given diagram of linear regression equation. diagram 1: diagram of linear regression equation for the dependent variable qwl source: authors in (table 11) summary of fit is calculated coefficient of determination (rsquare) r2 = 0,177083 that indicate what percentage of variance of the dependent variable qwl is explained in model and the multiple correlation coefficient (r) r = 0,420812 which indicates the strength of the connection between variables. it means that 42,08% of the variability of the dependent variable qwl can explain through the influence of independent variables health. here variables are relatively poorly correlatedrelated momčilović, o., et al. the impact of stress, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 131 table 11: summary of fit for variable health and qwl rsquare 0,177083 rsquare adj 0,172884 root mean square error 0,593177 mean of response 3,743687 observations (or sum wgts) 198 source: authors in order to assess the statistical significance, observe (table 12) anova. here are the results of tests of the null hypothesis that the r2 in population is equal 0. statistical significance was (sig. = 0.0001), which means that r <0.0005. hypothesis h2 variable health significantly affect the variable qwl is confirmed. table 12: anova source df sum of squares mean square f ratio model 1 14,840335 14,8403 42,1770 error 196 68,964274 0,3519 prob > f c. total 197 83,804609 <,0001* source: authors from (table 13) coefficients (coefficients) is determined how the independent variable health in the model contributed to the prediction of the dependent variable qwl. in this case the beta coefficient is 0,420812, which means that the independent variable health contributes to explaining the dependent variable qwl. column prob> | t |. observes the contribution of variables in the equation (the value of sig. <0.05.). in this case, the independent variable health makes a significant contribution to the equation. table 13: coefficients term estimate std error t ratio prob>|t| std beta intercept 2,6703079 0,170569 15,66 <,0001* 0 health 0,4310934 0,066379 6,49 <,0001* 0,420812 source: authors 132 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) linear regression equation reads as follows: or: on (diagram 2) is given diagram of linear regression equation. diagram 2: diagram of linear regression equation for the dependent variable qwl source: authors task 5. analysis of influence of group variables stress and health for variable qwl in (table 14) summary of fit is calculated coefficient of determination (rsquare) r2 = 0,390736 that indicate what percentage of variance of the dependent variable qwl is explained in model and the multiple correlation coefficient (r) r = 0, 625088 which indicatess the strength of the connection between variables. it means that 62,50% of the variability of the dependent variable qwl can explain through the influence of independent variables stress and health. here variables are moderately strong correlated – related table14: summary of fit for variables health and qwl rsquare 0,390736 rsquare adj 0,384487 root mean square error 0,511705 mean of response 3,743687 observations (or sum wgts) 198 source: authors momčilović, o., et al. the impact of stress, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 133 in order to assess the statistical significance, observe (table 15) anova. here are the results of tests of the null hypothesis that the r2 in population is equal 0. statistical significance was (sig. = 0.0001), which means that r <0.0005. hypothesis h3 variables stress and health significantly affect the variable qwl is confirmed table 15: anova source df sum of squares mean square f ratio model 2 32,745436 16,3727 62,5290 error 195 51,059173 0,2618 prob > f c. total 197 83,804609 <,0001* source: authors from (table 16) coefficients, is determined how the independent variables stress and health in the model contributed to the prediction of the dependent variable qwl. in this case the beta coefficient is 0, 499245, which means that the independent variable stress individually contributes most to explaining the dependent variable qwl. column prob> | t |. observes the contribution of variables in the equation (the value of sig. <0.05.). in this case, the independent variables stress and health make a significant contribution to the equation. table 16: coefficients term estimate std error t ratio prob>|t| std beta intercept 1,8156512 0,179813 10,10 <,0001 0 stress 0,3809461 0,046068 8,27 <,0001 0,499245 health 0,2378245 0,061848 3,85 0,0002 0,232152 source: authors linear regression equation reads as follows: or: on (diagram 3) is given 3d surface diagram of values of all the variables of the proposed model. 134 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) diagram 3: 3d surface diagram of the variables: stress, health i qwl source: authors conclusion there is no consensus on a definition of quality of life at work or a consensus on what makes a quality job but all authors agree that quality of life at work can be represented by the degree of employee satisfaction. organizations that cherish the quality of life at work see employees as a valuable part of the system in the organization and not as an expense. this approach motivates employees that in addition to economic, organizations are in pursuit to satisfy their social and psychological needs. this paper represents contribution to understanding the connection between forementioned variables and their impact on women’s quality of working life. by forementioned proven hypothesis (h1 stress has significant influence on quality of working life, h2 health has significant influence on quality of working life and h3 stress and health have significant influence on quality of working life) we can have influence at the level of job satisfaction by altering the level of independent variables individually. referenecs [1] almarsh, o. s. 2015. “a measurement scale for evaluating quality of work life: conceptualization and empirical validation.” trends in applied sciences research, 10(3): 143-156. momčilović, o., et al. the impact of stress, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) 135 [2] dahl, s., nesheim, t., & olsen, k. “quality of work: concept and measurement.” ssrn electronic journal. [3] das, u., & panda, j. 2015. “a study on measuring the quality of work life among the power sector employees with special reference to orissa hydro power corporation limited, bhubaneswar, odisha, india.” international journal of advance research in computer science and management studies, 3(4), 28-29. retrieved from [4] galić, b. 2011. “žene i rad u suvremenom društvu – značaj “orodnjenog” rada.” sociologija i prostor. 49. 189 (1): 25. [5] gavric g., sormaz g., ilic dj. 2016. “the impact of organizatioanal culture on the ultimate performance of company.” internationa review, 34:25-31. belgrade: faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship, medimond, italy. [6] gayathiri, r., & ramakrishnan, l. 2013. “quality of work life linkage with job satisfaction and performace. “international journal of business and management invention, 2(1): 01-08. [7] greenan, n., kalugina, e., & walkowiak, e. 2013. “has the quality of working life improved in the eu-15 between 1995 and 2005?” industrial and corporate change, 23(2): 399-428. [8] indrani, g. g., & devi, d. 2011. “a literature review on quality of work life.” ijar, 4(8): 101-104. [9] kalleberg, a., reskin, b., & hudson, k. 2000. “bad jobs in america: standard and nonstandard employment relations and job quality in the united states.” american sociological review, 65(2): 256. [10] lanctôt, n., durand, m., & corbière, m. 2011. “the quality of work life of people with severe mental disorders working in social enterprises: a qualitative study.” qual life res, 21(8): 1415-1423. [11] martel, j., & dupuis, g. 2006. “quality of work life: theoretical and methodological problems, and presentation of a new model and measuring instrument.” soc indic res, 77(2): 333-368. [12] narehan, h., hairunnisa, m., norfadzillah, r., & freziamella, l. 2014. “the effect of quality of work life (qwl) programs on quality of life (qol) among employees at multinational companies in malaysia.” procedia social and behavioral sciences, 112: 24-34. [13] parsa, b., idris, k., samah, b., wahat, n., & parsa, p. 2014. “relationship between quality of work life and career advancement among iranian academics”. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 152: 108-111. [14] prljic s., vucekovic m., vujicic s. 2015. ”the importance of information and communication technologies in the development of women entrepreneurship.” journal of women,s entrepreneurship and education, 3-4/2015: 65-79. belgrade: institute of economic sciences. 136 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 114-136) [15] ravic n., nikitovic z. 2016. “entrepreneurial education as a new paradigm of the development of women entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia.” journal of women,s entrepreneurship and education, 3-4/2016: 102-116. belgrade: institute of economic sciences. [16] safina l., kolesnikova j., karasik e.,yurieva o., fakhrutdinova, a. 2015. “the higher education impact on the quality of young people working life.” procedia social and behavioral sciences, 191: 2412-2415. [17] wilkinson, g., & dale, b. 1999. “integrated management systems: an examination of the concept and theory”. the tqm magazine, 11(2). article history: received: 15 february, 2017 accepted: 12 may, 2017 13_jwe_1-2 udc: 005.961:005.914.3 ; 334.722-055.2 jel: b54, l26 id: 198557452 scientific review female entrepreneurship: theoretical approaches radović-marković mirjana1, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t due to different approaches to female entrepreneurship, the author suggested that this field of research is considered to be very broad. some of the theories outlined in this article can be linked to the study of this phenomenon, such as gender theories, managerial theories, public policy, etc. in line with this, the author proposed that all of these approaches should be as integrated as possible in order to provide a complete understanding of female entrepreneurship. key words: female entrepreneurship, gender, theories introduction in recent years, a record number of women have been breaking out of corporate life and embracing entrepreneurial careers as an alternative to inflexible work practices and outdated systems. despite, the lack of knowledge on female entrepreneurs is especially apparent. namely, many scientists are still focused on research dedicated to men as entrepreneurs. the reason for this can be found in the fact that there are fewer women 1 this paper is part of the research projects number 47009 (european integrations and social and economic changes in serbian economy on the way to the eu) and number 179015 (challenges and prospects of structural changes in serbia: strategic directions for economic development and harmonization with eu requirements), financed by the ministry of science and technological development of the republic of serbia 2 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 1-9) entrepreneurs compared to male entrepreneurs and that women do not progress in their careers at an equal rate to men. women who successfully join the modern social flows in the new way, were not fairly rewarded for their work, most times being paid less for their work than their male counterparts at the same job level (radović marković, 2009). the disparity between females and males regarding their entrepreneurial career interests and attitudes has provoked loads of study on the effect of gender on entrepreneurship (choitung, l., et al., 2012). drawing on insights from various entrepreneurship theories – our scientific review seeks to provide broad theoretical bases for further research in the field of female entrepreneurship. different approaches to female entrepreneurship entrepreneurship is an emerging research area among academics because it is acknowledged that fostering entrepreneurial activity is associated with greater economic growth (weeks & seiler, 2001). specifically, the interest to understand women’s entrepreneurial activity is due to the importance they are gaining in the entrepreneurial sector as well as evidence that women encounter difficulties in starting and operating a business that are different from those faced by men (neider, 1987). female entrepreneurship long went virtually ignored in the academic literature, however. even into the late 1980s and early 1990s, the literature reported studies of exclusively male entrepreneurs; did not distinguish study participants by gender; studied only small samples of professional women; or had other limitations that affected its utility for understanding women in entrepreneurship (loza, 2011). although women still face “glass ceiling” and somehow fail to achieve maximum potential, there are evidences to suggest that most countries have now realized the potential contributions women make to the nations’ economic growth. female entrepreneurship has brought in a new revolution as we witness women emerging as business owners in economic sectors they have not previously occupied (radovic-markovic, 2009). barriers to gender entrepreneurship can have an adverse impact on a country’s competitiveness, productivity, and growth potentials (bardasi et al., 2007). there are lot of studies examining the determinants of entrepreneurial activities, new firm formations in us (almus and nerlinger 1999; bartik radović-marković, m., female entrepreneurship, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-9) 3 1989; reynolds et al., 1995) and in many countries in the european union (luk, 1996), such as denmark (illeris, 1986), france (guesnier, 1994), west germany (audretsch and fritsch, 1994; egeln et al., 1997), greece (droucopoulos and thomadakis, 1993), italy (santarelli and piergiovanni, 1995), sweden (davidsson et al. 1994; davidsson and henrekson, 2002), and the uk (keeble and walker, 1994). these and other studies have provided valuable insights about entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial process. most of them however were based on the experience of small firm operating in a single and mostly developed country in north america and europe. in other words, the most of them are focused on the number, size and types of women-owned businesses that have been undergoing dramatic changes. for example, in the usa, between 1987 and 1997, the number of women – owned businesses rose by 89 % (radović marković, 2009). on a global level, women represent more than one third of all people involved in entrepreneurial activity (minniti et al., 2005). hence, women have played a significant role in the worldwide expansion of entrepreneurship (jalbert 2000; minniti et al., 2005). however, studies over the past decade show a persistent gap between men and women in the level of entrepreneurial activity (minniti, et al. 2005), in entrepreneurial orientation and propensity (mueller 2004; langowitz and minniti 2007), and in the motivation, desire, and intention to become an entrepreneur (minniti and nardone 2007). some authors and practitioners have generally assumed that entrepreneurship was the same all over the world. such notion has changed in recent years when studies started to reveal that entrepreneurship practiced in developing countries was distinctive from that in developed countries (cetindamar 2005). this was especially true for gender entrepreneurship where authors have noted that economic and social contexts play strong roles in determining the entrepreneurial inclinations and success of women (minniti et al., 2005). the initial research on women entrepreneurs was focused on understanding their background and the organizational characteristics of their enterprises (avolio and radovic-markovic, 2013). education has also been noted as one means to infuse women more concretely into the entrepreneurial experience (e.g., peterman & kennedy, 2003, wilson, kickul, & marlino, 2007). educational attainment, a recent study found that education plays different roles in countries at different stages of economic development (van der sluis et al., 2005). for example, 4 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 1-9) in a developed country like israel, the level of education was found to be one of the significant variables affecting the performance of female enterprises (lerner, et al., 1997).considering the importance of education for women as entrepreneurs, it has recently become evident that the new age is looking for new forms of education, such as creative education. creative education and training should help women to raise their creativity, logical thinking and entrepreneurial activity (radović-marković, 2012). namely, entrepreneurship emerges from an individual’s creative spirit into long-term business ownership, job creation, and economic security. women bring commitment and integrity because they care about economic empowerment, entrepreneurial development and innovation (jalbert, 2000). the special understanding of innovation within that framework, and the role that women play in creating and commercializing that innovation is necessary. in addition, women’s historically lesser degree of participation in the human capital-generating activity now or increasingly essential to innovation entrepreneurship, that being education in science, technology, mathematics, and engineering, likely obscures the need to study female entrepreneurship in this context. whatever the causes, the study and, ultimately, the improved engagement and success of women in innovation industries, including through entrepreneurship, are urgent needs in both domestic and international economic, legal, societal, and development contexts (loza, 2011). factors that influence the creation of new businesses are different between entrepreneurially-oriented women and men. in particular, this difference is obvious in terms of family and society support, financing sources and problems they are facing (radović-marković, 2006). several studies explain that female ownermanagers have more trouble getting access to capital (radović-marković, 2006, brush, 1992; collerette and aubry, 1990), probably because of lack of confidence shown by banks, suppliers and clients. in literature we can also note that women entrepreneurs see their businesses more realistically and they make attempts to develop them in family environments, while men gravitate more towards developing a business hierarchy with defined rules and working business procedures. although women, like men, in starting their own business are led by a desire to achieve business success, they are still show different motivation for getting into the business world. according to new approaches (avolio and radovic-markovic, 2013), the factors regarding the decision of the radović-marković, m., female entrepreneurship, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-9) 5 women to become entrepreneurs can be grouped into two categories: circumstances and motives, to differentiate those factors of extrinsic origin from those of intrinsic origin to the women entrepreneurs. previous literature has frequently explained women entrepreneurs’ motives for starting their enterprises through push and pull factors (buttner & moore, 1997) and the family environment (orhan & scott, 2001). there is rarely a sole circumstance or an only motive influencing a woman’s decision to choose the entrepreneurial activity; entrepreneurship results from a combination of several circumstances or motives, that is, the factors cannot be considered as mutually exclusive and the same person can be influenced by many circumstances and many motives at the same time (avolio and radovic-markovic, 2013). there are also some other important differences which distinguish women from men in this profession. the following are the most dominant (radović marković, 2009): 1. women start businesses in order to accomplish flexibility, independence and to free themselves from corporative boundaries. besides that, many women look for personal satisfaction through running a business independently and to create space for advancing in a career. also, one of the basic motivational factors which move women in starting their own business is in the creation of a safe future and the possibility of a choice of life style and work style. 2. women are often motivated to start their own business because of the dissatisfaction with their status in their jobs and because they feel that they advance much slower in their career than men and also that they can never achieve the position which belongs to them by their expert and other qualities. 3. more than half of women owners (53%) are guided by intuition when they start and run a business, while men (71%) are guided only by logic. 4. two thirds of women (60%) compared to male business owners, examine all possibilities before they make a decision and start some action. they also tend to gather information from their consultants and entrepreneurial associations more than men do. they tend to successfully weigh up every possibility and to balance different tasks and priorities. 6 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 1-9) a number of theories are based on a feminist analysis, which entails the recognition and analysis of women's structural subordination to men (calas and smircich, 1996). in recent years, marketing and financial approaches have also been added. conclusion in the present paper, we elaborated some main issues in the literature of female entrepreneurship. future studies should follow the changes in the roles and tasks of women as entrepreneurs as the main conductors of these activities, influenced by new flows of economic operation in the age of globalization (radović-marković, 2009). namely, the recognition of the capacity of women entrepreneurs in our global community is no longer a matter of debate, but is a realisation that female entrepreneurship is now forming one of the major factors contributing to the development of many countries. the defining feature of entrepreneurship in today’s global economy is the focus on change in women’s lives, particularly for political and economic empowerment that translates into access to financial resources, increased opportunity for education and training, power to affect decisions in their communities, and autonomy in personal life choices (radović-marković, 2009). we also share opinion with some authors who pointed out that in future research is needed to analyze gender differences in entrepreneurial intentions using more appropriate methodologies, including entrepreneurial samples and experimental designs based on simulations and laboratory experiments (sanchez, j., et al., 2012). references [1] almus m., nerlinger, ea. 1999. „growth of new technology based firms: which factor matter?“ small bus econ, 13(2): 141-154. [2] audretsch, db., fritsch, m. 1994. „the geography of firm births in germany.“ reg stud, 28(4): 359-365. [3] avolio, b., and mirjana radovic-markovic. 2013. women and entrepreneurship: female durability, persistence and intuition at work. london: ashgate ltd. [4] bardasi, e., blackden, m., guzman, c. 2007. gender, entrepreneurship, and competitiveness in africa. [5] bartik, tj. 1989. „small business start-ups in the united states: estimates of the effects of characteristics of state.“ south econ j, 55: 1004-1018. radović-marković, m., female entrepreneurship, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-9) 7 [6] brush, c.g. 1992. „research on women business owners: past trends, a new perspective and future directions.“ entrepreneurship theory and practice, 16(4): 5-30. [7] buttner, e., & moore, d. 1997. „women’s organizational exodus to entrepreneurship: self-reported motivations.“ journal of small business management, 35(1): 34-46. [8] calas, martha b., and smircich, linda. 1996. „from 'the woman's' point of view: feminist approaches to organization studies.“ in handbook of organization studies, ed. s. clegg, c. hardy, and w. nord, 2 18-257. london: sage. [9] choitung, l., et al. 2012. „comparing the entrepreneurial.“ journal of women`s entrepreneurship and education, 1-2: 28-51. [10] cetindamar, d. 2005. „policy issues for turkish entrepreneurs.“ int j entrepren innovat manag, 5(3,4): 187-205. [11] collerette, p. and aubry, p. (1990). socio-economic evolution of women business owners in quebec. journal of business ethics, 9(2): 417-422. [12] davidsson, p., henrekson m. 2002. „determinants of the prevalence of start-ups and high growth firms.“ small nus econ, 19(2): 81-104. [13] davidsson p, lindmark l, olofsson c. 1994. „new firm formation and regional development in sweden.“ reg stud, 38(4):395-410. [14] droucopoulos, v. thomadakis s. 1993. „the share of small medium-sized enterprise in greek manufacturing.“ small bus econ, 5(3):187-197. [15] egeln, j, licht, g, steil, f. 1997. „firm foundations and the role of financial constraints.“ small bus econ, 9(2): 137-150. [16] guesnier, b. 1994. „regional variations in new firm formation in france.“ reg stud, 28: 347-358. [17] illeris, s. 1986. “new firm creation in denmark:the importance of the cultural background”: in: firms and regional development in europe, ed. keeble, b., wever, e. croom helm, beckerham. [18] jalber, s. 2000. women entrepreneurs in the global economy. washington, dc: center for international private enterpris. [19] keeble, d., walker, s. 1994. „new firms, small firms and dead firms:spatial pattern and determinants in the united kingdom.“ reg stud, 28(4): 411-427. [20] kreide, r. 2003. „self employment of women and welfare-state policies.“ rev int sociol, 13(1): 205-218. [21] langowitz, ns., minniti, m. 2007. „the entrepreneurial propensity of women.“ entrep theory pract, 31(3): 341-364. [22] loza, e. 2011. „female entrepreneurship theory: a multidisciplinary review of resources.“ journal of women`s entrepreneurship and education, 1-2: 26-46. [23] luk, stk. 1996. „success in hong kong: factors self-reported by successful small business owners.“ j small bus manage, 34: 68-74. [24] minniti, m., allen, ie, langowitz, n. 2005. global entrepreneurship monitor report on women and entrepreneurship. babson college, the centre for women’s leadership, and london business school, london 8 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 1-9) [25] minniti. m., arenius. p. 2003. „women in entrepreneurship. the entrepreneurial advantage of nations.“ first annual global entrepreneurship symposium. [26] mueller. sl., thomas. as., jaeger, am. 2001. „national entrepreneurial potential: the role of culture, economic development, and political history.“ adv int manag 14: 221-257. [27] mueller, s.l. 2004. „gender gaps in potential for entrepreneurship across countries and cultures.“ journal of developmental entrepreneurship, 9(3): 199220. [28] neider, l. (1987). „a preliminary investigation of female entrepreneurs in florida.“ journal of small business management, 25(3): 22-28. [29] orhan, m, scott, d. 2001. “why women enter into entrepreneurship: an explanatory model.” women manage rev, 16(5/6): 232. [30] peterman, n.e., & kennedy, j. 2003. “enterprise education: influencing students’ perceptions of entrepreneurship.” entrepreneurship: theory and practice, 28: 129-144. [31] radović marković, m. 2012. impact of globalization on organizational culture, behaviour and gender role. iap, charlotte, nc, us. [32] radović marković, m. 2009. women entrepreneurs: new opportunities and challenges. delhi: indo-american books. [33] radović marković, m. (2006). women entrepreneurs and managers in serbia. retrieved march 27, 2009, from http://www.ien.bg.ac.yu/download/wp06-4.pdf [34] reynolds, pd., miller, b. 1989. „race, gender, and entrepreneurship: participation in new firm start-ups.“ presented at american sociological association annual meetings. [35] reynolds. pd., miller. b., wilbur. mr. 1995. „explaining regional variation in business births and deaths: u.s. 1976-88.“ small bus econ, 7: 389-407. [36] sanchez, j., et al. 2012. „gender differences.“ journal of women`s entrepreneurship and education, 1-2: 7-27. [37] santarelli. e, piergiovanni. r. 1995. „the determinants of firm start-up and entry in italian producer services.“ small bus econ, 7(3): 221-231. [38] weeks, j., & seiler, d. 2001. „women’s entrepreneurship in latin america: an exploration of current knowledge.“ retrieved on december 10, 2003 from interamerican development bank from web: http://www.iadb.org/publications/ [39] wilson, f., kickul, j., & marlino, d. 2007. “gender, entrepreneurial selfefficacy, and entrepreneurial career intentions: implications of entrepreneurship education.” entrepreneurship: theory and practice, 31: 387-406. radović-marković, m., female entrepreneurship, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-9) 9 žensko preduzetništvo: teorijski pristupi a p s t r a k t zbog različitih pristupa ženskom preduzetništvu, autor sugeriše da je ovo područje istraživanja veoma široko postavljeno. neke od teorija navedenih u ovom članku mogu biti povezane sa proučavanjem ovog fenomena sa različitih aspekata, kao što su rodne teorije, teorije menadžmenta, državne politike, itd. u skladu s tim, autor predlaže da svi od pomenutih pristupa treba da budu što je moguće više integrisani, kako bi se osiguralo potpuno razumevanje kompleksne problematike ženskog preduzetništva. ključne reči: žensko preduzetništvo, rodnost, teorije article history: received: 20 january, 2013 accepted: 25 april, 2013 12_jwe_3-4 udc: 005; 331.57(497.11) jel: b54; l26; j64 scientific review the development of female entrepreneurship in the function of overcoming unemployment of women in serbia vujičić slađana*, kvrgić goran, ivković dragan, vujadin radomir, visoka škola za poslovnu ekonomiju i preduzetništvo, beograd, srbija vujadin nataša, alfa banka, beograd, srbija a b s t r a c t entrepreneurship is the engine of economic development of each country. the above facts indicate that entrepreneurship should be given special attention and it should constantly be developed. as one of the possible directions of development of entrepreneurship in recent decades, the development of women entrepreneurship stands out. although in most countries of the world it is believed that women are less capable for entrepreneurship than men, and despite the fact that the majority of large enterprises are managed by men, a rise of women entrepreneurs in the world has been noticed, especially in developing countries. and in recent years in serbia the number of companies headed by women has increased, so it is now about 25%, which means that women control or manage every fourth company in serbia. as reasons for this increase we could cite the change of consciousness among women and that they can be just as successful in leading the company as men, but also the fact that starting their own business can supplement their income and improve themselves through selfemployment, increase their independence and be more respected in society. although women are forced to fight in today's world to be recognized not only as womenmothers but also as successful women-entrepreneurs, their determination, perseverance, willingness to take risks and all the problems which entrepreneurship brings, show that the time of women's entrepreneurship is yet to come. * mitropolita petra 8, 11000 beograd, e-mail: sladjana.vujicic@vspep.edu.rs journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 2 key words: female entrepreneurs, unemployment, female leaders, serbia introduction entrepreneurship is one of the main factors of economic growth and development. it helps create jobs, develop common social interests as well as personal potentials of entrepreneurs, and also it has an important role in the development of the competitiveness of each country. the largest number of states, which realized the importance of entrepreneurship for the development of national economy, accepted entrepreneurship as an important factor in the economic growth and development. the choice of entrepreneurship as a career is motivated not only by making money, but the motivation for the development of entrepreneurship stems from other factors such as the desire for security, independence, creativity, self-assertion, etc. it can be said that, by the development of entrepreneurship, significant and diverse uses are achieved, both in the economic and social sphere. it is notable that female entrepreneurship is expanding in all countries, and the increasing number of companies whose owners or managers are women have been reported in our country. every day female entrepreneurship becomes a source of new employment in serbia and it could be said that it also contributes to the balancing of the economic development of serbia. the development of female entrepreneurship women are more numerous in the total population, but in many other aspects of economic and political life are minority in the whole world. the first important scientific papers on female entrepreneurship occurred in 1976. the work “entrepreneurship: a new female frontier” was published in the american magazine “journal of contemporary business”, which drew attention to the upward trend of this type of entrepreneurship (vukmirović, 2005, p.4). the momentum of female entrepreneurship is especially present at the beginning of the 1990s. most of the newly created companies in the netherlands, denmark and germany are companies founded by women (cabrilo, s., hristić, d., savić-sikoparija, t., 2011, p.86). female entrepreneurship can be a solution for those women who want control over their career and want to oppose “the glass ceiling effect” vujičić, s., et al., the development of female, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 3 (dafoe, 2001). the fact that there are a lot of companies in the world headed by women tells us that the development of female entrepreneurship is a trend of the twentieth century. until recently female entrepreneurship in serbia has been given a little importance. improvement in the employment of women in serbia came together with socialism. since the 1970s , thanks to the expansion of education, the destruction of legal, customary and traditional norms that discriminated women in the sphere of education (where the ideology of equality had its role), there has been an extremely large increase in women's participation in education at all levels (milic,1994,p.40). education has fueled the social mobility of women upward and at the same time allowed the empowerment of women within the family revitalizing their "negotiating potential" (blagojević, 2002). under present conditions of the world economy, a woman sees more interest in her own entrepreneurial activity. starting and maintaining your own business is one of the strategies for the economic development of women oriented toward the entrepreneurship (nziku, 2012, p.73). the motivation for entering entrepreneurship what it is that motivates women to decide to enter the world of entrepreneurship is an issue that has a great presence in public. we can safely say that the motives are various and that they are determined by many factors, and we can indicate the need to provide means of existence, both for themselves and for their family as the main motive for starting a new business in serbia. also, the most frequently mentioned motives for women to establish their own business are: − desire to utilize the experience and knowledge gained in previous jobs in their own business; − desire for greater flexibility and control over their own time; − desire to make independent decisions about their own lives and careers; − inability to thrive at a previous job, and the lack of challenge at work; − recognize the opportunity for success at work; − opportunities for higher earnings as a measure of success in business; journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 4 − desire to use their potential skills and abilities, personal creativity and “talent” for entrepreneurship as much as possible; − "glass ceiling syndrome" women see opportunities for promotion, but there is a seemingly invisible barrier (glass ceiling) which stands between them and their goal. a common form of discrimination against women because their contribution is not recognized and not valued sufficiently; − desire to participate actively in social life and a sense of belonging and usefulness to society; − the pursuit of employment and providing an income for life; − desire to prove their own value to their partner, especially in countries where entrepreneurship is traditionally considered as a male activity (vukmirović, 2005, p.7) now an interesting question arises -why do some women enter entrepreneurship and not others? the answer to this question may lie within the fact that women are more cautious than men by their nature, tend to stability, quality, creativity, they are more energetic, more determined, more committed to work. the biggest obstacle for women to start an independent business may be reflected in their insecurity in themselves and their decisions, their concern how to harmonize business and family life, will everything go according to plan etc. most women due to traditional views about the role of men and women in society do not even try to fight for their place, because they simply have no faith and confidence in themselves. in a survey done by the union of employers of montenegro, under the project “the women's business potential of the montenegrin economy” which was done in 2011 on a sample of 70 subjects (35 men and 35 women), women cited too much stress and stereotypes toward women entrepreneurs, as well as the lack of finance as a barrier for entering the business. a poll conducted in march 2011 in serbia, on the portal www.poslovnažena.com, entitled “what is it that motivates business women at work most”, 925 (44.8%) of a total of 2067 respondents cited earnings and profit growth as a key factor which motivates them at work. vujičić, s., et al., the development of female, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 5 graph 1: what motivates you most at work? source: http://www.mc.rs/upload/documents/najave/2011/poslovna_zena_onlajn_istrazivanja.p df in order to determine what are the motives that lead women to enter the world of business and entrepreneurship on the territory of the municipality of kragujevac, a survey on a sample of 30 women owners of shops and businesses was conducted in april 2012, with the question what motives led them to enter the world of business. the survey results showed that 40% of the questioned women wanted to provide funds for the life of their family by entering the business. graph 2: motives which led women to enter the world of entrepreneurship source: research of the author journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 6 this is not surprising, because serbia is a country in which “releasing” a large workforce contingent occurred during the transition. processes that accompanied the transition (privatization and restructuring) have not equally affected all categories of staff. the consequences of the transition to a market economy have not had the same effect on women and men. the experience of countries in transition shows that women in most countries were affected by the negative consequences of structural adjustment and market effects to a greater extent than men: loss of a job and acquired rights and benefits from the previous period, increases in the cost of living, unemployment and poverty, reduction of wages, difficult access to health services, social care, education and resources (pejić, 2011, 9. 649). all of this has resulted in the fact that women were forced to look for new sources of revenue through opening their own businesses, and, according to the words of the women polled in kragujevac, they used every opportunity and chance to make some money and also improve the household budget,. in addition to providing funds for family, female respondents indicated that the motive is also the achievement of independence (25%), as well as demonstration of their own abilities (17%). the fact is that the motives are different and they depend on many factors such as the economic situation in the country, the regulations regarding entrepreneurship as well as social and cultural factors. female unemployment in the republic of serbia one of the most pressing problems that the global economy and society, as well as serbia, are facing for many years is the high rate of unemployment (radovanović, maksimović, 2010, p.59). women stand out as a particularly vulnerable group within the group of unemployed. according to the data from the labor force survey conducted by the statistical office for 2011 only 38.3% of women of working age (15-64) were employed, while the percentage of men of the same age was higher and amounted to 52.4%. the unemployment rate in 2011 amounted to 24.3% for women and 23.1 for men. if these data are compared with those from the labor force survey conducted in 2010, it can be noted that there was a decrease in the employment rate in 2011compared to 2010, because the rate for men in vujičić, s., et al., the development of female, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 7 2010 amounted to 54.4% and for women 39.9%. the unemployment rate increased so it was 21.2% for men and 19.0% for women. factors that can be extracted and that contributed to such a difficult situation on the labor market are the following: − employers prefer to employ men while women are seen as a labor force which does not guarantee stability in the business due to the fact that women are traditionally burden with family and household responsibilities. − the largest number of women have general secondary education, which means that they have not specialized in any particular field or trade. the demand for workers with general secondary education is lower or additional skills are sought (knowledge of computer skills, knowledge of at least one foreign language, etc.). − general opinion which prevails in countries in transition is that in terms of unemployment, men have more right to get a job than women (djurković vemić, 2012, p. 250). table 1: employment and unemployment rate according to the gender of the working-age population in serbia from 2004 to 2010. labour market indicators employment rate unemployment rate year female male female male 2004. 44.0 63.1 24.1 15.9 2005. 40.8 61.2 27.4 17.6 2006. 40.6 59.2 25.5 18.6 2007. 43.0 60.0 21.7 16.5 2008. 44.7 62.2 17.3 12.7 2009. 42.7 57.4 19.1 16.1 2010. 39.9 54.4 21.2 19.0 source: polls on working-age population 2004-2010, statistical office of the republic of serbia the economic crisis has also contributed to all of this and it had a major impact on the increase of unemployment in the republic of serbia. therefore, we will hereafter, on the bases of the data derived from the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 8 labor force survey (lfs), try to analyze the position of women in the labor market in relation to men, and then we will compare the results with those existing in the member states of the european union. graph 3: structure of employed working-age people according to their qualifications and gender, 2011. source: http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/website/repository/documents/00/00/61/71/sb_550_ars2011_s ajt.pdf the previous chart shows us that the percentage of working men and women with secondary school is the highest, while the smallest is of those with no school. as for the employees by the type of ownership, it is evident that registered private property dominates (52.3%), then it is followed by stateowned property (43%). the structure of people according to gender who are employed by the forms of the ownership is given in the following table: vujičić, s., et al., the development of female, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 9 table 2: structure of employees according to the property form, 2011 gender 15-64 total male female total private registered property 52.3 55.2 48.6 state property 43.0 38.9 48.2 other forms property 3.0 3.5 2.3 private non-registered property 1.7 2.3 1.0 source: http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/website/repository/documents/00/00/61/71/sb_550_ars2011_s ajt.pdf graph 4: structure of employees according to the property form, 2011. source: poll on working-age population 2011, statistical office of the republic of serbia age and education are important factors of involvement in the work force in the european union, where gender differences in activity rates decrease with higher levels of education, but increase with age. however, within the eu, the increase in female employment is noted, especially in the period from 2003 to 2008 when the female employment rate increased journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 10 from 55.0% to 59.1%. in 2011, the unemployment rate for women was 9.8% and 9.6% for men. table 3 presents the data on the unemployment rate in serbia and in selected european countries and it can be clearly seen that serbia belongs to the group of countries with very high unemployment. only fyr macedonia (31.7%) and spain (19.8%) have a higher unemployment rate than serbia. number of employees in serbia is constantly decreasing starting from 1989 (golubović n., 2011, p. 425). table 3: unemployment rates in serbia and in chosen european countries source: eurostat statistics in focus 8/2011 and the poll on working-age population, 2010. according to the latest available eurostat data, in march 2012 the unemployment rate for women was 10.3% and 10.2% for men. regarding vujičić, s., et al., the development of female, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 11 member states, the lowest employment rates are recorded in malta, greece and italy and highest in denmark and the netherlands (tanjević, opačić, 2012). all of this points to the fact that the european union has achieved good results in reducing unemployment among men and women. the development of female entrepreneurship in the function of overcoming unemployment of women in serbia during the social and economic transition in serbia, an increase in inequality between women and men in all spheres, especially in the world of work and employment, occurred. the concept of work is changing, the vaguely defined work contracts and atypical forms of employment are increasing, and women are hit by the negative effects of sudden changes in the labor market more than men (tanjević, opačić, 2012). although the first national employment strategy for the republic of serbia for the period from 2005 to 2010 was made and in which the direction and scope of activities needed to successfully solve the problems of unemployment and to create an efficient labor market were defined, desired results were not achieved. they were not achieved, primarily due to three sets of factors (radović marković, m. et al. 2010, p. 19): 1. process of transition and privatization; 2. labor legislation and labor market institutions and 3. income tax system. the data about the unemployment rate presented above only show the trend of the unemployment rate in serbia, both for men and women. the unemployment rate of 20% (sbs, 2010) put serbia among countries with the highest unemployment rate in europe, which is also one of its greatest social and economic problems. in this situation, the female entrepreneurship or starting independent business activities by women is one of the most important ways to solve unemployment and earnings through self-employment of women (djurković vemic, 2012, p.251). when it comes to an employment status, women are two times less self-employed than men and they work as contributing family members three times more often than men do. the position of women in the labor market is less favorable because they have less support than men in the sphere of public and private life. the research on female entrepreneurs in serbia has shown that among the youngest ones (19-30) there is more than a half of them who have at least one parent who is an entrepreneur journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 12 (51.5%), while that percentage was significantly lower in case of the oldest entrepreneurs (10.6%) (secons, 2012). this suggests that entrepreneurship is taught as a lifestyle (blagojevic houston, 2012). on the following graph it can be seen that the number of people employed by female entrepreneurs is bigger than the number of female entrepreneurs themselves, while in case of male entrepreneurs the situation is slightly different. these data should be seen in the light of the findings of some studies which show that women entrepreneurs are often associated with solving family problems, mostly dealing with unemployment of a husband and children (secons, 2012,). however, the motivation for entrepreneurship is different for women and men to some extent, which results in different effects on employment (blagojevichouston, 2012). graph 5: entrepreneurs according to gender and employment at entrepreneurs 2003-2010 (in thousands) source: blagojevic houston m. (2012) “women and men in serbia: what do numbers tell us?”, un women united nations agency for gender equality and empowerment of women in serbia, women own only 25% of companies and they are usually owners of smaller companies, which shows that the economic potential of women is slightly used. on the top of the ownership (management) hierarchy of every fifth company is a woman, mostly in smaller companies whose activities are health services and spa or recreation centres. in the region of belgrade every fourth company is headed by a woman, in vujičić, s., et al., the development of female, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 13 šumadija and western serbia every seventh company is led by a female entrepreneur (sme report for 2010, http://narr.gov.rs/index.php/dokumenta/istrazhivanja-i-analize). potential of female entrepreneurship is still not fully utilized so it should be further encouraged and directed. in order to create a favorable climate for the development of female entrepreneurship, it is necessary to take measures that are related only to its encouragement. when women decide to start their own business, they are faced with many difficulties and obstacles, and the biggest problem lies in the lack of understanding in society as well as in the lack of confidence. since the intellectual potential of women and their participation in european competitiveness are not fully used, the european commission emphasizes the promotion of female entrepreneurship and creating a business environment which extends preferential treatment to establishing and running businesses with a woman at the helm. with this aim, on the fifth of october 2009, the project under the title “european network of female entrepreneurship ambassadors” was launched. (http://narr.gov.rs/index.php/projekti/podrshka-preduzetnishtvu/evropska mrezha-ambasadorki-zhenskog-preduzetnishtva-wens). the basic idea of the project is to establish a network of successful business women that will serve as role models to the future female entrepreneurs across europe. at the beginning, the network consisted of 150 ambassadors from 10 european countries (denmark, france, germany, iceland, ireland, italy, norway, poland, slovakia and sweden), and then, at the end of 2010, 12 other countries joined, including serbia (http://narr.gov.rs/index.php/projekti/podrshka-preduzetnishtvu/evropskamrezha-ambasadorki-zhenskog-preduzetnishtva-wens). the research on self-employment of women in europe shows an increase in female entrepreneurship. however, according to a study of this aspect of gender equality that is reported in the literature, 25-30% of all people who have provided themselves with a job are women (lohman, 2001). many programs of the european union which induce and monitor women's entrepreneurship had a lot of influence on the increase of women's activity in starting a business and entrepreneurial activities. in this regard, alternative economy is often discussed, in other words the establishment of cooperatives, which would suit our model of alternative employment as a type of social enterprises. starting from the fact that journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 14 women are the biggest losers in the transition, cooperatives have been recognized as a model of economic empowerment of women, in other words as one of the potentials for alternative employment of women, particularly vulnerable social groups such as the long-term unemployed, unskilled and marginalized groups of women, and in line with the experience that exists in the eu countries (http://www.vps.ns.ac.rs/ materijal/mat4898.pdf). conclusion serbia is faced with high unemployment rate for years. to solve this problem it is essential that all relevant factors in the country focus on creating real economic and social conditions. one of the possibilities of reducing the unemployment is female entrepreneurship which is getting a very important role and is becoming an important potential for the economic development of a country. during the last decade, female entrepreneurship in serbia marks a significant shift, and there is an increasing participation of women in business. the problem that is the most relevant and which needs to be solved in order to develop this sector in the right way is a financial support to women who want to step into the world of entrepreneurship. furthermore, attention must be directed to improving the environment for female entrepreneurship development (introduction of tax exemptions, easier access to the sources of finance, support women through monitoring, advisory services). references [1] blagojevic houston m. (2012) “women and men in serbia: what do numbers tell us?”, un women united nations agency for gender equality and empowerment of women [2] cabrilo, s., hristić, d., savic-sikoparija, t. (2011) “exploring the characteristics of women leaders and a new style of leadership during the economic crisis”, business economics, edukons, sremska kamenica, v (2), vo1. ix., p. 83-103. [3] djurković vemić, j. (2012) ”the role and importance of female entrepreneurship in the development of a new private sector in serbia”, business economics, edukons, no.1, 239 to 257 [4] dafoe, s. (2001) the financial dilemma of women entrepreneurs. vujičić, s., et al., the development of female, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 15 [5] lohman, h. (2001) “self-employed or employee, full-time or part-time? gender differences in the determinants and conditions for self-employment in europe and the us”. http://www.mzes.uni.mannheim.de/publications/wp/wp38.pdg [6] nziku, m dina “tanzanian education and entrepreneurial influence among females” journal of female entrepreneurship and education (jwe), no. 12/2012: 52-73 [7] pejic, b. (2011)”characteristics of women in the labor market of serbia”, the proceedings “active measures on the labor market and employment issues”, the institute of economic science, belgrade [8] pilić, v. (1969): “characteristics and problems of female labor force in yugoslavia”, the institute of economic research, belgrade. [9] popović, d. (1998): women scientists in natural sciences: a free choice research. a report, belgrade, women studies center. [10] radovanovic, v., maksimovic, m. “the labor market and (un)employment in the european union and serbia-regional aspect”, geographical institute, jovan cvijic, sasa, the proceedings ... the book 60 № 2 [11] radović marković, m. et. al. (2010) “female employment in formal and informal sectors of the serbian economy“, journal of women’s entrepreneurship in education (jwe), no. 3-4, 2010:18-27 [12] the publication "women and men", the national bureau of statistics, 2011. [13] tanjević, n. opačić, a. (2012) “gender inequality in the labor market in serbia in the terms of transition and european integration incentives”, international conference, the police and human rights in the republic of serbia, tara, serbia. [14] vukmirovic, n. (2005) “models of supporting the development of female entrepreneurship”, industry, vol. 33, no. 4, p. 1-18 razvoj ženskog preduzetništva u funkciji prevazilaženja nezaposlenosti u srbiji a p s t r a k t preduzetništvo je motor ekonomskog razvoja svake zemlje. navedena činjenica ukazuje da se preduzetništvu mora posvetiti posebna pažnja i da ga stalno treba razvijati. kao jedan od mogućih pravaca razvoja preduzetništva poslednjih decenija izdvaja se razvoj ženskog preduzetništva. iako je u većini zemalja sveta prisutan stav da su žene manje sposobne za bavljenje preduzetništvom od muškaraca, i uprkos činjenici da i dalje u znatnoj meri velikim preduzećima upravljaju i rukovode muškarci, zabeležen je porast žena preduzetnica u svetu, posebno u zemljama u journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 1-16) 16 razvoju. i u srbiji se poslednjih godina beleži porast broja preduzeća na čijem su čelu žene, tako da on sada iznosi oko 25%, što znači da žene upravljaju ili rukovode svakim četvrtim preduzećem u srbiji. kao razloge za ovo povećanje može se navesti promena svesti kod žena-da i one mogu biti isto tako uspešne u vođenju preduzeća kao i muškarci, ali i u činjenicama da pokretanjem sopstvenog biznisa mogu dopuniti svoje prihode i napredovati kroz samozapošljavanje, povećati svoju samostalnost i biti poštovanije u društvu. iako su žene primorane da se u današnjem svetu bore da budu priznate ne samo kao žene-majke već i kao žene-uspešne preduzetnice, njihova odlučnost, upornost, spremnost na prihvatanje rizika i svih teškoća koje donosi bavljenje preduzetništvom pokazuje da vreme ženskog preduzetništva tek dolazi. ključne reči: žensko preduzetništvo, nezaposlenost, žene lideri, srbija article history: received: 2 june, 2012 revised: 28 september, 2012 accepted: 10 october, 2012 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.pp109-127 jel: a1, a13, b54, j16, l3 original scientific paper 6bfemale entrepreneurship in the creative economy dunja babović20 f1 faculty of dramatic arts, institute for theatre, film, radio, television, belgrade, serbia milica kočović de santo2 1f2 institute of economic sciences, department for economic history and theory, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t this paper aims to bring a deeper understanding of the crossings between the different types of entrepreneurship. we are especially focused on females by bringing the crossings with social and creative entrepreneurship to understand their common grounding beyond profit orientation. starting from the literature review, our goal is to offer conceptual similarities and differences between the three types of entrepreneurship. our central hypothesis is that all three types of entrepreneurship hold the same fundamental grounding reflected through their mission and vision – beyond profit orientation. the literature review will be crossed with empirical findings from cultural and creative industries on the example of fashion and design industry actors in the belgrade design district. such an approach will contribute to mapping and deeper understanding of existing female creative entrepreneurship, which is gender-sensitive, responsible, and share the mission and vision that goes beyond profit orientation. 1 e-mail: dunjalav@gmail.com 2 corresponding author, e-mail: milica.kocovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 110journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 109-127) we came to the empirical findings from our interviews and focus group discussion. the vast majority of examined samples of entrepreneurial organizations within the belgrade design district see themselves as responsible entrepreneurs. according to their daily, monthly and yearly practices, most of them fit under all three types of entrepreneurship – by contributing from the sphere of fashion and crafts (wider creative and cultural industries). on the example of belgrade's fashion and craft design sector, we can conclude that all three types of entrepreneurship overlap as socially responsible and sustainable entrepreneurship led by creativity, innovation and experimental work. keywords: female entrepreneurship, creative and cultural entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, social economy, economy for the commons introduction in the last two decades, with especially noticeable incensement, we witnessed the growing interest in the research and practice of academics, ngos and broader audiences in various forms of entrepreneurship – beyond profit orientation. the particular types of entrepreneurship now hold an essential role in addressing social challenges and issues. they cannot fit into the general entrepreneurship typology. still, they share a common grounding in contributing the social, then economic reproduction, by solving social issues, where the profit is a side effect rather than a goal per se. these forms of entrepreneurship allow us to capture their gentle differences and similarities. by addressing the social, environmental, systemic, identity, cultural, gender, class, power relations, etc., enterprises’ contribution to a fairer society is great. these issues directly or indirectly influence the sustainability paradigmin the permanent crisis context that explains the state of current global economic systems. we intend to provide the overall picture for at least three types of entrepreneurship – beyond profit orientation, based on the state of art review literature for each, to capture their gentle differences, similarities and overlapping fields. this approach assumes a methodological path from the particular to the general. more precisely, we will start with an independent systematic literature review for each type of selected form of entrepreneurship. the grounded theory will support this step, which assumes exploratory, inductive qualitative research. secondly, crossing the academic findings with practice, involving the policy framework, on the example of creative and cultural industries (cci) (precisely fashion and dunja babović, milica kočović de santo 111 craft design in serbia) will allow us to prove or disprove the hypothesis by answering the research questions and filling the knowledge gaps. we conclude that all three types of entrepreneurship contribute directly to transforming the entrepreneurial ecosystem by going beyond the profit orientation. in such terms, value creation addressing is essential to their mission to solve systemic issues while contributing as a control factor to the sustainability paradigm. in this paper, we aim to respond to the following queries: a) what are the main similarities and differences between the three types particular entrepreneurship? b) how do the main theoretical streams (for each of the three types) conceptualize and define cultural, female and social entrepreneurship? are these concepts strictly or more fluid by nature? c) what plays a role in conceptualizations? are there specific schools of thought; how to fill the academic gaps? d) how do the practitioners contribute to the economy for commons and sustainability as a paradigm? how do actors match themselves with types of entrepreneurship? exploring entrepreneurship concepts based on selected types: female, social and creative in this part of the paper, our idea is to explore previous relevant theoretical research to bring a more profound understanding regarding the different conceptualizations in entrepreneurship. each of those types female, social and creative, are seen as sub-frameworks of the "general" knowledge of entrepreneurship. the growing interest in literature and practice that often overlaps in practical terms also connects all three types. also, each kind of entrepreneurship's conceptualization is evolving more flexibly, than strictly. furthermore, there is no universal definition for any of the three types of entrepreneurship. instead, the theoretical schools of thought and variations of the research scopes allow us to perceive the sensitivities and complexities in knowledge analysis. the particular interest entrepreneurship types are interdisciplinary fields where the conclusions and understandings appear trans-disciplinary. the entrepreneurial ecosystem and capital conceptualizations go far beyond financial and economic analysis. in other words, these forms of entrepreneurship brought knowledge 112journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 109-127) decolonization and, at the same time, discourse integration that presupposes dealing with community, natural, cultural, human, social, and political capital(s) as equally important in analytical terms. as such the scope of entrepreneurship we deal with, bridges socio-humanistic scientific fields, including sociology, anthropology, political sciences, management, economics, finance, marketing and communications, cultural, environmental sciences, etc. female entrepreneurship – theory bases, streams and findings one of the most essential at the same time challenging contemporary issues is addressing social and environmental concerns as a growing trend in the academic world and practice. to underline planetary social, economic and ecological deviations such as inequality, poverty, care work, material and eco-footprint, and other global disadvantages are topical areas of social entrepreneurship. as such, different business proposals are seen as spaces for change. our position regards the topic of female entrepreneurship as it represents an extension of social entrepreneurship by involving different positionalities (especially gender) while addressing structural, systemic issues to contribute their unbalances through innovations towards the desirable social transformation. also, the variations from practice show that it may be economic or non-economic, for-profit or nonprofit, by contributing the social and environmental issues through altruistic, philanthropic and solidarity visions (portales, 2019). it is about achieving social change based on the recognized problem and associated actions taken to solve it expressed explicitly in the organizational mission to sustain and create social value (dees, 1998; portales, 2019). the goal of value creation is social impact, with solid inclusion of community and marginalized groups. valorization is measured by the achieved social impact or change, pushing further the limits to seek how to scale the model (barki et al., 2015). chahine (2023) defines social entrepreneurship as the process by which successful, ground-breaking, and long-lasting solutions are developed to address social and environmental concerns (chahine, 2023). beyond wealth creation in social entrepreneurship, female business owners frequently place emphasis on the non-economic aims of assisting others and adding value to the community and society (brush, 1992; levie & hart, 2011; sullivan & meek, 2012). in certain economic, political, and social circumstances, enterprise operations may reproduce the societal gender hierarchies that now exist (gawell & sudin, 2014; muntean & dunja babović, milica kočović de santo 113 ozkazanc-pan, 2015). the alteration of women's economic, social, psychological, political, and legal issues is a key component of empowerment. the economic empowerment of women is also a subject of social equity and human rights (pavlović et. al., 2022). theoretically, female entrepreneurship draws from a variety of fields. it refers to empirical findings from earlier studies in the fields of psychology, sociology, management theory, economics, and feminist theory (ahl, 2002). according to the research focus, some scholars noticed the general research streams in female entrepreneurship. one of the freshest elaborations (cardella et al., 2020) offered six cluster research streams (respecting the most cited) in addition to the following topics: barriers to women entrepreneurship (al-shami et al., 2017); the role of human and social capital in the growth of women enterprises (brush et al, 2017); culture and gender difference (stedham & wieland, 2017); family support and maternity management (jaafar et al., 2015); linking social entrepreneurship and women empowerment (berglund et al., 2018). applying feminist theoretic lenses is crucial to understanding and operating with dichotomies in entrepreneurship. this approach involves the conceptualizations and confrontations of archetypal female and male principles, seen as photogenic stereotypes to depict ever-existing gender antagonism. while the entrepreneur (even social) is described as heroic, ambitious, courageous, strong and enterprising masculine, at the same time, it tends to reconcile feminine principles by highlighting the concerns with exclusion, marginalization, suffering, care, unpaid work, empathy etc. (martin & osberg, 2007). this happens by questioning whether occupations are masculine, feminine, or gender neutral (loza de siles, 2011). there is a strong match in terms of feminist theoretical streams that deal with female entrepreneurship. ahl (2002) gave a framework based on research conducted at the beginning of the 2000s, by recognizing feminist theoretical streams starting from women in management, social feminism, liberal and social feminism, socialist/marxist feminism, and social constructionist approach (ahl, 2002), which are still relevant fundamental positions for the research phenomenon. by shifting the focus from entrepreneurship as positive economic activity to entrepreneurship as social transformation, authors working on a critical feminist theoretical exercise frequently broaden the purview of entrepreneurship theory and research (calás et al., 2009). more specifically, the conventional viewpoint defines entrepreneurship as a nexus of 114journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 109-127) opportunities, entrepreneurial individuals and teams, and manner of organization within the broader context of wider settings that promotes economic growth (busenitz et al., 2003). since equal access to economic activity is a matter of (missing) equality human rights, some feminist theoretical streams (liberal, psychoanalytic, and radical) believe that increased women's participation in economic activities will lead to social change (brush et al., 2004, carter & williams, 2003, greene et al., 1999, lykes & coquillon, 2007). finally, the socialist and postcolonial feminism perspectives start to form the goal – of social change where entrepreneurship is a set of activities and processes to meet the goal by involving the cultural context that structurally determines these processes (calás et al., 2009). the liberal feminist streams draw attention to the difficulties experienced by women by offering remedies aimed at lessening behaviors and prejudices that obstruct gender equality (offen, 1988; clark muntean & ozkazanc-pan, 2015). by concentrating on the structural configurations and cultural presumptions that serve to reproduce gender disparities, the socialist feminist theoretical position moves beyond individualism. the global/postcolonial feminist theories, on the other hand, focus on how neoliberal economic ideology and practices result in a gendered political economy and entrepreneur subject (clark muntean & ozkazanc-pan, 2015). feminist theories are seen as fundamental to analyzing and understanding female entrepreneurship, as a prerequisite to understanding the gentle differences and similarities with other entrepreneurial forms. feminist theoretical streams provide an understanding of complex traits that distinguish entrepreneurial work as ways in which it is placed within gendered processes that form and are shaped through linkages between occupation, organizational structure, and labor sex (mirchandani, 1999).we join many authors who believe it is impossible to deal with female or women's entrepreneurship without involving feminist theoretical frameworks, which are different but find the same denominator regarding the female position. the essential thesis of all feminist theories, which focus on social transformation and capture historically created disadvantaged women's positions, is that the gender question is important to how society is structured (calas & smircich, 2006; calás et al., 2009). feminist theories seek ways to deconstruct the structural, systemic conditions (based on inequalities) by recognizing female entrepreneurs as agents of social change, dunja babović, milica kočović de santo 115 which can produce and transform society in more sustainable, ethical and desirable ways. the female appears to be an expanded form of social entrepreneurship because of its narrower focus on gender biases and gendered economic structures as potential barriers to women participating in society and business on an equal footing with men (clark muntean & ozkazanc-pan, 2015). moreover, the same authors suggested that gender integrative conceptualization is important in redesigning entrepreneurial ecosystems, which will promote gender equality. mentioned conceptualization moves beyond simple awareness of gender injustices and inequities, but rather transforms institutions that provide essential entrepreneurial support by implicating shared caregiving labor and commitment, instead of being assigned to women (clark muntean & ozkazanc-pan, 2015). although the research field and phenomenon are multilayered and vibrant, future research shall bring a continual deeper analysis by capturing relations between work-life balance and women's entrepreneurship (zerwas, 2019) towards the other relevant correlations and causalities. they shall involve crossings with the quality of life, life satisfaction, life expectancy, material footprint, and eco-footprint to capture the distribution of inequalities in the dichotomist world discourse. it assumes to involve positionality, gender, culture, global north – global south, centreperiphery, developed-developing countries, exogenous-endogenous knowledge, etc., to bring a more profound understanding of the local vs. global context in more profound ways. in the developing world, there are great benefits to supporting female entrepreneurs. in order to advance on many crucial fronts, such as stimulating economic growth and household welfare, promoting uniqueness, and advancing the objective of women's empowerment globally, it is important to support women in starting and growing their businesses (moreno-gavara & jiménez-zarco, 2017). it remains a challenging task for women to start and maintain successful business operations, even in the creative industry. a mere third of small enterprises globally are owned and operated by women, according to a wealth of statistics. thus, according to theoretical and empirical evidence (moreno-gavara & jiménez-zarco, 2017), female entrepreneurs face trouble securing financing. financial institutions are inaccessible to 70% of small businesses with female owners in underdeveloped countries, making funding a considerable difficulty (santos et al., 2021). https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-29804-3#author-0-0 116journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 109-127) cultural and creative entrepreneurship theory bases, streams and findings research on the development of the creative industries over the past 25 years has primarily focused on quantifying the economic growth and exports of this sector, as well as the employment distribution, and has not considered gender viewpoints on the development of the creative sector (mikić, 2020). in modern literature, different terms can be found to denote the decade in which creativity takes as an economically relevant factor that affects the transformation of social and economic structures, such as the creative economy, the experience economy, the symbolic economy, the economy of added value, etc. familiar to all these neologisms is that they describe, from different aspects, new economic tendencies, the essence of which is a comprehensive transformation of the economy in which creative resources experience massive economic valorization and in which cultural and symbolic features increasingly influence economic creativity. numerous attempts have been made to define the scope of the creative economy and specify the areas it covers. nevertheless, it is evident that on the international professional and research scene, there is a consensus that a more significant part of the creative economy consists of creative industries understood in a broader or narrower sense. in the simplest terms, it can be defined as an economy based on creativity. this term denotes ways of using creativity, knowledge and skills to produce new values (symbolic, cultural, social, economic etc.), as well as institutional structures and processes through which creativity materializes value or achieves cultural strength or establishment of importance depending on the culture (mikić, 2015). creative economy, apart from the creative sector, includes every other activity and activity in which existence, skills and solutions are used in a new way and where there is a high degree of aestheticization and commercialization of production (hartley, 2007). creative entrepreneurship describes entrepreneurial activity in the creative industry and refers to investing in the talent of the entrepreneur or others. there is a broad consensus that creativity involves novelty, efficacy, and value (colin, 2017). the new economic trend is shifting away from knowledge-based activities, toward more creative and innovative entrepreneurship (santos et al., 2021). someone that establishes a business model in the creative industry, one of the fastest-growing industries, is dunja babović, milica kočović de santo 117 referred to as a creative entrepreneur. accordingly, creative entrepreneurship is the practice of starting a business in a creative industry, such as art, architecture, literature, performing arts, music, film, or software. it can also include gaming, urban regeneration, art and design, photography, industrial innovation and artificial intelligence, mass media (paper, audio, or video), fashion and design, traditional crafts, monuments, cultural tourism and more (santos et al., 2021). additionally, creative entrepreneurship: (1) entails as an activity that explores intellectual property, talent, and individual creativity; (2) is an activity that connects intellectual property to the economic sector as the entrepreneur utilizes his talent; (3) results in products that have significant expressive value, which can be considered as social, aesthetic, spiritual, historical, symbolic, and authenticity value (santos et al., 2021). managing the company on both the financial and artistic levels is the most challenging problem a creative entrepreneur could encounter (morenogavara & jiménez-zarco, 2017). entrepreneurial and creative or cultural talents are connected through creative entrepreneurship. the fact that there is an unpredictably high demand, an infinite diversity, and difficulty identifying the abilities necessary to make the items is another fundamental problem with the cultural industries (santos et al., 2021). with a percentage of gdp ranging from 3.4% to 7.1%, the creative industries form a significant part of the serbian economy. they are expanding more rapidly than the rest of the economy. more than 125,000 people are employed by the sectors over 30,000 registered enterprises, about 53.8% of them are between the ages of 20 and 45, have a bachelor's degree, and between 40 and 45 percent of them are women (kovačević, 2021).it is evident that creative industries, like any other economic sector, create gross added value, generate employment, improve the balance of payments, and contribute to the growth of export revenues (rikalović, 2013). the increased interest in the development cci sector and the creation of public policy measures appeared because of the vital role that this sector plays as one of the most important agents of socialization, the transmission of cultural ethos, symbolic messages, construction of value patterns, protection and improvement of cultural expressions, etc. (mikić, 2016). 118journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 109-127) empirical findings on female entrepreneurship in the creative sector belgrade design district case study analysis we conducted an empirical analysis from the 20th of january to the 1st of march. the first round involved a semi-structural survey on the snowball sample, which included 33 belgrade design district actors, to deepen the understanding of the current fashion and crafts cluster. from the first round, we got fully responded surveys from 22 people. our survey structure included three parts: 1) demographical data, 2) quality and type of work, values and satisfaction, and 3) types of entrepreneurships. in the second round, we conducted a focus group with 11 actors. the goal was to bring more firm conclusions regarding their motivations, attitudes, entrepreneurship types, contributions to the broader local community, and audience-based questions for the discussions and values they addressed, but also to understand some specific attitudes from the sector about the sector. in our sample, 100% were female, where 64% belonged to the age group between 35-49 years old, while 36% were between 18-34 years old, as shown in figure 1. figure 1: age distribution source: author's empirical research contribution regarding the highest level of professional education, 85.3% of them are holders of m.a. degrees and graduated (4 years of study), 6.3%while the others equally contribute to the bachelor and high school degrees, as shown in figure 2. 64% 36% 18-34 35-49 dunja babović, milica kočović de santo 119 figure 2: education distribution source: author's empirical research contribution they were asked to indicate their sector; 85% work in the private sector, while others are equally distributed in the public and civil sectors, as shown in figure 3. most of those who chose the public sector explained that their primary job is in the public sector, while they do creative fashion and crafts as a hobby. figure 3: sector of work source: author's empirical research contributions the second group of questions showed us their attitudes regarding the quality and type of work, values and satisfaction. furthermore, by explaining their work status, 47.6% answered that they are employed (regardless of the type of contract), 38.1% were self85.3% 6.3% 4.2% 4.2% master graduated bachelor highschool 85% 7.5% 7.5% private public civil/ngo 120journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 109-127) employed, while the other 14.3% declared themselves unemployed, as shown in figure 4. the self-employed category hires seasonally (less than three people). figure 4: type of employment source: author's empirical research contributions the second group of questions was related to the quality and type of the work, values and satisfaction. above 90% of respondents answered to work in flexible working patterns, as shown in figure 5. more precisely, when we asked them to discuss and explain what is meant by flexible work patterns, they explained: "i can freely decide on the duration and place of work" (…) "free working time means a lot to me because i can dedicate myself to work, family, hobbies etc." (…)" adjusting my working time and private obligations is essential because i live alone with two children" (…) "i have the freedom to set the work assignments and deadlines for myself" (…) "i set my own rules, by taking frequent breaks – i am more productive and effective" (…) "the freedom to arrange my work to coordinate my rhythm of life and family obligations" (…) "i like that i can "break my own" schedule in the period of life and job i do" (…) "it fits my other primary job, collaborations, costumer assistance and monitoring". 47.6% 14.3% 38.1% employed self-employed unemployed dunja babović, milica kočović de santo 121 figure 5: are you working in flexible working patterns? source: author's empirical research contributions we can conclude that flexible work patterns meant the freedom to balance work and private time, as fundamentally important for those entrepreneurs. furthermore, 80% of them answered that the best suitable workplace is their atelier/workshop, while 25% also added the gallery as a second choice. only 20% answered that the best workplace is their home. moreover, when asked about average daily working hours, 57.4% responded that they usually work more than six and less than 8 hours per day, while 33.3% said they generally work more than 8 hours, while 9.3% work less than 6 hours per day. regarding the satisfaction of earned income from entrepreneurship activity, 71.4% said they were neutral. in comparison, 25.6% were satisfied with the income from their entrepreneurship activity, as shown in figure 6. when asked to explain what their earnings provide, about 50% of them in the focus group discussion agreed that the earnings cover the cost of living, while slightly less than 25% said that earnings ensure a dignified life. other answers regarding the earnings that appeared from the entrepreneurship activities depend on life dynamics: "it is necessary for household (of 4 members) to have at least two working members who earn 1000e net per capita, to meet the decent life in belgrade" (…) "depending from month to month, i work in school, and here, my husband also participate, we are five family members" (…) "my income covers only working costs, after purchasing materials and paying bills, what i left is usually 0, but i have primary earnings from programming" (…) "i still do not manage to cover my living expenses". 90.5% 9.5% yes no 122journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 109-127) figure 6: satisfaction with earned money from entrepreneurship activity source: author's empirical research contributions other questions involved issues regarding discrimination, where 90% of them have never felt discriminated against based on gender. however, more than 70% believe workplace discrimination is usually related to gender, identity, values, class, race, and ethnicity. still, they agreed that job discrimination in creative work is not a common phenomenon. moreover, gender equality is present in their field of work, or even "female domination, that appears due to the nature of fashion and craft industry". around 90% see their field of work as first place cooperation, secondly healthy competition and joint work, while less than 10% see it as unhealthy competition. the way they see to contribute a better world is reflected in more than 80% of answers, as they pointed out the topics by which they "call the change": creative and traditional knowledge and crafts keepers; circular work, recycling, environmentally friendly products; pointing out on the importance of domestic and high-quality production; showing that female artists can live from their (job) creation. most of them agree that their work creates cultural values and leads to cultural changes.” by motivating people to recognize the quality, craftwork and uniqueness of the products that capture artistic values" (…) " the quality and originality of my products allow people to see a difference in comparison to a big mass production brand" (…) "it motivates people further creative and cultural practical action". finally, more than 50% agreed that their entrepreneurship primarily contributes positively (by creating values and benefits) to 1) cultural issues (11 of 22); then 2) social issues (10 of 22). they also agreed that it positively contributes to the environmental sphere (8 of 22), seeing minor contributions to economic problems (11). 25,58% 71,42% 0% very satisfied neutral (not satisfied, not unsatisfied) very unsatisfied dunja babović, milica kočović de santo 123 they are all familiar with social, female and creative and cultural entrepreneurship. multiple answers were possible when we gave them a few definitions to connect them with their practice. the results showed that more than 70% crossed their everyday work with female entrepreneurship definitions, around 65% crossed their day-to-day work with cultural and creative entrepreneurship, and less than 40 % found some matching with social entrepreneurship definitions. more precisely, they were asked to tick the most, the middle and the least entrepreneurship to match with one they are engaged mostly by doing their business (among offered were: traditional entrepreneurship and business, social, female and creative with multiple two answers). the semistructural answers were positively correlated with focus group discussion answers. eleven said that their work refers mainly to creative entrepreneurship, and immediately after, ten saw they contributed second place to female entrepreneurship. nine see their average contribution to social entrepreneurship, while three see the average contribution to female entrepreneurship. finally, nine answered that their work has the least common with traditional business entrepreneurship. during the focus group discussion, all of them agreed that they are practicing creativity while addressing at the same time social, gender and environmental issues. eventually, if they had to choose only one, focus group discussion shows the solid unanimous consensus is that they are/ feel themselves as creative entrepreneurs. conclusion following our research questions, we can conclude that all three types of entrepreneurship female, social and creative hold the same denominator: they go far beyond profit orientation. the scope of social entrepreneurship integrates different forms of concepts, definitions and capitals (cultural, social, human, natural, political capital etc.). what appeals to cultural capital can also be applied to social and natural capital, respecting their common nature. moreover, in the constitution of new knowledge non for profit entrepreneurship, the quest for evidence should be traced among the scientific proof that relies on the ability of local communities, to be more closely connected with the specific context of local culture and nature. 124journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 109-127) we think that all the marginalized and "silent voices" shall be heard in addressing contemporary and systemic structural issues. the solid contribution of the previous is given through the feminist theories, which went beyond the statistical quantification of existing female leadership roles towards the critical structural analysis. our findings, based on empirical analysis, and results based on answers, show that there is a positive relation between theoretical frameworks and practice. also, we conclude that actors in female and creative entrepreneurship in serbia hold the understanding between gentle differences in terms of non-for-profit entrepreneurship. vast of most of them share an interest in contributing to the economy for commons in the future. we conducted the research analysis through the lenses of creative work: 1) most of the actors from the fashion and craft domain of cci in belgrade are female (according to our research, 100% of them are female). 2) the flexibility of work to achieve the work-life balance is very important. 3) more than half agreed that their business contribution is led by creativity but also contributes to self-employment, critical social topics and local development. 4) they all see themselves as female creative entrepreneurs, but also as actors who address the topical social and environmental issues by calling on behavioral anti-consumerist change. 5) their values correlate positively with all types of non-for-profit entrepreneurship (solidarity, sharing, commons, joint creation, equality, freedom). they contribute to a healthy working atmosphere, empathy, care, fair trade, and mutual satisfaction through their work. 6) most agree that their work creates cultural values, leading to cultural and social changes. all three mentioned types of entrepreneurship hold the most an essential grounding by going far beyond profit orientation. each of the types holds a specific character, with a narrower focus on specific problems they deal with. dunja babović, milica kočović de santo 125 references [1] ahl, h. 2002. 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"work-life balance and women's entrepreneurship, an exploration of influencing factors", 1-235, springer nature switzerland ag, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29804-3 article history: received: march 6th, 2023 accepted: june 20th, 2023  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41822-9_5 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41822-9_5 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91265-3 https://doi:%2010.28934/jwee22.34.pp149-175%20 https://doi:%2010.28934/jwee22.34.pp149-175%20 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13456-3 https://www.culturalmanagement.ac.rs/uploads/address_book_file_3/ca8224b5a75921395debf2f4721a4c62c154caa2.pdf https://www.culturalmanagement.ac.rs/uploads/address_book_file_3/ca8224b5a75921395debf2f4721a4c62c154caa2.pdf https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1355-2554 https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1355-2554 https://doi.org/10.1108/ijebr-03-2016-0095 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29804-3 untitled-1 udc: 331.526 jel: j4 original scientific research paper homogeneity of the european union from the point of view of labour market homogenost evropske unije sa aspekta tržišta rada siničáková marianna*, technical university of košice, faculty of economics, slovak republic a b s t r a c t the paper deals with the idea of the european union labour market homogeneity from the perspective of employment, unemployment, earnings and gender pay gap. due to integration procedures within europe, important mutual trade, capital and labour force mobility; it can be expected that labour market phenomena are gradually transmitted from western european countries to new member states. the paper proves a certain rate of labour market mimicking within europe. tendencies in unemployment, employment and earnings are at least partially transmitted to new member states as for female, male and total indicators. however, gender pay gap phenomenon is not transmitted in the same way. we can rather observe a certain clustering in gender pay gaps in european regions. the paper was elaborated within the project vega 1/0973/11. kew words: labour market transmission, the european union, gender pay gap, employment, unemployment * němcovej 32, 040 01 košice, slovak republic, e-mail: marianna.sinicakova@tuke.sk journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 17-28) 18 introduction is the european union (eu) homogeneous as for labour market? are the shocks in the eu labour market asymmetric? in addition to comparatively progressive integration in the monetary field, high mobility of goods, services and capital, free labour market should be another driving force of the eu. however, labour mobility is still limited within the eu, despite the fact that germany and austria have already opened their labour markets, too. in may 2011, they opened their markets to new eu member states as the last old eu member states (eu 15). at present, german trade (the irish times, 2.5.2011). they are afraid that new inflow of labour force will lead to wage dumping especially in the temporary work sector. great britain, ireland and sweden opened their markets already in may 2004 when new member states (nms) joined the block. labour markets in other countries were opening gradually. germany and austria were the only states profiting from the whole 7-year transitory period. since 2004, malta and cyprus were not limited by any restrictions. labour migration from nms (especially poland, lithuania, slovakia, latvia, estonia, slovenia, hungary and czech republic) to eu 15 was at the level of 900 000 people in 2003 and it increased to 1,9 mil. in 2009, it is estimated that eu gdp was increased by 0,11% between 2004-2007 due to labour migration (the european parliament, 4.5.2011). another rise is expected up to 0,2%. the most of migrants come from poland and lithuania, while the least of migrants are from hungary and the czech republic. 2,3 mil. of nms workers leave in the eu 15, while 19 mil. foreign workers are from the third countries. it is supposed, that number of nms workers will be 3,3 mil. and 3,9 mil. in 2015 respectively 2020 (the european parliament, 4.5.2011). several eu 15 countries have still closed markets for romania and bulgaria that joined the eu in 2007. they will have to wait for opening probably next two years. 10 countries will have to open their labour markets up to 2013. according the european commission (the irish times, 2.5.2011)., eu 15 suffers from lack of qualified labour force. opening of markets can help them to overcome this inconvenience. it is estimated that german active part of population will be reduced by 6,5 mil. (the irish times, 2.5.2011). it is possible to solve the problem through higher labour mobility. sin áková, m., homogeneity of the eu, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 17-28) 19 nms have advantages but also disadvantages from labour mobility. labour mobility helps nms to solve their problems with higher unemployment. employees working abroad come back home usually with better professional and language skills. their working approach is more positive than before. on the other hand, nms suffer from lack of qualified employees in certain sectors as they prefer to work in the eu 15 where they are well paid. gang, rivera-batiz and yun brought in 2002 their study on association between the presence of immigrants and unemployment among native-born workers in the european union. they wanted to verify a mmigrants steal jobs from the native-born unemployment and immigrants to a country. consequently, european countries should not afraid of immigration from the point of view of working possibilities. in addition, sufficient labour market mobility is one of the fundamental conditions of an optimum currency area according to robert mundell (1961). labour mobility enables to renew equilibrium at markets in a monetary union. if the eu aims to continue in integration process within the euro area with nms, sufficient labour mobility should be one of its priorities. if labour mobility is weak or missing, a single currency is not an optimum solution for the area. labour mobility contributes to the homogeneity of the euro area that is still quite low and it brakes evolution of the monetary union. the eu enlargement has its consequences for central and eastern european labour markets as it is analysed in paper by michael burda (1998). similar research was elaborated by zuzana maliková (2010) with the focus on relationship between european integration and position of women in business enterprise sector. however, this contribution supposes that there is a significant transmission of tendencies at the eu 15 labour markets and nms labour market. ira gang, robert stuart and myeong-su yun (2006) analysed transmission in labour market between eastern and western germany. data and hypotheses this paper analyses to witch extent evolution in the eu 15 and nms labour markets is similar or not. the hypothesis is that with continuing journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 17-28) 20 integration within the eu and even within the euro area, the labour market convergence of nms should be obvious towards the eu 15. we have analysed data from the eurostat since 1998 (respectively since 2002 in some cases) up to 2010. the first hypothesis is that there is correlation between evolution of employment in the eu 15 and nms. this correlation will be tested separately for female, male and total employment. the second hypothesis is that there is correlation between evolution of unemployment in the eu 15 and nms. this correlation will be verified separately for female, male and total unemployment, too. the third hypothesis is that the gender pay gap in nms is approaching to the gender pay gap in the eu 15. the fourth hypothesis complementing previous hypothesis is that evolution in the eu 15 influences evolution in nms and not vice versa. generally, it is supposed that there is a certain employment, unemployment and gender gap transmission between the eu 15 and the nms. in other words, we expect that labour markets in the nms will imitate labour market evolution in the eu 15. this should be confirmed particularly in long term. employment transmission analysis according to the first hypothesis, it is supposed that there is an association between employment evolution in the eu 15 and nms. more precisely, we expect that the eu 15 has impact on nms in this case and not vice versa. results of correlation analysis are presented in table 1. from the table 1, it is obvious that correlation between employment in the eu 15 and the nms is statistically important in most of countries. rather negative correlation was calculated only in case of romania. average correlation was very important in case of female, male and total employment. sin áková, m., homogeneity of the eu, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 17-28) 21 table 1: correlation analysis of employment country correlation coeff. with the eu 15 (total) correlation coeff. with the eu 15 (female) correlation coeff. with the eu 15 (male) bulgaria (bg) 0,9357 0,9133 0,9069 cyprus (cy) 0,8870 0,9589 0,5930 czech republic (cz) 0, 7288 0,7326 0,7469 estonia (ee) 0,7084 0,7982 0,7076 hungary (hu) 0,2386 0,4551 0,2690 latvia (lv) 0,5086 0,5833 0,6366 lithuania (lt) 0,4593 0,6726 0,5563 malta (mt) 0,8198 0,8587 0,5686 poland (pl) 0,7622 0,7717 0,6703 romania (ro) -0,5982 -0,6857 -0,4192 slovakia (sk) 0,8470 0,8885 0,8150 slovenia (si) 0,9331 0,8952 0,9221 new mem. states 0,8525 0,9036 0,8899 these relationships in average are depicted also in figures 1 3: figure 1: total employment correlation between average value in new member states (nms) and the european union 15 (2002q2 2010q4), in thousands of people n.b.: left axis for the eu 15 values, right axis for new member states journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 17-28) 22 figure 2: male employment correlation between average value in new member states (nms) and the european union 15 (2002q1 2010q4), in thousands of people n.b.: left axis for the eu 15 values, right axis for new member states we can observe that volatility of employment is higher in all three cases (total, male and female employment) in new member states in comparing with the european union 15. tendencies of average male employment in nms are almost identical with the eu 15. more important differences start since the end 2008 and during 2009. these differences are linked to financial and economic crisis that stroke older member states earlier than central and eastern europe. female average employment in nms was during whole observed period more volatile in comparison to the eu 15. this phenomenon is caused by lower female job security in nms linked to their more complicated come backs at the labour markets after their maternity leaves. advanced legislation according to european standards could gradually reduce this volatility. in all new member states evolution of employment is more or less correlated with employment in old the eu member states. however, romania is exception, its correlation coefficient is -0,5982. opposite tendencies in labour market are obvious from figure 3. since 2002, stagnation can be observed while in other countries employment trend line is rising in long run as it is in the eu 15. sin áková, m., homogeneity of the eu, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 17-28) 23 figure 3: total employment correlation between romania and the european union 15 (2002q1 2010q4), in thousands of people n.b.: left axis for the eu 15 values, right axis for romania to test the causality of this relationship or the direction of employment transmission, granger causality test was applied. chi-square test explains the statistical significance (see table 2). employment in the eu 15 does not depend significantly on employment in new eu member states. however, opposite relationship was confirmed by granger causality test in case of the czech republic, hungary, malta, slovakia and slovenia. the first hypothesis is confirmed almost in all countries, except romania. its fourth complementary hypothesis is confirmed only in five countries. table 2: granger causality chi square statistics independent variable dependent variable cz hu mt sk si eu 15 czech rep. 2.927 2.155 0.182 1.479 1.807 hungary 0.015 1.061 0.491 3.903* 1.774 malta 2.899 8.458 2.215 0.888 0.952 slovakia 2.217 2.749 3.795 6.826* 2.478 slovenia 3.311 7.226 1.281 1.659 1.836 eu 15 9.581*** 6.965*** 3.207* 6.499*** 6.164*** journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 17-28) 24 unemployment transmission analysis according to the second hypothesis, it is supposed that there is an association between unemployment evolution in the eu 15 and nms. more precisely, we expect that the eu 15 has impact on nms and not vice versa. however, unemployment correlation and transmission was not confirmed in most of countries. correlation was statistically important only in case of cyprus, latvia, lithuania, hungary and slovenia with correlation coefficient from 0,621 up to 0,872. the results were similar for female, male and total unemployment measured either in percent or in thousands of people. granger causality is represented in table 3. unemployment in cyprus, lithuania, hungary and slovenia is dependent on unemployment in the eu 15. the second and its complementary fourth hypotheses are partially confirmed for chosen countries. table 3: granger causality chi square statistics independent variable dependent variable cy lv lt hu si eu 15 cyprus 0.985 1.244 1.963 1.178 1.113 latvia 1.505 2.033* 4.038 1,059 1.098 lithuania 3.009 5.128 2.879 2.816 1.352 hungary 1.298 2.339 1.542 2.631* 3.171 slovenia 2.587 3.651 5.812 1.094 1.446 eu 15 5.341*** 2.965 3.512** 7.487*** 2.004*** gender pay gap and earnings transmission analysis according to the third hypothesis, we suppose that the gender pay gap in nms is approaching to the gender pay gap in the eu 15. nevertheless, sufficiently long time series are not available to realise correlation analysis and/or granger causality tests. gender pay gap data sin áková, m., homogeneity of the eu, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 17-28) 25 are available for some countries in the european union only since 2004 or they are missing. however, we can do at least partial correlation among earnings evolution in certain nms and certain old eu 15 members according to their availability. table 4 presents very strong correlation among earning evolution as for total, female and male observations as well as in the case of net earnings. complete data were available only for belgium, finland, france, netherlands and the united kingdom, representing old member states and for bulgaria, cyprus, the czech republic, hungary, latvia, romania and slovakia, representing new member states. nevertheless, smaller correlation exists in net earnings because of impact of large tax system diversity in europe. table 4: correlation analysis of earnings evolution country correlation coeff. with the eu 15 (total)* correlation coeff. with the eu 15 (female) correlation coeff. with the eu 15 (male) bulgaria (bg) 0,9671 (0,8898) 0,9666 0,9691 cyprus (cy) 0,9834 (0,8816) 0,9883 0,9830 czech republic (cz) 0,9815 (0,9103) 0,9673 0,9887 hungary (hu) 0,9769 (0,8816) 0,9824 0,9603 latvia (lv) 0,9784 (0,8965) 0,9602 0,9851 romania (ro) 0,9976 (0,8786) 0,9958 0,9988 slovakia (sk) 0,9453 (0,9525) 0,9367 0,9507 new member states 0,9757 (0,9122) 0,9711 0,9889 n.b.: * net earnings correlation coefficient is in brackets the third hypothesis that the gender pay gap in nms is approaching to the gender pay gap in the eu 15 was not proved. we could expect that statistically more important gender pay gaps are especially in new member states with gradually reducing tendency. this expectation was proved, neither. high gender pay gaps can be equally found among old member states as among nms. gender pay gaps are influenced by long term situation in labour markets, specificities of labour force, traditions and some other subjective aspects in a country. we can observe an obvious clustering among countries maintaining similar level of gender pay gap. e.g. the highest gaps are traditionally in central europe, i.e. the czech journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 17-28) 26 republic, austria, germany and slovakia as well as in greece and cyprus (up to 26%). the lowest gaps are typical for the triangle of neighbouring countries; italy, slovenia and malta (3,2-6,9%). scandinavian countries (norway, finland and denmark) maintain approximately the same gender pay gap. poland, lithuania and latvia as well as france, spain and portugal have they gender pay gaps from 10 up to 16%. situation is depicted in fig. 4. figure 4: gender pay gaps in the european union, 2009 5 10 15 20 25 sin áková, m., homogeneity of the eu, jwe (2011, no.3-4, 17-28) 27 conclusion despite numerous differences and specificities in european countries labour market, we can confirm a certain transmission process among chosen phenomena. if employment is increasing in western european countries, it is gradually increasing also in central and eastern european countries. in long term, mimicking of nms towards eu15 is even stronger. however, gender pay gap evolution is rather regional phenomenon. homogeneity of the eu labour markets should contribute to more successful integration process and higher or more adequate labour mobility. sufficient labour mobility can increase sustainability of the european union and the euro area and not only from the point of view of optimum currency area. references [1] burda, mic center for economic policy research. [2] european parliament 8 novým krajinám. 4.5.2011. available at: http://bratislava.adagio4.eu/view/sk/press-release/news/news-2011/news-2011may/news-2011-may7.html;jsessionid=39a1abcf58b1786a489caea09c055d92 [3] eurostat, 2011. employment (main characteristics and rates) annual averages. available at: http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=lfsi_emp_a&lang=en [4] eurostat, 2011. unemployment rate, annual average, by sex and age groups. available at: http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=une_rt_a&lang=en [5] eurostat, 2011. gender pay gap in unadjusted form in % nace rev. 2. available at: http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=earn_gr_gpgr2&lang=e n [6] gang, ira; rivera-batiz, francisco and yun, myeongstrain, ethnic concentration and attitudes towards foreigners in the european rutgers university department of economics working papers.14: 1-39 [7] gang, ira; stuart, robert and yun, myeongwage growth and rutgers university department of economics working papers. 31: 1-45 [8] irish times. 2011. call for minimum wage as germany and austria open labour markets. 2.5.2011. available journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 17-28) 28 at:http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2011/0502/1224295867671.ht ml [9] journal of women´s entrepreneurship and education (jwe), institute of economic sciences, no. 3-4, 2010, pages 7-17 [10] mundell, robert a. 1961. "a theory of optimum currency areas," american economic review, november 53: 657 665 a p s t r a k t aspekata zaposlenosti, nezaposlenosti, zarada, kao i razlika u zaradama izmedju evropskih zemalja. me utim, tendencije u pogledu nezaposlenosti, zaposlenosti i . rupisanje po pitanju razlika u zaradama me rad je pripremljen u okviru projekta vega 1/0973/11. polu, zaposlenost, nezaposlenost article history: received: 9 july 2011 accepted: 26 september 2011 << /ascii85encodepages true /allowtransparency false /autopositionepsfiles true /autorotatepages /none /binding /left /calgrayprofile (gray gamma 1.8) /calrgbprofile (apple rgb) /calcmykprofile (photoshop 4 default cmyk) /srgbprofile (srgb iec61966-2.1) /cannotembedfontpolicy /error /compatibilitylevel 1.3 /compressobjects /off /compresspages true /convertimagestoindexed true /passthroughjpegimages true /createjdffile false /createjobticket false /defaultrenderingintent /default /detectblends true /detectcurves 0.0000 /colorconversionstrategy /leavecolorunchanged /dothumbnails false /embedallfonts true /embedopentype false /parseiccprofilesincomments true /embedjoboptions true /dscreportinglevel 0 /emitdscwarnings false /endpage -1 /imagememory 524288 /lockdistillerparams false /maxsubsetpct 100 /optimize false /opm 1 /parsedsccomments true /parsedsccommentsfordocinfo true /preservecopypage true /preservedicmykvalues true /preserveepsinfo true /preserveflatness true /preservehalftoneinfo false /preserveopicomments false /preserveoverprintsettings true /startpage 1 /subsetfonts true /transferfunctioninfo /preserve /ucrandbginfo /preserve /useprologue false /colorsettingsfile () /alwaysembed [ true ] /neverembed [ true /courier /courier-bold /courier-boldoblique /courier-oblique /helvetica /helvetica-bold /helvetica-boldoblique /helvetica-oblique /symbol /times-bold /times-bolditalic /times-italic /times-roman /zapfdingbats ] /antialiascolorimages false /cropcolorimages true /colorimageminresolution 150 /colorimageminresolutionpolicy /ok /downsamplecolorimages true /colorimagedownsampletype /bicubic /colorimageresolution 300 /colorimagedepth -1 /colorimagemindownsampledepth 1 /colorimagedownsamplethreshold 1.50000 /encodecolorimages true /colorimagefilter /dctencode /autofiltercolorimages true /colorimageautofilterstrategy /jpeg /coloracsimagedict << /qfactor 0.15 /hsamples [1 1 1 1] /vsamples [1 1 1 1] >> /colorimagedict << /qfactor 0.76 /hsamples [2 1 1 2] /vsamples [2 1 1 2] >> /jpeg2000coloracsimagedict << /tilewidth 256 /tileheight 256 /quality 15 >> /jpeg2000colorimagedict << /tilewidth 256 /tileheight 256 /quality 15 >> /antialiasgrayimages false /cropgrayimages true /grayimageminresolution 150 /grayimageminresolutionpolicy /ok /downsamplegrayimages true /grayimagedownsampletype /bicubic /grayimageresolution 300 /grayimagedepth -1 /grayimagemindownsampledepth 2 /grayimagedownsamplethreshold 1.50000 /encodegrayimages true /grayimagefilter /dctencode /autofiltergrayimages true /grayimageautofilterstrategy /jpeg /grayacsimagedict << /qfactor 0.15 /hsamples [1 1 1 1] /vsamples [1 1 1 1] >> /grayimagedict << /qfactor 0.76 /hsamples [2 1 1 2] /vsamples [2 1 1 2] >> /jpeg2000grayacsimagedict << /tilewidth 256 /tileheight 256 /quality 15 >> /jpeg2000grayimagedict << /tilewidth 256 /tileheight 256 /quality 15 >> /antialiasmonoimages false /cropmonoimages true /monoimageminresolution 1200 /monoimageminresolutionpolicy /ok /downsamplemonoimages true /monoimagedownsampletype /bicubic /monoimageresolution 1200 /monoimagedepth -1 /monoimagedownsamplethreshold 1.50000 /encodemonoimages true /monoimagefilter /ccittfaxencode /monoimagedict << /k -1 >> /allowpsxobjects false /checkcompliance [ /none ] /pdfx1acheck false /pdfx3check false /pdfxcompliantpdfonly false /pdfxnotrimboxerror true /pdfxtrimboxtomediaboxoffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /pdfxsetbleedboxtomediabox true /pdfxbleedboxtotrimboxoffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /pdfxoutputintentprofile () /pdfxoutputconditionidentifier () /pdfxoutputcondition () /pdfxregistryname () /pdfxtrapped /false /description << /enu () >> >> setdistillerparams << /hwresolution [2400 2400] /pagesize [2069.185 1927.460] >> setpagedevice 16_jwe_3-4_finalna_ver udk: 005.32:331.1-055.2(53) 005.342 jel: m13, b54 cobiss.sr-id: 27961356 original scientific paper intrinsic subtleties of saudi arabian female startups khan rahatullah muhammad1 entrepreneurship department effat university jeddah, saudi arabia sharpe norean mcdonough school of business, georgetown university, usa a b s t r a c t the scholarly contributions apprising values and motivations of female entrepreneurs whether it is work, life or family values and factors that drive them to business is scant as noted by gem, 2011; becker, 1985; gronau , s., 1997; thomas and mueller, 2000 and baker et al., 2005. even less is the information regarding the saudi arabian females who are breaking the shackles of and who are joining the saudi entrepreneurial workforce to shape their economy and society. this exploratory study investigates the female startup dynamics, antecedents, values, motivations, triggers, effects and role of society in propelling female startups in the kingdom from different perspectives and endeavors. the study shows that various taboos attached to working outside the home are being shattered and that families and husbands are more cooperative in supporting female startups. a number of issues hinder the growth and development of these startups and opportunities are being explored. the entrepreneurship ecosystem can continue to benefit from stakeholder intervention and assistance at strategic levels of the entrepreneurial process and we provide recommendations. 1 email: mkhan@effatuniversity.edu.sa 36 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) introduction there is a general agreement among management practitioners and researchers that successful new ventures contribute to employment, political and social stability, innovation, and competition (thurik & wennekers, 2004; zedtwitz, 2003; hoffman, et al. 1998; and dunkelberg, 1995). similarly, the success of small and medium enterprises (sme’s) is also largely attributed to entrepreneurial abilities (covin and slevin, 1989; dyer and ha-brookshire, 2008). as zimmerman (2007) states, “entrepreneurship is the recognition or creation of an opportunity, coupled with action by an individual or group of individuals, to form a social, intrapreneurial, lifestyle, middle-market, or highly-liquid venture” entrepreneurship has also become a defining business trend in many countries. we know that entrepreneurship is most successful in an ecosystem where it is supported at both the strategic level (by governmental organizations) and the institutional level (rahatullah, 2013). the ranks of entrepreneurs world-wide now contain a sizable contingent of women (dechant and asya, 2005). as a result, research into the pathways of entrepreneurship as a general phenomenon, as well as a career option for women has flourished in recent years (see, for example, dechant and allamky, 2005; kelly, et al 2013. however, very little of this research has focused on female entrepreneurs in arab countries, where now private enterprise (sme’s and entrepreneurship) is viewed as a way for these nations to reduce their reliance on oil and dependence on an expatriate workforce (rahatullah, 2013). morris (2001) maintains, "entrepreneurship is economic development is entrepreneurship." developing and transitional economies, in particular, count on small business enterprise to stimulate economic growth, replace crumbling state-owned organizations and create job opportunities (mazzarol et al., 1999). a more recent united nations report suggests that the deep and complex social and economic problems in arab countries would benefit from the development of the small business sector (fergany, 2002). many authors acknowledge that women entrepreneurs are important for the development of small business sector. they also suggest that women entrepreneurs can be instrumental in developing emerging economies. however, it is noticed that, unlike developed countries, there is lack of studies that can be used to assess the experience of women entrepreneurs in arab countries especially saudi arabia. one exception is the research khan, r.m, et al., saudi arabian female startups, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) 37 conducted by dechant and al-lamky (2003), who employed semistructured interviews to collect information on the background of arab female entrepreneurs. their research explored the women’s motivation to become entrepreneurs, their experience as entrepreneurs, and what problems confronted them as entrepreneurs conducting in bahrain and oman. there was also a study conducted to understand women entrepreneurship in uae and saudi arabia (al lamky 2005). however, the numbers of studies and the context of the research on arab women have been limited. studies on women entrepreneurship in the arab region the literature has often ignored the role of values in determining the choices of women entrepreneurs. studies such as mcclelland, 1961; begley and boyd, 1987; and fagenson, 1993, assert that women join the work force out of the need for achievement, respect, and initiative towards society. more recent studies show that a major factor influencing women entrepreneurs is the level of constraints for women in the workforce, as suggested by welter and smallbone; 2003 and aidis et al, 2005. in some countries women have no access to capital or bank loans, while men have this advantage (weeks, 2009). education and employment a recent report from the world bank (2012) analyzed data from over 5000 companies in the middle east and found that women owned approximately 13% of all firms – and of these female-owned firms, only 8% were micro firms (with < 10 employees), while over 30% had more than 250 employees. the countries with the greatest percentage of “large” female-owned firms were egypt, morocco, and saudi arabia. the world bank also found that female-owned firms hired more workers in egypt, jordan, saudi arabia and gaza and the west bank – with women composing a larger proportion of the employees at female-owned firms. there appears to be a relationship between education and entrepreneurial activity. the 2012 gem report on women entrepreneurs demonstrated that in most regions, women entrepreneurs are more likely to have post-secondary education than women who are not entrepreneurs (30% vs. 26% for mena/mid-asia) and more likely than male entrepreneurs (30% vs. 26% for mena/mid-asia). for a comparison, 70% of female entrepreneurs in the u.s. and 55% in israel have a post-secondary degree 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) (kelly et al 2013). this agrees with the prior work of mark et al. (2006) who found that the average level of education among women entrepreneurs in developed countries was higher than their counterparts in the developing countries, including arab nations. much earlier studies, such as gartner, 1988; reynolds and white, 1997; and aldrich et al. 1998 had been inconsistent about education and business ownership. sharpe and schroeder (2016) analyzed data from the world bank and found that unemployment among women in the middle east is relatively high, although it differs by country; it has been lower over the past five years in lebanon, israel, and qatar (2-12%), compared to egypt, saudi arabia, and jordan (14–28%). these employment rates arise from numerous challenges that women face in the middle east, as it is well documented that the perception of women outside the home varies by country and culture. these perceptions combined with the restrictions for women in banking and ownership make starting companies more difficult for women than for men in the arab region. culture and women entrepreneurship in arab countries previous studies have revealed that culture is an important factor used to explain variations in entrepreneurship among societies (cornwall, 1998; wennekers et al., 2001; stewart et al., 2003; dechant and al-lamky, 2005). in the arab countries, in particular, women participation in the labor force is influenced by culture, as well as by islamic principles. the dechant and allamky (2005) study pointed to some cultural practices that might prevent women from conducting their business as compared to men. nilufer’s (2001) work on socio-cultural factors in developing countries showed that there is a social influence on women's decision to become an entrepreneur. such socio-cultural factors could be religious values, ethnic diversity and marital status. whereas, carswell and rolland (2004) did not find any relationship between socio-cultural factors, such as religious values and ethnic diversity and the reduction in business start-up rate. on the other hand, salehi-isfahani (2000) noticed that married women in developing countries are less likely to participate in the country's labor force. she also found that there is limited women participation in the labor force owing to social norms where married women participation is less than single or widowed women. her study established that married women have the lowest participation rate in the iranian labor force. similarly, assaad and elhamidi (2002) found that women participation in egypt is significantly less khan, r.m, et al., saudi arabian female startups, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) 39 for married women. shah and al-qudsi (1990) concluded that single women participation is almost twice as married women participation in the kuwaiti labor force. one constraint is that different cultures have different domestication expectations. ram (1996) determined that women entrepreneurs felt that they were overloaded with domestic responsibilities. the findings showed that 43.20% did not get any help for domestic responsibilities where as 37% received some help and 20% received help to large extent. among the persons rendering assistance in domestic responsibilities, maids were the primary source of help (25%). among the family, husbands rendered help in setting up businesses in 12% of the cases followed by children in 11% of the cases. in a study of ozgen and ufuk (1998) on home-based women entrepreneurs living in ankara city, it was determined that 63% of the women did not get any help for domestic responsibilities. in addition to domestic responsibilities, the lack of time available due to family commitments has been documented as a constraint in studies conducted by karim (2000) in bangladesh and de groot (2001) in ivory coast, ethiopia, mali, morocco, senegal, and zimbabwe. finally, the external support for entrepreneurs varies by culture. developing countries lack effective women organizations that enhance their own decision-making. zewde and associates (2002) pointed out that the absence of appropriate and effective women entrepreneurs' organizations and associations may have a negative effect on women enterprise development. availability and use of money is a significant cultural challenge due to social position and family commitments of women in the arab world. carter et al. (2001) showed that women entrepreneurs find it difficult to raise the start-up capital and ngozi (2002) demonstrated that since women do not have the required wealth, they cannot secure the required collateral to obtain a bank's loan. in addition, their social position limits their ability to establish a financial network and their ability to establish good relationships with banks, due to gender discrimination and stereotyping. motivational factors different factors motivate a woman to become an entrepreneur. robinson (2001) referred to the push and pull factors. the push factor is associated with negative conditions, while the pull factor is attributed to positive developments. examples of push factors include low household 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) income, job dissatisfaction, strict working hours, or even a lack of job opportunities. the pull factors on the other hand include the need for selfaccomplishment and the desire to help others. dhaliwal (1998) found the push factor to be evident in developing countries, while orhan and scott, (2001) and islam (2012) showed evidence that women entrepreneurs in developing countries were motivated by a combination of push and pull factors. they suggested earning money, family tradition, higher social status, self-employment, economic freedom, as the major pull factors, whereas a lack of education, dissatisfaction in current job, and family economic hardship were identified as the push factors. empirical evidence on bahrain and oman in the study by dechant and al-lamky (2005) showed pull factors, such as opportunities, the need for achievement, selffulfillment and desire to help others, motivated women to become entrepreneurs in most of the cases. dechant and asya (2005) found that achievement was the primary driver for self-employment among the bahraini and omani female entrepreneurs. the scholars assert that this could be attributed to their relatively high socioeconomic status and educational levels. it might also be reasoned, however, that in arab countries which are high in power distance and uncertainty avoidance and low in individualism, women have "more difficulties in doing things their way since existing organizations and structures are less suited for them" (wennekers et al., 2001). the study subjects may have chosen self-employment as a viable option to meet their need for achievement in a society imbued with organizational and cultural constraints as regards the potential of women. enterprise characteristics coleman (2002) confirmed that women tend to mainly participate in the services sector, since the sector facilitates more prospects for job opportunities. this conclusion was reached by dechant and al-lamky (2005) who found that bahraini and omani women entrepreneurs chose the services sector for their investment. however, the study referred to other factors, such as previous experience, availability of opportunities, economics and cultural, that might influence women entrepreneurs' decisions. another factor dictating women's decisions to become entrepreneurs is the size of the business enterprise. since women entrepreneurs are attracted to the services sector, the size of their businesses is relatively small. women khan, r.m, et al., saudi arabian female startups, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) 41 entrepreneurships are relatively small in size and are likely to employ fewer numbers of people mainly between 5 and 25. (coleman, 2002; robb, 2002; and dechant and al-lamky, 2005). dechant and al-lamky (2005) also identified use of social media as another characteristic of arab women enterprises. numerous examples exist of women using the internet to start firms that engage in e-commerce to see anything from clothing to food to educational services (see for example, sharpe and schroeder, 2016). another characteristic of female startups is their important use of “soft skills.” riley (2006) and heltzel (2015) demonstrated the importance of soft skills for startups and identified training regimes, where training is defined specifically by others as the development of knowledge, skills and/or attitudes required to perform adequately a given job (armstrong, 2001; sonmez 2015; fillipo, 1984). the importance of soft skills is emphasized by stuart (2013), who states those human resources professions in training and development are important to provide employees continuous improvement in their skills and attitudes. human resource professions ensure that the company’s optimal performance is achieved through leveraging human capital and aligning skills and performance with organizational goals (elaine, 2002; houghton and prosico, 2001). a company with employees aligned on goals for the future is able to reach those accomplishments faster (frost, 2013). these studies identify a number of soft skills required by startups, which range from basic business planning to financial feasibility analysis, and sophisticated business strategic skills. a number of studies, such as kaiser (2015); nunez (2015); hisrich and brush (1984); lussier (1995); and markku (2005) identified numerous startup, marketing, management and social skills necessary for startups; a total of 17 commonly stated skills encompass the above areas. these skills include communication, supervision, problem solving, leadership, conflict resolution, team working, flexibility, creativity, assertiveness, diplomacy, counselling, coaching and mentoring, negotiating and influencing, branding, sales and marketing, relationship building and networking. methods prior research shows that there is a lack of information on female entrepreneurship in arab nations. we identify a number of areas, where more research is needed: − nature of the businesses started by women; 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) − roles of family, motherhood, spouse and society in the business; − underlying motivations of female startups; − assistance provided by entrepreneurship ecosystem stakeholders; and − challenges faced by female entrepreneurs. this information is lacking not only for the middle east, but more specifically for saudi arabia. thus, this study explores the vital values, characteristics and features of female entrepreneurship in saudi arabia given the difficulties associated in reaching out to female start-ups in saudi arabia, we placed a structured questionnaire on-line (using survey monkey.com) with a target sample of 50 diverse female entrepreneurs from across saudi arabia. the survey instrument was designed to measure the values, characteristics, motivations, skills required, challenges, and features of female startups in saudi arabia. once the survey was posted, we asked the chambers of commerce in jeddah, riyadh, madina al munawwara, khobar, tabuk and makkah al mukarramah, to help secure responses from female startups. some of the female startups known to the authors were also contacted. this outreach was necessary for two reasons. first, numerous studies including rahatullah (2013, 2014); assad and el hamidi (2002); baker, gedajlovic and lubatkim (2005); and al qudaiby and rahatullah (2014), pointed out the issues in reaching out to respondents -and particularly female respondents in the kingdom, owing to its tradition as a closed conservative society. second, although on the rise, the current number of established female startups is limited in the kingdom, as identified by dechant and lamky (2005). our strategy proved successful and 80 female startups completed the questionnaire on survey monkey. the responses were then downloaded for data presentation and detailed analysis using spss. after the analysis had been conducted, external validity was achieved by conducting three interviews with entrepreneurs who had not responded to the survey. these established entrepreneurs have developed their businesses in the fields of event management, education and fashion. they started their businesses in the years between 2000 and 2002 in jeddah and riyadh -the main economic cities of the kingdom. the names of these established female entrepreneurs are confidential and represent the fashion industry, the event management industry and the education industry. khan, r.m, et al., saudi arabian female startups, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) 43 the questionnaire included 28 structured close-ended questions in the following areas: − nature of business; − startup status (i.e., personal status, marital status, motherhood status); − treatment received as a woman; − knowledge of government agencies; − assistance from families and husband; − interaction of female startups with entrepreneurship ecosystem; − startup challenges and motivations; and − attitude of society towards female startups. data presentation table 1 shows the location of all 80 female startups who responded to the survey. the highest numbers of participating female startups were from jeddah, with 23 female startups. riyadh with 21, khobar with 14 and, makkah mukarramah with 11 responses. female startups from madina munawwara and then tabuk also had participation. table 1: respondents al madiha munawwarah jaddah khobar makkah al mukarramah riyadn tabuk total 6 23 14 11 21 5 80 the questionnaire had 16 business areas identified with an option for others. however, the respondents identified themselves as belonging to seven diverse activities as shown. figure 1 and table 2 show that the respondents belonged to a wide spectrum of industrial sectors of the kingdom. the majority of female entrepreneurs are married, however, a noticeable number of single and divorced women also start businesses in saudi arabia. this might be a significant change and shift from the past. however, this cannot be substantiated, as we do not have relevant time series data. it is clear that the women startups are mainly in the following industries: jewelry related, spa related, boutiques, food related, beauty, event planning and graphic design. 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) figure 1: marital status of female startups table 2: business nature of female startups business sector number of respondents jewelry related 8 spa and related 7 boutique including abaya 17 food (home cooked and restaurants) 9 beauty related 16 the research showed that the majority of the startups were founded by mothers. this was a surprise and is a clear shift from the past, although saudi arabia remains a conservative society, where women are more likely to remain at home and raise a family than to work outside the home table 3 shows that motherhood has a profound effect on women’s perceptions. an overwhelming majority agrees that motherhood leads to better leadership qualities (>75%) and the ability to multi-task (> 80%). however, being a mother was perceived to have less of an impact on being lenient with clients/employees or being a better team manager. table 3: motherhood effects answer options strongly disagree do not agree maybe agree strongly agree better leadership qualities 10 2 7 33 28 too lenient with clients and employees 7 46 10 9 8 better team manager 8 34 9 15 14 better at multitasking 5 4 8 21 42 table 3 provides information on the strategic stakeholders’ (government agencies) behavior and dealings with female startups. the larger portion of female startups point out that they do not get any preferential treatment or dealing by the government offices and strategic stakeholders (validated by rahatullah, 2013). the response on the women lobbying and support groups has been mixed. almost similar numbers of female startups recognize the efforts of such groups as not. khan, r.m, et al., saudi arabian female startups, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) 45 table 4: ecosystem stakeholder dealing and behavior with female startups answer options strongly disagree do not agree maybe agree strongly agree you get preferential treatment at government offices 6 46 21 5 2 the suppliers deliver on time 6 11 0 36 27 the suppliers and other stakeholders treat women differently than men 23 19 8 17 13 the women lobbies and support groups provide help 6 27 6 25 16 table 4 identifies the support provided by non-government agencies (institutional stakeholders of entrepreneurship ecosystem) to female startups as validated in rahatullah 2015. it is evident that the overwhelming majority of female startups do not recognize agency support for children education, mentoring, transportation and funding. table 5: ecosystem stakeholder dealing and behavior with female startups answer options strongly disagree do not agree maybe agree strongly agree children education support 56 10 11 2 1 project funding 0 0 1 8 71 education of the entrepreneur 5 15 37 11 12 mentoring of entrepreneur 13 51 17 7 0 transportation facilities 62 13 5 0 0 business training 14 35 15 7 9 business registration 2 1 36 35 6 business licensing 2 0 21 45 12 funding till business is suitable 11 14 39 11 5 reaching beyond the demographic boundaries of serving only men 7 2 3 22 46 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) however, the project financing, entrepreneurship education and business licensing services are recognized by the startups as available. this shows lack of awareness provided by the agencies and the seeking of information by the startups. the family and husband role figures 2 and 3 provide an insight into the role of families in female startups in saudi arabia. our results seem to show the changing dynamics and variation in the social / family fabric of the society. there was a time when saudi arabia was known for its ultra conservative nature where the government and many of its citizens desire to preserve their religious values and ancient traditions (rice, 2004). we believe the society is changing and so are the family values. figure 2 and 3: family and husband role 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 family provided moral assistance family provided financial assistance family provided business assistance assistance from the family strongly disagree do not agree maybe agree strongly agree khan, r.m, et al., saudi arabian female startups, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) 47 it can be seen that the majority of the female startups obtained the moral support and financial assistance from their families; however, a number of the respondents assert that the families did not provide the business assistance, (i.e. practical support that includes preparing plans, conducting marketing and or developing budgets). it is hence conceivable that the families do not have the relevant acumen or financial capability to assist these start-ups. it can also be implied here that the families may not have the necessary funds for the startup or they do not wish to contribute or in presence of the organizations like human resource development fund (hrdf) that pays salaries to startups till the business is stable. our data reveal that the role of husbands appears to be substantial (where applicable). it is a noticeable shift from past as noted by rice (2004). husbands in our sample seem to have been providing moral, financial and business assistance to their wives to establish the business. female startup interaction with the ecosystem figure 4 shows the startup interaction with the ecosystem. a number of stakeholders in the ecosystem were identified for the respondents to show their recognition level and identify the assistance these organizations provide. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 husband provided moral assistance husband provided financial assistance husband provided business assistance assistance from husband strongly disagree do not agree maybe agree strongly agree 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) it can be seen from the graph that the majority of the respondents claim that they either had an interaction or know injaz, kaust, bank al ahli (ncb), khadija bint khuwalied center, bab rizk jameel, prince sultan fund, centennial fund and chambers of commerce. the organizations mentioned above are training, lending and licensing organizations, whereas, kaust is famous for its work and is recognized across the middle east as a premier research organization. figure 4: startup interaction in ecosystem the techno valleys, kacst etc., are less known because of the nature of their services. most of the female startups are in traditional businesses that do not require high-end assistance and machinery and equipment. it can be implied that since al zamil group’s work is limited to a particular part of the country, therefore, it is less known among the startups across the kingdom. similarly, technical and vocational training centers (tvtc) are also male-oriented, hence fewer females know them. it is, however, surprising that the startups have little knowledge about the other lending institutions, such as, al jazira, saudi credit and savings and other banks, lending institutions and funds. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 chambers of commerce saudi credit and savings bank king abdulaziz city for science and… al zamil group human resource development fund (hrdf) technical and vocational training centers ministry of industries wae'd (aramco) makkah techno valley khadija bint khuwailed endeavor kaust strongly disagree do not agree maybe agree khan, r.m, et al., saudi arabian female startups, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) 49 female startup challenges figure 5 identifies the major challenges being faced by the female startups in saudi arabia. it can be seen that the three main challenges are communications skills, managing business and family affairs concurrently, and knowledge of the saudi labor law, respectively. other significant issues are knowledge of how to start a business, as well as the skills needed (i.e. business and strategic planning, marketing and budgeting and the governmental policies and procedures). these are prominent concerns of the startups. these findings are similar to the saudi arabian ecosystem study (rahatullah, 2013). it can be implied from these findings that saudi startups require interventions by both the strategic and institutional levels of the ecosystem to strengthen enterprise. female startups have endorsed the need for soft skills incubators, training institutes, mentors and coaches. startups also have shown need for government to publicize the laws and procedures and systems more. it accrues the need from chambers of commerce to provide further assistance to these first stage female entrepreneurs. this also reveals the change in the culture of the kingdom where the openness has taken its hold and the families do not hold restrictions on female startups. figure 5: female startup challenges 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 e du ca ti on k no w le dg e of b us in es s… k no w le dg e of m ar ke ti ng … k no w le dg e of s tr at ge ic … k no w le dg e of o pe ra ti o ns … k no w le dg e of f in an ci al … k no w le dg e of b ud g et in g k no w le dg e of h r i ss ue s k no w le dg e of s au d i… k no w le dg e of h o w t o st ar t… s oc ie ta l ta bo o s r es tr ic ti on s fr om f am il y r es tr ic ti on s fr om h us b an d m an ag in g fa m il y an d… f in di ng r ig ht o rg an iz at io n … k no w le dg e of s up pl ie rs b u si n es s co m m u ni ca ti on … s al es s k il ls t ea m b ui ld in g a nd … f in di ng t he r ig h t em p lo ye es k no w le dg e of … k no w le dg e of p ro du ct … strongly disagree do not agree maybe agree strongly agree 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) classifying the challenges in order to better understand better the challenges being faced by the women startups, a factor reduction using principal component analysis extraction method was used. the three factors arrived at in table 8 show major areas of challenges for the female startups: startup related, planning and society, and team issues. the challenges also show the lack of the necessary skills and knowledge possessed by the startups. this presents a huge opportunity for startup related planning society & team education .1606 .0163 .0100 know ledge of business planning .0639 .1064 .0079 know ledge of marketing planning .0607 .1267 .0783 know ledge of stratgeic planning .0607 .1579 .0128 know ledge of operations planning .0614 .1010 .0155 know ledge of f inancial planning .0594 .1389 .0261 know ledge of budgeting .0579 .1067 .0262 know ledge of hr issues .0524 .0578 .1441 know ledge of saudi labour law .1106 .0419 .0113 know ledge of how to start business .1059 .0702 .0129 societal taboos .0265 .0553 .2055 restrictions f rom family .0111 .2311 .2055 restrictions f rom husband .0223 .0392 .2051 managing f amily and business af fairs .0988 .0691 .1058 finding right organization to approach f or assistance .1100 .0963 .0331 know ledge of suppliers .1206 .1656 .0173 business communication skills .1331 .2791 .0293 sales skills .0602 .2253 .0850 team building and maintaining .0610 .2060 .2059 finding the right employees .0552 .1596 .2106 know ledge of governmental policies/procedures .1001 .0121 .0036 know ledge of product launching .1091 .0749 .0237 table 8 com ponent score coefficient matrix challenges' factoring challenges extraction method: principal component analysis. component scores. com ponent khan, r.m, et al., saudi arabian female startups, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) 51 the organizations such as incubators, universities, chambers of commerce and industry and training and development institutes to offer such trainings. the startup related challenges include education, knowledge of saudi labor law, government procedures and policies, launching the business, suppliers, finding the right organization to approach for assistance, developing communications skills, and education. all these are relevant to the startups and are common challenges for first stage entrepreneurs. it can be implied here that the need for the institutional level support organizations is important. this also shows the lack of the contact between the institutional level stakeholders and the startups. challenges faced by particular businesses in order to further investigate and understand the challenges being faced by the startups in more detail, the businesses were divided into eight main areas. the challenges shown separately regarding the different kinds of planning were grouped into one category, i.e. the business planning challenge. a bivariate correlation was carried out and challenges are correlated here separately (not factor wise). these correlations provide factual results. the most difficulties are being faced by the interior design, women related, clothing and lingerie and dentistry clinic businesses. these businesses are new and, therefore, the graduates who start their own business face numerous difficulties. secondly, most of these startups would be younger women and it is quite understandable of the issues they face. the women in beauty parlor, therapies and spa, children entertainment and education seem to have least challenges, which stamps the fact these are relatively more traditional businesses. t a b le 9 : c o rr el a ti o n s b et w ee n b us in es s ar ea s a n d c h al le n g es k n o w le d g e o f b u s in e s s p la n n in g k n o w le d g e o f b u d g e ti n g k n o w le d g e o f h r i s s u e s k n o w le d g e o f s a u d i l a b o u r l a w k n o w le d g e o f h o w t o s ta rt b u s in e s s s o c ie ta l ta b o o s r e s tr ic ti o n s fr o m f a m il y r e s tr ic ti o n s fr o m h u s b a n d m a n a g in g fa m il y a n d b u s in e s s a ff a ir s f in d in g ri g h t o rg a n iz a ti o n t o a p p ro a c h f o r a s s is ta n c e k n o w le d g e o f s u p p li e rs b u s in e s s c o m m u n ic a t io n s k il ls s a le s s k il ls t e a m b u il d in g a n d m a in ta in in g f in d in g t h e ri g h t e m p lo y e e s k n o w le d g e o f g o v e rn m e n t a l p o li c ie s /p ro c e d u re s k n o w le d g e o f p ro d u c t la u n c h in g p e a rs o n c o rr e la tio n .3 1 5 ** .1 8 5 * -. 0 0 1 .2 8 5 * .2 4 6 ** -. 0 1 3 -. 0 1 9 .0 5 2 .2 5 7 ** .2 8 5 ** -. 1 0 4 .2 7 4 * .0 6 3 -. 0 5 9 -. 0 5 9 .1 9 7 ** .0 6 5 s ig . (2 ta ile d ) .0 0 5 .0 4 5 .9 9 4 .0 5 4 .0 0 8 .9 1 1 .8 6 8 .6 4 6 .0 0 6 .0 0 9 .3 5 8 .0 1 0 .5 8 4 .6 0 4 .6 0 5 .0 0 7 .5 7 0 n 8 0 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 8 0 7 9 7 9 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 0 p e a rs o n c o rr e la tio n .2 5 1 ** .1 7 9 ** .0 9 2 .0 5 8 .2 5 7 * .2 6 1 ** .1 9 9 .0 8 6 .1 5 4 .2 7 3 ** -. 0 1 9 .0 2 1 .0 5 4 .0 7 1 .1 4 2 .0 3 5 .1 8 8 s ig . (2 ta ile d ) .0 0 7 .0 0 6 .4 2 0 .6 1 2 .0 1 9 .0 0 9 .0 7 9 .4 4 6 .1 7 7 .0 0 4 .8 6 8 .8 5 7 .6 4 0 .5 3 2 .2 0 9 .7 6 1 .0 9 4 n 8 0 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 8 0 7 9 7 9 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 0 p e a rs o n c o rr e la tio n .2 6 6 ** .0 9 7 .1 7 3 .0 0 9 .2 1 9 * .1 7 0 .0 2 7 .0 4 2 .0 2 1 .0 8 1 -. 0 0 6 .2 6 7 * .0 8 0 .0 9 3 -. 0 5 7 -. 0 6 4 -. 0 5 8 s ig . (2 ta ile d ) .0 0 8 .3 9 4 .1 2 8 .9 3 6 .0 3 7 .1 3 2 .8 1 2 .7 1 5 .8 5 1 .0 4 7 .9 6 0 .0 9 9 .4 8 6 .4 1 0 .6 1 8 .5 7 5 .6 0 9 n 8 0 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 8 0 7 9 7 9 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 0 p e a rs o n c o rr e la tio n -. 1 4 2 -. 1 2 1 -. 1 8 3 -. 1 4 6 -. 1 2 2 -. 1 5 9 .2 3 5 * -. 1 5 7 -. 1 6 2 .2 8 1 ** -. 1 2 6 .2 5 1 * -. 2 0 3 -. 1 7 8 -. 1 5 7 -. 1 3 0 -. 1 1 8 s ig . (2 ta ile d ) .2 0 8 .2 8 4 .1 0 7 .1 9 7 .2 8 5 .1 5 8 .0 9 7 .1 6 4 .0 0 2 .0 0 2 .2 6 4 .0 2 9 .0 7 3 .1 1 4 .1 6 3 .2 5 1 .2 9 5 n 8 0 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 8 0 7 9 7 9 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 0 p e a rs o n c o rr e la tio n .0 2 3 .2 9 4 ** .1 7 3 .0 0 9 .1 0 3 .1 7 0 .0 2 7 .0 4 2 .0 2 1 .0 8 1 -. 0 0 6 -. 0 0 2 .0 8 0 .0 9 3 -. 0 5 7 -. 0 6 4 -. 0 5 8 s ig . (2 ta ile d ) .8 3 8 .0 0 4 .1 2 8 .9 3 6 .3 6 7 .1 3 2 .8 1 2 .7 1 5 .8 5 1 .4 7 3 .9 6 0 .9 8 7 .4 8 6 .4 1 0 .6 1 8 .5 7 5 .6 0 9 n 8 0 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 8 0 7 9 7 9 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 0 p e a rs o n c o rr e la tio n .2 6 4 ** .2 8 9 * -. 0 6 9 .1 7 0 .1 0 3 .1 7 0 .1 8 6 .1 2 1 .2 6 6 * .2 4 3 * .0 6 9 -. 1 5 4 .0 0 0 -. 1 4 8 -. 0 5 7 .2 7 1 * .2 6 6 * s ig . (2 ta ile d ) .0 0 3 .0 3 9 .5 4 3 .1 3 1 .3 6 7 .1 3 2 .1 0 0 .2 8 7 .0 6 0 .0 4 7 .5 4 0 .1 7 6 1 .0 0 0 .1 9 1 .6 1 8 .0 3 7 .0 8 4 n 8 0 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 8 0 7 9 7 9 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 0 p e a rs o n c o rr e la tio n .2 3 7 * .1 3 7 .0 7 3 -. 0 4 4 .0 3 1 .0 7 9 -. 0 1 8 .0 0 3 .1 4 5 .2 4 7 * .0 9 9 .1 0 5 .1 7 0 .0 7 6 .0 9 5 .0 2 6 .0 9 1 s ig . (2 ta ile d ) .0 3 8 .2 2 4 .5 2 0 .6 9 6 .7 8 8 .4 8 8 .8 7 5 .9 8 0 .2 0 1 .0 1 3 .3 8 3 .3 5 6 .1 3 4 .5 0 4 .4 0 1 .8 1 7 .4 2 0 n 8 0 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 8 0 7 9 7 9 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 0 p e a rs o n c o rr e la tio n .2 8 5 * .2 7 9 * .2 4 7 ** .3 1 0 ** 0 .2 4 6 0 .2 3 7 0 .2 2 9 -. 1 9 8 .2 8 5 * -0 .2 6 4 0 .2 7 9 .2 6 3 * -0 .2 8 4 -0 .2 6 .2 5 5 * -0 .2 5 6 -0 .2 4 3 s ig . (2 ta ile d ) .0 1 1 .0 3 2 .0 0 2 .0 0 5 .1 0 3 .2 0 9 .3 0 4 .0 7 9 .0 3 0 .4 0 2 .2 0 1 .0 1 4 .3 0 1 .7 0 2 .0 3 1 .2 2 0 .1 2 0 n 8 0 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 7 9 8 0 8 0 7 9 7 9 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 0 *. c o rr e la tio n is s ig n if ic a n t a t th e 0 .0 5 le v e l ( 2 -t a ile d ). ** . c o rr e la tio n is s ig n if ic a n t a t th e 0 .0 1 le v e l ( 2 -t a ile d ). t h e m a r k e t in g , o p e r a t io n s , s t r a t e g ic a n d f in a n c ia l p la n n in g a r e p u t t o g e t h e r f o r a n a ly s is b e a u ty r e la te d e v e n t p la n n in g w e b d e s ig n a n d c o m p u te rs g ra p h ic d e s ig n & i t f o o d in c lu d in g re s ta u ra n t a n d h o m e c o o k e d c o rr e la ti o n s j e w e lr y re la te d s p a r e la te d b o u ti q u e in c lu d in g a b a y a khan, r.m, et al., saudi arabian female startups, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) 53 the majority of the female startups seem to have the issues with planning, knowledge of saudi labor law, team building and governmental policies. these skills are not taught and developed at their colleges and universities. many startups also do not know the governmental procedures and policies, hence their licenses can be delayed. this can result in unnecessary interruption, suspension, or temporary adjournments in the startups, as most of the team is developed using expatriates. the visa and finding the immigrant workers are already an issue and a lack of knowledge of law and polices aggravate the situation. the females commencing and establishing a startup in a social arena face the least difficulty, which also is based on the fact that such projects are generally initiated by the women belonging to richer families, who have an established reputation and credentials. we have numerous examples of philanthropic and social enterprises being started by the women of leading business families in saudi arabia. female startup motivations the findings as shown in figure 6 somewhat support the work of robinson (2001), dhaliwal (1998), orhan and scott (2001), islam (2012), dechant and al-lamky (2005) and dechant and asya (2005), regarding the push and pull factors of motivation. however, the study refutes the wennekers et al., (2001) narrative. figure 6: female startup motivations 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 t o ea rn m or e m on ey t o su pp or t fa m il y t o co nt ri b ut e to s o ci et y t o be f in an ci al ly in de pe nd en t t o be s o ci al ly in de pe nd en t t o be s o ci al ly re co gn iz ed t o ap pl y th e sk il ls le ar ne d t o tr y a nd p ro v id e be tt er f ut ur e fo r fa m il y t o do s om et h in g di ff er en t t o en ha nc e th e im ag e of w o m en t o su po rt a n ob le c au se t o be y ou r o w n b os s strongly disagree do not agree maybe agree strongly agree 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) the push and pull factors for female startups vary a bit from what literature suggests as a general factor. the saudi females seem to be more pulled than pushed in startups. as the society is becoming more and more liberal, female startups commence their venture to seek more social independence, recognition, enhance image, and become own boss. the circumstances also have been pushing them to support their families, as they largely are motivated by ‘wanting to earn more money’ and be ‘financially independent,’ perhaps influenced by the saudi economy. women startups are equally divided over their understanding and contention on contributing positively to the society. motivation antecedents table 5 shows the motivations by motherhood category (yes, no) and reveals interesting results. being a mother seems to affect the family thought on the female startups in motivating them ‘to try to provide a better future for their families’ and ‘be their own boss.’ similarly, they are more concerned with enhancing the women image, to be socially recognized, and apply the skills they learned. this is an exciting development in a society such as saudi arabia and can imply the ‘breaking of shackles.’ the non-mother females also desire to do something different’ and ‘enhance the image of women.’ table 10: motivations mean of business women who are mothers a notable number of responses suggest that startups are purely commercial based and not created to support noble causes. it is mostly pull factors that help them seek to establish a startup. a notable number of responses did not start their business to support their family. the correlations between ‘being a mother’ and motivations to start an enterprise reveal some interesting information, as shown in table 11. it to earn more m oney to s upport family to contribute to society to be financially independent to be s ocially independe nt to be s ocially recognize d to apply the s kills learned to try and provide better future for family to do something different to enhance the image of wom en to suport a noble cause to be your own boss mean mean mean mean mean mean mean mean mean mean mean mean mother 4.53 1.63 2.96 3.55 4.39 5.61 7.27 8.47 7.94 8.75 3.73 10.12 not mother 3.96 2.14 2.68 2.61 3.54 4.54 5.50 6.07 6.07 6.64 4.89 7.43 table 10 m otivations m eans of bus ine ss wom en w ho are mothers khan, r.m, et al., saudi arabian female startups, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) 55 shows that intrinsic motivations are to create an additional source of income to support their family and have a better future for their families. it can then be implied that the female startups are now willing to take an active role in society and be productive both in the family and economy. soft skills required and tools to acquire these abilities the literature identifies a number of soft skills required by the first stage entrepreneurs to successfully commence a startup. acknowledging the literature findings and repeating the same question, a more relevant and newer question was asked, i.e. how can these skills be provided? what tools are more appropriate, or how can these skills be acquired? the responses are elaborated below. figure 7: female startups soft skills and their tools to earn more money to support family to contribute to society to be financially independent to be socially independent to be socially recognized to apply the skills learned to try and prov ide better future for family to do something different to enhance the image of women to suport a noble cause to be y our own boss pearson correlation 0.103* 0.162* -.015 -.145 -.112 -.107 -.170 .229 * * -.184 -.196 -.218 -.212 sig. (2-tailed) .003 .002 .895 .200 .324 .346 .131 .000 .102 .082 .052 .060 n 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 lev el (2-tailed). *. correlation is significant at the 0.05 lev el (2-tailed). table 11 mothe rhood e ffect on motivations being mother 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 c o m m u n ic a ti o n s u p e rv is o ry p ro b le m s o lv in g l e a d e rs h ip c o n fl ic t re s o lu ti o n t e a m w o rk in g f le x ib il it y c re a ti v it y a s s e rt iv e n e s s c o u n s e li n g , c o a c h in g a n d m e n to ri n g n e g o ti a ti n g d ip lo m a c y in fl u e n c in g m a rk e ti n g s a le s b ra n d in g n e tw o rk in g r e la ti o n s h ip b u il d in g college/university profissional training institute mentors coaches incubator/accelerator distance learning 56 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) the role of professional training institutes, mentors and incubators tops the other modes of skills development. the role of universities follows the top 3. it has been pointed out by the respondents that the soft skills incubators can help build their creativity, influencing (personality), communications, leadership, negotiations and problem solving skills. whereas, the mentors can successfully help the startups shine their relationship building, branding, marketing, diplomacy, negotiations, flexibility, conflict resolution and problem solving skills. similarly, the female startups seem to opine that professional training institutes can polish their leadership, conflict resolution, assertiveness, counselling, influencing and relationship building skills. this supports the older studies and justifies rahatullah (2013) work. conclusions – the great evolution is happening it was witnessed in the literature review that there is a lack of evidence on the female startups in general and for saudi arabian startups in particular. this research would open the doors for further research and enhance our understanding of the deficiencies and efficiencies ripe in the entrepreneurship ecosystem for women startups in saudi arabia. the findings above have contributed both to our knowledge of female startups in the arab region and globally, however, there are some unique findings owing to different cultures and norms in saudi arabia. the saudi arabian women startup motivations and challenges emanate from their traditional culture, which as afaf et al., (2014) states “is a masculine society… strongly affected by cultural traditions and religion. the separation of the genders is obligatory in saudi cultures and societal norms impact on all sides of life. communication between females and males is not allowed, except for close relatives and in special situations.” however, this study shows that shackles on women empowerment are being broken and that societal taboos and restrictions are under transition to a society and cultural of adaptability. there are numerous indicators for optimism for the women startups alongside the risks. the literature pointed out that in the arab countries women participation in the labor force is influenced by culture and shaped by the islamic principles. the dechant and al-lamky (2005) study pointed to some cultural practices that might prevent women from conducting their business as compared to men. this study again provides an updated view that the society is more khan, r.m, et al., saudi arabian female startups, jwe (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) 57 accommodating and supportive of female entrepreneurship. the role of family, husband and the society in general has been seen as a positive factor in contributing to female startups in saudi arabia. similarly, it has been revealed that motherhood and economic conditions also affect the choice of females to commence a commercial venture. similarly, the motivational factors provide a stark contrast between saudi female startups and elsewhere. studies such as mcclelland (1961); begley and boyd (1987); and fagenson (1993) assert that women join the work force out of the need for achievement, respect, and initiative towards the society. whereas, in saudi arabia, in addition to independence and recognition, we witnessed more of the economic reasons (push factors) to start a business. the findings on challenges being faced by female startups are in contrast to nilufer’s (2001); carswell and rolland (2004) and salehiisfahani (2000). their findings were different than what is found in saudi arabia. startup related challenges are quite significant in saudi arabia, as compared to the developed and industrialized countries where an ecosystem is more evolved. this highlights the need to further strengthen the ecosystem’s institutional stakeholders so that they can enable enterprise. society and team-related challenges are not highlighted significantly in the literature. the challenges envisaged by ram (1996) and ozgen and ufuk (1998) determined some basic values and properties, whereas, this study points out specific challenges. it also shows that the culture is evolving. the families and husbands are more cooperative and society generally accepts the women in business. however, a lack of business development and related support from the spouse continues to be evident. recommendations the deficiency in governmental support is also evident. many challenges can be eradicated with effective legislation and creation of enablers in the institutional and strategic levels of entrepreneurship ecosystem of saudi arabia as envisaged by rahatullah (2016). for example, government can help in training the women start-ups. there is a need to have women-specific legislation to ease the burden on the female startups and to help them set up, run, and manage their businesses effectively and efficiently. 58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2016, no. 3-4, 35-65) keeping in view rahatullah (2013; 2016) that mapped the existing entrepreneurship ecosystem of saudi arabia and then mapped the evolution of the ecosystem, this study acts as a catalyst highlighting opportunities prevailing in the ecosystem for potential institutional stakeholders. the entrepreneurs must be able to exploit the services like training and development, coaching and mentoring organizations, and freelancers. there is also a need for lobbying professionals and firms to establish roots and work for the female startups growth and assistance. the universities and training institutions need to create courses in soft skills, project management, operations, basic finance and accounts, communications and branding. these organizations can also hold workshops and seminars for female startups on understanding the legal framework of the kingdom and the prevailing business law, legal systems and procedures. the study also sheds light on need for making the venture funding procedures simpler for the female startups knowing that they are taking initiatives and need support from all the strategic and institutional stakeholders. crowdfunding platforms could be an ideal forum for the venture funding. these platforms could take shape of equity and philanthropic types. a dedicated strategic level transitory body to oversee and catalyze the transition for female startup and growth into second and third stage is necessary. this body should be able to convert the existing challenges into opportunities and opportunities into the strengths of the ecosystem. there should be a future comprehensive study on risks associated with the business failure. by identifying these risks and causes of failure we can begin to identify feasible solutions to support more women startups in saudi arabia in particular, and in the middle east in general. references [1] afaf, a, a.i. cristea, m.s. al-zaidi. 2014. “saudi arabian cultural factors and personalized e-learning.” edulearn14 proceedings, pp. 7114-7121. 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"what drives micro-angel investments?" small business economics, 25.5: 459-475. article history: received: 8 october, 2016 accepted: 10 november, 2016 microsoft word 09_jwe_1-2.doc the strategy of position as a key to success mirjana prljević* * “menora co. consulting”, paris, france a r t i c l e i n f o article history: received 8 february 2009 accepted 15 march 2009 jel: d4, l1, f1 k e y w o r d s: strategy of positioning, marketing mix, unique selling proposition, roland garros a b s t r a c t in the beginning of the eighties when a kind of trade revolution began, there were first serious attempts to develop the strategy of positioning in trade. practically, there were attempts to synthesize the differentiation strategy based on competition (the objective is to have more successful and profitable offer than the competitive one) and the segmentation strategy based on consumers (the objective is to create a unique package offer for a desired, target segment of consumers). the first attempts to theorize the concept of positioning in trade can be found ten years later after it developed among producers. thus the emphasis in the positioning strategy of commercial enterprises is placed on the specific position directed at the specific competitors. with the development of the market, globalization and information revolution, commercial enterprises were increasingly growing, gaining strength and internationalizing their position. traditional marketing strategies gain importance only when modified and adapted to local markets. the motto “think globally, act locally” becomes more important with the development of a strategy which is unique in its structure the strategy of positioning. “french open”, a worldwide successful tennis tournament as one of the products of french tennis federation, is an example of profitable and well-done strategy of positioning. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 25-38 26 introduction the fact that strategic positioning is much more present in life than it can be seen by mere observation is a reality. this is due to the fact that strategic positioning is not only important but crucial for success in the present-day context, not only for the success of a product, company, magazine, individual, but of a region and country as well. when i say success, i think of a long-term, stable success, the one which is secured, always growing and expanding, regularly supervised and controlled, success filled with imagination and work. success for the future. the most important lesson about marketing strategies is that marketing is not about satisfying consumers at any price. marketing is about how to satisfy the consumer and make a profit. therefore, a strategy, which originally means “the art of the general”, becomes a synonym for “an important means in your business, and not an objective”. there are many definitions of marketing strategy. two of them have made an impression on me as they are the most comprehensive and precise of all. “marketing strategy reflects the company's best opinion as how it can most profitably apply its skills and resources in the market. it is inevitably broad in scope. the plan which stems from it will spell out action and timings and will contain the detailed contribution expected from each department. thus marketing strategies are the means by which marketing objectives will be achieved and are generally concerned with the four major elements of marketing mix as follows: product, price, place and promotion. formulating strategies is one of the most difficult parts of the entire marketing process. it sets the limit of success. communicated to all management levels, it indicates what strengths are to be developed, what weaknesses are to be remedied and in what manner. marketing strategies enable operating decisions to bring the company into the right relationship with the emerging pattern of marketing opportunities, which previous analysis has shown to offer the highest prospect of success.” (mcdonald). and: “the concept of marketing strategy can be reduced to two important elements: deciding upon investment in market production, which covers production-market business strategy, investment intensity determined by the strategy and distribution of resources in a complex business system. this is how the sustainable comparative advantage is achieved in the market competition. this key concept implies clearly defined knowledge and abilities, means and resources, certain objectives, mirjana prljević / jwe 1-2 (2009) 25-38 27 business policy in a certain area and the creation of conditions for synergy.” (aaker) what should definitely be taken into account when analyzing the term of marketing strategy is whether it can be applied in practice as only then does it confirm its positions? therefore, you should remember: marketing strategy is a process whereby an organization transforms its business objectives and business strategy into marketing activities and profit. formula “3 x 3 = that’s you” means that you need to combine very seriously and carefully your marketing mix package, unique selling proposition and point-of sale material if you want to create a long term successful strategy of positioning. the strategy of positioning is defined at three levels: ─ at the level of product guidelines are defined for an effective design of a product according to the dimensions consumers find relevant. market research of a product is actually directed at identifying important dimensions by which consumers distinguish certain brands so the further development would improve the performances of your product. ─ at the level of marketing strategy positioning represents the support for coordinating the entire marketing mix. by defining the existing and desired position, you determine the course of action for advertising campaigns, pricing policy and terms of payment, interior design of points of sale... ─ at the level of business unit positioning requires that management provide adequate resources. in order to ensure successful positioning in the market, appropriate attention should be devoted to the implementation of the positioning strategy. in this sense, it is essential to provide necessary market research, resources within each individual instrument of the marketing mix, financial funds, as well as adequate organizational structure and atmosphere among the staff. as a first conclusion, you must memorize a following: from a marketing point of view, positioning is a technique by which marketers try to create an image or identity for a product, brand or company. it is the “place” a product occupies in the given market as experienced or perceived by the target group.” product positioning is an “image” in consumer's mind of your products or services. when you conclude what you want, you must define your business objectives on the long-term period. the strategy of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 25-38 28 positioning itself is about defining the way and means to reach your objectives. the strategic positioning: yesterday, today, tomorrow strategic positioning today, when you are overwhelmed by tens of thousands different pieces of information from the very morning, when you wake up, until the moment when you have to decide on a holiday destination or university for your child or a new business partner. strategic positioning is positioning at the level of consciousness. nowadays, this is crucially important at every step you take or every choice you make during the day. in the world of positioning, it is said with good reason: “you become a winner by going with a winner.” if you can understand that the strategy of positioning, i.e. the ways and means you need to accomplish assigned objectives or your plan and program, is not what you have done for your product or company but what you have done to the consumer’s mind about the perception of your product or company, you will be on the right track. track to long-term success. why? well, because the ingredients are elements which are the same for all the secret is in the recipe. yesterday in the beginning of the eighties when a kind of trade revolution began, there were first serious attempts to develop the strategy of positioning in trade. practically, there were attempts to synthesize the differentiation strategy based on competition (the objective is to have more successful and profitable offer than the competitive one) and the segmentation strategy based on consumers (the objective is to create a unique package offer for a desired, target segment of consumers). the first attempts to theorize the concept of positioning in trade can be found ten years later after it developed among producers. thus the emphasis in the positioning strategy of commercial enterprises is placed on the specific position directed at the specific competitors. at the same time, attempts are made to overtake the market of the main competitors with a so-called special offer. the special offer, as an expression of a developed sales-political activity of commercial enterprises, can be seen in the structure of product and service portfolio, as well as in so-called special manifestations, terms of sale, brands and the like. mirjana prljević / jwe 1-2 (2009) 25-38 29 with the development of the market, globalization and information revolution, commercial enterprises were increasingly growing, gaining strength and internationalizing their position. traditional marketing strategies gain importance only when modified and adapted to local markets. the motto “think globally, act locally” becomes more important with the development of a strategy which is unique in its structure the strategy of positioning. positioning is a marketing strategy that simultaneously starts from consumer analysis and competition analysis. the aim is to examine the consumers and determine the characteristics of the offer that enable the most favourable position of your enterprise in relation to the competition. positioning, as a concept, was created as a result of natural evolution and contains previous knowledge but also a new idea how the knowledge should be applied. tomorrow as long as a marketing strategist carefully listens to consumers and provides everything they want, there will be progress. difficulties occur when you have to determine what consumers want. this should be simple, but it is not. markets are more and more saturated, competition is bigger so organizations try to take a special, protected position, which will enable them to defend the area where they make profit. therefore, it is not enough to know what consumers want, but what exactly they want. for a strategist, change is now a factor number one. the speed at which changes occur nowadays is huge. it seems to us that we have not become accustomed to something and yet we have to provide something new. and nowhere are changes so striking as in the market. strategists have to predict future needs of the consumer if they want their organization to survive. however, the phenomenon of fast changes and uncertainties is often explained as the end of one cycle and the beginning of the new one. therefore, here is a piece of advice: keep listening carefully to the market! it is very important that a strategist consultant or manager – is aware of global events, trends in the world and their region, cash flows as well as local business policies. according to many economic analysts, the present day situation is as follows: ─ it seems that many fundamental changes are under way in the world. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 25-38 30 ─ in the “new age” or in the period of “falling line”, as value attitudes of an individual show, it is more important to satisfy spiritual needs than physical needs. ─ in the period after the second world war, a need for logical, rational was emphasized more than ever. the main emphasis is on the technology and truth of “scientific methods”. ─ in this age of technology and mechanics, many of us have lost a sense of the emotional and the intuitive, which is an important component of human spirit. although there is not a sure way to achieve success in those new and unknown markets, there are several lessons of experts strategists: ─ sudden and frequent radical changes depreciate the experience we have. this means that organizations which were successful in the past, in the then circumstances cannot expect to achieve results in the future using the same technique. unfortunately, many theories on business are just a schematic diagram of the former positive experience. therefore, you should perceive the main business activities, such as strategy and planning, in new light and reexamine their value. ─ among the first authors who realized the necessity of changes in the attitude to the issues of strategy was mintzberg, who says that strictly defined and systematic way of developing the entire business corps and marketing strategy is no longer acceptable in the conditions of more adaptable and fluid present day markets. he also says that such a way is acceptable only in the conditions of stable markets, so when fast changes occur, more effective are « necessary strategies », which are actually the formulation of the real situation in the market. he differentiates between the « strategy of sustaining », which refers more to sustaining in stable than in changeable conditions, and the « craft strategy », which is designed by combining strictly defined necessary strategies and enables you to find true balance between controlled and more adaptable behaviour. ─ a possible solution could be to determine the general direction which should be taken. you should start from the objective and the strategy, which are specific enough to indicate what an organization should focus on, and yet loose enough to enable maneuvering in changeable conditions. mirjana prljević / jwe 1-2 (2009) 25-38 31 from a to z in strategic positioning process research of the market is a key starting activity in designing a successful strategy of positioning. what is important to realize is that a marketing strategist does not have to be completely versed in the mechanism and techniques of contemporary market research, but it is necessary for a strategy that an expert has a clear idea of what can and cannot be achieved by research. the difference between the terms «data» and «information» is even more significant. data is basically the raw material for research of the market. on the other hand, information is best described as something that eases the receiver's uncertainty (about something). it is very important to differentiate between the two since all available data about the market or market activities is of no use to a market strategy. only by collecting practical and important information can you reduce doubts and uncertainty to a minimum and make practical and effective plans for the future. the process of research of the market means research in five stages: defining the goal or the problem of research, elaboration of the research plan, data collection, data analysis and overview of the findings, and define them as a portfolio that will form the basis for your future strategy of positioning. marketing package offer is a basic result or product of a marketing strategy. the dosage and use of certain elements of the familiar ‘4 + 2 = 6p’ marketing mix model is of crucial importance for long-term and stable strategic positioning (by professor kotler, these are: product, price, promotion, placement, public opinion and policy). this is due to the fact that positioning is the perception of the consumer’s or customer’s consciousness in relation to the given category. in the last ten years, i have added and practically used in my work the seventh element or “7p = personality” in addition to the abovementioned marketing mix elements. it simply proved that if the strategy of positioning is not conceptualized by the principle “from micro to macro” and “7p” model, in a long-term perspective, its implementation can be brought into question. in fact, it is very important to define personality as a group of the creator’s characteristics (the originator of a concept) to the final personality of consumers, customers, buyers or citizens. this is due to the fact that everything about strategic positioning begins and ends at the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 25-38 32 level of human consciousness: words, colors, tastes, scents, music…all this serves the purpose of advancing sales. i would like to underline that analyzing production and sales strategies of positioning of world leaders, you come to a conclusion that non-material or intangible aspect, i.e. product value, is increasingly emphasized. thus when buying a product, you acquire status, acquire a new philosophy of life, entertainment or socializing, create a style of dressing or consuming and so forth. various elements of the marketing mix and marketing management – product policy, pricing policy, promotion and placement policy – are marketing policies that a strategist should combine into a solid whole before implementing them in the market. an important strategic aspect of the package is to enable all elements to be together and appear acceptable from the consumer's viewpoint. usp is the essence of your strategy of positioning. it is a marketing message that should provide the consumer with the answer to the question: why should i buy your products and not your competitors’ products ? or: why should i do business with you and not with your competitor? you should bear in mind that, as practice shows, a company can have several usps for more different portfolios. the company then makes sure that one, unique or top usp is a message that in the best way explains to the consumer or business partner that working with you or buying your products is something special. there are several characteristics of usp you should bear in mind when formulating your usp: 1. it is one sentence. 2. it should be legible and understandable. 3. it should be correct and plausible. 4. in that sentence, there is always only one word that emphasizes the uniqueness of your offer, way of business or a certain product. before defining of the usp, you should analyze the current situation in the market in the following way: 1. focus on niches, i.e. find and clearly define the target group you are addressing. the question you should ask yourself is: what exactly do you sell or offer? 2. fill in the gap in the market, i.e. do an analysis to determine which segment of the offer is not covered by competitors mirjana prljević / jwe 1-2 (2009) 25-38 33 and highlight it in your usp. 3. concentrate on the aspect of “satisfaction from using a product or service”. 4. point out how your products or services can solve a «problem» or satisfy a «need» of consumers of a specific target group. 5. you must analyze what the competition is doing in the market. 6. tell the consumers or users of your services how they benefit from you, that is from using your products. 7. make your usp «measurable». time and price are two measurable « qualities » of an offer. pay attention to them. there are two important benefits that you yourself make by clearly and precisely defining your usp: first, it clearly distinguishes you from the competition in the eyes of both present and potential consumers or users of your services, and secondly, it makes your team focus on keeping the promises given through the usp by helping it to improve its internal performances, i.e. resources. posm or point-of-sale material as a third part of 3 x3 formula of strategic positioning. it has a very important role in the implementation of the strategy of positioning, especially in the first phase, i.e. in the phase of presentation of a new product. for positioning strategists, posm is of great importance for two reasons: firstly, it costs and secondly, you should know when and how much to “dose” it. from the aspect of its purpose, posm is divided into several groups: 1. classic posm: business cards, envelopes, memos, flyers, posters, key-rings, pens... 2. standard promotional posm: t-shirts, caps, bags, glasses, umbrellas... 3. exclusive posm: leather agendas, sets, wine, champagne, typical strong drinks in exclusive packaging, sometimes combined with certain delicacies, vases of special glass... 4. specialized posm: tents, presentation boards, cds in special packaging and with special content, compasses... 5. vip posm: a range of selected, often unique, exclusively made series of promotional material (clothes, sports clothes, jewelry and the like) which is worn by exclusive promoters purposely selected. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 25-38 34 the higher quality and cost of making pos material, the more important its role becomes and vice versa. they range from the classic and standard ones, whose aim is to make consumers remember the name of a company or product, to exclusive and specialized posm, which should make a member of target group see the quality of service offered by the company, its significance in the market...therefore, all who deal with designing and/or implementing the strategy of positioning at local level should specify which type of standard pos material is the most acceptable for target audience of the local market. as pos material burdens the price of a product, it should be dealt with in a calculated way. its role in usp is combined, that is in a package with other more important advantages that a company point out as its “uniqueness of the offer”. pos material is not only a display material, it is much more than that. you should know that for some campaigns, posm is designed by the whole teams of professional groups: psychologists, designers, music editors, photographers... if you do not have a strategy which is clear, specific, realistic and, above all, applicable to your enterprise or product, you become a ship without a rudder. even the weakest of winds can blow you away from your goal. “french open”, a worldwide successful case thus the example i want to give as one of the most representative in the world of sport strategic positioning is a story that started with a visionary – jean-rene lacoste, the most famous french tennis player ever. he was one of the four french musketeers with whom the saga called roland garros tennis tournament or the french open began. it did begin as a personal vision, but it was continued and maintained by the whole french tennis federation and the state of france. yes, the roland garros tennis tournament is a story about a successful strategy of positioning and it is set in the country known for centuries by perfumes, cheese, wine and the city of paris. still, the last week of may and the first week of june are noted down as important dates in many calendars. why is the strategic positioning of the french tennis federation so successful? so successful that one of the four world grand slam tournaments has the annual income which is a business secret. because its destiny was settled 100, or more precisely, 80 years ago, when the stadium mirjana prljević / jwe 1-2 (2009) 25-38 35 for the future was being built and france began to realize the importance of sport and sports tourism in the positioning of its name in the world map of interest. the secret of success is certainly in the following: ─ tradition based on two personal names: roland garros, the famous french pilot who was the first make a non-stop flight over the mediterranean and jean-rene lacoste, a tennis player who created one of the most influential and most expensive sports brands lacoste. to cherish the traditional values of sport, health and life vitality is what the french consider a true success. ─ ‘2q+1c’ expertise of the top management portfolio: quality + quantity + continuity ─ famous sponsor pool: bnp paribas bank (30 years), peugeot (25 years), perrier, ibm, fedex, nescafe, moet & chadron champagne, … ─ press committee: the press committee, comprising ten members of the french sport journalists federation (usjsf) elected each year during the tournament by the entire press body, examines accreditation requests and ensures a well-run press operation. ─ one of the biggest media department in the world of sport: 3,000 media representatives ─ point-of-sale material: brilliantly designed and adapted to all types of purchasing power. it turned a small “corner” shop from the beginning of the eighties into a real supermarket selling rg1 branded products. all the sponsors and partners of the fft2 participate each year with newly designed collections especially made for the rg tournament. ─ tenniseum the first class multimedia museum and the first of its kind in the world. it stretches over 2,200 m sq and comprises: an exhibition hall, multimedia centre, two halls for theme exhibitions and a media library. each year, exhibitions are adapted to the celebration of an event, jubilee, it achievements or players themselves. 1 abbreviation for roland garros 2 abbreviation for fédération française de tennis (french tennis federation) journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 25-38 36 ─ special qualities: the clay court + tennis ball especially designed for roland garros to be faster. since 1981, three trophies have been awarded each year to the players during the roland garros tournament: the prix orange (orange prize), awarded by spectators to the most sportsmanlike player, the prix citron (lemon prize), awarded by both spectators and the journalists' association to the player with the strongest character and personality and the prix bourgeon (bud prize), given by journalists to the tennis player revelation of the year. ─ focus on continually innovative refreshing solutions in all fields by the government and top management. this year, when the forum in davos was concluded with the words: the green is gold, a special attention has been devoted to recycling old tennis balls that will no longer be used. a specially designed recycling machine was installed at the very roland garros stadium, which marked a new, green era of french tennis. ─ complete and comprehensive structuralization of not only players’ base and sponsor pool but of visitors spectators and media support as well. crucial step, strategists would say. ─ fight against ambush marketing: the most important legal team in the french and perhaps one of the greatest in the european world of sports, is the very legal team of the french tennis federation, headed by rhadames killy, which achieves enviable results fighting against the expansion of ambush marketing. their example as well as the methodology they apply encourage other organizers of big sports events (e.g. tour d’france) to prevent illegal campaigns of those brands which do not want to pay for advertising but are very interested in advertising themselves and making profit through the tournament. this is a very important activity which requires the coordination of legal and top management in order to give results. ─ woman’s play support program which proffer a possibility and chance to woman, ex-tennis player, to be active and after professional tennis carrier. sometimes they choose to be a part of fft “extra-talented group” as a coach, sometimes to work with children, sometimes they choose to be a press consultant in the media department. mirjana prljević / jwe 1-2 (2009) 25-38 37 m&p formula of success 1 media and partner pool combination is the first secret formula for the long-term success of the roland garros strategy. some of the partners have supported the tournament for more than 30 years and each year media partners expand the rg offer to wider audience. there is something for everyone in the two-weekly offer: ─ thirteen hospitality areas, available on a daily basis or for the whole fortnight ─ daily hospitality areas: the open club, the slam, the grand slam, salon mousquetaires, salon paris, tenniseum breakfast. these are all “à la carte” offers, leaving you free to choose which days and how many guests you wish to invite. the daily hospitality areas are your chance to enjoy the french open to the full while still being free to choose what you want and when you want it ─ hospitality areas for the whole fortnight: the village, n’1 court, n’2 court, the executive club, the circle, gallery b. these areas are highly exclusive and much sought after, and perfect for companies to entertain their guests in a luxury setting throughout the whole two weeks of the tournament. m&p formula of success 2 media and players combination is the second secret formula for successful strategic positioning. why? because viewers like when famous people report from sports events as they color them with their charisma and success. thus, the doors of the 2008 rg were open to many former sportists who would, either as professional consultants or commentators of their national tv stations, liven up the broadcast: arancha sanchez, justin henin, bjorn borg and others. the most successful was certainly mats wilander, who was engaged by the french tv station, tf 2/3 and whose 30-minute long reports from the french open were broadcast by eurosport itself. at the end of every day, there was professional interpretation of the roland garros events called “gem, set, mats”, which proved to be brilliant and increased the ratings by 40%. now, more and more tennis players are willing to try themselves in this kind of professional continuation of their careers (naturally, no longer as tennis players but as journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 25-38 38 active media partners). this is again something introduced in the world of tennis by the roland garros management. another brilliantly designed post-play program for players and media makes it possible for many players and journalists to enjoy their stay in paris after a strenuous and quite demanding play i.e. work program. karaoke, multimedia museum presentations, ingenious fashion show, group visits to cult french castles and restaurants all this is dedicated to his majesty, the player. this is perhaps why the secret of the french open tournament is so seductive, always in harmony with everyone, with its goal set high and the strategy which tends to win over and over with its methodology. references kotler. p. (2001), “kotler on marketing”, the free press, glasgow, 170pp hooley g., saunders j., piercy n., (2004) “marketing strategy and competitive positioning”, prentice hall, london, 327pp mccormak h.m. (1993), “what they don’t teach you at harvard business school”, grmec, belgrade, 11pp morcom d. (2004), “find your usp and stand out from the crowd”, bizpep, 233pp moore g. (1998), “inside the tornado”, capstone, chichester, 180pp ries a., trout j., (2001) “positioning, the battle for your mind”, mcgraw-hill, 145pp french tennis federation, (2008), press catalogue microsoft word 12 jwe 1-2.docx udc: 005.331 jel: l26;j82 original scientific paper comparing the entrepreneurial intention between female and male engineering students upoređivanje preduzetničkih namera između ženskih i muških studenata tehnike choitung lo*, hongyi sun, city university of hong kong, department of systems engineering and engineering management, hong kong, kris law, the hong kong polytechnic university, department of industrial and systems engineering, hong kong a b s t r a c t women business ownership contributes to entrepreneurship quality and diversity. however, the new venture creation rate of females lags far behind that of males. how to increase female entrepreneurship by entrepreneurship education is an important topic in the field. it has been reported that students’ entrepreneurial intention is a key to their future entrepreneurial behaviors. this paper aims to empirically compare the entrepreneurial intentions between female and male engineering students with the exertion of entrepreneurship education. the theory of planned behavior (tpb) was used as the theoretical basis of this study. a total of 411 engineering students from three universities in hong kong, 303 males and 108 females, were involved in this study. the results show that tpb is appropriate to explain entrepreneurial intention of both female and male students. further, male and female students are different in terms of entrepreneurial attitudes, social norms and entrepreneurial intentions even they experienced entrepreneurial education. this * tat chee avenue, kowloon, hong kong sar, email: choitung@yahoo.com.hk choitung, l., et al., comparing the entrepreneurial, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 29 study suggests that teaching strategies to foster entrepreneurial intention of females should (1) emphasize female entrepreneurship, 2) provide female entrepreneurial models, and (3) create an entrepreneurial culture in campus. this study is perhaps the first study to investigate the entrepreneurial intentions by gender in association with entrepreneurship education. it contributes to developing appropriate education measures to aid female students to achieve entrepreneurial potential and promote female entrepreneurship. kew words: entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial intention, gender difference, theory of planned behavior introduction the growing viability of entrepreneurship has promoted individual career options of entrepreneurship. in recent years, female entrepreneurship has been increasingly popular and it plays a more and more important role in economic development (verheul, thurik, and grilo, 2006), contributing to job creation and social wealth, as well as the diversity of entrepreneurship (langowitz and minniti, 2007). however, the rate of women entrepreneurship still falls far behind that of men. women business ownership only accounts for about half of that for men (fairlie and robb, 2009) and the lower rate of women entrepreneurship has been found in different countries, such as canada, us, portugal, and uk (oecd, 2008). although the increase in entrepreneurship rate, males seem to dominate the entrepreneurship world. the disparity between females and males regarding their entrepreneurial career interests and attitudes has provoked loads of study on the effect of gender on entrepreneurship. for example, researchers found that several factors influence the participation of male and female entrepreneurs, including financial support, risk-taking propensity (verheul, thurik, and grilo, 2006), alertness to existing opportunities (langowitz and minnitti, 2007), and internal control (wilson, kickul, and marlino, 2007). some researchers believed that the divide between men and women is determined by their gender stereotypes which impact people’s cognition and behavior (gupta et al., 2005). entrepreneurship is traditionally considered masculine, so men tend to have higher intention to pursue an entrepreneurial career (johnson, stone, and philips, 2008; langowitz and minnitti, 2007; petridou, sarri, and kyrgidou, 2009). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 30 to encourage entrepreneurship for both females and males, governments and academics concentrated on entrepreneurship education, which is recognized to improve entrepreneurial intention and performance (linan, rodriguez-cohard, and cantuche, 2011). many scholars argued that education and training on entrepreneurship are crucial to fostering the entrepreneurial intention that predicts entrepreneurial behavior (dickson, solomon, and weaver, 2008; dutta, li, and merenda, 2010; souitaris, zerbinati, and al-laham, 2007). these studies, however, did not investigate the effect of entrepreneurship education by gender, i.e., what are the differences between male and female students being exposed to entrepreneurship education? or does entrepreneurship education have a different degree of impact on entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions of females and males? as the perception of females and males about entrepreneurship are different (gupta et al., 2005), the influence of entrepreneurship education on their entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions would be different. this paper, based on the theory of planned behavior (tpb) which has been recognized appropriate to explain entrepreneurial intention (ajzen, 1991; 2005; souitaris, zerbinati, and al-laham, 2007), addresses this gap by studying the influence of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention of male and female students. three research questions are proposed in this paper: 1) can tpb explain entrepreneurial intentions of both male and female students? 2) does entrepreneurship education influence entrepreneurial intentions of male and female students differently? 3) what are the exact differences between male and female students in entrepreneurial intentions? understanding the differences between male and female students has significant implications for improving the entrepreneurial career interests, especially female students, by addressing particular considerations of this gender group of potential entrepreneurs. this will contribute to developing appropriate education measures to facilitate students, especially females, to achieve their entrepreneurial potential and promote female entrepreneurship. choitung, l., et al., comparing the entrepreneurial, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 31 theories and hypotheses entrepreneurship education entrepreneurship education has been developed rapidly in the past decades. entrepreneurship courses and programs are not only offered in business schools, but also in engineering and science disciplines (solomon, 2007). researchers have found that entrepreneurship programs that involve interactive learning, action-based learning, role models, creativity and innovation, social networks, and other aspects associated to new venture creation have significant impact on one’s desire to pursue an entrepreneurial career, enhancing abilities and skills for startup (dickson, solomon, and weaver, 2008; dutta, li, and merenda, 2010; sanchez, 2011). therefore, entrepreneurship education influences entrepreneurial intentions to engage in entrepreneurship. despite the popularity of entrepreneurship education, generally accepted teaching contents and methods are still lacking (matlay, 2005). some researchers concentrated on the theoretical content of entrepreneurship courses/programs (fiet, 2001), while others emphasized the adoption of a more practically focused and active-based approach (mbaziira and oyedokun, 2007). furthermore, there is a lack of empirical studies between females and males and those who have received entrepreneurial education and those that have not (solomon, 2007) in order to resolve the issues related to entrepreneurship education. research on entrepreneurship education appears not mature and it is challenging for educators to develop quality entrepreneurship courses/programs by designing appropriate education strategies (matlay, 2005). addressing the differences between female students and male students regarding their entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions will help to clarify the needs and factors influencing the startup intentions of the specific gender group. many factors influence the emergence of entrepreneurial activities, such as economic environment and personalities (arenius and minniti, 2005), whilst individual intention to start up plays a decisive role (ajzen, 2005; krueger, reilly, and carsrud, 2000). entrepreneurship education intervention seems to have a critical position in enhancing entrepreneurial career intention of students (dutta, li, and merenda, 2010; fayolle, gailly, and lassas-clerc, 2006; souitaris, zerbinati, and al-laham, 2007). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 32 theory of planned behavior (tpb) intention is the key to explaining human behaviors (sheeran, 2002). many social behaviors, such as entrepreneurship, are volitionally controlled and can be best predicted by intentions (ajzen, 1991; 2005). in tpb, three attitudinal antecedents determine intention, in turn, the intention influences behavior. the first antecedent, attitude toward behavior, refers to personal interest in and desirability to perform a behavior. the second one, subjective norm, is the social pressures perceived by a person to perform or not to perform the behavior. the third one, perceived behavioral control, refers to the ease or difficulty in performing the behavior and it is highly related to the concept of selfefficacy or self-capability. meta-analytic evidence has showed that tpb is robust that intentions explain behavior, while the three attitudinal antecedents explain intentions; exogenous factors, such as education, influence intention indirectly through the three antecedents (armitage and conner, 2001). many empirical studies on entrepreneurship have tested tpb and proved that this model is appropriate to study entrepreneurial intention of students (fayolle, gailly, and lassas-clerc, 2006; souitaris, zerbinati, and al-laham, 2007; van gelderen et al., 2008). according to the researchers, entrepreneurial attitudes at both personal level and social level elucidate how the entrepreneurial intention forms. these attitudes and intentions are associated with individual perception and they are learnable (ajzen, 2005), thus, fostering these variables is crucial to promoting entrepreneurship. conceptual models and hypotheses figure 1 illustrates the conceptual model of this work. the model proposes that tpb explains the entrepreneurial intentions of both female students and male students. it also demonstrates the influence of entrepreneurship education on students’ entrepreneurial intention as well as its three attitudinal antecedents, namely, attitude toward entrepreneurship, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. three sets of hypotheses are formulated accordingly. choitung, l., et al., comparing the entrepreneurial, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 33 figure 1: conceptual model the first set of hypotheses is to confirm if the tpb explains the entrepreneurial intentions of students in the context of this study. many empirical studies showed the relationship between the three attitudes and entrepreneurial intentions (gird and bagraim, 2008; luthje and franke, 2003; van gelderen et al., 2008). however, some researchers failed to find the significant effect of subjective norm (leroy, manigart, and meuleman, 2009; linan and chen, 2009). theoretically, subjective norm directly influence entrepreneurial intention (ajzen, 2005), but researchers have called for more empirical evidences (linan and chen, 2009; krueger, reilly, and carsrud, 2000). thus this study firstly tests if the tpb explains the entrepreneurial intentions of female students and male students. h1a: tpb model explains entrepreneurial intention of female students. h1fa: attitude toward entrepreneurship positively influences entrepreneurial intention of female students. h1fb: social norm about entrepreneurship positively influences entrepreneurial intention of female students. h1fc: perceived behavioral control about entrepreneurship positively influences entrepreneurial intention of female students. h1b: tpb model explains entrepreneurial intention of male students. h1ma: attitude toward entrepreneurship positively influences entrepreneurial intention of male students. h1mb: social norm about entrepreneurship positively influences entrepreneurial intention of male students. entrepreneurship education attitude subjective norm perceived behavioral control entrepreneurial intention h2fa,b,c,d h2ma,b,c,d h3ca,b,c,d h3ea,b,c,d gender h1a & 1b journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 34 h1mc: perceived behavioral control about entrepreneurship positively influences entrepreneurial intention of male students. the second set of hypotheses deals with the influence of entrepreneurship education. according to tpb (ajzen, 2005), entrepreneurial behavior is determined by intention, which is derived from three antecedent attitudes. exogenous factors such as demographic factors influence entrepreneurial intention indirectly either through deriving attitudes or moderating the relationship between intentions and behavior (ajzen, 2005). entrepreneurship education, as an external factor, thus influences attitude toward entrepreneurship, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control that predict entrepreneurial intention (krueger, reilly, and carsrud, 2000). the effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention has been confirmed by many studies (dutta, li, and merenda, 2010; gird and bagraim, 2008; souitaris, zerbinati, and al-laham, 2007). these studies provided evidence that through entrepreneurship education, the entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions of participants including males and females are significantly improved. that is, students who take an entrepreneurship course will have higher level of entrepreneurial intention, attitude toward entrepreneurship, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control than the non-trained group. therefore, in this study, it is reasonable to propose that male students and female students who take an entrepreneurship course will have higher level of entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions than those males and females who do not take the course. h2fa: entrepreneurship education positively enhances the entrepreneurial intention of female students. h2fb: entrepreneurship education positively enhances female students’ the attitude toward entrepreneurship. h2fc: entrepreneurship education positively enhances female students’ subjective norm as regard to entrepreneurship. h2fd: entrepreneurship education positively enhances female students’ perceived behavioral control as regard to entrepreneurship. h2ma: entrepreneurship education positively enhances the entrepreneurial intention of male students. choitung, l., et al., comparing the entrepreneurial, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 35 h2mb: entrepreneurship education positively enhances male students’ the attitude toward entrepreneurship. h2mc: entrepreneurship education positively enhances male students’ subjective norm as regard to entrepreneurship. h2md: entrepreneurship education positively enhances male students’ perceived behavioral control as regard to entrepreneurship. differences between males and females regarding their entrepreneurial career interests and attitudes have received increasing attentions of scholars in recent years. rivera et al. (2007) found that women tend to perceive higher career barriers, and that such perceptions can influence career choices. this is evidenced by research on gender stereotypes that career barriers are usually related to gender-based differences (cardoso and marques, 2008). gender stereotypes impact individuals’ career choices by affecting their attitudes and perceptions about entrepreneurship, which is traditionally considered as a male profession (johnson, stone, and philips, 2008). thus, female students are assumed to have lower entrepreneurial attitudes as compared with males. researchers have also found that females are more likely to recognize that they have lower entrepreneurial skills, capabilities and performance than men (chowdhury and endres, 2005; wilson, kickul, and marlino, 2007), attributed to the characteristics of entrepreneurship (i.e., masculine areas) (langowitz and minnitti, 2007). hence, although the number of female entrepreneurs has been increasing in these years, still males are more likely to have positive perception about entrepreneurship, they are considered more suitable and more capable to be involved in entrepreneurship (verheul, van stel, and thurik 2006). these lead to the assumptions of this study that entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions are different between male and female students (whether they study entrepreneurship or not). male students are more likely to have high entrepreneurial intentions and attitudes than females. h3ca: male students have higher entrepreneurial intention than female students in control group (where students do not study entrepreneurship). h3cb: male students have more positive attitude toward entrepreneurship than female students in control group. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 36 h3cc: male students perceive more positive normative beliefs about entrepreneurship than female students in control group. h3cd: male students perceive higher entrepreneurial control than female students in control group. h3ea: male students have higher entrepreneurial intention than female students in entrepreneurship group. h3eb: male students have more positive attitude toward entrepreneurship than female students in entrepreneurship group. h3ec: male students perceive more positive normative beliefs about entrepreneurship than female students in entrepreneurship group. h3ed: male students perceive higher entrepreneurial control than female students in entrepreneurship group methodology data collection and participants characteristics the participants of this study included engineering students majored in systems engineering and industrial engineering management from 3 universities in hong kong. they included two groups. the entrepreneurship group was the undergraduate engineering students who took an entrepreneurship course, and the control group was the engineering students who had similar academic background with the first group, but did not take the course. the entrepreneurship courses offered in the universities aimed at delivering entrepreneurial knowledge and skills to the students in order to develop their entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions. these courses all lasted for one semester and they were similar in terms of contents and teaching methods. questionnaires were administered to 294 engineering students who took an entrepreneurship course in their classes and randomly to 300 students who did not take the courses in the engineering departments. a total of 411 useful questionnaires were collected with a response rate of 69%, including 201 from the entrepreneurship group and 210 from the control group. in both groups, around 70% were male students and 30% were female students. the average age of all the respondents was 22 years old, and most of them (> 96 %) were in their second or third year of study. choitung, l., et al., comparing the entrepreneurial, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 37 these figures roughly corresponded to the general characteristics of engineering students in universities in hong kong (university grant committee, 2010). generally, the non-respondents and respondents did not show significant difference in terms of their gender, race, age, and year of study. therefore, the data collected were considered representative. measures the four tpb variables (entrepreneurial intention, attitude toward entrepreneurship, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control) were measured by multiple items. each item was measured by a 7-point likert scale with 1 representing strongly disagree to 7 representing strongly agree. entrepreneurial intention was measured by four items developed based on autio et al. (2001) and kolvereid and isaksen (2006). these items included (1) i will join on-campus entrepreneurial programs/activities which assist students in creating own business if available, (2) i will start my own business after graduation in the future, (3) i will work together with good partners to start a new business in the future, and (4) i will start my own business if financial support is secured. the measures of attitude toward entrepreneurship were developed based on the items validated by luthje and frank (2003) and kolvereid and isaksen (2006). three items were to measure this construct, including (1) i’d rather be my own boss than have a secure job, (2) i can make big money only if i create my own business, and (3) i’d rather create a new firm than be the employee of an existing one. subjective norm was measured by three items which have been validated by previous studies on entrepreneurship (autio et al. 2001; carr and sequeira 2007). the items included (1) i believe that my closest family thinks that i should pursue a career by creating my own business, (2) i believe that my closest friends think that i should pursue a career by creating my own business, and (3) i believe that other people who are important to me think that i should pursue a career by creating my own business. the measures of perceived behavioral control were developed based on the items used by autio et al. (2001) and kolvereid and isaksen (2006). three items were used, including (1) if i start my own business, the chances of success would be very high, (2) i have enough knowledge and journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 38 skills to start a business, and (3) i am capable to develop or handle an entrepreneurial project. finally, gender was measured using a single item on the questionnaire. female is coded as 0, while male is coded as 1. entrepreneurship education was measured in a dichotomous scale with codes of yes=1 and no=0. reliability and validity tests the reliability and validity results presented in table 1 showed that values of cronbach’s alpha for each factor was greater than 0.7. thus, the measurements used in this study were reliable. the construct validity was tested using an exploratory factor analysis (bryman and cramer, 2005). the results indicated that the items respectively converged into their belonging factors with loadings exceeded 0.5. thus, the construct validity of the measurements used in this paper was achieved (hair et al., 2006). table 1: reliability and validity test of the measurements (n =411) items eint att sn pbc 1 0.831 0.867 0.882 0.823 2 0.838 0.857 0.894 0.866 3 0.874 0.882 0.904 0.873 4 0.847 total (eigen values) 2.875 2.264 2.394 2.191 % of variance 71.868 75.463 79.811 73.018 con. alpha 0.869 0.837 0.873 0.813 hypothesis testing methods structural equation modeling (sem) and t-tests were used to test the hypotheses stated in the conceptual model. sem was used to verify the tpb in the context of female and male engineering students (h1a &1b). ttests were used to compare the differences between the entrepreneurship group and control group (h2fa-d, h2ma-d), and male and female students h3ca-d, h3ea-d) regarding their entrepreneurial intentions and attitudes. as the sample sizes of female and male students were different, unpaired t-tests (armitage, berry, and matthews, 2002) were used in this study. two cases were considered: 1) sample sizes are unequal but variance is equal, and 2) sample sizes are unequal and variance is also choitung, l., et al., comparing the entrepreneurial, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 39 unequal. among the respondents, 108 were female students and 303 were males. the gender distribution matched the fact that about 70% of engineering students in hong kong were males (university grant committee, 2010). levene's test was conducted for testing the equality of variances. the computations were done by spss and t-statistics were selected based on the results of the equality test. results correlations among the variables before testing hypotheses, the correlations among the variables were analyzed as shown in table 2. attitude toward entrepreneurship, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control are all highly related to entrepreneurial intention (p<0.01). gender was significantly related to entrepreneurial intention and subjective norm (p<0.05), while it did not significantly link to attitude toward entrepreneurship or perceived behavioral control. entrepreneurship education was highly associated with the four entrepreneurial variables (eint, att, sn, and pbc, p<0.01). the correlations may indicate that it needs to further explore how entrepreneurship education influences the entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions of female students and male students. table 2: correlations among the variables (n=411) eint att sn pbc ee gender entrepreneurial intention (eint) 1 attitude toward entrepreneurship (att) 0.577** 1 subjective norm (sn) 0.633** 0.601** 1 perceived behavioral control (pbc) 0.621** 0.460** 0.523** 1 entrepreneurship education (ee) 0.278** 0.272** 0.402** 0.377** 1 gender 0.116* 0.072 0.110* 0.061 -0.079 1 ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) *correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed) journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 40 tpb suitable for both males and females the tpb was applied to examine the entrepreneurial intentions of both female and male students. the results are presented in figure 2. the overall fit indices of both models indicated a good model fit (kline, 2005), for example, gfi, agfi, nfi, cfi, and tli were close to 1, rmsea was close to zero, and the chi-square statistics (p>0.05) was not significant. moreover, in both models, all the paths were significant at a level of 0.01. that is, the tpb fitted both female and male data very well. therefore, hypotheses h1a and h1b were supported. figure 2: test of tpb for female and male engineering students (standardized estimates) ***p<0.001; **p<0.01. influence of entrepreneurship education h2fa,b,c,d and h2ma,b,c,d argued that entrepreneurship education would enhance the entrepreneurial intention, attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control of female students and male students. the results in table 3 show that female students in entrepreneurship group had significantly higher level of entrepreneurial intentions and attitudes (personal attitude toward entrepreneurship, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, p<0.05) than the females in control group. similar results were found for male students (p<0.01). the tests achieved sufficient power of 0.95, which was far above the cut value of 0.8 (alpha was set to be 0.1 as the sample sizes were relatively small (stevens, 2002)), male students female students 0.55 subjective chi-squre=0.022, df=1 cmindf=0.022 p=0.883 gfi=1 agfi=0.999 nfi=1 cfi=1 chi-squre=0.037, df=1 cmindf=0.037 p=0.848 gfi=1 agfi=0.999 nfi=1 cfi=1 0 55*** 0.54 subjective perceived behavioral control entrepreneurial intention 0.26*** 0 29* 0 32***0.56** 0 65*** attitude 0.42*** entrepreneurial intention 0.22*** 0 31* 0 37***0.51** 0 58*** attitude perceived behavioral control choitung, l., et al., comparing the entrepreneurial, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 41 indicating that we correctly rejected the null hypotheses when they were really false (steinberg, 2011). thus, the errors associated with sample size were not significant (cohen, 1988). therefore, regardless of gender, the students who took the entrepreneurship course had significantly higher level of entrepreneurial intention and attitudes than those who did not take the course. thus, hypothesis h2fa,b,c,d and h2ma,b,c,d were supported. table 3: influence of entrepreneurship education by gender gender control group (n=210) entrep. group (n=201) sig. mean mean h2fa entrepreneurial intention female 3.578 4.121 0.018 h2fb attitude toward entrepreneurship female 3.632 4.194 0.007 h2fc subjective norm female 3.000 3.933 0.000 h2fd perceived behavioral control female 3.681 4.622 0.000 h2ma entrepreneurial intention male 3.863 4.488 0.000 h2mb attitude toward entrepreneurship male 3.838 4.442 0.000 h2mc subjective norm male 3.353 4.333 0.000 h2md perceived behavioral control male 4.018 4.718 0.000 differences between male students and female students h3ca,b,c,d and h3ea,b,c,d respectively posited that male students would have higher entrepreneurial intentions and attitudes than female students in control group and entrepreneurship group. as presented in table 4, the mean scores on the four entrepreneurial variables of male students were all higher than those of female students, in both entrepreneurship group and control group. but the difference in attitude toward entrepreneurship between females and males was not significant regardless of whether they studied entrepreneurship (p>0.1). that is, the personal interest in business ownership for male and female students was statistically similar. the results also showed that in control group, male students had significantly higher level of subjective norm and perceived behavioral control than females (p<0.05) with a power of 0.8 (correctly rejecting null hypotheses (cohen, 1988)), but their entrepreneurial intentions were not significantly different. in entrepreneurship group, males had stronger intentions to start up (p<0.05) with a power of 0.8, while their perceived journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 42 behavioral control was similar to that of females (p>0.05). therefore, h3cc,3cd and h3ea,3ec were supported, while h3ca,3cb and h3eb,3ed were not supported. table 4: differences between female and male students control group (n=210) entrepreneurship group (n=201) gender mean sig. mean sig. a. entrepreneurial intention (h3ca,3ea) female 3.578 0.127 4.121 0.034 male 3.863 4.488 b. attitude toward entrepreneurship (h3cb, 3eb) female 3.632 0.189 4.194 0.146 male 3.838 4.442 c. subjective norm (h3cc, 3ec) female 3.000 0.031 3.933 0.036 male 3.353 4.333 d. perceived behavioral control (h3cd, 3ed) female 3.681 0.021 4.622 0.527 male 4.018 4.718 discussions and implications discussions the purpose of this work was to explore the differences between female and male students in terms of their entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions by studying an entrepreneurship course. the results showed that entrepreneurial intentions of males and females were significantly predicted by attitude toward entrepreneurship, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control (h1a & h1b). further, the entrepreneurship course was found to positively enhance the entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions of both boys and girls (h2fa-d & h2ma-d). the results are congruent with previous studies (dutta, li, and merenda, 2010; fayolle, gailly, and lassas-clerc, 2006) that entrepreneurship learning and training can strengthen individuals’ interest in engaging in entrepreneurial activities, improve their normative norm about venture creation, and develop their skills and abilities to start up. while we looked at the specific differences between male and female students with the exertion of entrepreneurship education, we found that the male students and female students were different regarding their entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions. the most obvious difference was choitung, l., et al., comparing the entrepreneurial, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 43 related to their subjective norm. male students consistently perceived more positive normative belief about entrepreneurship than the female students regardless of their entrepreneurship education background (table 4: h3cc & h3ec). the findings reflect that subjective norm, referring to social pressures or influences that opposes to personal interest in entrepreneurship, distinguishes male and female’s entrepreneurial decision. the results confirm the prior research on gender stereotype and entrepreneurship (fairlie and robb, 2009; gupta et al., 2005; verheul, van stel and thurik, 2006). the stereotype influence is obvious in traditional masculine cultures, such as chinese culture. hence, even though the entrepreneurship course significantly increased the students’ belief that they were more likely to get approval of creating own businesses after studying entrepreneurship (table 3), it seemed difficult to change their belief about social norm that males should pursue an entrepreneurial career rather than females. in terms of perceived behavioral control, male students perceived significantly more capable than females to handle entrepreneurial activities in the control group (h3cd), while the difference was not significant in entrepreneurship group (h3ed). that is, without studying entrepreneurship, the gender-based perception about individual capability to carry out an entrepreneurship behavior (man-characterized area) diminished the female students’ control over creating a new venture (verheul, van stel, and thurik, 2006). however, the situation changed after learning entrepreneurship. female students were as capable as their male counterparts regarding performing entrepreneurial activities. this probably reflects that female students are more eager to learn entrepreneurial knowledge, to develop related skills and abilities, and to face challenges in their careers (petridou, sarri, and kyrgidou, 2009). thus, the entrepreneurial knowledge and skills acquired through entrepreneurship education successfully strengthened the female students’ confidence, capabilities and entrepreneurial acumens, and reduce the differences between females and males. further, the attitudes toward entrepreneurship of males students (studying entrepreneurship or not) were relatively higher than those of females, but not significantly (table 4: h3cb & 3eb). the findings indicated that although entrepreneurship education had a positive effect on attitude toward entrepreneurship (table 3), the difference between female and male students regarding their personal interest in or preference to journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 44 entrepreneurship was not significant. this is can probably be explained by that women are better educated and more independent than before and they have more opportunities to develop their career interests like men (lind, 2006). in recent years, women have developed more positive perceptions and evaluation about entrepreneurship and innovation (e.g., importance and benefits of entrepreneurship and innovation to the society and individuals) (verheul, thurik, and grilo, 2006). the prevalence of entrepreneurship and innovation may have improved people’s attitude toward initiating entrepreneurial activities. although it somehow is malecharacterized, it is as valuable, important and interesting for women to engage in entrepreneurship as men. thus, the personal attitude toward entrepreneurship between genders was found to be not significant. males’ intention to startup was slightly higher than that of female students (p>0.05) in control group (h3ca), while in the entrepreneurship group, this difference was significant (p<0.05) (h3ea). among those who did not study entrepreneurship, female students and male students had similar level of entrepreneurial intention. this was perhaps attributed to their lower level of understanding, knowledge and skills about entrepreneurship (fayolle, gailly, and lassas-clerc, 2006; souitaris, zerbinati, and al-laham, 2007). the attractiveness of entrepreneurship to the female and male students was similar and their entrepreneurial intention could not be significantly distinguished. however, after entrepreneurship education, the intentions of all students to start up were significantly increased. particularly, male students, after completing the entrepreneurship course, achieved higher improvement of entrepreneurial intentions than females. this difference in entrepreneurial intention could be associated with the difference in subjective norm. as males perceive much more encouragement to perform entrepreneurship, their intentions to start up are likely to be higher. the study reveals that, after exposing to entrepreneurship education, female and male students had similarly favorable attitude regarding entrepreneurship. the females also felt as capable as their male counterparts. however, the females cared more about normative opinions on whether they should become entrepreneurs because of the gender stereotype. the subjective norm differences between male and female students significantly influenced their entrepreneurial intentions. choitung, l., et al., comparing the entrepreneurial, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 45 implications for entrepreneurship education this study has important implications for entrepreneurship education. entrepreneurship programs and courses to be constructive and facilitate entrepreneurial potential of students, especially females, should consider the differences of entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions between males and females. educational measures should be directed at the three attitudinal antecedents of intention, with more effort in improving subjective norm about female entrepreneurship. under the impact of gender stereotypes, females are more likely to self-impose and to be imposed by other people some barriers to becoming entrepreneurs, thereby decreasing their entrepreneurial intentions (langowitz and minniti, 2007). accordingly, when designing entrepreneurship courses, education measures should (1) emphasize woman entrepreneurship in order to break the image that “entrepreneurs are usually males”, (2) provide support and encouragement to female students, and (3) create an entrepreneurial atmosphere or culture within the campus. first, knowing what to do to become an entrepreneur is not enough to foster entrepreneurial intention, the potential female entrepreneurs have also to ascertain that entrepreneurship is important to them, and values and contributions of women entrepreneurship to the economic development are acknowledged and supported by the society. accordingly, some facts and examples of woman entrepreneurship (e.g., retailing and services, sectors with relatively low risk and capital investment), rather than only famous male entrepreneurs, should be involved in entrepreneurship courses. teachers should also stress the contribution of woman entrepreneurship (e.g., diversity in entrepreneurship using different approaches and strategies to create and run their businesses) (verheul, van stel, and thurik, 2006). the purpose that we underline woman entrepreneurship is to break the image that “entrepreneurs are usually males” and clarify that it is also common and suitable for women to create new business and they can perform as well as male entrepreneurs do. second, providing female entrepreneurial role models is very relevant to giving supports (psychological and technical) and confidence to potential female entrepreneurs. social learning theory holds that role model plays an important role in providing entrepreneurial motivation, confidence, knowledge and resources (bandura, 1986). the opinion, suggestion and inspiration of the women entrepreneurial models can be a journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 46 powerful source of encouragement, recognition and qualification to potential female entrepreneurs. thus, the entrepreneurship courses/programs should provide entrepreneurial models, such as female entrepreneurs who are professional and have similar backgrounds (age, education, culture, gender and business areas) to the students to deliver guest lecturers, seminars, or other forms of interaction. entrepreneurs with “closer” backgrounds to the students will lead to stronger interest in entrepreneurship and motivate the students to imitate the entrepreneurial behaviors (bandura, 1986). thirdly, creating entrepreneurial atmosphere and culture within the campus, especially promoting female entrepreneurship is important, given the strong association between normative belief and cultures (ajzen, 1991; 2005). a supportive culture for female entrepreneurship helps recognize the value of female entrepreneurship and approves/validates entrepreneurial attempts of female students, hence improves the entrepreneurial intentions of female students. institutes may create a female entrepreneurial culture through a series of promotion activities on women business ownership (e.g., seminars by local woman entrepreneurs, female business project competitions, entrepreneurial workshops and mentoring schemes for female entrepreneurship. in an environment with entrepreneurial culture, it is more likely to have higher entrepreneurial intentions and start-up rate (veciana, 2007). conclusion although extensive research has been observed on entrepreneurship education, comparing the impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention of female and male students is rare. overall, entrepreneurship education improves both males’ and females’ entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions. the normative beliefs that entrepreneurship is in favor of males are difficult to be changed, reflecting the self-perceptions about entrepreneurship shaped by gender stereotypes. our findings provide the foundations for future research and discussion of the teaching of entrepreneurship for enhancing female entrepreneurship in particular. educators can benefit from this work by developing quality entrepreneurship programs and courses to encourage entrepreneurial activities for both males and females. choitung, l., et al., comparing the entrepreneurial, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 28-51) 47 there are some limitations in this study, which can nonetheless be considered as opportunities for future research. first, this study used crosssectional design that deals with the status of data. despite the prevalence of this approach used in entrepreneurship education research, the comprehensive findings on the causal effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention should be further explored with a longitudinal research design, which concerns changes in entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions upon the intervention of entrepreneurship education. second, the participants in this study were undergraduate engineering students from hong kong. the results were limited to the context of hong kong engineering students. future studies on entrepreneurial intentions are encouraged to include students from different countries and disciplines to have more representative results. third, this study focused on entrepreneurial intention, not actual entrepreneurial behaviors. the outcome of entrepreneurship education on the entrepreneurship rate was not addressed. in this aspect, our model could be extended to include the actual entrepreneurial activities of the students, in order to reveal the effect of entrepreneurship education on startup. references [1] ajzen, i. 1991. “the theory of planned behaviour.” organizational behavior and human decision processes, 50: 179-211 [2] ajzen, i. 2005. attitudes, personality and behavior. new york: open university press [3] arenius, p., and m. minniti. 2005. “perceptual 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659.23-055.2:159.9 jel: l26; b54 id: 203434764 scientific review the importance of fieldwork research to reveal women entrepreneurs competence in communication sudarmanti rini1, van bauwel sofie2, longman chia3 ghent university, belgium a b s t r a c t this study reviews the main bases of interpersonal communication competence that determine women entrepreneurs’ success: knowledge, motivation, and communication skills. the rising phenomenon of women becoming entrepreneurs could encourage the processes of socioeconomic development; however, many women face barriers when trying to become successful entrepreneurs. the literature suggests interpersonal communication is especially relevant in the construction of women’s business networks, and that various communication acts showcase women entrepreneurs’ knowledge, in terms of understanding social contexts, and motivation. despite the literature’s existing breadth, further studies are stll needed to complete this topic because the research subjects do not always easily express their subjective consciousness. accordingly, fieldwork research, which provides qualitative data, is an alternative way to gather findings. key words: small business, communication, entrepreneur, fieldwork, women 1 communication science dept. of ghent university, korte meer 7-9-11, b-9000 ghent, belgium, rini.sudarmanti@ugent.be or rini.sudarmanti@paramadina.ac.id 2 coordinator faculty of political and social sciences, dept. of communication science, ghent university, korte meer 7-9-11, b-9000 ghent, belgium 3 senior lecturer in gender studies, dept. of languages and cultures, center of intercultural communication and interaction (cici), ghent university, rozier 44, b-9000 ghent, belgium sudarmanti, r., et al., the importance of fieldwork, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 74-87) 75 introduction worldwide, entrepreneurs play an increasingly important role in economic development and asian societies are no exception (lingle, 2000). us secretary of state hillary clinton refererred to this at the women and economy forum of 2011 in san francisco.vega and bolinger (2012) reported her speech in the asia foundation’s news that small businesses in east asia are increasing and growing at a fast rate. in other countries, the number of small and medium-sized enterprises is similarly on the rise. for example, they have become the dominant economic agent and generate more than 70% of new employment opportunities in iran (hosamane and alroaia, 2009). similar developments can be ascertained for african countries like kenya (mwobobia, 2012) and nigeria. those countries view entrepreneurship as a way to improve the gdp growth rate (ekpe, mat, razak, 2010). the 13th global entrepreneurship monitor (gem) annual survey reported that about 388 million entrepreneurs were actively running new businesses in 2011. within this number, it is also estimated that 163 million of these will be women – as early stage entrepreneurs (kelley, singer, and herrington, 2012). however, women’s participation in entrepreneurship for most of the sample countries is lower than that of men. only 8 from 54 sample countries are showing equivalent rates among male and female early-stage entrepreneurship. those countries are panama, venezuela, jamaica, guatemala, brazil, thailand, switzerland, and singapore (kelley, singer, and herrington, 2012, p.16). overall, the number of women entrepreneurs in almost every sample countries is increasing, although the growth rate is slow. from a gender perspective, the rising phenomenon of women becoming entrepreneurs does not only encourage economical development but also empower women (gill and ganesh, 2007). in fact, some studies showed that the image of the entrepreneur is still male-oriented (ahl, 2006; mirchandani, 1999). people tend to believe that male entrepreneurs are more competent businessperson than female entrepreneurs. fielden and dawe (2004) also indicated that social circumstances could construct barriers against women entrepreneurs’ progress. within the male-dominated context, women continue to face many difficulties building their businesses (sinha, 2005). 76 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 74-87) according to teoh and chong (2008), crucial barriers that hamper women entrepreneurs to gain success were lack of access to credit, lack of management experience in terms of building formal business and social networks, and difficulties in balancing family responsibilities with business. furthermore, researchers found that women entrepreneurs encountered obstacles in building patterns of networking, business performance, and finances (fairlie & robb, 2009; coleman, 2007; watson & robinson, 2003; bird, sapp, & lee, 2001; cliff, 1998). there are also many unexplored dimensions of women entrepreneurship (beyond those listed here. to understand the nature of women’s entrepreneurship in order to improve their conditions and chances of success, researchers need to expand their focus beyond mere economic perspectives and probe the subject using empirical research designs. in particular, we argue that the analysis of the communication skills women entrepreneurs use to lead or manage their businesses can help reveal new insights. only a few scholars have pointed out the role of communication competence in women’s success in small business. in werhane, posig, gundry, ofstein, and powell’s (2007) study, women entrepreneurs emphasized communication acts as an important key for building successful relationships with employees and others. likewise, buttner (2001) found that women entrepreneurs used relational approaches when building networks, even with their own employees. as mccreskey states, “the ability to communicate effectively is essential for success in many walks of life” (as cited in hargie, 2006, p. 2). for example, in a research involving 50 senior managers in multinational corporations, becerra and gupta (2003) found that frequency of communication determined trustworthiness. hunt, tourish, and hargie (2000) also concluded that interpersonal communication plays an important role in the training managers’ daily activities. interpersonal communication competence is especially relevant in situations involving gender differences, for example in the workplace. indeed, interpersonal communication in the workplace can ensure the harmony of mutual understanding (sandwith, 1994). for instance, kunkel and burleson found that male and female employees show different emotions and behaviors in different working conditions (as cited in macgeorge, gillihan, samter, & clark, 2003). likewise, women may require different methods, such as mentoring relationships, to support their professional development (kalbfleisch & keyton, 1995). sudarmanti, r., et al., the importance of fieldwork, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 74-87) 77 in the handbook of communication skills, hargie, citing wilson and sabees, defines competence as “knowledge, motivation, and skill” (as cited in hargie, 2006, p. 14). similarly, competence is the ability to choose adequate strategies with awareness of the implications. in hargie’s definition, knowledge is related to the cognitive ability to understand a situation and context, and is necessary for one to be perceivably competent; motivation is one’s desire to behave a certain way; and skill is the essential technical requirement needed to perform. focusing on the three qualities hargie associated with competence, the research question guiding this literature review is the following: how is women entrepreneurs’ interpersonal communication competence portrayed through the lens of knowledge, motivation, and communication skills? this study investigates the communication competencies of women entrepreneurs in relation with their success. the analysis reviews numerous studies on women and entrepreneurship, mainly those conducted in united states, yet also in israel, india, indonesia, malaysia, canada, australia and other countries in the south pacific, latin america, and europe. those were selected based on availability and convenience. this analysis helps us identifying and highlighting research areas to study further using suitable conceptual frameworks. knowledge skills the crucial aspect of business performance is the entrepreneur’s knowledge, although other aspects are equally important, such as good management skills, financial access, personal qualities, and satisfactory government support (yusuf, 1995). this knowledge includes awareness of gender roles, as being an entrepreneur involves playing a gender role (moult & anderson, 2005). many studies found that gender differences affect education and business survival (coleman, 2007; watson & robinson, 2003; boden & nucci, 2000; lerner, brush, & hisrich, 1997). the education backgrounds of female entrepreneurs are generally weaker than male entrepreneurs. limited education can affect women’s ability to manage and grow their businesses. beyond education, ekpe, mat and razak (2011) also stressed on the importance of experience, attitude toward risk-taking, and business environment factors (such as credit loans) for women entrepreneurs. for 78 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 74-87) instance, women entrepreneurs are often hesitant about applying for credit loans because of their lack of knowledge in managing business finances. the research findings above provide a brief picture of women entrepreneurs’ knowledge with respect to their businesses. data is mostly gathered by distributing questionnaires and processing statistical data from government surveys. from the quantitative data, it shows that women entrepreneurs continuously must improve their managerial knowledge. besides that, it appears that women entrepreneurs have difficulties to adjust with external conditions, such as market conditions and government policies. lack of knowledge also drives women entrepreneurs to fill areas that did not require specific or specialized knowledge. as a result, their businesses do not seem to perform as well as those of men. motivation motivation is a prerequisite to become an entrepreneur. mcclelland explains that the need of achievement, affiliation, and power generates entrepreneurship (cited by daft, 2005, p. 302-304). in a u.s.-based research, gill and ganesh (2007) found four starting points for women’s entrepreneurship: (1) stimulation for self-fulfillment by combining responsibilities as both a housewife and entrepreneur, (2) self-determination to pursue a valuable life, (3) self-satisfaction from fighting for survival when facing challenges, and (4) support from friends and communities. additionally, women also started businesses to escape daily office routines, accommodate creativity, and pursue a passion (reaves, 2008). furthermore, socioeconomic and demographic differences could influence women entrepreneurs’ motivation (kalyani & chandralekha, 2002). for instance, orhan and scott (2001) found that male domination and push factors, – such as family income, difficulty finding a suitable job, and the need for flexible time for domestic responsibilities – could motivate women to be an entrepreneur. similarly, in a study of 150 women entrepreneurs in sikkim, india, joshi (2009) found that most of them became entrepreneurs because of family business, unemployment, or economic compulsion. with respect to the influence of family, matthews and moser (1996) also found that family background could be a determinant of women’s interests in owning a business. some studies disclosed that female entreprenuers chose specific businesses based on their motivation. bardasi, sabarwal, and terrell (2011) sudarmanti, r., et al., the importance of fieldwork, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 74-87) 79 explored the possibility of gender-based gaps in financial access to bank financing in eastern europe and central asia, latin america, and subsaharan africa. they concluded that there was no evidence of gender discrimination and that female entrepreneurs were significantly different from their male counterparts in their pursuit of financial loans. similarly, in his study, cliff (1998) found that female entrepreneurs in north america did not see the urgency of expanding their businesses; instead, they carefully considered limiting resources, the time, and energy necessary to balance the business with personal life and domestic responsibilities. many studies explored the motivation of women entrepreneurs applying quantitative and qualitative research methods. some of them gathered data by distributing questionnaires and processing statistical data from government surveys. these motivation studies indicated that women entrepreneurs have their own desires to pursue a business, and most women still prioritize domestic responsibilities. communication skills there are gender differences in entrepreneurs’ communication styles and methods of building relationships. these differences determine the construction of men’s and women’s business networks. women’s businesses were typically smaller than those of men and more active locally than nationally (andre, 1992); thus, women’s networks typically involved people which they have known before for a long time. similarly, renzulli, aldrich, and moody (2000) found that women tend to respect their kinship when building business networks. such close-knit social networks tended to have positive effects on both self-efficacy and risk-taking in entrepreneurial activity (wang, 2010). women entrepreneurs tended to see communication as essential for managing relationships with employees, governments, or social networks (buttner, 2001; werhane et al., 2007). accordingly, women entrepreneurs may construct their own communication styles to build relationships with employees or others. for instance, women leaders seek to construct a communication style that reflects an ethic of care (fine & simmons, 2009; reaves, 2008; sudarmanti, 2008). with respect to gender differences in communication styles, tannen identifies that, “women uses the language of relationship, whereas men use the language of status and hierarchy” (as cited in pearson & cooks, 1995, p. 317). however, edley (2000) also found 80 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 74-87) that women could use hierarchy in their culture of control. edley argued that cultural practices in women owned business are showing elements of power and resistance. within this particular context, women create supportive, flexible, and loyal environments within their workplace but simultaneously suppress and strategically subordinate the employees’ for the owner’s achievement. many of the studies addressed in this section apply qualitative research methods rather than quantitative methods to analyze women entrepreneurs’ communication skills. researchers gather qualitative data from in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and fieldwork, so they could study the communication skills of women entrepreneurs. discussion and conclusion research design is an essential element to conduct and explore a phenomenon study (silverman, 2000; cresswell, 1998; walsh, 1998). based on this literature review, we argue that entrepreneurship researchers need to reconsider the suitability of their research designs, especially those who are interested in women’s entrepreneurial activities. the literature suggests women entrepreneurs have less experience, managerial knowledge, and skills than male entrepreneurs do. for example, many women entrepreneurs in ekpe, mat, and razak’s (2010) established themselves in fields that did not require particular or specific skills. however, women can still obtain business knowledge through educational pathways, courses, or training, and discover logical frameworks that facilitate alternative strategic decisions for the growth and success of their businesses. furthermore, mangunsong (2009) found that education did not significantly determine the effectiveness of bali, java, minang, and batak women entrepreneurs’ leadership in indonesia. instead, their business performance depended on family supportiveness. also, limited managerial skills do not equate to negative business intentions. having different motivation starting points, women represented multiple realities when managing their businesses (leitch & hill, 2006). different experiences shaped their varied approaches to or strategic choices in managing their businesses (hunter & boyd, 2004). this is most apparent in the size of a women entrepreneur’s business, which will grow only insofar as she is comfortable managing it. similarly, women entrepreneurs in cliff (1998) emphasized the importance of quality over quantity and were sudarmanti, r., et al., the importance of fieldwork, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 74-87) 81 more reluctant to take on the financial loans and administrative requirements associated with business growth. women entrepreneurs in these studies developed their businesses according to their own motives. with respect to leadership, flauto (1999) emphasized that a good leader needs good communication competence; consequently, women entrepreneurs should have good communication competence to effectively lead and manage their businesses. however, unlike males, female leaders were unlikely to use power as a persuasive strategy with their subordinates (harper & hirokawa, 1998). instead, women entrepreneurs are more likely to change their strategies to accommodate the given situation. women entrepreneurs also employ various communication styles and patterns. their communication acts reflected their subjective knowledge and motivation (wang, 2010; fine & simmons, 2009; reaves, 2008; sudarmanti, 2008; werhane, posig, gundry, ofstein, and powell, 2007; buttner, 2001; edley, 2000). the concept of female entrepreneurship invariably concerns gender roles, which reflect women’s social and cultural expectations. we argues that quantitative methods, which assume homogeneity and representative samples, cannot adequately assess this kind of phenomenon. for instance, surveys could not explore an individual’s perspective of women entrepreneurs (moult & anderson, 2005). accordingly, feminist researchers have encouraged social researchers to use qualitative methods instead of quantitative methods, on the basis that men and women are not homogenous (brunskell, 1998). moreover, feminist standpoint theory argues that women’s common experiences are different among different groups of women, as women have multiple identities based on race, class, gender, and sexuality (littlejohn, 2002). women’s different experiences can create various interpretations and social construction standpoints. one such qualitative research design is fieldwork research. qualitative research designs allow researchers to derive data from holistic natural conditions. although several studies related to small business and entrepreneurship have applied qualitative methods (perren & ram, 2004), few use fieldwork research to gather data. a synonym for fieldwork research is ethnography (fortier, 1998). fieldwork research does not use a variable measurement research design; rather, fieldwork research attempts to explore how and why something occurs. fieldwork study requires researchers to stay longer and get involved with the subject’s context so that the researcher can carry out 82 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 74-87) in-depth interviews and participant observations without making informants feel uncomfortable. in addition, according to our own experiences while conducting fieldwork research on women entrepreneurs, we would like to suggest the following three points. first, researchers should consider the boundaries when gaining access and the informants’ willingness to be the subject of the research and articulate their thoughts. it is easier to become familiar with a woman when you know her expectations and desires. this requires time. second, researchers should be aware that informants cannot always easily express their subjective consciousness: their deeper thoughts and feelings. in many societies, the informants are more sensitive and feel uncomfortable saying something contrary to their community’s expectations. their social culture has already shaped them. for example, patriarchal culture often silences women’s voices. listening to women does not mean simply making documentations and reporting spoken words: it also means catching the non-verbal layers of meaning. sometimes the informants do not realize what they are feeling. this fieldwork research can provide valuable insights. this technique will assist to portray the area of knowledge and motivation which are hidden in the area of female subjectivity that could not easily be found empirically as reflected on the communication acts that appear in everyday life. third, researchers should also close the gap by showing empathy, knowing daily routines, and using the same language. once a subject feels exploited, cheated, or betrayed, she will terminate the relationship. failure to build a rapport will also affect the authenticity of the research’s findings. research skills are thus necessary to access women’s worldviews. this study identifies some research areas and research designs that researchers need to explore further regarding women entrepreneurs’ interpersonal communication, especially in terms of leading and building relationships in business networks. the literature shows that communication acts can reflect women entrepreneurs’ motivations and knowledge of social contexts; 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[56] yusuf, attahir. 1995. “critical success factors for small business: perceptions of south pacific entrepreneurs.” journal of small business management, 33(2): 68–73. važnost istraživanja na terenu u funkciji otkrivanja veština u komunikaciji žena preduzetnika a p s t r a k t ovaj rad se osvrće na osnove veštine međuljudske komunikacije koje određuju uspeh žena preduzetnika znanje, motivacija i komunikacijske sposobnosti. fenomen, koji je trenutno u ekspanziji, žene koje postaju preduzetnice, bi mogao podstaći proces društveno-ekonomskog razvoja; ali mnoge žene se susreću sa barijerama u svojim pokušajima da postanu uspešni predizetnici. literatura nam govori da su međuljudske komunikacije izuzetno važne u građenju poslovnih mreža žena, a da razni oblici komunikacije pokazuju znanje žena preduzetnica, kada govorimo o razumevanju društvenih konteksta, i motivaciju. uprkos postojećoj širini literature, istraživaći imaju još mnogo toga da doprinesu ovoj temi jer subjekti istraživanja ne mogu uvek lako da izraze svoju subjektivnu svest. shodno tome, terensko istraživanje, koje nam daje kvalitativne podatke,bi moglo biti alternativni način prikupljanja rezultata. ključne reči: malo preduzeće, komunikacija, preduzetnik, terenski rad, žene article history: received: 26 july, 2013 accepted: 18 october, 2013 microsoft word 12 jwe 1-2.docx special issue: “educating women entrepreneurs: past, present and future perspectives” special issue introduction winkel doan, illinois state university,college of business, united states vanevenhoven jeff, university of wisconsin whitewater, college of business & economics, united states geiger mark, university of kansas, school of business, united states radović-marković mirjana, institute of economic sciences, serbia during the last decade, women’s entrepreneurship has been recognized as an important but untapped source of economic growth across the globe (e.g., acs, arenius, hay & minniti, 2005; brush, carter, gatewood, greene, & hart, 2006; langowitz & minniti, 2007); there is a growing interest and body of literature focused on women’s entrepreneurship (e.g., ahl & nelson, 2010; debruin, brush, & welter, 2006; gupta, turban, wasti & sikdar, 2009; morris, miyasaki, watters, & coombes, 2006; reynolds, bygrave, autio, et al., 2004). even in the face of a general societal and market failure to provide equal opportunity for women to become entrepreneurs, women represent a powerful force of opportunistic entrepreneurial capacity, job creation, innovation, and economic development (e.g., ahl & nelson, 2010; heilman & chen, 2003; nayyar, sharma, kishtwaria, rana, & vyas, 2007). education has been noted as one means to infuse women more concretely into the entrepreneurial experience (e.g., peterman & kennedy, 2003; wilson, kickul, & marlino, 2007). considering the importance of education for women as entrepreneurs, it has recently become evident that the new age islooking for newforms of education, such as creative education. creative education and training should help women to raise their creativity,logical thinking and entrepreneurial activity. (radović-marković 2012). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 1-6) 2 recent work has highlighted the fortification of the entrepreneurial infrastructure in higher education worldwide, leading to a proliferation of entrepreneurship courses and programs (e.g., dickson & solomon, 2008; hytti & o’gorman, 2004; west, gatewood, & shaver, 2009). researchers suggest theseentrepreneurship courses and programs should be based on modern technologies, as this way of learning establishes strongerlinkages between education and entrepreneurial activity,saves time and money, and contributes to fast information exchange, more access to the newest knowledge and experiences in this domain (e.g., capogrossi, 2002; radović-marković 2009).in an attempt to establish firm links between entrepreneurship education and outcomes as varied as motivations, entrepreneurial success and economic growth, researchers have shown that education is indeedassociated with the motivations and success of women entrepreneurs (e.g., al-zubeidi, 2005; bennett & dann, 2000; cooper & lucas, 2006; van der sluis, van praag, &vijverberg, 2008; zhao, seibert, & hills, 2005; see also the entrepreneurship education project www.entrepeduc.org). collectively, the five papers in this special issue provide a global commentary on aspects of this importantnexus of entrepreneurial and educational phenomena from a woman’s perspective. framing this special issue around this interplay of entrepreneurship and education allowed us to include papers focusing on the experiences and attitudes from a variety of critical players at this interchange, such as university students (in spain and hong kong) and business owners (in tanzania and the united states). our goal was to enrich the intellectual dialogue promoting the focus of the gendered experience in both the entrepreneurship and education realms, specifically commenting on how to enhance the experience of women entrepreneurs by leveraging the power of education. the first paperfocuses on gender differences in agentic traits and entrepreneurial intentions in among spanish university students. sanchez and licciardello found that men report greater intentionality and selfefficacy relating to engaging in entrepreneurial behavior. the authors highlight the greater importance of major area of study and age, suggesting that students should be more thoughtful of their chosen course of study and not be so quick to pursue an education just for the sake of an education, but instead think about obtaining work experience first and then complimenting that later with a more directed educational experience. winkel, d., et al., special issue introduction, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 1-6) 3 lo, sun, and law pursue a similar study investigating determinants of entrepreneurial intentions in a sample of university students in hong kong. they find evidence that an entrepreneurship education can enhance entrepreneurial intentions, and that this effect was more profound for male students. the authors suggest this illustrates the importance of women developing mentoring relationships and a support network, and of universities working to create an entrepreneurial culture. turning to the impact of education on business owners, nziku investigates the relationship between various educational factors and entrepreneurial motivation for female entrepreneurs in tanzania. the author found that government policies and support, and formal education had little influence entrepreneurial motivation for these women. the author suggests this highlights a lack of awareness of the efforts that government and higher education are making to support the development of women entrepreneurs in tanzania. the author also finds that the kind of technical/vocational training received influence entrepreneurial motivations. this points directly to the importance of increasing development programs in such a society focused on specific skills – such as gardening, weaving, and those of the culinary arts. the next paper by williams, ortiz-walters and gavino integrates entrepreneurship, diversity and gender literatures to study ethnic and gender differences in training preferences of entrepreneurs. specifically, these authors focus on training preferences of latina entrepreneurs compared to latino and non-latina entrepreneurs. they found that latina entrepreneurs showed less preference for affective/relational-oriented training (i.e., interviewing and motivation) and for cognitivie/operationaloriented training (i.e., finance and payroll) than those of similar ethnicity and gender. these results showing that ethnicity and gender do impact the preference for entrepreneurial training and education suggest that it is critical for training programs developed for minority audiences to reflect the social values and cultural norms of the intended audience. coleman and robb focus on the issues of human and social capital faced by women seeking to launch innovative ventures in the united states. the authors discover that women entrepreneurs in the u.s. continue to lag behind their male counterparts in both human and social capital, which they suggest has important implications for the pace of and attitudes toward innovation. they found that women want and need targeted educational opportunities to explore the innovative underpinnings of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 1-6) 4 entrepreneurship, and thus help close the self-efficacy and capital gap in the innovation and entrepreneurship realm. the papers in this special issue illustrate the ways in which education positively impacts women as they traverse the path toward and through entrepreneurial activity and behavior. several papers demonstrate how educational factors help shape the motivational processes leading female university students into possible entrepreneurial careers, while others highlight the importance of human capital development (such as education and training) for existing women entrepreneurs. with societal and technological changes revolutionizing our world, there are increasing opportunities for the women of the world to leverage educational resources on their journey into entrepreneurial careers. we still have much to learn about the unique challenges and contexts they face on this journey, and the unique opportunities to develop the necessary skills and networks to succeed in this journey. we hope that by pointing a spotlight on the nexus of education and entrepreneurship from a woman’s perspective, we have illuminated the possibility of this crossroad and encouraged scholars and policy makers alike to continue to fashion and study the road ahead. references [1] acs, z. j., arenius, p., hay, m., &minniti, m. 2005.global entrepreneurship monitor: 2004 executive report, babson park, ma: babson college and london: london business school [2] ahlh.,& nelson t. 2010. “moving forward: institutional perspectives on gender and entrepreneurship.”international journal of gender and entrepreneurship, 2: 5-9 [3] al-zubeidi, m. 2005. “higher education and entrepreneurship: the relation between college educational background and small business success in texas. ”doctoral dissertation, university of north texas, denton, tx. retrieved on december 15, 2011, from http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc4795/m1/ [4] bennett, r., &dann, d. 2000. “changing experience of australian women entrepreneurs.”gender, work & organization, 7:75-84 [5] brush, c. g., carter, n. m., gatewood, e. j., greene, p. g., & hart, m. m. (eds.) 2006. women and entrepreneurship: contemporary classics. cheltenham, uk: edward elgar [6] capogrossi, d. 2002. “assurance of academic excellence among nontraditional universities.” journal of higher education in europe, 27: 481490 winkel, d., et al., special issue introduction, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 1-6) 5 [7] cooper, s. y., & lucas, w. a. 2006. “enhancing self-efficacy for entrepreneurship and innovation: an educational approach.” regional frontiers of entrepreneurship research, 3: 667-683 [8] de bruin, a., brush, c.g., & welter, f. 2006. “introduction to the special issue: towards building cumulative knowledge on women’s entrepreneurship. ”entrepreneurship: theory and practice, 30(5): 585-593 [9] dickson, p.h., & solomon, g.t. 2008.“ entrepreneurial selection and success: does education matter?” journal of small business and enterprise development, 15: 239-258 [10] gupta, v.k., turban, d.b., wasti, a.s., & sikdar, a. 2009. “the role of gender stereotypes in perceptions of entrepreneurs and intentions to become an entrepreneur.”entrepreneurship: theory and practice,32: 397-417 [11] heilman, m.e. & chen, j.j. 2003.“ entrepreneurship as a solution: the allure of self-employment for women and minorities. ”human resource management review, 13: 347-365 [12] hytti, u., &o gorman, c. 2004. “what is ‘enterprise education’? an analysis of the objectives and methods of enterprise education programmes in four european countries.” education and training, 46: 11-23 [13] langowitz, n., &minniti, m. 2007. “the entrepreneurial propensity of women.”entrepreneurship: theory and practice, 31: 341-360 [14] morris, m.h., miyasaki, n.m., watters, c.e., & coombes, s.m, 2006, “the dilemma of growth: understanding venture size choices of women entrepreneurs.” journal of small business management, 44: 221-244 [15] nayyar, p., sharma, a., kishtwaria, j., rana, a., &vyas, n. 2007. “causes and constraints faced by women entrepreneurs in entrepreneurial process. ”journalof social sciences, 14: 99-102 [16] peterman, n. e., & kennedy, j. 2003. “enterprise education: influencing students’ perceptions of entrepreneurship. ”entrepreneurship: theory and practice, 28: 129-144 [17] radovićmarković, m. 2009. women entrepreneurs: new opportunities and challenges. indo-american books, delhi, india [18] radovićmarković, m. 2012. impact of globalization on organizational culture, behaviour and gender role. iap, charlotte, nc, us [19] reynolds, p. d., w. d. bygrave, e. autio, et al. 2004. global entrepreneurship monitor 2003, executive report.babson college/ewing marion kauffman foundation, london business school [20] van der sluis, j., van praag, m., &vijverberg, w. 2008. “education and entrepreneurship selection and performance: a review of the empirical literature.” journal of economic surveys, 22: 795-841 [21] west iii, g. p., gatewood, e j., & shaver, k. g. (eds.) (2009). handbook of university-wide entrepreneurship education. cheltenham, uk: edward elgar [22] wilson, f., kickul, j., &marlino, d. 2007. “gender, entrepreneurial selfefficacy, and entrepreneurial career intentions: implications of entrepreneurship education.”entrepreneurship: theory and practice, 31: 387-406 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 1-6) 6 [23] zhao, h., seibert, s. e., & hills, g. e. 2005. “the mediating role of selfefficacy in the development of entrepreneurial intentions.”journal of applied psychology, 90: 1265–1272 microsoft word 10_jwe_1-2.doc udc: 334.72 jel: l26 original scientific paper economic crisis and its impact on smes: the case of visegrad group countries tvrdoň michal*, bernatík werner, silesian university, school of business administration, karvina, czech republic a b s t r a c t the paper is focused on small and medium-sized entrepreneurship (sme) and its position within the european economy, especially visegrad group countries. the visegrad group economies are highly export-oriented and smes have a significant share of total exports. in the introduction of the paper authors present the importance of smes and entrepreneurship within the eu economies and the basic structure of smes. the second part of the paper contains an analysis of the development of the sme in the visegrad group countries. as smes existence seems to be significant driven force for exports, there is also mentioned the contemporary economic crisis and its potential impact on smes. kew words: smes, economic crisis, european union, visegrad group introduction within small and medium-sized enterprises, the following size groups are differentiated depending on the number of employed persons (this classification is based on recommendation 2003/361/ec (in effect since 1 january 2005): – between 1 and 9 (micro-enterprises); – between 10 and 99 (small enterprises); * address: univerzitní nám. 1934/3, 733 40 karviná, czech republic; tel.: 00420 596 398 460; e-mail: tvrdon@opf.slu.cz tvrdoň, m., et al., economic crisis and its impact, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 114-130) 115 – between 100 and 249 (medium-sized enterprises). they should also have an annual turnover of up to eur 50 million, or a balance sheet total of no more than eur 43 million. these definitions are important when assessing which enterprises may benefit from eu funding programmes aimed at promoting smes, as well as in relation to certain policies such as sme-specific competition rules. the article is structured as follows. first, we focus on the position of the sme sector in the european economy, especially among visegrad group countries. we also performed an analysis of the business environment in the visegrad group economies under this chapter. in the last part of the paper we focus on the current economic crisis and its impact on smes. possible solutions of this difficult situation are discussed. we use data from oecd statistical database, eurostat database and eim business and policy research which were accessible from european commission ´s web pages. smes in the european union and visegrad group ccountries smes and entrepreneurship play the key role in economic growth and social and regional cohesion. according to eurostat database there were 19.6 million small and medium-sized enterprises in the eu-27 nonfinancial business economy in 2005 and smes account for over 99 % of all enterprises (91 % of these enterprises are micro-firms with less than 10 workers) and represent almost 70% of total employment in the eu. in addition, smes and entrepreneurship are increasingly important for economic growth in the framework of a knowledge-based and global economy. given their importance in all economies (faster growth than large enterprises in the case of value added, employment or labour productivity) they are essential for the economic recovery nowadays (oecd 2009, pp.6 or schmiemann 2009). but if we look at the absolute values of these indicators we will find out that smes have a lower labour productivity than large enterprises. thus, smes contribute a considerably lower share to value added (58%) than to employment (67%). labour productivity is lowest in micro enterprises. smes (and micro enterprises in particular) also exhibit lower profitability and employee compensation than large enterprises. on the other side micro enterprises appear to have a propensity to invest that is significantly above the average of the nonfinancial business economy. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 114-130) 116 the vast majority of smes in the eu are considerably smaller than the threshold of 250 persons. while large enterprises can maintain whole departments to keep up with technological developments, track competitors, attract finance and skilled employees, or develop new products and processes, many smaller enterprises struggle for resources, whether financial, know-how or skills. furthermore, while larger enterprises may seek to lobby decision-makers in order to tailor laws to their own needs, it is rare for entrepreneurs or smes to devote resources to areas such as this (eurostat 2009). figure 1 below displays the rate of change of some key indicators between 2004 and 2006, separately for smes and large enterprises (those employing 250 or more persons). all four indicators have grown, with smes displaying faster growth than large enterprises. figure 1: key indicators on enterprises in non-financial business economy – rate of change between 2004 and 2006, by enterprises size class, eu-27 (%) source: schmiemann (2009, pp.1) if we look at some eurostat statistical data (see table 1 below) we can conclude these facts: – there were 20.2 million active enterprises within the eu-27's non-financial business economy in 2006; these enterprises had a total turnover of eur 22.3 billion and generated eur 5.7 billion of value added, with a workforce of 130 million persons; – the largest numbers of enterprises (at the nace division level) are found within activities that are, to some degree, characterised tvrdoň, m., et al., economic crisis and its impact, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 114-130) 117 as having relatively low barriers to entry, and large, proximity markets – such as other business services (such as legal, accounting, management, cleaning and security services), retail trade and repair, and construction – which together accounted for more than half (52 %) of all enterprises that were active in the eu-27's non-financial business economy in 2006; – the largest sector in terms of value added in the eu-27 in 2006 was other business services, which accounted for 12.6 % of the non-financial business economy total, followed by wholesale trade (9.2 %) and construction (9.0 %); with many industrial activities accounting for less than 1 % of the total; table 1: breakdown of activity within the non-financial business economy by size class, eu-27, 2006 (% share of total) note: (1) 2005 for value added;(2) 2005; (3) 2005 for number of persons employed source: eurostat (2009, pp.47) journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 114-130) 118 – the services sector (excluding financial services) accounted for 60.8 % of the non-financial business economy workforce in the eu-27 in 2006; – the five largest member states (germany, spain, france, italy and the united kingdom) generated 74.1 % of total value added within the eu-27's non-financial business economy in 2006, but accounted for 63.9 % of the eu-27’s non-financial business economy workforce. in the following part we concentrate on smes position in visegrad group countries (the czech republic, slovakia, hungary and slovakia). there are approximately 86 smes per 1000 inhabitants in the czech republic, which is the very highest entrepreneurship rate among all eu member states (the eu average is ca 40, less than half of the czech figure). compared to the rest of the eu the proportion of smes (as compared to all enterprises) is exactly the same, although the internal sizeclass distribution shows that the czech sme sector is skewed towards the micro enterprises. in terms of sme employment czech smes contribute slightly more than the eu-average, but on the other hand the figure is reversed in terms of value added (european commission 2008a) – see table 2. table 2: basic smes characteristics: czech republic micro small medium smes large total smes share (%)* number of enterprises 892 339 35 331 6 943 934 613 1 442 936 055 99,8 number of persons employed 1 197 804 690 155 699 384 2 587 343 1 159 713 3 747 056 69,1 number of employees 335 774 648 626 687 694 1 672 094 1 153 327 2 825 421 59,2 value added (mil. €) 15 815 13 390 16 035 45 240 33 798 79 038 57,2 note: * share on total source: eim business and policy research [online][2009-12-25] accessible from <http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/facts-figures-analysis/performancereview/index_en.htm#h2-annual-report>. tvrdoň, m., et al., economic crisis and its impact, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 114-130) 119 there are approximately only 8 smes per 1000 inhabitants in slovakia, which is considerably below the eu27 average of almost 40 and the lowest value of all member states (although this maybe partly due to the fact that also the overall number of businesses is relatively small). in line with this result, the relative economic importance of the sme sector in slovakia (measured in terms of employment and value added) is smaller than the eu average (european commission 2008b) – see table 3. table 3: basic smes characteristics: slovakia micro small medium smes large total smes share (%)* number of enterprises 32 146 9 271 2 252 43 669 525 44 194 98,8 number of persons employed 126 205 170 279 228 323 524 807 448 474 973 281 53,9 number of employees 99 032 164 181 227 435 490 648 448 321 938 969 52,3 value added (mil. €) 2 319 3 295 3 914 9 529 11 978 21 507 44,3 note: * share on total source: eim business and policy research [online][2009-12-25] accessible from <http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/facts-figures-analysis/performancereview/index_en.htm#h2-annual-report>. there are approximately 55 smes per 1000 inhabitants in hungary, which is markedly above the eu average of ca 40. since this is mainly due to a high overall number of businesses, the proportion of smes as compared to all enterprises is exactly the same, even though the micro enterprises sector is comparatively more important in hungary. in terms of sme employment hungarian smes contribute more to total employment than the eu-average, in particular in the segment of the hungarian micro enterprises. on the other hand the figure is reversed in terms of value added, suggesting room for improvement in terms of the productivity of the hungarian micro enterprises (european commission 2008c) – see table 4. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 114-130) 120 table 4: basic smes characteristics: hungary micro small medium smes large total smes share (%)* number of enterprises 532 618 24 883 4 169 561 670 853 562 523 99,8 number of persons employed 862 832 478 101 411 329 1 752 262 744 396 2 496 658 70,2 number of employees 530 133 466 037 409 124 1 405 294 743 680 2 148 974 65,4 value added (mil. €) 7 818 8 055 9 007 24 880 23 942 48 822 51,0 note: *share on total source: eim business and policy research [online][2009-12-25] accessible from <http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/facts-figures-analysis/performancereview/index_en.htm#h2-annual-report>. there are approximately 37 smes per 1000 inhabitants in poland, which is more or less in conformity with the eu-27 average. nonetheless available data suggest that polish smes do not reach the same relative importance that their peers have elsewhere in europe. although in employment terms they offer relatively more jobs than the eu-average, their share in the country’s overall value-added creation is substantially lower than the eu-average. the less favourable figures refer to the micro and small business segments, while the medium-sized business segment matches the eu-average (european commission 2008d) – see table 5. table 5: basic smes characteristics: poland micro small medium smes large total smes share (%)* number of enterprises 1 457 176 44 575 14 562 1 516 313 2 887 1 519 200 99,8 number of persons employed 3 203 811 978 203 1 527 784 5 709 798 2 468 408 8 178 206 69,8 number of employees 1 873 898 936 381 1 517 925 4 328 204 2 467 322 6 795 526 63,7 value added (mil. €) 26 980 18 341 32 017 77 338 85 779 163 118 47,4 note: * share on total source: eim business and policy research [online][2009-12-25] accessible from <http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/facts-figures-analysis/performancereview/index_en.htm#h2-annual-report>. tvrdoň, m., et al., economic crisis and its impact, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 114-130) 121 figure 2: comparison of sba policy in visegrad group countries source: european commission 2008a,b,c,d for comparison of smes and entrepreneurship we used annual report complemented by sba fact sheets and a set of studies providing indepth information on issues that are particularly important to small and medium sized enterprises in europe. the czech republic outperforms the eu average in one of the six sba sections with sufficient data for averages to be calculated (“skills and innovation”) in the area of “entrepreneurship” the czech republic is in line with the eu average. in the remaining four areas the figures for the czech republic fall behind (“responsive administration”, “finance”, “single market” and “internationalisation”). slovakia´s profile is a mixed bag. there are categories in which the data available suggest strong (such as “finance” and “single market”) journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 114-130) 122 juxtaposed with areas in which the scores are lower than the eu average (including”internationalisation”). as for the indicators in the remaining four sections where no category-average could be calculated, slovakia generally performs above average (for example “second chance” and “public procurement and state aids”), although there is a notable exception: “environment”. the sba policy radar for hungary suggests room for improvement in several areas: the available data put hungary in line with the eu average in three areas (“responsive administration”, “finance” and “single market”). in the remaining areas with sufficient data for averages to be calculated, (“entrepreneurship”, “skills and innovation” and “internationalisation”) hungary’s figures trail the eu average. also in the four sections where no category-average could be calculated the existing indicators are predominantly below par. poland´s overall profile is dominated by categories showing values below the eu-average. there are very few exceptions to this. the most notable is “entrepreneurship” where the country performs well above the eu average. this is also paired with scores above eu-average in the four sections where no category-average could be calculated. economic crisis and smes access to finance of small business is difficult, but most smes still get all or at least part of their financing deeds covered. a new survey carried out by the european commission and the european central bank shows that european small and medium sized enterprises (smes) have the necessary flexibility to withstand the crisis. in the second half of 2008, a financial crisis and "collapse" of the financial system took place. this situation is followed by an economic slow-down or even recession in some member states. in some studies on access to finance for smes, the impact of economic and credit cycles on the supply of sme finance are considered. for example, it is generally agreed that economic cycles can have a significant impact on bank lending to smes. in times of economic expansion, and/or when interest rates and the cost of capital are low, banks will adopt very different lending criteria, and take a different view of lending risk compared with periods of economic decline or stagnation. the crisis has hit european smes with 51% indicating that their profitability has decreased over the last six months. about 20% of european firms belong to the category of “gazelles”, i.e. they have grown tvrdoň, m., et al., economic crisis and its impact, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 114-130) 123 over 20% per year over three years. over the next two to three years, about 13% expect a turnover growth of over 20%. the proportion of companies that expect their annual turnover to increase in the next two to three years ranges from 17% in malta and 20% in latvia to approximately 60% in poland, austria and norway (59%-61%). in the context of current economic situation it is important to stress that smes are generally more vulnerable in times of crisis for many reasons among which are (among oecd 2009a): – it is more difficult for them to downsize as they are already small; – they are individually less diversified in their economic activities; – they have a weaker financial structure (i.e. lower capitalisation); – they have a lower or no credit rating; – they are heavily dependent on credit and – they have fewer financing options. there is no doubt that the current economic crisis has an impact on firms. enterprises are confronted with poor economic performance, which is accompanied by the decrease in demand for goods and services. firms have lower revenues, the manufacturing warehouse and also have payment problems (increasing number of late payments). the result is limited production and the associated redundancies, which only deepens the problems on the demand side. an extreme consequence of all the above factors is the growing number of companies in insolvency, or already in bankruptcy proceedings. with a general distrust in the economic recovery is linked to another problem, which currently has a significant impact on smes banks are more cautious about lending (known as tightening occurs), so for many smes is very difficult to obtain funding for its operation. “the stagnation in lending is even true of banks in countries where governments have deliberately strengthened banks' balance sheets to allow them to grant additional credit to smes and/or where credit guarantee schemes exist” (oecd 2009b). the government policy of treatment should be focused on institutional and structural measurement, which can improve the longstanding deficiencies in the sme financial environment: – to encourage banking competition across economies; – to collect more timely and sme specific data on the supply of and demand for financing. this is important for determination if government measures are working. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 114-130) 124 – the specific financing needs of micro-enterprises (less than 10 employees in the eu) which dominate the sme sector. – contemporary modern but impersonal system of scoring methods for assessing sme credit-worthiness should be support with appropriate discretion (relationship banking) – improving the means by which smes are informed about the availability of sme-related government support measures, especially those that are responses to the current crisis, is crucial for the implementation of government policy and programmes (in association with business associations or service providers) – the managerial competencies of smes especially in the field of finance have to be supported general managerial skills development, including mentoring and business advice. the small business act (sba), adopted in 2008, is an ambitious package of policies designed to put smes' interests at the centre of decision-making. at the height of the economic and financial crisis, the sba implementation in the first year focussed delivery on the following priorities: – reducing administrative burden for smes: all new european legislation and legislation in some member states (e.g. belgium, denmark, finland and germany) now passes through an "sme test" to ensure that it is business friendly. unnecessary administrative burdens worth billions of euro have been scrapped. the average time and cost of starting a private limited company in the eu has been reduced to 8 days and €417 respectively and eighteen countries have established one-stopshops for company creation. – access to finance: simplified eu state aid rules (through the global block exemption regulation and the temporary state aid framework) allowed member states to better help smes. loans and overall funding through the european investment bank and fund have increased to €11,5 billion in 2009. legislative proposals were tabled to better tackle the problem of late payments of invoices. several governments have committed themselves to paying their bills within 30 days or less. moreover, new rules are discussed under which member states would be free to exempt micro-businesses from accounting rules thus potentially saving them a further €6.7 billion. tvrdoň, m., et al., economic crisis and its impact, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 114-130) 125 – access to markets: smes are already benefiting from a 40% reduction in fees for eu trade mark rights and simplified registration procedures. as a result of a "european code of best practices", access of smes to public procurement has become easier and more open in a number of countries. the implementation of the services directive in all member states will facilitate the establishment of businesses and cross-border provision of services, while the proposed statute of a european private company – when adopted will introduce common rules for starting up and operating a business in any european country. access to standards has been made easier through the publication of scopes of standards free of charge. – promoting entrepreneurship: the role of entrepreneurship education in member states' education systems continued to increase. the commission initiative erasmus for young entrepreneurs has taken off. for its part, the eu is already helping smes to access finance in many ways. for example, the financial instruments of the competitiveness and innovation programme (cip) will, by 2013, have helped about 400 000 small businesses. the european regional development fund (erdf) will have dedicated €23bn for helping small businesses by 2013. further, the european investment bank has almost doubled its lending for small businesses, with a target of €30bn for 2008-2011. according to ueapme sme finance survey the overall situation in may/june 2009 on access to finance for smes was significantly worse than a year before, but slightly better than earlier this year (february/march 2009). at the moment between 20% and 32% of smes are reporting increased difficulties as regards access to finance, which seems to be 2 or 4 % points lower than at the beginning of this year. between 2% and 4% of all smes are reporting that they have not access to finance at all. out of those smes that have tried to get access to finance during the last months, 12% to 24% say that they have not access at all. worsening access to credit is a main problem smes have to solve during crisis in the czech republic. three quarters of firms had to scale down their activities due to the lack of finance and more than half postponed or cancelled planned investments, a survey by the czech chamber of commerce showed. most of them were smes. cash flow problems have forced 25% of companies to shed staff or to sell some journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 114-130) 126 property. while talking about smes and tackling the crisis the czech government is focusing its efforts to improve the business environment, rather than targeting particular types of company or individual industries. the government has already abolished regulations which required tradesmen to pay some taxes in advance. to get credit flowing to exporting companies, loans are being made available through commercial banks and the czech export bank. the government is also making it easier for smes to access eu funds. the czech cabinet is expected to cut social insurance paid by employers, as part of its efforts to reduce the cost of labour for employers, while the parliament has lowered the tax base for companies. in poland, smes have several advantages which are particularly precious during a crisis and fall in demand. these companies are not involved in risky financial operations; they do not try to access unknown market segments. this conservative approach is often under fire of criticism during economic expansion but when crisis loomed it showed that smes avoided mistakes which led bigger companies into trouble thanks to that. micro-enterprises are also very flexible. they can increase and decrease the scale of their operation to reasonable extent relatively quickly. moreover, since polish smes are particularly active in services and trade, so they depend on the domestic demand rather than exports. small businesses in poland operate in relatively safe market niches. the automobile repair sector is a good example: many car owners have to postpone their decisions to buy new vehicles and the demand for repairs of old cars has increased. however, despite these advantages sme sector has not been totally able to avoid troubles related to crisis. one in four companies reports problems due to downturn and among their biggest “headaches” in the difficult times they list: too high taxes, administrative burdens, lack of institutional aid, credit crunch. small companies which co-operate with bigger ones are often heavily dependent on their big clients, usually one and only. on the other hand 42% of polish sme’s have not noticed so far the impact of the crisis on their economic condition and 7% of them even report increase in turnover. in a case like that the affected companies cannot count on a significant support from the state or state institutions. they have to rely on themselves and their own abilities to survive. according to an analysis of the impact of the global economic crisis on smes by the national agency for the development of small and medium enterprises (nadsme), only 2% of smes feel access to credit is tvrdoň, m., et al., economic crisis and its impact, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 114-130) 127 a serious problem in slovakia. however, late payments remain an issue for slovakian smes, with 65% of small firms admitting to experiencing liquidity problems as a result. in response, companies are postponing payments to their own suppliers, instead seeking bank loans and selling assets. relaxed state aid rules have enabled the slovak authorities to channel more resources to smes from european structural funds. the government is seeking to link its support to energy-efficient innovations and technology transfer, and has begun to establish clusters of smes which can access major european funding programmes. as part of a series of measures to support smes, the slovak guarantee and development bank (slovenská záručná a rozvojová banka; szrb), has signed a contract with commercial banks to provide rapid bank guarantees. in the case of hungary the new hungary venture capital programme has been designed to improve the financial status of hungarian smes by providing early-stage equity financing. the hungarian capital market is relatively underdeveloped in this field; larger transactions are dominant – only a few market players are involved in financing smes in their seed and start-up stages. under the program, venture finance hungary plc. – as the fund manager of a fund of funds (fof) – relays resources to venture capital funds. a total of huf 35 billion (€120.3 million) is being allocated to the program, 85% of which is going to be financed by the european union. the partners of venture finance hungary plc. will be venture capital fund management firms, who are tasked with raising a fixed proportion of additional private funding to the resources committed by venture finance hungary plc. the abovementioned partners will be selected by open tender. the amount of the investment may have a transaction size of an annual €1.5 million. potential target enterprises: smes in the early (seed or start-up) or growth stage, which were founded no more than five years prior to the investment decision and have a net annual turnover not exceeding huf 1.5 billion (€5.2 million) in any business year. another question is if the economic crisis has the same impact on men and women entrepreneurs. first, we have to think about basis characteristics of gender entrepreneurship. while many similarities exist among women and men entrepreneurs, there also are some interesting differences, e.g. women’s level of optimism and self-confidence with respect to starting a business is lower than that of their male counterparts. according to the european commission, the entrepreneurial potential of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 114-130) 128 women constitutes an "underdeveloped source of economic growth and of new jobs". at present, on average, women make up 30% of the entrepreneurs in the eu, but often face greater difficulties than men in starting up businesses and in accessing finance and training. as part of its ongoing strategy to increase the number of female entrepreneurs in the eu, the commission launched a european network of female entrepreneurship ambassadors. these will share experiences, compare notes and act as role models to inspire women to become entrepreneurs across the eu-27. table 6: women´s entrepreneurship in czech republic and hungary (2006) overall business owners rate (%) early stage of entrepreneurial (%) established business owners (%) men women men women men women czech republic 18.47 8.07 10.75 4.93 7.66 3.14 hungary 17.12 8.53 8.09 4.05 9.03 4.48 poland lack of statistics slovakia lack of statistics source: the european network to promote women´s entrepreneurship. annual activity report 2008. table 6 illustrates some basic statistical facts about women entrepreneurship in the visegrad group countries. international gem data on female entrepreneurship (year 2006) indicates that the overall business owners rate was 8.07% for women compared to 18.41% for men in the czech republic. the gender gap is significant both at early stage entrepreneurial activity (4.93% for women compare to 10.75% for men) and for established business owners (3.14% for women compare to 7.66% for men). the similar situation was in hungary. the financial crisis has hit male-dominated industries hardest, with manufacturing and the construction sectors shedding jobs. other traditionally male-oriented jobs in mining and farming have also been in long-term decline, leading some to speculate that there will soon be more women than men in the workplace. but a different picture emerges when examining the boardrooms of blue-chip companies. men still dominate senior management positions and are significantly more likely to run their tvrdoň, m., et al., economic crisis and its impact, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 114-130) 129 own business. this disparity in the number of female entrepreneurs was an issue the sweden has highlighted during its six-month eu presidency. europe's small business act (sba) also stressed the importance for promoting female entrepreneurship. according to advisory committee on equal opportunities for women and men it is necessary to consider further adaptation of the european structural funds, to focus on additional support for areas of women’s employment likely to be affected by the crisis, and support for childcare, training and access to employment in a lifecycle perspective; there could also be greater support for women entrepreneurs. issues such as the timing of release of funds and other procedures should be examined to increase accessibility of funds. also, the provision of a financial reserve within each fund for equal opportunity activities with additional support for cross programmes and other special initiatives; gender expertise to be built into implementation measures and audit and monitor participation by gender conclusions as seen in the article, smes have an important position in eu member states, hence the countries of the visegrad four. thus it is important that economic and political authority approach the issue of economic crisis responsibly, since it has a significant impact on small and medium-sized businesses. looking to the future, there is a continuous risk that restricted availability of finance on favourable terms to firms could slow down an economic recovery. smes in particular appear to suffer from continued difficult access to short term finance, including export credits and trade finance that have declined considerably. due to export orientation of the visegrad group countries it is necessary to take increased attention for this sector of the economy under the current conditions of the economic crisis because this sector has been affected mostly by the prudent conduct of banks in granting loans. the economic crisis hit mainly maledominated sectors of economy, so we can conclude, that the women entrepreneurship has been not so affected by the global economic crisis as the male one. references [1] advisory committee on equal opportunities for women and men. 2009. opinion on the gender perspective on the response to the economic and financial journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 114-130) 130 crisis. [online][cit.2009-12-23] accessible from <http:// ec.europa.eu/social/blobservlet?docid=2878&langid=en>. [2] european commission. 2007. supporting the internationalization of smes. final report of expert group. [online][cit.2009-12-20] accessible from <http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/files/support_measures/international isation/report_internat_en.pdf>. [3] european commission. 2009. first section of the annual report on eu small and medium-sized enterprises. [online][cit.2009-09-10] accessible from < http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/files/craft/sme_perf_review/doc_08/s pr08_annual_reporten.pdf>. [4] european commission. 2008a. sba fact sheet czech republic. [online][cit.2009-12-20] accessible from <http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/files/craft/sme_perf_review/doc_08/ spr08_fact_sheet_cz_en.pdf>. [5] european commission. 2008b. sba slovakia. [online][cit.2009-12-20] accessible from <http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/files/craft/sme_perf_review/doc_08/ spr08_fact_sheet_sk_en.pdf>. [6] european commission. 2008c. sba fact sheet hungary. [online][cit.2009-1220] accessible from <http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/files/craft/sme_perf_review/doc_08/ spr08_fact_sheet_hu_en.pdf>. [7] european commission. 2008d. sba fact sheet poland. [online][cit.2009-12-20] accessible from <http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/files/craft/sme_perf_review/doc_08/ spr08_fact_sheet_pl_en.pdf>. [8] oecd.2009a. the impact of the global crisis on sme and entrepreneurship financing and policy responses. [online][cit.2009-09-10] accessible from <http://www.oecd.org/document/6/0,3343,en_2649_34197_43182598_1_1_1_1, 00.html> [9] oecd.2009b. top barriers and drivers to sme internationalisation. [online][cit.2009-09-10] accessible from < http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/16/26/43357832.pdf>. [10] schmiemann, m. 2009. smes were the main drivers of economic growth between 2004 and 2006. statistics in focus 71/2009. eurostat [online][cit.200912-23] accessible from <http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ity_offpub/ks-sf-09-071/en/kssf-09-071-en.pdf>. received: 11 january 2010 article history: accepted: 2 april 2010 12_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.(85) jel: b54; l26 original scientific paper why women enter into entrepreneurship? an emerging conceptual framework based on the peruvian case avolio beatrice∗, centrum católica, pontificia universidad católica del perú a b s t r a c t the study identifies the various reasons why women become entrepreneurs, considering their life cycle and the factors that have encouraged them, using the qualitative paradigm based on case studies of twenty-four women entrepreneurs in peru. the research identified six profiles according to the different routes by which women choose entrepreneurship: young women with employment options, growing women with external constraints, consolidated women with a trunked career, natural young women, growing women, and consolidated professional women. the findings proposed that women entrepreneurs are not a homogeneous group, considering a sole dimension to understand why women become entrepreneurs is an inadequate simplification. kew words: women, entrepreneurs, motivation, entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurs introduction for many years results from global entrepreneurship monitor (gem) have shown a large propensity of women in latin america to engage in entrepreneurial activities (minniti, arenius & langowitz, 2005). ∗ calle 9 s/n, los alamos, santiago de surco, lima, perú, tel. / fax: (511) 3133400, email: bavolio@pucp.edu.pe journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 44 even though men in these countries often take part in entrepreneurial activities, the share of women (nascent) entrepreneurs is considerably higher than for instance in europe and north-america (allen, et al., 2008). yet, there has been limited research on women entrepreneurial activity, despite the fact that the cultural differences between latin america and developed countries makes latin american women entrepreneurs’ experiences unique and worth studying. this study explores the relation of factors that have stimulated women to become entrepreneurs with demographic, educational, working and family backgrounds, using the case of women entrepreneurs in peru and proposes a conceptual framework that explains integrally why women become entrepreneurs. peru is particularly interesting as a context for research on entrepreneurship as it had the highest female total entrepreneurial activity rate in the world (minniti, arenius & langowitz, 2005) in 2005: 40.3% for the whole country and 39.1% for women, and a ratio of female tae / male tae of 0.94, the highest ratio of all countries included in the study, which means that “for each female entrepreneur there is practically one male entrepreneur” (p. 58). this study represents an important contribution to entrepreneurial activity knowledge in subjects and areas that current literature has not yet addressed thoroughly. studying the factors that stimulate women is important to promote entrepreneurial activity, because the success of a small enterprise depends of the initiatives of a person to create a viable business (mitchell, 2004). increasing the knowledge on women’s entrepreneurial activity, in latin america in particular, will help to understand the phenomenon and facilitate the implementation of support programs that help promote the creation of enterprises by women and develop a favourable environment for entrepreneurial activity. it is important to increase the knowledge about women’s entrepreneurial activity not only because the number of women-owned enterprises is growing in the world, but because there is current evidence that shows that women and men’s motives and profiles may be different (mitchell, 2004). previous research in the last decades, entrepreneurship has been a growing field for research in the world, especially in developed countries (weeks & seiler, avalio. b., why women enter into entrepreneurship, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 45 2001). however, most of the knowledge on entrepreneurial activity is based on studies about men entrepreneurs (brush & bird, 2002; hisrich & brush, 1984; hisrich & brush, 1986). several authors consider that it is inadequate to use the results of men entrepreneurs studies for the cases of women entrepreneurs because, even if men and women entrepreneurial attitudes are influenced by various of the same variables, these factors do not influence both genders in the same way or with the same intensity, and women show organizational processes and styles different from those of men (brush & bird, 2002; carter & cannon, 1992; minniti, arenius & langowitz, 2005; mitchell, 2004; weeks & seiler, 2001; zapalska, 1997). besides, most of the knowledge on entrepreneurial activity in general, and especially on women, mainly comes from developed countries, while in latin america little is known about women and their enterprises. also, most of the studies found on the literature that have explored women entrepreneur’s possible motivations suggest a wide range of reasons but such reasons have not yet been integrated into a conceptual framework that integrally explains why women become entrepreneurs. women entrepreneurs’ motives to start their enterprises are usually explained through the push and pull factors1 (buttner & moore, 1997) and the family environment (orhan & scott, 2001). however, the push/pull model does not clearly distinguish external circumstances or situations from personal motives, and assumes the push factors have a negative connotation. literature presents a wide range of possible motivations for women to become entrepreneurs according to neider (1987) and hisrich and brush (1986) women entrepreneurs and men entrepreneurs differ in their motivations to start a business: men are motivated by the desire to control their own destinies, while women are motivated by the need of independence and achievement. they also have different difficulties in the processes involved when starting an enterprise, the problems they face and their administrative and entrepreneurial skills. minniti et al. (2005) demonstrated that the decision to start a new enterprise is more complex for women than for men, and women tend to be more sensible than men 1 the push factors are related to needs that prevent individuals from taking a different alternative to self-employment, such as insufficient family income, dissatisfaction in paid jobs, difficulty to find work and need for a flexible schedule. the pull factors refer to self-fulfillment, independence with regards of a hierarchical structure or the wish for status (orhan & scott, 2001). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 46 regarding non-monetary incentives. in asia and latin america, kantis et al. (2002) and lee (1996) found that the need of achievement, of personal development and the desire to be their own boss were the main factors to become an entrepreneur. in the united states, the factors found are related to the need of achievement, independence, a greater job satisfaction, economic need, a greater possibility to combine their responsibilities at home with those from work, job frustration, being unemployed, boredom or widowhood, the opportunity, status, power, job security, the opportunity to take challenges, self-determination and the desire to balance family and job responsibilities (brush, 1992; buttner & moore, 1997; goffee & scase, 1985; hisrich & brush, 1986; schwartz, 1976). in canada, identified factors include: achieving an old dream, the desire to use their own talents, achieving acknowledgement from others, the logic continuity of job experience, the need to control their own lives, using their own talents, the economic need, having something of their own, having something they can control and through which they can express themselves, creation of jobs for the family and to a better quality of life because work is too demanding and restrictive for the work of a mother (lee-gosselin & grisé, 1990). in south africa, the identified factors include the need for independence, the need for material incentives and for achievement, the need to keep learning and for obtaining more money to survive (mitchell, 2004). echeverricarroll and brandazza (2002) consider that women tend to be pushed to becoming entrepreneurs by the negatives aspects of corporative working environment, such as glass ceiling limitation, discrimination and inflexible hours. research shows that the large relative potential to have higher income as self-employed and the demand of flexible hours push women to create their own enterprises. the possibility of creating their own working schedule lets them find a better balance for their professional and family responsibilities. according to cooper (1981), the decision to start an enterprise seems to be influenced by three main factors: (a) the entrepreneur’s background, including the different aspects that have an impact in their motivations and perceptions as in their knowledge and skills; (b) the nature of the organization they have previously worked in, those characteristics influence location, nature and the directions of new enterprises; and (c) the situation factors that generate a climate more or less favourable for the foundation of a new enterprise. entrepreneur background includes psychological characteristics, such as the need for achievement and the avalio. b., why women enter into entrepreneurship, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 47 conviction that they can control their own destinies; several family aspects, like father or a close relative who has his/her own enterprise; the type of education received and the professional experience. orhan and scott (2001) analyzed 25 women entrepreneurs in france and created a consolidated model of entrepreneurial motivation, in which they identified seven motives for women to become entrepreneur. goffee and scase (1985) obtained qualitative information of 54 women from the united kingdom to develop a typology of women entrepreneurs based on two dimensions: the degree in which women were capable of accepting traditional gender roles and the degree in which they had the ideal of being entrepreneurs. carter and cannon (1992) criticized goffee and scase (1985) typology because they considered that these categorization factors were not appropriate to analyze the behaviour of women entrepreneurs, and also, that women entrepreneurial experience changes with the stages of their life cycle. carter and cannon (1992) studied 60 women owner of their own enterprises in london and identified five ideal types of women entrepreneurs: wandering, aspiring, winners, returning ones, and (e) traditionalists. method a qualitative approach of multiple case studies under a holistic design was used to explore the motives and profile of women entrepreneurs in peru (yin, 2003). the cases were rigorously chosen to reflect the diversity of situations experienced by the women entrepreneurs, considering the following dimensions: age, civil status, educational level, the enterprise economic sector, the way the ownership was obtained, length of operation, and size of the enterprise. the data was collected mainly through in-depth interviews, in several sessions, in several places (mainly in their enterprises, but also in their homes or in public places), of approximately 90 minutes each. the information was coded, categorized and analysed using analytic induction (strauss & corbin, 1998). the information was processed in the atlas.ti version 5.2. the interview guide was based on ideas from studies made in turkey (hisrich & ayse öztürk, 1999), hungary (hisrich & fulop, 1994), poland (zapalska, 1987), singapore (lee, 1996), the united states (buttner & moore, 1997; hisrich & brush, 1986, 1991; hisrich & o’brien, 1981, 1982; inman, 2000; neider, 1987), canada (lee-gosselin & grisé, 1990) and china (hisrich & fan, 1991). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 48 population and sample selection in this study, the population of entrepreneurs includes those women (who) own 50% or more of a formal enterprise (regardless of the way they obtained the ownership), are actively involved in their operation as managers or administrators and generate employment for themselves and other people. to operationalize the definition of entrepreneur in this study, and based on previous studies (bennett & dann, 2000; inman, 2000; leegosselin & grisé, 1990; voeten, 2002a), the term was divided in eight criteria: (a) to have an enterprise operating formally at the time of the study, to consider only formal businesses; (b) to have 50% or more of the ownership of the business (shares, voting participation or entrepreneurial activity as an individual), regardless of the way the ownership was obtained; (c) to have more than two employees, in order to separate the study from self-employment; (d) to have at least two years of formal operation, in order to separate short-term opportunities with a long-term commitment with the business; (e) to have an important administrative role in the enterprise at the time of the study; (f) to work full time in the enterprise; (g) to receive most of their income from their enterprise; and (h) to be linked with the enterprise for a minimum of two years. specific questions were prepared for each of these criteria and only those women who met the criteria where chosen to participate in the study. the study was conducted in metropolitan lima, as this area concentrates 29.7% of the total population of peru and 30.2% of peruvian female population (inei, 2006). the sample was built using purposeful sampling (maxwell, 1996) with a combination of snowball and maximum variation the techniques. to answer the research questions adequately, 24 cases were selected, which made it possible to obtain enough information to carry out a transversal analysis of the cases and respond to the research questions. the number of cases was selected based on the theoretical saturation. table 1 show the profile of informants. avalio. b., why women enter into entrepreneurship, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 49 table 1: profile of informants age educational level children current marital status business sectors how did you come to own the enterprise? years the enterprise operates number of employees 45 complete high school 3 partner restaurant foundation 6 3 30 complete technical education 1 married hairdresser salon foundation 4 8 47 complete university education 2 married jewellery production and sale foundation 6 4 57 incomplete primary school 3 married consumer products foundation 15 8 42 complete technical education 3 partner hairdresser salon foundation 2 5 52 incomplete high school 5 married dressmaking foundation 2 10 51 incomplete technical education 3 married bakery foundation 15 5 50 incomplete university 2 married sale of plants foundation 9 5 44 complete university education 4 married building foundation 14 45 58 complete primary school 4 married sale of fabrics and derivates foundation 10 7 20 incomplete technical education 0 single textile design and print heritage 6 11 37 complete technical 3 married education foundation 4 10 40 complete university education 0 single early childhood education foundation 14 15 40 complete technical education 2 married hairdresser salon purchase 5 18 71 complete technical education 2 widow pizza parlour foundation 29 20 40 complete technical education 2 married sale of machine replacements foundation 12 14 42 complete university education 0 divorced dentist clinic foundation 16 25 33 complete technical education 1 single event assistance and production of metallic parts foundation 11 9 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 50 54 complete technical education 2 married travels and tourism agency foundation 23 200 47 complete high school 3 single production and sale of artisan products foundation 11 30 42 complete university education 2 divorced commercialization of vehicles inheritance 56 180 43 complete high school 3 married commercialization of shoes foundation 17 20 45 complete university education 3 married commercialization of hardware articles purchase from a relative 7 4 47 master’s degree 3 married recreation foundation 12 120 analysis the cases were analysed from different perspectives. this first part of the analysis concluded that women can be differentiated according to the life cycle stage in which they become entrepreneurs. after that, factors and circumstances that stimulated women to become entrepreneurs were identified. then, the previous steps were combined, in order to understand to what extent backgrounds of women entrepreneurs affect the factors that stimulate them to become entrepreneurs and in which phase of their life cycle they make this decision. this analysis identified how demographic, work, educational and family backgrounds of women entrepreneurs vary according to the circumstances in which women start their businesses and with their motivations to become entrepreneurs. as a result, a conceptual framework to explain why women choose entrepreneurship was proposed. finally, a typology of women entrepreneurs was developed, according to the life cycle phase in which they chose entrepreneurship and circumstances and motives that stimulated them to decide for the entrepreneurial activity. validity and reliability the following strategies were used to ensure construct validity: (a) triangulation of the information, (b) key informants revised the draft reports of the cases studied; (c) a chain of evidence was kept in the analysis; (d) the researcher’s bias was clearly specified (creswell, 2003, p. 196); (e) quasi-statistics were carried out to analyze the information related with each particular conclusion (maxwell, 1996, p. 95); (f) two pilot cases avalio. b., why women enter into entrepreneurship, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 51 were carried out (feng, 2005, p. 42). to ensure internal validity, the study used the pattern matching strategy; patterns emerging from the comparison of cases provided the bases to establish the conclusions of the research. to ensure reliability, the study used the following strategies: the use of a protocol case, the use of a data base of each case, the of an external researcher to verify the contents and logic of the information analysis and to compare the conclusions with the ones the researcher considered as emerging from the information. case analysis results: factors to become entrepreneurs women are influenced by a series of factors when deciding to become entrepreneurs. these factors were identified in the study from the discourse of the informants and have been compared with previous literature. the factors were grouped into two categories: circumstances and motives, to differentiate those factors of extrinsic origin (circumstances) from those of intrinsic origin (motives). in the present study circumstances refer to the situations or events that, when they happen in a certain context, impulse women to become entrepreneurs. these circumstances can be objective happenings (called events, such as the death of the father who runs a family enterprise or the loss of a dependent job) or situations that influenced entrepreneurship according to the woman’s perception (called situations, such as dissatisfaction with the family income or the lack of perspectives of professional growth). the economic circumstances were related to economic needs or dissatisfaction with family income. working circumstances were related to the difficulty to find employment due to lack of opportunities because of no skills, old age, no education; lack of professional growth perspectives; job frustration for economic reasons; or considering that entrepreneurship is the logical continuation of professional growth. family circumstances were given when entrepreneurship represented the means to comply with their family role; a voluntary family succession, opportunities or needs. motives are defined as "the construct that represents a force in the brain, a force which organizes perception, intellection and action in such a way as to transform an unsatisfying situation and increases satisfaction” (murray, 1938, p. 124). in other words, from the individual perception, in the presence of a gap between the current situation and the desired one, the individual is moved by an internal force that pushes him or her to establish journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 52 a conduct that will help to reach the desired state. the origin of circumstances influencing entrepreneurship were extrinsic to the woman and were related to external situations that influenced them in a positive or negative way; while motives that influenced entrepreneurship were intrinsic to the woman. the motives tended to persist in time, while circumstances were modified according to the women’s experiences. a sole circumstance or a single motive or circumstance influencing a woman’s decision to choose the entrepreneurial activity was rarely found. entrepreneurship results from a combination of several circumstances or motives, that is, the factors cannot be considered as mutually excluding and a same person can be influenced by many circumstances and many motives at the same time. table 2 shows the conceptualization of circumstances and motives identified in the cases. results show the diverse patterns existing in terms of factors that stimulated women to become entrepreneurs. each case can be categorized into several circumstances and motives, which is why the number of total cases is higher than the number of informant women. table 2: identified circumstances and motives in women entrepreneurs circumstances and motives definition number of cases economic: basic economic need when the woman is the only or principal responsible for the family economy and has no other alternative than to become an entrepreneur to sustain the family. having the principal or sole economic responsibility in the household makes the woman turn to the entrepreneurial activity to obtain income. 8 economic: dissatisfaction with the family income when the woman chooses to become an entrepreneur because the family income is not enough to generate savings, develop economically, give better opportunities to their children, have funds for entertainment and give better quality of life to the woman and her family, even if such income can cover the basic household expenses. 5 work: difficulty to find a job due to lack of opportunities in the labour market when the woman chooses entrepreneurship because of a lack of opportunities in the work market. this lack of opportunities is not related to the skills, age or education of the woman, but to external aspects such as the economic or political situation. 2 work: difficulty to find a job because of lack of skills when the woman tries to find a job does not succeed as she lacks skills with regards to the demand on the labour market. work: difficulty to find job due to old age when the woman tries to find a job but does not manage to because of her age and there is no demand for people her age. work: difficulty to find a job due to insufficient education when the woman tries to find a job but does not manage to for lack of adequate training. avalio. b., why women enter into entrepreneurship, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 53 work: lack of perspectives of professional growth when the woman has little chance of being promoted in a dependent job, and this generates a personal frustration. 4 work: frustration for economic reasons when the woman considers she is being inadequately paid in a dependent job and this generates a personal frustration. 3 work: dissatisfied with a male culture when the woman is dissatisfied with the existence of a male culture in her work environment, so she is not offered the same conditions as men. - work: logical continuation of professional growth refers to women who have a dependent work experience and consider entrepreneurship as the logic next step in their professional growth. 1 family: role of the woman in the family when the entrepreneurial activity is closely linked to the role of mother and woman in the family; the enterprise is seen as a way of fulfilling the role of mother, through the generation of work positions for the children and the husband/partner, an independent source of income, and more security for the members of the family. 5 family: voluntary family succession the woman enters the entrepreneurial environment following a family succession line: the father/mother/tutor gives her the possibility of working and directing the family enterprise and maintaining the continuity of the enterprise in time. family succession is voluntary when the woman entrepreneur has the initiative because she wants to work in the family enterprise. 1 family: family succession by opportunity when the family succession happens because the relative invites the woman to be a part of the enterprise; entrepreneurship arises as a work opportunity in the family enterprise. - family: forced family succession when the family succession happens because some family circumstance forces the woman to join the family enterprise. entrepreneurship happens as a result of the obligation to play a role inside the family. 1 family: need for a flexible schedule refers to the woman’s requirement of a work schedule that allows her to combine her responsibilities at work with those of the household and child care. none personal: presence of an entrepreneur role model when the woman has an entrepreneurship reference role model, who provides knowledge, motivation, support or courage. 22 personal: relatives who motivate and support entrepreneurship when the woman entrepreneur has people close to her personal life (parents / tutors / relatives / friends / acquaintances / partner / husband) that motivate her towards entrepreneurship. 22 personal: personal dissatisfaction when the woman chooses entrepreneurship to “have something important to do”, when her economic needs are covered and the enterprise is a source of personal satisfaction rather than income. 2 personal: specific opportunity when the woman chooses entrepreneurship for some specific opportunity, as for example, the opportunity to acquire the enterprise she works in. 3 motive of autonomy related with the desire to be independent and act according to her own will, without being subject to pressure or coercion exerted by an authority or by others in general (murray, 1938). some expressions are: wish to be her own boss economic autonomy with regard to partner or family need to control their own lives to have something they can control and allows to express themselves autonomous decision-making 7 4 6 7 7 motive of achievement related to carrying out a task that has a certain degree of difficulty, and that needs to be developed swiftly and independently, besides surpassing obstacles and reaching a level of excellence (murray, 1938, p. 164). some expressions are: journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 54 driven to reaching a dream work and personal effort capacity passionate about what they do active search for success permanent wish for improvement capable of undertaking challenges do things better than the rest high motivation to learn achieve economic success 5 20 10 23 7 16 8 8 5 motive of affiliation implies the need to establish cooperation and reciprocity links, as well as the wish to gain the affections of a significant person (murray, 1938). 7 motive of power the need to control others’ feelings and behaviour; the wish to exert influence over others using suggestion, seduction, persuasion or commands; it consists in persuading others to act according to one’s wishes or needs (murray, 1938, p. 152). 3 the results of the study were not consistent with many of the motives found in the literature explaining the factors that influence entrepreneurship. previous literature does not make a clear difference between circumstances and personal motives that influence women to choose entrepreneurship. emerging conceptual framework: why do women become entrepreneurs? the conceptual framework presented identifies the different profiles of women entrepreneurs and explains the diverse factors that stimulated women to choose the entrepreneurial activity (figure 1). the conceptual framework considers two dimensions: (a) the phase of personal and work cycles when women chooses entrepreneurship; and (b) the factors that stimulated them to become entrepreneurs, classified in circumstances and motives; both dimensions are not mutually excluding, that is, a same person can be simultaneously influenced by several circumstances and motives. the conceptual framework proposed reinforces the results that women cannot be considered as a homogeneous group with unique characteristics and that the profile of women entrepreneurs must be expressed through a typology that represents their different experiences. avalio. b., why women enter into entrepreneurship, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 55 figure 1: the conceptual framework the life cycle of women entrepreneurs the results of the study showed that women entrepreneurs can be grouped by common experiences in the life cycle stage when they choose entrepreneurship, considering: (a) the stage of life when they chose entrepreneurship (husband/partner children); and (b) the stage of professional/work experience measured in the number of years of work experience previous to entrepreneurship (the age when they chose entrepreneurship was not a determining factor for the life cycle categorization, since it depends on the life experiences of each person). the life cycles identified are: phase i: young women this phase is defined by the lack of dependents and relatively scarce or non-relevant work experience. this group includes women who decided to become entrepreneurs in the first phase of their life cycle, when they had no children, may or may not have a husband/partner and had little work journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 56 experience. entrepreneurship for these women may be the product of a natural option (such as voluntary family succession or entrepreneurial spirit) or due to the absence of other work alternatives. five informant women chose entrepreneurship in phase i of their lives. phase ii: growing women this phase is defined by the existence of dependents and intermediate work experience. this group considered women who chose entrepreneurship in the middle phase of their life cycle: they usually had economically and emotionally dependent small children, though they may not have them; some were married or had life partners, others were separated, or divorced or may had or not a partner and they had regular work experience. these women chose entrepreneurship after abandoning their dependent jobs or other independent activities. thirteen informant women chose entrepreneurship in phase ii of their life. phase iii: consolidated women women in this phase had advanced work experience, with or without dependents. this group included women who had dependent young children or economically dependent children, even though some may not have children. in any case, they had over 20 years of work experience and decided to become entrepreneurs in the last stage of their work cycle, as the goal of their work development or the logical continuation of their professional development. these women chose entrepreneurship as a result of lack of work opportunities, or because they were eager to develop their own independent entrepreneurial activity; in any case, they had accumulated good work experiences as dependent employees and then left their paid jobs to establish an enterprise as the goal of their professional path. six informant women chose entrepreneurship in phase iii of their lives. women entrepreneurs typologies the analysis identified six profiles of women entrepreneurs that express the different paths through which women reach entrepreneurship, developed using the information presented in table 3. avalio. b., why women enter into entrepreneurship, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 57 table 3: matrix of results from analyzed cases c as e p h as e of t h e li fe c yc le f am il y an d w or k b as ic e co n om ic n ee d d is sa ti sf ac ti on w it h f am il y in co m e f ru st ra ti on w it h w or k f or e co n om ic re as on s d if fi cu lt y to f in d a j ob l ac k o f p er sp ec ti ve f or p ro fe ss io n al gr ow th l og ic c on ti n u at io n o f th e p ro fe ss io n al g ro w th f or ce d f am il y su cc es si on v ol u n ta ry f am il y su cc es si on r ol e of t h e w om an c p : r el at iv es m ot iv at es a n d s u p p or t en tr ep re n eu rs h ip e n tr ep re n eu r ro le m od el p er so n al d is sa ti sf ac ti on s p ec if ic o p p or tu n it y m ot iv e of a ch ie ve m en t m ot iv e of a u to n om y m ot iv e of a ff il ia ti on m ot iv e of p ow er a pha se i x x x x x b pha se i x x x x c pha se i x x x x d pha se i x x x x x x e pha se i x x x x x f pha se ii x x x x x g pha se ii x x x x x x h pha se ii x x x i pha se ii x x x x x x x j pha se ii x x x x x x k pha se ii x x x x l pha se ii x x x x x x x m pha se ii x x x x x n pha se ii x x x x x x o pha se ii x x x x x p pha se ii x x x x x x x q pha se ii x x x x r pha se ii x x x x x s pha se x x x x x x x t pha se x x x x x u pha se x x x x x x v pha se ii x x x x x x w pha se x x x x x x pha se x x x x x x x tot al 8 5 3 2 4 1 1 1 5 2 2 2 2 2 3 2 3 1 8 7 3 young women with employment options it includes those women who chose the entrepreneurial activity because they had no other choice. these are women who are in the first phase of their personal and work life cycle; they have no children or journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 58 dependents, and have little work experience. their educational level is usually basic, which limits their work options. these women choose entrepreneurship without a previous preparation, which is why they developed their own experience within the enterprise itself and are less prepared for entrepreneurial activity than women with other identified profiles. growing women with external constraints this group comprises those women who chose the entrepreneurial activity because of some kind of external limitation. they became entrepreneurs in the second phase of their work and personal life cycle, after having some work experience. usually, they have economically dependent small or older children, and may o may not have a husband/partner. the educational level of this group of women is varied, but they usually have technical or higher education. these were women who had worked dependently and had acquired some work experience. they choose entrepreneurship either to cover their basic needs or because their dependent job salary is insufficient. consolidated women with a trunked career these women chose the entrepreneurial activity when they faced happenings that gave them no other work alternative, and whose dependent activity was cut short. they chose entrepreneurship in the third phase of their personal and work life cycle, after accumulating considerable work experience. they may or not have children, and if they do, these are already young adults. entrepreneurship is chosen as an answer to their frustration due to economic reasons. they may not have become entrepreneurs if they were satisfied with their dependent jobs. for them, entrepreneurship offers the option to cover their basic economic needs. although these women had no preparation before entrepreneurship, they became entrepreneurs with a vast work experience. natural young women entrepreneurs this group is formed by those women who chose the entrepreneurial activity as a naturally desirable work alternative. these women can be considered as natives of entrepreneurship. they were entrepreneurs from avalio. b., why women enter into entrepreneurship, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 59 the first phase of their personal and work life cycle, had no children or dependents and had little to none work experience. their educational level may be basic or superior, but what is relevant is their natural preference towards the entrepreneurial activity. these women choose entrepreneurship as the natural way of practising their work activity. growing women under way this group is formed by those women who choose the entrepreneurial activity as a personal development option after accumulating work experience as dependent workers. these women migrated from dependent activities to entrepreneurship as an alternative of professional development. they choose entrepreneurship in the second phase of their personal and work life cycle. they usually have economically and emotionally dependent small or older children, and may or may not have a partner. they became entrepreneurs because of situations such as a voluntary family succession, lack of perspectives of professional growth in dependent jobs; for considering entrepreneurship as the logical continuation of their professional development; or because they were dissatisfied with the family income that, even though was enough to cover their basic needs, did not allow them to satisfy their expectations of better life standards. these women did not experience happenings external to them that did not allow them to choose other work alternative, but the situations they perceived depended on their own perspective. the educational level of these women can be diverse, but all of them start their entrepreneurial activities after learning and gaining experience from their work experience. consolidated professional women this group is formed by those women who choose the entrepreneurial activity as the culmination of their work development, and after having gathered important work experience as dependent workers. they choose entrepreneurship in the third phase of their personal and work life cycle. they may or may not have children, and if they do, they are young adults. they had always worked for others and wanted to work for themselves. they chose entrepreneurship because of situations such as journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 60 dissatisfaction with their current income or with their work as dependent workers; their decision was also related to the possibility of fulfilling their role within the family and generating work opportunities for their children and relatives. these women did not experiment happenings external to them that prevented them from choosing another work alternative. the educational profile of these women is varied, but they all became entrepreneurs after acquiring knowledge through many years of work experience, which is why they face entrepreneurship more prepared than the women entrepreneurs from the other profiles, in work and personal terms. discussion the findings of the study can be summarized in four facts: (a) women in peru seem to be stimulated by factors that “pull” them to become entrepreneurs, rather than circumstances that “push” them to choose the entrepreneurial activity; (b) circumstances affecting entrepreneurship seem to show differences according to their demographic, educational and family background; (c) very important circumstances in the women’s life to become entrepreneurs were the existence of people who motivated and supported entrepreneurship and the presence of an entrepreneur role model; (d) women entrepreneurs cannot be considered a homogeneous group with unique characteristics and that their profile must be expressed through a typology that represents their different experiences. establishing a unique profile of women entrepreneurs considering a sole dimension seems to be an inadequate simplification of their backgrounds. the study proposes a conceptual framework that explains the profile of women entrepreneurs, since they start their enterprises at different moments of their life and this affects the type of business and their particular approach to the enterprise ownership) from their work stage and personal life cycle phase in which they opt for entrepreneurship and the factors that stimulated them to become entrepreneurs. the study has identified six profiles of women entrepreneurs that express different routes by which women achieve entrepreneurship, called: young women with employment options, growing women with external constraints, consolidated women with a trunked career, natural young women, growing women under way, and consolidated professional women. avalio. b., why women enter into entrepreneurship, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 43-63) 61 the methodology presented in this study can lead to define different profiles of women entrepreneurs in order to have a better understanding of their needs and therefore, design specific programs, institutions or policies that can support their activity and promote it. references [1] allen, s., & truman, c. 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(1997). a profile of woman entrepreneurs and enterprises in poland. journal of small business management, 35(4), 76-82. zašto žene ulaze u preduzetništvo? idejni okvir na osnovu studije slučaja u peru a p s t r a k t studija identifikuje različite razloge zašto se žene opredeljuju za bavljenje preduzetničkim poslovima, imajući u vidu njihov životni ciklus i faktore koji su ih podstakli. studija slučaja je uključila dvadeset i četiri žene preduzetnice na teritoriji perua. istraživanja su utvrdila šest različitih profila žena, koje se opredeljuju da postanu preduzetnice: to su mlade žene koje se na ovaj način zapošljavaju, žene koje imaju ograničenja kod napredovalja, žene koje imaju već karijeru, i dr. rezultati istraživanja takođe ukazuju da žene preduzetnice nisu homogena grupa, tako da nije jednostavno naći opšte mesto za sve žene koje postaju preduzetnice. ključne reči: žene, preduzetnici, motivacija, preduzetništvo, žene preduzetnice article history: received: 17 february, 2012 revised: 30 june, 2012 accepted: 5 september, 2012 microsoft word 12 jwe 1-2.docx udc: 005.953(292.8) jel: l26;j82 original scientific paper entrepreneurial education and latina business owner preferences: do gender and race matter? preduzetničko obrazovanje i postavke preduzetnika u latinskoj americi: da li pol i rasa imaju uticaja? williams denise e., department of marketing and management, college of business, butler university, indianapolis, indiana 46208, united states ortiz-walters rowena, management and entrepreneurship quinnipiac university, school of business, hamden, connecticut 06518, united states gavino monica c., management department graham school of management, saint xavier university, chicago, illinois 60655, united states a b s t r a c t the objective of this study is to contribute to the understanding of the latina entrepreneur and the role that training plays in their personal knowledge, skills, and attitude development. we propose to assess the types of training selected by latina entrepreneurs in order to begin to identify potential explanations for entrepreneurial performance. thus, in this paper, we explore the role that gender and minority ethnicity might play on the nature of entrepreneurial training sought and engaged in by business owners of entrepreneurial ventures. specifically, we compare latino business owners to non-latino entrepreneurs and latina to latino male entrepreneurs in order to examine whether or not there is an influence of the race/ethnicity of business owners on their selection of business training category. further, we explore the impact of gender on the choice of business training category. we differentiate training preference as affective (relational) and cognitive (operational). our findings suggest that there are may be ethnic and gender differences in the type of training preference. kew words: entrepreneurship, gender, latino entrepreneurs, minority entrepreneurs, ethnic entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial training williams d., et al., latina business owner, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 75 the latino1 population has experienced a substantial growth to 43% during 2000 through 2010 representing over half of the total u.s. population growth (u.s. census bureau, 2010). this phenomenon has captured the attention of both researcher and educator. between 2000 through 2008, latino self employment nearly doubled from 5.6 to 10.3% (small business administration, 2009). with business ownership growth at 44%, latino enterprises collectively generated $345.2 billion in sales in 2007, up 55.5% from 2002 (u.s. census bureau, 2007). in similar ways, the share of women business ownership is growing in all business sectors with women owning 29% of the nation’s businesses and receipts of $1 trillion (u.s. department of commerce, 2007; u.s. census bureau, 2007). latino-owned businesses have impressive new business venture start-up rates. despite this fact, they continue to experience faster business closing rates than non-latino owners. (u.s. census bureau, 2010). this is in keeping with research that finds minority2 entrepreneurs have lower rates of success, on a number of measures, than non-minority entrepreneurs (phillip kollinger and maria minniti, 2006). for latinas3, specifically, the growth in the number of ventures started is also showing a similar increased trend (andrea e. smith-hunter and carol venezio, 2006). indicators of performance also point to a lack of equality for female business owners such as latinas as they experience lower annual sales, annual salaries, and firm survival rates than male owners (u.s. department of commerce, 2010; barbara j. robles and hector cordero-guzman, 2007; patricia g. green, myrna m. hart, elizabeth j. gatewood, candida g. brush, and nancy m. carter, 2003). and yet, we still have not generated actionable knowledge on how to effectively address the lack of business sustainability for latina entrepreneurs. entrepreneurship research has empirically demonstrated that various factors influence firm performance including the entrepreneur’s demographics, psychological traits, behavioral characteristics as well as managerial and technical skills (donald f. kuratko, 2005; alicia m. robb, 2002). these antecedents to firm performance are particularly relevant to 1  for the purposes of this research, the term latino refers to individuals who identify themselves as having a hispanic ethnicity such as puerto rican, cuban, mexican and latin american.  2 the terms minority and ethnic entrepreneurs are used interchangeably.  3 latina refers to a woman of hispanic ethnicity  journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 76 the minority business owners who enter entrepreneurship with a different view and experience in all of these critical areas. for example, research finds minority and female owners have little pre-business ownership experience (smith-hunter and venezio, 2006; soyeon shim and mary ann eastlick, 1998). according to james c. hayton (2003), an area that could contribute to entrepreneurial success is human capital development. as such, attending training workshops and seminars is one approach to further developing this type of capital (timothy mescon, 1987. in fact, the growth in educational and training programs devoted to entrepreneurial development has been substantial (kuratko, 2005); and therefore, relevant for further exploration in the role it plays for ventures owned by latinas. the human resource development and training literature identifies that the nature of education and training is influenced by the learning needs and stages of the entrepreneurial venture development (gary gorman, dennis hanlon, and wayne king, 1997), subject matter and pedagogical approach (gorman, hanlon, and king 1997), as well as culture (thomas garavan and barra o’cinneide, 1994). given that women and minority entrepreneurs confront different obstacles than male and non-minority entrepreneurs face (patricia g. green et al., 2003; radha chaganti and patricia greene, 2002) and hold differing cultural and social beliefs, these diverse entrepreneurs might therefore, prefer different training and entrepreneurial skills development. despite the popularity of entrepreneurial education, research indicates that little uniformity exists (collette henry, frances hill, and claire leitch, 2005). furthermore, the distinctive categorizations of the various skills required for entrepreneurial development have ranged from business operations (i.e. technical and business management) to more interpersonal and personal orientations (wayne h. stewart, warren e. watson, joann c. carland, and james w. carland, 1999; robert d. hisrich and michael p. peters, 1998). in this study, we focus on training interventions that fall into one of two categories: affective or cognitive. “affective learning” relates to learning that is focused on changes in values, attitudes, reactions, motivations, and self efficacy (stephen p. brown, eli jones, and thomas w. leigh, 2005; kurt kraiger, kevin j. ford, and eduardo salas, 1993). “cognitive learning” refers to the understanding of task relevant information which includes knowledge about specific facts and skills (kurt kraiger et al., 1993). williams d., et al., latina business owner, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 77 we propose to assess the types of training selected by latina entrepreneurs in order to begin to identify potential explanations for entrepreneurial performance. thus, in this paper, we explore the role that gender and a minority entrepreneur’s ethnicity might play on the nature of entrepreneurial training sought and engaged in by these business owners. specifically, we compare latino business owners to non-latino entrepreneurs and latino male to latina entrepreneurs in order to examine whether or not there is an: 1) influence of the race/ethnicity of business owners on their selection of business training category; and 2) impact of gender on the choice of business training category (figure 1). figure 1: the influence of race/ethnicity and gender on entrepreneur training preference ethnic and female entrepreneurship academic research has explored the phenomena and motivation of minority entrepreneurs such as black business owners whose entrepreneurial venture start ups increased by 45.4% between 1997 and 2002 in the united states (linda f. edelman, candida g. brush, tatiana s. manolova, and patricia g. green, 2010). however, these patterns of startup growth are contradicted by the record business failure and lack of sustainability by these same minority entrepreneurs as they often experienced the lowest survival rates (alicia m. robb, 2002). similarly, women owned firms have increased dramatically in the united states, yet remain smaller than those owned by men and constrained in financial capital access and industry diversity (du rietz and henrekson, 2000). with journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 78 the continued expected growth in the latino population and business ownership in the future, very little research has been directed to understanding this minority business owner, particularly the latina. research on minority and ethnic entrepreneurs overall has been minimal and inadequate to fully explain this phenomenon. minorities in the self employment sector are important to our economy and thus should important to the research agenda (marc cowling and mark taylor, 2001). radha chaganti and patricia greene (2002) contribute to our knowledge about this minority entrepreneurship sector and report that they face similar barriers to entry and challenges that other small business owners do. however, research also indicates that both minority and female entrepreneurs suffer from some issues more intensely than others, due in part to their lower education levels, higher levels of unemployment, and more limited access to resources. these challenges are further complicated for female minority entrepreneurs. not only does the impact of culture play a significant role in predicting performance of latina entrepreneurs (anisya s. thomas and stephen l. mueller, 2000), but the implications to the economy are even more crucial. these business owners face different obstacles than their male counterparts as they face incremental family responsibilities, cultural and social stigmas, and limitations in access to financial and social capital which can impact their business growth substantially (susan coleman, 2007; richard demartino and robert barbato, 2002; david deakins, 1996). additionally, women owners may have a different social orientation where they tend to be more focused on relationships while seeing the business environment as an interconnected system of relations that include family, community and business (candida g. brush, 1992). social norms for latinos favor more exclusive social networks that often separate them from access to resources, information, and capital sources (andrea e. smith hunter, 2006; shim and eastlick, 1998; candida g. brush, 1992). on top of this, experiencing discrimination further constrains their entrepreneurial performance. this study recognizes that limited research exists on the minority female entrepreneur, even less on latina entrepreneurs. with the phenomenal growth of latino businesses in the u.s., the relevance of this change agent is magnified. the objective of this study is to contribute to the understanding of the latina entrepreneur and the role that training plays in their personal knowledge, skills, and attitude development. williams d., et al., latina business owner, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 79 entrepreneurial training and development training and education plays an important role in building entrepreneurial capacity (paul d. hannon, 2006; henry, hill and leitch, 2005; kuratko, 2005). its effects might be expected to vary depending on the nature of the target audience (gorman et al., 1997). entrepreneurial education and training has been identified as being beneficial for both individual and firm performance (herman aguinis and kurt kraiger, 2009; phyllis tharenou, alan m. saks, and cella moore, 2007; paul j. taylor, darlene f. russ-eft, and daniel w.i. chan, 2005) with the intent of preparing people for success in entrepreneurial careers. training areas that are especially useful for business owners include building innovation within the firm, investor relations, capacity to handle uncertainty , and human resources (alex f. denoble, dong jung, and sanford b. ehrlich, 1999). the nature of a skill impacts the proclivity of the entrepreneur (norris f. krueger, michael d. reilly, and alan l. carsrud, 2000; norris f. krueger, and deborah v. brazeal, 1994). for example, the development of particular skills such as risk taking, innovativeness, change management, and leadership differentiates an entrepreneur from a general manager (robert d. hirsch and michael p. peters, 1998). drawing from the small and medium enterprise (sme) literature and considering the skill sets needed by entrepreneurs, we identified the following two typologies of training and learning practices – affective and cognitive (paula kyro, 2008). based on brown, jones, and leigh (2005) and kurt kraiger et al., (1993), our definition of “affective learning” relates to values, attitudes, reactions, motivations, and self efficacy. for the purposes of this study, we have posited that interpersonal and relationaloriented learning would include workshops and seminars that cover topics such as motivating employees and interactional skills such as interviewing. we refer to the second type as “cognitive learning” which refers to the understanding of task relevant information that is grounded in facts and skill-based learning (kurt kraiger, 2003). implying a more impersonal and operational nature, the applicable types of training items offered in these workshops and seminars include of the more operational and task based topics of business financing and legal compliance. relevant to our discussion of entrepreneurship training, trait-focused theories contend that individual characteristics differentiate entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs and also, distinguish successful from unsuccessful journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 80 owners. for the purposes of our study, several are relevant including emotional stability (orvis f. collins and david g. moore, 1964), risk aversion (stewart and roth, 2001), entrepreneurial proclivity (wayne h. stewart et al, 1999), and achievement orientation (david c. mcclelland, 1965). along these lines, we argue that observable individual differences, specifically gender and race, could have implications for the type of training and education sought. thus, given the importance of knowledge transfer in the measurement of training effectiveness (brian d. blume, kevin j. ford, timothy t. baldwin, and jason l. huang, 2009), we acknowledge that attention to the nature of the entrepreneurial training and whether it is affective/relational or cognitive/operational is critical. further, the training’s compatibility with the subject of the training – women and minorities – is also important to training transfer and eventual venture performance. we now turn our attention to the preferences for training by latina business owners and how they might vary according to the individual characteristics of gender and race. training preferences of latina entrepreneurs education plays a major role in entrepreneurial development (kuratko, 2005). students can be taught to identify a business opportunity, cultivate the skills and knowledge for more effective venture start up, and learn to expand individual levels of innovation and capacity to run their businesses (dawn r. detienne and gaylen n. chandler, 2004). research in latino entrepreneurship has been limited (shim and eastlick, 1998; armando r. triana, harold p. welsch, and earl c. young, 1984); however, findings confirm that latinos differ in culture, values and traditions from the non-latino mainstream. this study focuses on the specific training mechanism of business workshops and seminars aimed to acquire knowledge, skills and values through entrepreneurial education. the study further investigates: a) the preference of business owners for both affective (relational) and cognitive (decision making, skill specific) training; and, b) whether there are preference differences in training due to race/ethnicity and gender since differences may be influenced by factors including socialization, education, business skills, and situation (smithhunter and venezio, 2006; anisya s. thomas and stephen l. mueller, 2000). williams d., et al., latina business owner, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 81 with regard to race/ethnicity, we propose that latino business owners will engage in different training than non-latino entrepreneurs based on the rationale of several theoretical perspectives. first, cultural differences distinguish the individualistic culture of the non-latino entrepreneur from the more collectivistic culture of the latino business owner (geert hofstede, 1986). for example, several literature studies in marilyn young (2002) have identified a significant difference between minority and non-minority entrepreneurs on traits such as conformity, dependence, and benevolence–values commonly associated with collectivism. being socialized as a collectivist, latino business owners will likely be more attracted to modes of training focused on how to build a sense of community in the workplace and get employees fully engaged. further, minority entrepreneurial values have been associated with risk aversion (thomas and mueller, 2000; holt, 1997) suggesting that the value for relationship focused goals such as a fair workplace may be more valued than operational goals (i.e.: finance). this assertion is supported by the studies in young (2002), which also identified a difference between minority and non-minority entrepreneurs on tests of achievement, aggression, openness to innovation, and indebtedness – all of which are associated with a greater degree of risk-taking and for which nonminorities tend to score higher. thus, we expect operational training would be more attractive to non-latino owners. its focus is to teach and offer suggestions on how to enhance firm profitability, obtain loans for venture growth and manage firm leverage while still looking attractive to potential stakeholders. hypothesis 1a: latino business owners will have a stronger preference for affective/relational-oriented training than non-latino business owners. hypothesis 1b: latina business owners will have a stronger preference for affective/relational-oriented training than non-latina business owners. hypothesis 2a: non-latino business owners will have a stronger preference for cognitive/operational training than latino business owners. hypothesis 2b: non-latina business owners will have a stronger preference for cognitive/operational training than latina business owners. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 82 when it comes to gender, women entrepreneurs have experienced competitive disadvantages from a lack of business training, financial skills and confidence about prospective performance (cowling and taylor, 2001; candida g. brush, 1992). further, the patriarchal natured culture of the latino population may create a difference in roles and socialization for women and men (shim and eastlick, 1998), which contributed to the female business owner’s approach to business entry. besides differences in educational levels and access to resources, women and men differ in their reasons for self employment. because latinas are more highly attuned with feminine values such as helping others and developing high quality relationships (hofstede, 1986), it may be that they are motivated to start a business because they want to achieve work-life balance and personal satisfaction (robert w. fairlie and alicia m. robb, 2008). interestingly, research has found that entrepreneurs who possess feminine traits prefer to achieve socio-emotional goals, such as making a contribution to society, over status and prestige (kimberly eddleston and gary n. powell, 2008). combined with a collectivist and family-oriented nature (hofstede, 1986), it is reasonable, therefore, to expect that latina business owners would be more attracted to relational oriented training where the focus is on skills that help build stronger interpersonal relationships. for instance, seminars on human resources, more so than operational training, could inform latinas about how to establish an employee-friendly work environment. in contrast, we would anticipate that latino males, who are higher in the masculine values of competition and being aggressive (hofstede, 1986), may be more motivated to become self-employed for financial gains such as achieving higher firm profits. in fact, research finds that entrepreneurs who possess masculine traits are more satisfied with their careers when they obtain status-based rewards such as making a lot of money or leading a rapidly growing or well-known business (eddleston and powell, 2008). as a result, latino male business owners may prefer cognitive/operational oriented training that can help them meet their statusbased goals and financial objectives– more so than affective/relational training could. for example, in training workshops related to finance, latino males may become more attracted to strategies for expanding their businesses via obtaining debt financing. in essence, because of differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and values, latina and latino male entrepreneurs may desire different forms of training. williams d., et al., latina business owner, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 83 findings from kellye jones and raydel tullous’ (2002) work on the behaviors of pre-venture entrepreneurs suggests that latino business owner’s firm success is impacted by the lack of business education, training or managerial experience. additionally, it was found that latino males differed from females in behaviors. specifically, latino males needed less assistance in finance and accounting (jones and tullous, 2002) than latinas who seem to need more outside assistance overall due to the lack of business education and work experience. further, sue birley, carolie moss, and peter saunders (1987) showed significant differences in training needed between male and female entrepreneurs. the socialization process in the latino culture and value system reinforces that women rely more on direct and indirect relationships with family and friends (barbara j. robles and hector cordero-guzman, 2007). thus: hypothesis 3: latina business owners will have a stronger preference for affective/relational oriented training than latino male business owners. hypothesis 4: latino (male) business owners will have stronger preference for cognitive/operational oriented training than latina business owners. methods the original sample consisted of 121 business founders/owners/managers who attended a series of business development workshops in the southwest community of chicago which were offered to entrepreneurial businesses by a business development agency. the participants were 66% latino and 49% female with most business owners between 30-50 years of age (71%). the sample was reduced as the study had to restrict subjects who provided both gender and ethnicity data on the surveys as well as those who answered the items related to training preferences. this study is focused exclusively on the entrepreneur founder/owner; therefore, data from all firms that represented banks or other institutions, organizations or community agencies were eliminated resulting in a final sample of n=76. business owners were solicited by the agency through mailed invitations to workshops in both english and spanish. the agency conducted follow up calls to owners, and flyers and newspapers were distributed in the targeted chicago community. surveys were administered journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 84 on site at the workshop and available on-line in english and spanish. translators were available on site to address any questions from participants. preference for training: the dependent variable for this study was the entrepreneur’s preference for training. the training preference index was established by answers to two questions: “have you previously attended any workshops or information sessions in any of the following topic areas?” and “which of the following topics would you like to know more about?” essentially this index represents not only what training participants have already attended (past), but also what they believe to be important to business development (future). the types of training preference was further designated as “affective” or “cognitive” based on three inter-raters’ evaluation of 19 training items from the survey (see table 1). items were identified as either affective (i.e., relational/interpersonal) or cognitive (i.e., operational/task-based) in nature. inter-rater reliability was very acceptable at 0.90. there were only two items where consensus and discussion were required. for each subject, the affective and cognitive training preference variables consisted of a cumulative of the number of training items selected in that category with a total count ranging from 1 to 19. a greater count in one particular category indicated a greater preference for that type of training. that is, if a subject indicated desire for 4 affective and 7 cognitive–based training interventions, the subject would be said to have a greater preference for cognitive-based training seminars and information sessions. gender: the independent variables were set up as dichotomous data with gender being code as 1=female and 0=male. race/ethnicity: business owners self-reported their race/ethnicity on the questionnaire and this was subsequently coded as 1=latino and 0=nonlatino. williams d., et al., latina business owner, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 85 table 1: items assessing the affective and cognitive training preferences of entrepreneurs affective learning training items cognitive learning training items interviewing diversity motivating employees selection/hiring performance problems training business permits, licensing unemployment laws eeo health and safety accident reduction finance attaining business loans employment law compensation law payroll/benefits osha starting a business marketing and advertising analysis data was entered into spss software to conduct one-way anova analyses in the evaluation of the variables’ means. groups were compared as follows: latino male and latina entrepreneurs; latino (all) and non-latino (all other ethnicities combined); and latina and non-latina. the data was checked to see if it conformed to assumptions of normality. in situations where the analysis found the levene test of homogeneity to be significant, thus indicating that there was a violation in the assumptions for conducting anova analysis, the remedy was to confirm where we had skewed variables, log transform the applicable dependent variables, and re-run the analysis. this process eliminated the concerns about the anova assumptions and the original relationships were confirmed. the results of the analysis are found in table 2. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 86 table 2: results of preferences for affective & cognitive training: ethnicity & gender affective cognitive n mean f sign n mean f sign h1a h2a latino 23 0.82 4.1 .049* latino 43 1.3 2.7 .11 non latino 21 1.25 non latino 30 1.6 h1b h2b latina 17 1.1 5.1 .031* latina 17 4.3 1.7 .20 non latina 14 3.1 non latina 14 6.1 h3 h4 latina (female) 16 1.0 1.7 .392 latina (female) 16 4.0 2.7 .576 latino (male) 29 1.8 latino (male) 29 4.8 note: *p<.05 results hypothesis 1a suggested that latino business owners will have a stronger preference for affective/relational-oriented training than nonlatino business owners and was not supported. the mean for affectiverelated training for the non-latino (x=1.25) business owners exceeded that of the latino business owners (x=0.82) and is statistically significant (p=.049). hypothesis 1b suggested that latina entrepreneurs would have a greater preference for affective training than non-latina owners would. the means indicated that non-latina female business owners have a stronger preference for affective training (x=3.1) versus latina (x=1.18) and this difference is significant (p=.031). hypothesis 2a indicated that non-latino business owners will have a stronger preference for cognitive/operational training than latino business owners and was not fully supported. the mean for non-latino business owners’ preference for cognitive oriented training (x=1.6) is slightly greater than for latino business owners (x=1.3), however, the closeness in level and the statistical insignificance suggests no differences between the williams d., et al., latina business owner, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 87 two groups. hypothesis 2b looked at differences between non-latinas and latinas and we expected that non-latinas would prefer cognitive training more so than latina owners would. the means showed that cognitive training preference for non-latina female business owners (x=6.1) is stronger than latina business owners (x=4.3) though this difference was not found to be statistically significant. hypothesis 3 stated that latina business owners will have a stronger preference for affective/relational oriented training than latino male business owners. while the latino (male) business owner mean (1.8) for affective training is slightly greater than latino (female) business owner mean (1.0), the slight difference and the statistical insignificance between the groups suggests that their preference may be similar. finally, hypothesis 4 suggests that latino male business owners will have stronger preference for cognitive/operational oriented training than latina business owners. for cognitive training preference, the close mean values between latino male business owners and latina business owners at 4.8 and 4.0, respectively, as well as the statistical insignificant value (p=.576), suggests a similar level of preference for cognitive training by both latinas and latino males. discussion the demand for entrepreneurial education has experienced unprecedented growth in universities and other centers of training (kuratko, 2005). to date, research on entrepreneurial education and training has for the most part been fragmented, exploratory and descriptive in nature (garavan and o’cinneide, 1984). further, studies examining the training and development of minority and female business owners are especially sparse. financial needs and information search patterns have been examined (jones and tullous, 2002). they are limited by the narrow sample comprised primarily of latino males. these gaps in the sme literature represent exciting and important opportunities for future research. thus, this study set out to answer whether differences in ethnicity and gender impact the preferences for both affective and cognitive entrepreneurial training and education of latina business owner. the answer our results suggest is both yes and no. in some cases, we found influences of race/ethnicity and gender and in others we did not or found opposing views to what we expected. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 88 preferences for affective-based training we did find that preferences for entrepreneurial education and training differed by the cultural values and social norms of business owners. specifically, non-latinos reported a stronger preference for affective training than latino business owners. likewise, non-latina female business owners had a stronger preference for affective training than latina female owners. these findings show differences in ethnicity but in the opposing direction expected. based on the social norms and research to date on both the ethnic and latina entrepreneur, we expected to see an affinity and preference toward more relational oriented training when compared to the non-latino business owners. these findings support the need for additional research especially with regard to the expected effects of race/ethnicity. future research in these areas would help us better understand the motivations and needs of both the latina and latino male business owner for future human capital building and training interventions. the rapidly increasing market share in the business community of the latino entrepreneurial venture creates a timely opportunity to better understand this entrepreneurial stakeholder. however, there was no significant difference in the preference for affective-based training between latina and latino male entrepreneurs. perhaps our results suggest that there are no differences in gender on preferences for training or that the effect of race/ethnicity is more pronounced than the effect of gender. that is, for both men and women, being latino has a greater salience in its impact on preferences for entrepreneurial education and training. another potential explanation for this unexpected finding is that when it comes to the development of human capital, it does not appear that latinas disproportionately focus on affective-based training interventions compared to latino males. this may reflect the fact that both latinas and latino males alike have been found to have lower human capital than other entrepreneurs, even though the training is affective in nature, latino males just like latinas recognize the value for their ventures. finally, this finding could also reflect the tendency for latino male owned-businesses to have larger businesses – as measured by number of employees (shim and eastlick, 1998) – than latinas. thus, latino males may see a greater need to attend affective-based training interventions that help them to handle business-related challenges such as dealing with employee performance problems as well as to develop skills williams d., et al., latina business owner, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 89 such as motivating workers, than would be expected based on gender preferences alone. preferences for cognitive-based training non-latino business owners did not prefer cognitive-based training interventions more so than latino owners. non-latinas did prefer cognitive-based training more so than latina owners. these findings may be explained in that while highly educated, latinos have little overall business experience and generally do not have parents who themselves were business owners (shim and eastlick, 1998) but they tend to start businesses disproportionately by themselves and not partner with others (smith-hunter and venezio, 2006). latino owners tend to lack financial assets and have little start-up capital (smith-hunter and venezio, 2006). despite cultural preferences, latino owners attended cognitive-oriented training at similar levels as non-latino owners signaling a recognized need for these competencies (ie: finance and operations). consistent with gender differences in values and socialization, latino males reported slightly stronger preference for cognitive-based training interventions than did latinas. this finding is in line with research conducted by armando triana and his colleagues (1984) who reported that among a sample comprised primarily of latino male entrepreneurs, they seek most of their information from professional sources such as bankers, lawyers and accountants for a variety of business problems such as general management, operations, and financial – mostly cognitive in nature. while this finding was not statistically significant, given the limitation of our small sample size, further investigation of this relationship is suggested with a larger data set as insignificant f statistics are not necessarily indicators of insignificant relationships (ronald christensen, 2003). that is, the direction of the means could potentially support a gendered view of entrepreneurship in that women and male entrepreneurs may be motivated by different factors and experience different challenges (eddleston and powell, 2008; attilia bruni, silvia gherardi, and barbara poggio, 2004). thus, one important implication could be the subsequent impact of preference for training on firm performance. there is some evidence that ventures owned by latino men outperform those owned by latinas, when performance is measured by annual sales (shim and eastlick, 1998). there is likewise evidence to journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 90 suggest some advantages to attending more cognitive-based training. for example, business sustainability, employment growth and sales tend to be higher for entrepreneurs who contact and attend training put on by the small business development corporation (sbdc) than for entrepreneurs who do not (james j. chrisman, 2000). thus, latinas should be made aware of this and encouraged to make the time to attend more cognitivebased training. their time is scarce but, it could payoff for latina entrepreneurs. collectively, these results extend previous research on the training and information seeking behaviors of latino entrepreneurs (armando r.triana, harold p. welsch, and earl c. young, 1984), particularly latinas, because it indicates that there are differences by ethnicity and potentially gender in terms of training preferences. implications what does it all mean? there is a lot that we still need to learn about the latino entrepreneur/ business owner since research is still very limited (robles and cordero-guzman, 2007; timothy s. mescon, 1987; armando r. triana et al, 1984) and certainly limited in scope. there has likewise been minimal comprehensive research on ethnic female entrepreneurship, particularly on latinas. while our sample was limited in size, the fact that we found differences but, sometimes counterintuitive findings, suggests there is much that needs to be looked at still in determining and documenting the profile of the latina as well as the latino male entrepreneur. as well, the number of latino-owned firms is growing at such a fast rate. it does not appear to be slowing down. theoretical and empirical arguments suggest the success of most nascent or emerging entrepreneurial ventures depend on the entrepreneur’s access to businessrelated information and resources (monica g. gavino and rowena ortizwalters, 2011). these factors support the relevance and importance of our research and its practical implications for latina entrepreneurs and training/business advisors. in this research we have established a profile of how latina business owners engage in training – whether they prefer cognitive or affective-based training. it seems latino males prefer cognitive training more so than latinas. but as time is limited, especially for sole proprietors of whom many latino ventures tend to be organized as, this research also could help latina business owners to develop more williams d., et al., latina business owner, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 91 effective means for gathering information – meaning that latinas need to attend more cognitive-based training. the traditional perspective that has been used in research to date might suggest and emphasize cultural and gender differences. however, looking into the 21st century, it appears that latinas are more educated and better off financially than ever before and that latino entrepreneurs and managers/professionals might differ. macro research is still relying on the cultural profile of the latino professional to inform research on latino business owners. thus, a more contemporary view might be more applicable to the study of human capital for latino entrepreneurs and could suggest and emphasize that our results may be driven as much by need as cultural and gender preferences. at this juncture it appears fruitful to examine multiple conceptual frameworks to see what theoretical lenses really apply and describe or predict the behaviors, attitudes and motivations of latina entrepreneurs. for example, theories on ethnic identity could prove to be a useful lens. specifically, shim and eastlick (1998) found that some latinos identify with a latino culture orientation but others identified with an anglo/american identity while still others described themselves as bicultural. collectively these findings also could suggest a need for future research that juxtaposes a cultural difference perspective with a disadvantaged/need perspective and argument. this could better inform us of preferences for training, designing training for diverse samples of entrepreneurs, and provide a better understanding of what types of training would benefit latina entrepreneurs the most. limitations this study contributes to the conversation and better understanding of this important change agent in the entrepreneurial landscape. however, there are limitations to the study data. while the anova technique is robust and allows us to compare the means of groups and make inferences about the population means even with unequal group sizes, the overall small size of subjects who actually provided data for the training questions was small and potentially contributed to insufficient power to detect differences between group means. this study was also limited in that we examined business owners only from one community in one geographic region – so we do not yet know how latinas in this community differ from latinas in other geographic regions. finally, our sample was comprised of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 92 owners mostly in the service sector and whose businesses where primarily set up as sole proprietorships so we cannot generalize to other industries or ventures organized by other legal structural means. these limitations notwithstanding, we have begun to provide a reasonable base and rationale for studying latinas and their preferences for entrepreneurial education and training. future research information has been said to play an important role in opportunity recognition-the ability of an entrepreneur to identify opportunities for viable new ventures, products and services. but what type of, and how much, information matters for opportunity recognition? one study indicates that entrepreneurs, who attend professional forums such as conventions, conferences, seminars or workshops, are more alert to new business opportunities (ozgen, 2007). our study focused on training interventions that provide access to information that is cognitive and affective in nature. as so little is known regarding latina entrepreneurs and opportunity recognition, future research could focus on whether either or both of these types of information support latina business owners in recognizing opportunities related to new technologies and markets that allow them to successfully start and maintain enterprises in different industries. another question to ask relates to who provides the training and whether issues of diversity matter? based on the well known theoretical lens of relational demography, would we find that latinas prefer both types of training similarly or affected more if the trainers are also of the same race/ethnicity or are there unknown advantages to having these interventions provided by trainers that are of a different race/ethnicity? would a team training approach with a combination of similar and dissimilar trainers be even more suitable? there are so many questions still unanswered. another applicable avenue for research would be to examine whether preferences for training and the specific type of training intervention attended (i.e. marketing, hr, osha, business start-up) positively or negatively impacts entrepreneurial self-efficacy for latina owners. this represents another area that has not yet been explored. the goal is to get williams d., et al., latina business owner, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 93 them to start, effectively manage, grow and sustain business ventures, which should all be facilitated by increased entrepreneurial self-efficacy. summary as research on entrepreneurial education and training has generally been fragmented, one of the first contributions we make is to integrate the entrepreneurship literature with that of the gender and diversity literatures. we thereby begin to expand and more explicitly connect the homological network of the sme field. second, the study of entrepreneurial education and training has also traditionally been exploratory. we make advancements here by formulating hypotheses based on psychological theories of individual differences in entrepreneurial traits and conceptual frameworks that highlight differences in values and motivations based on individuals’ cultural backgrounds. by using theory to guide us, we enhance our ability to make better predictions and identify if and how latina entrepreneurs differ from other business owners when it comes to training. finally, this research has been descriptive in nature negating our ability to make informed recommendations for entrepreneurial training. we move beyond description to empirically examine differences in preferences for training between latino and non-latino business owners. we likewise quantify differences between female and male latino business owners. by doing this, we contribute to scholarly knowledge on minority and female training and, more generally, the selection of training methods based on unique individual characteristics of entrepreneurs. this could be used as 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1989. “ratings of managerial characteristics: valuation difficulty, co-worker agreement, and self awareness.” personnel psychology, 42(2): 235-261 [59] young, marilyn. 2002. ”an examination of information sources and assistance programs available to minority-owned small businesses.” journal of developmental entrepreneurship, 7(4): 429-444 a p s t r a k t cilj ove studije je je da doprinese razumevanju pojma „latinoamerički preduzetnik“ i uloge koju ima obuka u sticanju njegovog znanja, veština i razvoja stavova. u radu analiziramo i dajemo procenu vrste obuke koju bira latinoamerički preduzetnik, kako bi naučio da identifikuje šta mu je sve potrebno za postizanje preduzetničkih rezultata. takođe, u ovom radu istražujemo posvećenost vlasnika journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 74-98) 98 preduzetničkim aktivnostima, kao i ulogu polova i etničkih manjina u kontekstu preduzetničke obuke. konkretno, poredimo latinoameričke vlasnike poslovnih entiteta sa ostalim preduzetnicima, kao i latinoameričke preduzetnike međusobno, sa ciljem da se ispita, da li postoji uticaj rase/etničke pripadnosti na njihov odabir vrste poslovne obuke. takođe, istražili smo uticaj polne pripadnosti na izbor vrste poslovne obuke. napravili smo razlike u karakteristikama obuke na afektivne (relacione) i kognitivne (operativne). naši rezultati ukazuju na to da možda postoje etničke i polne razlike u karakteristikama preduzetničke obuke. ključne reči: preduzetništvo, pol, latinoamerički preduzetnici, preduzetništvo manjina, preduzetnička obuka article history: received: 18 june 2011 revised: 21 february 2012 accepted: 24 february 2012 microsoft word 09_jwe_1-2.doc the new alternative women’s entrepreneurship education: e-learning and virtual universities mirjana radović-marković*, brenda nelson-porter**, muhammed omolaja*** * institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia ** northcentral university, az, usa and founder of the alumni association network (aan), usa *** international college of management and technology, nigeria (icmt international college), west africa a r t i c l e i n f o article history: received 15 february 2009 accepted 27 march 2009 jel: a22, i20, l26 k e y w o r d s: e-learning, women, female learners, virtual faculty, education, knowledge, entrepreneurship, motivation, serbia a b s t r a c t having in mind that due to fast changes in techniques and technology especially in the last decade of 20th century, new kinds of business and jobs emerged, the need for new knowledge became very clear. accordingly, everywhere in the world the existing education system is being redefined, and educational programs that have to closely relate to practice are being improved. for that sake, “new schools for entrepreneurs and managers” are founded, which are based on modern programs and courses meant for various groups of businesspeople. very popular are virtual faculties, which are founded all around the world and enable connection between businesspeople and business learners with lecturers from all around the world, no matter where they actually might reside. participating in courses and testing via the internet, essentially change previous way of gaining knowledge in classical classrooms. this way of learning contributes to fast information exchange, more access to the newest knowledge and experiences in this domain and save the time and journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 1-12 2 money. thus, in this millennium the classic way of education will be slowly substituted with some other forms of education, in which learning from homes and offices with the help of computers, were true. interactive education should provide a completely new dimension of gaining knowledge making learning faster and easier for those who attend certain courses. in this article the authors aimed to explain advantages and disadvantages of e-learning with a stress of special benefits for women. additionally, presented are results of several researches relevant to the topic. introduction it is well known that a correlation exists between entrepreneurship and economic performance. but entrepreneurship brings more than this correlation to our societies, because the science is also a vehicle for personal development. in spite of importance of entrepreneurship for personal and social development, all potentials are not fully being exploited particularly in the european union (eu). the eu has failed to encourage an abundance people to become entrepreneurs. according to the eurobarometar, although 47% of europeans prefer self-employment, only 17% actually realise their ambitions (european commission [ec], 2007). regarding new entrepreneurial initiative, only 4% of europeans state to be engaged in creating a business, and 29% of europe’s sme declared growth as their main ambition (ec). europe, unlike the united states, suffers from low expansion rates after start-up. europe’s untapped potential appears to derive from a complex set of mutually interacting framework conditions, attitudes, and skills. in this paper, however, priority will be given to virtual learning as a means to enhance entrepreneurship among women. in that context, entrepreneur’s skills will be defined, which should fulfil present and the future needs of our societies. this dilemma leads to the following central research questions: a) how do we gain skills, which will meet new requirements of societies? b) is high quality traditional entrepreneurship education the most effective choice for obtaining new skills for entrepreneurs or necessary to foster alternative ways of education? c) which factors should become educational components to emphasize when devising an academic entrepreneurship program: perceptions, financial factors, productivity factors, product development, self-awareness, or self-motivation? why? m. radović-marković et al. / jwe 1-2 (2009) 1-12 3 d) if entrepreneurship in taught in an online learning environment, what evaluation tools or measures should academia use to determine or identify success factors or traits to becoming an entrepreneur? the core of this paper is to address, inter alia, the above set of questions while particular emphasis will be given to the question of how women may acquire entrepreneurial education while not balancing both their jobs at work and at home. definition of entrepreneurial education “entrepreneurship development concerns the development of people's potential as a country's most valuable resource” (kroon, de klerk, dippenaar, 2003, pp. 319-322). the process is an innovative and dynamic technique, which is also an important segment of economic growth. entrepreneur is a catalytic agent of change, which generates employment opportunities for others. therefore, paying attention to improving skills of entrepreneurs and their education is necessary to increase competencies. considering the importance of education for entrepreneurs, recently it becomes evident that entrepreneurship is one of the fastest growing science in today’s undergraduate curricula in the united states and worldwide (radović marković, 2007a). the 1990s saw the growth of entrepreneurship as a profession within business, and in that professional approach lies the secret benefit of entrepreneurship education--it helps decrease the chances of failure by stressing a consistent and proven set of practices. that idea of professionalizing the process of entrepreneurship is the other great commonality across all of modern entrepreneurship education. (“entreprenuerial education,” 2009, para. 2) in the past 3 decades, formal programs (majors, minors, and certificates) in entrepreneurship have more than quadrupled, from 104 in 1975 to more than 500 in 2006 (“entrepreneurship in american”). the development of courses in entrepreneurship has been exponential. leaders in the field of entrepreneurship education recognized that there are many, many definitions of how entrepreneurship could and should be taught and much of performance depends on the level of education involved. while many definitions of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs exist, the following definition by jeffrey timmons (n.d.) of babson college is journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 1-12 4 consistent with our belief that entrepreneurship involves more than just “starting businesses.” “entrepreneurship is the ability to create and build something from practically nothing” (timmons, section 1). the science of entrepreneurship involve initiating, doing, achieving, and building an enterprise or organization, rather than just watching, analyzing or describing an entity. entrepreneurship is the knack for sensing an opportunity where others see chaos, contradiction, and confusion. though entrepreneurship, the ability to build a “founding team” that complements self-efficiencies and talents becomes enhanced. it is the know-how to find, marshal, and control resources (often owned by others) and to ensure that funding is available when needed. finally, entrepreneurship is the willingness to take calculated risks, both personal and financial, by performing at maximum capacity to get the odds in your favour (“criteria for youth,” n.d.). multifaceted characteristics of educational programs proponents of educational technology for years have stated that faculties need to focus more on teaching “21st-century skills,” such as problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration. the 21st century learners will need to meet the complex demands of the new economy and society in a globalized form (radović marković, 2006-2007). the workplace of tomorrow will increasingly require 21st century learners to work in teams, collaborating across companies, communities, and continents. certain skills cannot be developed solely by simple multiplechoice exams. new education programmes for entrepreneurs must be based on exchanging good practice through studies and networks among strategic partners (researchers, entrepreneurs, financiers, advisors, policy-makers, and so forth). to address individual needs of learners, attention must be paid to adaptability of the curriculum and the learning environment. a worthy institution views quality issues as primary and integral throughout the conceptual design of its education programs. true quality institutions, must govern their curriculum, instruction, and support services by policies and standards established to assure future success of the participants (capogrossi, 2002). in many occasions, the assessment and examination vehicles have been evaluative measures of knowledge and competencies of learners measured against learning objectives derived from the needs of the m. radović-marković et al. / jwe 1-2 (2009) 1-12 5 industry and professions. successful institutions must design their learning objectives to serve the demonstrated needs of the desired student audience. the academic and professional needs of the student audience will be at the foundation of the curriculum, and the subject matter objectives will become the focus of quality control process (capogrossi, 2007). gender and distance learning the changes in women’s educational and career attainment may have multifaceted characteristics. women might have increased their enrolment in colleges compared to men, but women may still differ in terms of the types of subjects in which they are enrolled. a study conducted by the world bank has recently shown that if women in the field of agriculture had the same education as men did, the agricultural yield in developing countries would increase by 6 to 22% (radović marković, 2007b). this example, as well as other similar ones, gives every rightful reason to focus greater attention to further development of educational programs aimed at women, but also to enhancing contemporary technologies that will improve e-learning. distance learning is becoming increasingly attractive for women, as shown by some research studies. namely, more than 60% of those over 25 years of age and female opt for this type of development and education in the world (radović marković, 2006a). the reason for this lies in the fact that this method of learning offers numerous advantages. among the most prominent benefits, the following may be pointed out: a) the flexibility of the learning process (learners study at the time most convenient to them). b) achieving a better balance between personal and other commitments (they may spend more time at home with their families). c) minimizing costs (both time and money savings are made). d) a deeper sense of self-fulfilment (acquiring relevant and useful knowledge and achieving professional goals). furthermore, women at a certain age, over the age typical for learners (18-22 years of age), consider virtual classrooms to minimize the embarrassment and alienation factor (capogrossi, 2002). in addition to these advantages provided to women by online studying, distance learning journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 1-12 6 also enables women to choose a certified course, offered by more than 90% of faculties in the world (radović marković, 2007b). accordingly, women are given the opportunity of choosing some of the programs from a broader range, the ones that best suit their professional interests and goals, without the requirement to move geographically. in other words, women are no longer limited to the local educational institutions, but have at their disposal a more comprehensive choice of educational programs offered worldwide. studying over the internet enables women permanent development thus reducing the educational gap in comparison to men. at the same time, the social status and life quality of women are being improved. higher qualifications enable women to contribute more to their community. advantages of online learning for women the internet has extended many new opportunities to businesspeople both men and women. one such opportunity is the ability to complete programs online. most universities, polytechnics, and other training providers are presently using study-away approach capitalizing on the online potentials of the internet programs delivery as and when services are warranted. more and more, learners completing a traditional degree and people who want to expand their skill sets are reverting to online programs. the selection is partly due to convenience and effectiveness and partly because the programs as a whole are affordable. as with in any other program, a certificate is earned upon the successful completion of the program as well as an official transcript of academic record. online programs range from 1-hour courses on self-development to an entire doctoral degree program. the american business women association (abwa) in 2001, in accordance with its mission to help educate and train its members, views online classes and course-work as an effective option for women who desire to continue developing their business skills, and hence the association embarks on creation of more partnerships with quality companies that involve in online programs delivery. for instance, the association formed partnership with quicknowledge.com, which is offers discounts on all its courses to abwa members. the association also consider all hours completed m. radović-marković et al. / jwe 1-2 (2009) 1-12 7 through online courses as part of its continuing education credit program (abwa). however, the most significant contribution of online programs particularly to women is having the opportunity to self-pace within a desired time frame. through the online programs, learners can complete projects whether at work, home, or selected locations. on many occasions, a busy executive may not be able to leave the office, and yet, assignments, term papers and even research projects have to be finalized somehow; the magic of getting the assignments complete may be made possible through the online mode. where programs are completely in online mode, all class lectures, assignments, tests and instructions are delivered through the internet. some programs have voice and/or video assisted delivery, and may also include powerpoint and ipod presentations. that is the main reason that internet service provider, a browser, and a computer with plenty of random access memory (ram) are needed prior to an online course commencing to receive lectures from anywhere and any time. according to barbara sleeper, on different occasions, learners do travel from one location to the other in the course of their programs; this may be some weeks or even months at a time so that learners create networks while continuing their studies (abwa, 2001). sleeper was an abwa national member who served as 1987-1988 national secretary, 1986-1987 district ii vice president, and was named one of the 1989-1990 top ten business women of abwa. sleeper is the director of the mba program at dallas baptist university, and has developed an online marketing course in consumer behaviour in support of his opinion and ideology (abwa). sleeper opined that for graduate programs, universities should transfer credits to and from one another on reciprocal credit recognition basis without experiencing resistance (abwa). hence, graduate learners should have the option to continue their education and not lose the hours of completed courses when transferring into another educational institution. methodologies and findings serbia does not have extensive experience deploying online studies and virtual faculties. forming an international learning network of women may enhance entrepreneurship opportunities in serbia as well as in countries that are developing or in transition (radović marković, 2006b). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 1-12 8 because the functionality of the technologies and the benefits of virtual learning to learners and professors have been misunderstood, the entrepreneurial process although improved in serbia has been impacted due to the lack of awareness (radović marković, 2006b). if serbians or citizens of other nations become more familiar with the techniques, potential learners as well as educators may be able to effectively discern the pros and cons of how e-learning enhancing entrepreneurialship. in a 2005-2006 mini-study conducted by brigette's technology consulting and research firm, 4 female managers responded to how human progress is driven and measured. however, 2 female managers indicated that human progress could not be measured. factors indicated as drivers and measurers of human progress included perceptions and acceptances of others, financial and productivity factors, and development of new products, which can be applied to technical and educational programs. a nurse manager reported, “human progress is driven by selfawareness and self-motivation. to measure human progress is a subjective observation, not a reliable tool available yet.” incorporating the factors into online educational curriculum may assist female learners with preparation to becoming successful entrepreneurs. professor marković conducted a study in 2009 that aimed to measure the role of online learning and how much the process has been accepted among learners and entrepreneurs in serbia. marković interviewed and asked 54 participants (34 women and 20 men) between the ages of 18 and 30 the following associated subquestions: a) what do you think about online learning? b) what do you think about virtual professors? c) what is the interaction between students, students and professors? d) does new technology isolate students from teachers? e) do you prefer online learning than face-to-face? why yes or why not? f) does gender matter in online learning for entrepreneurs? g) what are online learning outcomes vs. face-to-face? although the majority of participants (68%), think that online learning is great as an new alternative for learning, the great amount of participants (63%) are not familiar with online courses for entrepreneurs and are unsure how virtual faculties function. although it is fair to state m. radović-marković et al. / jwe 1-2 (2009) 1-12 9 that virtual learning will not obviously inspire every learner, it is fair to state that since a lack of knowledge exists concerning the process, most learner will consider the alternative as means to achieve knowledge in most subject areas thereby stimulating human progress. thirty percent of participants stated that lots of reasons exist for taking online courses. low cost was a primary reason. several participants (45%) proposed that women and elderly learners are more motivated to enroll in some online course because they are better at communicating online and scheduling their learning. seventy percent of opined, “anytime, anyplace” nature of online learning suits female students more than male, whereby women are fitting their education in among their regular work. it is fair to conclude that women more so than men utilize management skills to complete their studies, driving human progress. although 50% of the participants do not desire to have discussions with other learners and professors who cannot be seen, most participants (95%) stated that computer literacy is the most significant for online studying. although women choose some computing courses when offered in combination with other disciplines that emphasize social issues and computer applications, women think that online studying and virtual faculties are not so much popular in serbia because of the lack of computer literacy, specially among women. it is fair to state that if women in serbia as well as other nations are readily to enroll in virtual courses due to the low costs, women may not (a) readily participant in discussions due to computer literacy or (b) be open during discussions due to resistance, thereby, limiting human progress. conclusion and recommendations open communication and management approaches will become the driving techniques to enhance learning skills in virtual environments, which will meet new requirements of societies. high quality traditional entrepreneurship education can be used as a means to obtain new skills for entrepreneurs or necessary to foster alternative ways of education for women in serbia as well as other nations that does not support virtual learning. self-motivation, as a means for women to acquire computer skills, seems to be the major educational components to emphasize when devising an academic entrepreneurship program. the percentage of female virtual learners who are motivated to become entrepreneurs and have journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 1-12 10 taking actions to becoming an entrepreneur should be used as evaluation tools or measures to determine or identify success factors of educational programs, particular in the study of entrepreneurships. further research may explore how and when online instruction is most effective for female learners who are entrepreneurs. for instance, additional investigation should describe motivational factors of female entrepreneurs learners in taking elective and required courses in traditional, online, and blended approaches that are team oriented, which minimize being alienated. future research might also determine the effects of mandating computing courses in educational program as a prerequisite to other virtual courses, which may minimize embarrassment. summary this paper dealt principally with merits of virtual learning particularly in regards to women after a brief discussion on the correlation between entrepreneurship and economic performance. the authors opined that entrepreneurship brings more than this correlation to 21st century societies, because the science is also a vehicle for personal development and human progress. in spite of importance of entrepreneurship for personal and social development, the authors agreed that all potentials are not fully being exploited particularly in the eu and other developing nations. with 30% of europeans desiring to become entrepreneurs and not realizing their ambitions (ec, 2007), virtual learning is becoming a more popular topic as a means to stimulate awareness and motivation. the paper went further to reveal that europe, unlike the united states, suffers from low expansion rates after start-up. europe’s untapped potential appears to derive from a complex set of mutually interacting framework conditions, behaviours, and skills. giving priority to entrepreneurial skills among women provided insight on the techniques that are possibly needed to motivate women to master virtual learning and achieve entrepreneurial success. in that context, entrepreneurial skill was defined as those skills that should fulfil present and the future needs of the societies. as part of two studies, the authors considered some pertinent questions including how to gain skills, which aimed to understand techniques that can be used to meet new requirements of societies and measure human progress. it was this question of “how” that formed the m. radović-marković et al. / jwe 1-2 (2009) 1-12 11 core of this paper. the authors concluded that computer assisted learning (e-learning) through the internet was the most significant mode of entrepreneurial education particularly for women in managerial positions who tend to be very busy like their men counterparts. in some european countries, such as serbia, e-learning has evolved; therefore, the process is very difficult to consider its cons and pros in this country. references american business women association (abwa). 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(2007). eurobarometer. retrieved february 10, 2009, from http://ec.europa.eu/growthandjobs/european-dimension/200812-annualprogress-report/index_en.htm kroon, de klerk, dippenaar. (2003). developing the next generation of potential entrepreneurs: co-operation between schools and businesses? south african journal of education, 23(4), 319-322. radović marković, m. (2005). women entrepreneurship and leaders abilities of women and their position in the business: a study of serbia and region. pcte journal of business management. punjab college of technical education, india. radović-marković, m. (2006a). entrepreneurship-theoretical and practical guide on all aspects for starting up small business. link group, belgrade. radović marković, m. (2006b). women entrepreneurs and managers in serbia. retrieved march 27, 2009, from http://www.ien.bg.ac.yu/download/wp06-4.pdf radović marković, m. (2006-2007). managers and entrepreneurs skills as key contributors to sme success in the future business challenges. serbian journal of management: an international journal for theory and practice of management science. bor, university of belgrade, technical faculty, management department, god. 2, br. 1, 93-99. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 1-12 12 radović marković, m. (2007a). entrepreneurship for women. belgrade, serbia: magnus, 157. radović marković, m. (2007b). special benefits of e-learning for women: sample of program entrepreneurship. achakpa, priscilla. gender and informal economy: developing developed and transition countries, lagos, icea and prenticeconsult, 156-166. timmons, j. (n.d.). entrepreneurship training and assistance. retrieved january 30, 2009, from http://acec-al.org/enterpreneurship.php 20_jwee_12 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.12.pp72-86 jel: z2, j16 original scientific paper persistence of gender stereotypes in sports daniela palaščáková1 technical university of košice, faculty of economics, department of economics, košice, slovak republic lenka palaščáková2 armed forces academy of general milan rastislav štefánik, department of security and defense, liptovský mikuláš, slovak republic a b s t r a c t equality among women and men is the fundamental principle of the european union. european commission has declared to eliminate and resolve the gender inequalities in decision-making within the women’s charter as well as the strategy for women and men equality. although there is a continuous growth in women’s participation in sports, women are still underrepresented in the decision-making bodies of the sports institutions at local, national, european and global level. however, gender inequality remains common in our society, even though the way how individuals experience gender discrimination differs. the reason is the fact that inequality is the consequence of various factors influence, not the gender itself only. when strengthening gender equality in sports and decision-making, eliminating gender inequalities is the most important. following the contemporary interdisciplinary research of sports, the primary goal of this article is to research the persistence of gender stereotypes in sports and analyze causal relationships 1 corresponding author, address: b. němcovej 32, 040 01 košice, slovak republic, e-mail: daniela.palascakova@tuke.sk, tel. +421 902 409 294 2 address: demänová 393, 031 01 liptovský mikuláš 6, slovak republic, tel. +421 917 681 969, e-mail: palascakova.lenka@gmail.com palaščáková, d., et al., gender stereotypes in sports, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 72-86) 73 resulting from gender inequality. the analysis itself was carried out in ibm spss amos software, which is ideal for creating causal models and whose environment offers a model display. key words: analysis, discrimination, causality, gender, equality, stereotype, strategy, sport introduction one of the key priorities of the european union (hereinafter “eu”) is to ensure the equality between men and women in the social-political and economic world. as many professionals who helped establish the understanding of discrimination as an economic issue, such as arrow (1971), becker (1971), blinder (1973), oaxac (1973), cain (1986) state that it is necessary to provide the equality of opportunities, salary equality and to increase the employment rate of women predominantly. the increase in the employment rate of women is necessary for sustainable economic growth and development. the study of professional literature, scientific works and strategic documents dealing with the causal relations between employment, gender and salaries tend toward the conclusion that there are strong gender differences and inequalities between the mentioned areas (drolet, 2001; cassells, vidyattama, miranti & mcnamara, 2009; matěju & anýžová, 2015). the contemporary situation shows a worse and more difficult position of women in comparison to men. the extent of literature resources within the field of gender equality and gender inequalities is very fruitful regarding the interdisciplinary topics and offers wide topics to study. we did not miss the scientific activity in the field of authors gyarfášová (2014), barošová (2009), pauhofová (2016), filadelfiová (2010, 2014) etc. the fact is that our paper represents a partial view of the issue only. it is a very actual topic that should be a subject of public discussions as per the results of the social survey of eurobarometer from 2015 (european union, 2015). the european citizens clearly expressed their sensitive attitude toward gender equality within the survey, where the majority of them confirmed the existence of gender inequalities, mostly in the field of the labor market. it is a very serious and actual global problem as the gender inequalities are the subject of significant international organizations such as unesco (unesco, building peace in the minds of men and women, 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 72-86) 2017), united nations (hereinafter “un”) and its independent specialized organization un women, including the integration of the problem into united nations development programme (unwomen, 2017), organization for economic cooperation and development (hereinafter “oecd”), international labor organization (hereinafter “ilo”), or even world economic forum (hereinafter “wef”). wef annually points to the development of the gender gap in the world through the report on the global gender gap. it quantifies the range of gender inequalities in this report, as well as the development throughout the time and space concerning the qualified relative inequalities in the field of health, education, economy, and politics. however, the continuous regular reporting of wef pointed out the extremely slow development in this area (global gender gap report, wef, 2016). we must emphasize the significance of the national strategy of gender equality in the slovak republic for 2014-2019 at the national level. the above-mentioned strategy is dealing with the areas with the most remarkable evidence of inequality between men and women. strategic priorities are in line with european priority areas. they are particularly defined as follows: area of economic independence and labor market, area of participation in decision-making in public and economic life, area of education, science and research and area of humanity and body integrity (violence elimination). there is also institutional and legislative protection of gender equality and international cooperation and developmental assistance between strategic areas. the strategy was the basic principle of the action plan of gender equality in the slovak republic in 2014-2019. the short intersection of the selected strategies and programs, as well as the contribution of slovakia to the resolution of the problem at the national level, point out the initiative of world authorities to the resolution of gender equalities. within the context of this paper, there is a space for the creation of the initiative to deal with gender equality in sports and intensify the social dialogue on this topic. we focused on gender equality in sports as an applied scientific discipline clarifying the interesting circumstances of sport and its impact on the sporting achievements of representatives. referring to contemporary interdisciplinary sports research, the primary goal of our paper is to examine the persistence of gender stereotypes in sports and analyze the causal relationships resulting from gender inequality. following the main goal, we have set the secondary goal, based on the causal analysis, to specify out of the characteristics of family palaščáková, d., et al., gender stereotypes in sports, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 72-86) 75 conditions the characteristics with the most impact on the persistence of stereotypes which cause problems of gender equality. we strive to suggest the targeted measurements and initiatives which could help increase the participation of women in the decision-making process in sport. gender equality in sport sport is traditionally considered to be a discipline where men dominate. there has been a delay within the progress in gender equality limited by social role models of feminity and masculinity where sports are often related to the “muscular” characteristics, such as physical strength, resistance, speed, high range of competitive and confrontational spirit. females doing sports can be considered as “masculinist” and males not interested in sports can be considered as “non-muscular”. however, dimensions the sports have reached so far force us not to analyze the sports purely as physical, dynamic activity but even as a social, cultural and economic phenomenon. for instance, for the professionals such as sekot, leško, drobný (2004), weiss, coakley (2001), novotný (2011), gábriš & križan (2011)who deal with the research of sport and its impact, the important role is to identify the most significant social impacts and social relationships. some of them consider the social component, the human interactions, impact on their health and psychology as well as the individual happiness to be very important. others consider economic impacts from positive phenomena resulting in the social impact of sports and doing sports to be more significant. sport brings substantial economic advantages in the entire eu and is a significant tool for outward relationships. according to psychologist gerbery (2010), the problem of gender inequality lies even within the applied ways of thinking that are not related to the present state of society. he called this phenomenon “human mechanism”. in his opinion, the 21st century should be the feminization of male life paths and transferring good practices from other countries. dominant gender stereotypes influence not only the participation of women in decision-making in sport organizations but even their participation in sporting activities. even if there is a continuous growth of women’s participation in sports, women are always insufficiently represented within the body organs of sports institutions at local, national, european and global level. there is a very low level of women represented 76 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 72-86) at the top decision-making positions of sports organizations of the member countries european institute for gender equality, 2018the occupation of a coach is another area in the sport with the insufficient representation of women. based on the data from seven eu member countries, it is estimated that only 20% up to 30% of all sports coaches in europe are women (european commission, 2014). there are more males employed in sports than females, based on the database of gender statistics european institute for gender equality (hereinafter “eige”) which says that the employment rate of women in sports decreased, while the employment rate of men increased at european level in 2012-2014. there was a suggestion regarding the strategic actions in terms of gender equality in sports during 2014-2020 being approved after the eu conference on gender equality in sports held in 2013. governing bodies in sports and non-governmental organizations agree on the conditions and proposals within the suggestion that there is a lot of work ahead of us. they call us to develop and arrange national and international strategies regarding the conditions in gender equality in sports through coherent and particular efforts at the eu level. the committee in its conclusions on gender equality in sports calls the sports organizations to strengthen the gender balance in governmental bodies and committees as well as the area of management and training. it also requires elimination of non-legislative obstacles prevent women to place these positions (european commission, 2014). methodology as we stated in the introduction, the primary goal of our paper is to research the persistence of gender stereotypes in sport and analyze causal relationships resulting from gender equality. we split the analysis results based on the methodological point of view into two levels. firstly, the results of causal analysis, where the aim was to specify the characteristics with the most impact on the persistence of stereotypes which cause problems in gender equality out of the set of characteristics in the area of family conditions. following the above mentioned, we set the following causal hypothesis: the most remarkable impact on persistence and perception of gender equalities through the optics of entrepreneurs in their relationship to their employees has the family condition of “single mother” out of the set of selected characteristics. palaščáková, d., et al., gender stereotypes in sports, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 72-86) 77 secondarily, regarding the persistence of gender stereotypes in sports, we have chosen the total number of medals as the standard of success in sports: gold (g) + silver (s) + bronze (b) at the most significant international sports events, such as olympic games in 2009 – 2018. we have got into the causal relationships through the professional publications of peyrot (1996) who deals with the clarification of causal modeling use and its logic, interpretation included. the modeling can be simple when using logical-hierarchical analyses or analyses called a path. however, the modeling form of structural patterns consists of significant statistical advantages and peyrot marks it as the most advanced method. pearl (2009) offers a very complex view on the problem of causality and offers the description of empirical and statistical range in his work. according to schenk (1981), causal modeling is a special procedure that reveals causal relationships in complicated systems of variables through empirical data. we have chosen the causal analysis through the modeling of structural patterns. we performed the analysis in ibm spss amos software for creating causal models and its environment offers even the presentation of the model. we did the modeling according to the publication of byrne (2010) who is a true professional in the field of modeling the structural patterns. besides this, we followed the prognostic work of smrčeková (2015) who used the method of structural patterns for examining the impact of skills on literacy. her work was our inspiration in terms of how to present the model presenting causal relationships in terms of its content and form. the publications of matěja and večerníček (2015), or matěja and anýžová (2015) with the same purpose as the ones mentioned above. the model was designed based on data acquired from the questionnaire survey focused on the current situation of gender equality in practice among entrepreneurs (employers). the questionnaire survey aimed to map the contemporary view of entrepreneurs on gender equality regarding the expenses, problems, and assets of this phenomenon. the result of this survey was presented in other papers. when creating the questionnaire, we followed the advice of authors who have already surveyed questioning the entrepreneurs. conclusions made out of their suggestions consist of restricting the number of questions because entrepreneurs are generally not interested in surveys so much. it has been a disadvantage in our questionnaire when modeling the causal 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 72-86) relationships because we lacked data which could create a better picture of the causal relationships. results discrimination at the global, european and even slovak level is still high. we analyzed it through gender inequalities between males and females. we set the causal hypothesis regarding the determined goals based on the suggestion that the employers are creating a gender gap considering the research results of the works of drolet (2001), mitra (2003) or cassells vidyattama, miranti and mcnamara 2009 (2009). we decided to apply their findings into the case in slovakia, respecting the results of rizman (2017) who points to the extent of the gender gap in slovak conditions. considering the findings of the above-mentioned authors, we focused our attention on the field of subjective perception of stereotypes through the optics of entrepreneurs (employers) and their response to the impulses when evaluating the employers for family conditions. the model presented in figure 1 consists of one latent variable expressed as the level of stereotypes persistence when choosing the employees for entrepreneurs (employers). it consists of the variables related to various types of family conditions. besides the latent variable of stereotypes persistence, we tried to add even other variables, however, the model has been always deteriorated and losing its statistical attributes. the limitation of such a model seems to be optimal for our purposes. figure 1: causal model presenting the intensity of selected characteristics source: own collaboration through ibm spss amos palaščáková, d., et al., gender stereotypes in sports, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 72-86) 79 whereas: stero expresses the level of stereotypes persistence, ož means the condition of the father as the breadwinner, msz means the condition of the mother, sm means the condition of a single mother, osz means the condition of the father as a stable employee, mpn means the condition of the mother as a person with the high load considering the difficulty of synchronization of her family and work life, rs expresses the family condition of being married. in the following tables 1 and 2, we state the standardized and nonstandardized regression balances. table 1: standardized regression balances relationship estimate rs <-- stereo 1,000 mpn <-- stereo ož <-- stereo 1,000 1,000 msz <-- stereo 1,000 sm <-- stereo osz <-- stereo 1,000 1,000 source: own collaboration based on the values of balances in table 1, we can see that standardized regression balances point out to the statistically significant impact of all determined characteristics for the stereotypes persistence. table 2: non-standardized regression balances relationship estimate p-value rs <--stereo 0,231 *** mpn <--stereo 0,042 0,329 ož <--stereo 0,711 *** msz <--stereo 0,787 *** sm <--stereo 0,033 0,472 osz <--stereo 0,967 *** source: own collaboration 80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 72-86) in table 2, we can see that the statistical significance from nonstandardized regression balances is assigned to the characteristics “family condition”, “father as a breadwinner”, “mother as the assumption of a stable employee” and “father as a stable employee”. at the level of significance of 0.05, the characteristics of “single mother” and “the condition of the mother as a personality with high load” were not determined as statistically significant. the causal model that we designed in the ibm spss amos program explains the persistence of stereotypes. according to the results of causal analysis, there is an impact of “family condition of employees”, “family condition of being married” on the persistence of gender stereotypes in our determined series of characteristics. besides this, stereotypes are caused even with opinions such as “father as a breadwinner”, “father or mother as stable employees” which are evaluated by the employers. a causal relationship has not been confirmed for the family condition of “single mother” and “mother as a person with the high load considering the difficulty of synchronization of her family and work-life”. based on the results of causal analysis, we must state that we can refute the causal hypothesis. through the causal analysis, we wanted to point out to the fact that entrepreneurs at the level of employers create a gender gap between men and women even by the life-long support of stereotypes regarding the family condition. besides the determined model, we strived to look for even further causal relationships from data acquired by the assessment of a questionnaire survey but none of the models were statistically significant. number of medals in sports according to gender as we have already stated within the section of material and methods, the number of medals, gold (g) + silver (s) + bronze (b), was selected as the measurement of success of slovakia on a particular international sporting event, such as og. we assumed that the results at the greatest international sporting event are influenced by biological gender + social gender (usually referred to as a gender) besides of other factors such as the wealth of a country reflecting gdp per capita, population size, etc. in this sense, it is necessary to look at the traditional gender roles which can determine how much time women spend with duties related to caring what can consequently influence their time for sports activities or solid sports preparation. index of gender equality of eige institute clearly shows palaščáková, d., et al., gender stereotypes in sports, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 72-86) 81 the fact that women, in comparison to men, spend more time doing the activities related to care and therefore have less time to participate in other social activities, such as sporting, cultural, recreational activities, etc (gender equality index, european institute for gender equality, 2018). in table 3, you can see the number of medals from og – summer olympic games (hereinafter “sog”) and winter olympic games (hereinafter “wog”) in the researched period from 2008 – 2018 in the following order: gold (g) + silver (s) + bronze (b). table 3: number of medals at og in 2008 – 2018 svk year / number of medals at og (sog, wog) acquired by women (w) and men (m) total 2008 (sog) 2010 (wog) 2012 (sog) 2014 (wog) 2016 (sog) 2018 (wog) g 3/2m,1w 1/w 0 1/w 2/2m 1/w 8/4m,4w s 2/1m,1w 1/w 1/w 0 2/2m 2/w 8/3m,5w b 1/m 1/m 3/2m,1w 0 0 0 5/4m,1w total 6/4m,2w 3/1m,2w 4/2m,2w 1/1w 4/4m 3/3w 21/11m,10w source: own collaboration based on www.olympic.sk if we don’t look at the final number of medals at sog, we can find out that seven of eight medal positions were acquired by woman, anastasia kuzminova (3 golden, 3 silver, 1 bronze) who has got one golden and two silver medals in 2018, one golden and one silver medal in 2010 and one golden medal in her least the successful year of 2014. there is only one bronze medal among the men acquired by pavol hurajt in 2018. the slovak representation team was more successful at sog acquiring a total of 14 medals (5 golden, 5 silver, 4 bronze). in comparison to wog, men were more successful (4 golden, 3 silver, 3 bronze) than women (1 golden, 2 silver, 1 bronze) at sog. as we do the comparison, only one woman, anastasia kuzminova, was successful at wog who acquired seven medals (3 golden, 3 silver, 1 bronze) and three women were successful at sog, acquiring 4 medals in total elena kaliska (1 golden), zuzana štefečeková (2 silver) and danka barteková (1 bronze). a just representation of women at events, appreciation of their successes, uneven financing of women and men teams or media coverage of 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 72-86) women and their successes are very important topics to be dealt with. however, we cannot overlook the problems behind the gates of great sporting events and their long-term social consequences. it seems that we can call for gender equality within the great sporting events and ignore the fact that the events itself reproduce social inequality at the same time (lenskyj, 2011). conclusion according to the results, the global decrease in the gender gap is very slow. the fact that it is not a dilemmatic topic can be caused even by its interdisciplinary characteristics. it is a very complex and long-term problem that can be the reason for postponing its solution. simply said, we have got used to this inequality and exactly this kind of attitude is keeping it alive. from the results of the causal analysis, we can say that the entrepreneurs in the position of employers always keep some stereotypes in their behavior that they use to judge their employees. we have dealt with the stereotypes regarding the family condition in our research where the determined characteristics were identified as the reasons for stereotypes preservation. the level of the number of women on maternity and parental leave is almost unchanged, women deal with parental tasks. the influence of parenthood on the level of employability as well as focusing on the sporting careers of men and women brings the most remarkable gender inequalities. what we can get from the recent researches of various agencies (eige) is that measurement of the change range in decision-making in sport is limiting the absence of suitable indices at the level of eu. even though some data are already available, there still is a lack of data categorized by gender to compare all the member countries. regular monitor and evaluation of gender statistics are missing as well in the regions of slovakia. the lack of suitable information disables the policymakers to accept the goals reflecting different needs of women and men and it supports more equal rate of their participation. when strengthening gender equality in sports and decision making, the most important is to eliminate gender stereotypes. the elimination of gender stereotypes plays a key role when eliminating the obstacles which limit women to achieve their positions in sports. the broader range of targeted measurements, such as public discussions, workshops, training programs and active policy supporting young women in 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[36] slovak olympic team: www.olympic.sk article history: received: 26 march, 2020 accepted: 5 may, 2020 13_jwe_1-2 udc: 339:677(669) ; 334.722-055.2(669) jel: b54, l26 id: 198560780 original scientific paper social organization of textile – trading among yoruba women textile traders: implication towards entrepreneurial development in informal economy in nigeria yusuffm olabisi1, lagos state university, department of sociology, ojo, nigeria a b s t r a c t it is unknown how yoruba women textile traders organize their textile enterprises, despite the vagaries of informal economy. however, in an informal economy, trade in every commodity has its own social organizational structures and politics. scholars have argued that commodity needs to be separately studied so to detangle the various structures and politics associated with each commodity so that behavioural patterns that lead to entrepreneurial development can be determined. the focus of this paper therefore is to examine the organizational strategies of yoruba women textile traders. the paper hinges on social action theory by max weber. the research design is qualitative in nature. eight focus group discussions were conducted among the women respondents; forty (40) in depthinterview, and six casestudies were conducted. the findings reveals that in social organization of textile trading, several unique methods were adopted such as; placing of exclusive rights on some textile materials, innovation and imitation of textile materials for continuous trading of textile materials. in promotion of textile materials, the finding reveals that economic and non-economic activities were utilized to promote sales. while some classical tenets of entrepreneurship, were adopted by the women in recording the transactions. the paper recommends innovative attitude, importance of role mentors, building of social capital among other traders in the market, and teaching of record keeping of transaction. all 1 e-mail address: soyusuf@yahoo.co.uk yusufim, o., towards entrepreneurial development, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) 37 these are essential tools for women entrepreneurship development in informal economy. key words: social organization, textile-trading, yoruba women, market, lagos state, nigeria introduction this paper examines the social organization of textile trading in informal economy. keith hart (a german anthropologist) recently introduced the concept of informal economy in 1973. he described a part of the urban labour force, which works outside the formal labour market as informal sector. hart, (2006) and portes (1994) refers to informal economy as those enterprises and activities that may not comply with standard business practices, taxation regulations, and/or business reporting requirements, but are otherwise not engaged in overtly criminal activities. according to international labour organization (1995), informal economy is made up of very small-scale units producing and distributing goods and services owned and operated by largely independent, self-employed producers, employing family labour or a few hired workers and apprentices. abumere (1995) and arimah (2001) pointed out that informal economy is diverse and found in great numbers in all sectors of the economy such as; manufacturing, construction, processing, repairs, personal services, agricultural services, and technical services. olutayo (2005) argues that entrepreneurship development in developing countries has always been dominated by informal trade rather than by formal trade in spite of the attempts to graft formal trade into third world economies. however, the notion of informal economy in developing countries captures certain peculiarities, such as, informality of business organization, use of rudimentary technology, lack of separation of consumption and production, ease of entry and exit, reliance on family labour and apprentices, and small requirements for capital (aderemi, and siyanbola, 2008). unescap (2003) report shows that informal economy is plagued with low productivity because of informal actors’ inability to access resources. the informal actors’ working capital is considered as “dead capital“ to the effect that the working capital could not work for them, or add value to their trading activities or social statuses. the informal entrepreneur may own a house, but the house cannot be used as collateral to secure loans from the bank in order improve his/her work because the house itself is informal. the 38 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) house is built on customary land that provides no formal title or title deed that can be used as collateral (lagos megacity report, 2004). tijani (2012) also maintained that lack of “labour union education” was also a major feature in the informal economy in developing countries. furthermore, the absence of a policy enabling environment contributes or accentuates the formidable problems that informal economy are confronted with such as difficulties in obtaining raw materials, difficulties in gaining access to credits and finance and lack of organizational ability which makes it difficult for entrepreneurial development, especially among women. despite the peculiarity of informal economy, each commodity sold in the market has its own social organization. cohen, (1966) and petregrenoulleau, (2000) cited by olutayo, (2005) succinctly explains that trade in every commodity has its own social organizational structures and politics. olutayo (2005) further argues that for this reason, each commodity needs to be separately studied to detangle the various structures and politics associated with each commodity in informal economy. the essence of this is to increase knowledge of politics involved in each commodity for sustainable development and policy implication. more so, organization of commodity in informal economy is a neglected area by scholars and social scientists. the paper intends to fill the gap. the main objective of this paper is to understand the social organization involves in textile trading in informal economic activities in balogun market, lagos state, nigeria. the beauty of this is that in spite of vagaries of informal economy, one of which is the inability of women traders to organize trades towards entrepreneurial development, and closure of textile industries in nigeria, observation at balogun market reveals, magnitude of trading activities in textile materials. yet, qualitative empirical data on social organization of textile trade among yoruba women textile traders in informal economy has been neglected in social sciences and in policymaking. in examining the social organization of textile trading at balogun market, this paper intends to investigate the politics involved in sourcing/ purchasing of assorted textile materials sold in the market. overcompetitiveness is another vagary of informal economy that makes it difficult to grow, how then do yoruba women textile traders promote their textile trading?. extant literature have reveal that women in informal economy do not record their daily sales, how then do yoruba women textile traders record their trading activities? how do they record their trading activities? yusufim, o., towards entrepreneurial development, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) 39 literature review entrepreneurship also included those who organised distributions of output (ogunremi, 1996). the organization of work is a set of relations among people (hudson, et al 2002). social organization of trade within the informal economy does not mean that there are no rules or norms regulating the activities of workers or enterprises. people who engage in informal activities have their own “political economy” that is, their own informal or group rules, arrangements, institutions and structures for mutual help, trust, providing loans, organizing training and market access and enforcement of obligation. there are rules and regulations in purchasing strategies, and marketing strategies. cohen, (1966) studied the social organization of credits in a west african cattle market. he found out that ‘landlords’’ (property owners where cattles are off loaded) play major roles in the organizations of credit in a west african market. the landlords serve as intermediary who mediates between dealers and local butchers in the market. each property owner has a number of intermediaries working under him, but responsibility for their business conduct remains always with him. also in the organization, the property owners also serve as insurer and risk-takers, which is the most crucial factor in the operation of the whole market. the property owners interact very extensively among themselves, since it is the nature of their business both to compete and to cooperate. they compete fiercely over business and countless disputes arise among them over what they describe as “stealing of dealers“. in cohen analysis of social organization of credits in a west african cattle market, the property owners serve as link between the cattle rearers and the butchers. however, there was no information on economic innovation, or capital accumulation for the properties owners, the cattle owners, or the butchers in west african market. mintz (1971) studied relationship between social organization and certain sorts of economic activity, using a particular setting, the internal market system in peasant societies. he found among the „afipko” igbo ethnic group that all women were almost agriculturists. their opportunities to farm were largely linked to their husbands’ land claims. furthermore, afikpo women were enjoined from long-distance trade, unlike women in the same region. one economic innovation that increased the capacity of women to deal as equals with men was the introduction of cassava 40 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) processing and cultivation among the yoruba women ethnic group. since men only grow yams, with which prestige, ritual and ceremonial wealth are associated. it is left to the women to grow all else. olutayo, (2005) examined yoruba women in informal long distance trade, he found that poverty informed rural women to engage in long distance trade and that there is domination by urban dwellers in their relationship. most importantly, women had access to land, which they inherit from their parents, though they may in „love“ give these lands to their brothers. nevertheless, if she chooses to inherit the land, then she would be responsible for certain family expenses. where she chooses not to inherit the land, the brothers become responsible. women in long-distance trade encourage polygyny due to the need to assist the family to generate some income and at the same time take care of the home. shengliang, wang, and alon (2011) studies social organization of women chinese work and the authors pointed out that social organizations play an important role in encouraging women’s nascent entrepreneurship. these organizations encourage women to take advantage of transitional economic opportunities to start new ventures that rely on specific programs designed for women. in these special programs women entrepreneurs are supplied with entrepreneurial skills, information, laws, and capital support to assist their development, for example, through the women’s successful career program, the women’s innovation and entrepreneurship program, and the outstanding women’s entrepreneur program. the all-china women’s federation and the association of chinese women entrepreneurs administered these programmes. nexus between social action theory and organization of textile trading the study anchor on the theory of social action by max weber, which is sometimes referred to as ‘the action frame of reference’ (ritzer, 2000). weber’s primary focus was on the subjective meanings that human actors attach to their actions in their mutual orientations within specific socio-historical/cultural context. weber argued that explanation of social action have to account for the way in which individuals attach subjective meaning to situation and direct their actions in accordance with their perception of those situations. this implies that individuals define, interpret situation and act accordingly. individual behaviours are moulded within the yusufim, o., towards entrepreneurial development, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) 41 socio-cultural setting. the ideal types of social action must have a purpose or intention inscribed in them (labinjo, 2002). to weber, there are four ideal types of social action. they are emotional action, traditional action, goal rational actions and valuerational actions. action could also be wertrational action or value-rational action. this implies that value-rational actions illuminate consciousness about value standards. value oriented rationality is the process of pursing goals through rational means, although the goals may not be rational (elwell, 2009). labinjoh (2002) observed that in this case, the agent consciously decides on the ultimate goal of his or her action and, in consequence, systematically organizes the action to achieve the goal. in this regard, action is based on unconditional intrinsic value, whether ethical, aesthetic, religious or any other, of particular sort of behaviour. in other words, action is based on collective beliefs, values and sanctions. an action or the social organizational methods of women entrepreneur may be value rational. a woman entrepreneur needs to operate within the existing norms of the market, most especially peculiar method(s) of business practices might be motivated by the value of efficacy of action. each woman has subjective meaning attached to method(s) in purchasing and promoting textile trading. each method adopted to organize textile trading has ethnographic considerations and meaning attached to it. research methods this study utilized qualitative techniques in data generation because of the nature of the research. the qualitative method allows us to gain valuable insights through the subjective narratives of the respondents, that is, it gave us understanding from participant perspectives on organization of textile trading. bryan and burgess (1999) note that one underlying attribute of qualitative methodology is its strong adherent to viewing events from the viewpoints of the subjects. the specific focus of the study was on yoruba women textile traders who distribute and sell textile materials such as lace materials, ankara, and other forms of fabrics at balogun market, lagos state, southwest, nigeria. the criteria for choosing the respondents among the yoruba traders include: a, those who have been in textile trading for the past ten years. b, those that sell from shops, they may be either in retail or wholesale trading 42 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) and those that have at least two apprentices undergoing training in textile trading. c, those that have two informal employees working with them the study is a qualitative study. therefore, a non-probability sampling methods, which consist of idis, fgds, kii, casestudy and observation, were utilized in selecting the population of the study. specifically, the sample size was forty (40) respondents were selected for indepth interviewing idis. eight (8) focus group discussions was conducted, eighteen (18) key-informants were interviewed, and eight (6) individuals case studies were carried out. the study was carried out between august 2011 and february 2012. the study utilized purposive sampling method. various stages were involved in the utilization of this sampling method for the study. the study maintained geographical spread in selection of the sample by ensuring that all the eleven units of the balogun market were covered. consents were sort from respondents before the interview takes place. the contact persons introduced us to women traders before focus group discussions can take. the researcher and research assistants’ taperecorded the responses in all methods of data collection. at the end of each session, the information recorded were transcribed and sorted out. the qualitative data generated through idis and fgds and kiis were analysed with the use of content analysis and ethnographic summary that was enhanced with computer analysis. this brought out the thematic views through critical evaluation and verbatim quotations. data reduction involved series of steps. there were no attempts to quantify any data, as attachment of numerical values to qualitative data is not only inappropriate but also unscientific in qualitative data reduction (silverman, 2006). data analysis and critical discussions in balogun market, there are assorted types of materials that are sale. the names of these materials examined include lace materials, ankara materials and aso-oke materials. there are three types of textile materials that were examined differently in terms of structure and politics involved in each material. the findings reveal that women textile traders specializes in sale of a particular textile materials, as each does not mingle all materials together for sales. this translates that women textile traders do not suffer from occupational mobility glitches as was evidenced with other women traders (bumpus, 2008). yusufim, o., towards entrepreneurial development, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) 43 purchasing strategies of ankara textile materials the findings reveal that there are different points of purchase of ankara textile materials. in recent past in nigeria, before the closure of some textile-manufacturing companies, they had many options where women purchase materials. the findings now reveal that, with the closure of many textile industries in nigeria, only three options are left for the traders. the purchasing strategies include buying from women traders from republic of benin, or yoruba women travelling in returns to benin republic to purchase as explained by woman respondent in case –study analysis below. economically, women traders from benin republic are taking the advantages of ecowas liberalization policy, which encourages the trade along ecowas sub region to bring in ankara materials for sale to individual trader. this translate that the extra cost that may be attached to purchasing are considerably reduced, considering the fact that transport fares are not included materials. a woman respondent during an in-depth-interview explained; the “ajase’’ (benoinuise) normally come every month with different patterns of ankara to sell to us. as soon they come, we select and pick the ones we like. we travel from lagos to cotonou to buy latest ankara textile materials. among the textile companies manufacturing ankara, only nichemtex is left, we also buy from them. recently, the lebanese has established a company at heart of balogun market knows as cfao. they import several brand of ankara such as “da viva”, “qualitex,’ and london wax, “excellence” among others (idi/58yrs/september, 2011) in a case study with mrs hgt who sells only ankara materials, she explained the operations of cfao company in the importation of textile materials: cfao has its warehouse at the heart of the market. the company is the one responsible for importation of all the latest ankara materials in the market. the chinese are the ones responsible for the patterns and the designs. they do not sell retail; they deal directly with the wholesalers. that is, there is minimum number of bales they sell. anyone 44 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) who wants to deal with them must start by buying the minimum bales (case-study/60yrs,/ september,2011) apart from purchasing textile materials from benin republic, the findings from respondents show that only nichemtex and cfao textile companies are left where women can get textile materials in lagos state. this information attested to the fact that some active textile manufacturing companies are closed down in nigeria (punch, 2010 and unido, 2004). cfao has come to fill the gap of closure of textile companies by importing various textile materials (ankara form china republic). to ease problem of transportation and make trade easier for women, cfao brought his warehouse to the heart of the market where it is easy to sell to people. the finding reveals that chinese have taken over the importation of ankara materials, while the yoruba women are only involved in marketing the products. purchasing strategies of lace materials the purchasing methods of lace materials are largely different in time and context. extant literature reveals that during precolonial period, the europeans, syrians, and the lebanese were the main importers of lace materials, while the indigenous women were mostly involved in the sale of materials (cole, 1964 and mabogunje, 1964). however, from 1980s until date, lace materials were sourced from several manufacturing companies in austria. responses from women lace traders explained how they purchase materials from austria. the question is not only about purchasing method, but also about innovative behaviours displayed by these groups of women. these innovative behaviours had implication for wealth accumulation and creation of class within the market. women respondents in fgds and idi shed more light on this issue. a woman respondent in the focus group discussion explained it this way: we place exclusive rights on some patterns and design because we want to be associated with the patterns. for instance, i was the first woman who brought in “jacquard lace” to this country. the manufacturers will never sell to other women traders even if we do not pay for all the rolls (forty bundles). sometimes, if you have built a solid trust with the manufacturer, they may release the materials to you, and you pay later. you may ship all the materials on yusufim, o., towards entrepreneurial development, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) 45 credits. however, you can always go back to take the remaining. when we place exclusive rights on some patterns, we become wholesaler. the other women traders who love the pattern will come and buy from us. in this way, we make more profits and we are able to build solid relationships with the manufacturers in austria. lace from austria is known as swiss lace. it is usually expensive, but of very good quality (fgd/ 70yrs/ october 2011) a woman respondent during in-depth-interview explained: during our time, we travelled to austria to buy different types of lace materials. this is because austria has beautiful textile design. austria lace materials are known as voile laces. each pattern comes out with forty bundles on the roll. whenever we get there, we select our designs and place exclusive rights on the pattern(s) selected. the design automatically is associated with us. no other woman can claimed any right on this design (idi, 72yrs, 28th august, 2011) mabogunje (1964) has earlier found in his study the method of placing exclusive rights on pattern by women. according to him, when women textile traders sense that a particular type of textile materials is likely to hit the market, they enter into an arrangement with the syrians to buy it all, and to retail it right in the front of the syrians shops. this unique method must probably have been passed down in history. however, one of the attribute of an entrepreneur is ability to take risk, what happens if they were unable to buy all the forty bundles of different designs? will the manufacturer(s) sell to their women traders? why must they place exclusive rights on some patterns, what are the implications of this method? from responses above, these women respondents displayed three attributes of entrepreneurship. one of such is placing exclusive rights on designs, which is considered as being risky. risk taking, according to some scholars such as; schumpeter, (1934) nilufer, (2001) hisrich, (2005) ogundele, (2008) is one of the key-element of entrepreneurship and one of the factor that makes trader turn into an entrepreneur. building of trustworthy relationships with the manufacturer was another attribute that was displayed by women respondents. bourdieu (1986) and coleman, (1988) see the building of trustworthy as an instrumental nature of social capital which represents a distinct form of social relationship which can be 46 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) a significant source of information about opportunities and provision of support that affect entrepreneurial career path choices (harding, 2006). lastly, the idea of placing exclusive rights on some design has implications for wealth accumulation (ogunremi, 1996 and forrest, 1999). all these actions taken by women traders are also skewed towards inequality in the market. these actions may also account for survival of textile shops and subsequent inheritance of textile enterprises. entrepreneurship is not only limited or confined only to innovation in the sense that schumpeter (1930) used it. hoselitz (1965) argues that anyone who is business leader, who guides the action of a private productive enterprise and makes crucial decisions on the use of productive factors, or other aspects of the production and marketing process, is an entrepreneur. in line with this opinion is the view of ogunremi (1996) who argues that an entrepreneur may be an imitator, as long as the imitation is practiced in a different situation. indeed, an imitator of an idea must bring in his own ideas and adapt, otherwise he cannot succeed as an entrepreneur. in line with the idea of an entrepreneur been an imitator as long as the imitation is practiced in a different situation was observed among other group of women respondents who sell lace materials. in retrospect in the 1980s, with the introduction of structural adjustment programmes, which resulted in cut in government expenditures, unemployment and reduction on the living standard of people, and depreciation of value of naira (nigeria currency), some women traders who could not afford to travel again to austria, had to innovate on alternative means of getting lace materials. a woman respondent in idi shed more light on this issue: first, we studied the situation, and we realized that majority of people could not afford austrian laces, and to meet other people needs and preferences, another group of women traders who could not cope with the expenses in buying swiss voile devised another innovative behaviour by going to southkorea to buy. second, we realize that to continuous be in this trade, we need to do something significant. what we normally do is to buy various patterns and design of swiss voile from those women who normally travelled to austria to buy lace materials. this, however, was without their knowledge that we want to imitate their patterns. we then take these various patterns yusufim, o., towards entrepreneurial development, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) 47 south korea. we then take them to manufacturers in south korea to make cheaper quality of the same designs and patterns (imitation). laces from south korea are sold at cheaper prices than the swiss voile. with this, we are able to cater for another group of people who -could not buy swiss voile’’ (idi/ 55yrs/october, 2011) a woman respondent explained why women take south-korean laces for imitation: it should be noted that as more women entered into textile trading, there were yearnings and aspirations to satisfy the downtrodden people. it was observed that even with south korean laces in the market, not everybody could afford to buy. some younger women traders who were recently coming to the market had to display their unique innovative behaviours’ in textile trading. so we buy south-korean laces with different designs and take them to china to make a lower quality of the laces. though, we might call it a lower quality, but it last longer and very washable. people like china laces. we do not place franchise on any pattern, because the patterns and designs do not belong to us (fgd/ 48yrs/, september, 2011). the responses from the respondents above correspondent with earlier opinion of hoselitz (1965) and ogunremi (1999) that a successful entrepreneur is an imitator. two implications emerge. to be in textile trading, the women traders had to redefine the situation in the country and take purposive actions to imitate patterns in another country. the ideal type of social actions must have a purpose and intention inscribed in them (labinjo, 2002) .the finding reveals that there is no end to imitation by women lace sellers as they constantly redefined the situation. we found another group of women with a purpose and intention as they travelled to another country to make further imitation of earlier imitated lace materials. among this group, they take imitated lace materials from south korea to republic of china to imitate as shown in the second response above. their actions were purposive and intentional to remain in the market and satisfy the needs of people in the choice of textile materials. 48 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) purchasing strategies of aso-oke materials in yoruba hand weaving industry, men and women are involved in the weaving of threads either on the same looms with male counterparts, or women might weave on their own loom. asakitipi (2007) noted that women assisted men in planting and harvesting cotton, spun the cotton into thread, and dyed the thread ready for the men to weave. the cloth produced is known as ‘’aso-oke’’. this is common in many yoruba town such as: oyo, saaki and iseyin. the cloth produced known as aso-oke is often used as symbols of political and social prestige depending on the name, quality and pattern. the names of aso-oke associated with prestige include “sanyan”, “etu”, “alaari”, “jawu” “olowojokosaga” among others. despite the prestige associated with traditional aso-oke, some of these clothes are gradually fading away from markets. however, there are new patterns and designs in the market, where do they purchase these new trends of aso-oke from? mrs dfr in a case study, narrated the politics in production of aso-oke the traditional aso–oke is produced mostly in iseyin, saaki, and oyo. the cotton for the production of traditional aso-oke is mostly from companies involved in the production of cotton. this traditional aso-oke is gradually fading away from markets mainly for two main reasons: the closure of companies that produce cotton in nigeria, and the effect of urbanization. the traditional weavers have abandoned this weaving in favour of lucrative jobs in cities. in order for aso-oke not to fade away completely, the togolese and ghanaians are now into weaving the aso-oke, with our help. but we do produce with the same cotton produced in nigeria., there are some who always travel to china to buy cotton threads. the weavers buy cotton thread from them. the weavers do not design; we take the design to them. we have various designs with us. some we collect, some books our grandmothers had us. and some we design to meet the taste of any celebrant. we produce directly to celebrant and people come to our shops to buy. sometimes we serve as link between celebrants and the weavers. the yusufim, o., towards entrepreneurial development, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) 49 new aso-oke in town are known as “net”, “double-net”, “senegalese” among others. we also reproduce pattern similar to traditional type because we have taken it upon ourselves to make “collection”’ of all the traditional patterns and designs for keep (case study/ 60yrs/ september, 2011). important findings from purchasing strategies of yoruba women textile traders in purchasing strategies of textile materials by women traders, several findings are revealed with which add to existing knowledge on women entrepreneurial development and which are important for policy formulation include: (a) specialization in sales of textile materials the finding reveals that there is specialization in trading in a particular textile material. the implication of this finding is that yoruba women textile traders do not suffer from occupational mobility glitches whereby they move from one product based to another because of inherent problems associated with such product. oecd, (2006) and bumpus, (2008) had earlier found that women in informal economy suffer from occupational mobility glitches which have negative effect on women entrepreneurial development. ilo (2006) in comparing the attitude of male and female entrepreneur in informal economy in tanzania found out that women, unlike men do not specialize in a particular based product, but sell all saleable in the market. ilo (2006) report shows that lack of specialization of women in a particular based products account for their inability to develop entrepreneurially in informal economy. specialization in a particular brand of textile material must have significantly contributes to their entrepreneurial development. (b) innovative behaviour among yoruba women lacesellers, the women several innovative and imitative strategies were displayed in their purchasing strategies. their innovative and imitative behaviour is a strong index for entrepreneurial development. this finding explains some part of innovative behaviour displayed by the yoruba women textile traders. the work of chea, (2008) supports this finding, for the scholar had earlier found that women 50 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) innovative behaviour is one of the factors that account for survival of women owned small enterprises in ghana. innovation is one of the classical tents of entrepreneurship development as espoused by scholars such as schumpeter (1943) and drucker, (1984). (c) placing of exclusive rights on some textile designs the placing of exclusive rights on some textile materials has implications on wealth –accumulation as this group of women would likely make profits above the expected profits. forrest (1999) had earlier found out that accumulation of wealth among men entrepreneurs had implications for subsequent entrepreneurial development. the placing of exclusive rights on some textile materials has implications on wealth –accumulation as this group of women would likely make profits above the expected profits. forrest (1999) had earlier found out that accumulation of wealth among men entrepreneurs had implications for subsequent entrepreneurial development. the placing of exclusive rights on pattern must from been passed from history from women textile traders during preand postcolonial periods. this finding is located within the last kind of action by max weber, which is the traditional action, which is guided by customary habits of thought, reliance on “the external yesterday” (coser, 2004). every society has distinct traditional perspectives that are transferred from one generation to another. (d) creating social relations in the market a major component of social capital the finding also reveals that there are social relations in form of social capital available to women textile traders that serve as impetus to their entrepreneurial development. women traders were involved in several relations with other traders in and outside the market. putman (1996) had earlier argued that social capital available to women entrepreneurs is likely to contribute to their entrepreneurial development. (e) preservation of knowledge of sale acquired from those who were successful the finding reveals that women traders acquired knowledge in sales of textile trading from those that were successful. this brings in the importance of role models/ mentoring towards entrepreneurial development. social learning theory (slt) by bandura (1977) proposes that one way learning can occur is vicariously, through the observation of behaviours in yusufim, o., towards entrepreneurial development, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) 51 others, referred to as role models. mentors typically support entrepreneurs as they start and grow their businesses by giving expert help and assistance in problem solving, influencing behavioural and attitudinal change (sullivan, 2000) marketing strategies of textile materials marketing of products and commodity is very important for sales towards entrepreneurial development. one of the vagaries of informal economy is over-competiveness, that is, many people engaging in the sales of the same commodity in markets. over competitiveness is one of the problems that hinder women entrepreneurial development. given this background, how then do yoruba women textile traders promote textile trading apart from displaying textile materials in their various shops. the findings reveal that some major marketing and promotional methods women textile traders engaged in are through family, friends, and wearing the same textile materials to important social parties to attract attentions of other people in the party. this translates that social and cultural events are a taken advantage of to advertise latest textile materials. this may probably leads to gossip about the latest design of textile materials in town. through this method, sales are boosted. responses below shed more light on this. in addition to these methods, in some instances, women textile traders apply ethical issues and persuasion to promote their textile materials. however, how successful this might be depending on their personal negotiating skills. another unique way by which women promote their textile materials is through linkages within the unit and outside the units. this is done with the aim of promoting latest textile materials and at the same time creating a business working relationship with others. however, only the social friends, family members, and business partners are given such opportunity the two responses below shed more light on this. a woman respondent in in-depth interview explained this method: when we plan to import new textile lace materials, the manufacturers normally send latest pattern to us, then, we would tell our friends and families the latest name of lace materials that would be coming to the market soon. they in-turn spread the information to the close friends and associate. we use this method to raise awareness of people 52 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) and raise their curiosity about the latest materials in town (idi/ 70yrs/ 6 october, 2011) in an in depth interview with one head of the unit, she illuminates on this point: when we attend parties, especially the parties of “who is who in the society” in other to advertise the new lace textile material, we move in-group as we wear the same pattern and colour to occasion. since people normally recognize us as lace sellers, the next day, demand for such materials will be very high. people will come to the market and start describing the colour and the pattern to us. some will go to the extent of mentioning the name of the celebrant(s) where the materials are worn. in a cultural festivals such as ‘’oju-de oba’’, we also apply the same method of promoting the lace in town lace materials (idi/ 56yrs/ 17/ september, 2011) in a case study, during observation, the researcher and the assistants noticed that some people came to collect commission, upon enquiry we were told the money given to them was a commission given to them when they bring customers to them. the respondent in case study expatiates on diverse methods employed by textile traders in a casestudy with mrskkk, who sell ankara in wholesale expatiated on other methods of promoting sales: when anyone has occasion to celebrate, if someone brings the person to our shop and they take aso-ebi from this shop, they person who brought that person will come back to collect commission. the commission collected will depend on number of bales bought. through this method, people usually struggle to bring customers to us. for the celebrant(s), we may give the celebrant bag(s) of rice. sometimes, we identify with them by attending the parties. in another party, if we do not give them rice, we make souvenirs and distribute to people who attend the party. in the party, we may also distribute our business card. all these are done with the aim of promoting our trade (case study, 58yrs, 9th november, 2011) yusufim, o., towards entrepreneurial development, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) 53 important findings from marketing strategies of women traders the above findings brought to the fore the ingenuities of women textile traders in promoting textile materials. this finding add to knowledge that that apart from economic actions that are involved in promoting sales, non-economic actions are also involved such as identifying with the celebrants, movement to parties based on friendship to display textile materials, acting as intermediary between celebrants and weavers. healthy competition through informal gossiping at parties, and friendship organized on country-based textiles. other actions taken to promote textile materials include show off in new textile materials during social and cultural occasions, distribution of souvenirs during parties, distribution of business cards during parties to promote and payment of commission to “agents”, that is anyone who brings customers to their shop to take “aso-ebi”. the findings here reveal that promotion of textile materials is more than economic factors, non-economic factor like informal social relations are involved. bookkeeping strategies of yoruba women textile traders one of the vagaries of informal economy, which makes it difficult for women entrepreneurial development, is inability to keep proper accounting of transactions. drucker (1986) had succinctly stated that an entrepreneur is one who has knowledge of bookkeeping. the finding reveals methods of recording transactions among yoruba women textile traders. it was revealed that bookkeeping is one the actions taken to keep records of accomplishment of their sales. there are different types of ledgers we observed during data collection. an observation of their ledgers shows that they have their own unique ways of recording stocks and sales, which fits in into overall textile trading practices. in warehouse, when labourers bring in textile materials, the clerks in charge receive these materials from the labourers. in the warehouse, there are two major sections, the old stock, and the new section. the materials are arranged according to their prices in different sections in the warehouse and not according to pattern and designs. as new textile materials arrive, the ones earlier arranged in new arrivals sections were moved to old stock section arranged neatly in different prices’ sections. the clerks normally count number of bales according to prices, and subsequently record into the ledgers by the clerk. however, when we asked for the woman consent to 54 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) take photograph of the ledgers, our request was met with stiff resistance from the woman in casestudy interview. after stocktaking and recording of all the textile materials in the ledger by the clerk, we (the researcher, the two assistant researchers, and the two clerks) went back to the main shop. as different materials were requested for, from the warehouse, the number taken from the warehouse were deducted from the ledger, either from the old section stock or from the new section stock. the woman in case study also informed us that periodically, auditors were called to check the stock and audit the sales account. the woman in casestudy has this to say: i called in an auditor2 to audit my account. when they come, we will give them the sales books and the ledger in the warehouse. they will crosscheck our sales with the number of materials we entered in our ledgers and the remaining materials in our shops. if any is missing, then the people working with me will have many explanations to make. when we sell, we take the money for deposit in the bank on daily basis. all today’s sales are taken to the bank tomorrow morning. we do not take out any money from the sales. at the end of the month, we then withdraw money to pay our workers (case-study/62yrs/october, 2011) in this study, since these women are selfemployed and not accountable to anyone to render their accounts for auditing at a particular time or season, how then do they handle cash-flow analysis, how do they spend money from their sales. among the women we selected for case study, we observed that there were some bank officials in the shop, who were there to collect the day’s sales. nevertheless, with their explanation on cashflow analysis, we probed for more information knowing fully well the type of lifestyle they live. we do not take money anyhow from the sales. we are cautious of the capital for the business. after paying the worker’s salary, we earmark certain amount for our own personal expenses and expenses at home. when we take 2 an auditor: we could not ascertain whether the auditors that audit their accounts are professional and registered auditors, or someone verse in accounting procedures yusufim, o., towards entrepreneurial development, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) 55 materials from the shop, or gives materials out to somebody, we deduct the cost from our salaries, or we pay for the materials. in addition, for the socials we attend regularly, the souvenir we distribute to people, the cost are recorded and deducted from our salary. if we are not cautious, on how we spend money, the business will not grow (casestudy/ 70yrs/november.2011) conclusion in social organization of textile trading at balogun market, the findings reveals special ways by which yoruba women textile traders negotiate vagaries of informal economy and closure of textile industries in nigeria. in purchasing strategies of textile materials, from different countries like austria, south korea, china, and benin republic, several innovative and imitative behaviours were exhibited. women textile traders were constant informed about the needs of people, these informed state enables to innovative and imitate textile designs and patterns to meet the needs and preferences of some group of people. this entrepreneurial attitude, the dynamism involved and the rational goals set in achieving such purpose can be located within max weber (1903) social action theory. this work also support the work of chea, (2008) finding that women innovative behaviour is one of the factors that account for survival of women owned small enterprises in ghana. innovation is one of the classical tents of entrepreneurship development (schumpeter (1943) and drucker, (1984) the finding reveals that some yoruba women textile traders normally place exclusive rights on some patterns of textile materials. some implications emerge from this entrepreneurial attitude: a, this has implication for wealth accumulation according to forrest (1999). b, the idea of placing of exclusive rights on some materials must probably have been learnt from mentors. this brings to fore the importance of role models in entrepreneurial development. a mentor’s role can be strategic, developmental, calling attention to specific events or critical incidents that have occurred in the history of the business and relating them to the present circumstances, a process. cope and watts (2000) refers to as “bringing forward” the experience of the entrepreneur. c, by placing exclusive rights on textile materials, it shows that women textile traders are also risk-takers in textile trading. ability to 56 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) develop entrepreneurially also involve some element of risk taking (schumpeter, 1934) one of the classical tents of entrepreneurship is risktaking (schumpeter, 1934, drucker, 1986, hirsch 2005). drucker (1986) argues that while small business owners’ always-averse risks, entrepreneurs are risk takers and sharers. in promoting textile materials, there are economic and non-economic values attached by women textile traders. this finding contributes to knowledge that in entrepreneurial development in informal economy, promotion of commodity is not only economic, but noneconomic methods are attached. among noneconomic way of promoting textile materials as found out during casestudy was to prepare souvenirs for the celebrants and the guests in the party. business cards are then distributed to guests. the purpose was to contact women traders when they have any social event to celebrate, so that “aso-ebi” (uniform materials people wear to social/ cultural gatherings) can be picked from their shops. other unique way is wearing the latest materials in a group (about six women) to a party. this is done to attract attention of the people in the party to the latest materials in town. this method also promotes informal gossiping on latest textile materials in town. likewise, it promotes healthy competition among different agegroup. some women traders give commission to anyone who has come to choose textile –materials for “aso-ebi” in their shops. all these methods are to attract attention to them and to promote their textile trading. these methods promote social relations with other people in and outside markets. the findings reveal the book keeping styles of women textile traders. the study found out some of the women traders’ record all their transactions. the transactions made by women textile traders formally and informally are recorded on daily basis. likewise, women traders are involve in cashflow analysis. this enables them to determine profits and losses in their transcations. from the case studies analysis, there was conscious efforts on the part of the women to record all money that comes in and the expenditure incur in the course of trading. one common theme emerges on this issue; a woman in a case study says: ‘’how will you not record all the income and all the money you are spending, you will wake up one day, if you are not careful and realize that there is no money and no textile materials in your shop’’. yusufim, o., towards entrepreneurial development, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) 57 this response is in line with max weber opinion that frugality is the hallmark of entrepreneurial development. the study reveals that some of the women respondents call for auditors3 to check the accounts to determine profits and losses. this reveals some uniqueness in their social organization of textile trading. various scholars have pointed out the importance of bookkeeping in entrepreneurial development. to drucker, (1986), he sees entrepreneurs as those who have both tools and experience through learning. they know how to do bookkeeping and cash flow analysis. this finding of women textile traders doing bookkeeping, cash-flow analysis was similar to the result found by dummet (1986) in his study among men traders in informal economy in goldcoast (ghana). implications for policy and research several implications for effective policy formulation emerge from this study are as follow: 1) women traders in informal economy in developing countries, including nigeria should be taught the art of innovation based on their own products/commodities. women ministries and organizations at the local and national level with the inclusion of various non-governmental organizations that are working towards women entrepreneurial development in informal economy should organize periodic trainings on how women traders can improve on their products for increase in sales. 2) in furtherance of these, women ministries, organization and nongovernmental organizations should endeavour to identify successful women traders who had been able to negotiate vagaries of informal economy to act as mentors/ or providing mentoring roles to women traders. the mentoring roles should include counselling, guidance to solve problems likely to encounter in the course of trading. mentoring should also involve way forward to increase sales 3) record keeping and book keeping of daily transaction should be introduced into secondary schools syllabus as core course not only 3 we are not sure whether the auditors called are the professional and licensed auditors, or someone experienced in accounting or bookkeeping analysis. 58 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) for commercial students (as been practiced here in nigeria) but also for all classes at secondary schools level. 4) women traders in informal economy should be encouraged through women traders associations develop social relations and build up social capitals towards entrepreneurial development. women traders should be taught to inculcate noneconomic attitudes in promoting their commodities. in addition, frugality in spending of profits should constantly be a reminder to women traders through their various associations. limitation of study and implication for further research this research is limited only to yoruba women textile traders at balogun market. these findings cannot be generalized to other women traders selling other commodities because of the following reasons: 1) the limited scope of study and small number of respondents involved in the study 2) the study is limited to only one commodity which is textile materials 3) 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[31] silverman, d. 2006. interpreting qualitative data. third edition. methods for analyzing talk, text and interaction. los angeles: sage publications. [32] sullivan, a. steven, m. and sheffin, n. 2003. economics principles in actions. upper saddle river. new jersey pearson. [33] tijani, h. i. 2012. empire and education: labor union education in nigeria since 1945. new york: palgrave/macmillan press. [34] the punch nwespaper. 2010. “the multiples problems of textile industries in nigeria.” april 5, 6. [35] unido. 2005. training program for women entrepreneur in the processing industry, report on the needs assessment mission to ethiopia, vienna. [36] unescap. 2008. developing women entrepreneurs in south-asia. issues, initiatives and experiences. trade and investment division. bangkok thailand. st/escap.2401 [37] weber, m. 1904. the protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism.new york, rutledge yusufim, o., towards entrepreneurial development, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 36-61) 61 društvena preduzeća u oblasti tekstilne industrije trgovina tekstilom između žena iz plemena yoruba: implikacije na razvoj preduzetništva u neformalnom sektoru u nigeriji a p s t r a k t nije poznato kako žene yoruba, koje trguju tekstilom, organizuju svoja tekstilna preduzeća uprkos problemima sa kojim se suočavaju u sivoj ekonomiji.. međutim, u sivoj ekonomiji, trgovina sa bilo kojom robom ima svoju društveno organizacionu strukture i politiku poslovanja. stručnjaci su se sporili oko toga, da li se roba mora posebno proučavati da bi se uredile različite strukture i politika u vezi sa svakom vrstom robe , kao i da bi se utvrdila pravila ponašanja koja dovode do razvoja preduzetništva. stoga, ovaj rad je fokusiran na ispitivanje organizacione strategije žena yoruba, trgovaca tekstilom. rad se oslanja na teoriju društvene stratifikacije maksa vebera. metod istraživanja je kvalitativan po svojoj suštini. diskusije u osam fokusiranih grupa su sprovedene među ženama ispitanicima; četrdeset detaljnih intervjua i šest studija slučaja je bilo sprovedeno. nalazi otkrivaju da je u društvenom organizovanju trgovanja tekstilom usvojeno nekoliko metoda, kao što su: postavljanje ekskluzivnih prava na tekstil , inovacije i imitaciju tekstilnih materijala za kontinuirano trgovanje ovim materijalima. kada je reč o promociji tekstilnih materijala, bilo je utvrđeno da su za unapređenje prodaje korišćene privredne i neprivredne delatnosti. međutim, usvojena su neka klasična načela preduzetništva od strane žena u evidentiranju transakcija. rad preporučuje inovativan stav i važnost uloge mentora u obučavanju žena u vođenju evidencije o transakcijama. sve ovo su osnovni alati za razvoj ženskog preduzetništva u neformalnom sektoru ključne reči: društvena organizacija, trgovina tekstilom, žene yoruba, tržište, savezna država lagos, nigerija article history: received: 24 october, 2012 accepted: 20 april, 2013 17_jwe_1-2 udc: 334.722-055.2(594) 005.32-055.2 jel: l26, j16 cobiss.sr-id: 238900492 scientific review women entrepreneurs in mses in indonesia: their motivations and main constraints tulus tahi hamonangan tambunan1 center for industry, sme and business competition studies, usakti, jakarta, dki, indonesia a b s t r a c t this paper is based on a research aiming to examine the development of women entrepreneurs in indonesia by exploring their main personal motivations or initial reasons to do own businesses and identifying their main constraints in running businesses. the research was based on a desk study, secondary data analysis, and a small field survey of 108 women owning micro and small enterprises (mses) in the great jakarta area. findings from the survey show that many of them run their own businesses as a means to survive, and limited access to finance is the most serious constraint faced by the respondents, caused by their lack of valuable assets as collateral. the paper concludes that the growth of number of women-led businesses, especially mses, in indonesia should not be regarded only as the rise of entrepreneurship among women in the country. unemployment or poverty may have also played a role in pushing many women to conduct own small businesses. key words: women entrepreneurship, msmes, mses, mles, gender, entrepreneurs, push and pull 1 faculty of economics, trisakti university, jl. kyai tapa no.1, grogol, jakarta barat, indonesia. email: ttambunan56@yahoo.com. tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 57 introduction only after the asian financial crisis in 1997/98 public (policy makers, academics and practitioners) interest in development of women entrepreneurship in indonesia started to emerge, for at least three main reasons. first, it cannot be denied that number of women entrepreneurs in indonesia increase from year to year. in indonesia, traditionally, women who are actively involved as entrepreneurs or business owners are found mainly in micro and small enterprises (mses). while, total number of women owning/managing medium and large enterprises (mles) in indonesia is relatively small. by economic sector, they are mostly found in trade and services, managing/owning e.g. small shops, food stalls, beauty salons, boutique/fashions, and catering. in rural areas, women doing own businesses are mainly as petty traders operating in traditional market centers. in industry, they are mainly found in small-sized handicraft, food and beverages, and clothing industries. as their number continues to rise, women entrepreneurs in indonesia have been designated therefore as the new engines for economic growth to bring prosperity and welfare in the country. indeed, worldwide, in the past, say, two decades, many stakeholders have pointed at women entrepreneurs as an important untapped source of economic growth and development in developing countries. second, as indonesia also joined the un-initiated millennium development goals (mdgs) that ended in 2015 (and followed up by millennium sustainable goals (msg)), in which women empowerment is among the goals, the indonesian government realized that development of women entrepreneurs is crucial in order to achieve that particular goal. third, as poverty is still a serious not only social but also political issue, the active involvement of women in economic activities outside home, not only as wage-paid workers as they are widely found in labour-intensive industries (e.g. textile and garments, leather products, food and beverages, and tobacco products), but also as business owners or entrepreneurs, would have a significant effect on poverty reduction. therefore, in realizing this potential important role of women, in fact, the indonesian government has been trying since the end of the asian financial crisis to encourage women entrepreneurship development by supporting the development of mses through various programs since these enterprises are considered as an important avenue for the testing and development of women entrepreneurial ability. the programs include vocational trainings, technical assistances, microloans from banks and other 58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) formal financial institutions, and supports (in financial, technical, marketing and provision of raw materials) provided by state-owned enterprises through partnership programs. many of these programs are implemented in collaborations with foreign governments (e.g. australia, canada), un organizations (un women) and international non-government organizations (e.g. the asia foundation). in addition, in 2007 the government launched a public credit guarantee scheme (known as community business credit or kur) targeting especially mses, as most of this tiny enterprises, mainly in the trade sector, owned or managed by women. however, as in many other developing countries, despite the growing number of women-led business or as entrepreneurs and a significant increase of initiatives, policies and resources as explained above designed to promote and develop women‘s entrepreneurship, the gender gap in entrepreneurship in indonesia persist. studies or literature on women entrepreneurs in indonesia are also not so many. at least there are two main reasons. first, national data on total number of women entrepreneurs and their key characteristics in indonesia are limited. even, indonesian women entrepreneurs association (iwapi) does not have comprehensive database on total number of women entrepreneurs in indonesia, except its own list of members, who are mainly owners of large-scale/modern businesses and located in big cities. second, as mentioned before, the public interest on women entrepreneurship in indonesia has just revealed after the 1997/98 asian financial crisis, driven mainly by the introduction of the mdgs. this paper is based on a research with its main objective to examine the development of women entrepreneurs in indonesia with the focus on personal motivations or reasons of women in doing their own businesses and their main constraints in running businesses. identifying personal motivations may give an idea on whether the current development of women entrepreneurs in indonesia is a direct reflection of entrepreneurship spirit among women or, on the contrary, as a direct consequence of economic hardships faced by many women in the country. main business constraints to be identified may show the current condition of women entrepreneurship development and the growth of businesses owned or managed by female in indonesia. at least from the indonesian perspective, this research is important, not only because studies on indonesian female entrepreneurs are rare, but none of existing studies so far have given a special attention to the question: why many women have conducted their own businesses in indonesia? is that a tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 59 positive sign, looking from the perspective of women entrepreneurship development in indonesia and government efforts to support them? this question is important simply because the existing public opinion in indonesia (and probably in many other countries) is that the increase in number of female-led businesses is a positive sign, reflecting the rise of women's entrepreneurship spirit. but, is that true, including those doing mses? would it not be possible that many women, especially from poor/low income households, are doing any kind of small businesses such as owning small food stalls, petty traders, and food and beverages vendors because of economic or financial hardship? the focus of this research was on women entrepreneurs in mses with the following three reasons. first, entrepreneurship development is usually associated with the growth of mses: individuals started their own businesses from very small. second, secondary data which are available so far suggest that there are more women as business owners in mses than in mles (moreover, indonesia does not have official national data on women entrepreneurs in mles). this is not, however, a typical indonesia, but a key feature of mses in developing countries or even in the world. although the level of women as owners of mles may vary by country (depending on many local factors such as level of economic development, women access to high education, and norms and cultures), evidence available shows that in all countries across the world, including in oecd and other developed countries, the number of women as business owners or managers in mses is much higher than in mles (see e.g. gem, 2015; wef, 2015). third, national policies to promote women entrepreneurship in indonesia are an important element of national policies on micro, small and medium enterprises (msmes) development in the country. specifically, the research has the following three research questions. first, how has been the development of women entrepreneurs in indonesia? second, for those women in indonesia who are currently running their own businesses, what is their main motivation/reason in undertaking their own businesses; why they are not working as employees in someone's companies or in ministries as civil servants or studying in universities or just staying at home as housewife doing domestic works? third, what are the main constraints facing women entrepreneurs in indonesia? as the research was an exploration in nature, methodologically, it addressed those questions with the following approaches: (i) by reviewing selected key literature on development of women entrepreneurs in 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) developing countries in general and in indonesia in particular; (ii) by reviewing official reports and other materials on current national policies to support women entrepreneurship development in indonesia; (iii) by analyzing available secondary data on women entrepreneurs in indonesia; and (iv) by conducting a small field survey of randomly selected 108 mses owned or managed by women in the great jakarta area. the last two research questions were worth addressed by empirical endeavor through a field survey in order to observe closely their current situations and to have their own words on why they do their own businesses (motivation) and what current main constraints they are facing in managing their enterprises. definition of mses in indonesia based on the law on small and medium enterprises number 20, 2008, issued by the state ministry of cooperative and small medium enterprises (csmes), mses are businesses with annual sales/turnovers up to rp 2.5 billion and fixed investment (excluding land and building) less than rp 500 million. besides this law, the national agency of statistics (bps) defines mses as businesses with maximum 20 workers, excluding the owner. in reality, however, mses in indonesia (as in other developing countries) are not only different in total number of employees, annual revenues, and value of invested capital, but they are also different in many other aspects in comparison with mles. most mses are mostly operated in the informal sector (not registered and not paying taxes); they do not adopt modern management system. also mses have more women as business owners compared to mles for the following two key reasons: (i) for conducting activities in mses, not so much capital, advanced technologies and high formal skills are needed, because in general mses are very simple income generating activities such as food production, food stalls, shops selling basic goods, trade, and handicraft; (ii) because of simple and very small activities, no special space is needed and especially for married women, they are more easy in using their time between servicing their customers an doing their required domestic works. current development most of businesses in indonesia are from micro, small and medium enterprises (msmes), i.e. around 99.99 percent of total business tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 61 establishment in the country, and their number steadily increases every year (table 1). the majority of the enterprises are scattered widely throughout rural areas, and, therefore, likely to play an important role in helping develop the skills of villagers, not only technical skills but also entrepreneurial, particularly for women. however, most of them, mainly mses are undertaken or set up by poor households or individuals who could not find a better job elsewhere, either as their primary or secondary (supplementary) source of income. many women who have been found to do their own businesses in mses are not really encouraged by their high spirit of entrepreneurship but mainly because there are poor and no other better income generating activities are available for them. therefore, the presence or the growing of mses in indonesia is often considered as a result of unemployment or poverty, not as a reflection of entrepreneurial spirit (tulus tambunan, 2009a). table 1: total enterprises by size category in all economic sectors in indonesia, 2006-2013 (in thousand units) notes: mies = microenterprises; ses= small enterprises; mes=medium enterprises; les=large enterprises. sources: processed data from the state ministry of csmes (:www.depkop.go.id) and bps (www.bps.go.id). gender gap in indonesia it can be hypothesized that there is a positive (negative) relationship between the participation rate of women as entrepreneur and gender equality (inequality), ceteris paribus, other factors affecting the growth of number of women entrepreneurs are constant. thus, the relatively low number of women entrepreneurs in many, especially developing/low income countries, 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) may reflect, among other problems, the lack of gender equality in these countries. the current level of gender equality (or inequality) can be seen from a number of indexes. first, the global gender gap index from the world economic forum (wef), which measures gaps between women and men in four areas, economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. with reference to indonesia, for instance in 2014 it was in the 95th place out of 136 countries, and in 2015, the position of indonesia has improved, though slightly, to 92 out of 145 countries. with respect to economic participation and opportunity, indonesia is, however, in very low position, namely 114, which suggests that most women in the country still encounter difficulties to participate in economic activities (table 2). although, the indicator of economic participation and opportunity does not focus specifically on entrepreneurship, this fact may indicate that indonesia still needs to work in order not only to increase the number of women entrepreneurs but, more importantly, the number of women having large and profitable businesses. table 2: global ranks of asean member states according to the global gender gap index and its sub-indexes, 2015 (145 countries) member states global gender gap index indicator economic participation and opportunity educational attainment health and survival political empowerment philippines 7 16 34 1 17 leo pdr 52 11 116 92 84 singapore 54 9 111 122 92 thailand 60 19 67 1 131 vietnam 83 41 114 139 88 brunei darussalam 88 23 70 131 145 indonesia 92 114 89 60 71 cambodia 109 63 127 1 109 malaysia 111 95 100 110 134 source: wef (2015) second, the gender inequality index from the undp, which is a composite measure reflecting inequality in achievement between women tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 63 and men in three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment and the labour market participation. in 2012, the score for indonesia was 0.494 (0=equality; 1=inequality), the most unequal within asean (with singapore as the most equal member state), and in 2013 the score increased slightly to 0.500 or ranks 103 out of 152 countries, or in asean in the 7th position out of 9 member states included in the report (figure 1). figure 1: global ranks of asean member states according to the gender inequality index, 2013 (152 countries) source: undp (2014). finally, the 2012 women’s economic opportunity (weo) index created the economist intelligence unit (eiu) which focuses on the barriers affecting women’s access to economic opportunities in the formal economy. the index aims to look beyond gender disparities to the underlying factors affecting women’s access to economic opportunity. it draws on data from a wide range of international organizations, including the un, the international monetary fund (imf), the organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd), the world health organisation (who), the food and agriculture organisation (fao), and many others. the result is a comprehensive assessment of the enabling environment for women’s economic participation in 128 countries, and it ranks indonesia 85th. according to the report (eiu, 2012), many factors may explain this low rank of indonesia. these factors include the following four important 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) aspects which have strong influences on development of women entrepreneurs in the country: (1) training programs. many vocational training programs are only found in big cities, which means that women in rural areas have no access to them, and in the big cities, many training programs are not affordable for the majority of women because of such as culturally inappropriate and the length of training does not take into account women’s time burdens. while, training programs, besides formal education, are very important for women, especially those who have no access to higher education such as university for a variety of reasons, to be able to get access to productive employment opportunities or are very useful for women to develop their own businesses. (2) formal education. despite that indonesian government has been giving many efforts through many regulations to generate equal access to formal education from primary to tertiary for all, men and women, the fact shows for almost all key education indicators, the rate of men is still higher than that of women, such as school life expectancy (primary and secondary), higher educational attainment, means years of schooling, and adult literacy rate. (3) women's legal and social status. this aspect has three important indicators for which the rank of indonesia is still low. first, domestic violence, sexual assault and sexual harassment against women is still high; although much better in comparison with those in many african countries. since the first year of the reform era (1999), soon after the asian financial crisis 1997/98, the indonesian government has put efforts to improve existing laws protecting women. second, freedom of movement which measures the opportunity of women to move outside the home, and lack of it constrains women’s ability to work. although indonesia has made a progress in this issue in the past 50 years, still many women, especially in relative strong muslim families and in rural areas, are not free to go far from their home alone or without their husband. third, data on property ownership rights in legal codes in indonesia indicate that men and women still do not have equal ownership rights over moveable and immoveable property. tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 65 (4) access to finance. although the indonesian government has formally started in 2007 the so-called 'inclusive economic development' with 'inclusive finance' as the main important element of it, striving to enhance access to financial services for both men and women, the fact still indicates that women’s access to financial programs (availability of outreach programs to women that target the provision of financial services through either government initiatives or private lenders) still behind that of their man counterpart. development of women entrepreneurs in indonesia worldwide, according to the global entrepreneurship monitoring (gem, 2007, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015), activities of women entrepreneurs increase from year to year and become important drivers of economic growth in many of these countries. gem estimates that more than 187 million women are engaged in entrepreneurial activity. hillary clinton, then the u.s. secretary of state, during the first women and economy forum held in san francisco in 2011, emphasized the important role of womenowned msmes in the asia-pacific (apec) region play to spur innovative growth. she said that women represent 40 per cent of the global labor force, 43 per cent of the global agricultural workforce, and there nearly 6 million formal, female-owned small businesses in east asia. and in economies like indonesia, malaysia, thailand, and vietnam, female-owned businesses are increasing and growing quickly (nina merchant-vega and kate bollinger, 2012). according to the most recent report from the gem (2015), the continued increase of women entrepreneurs in the world have narrowed the gender gap by 6 per cent since 2012. in indonesia, based on data available from the ministry of csmes, as january 2015, total number of entrepreneurs is 1.65 percent of the country's total population of 253.61 million people, which is the lowest in comparison with many other countries in asia and in the united states of america (usa) (table 3). 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) table 3: total entrepreneurs as a percentage of total population in indonesia and other selected countries, january 2015 country total population (million people) percentage of total entrepreneurs indonesia 253.61 1.65 japan 127.10 10.0 singapore 5.40 7.0 china 1,355.69 10.0 malaysia 30.00 5.0 thailand 318.89 12.0 south korea 67.74 3.0 usa 50.20 4.0 source: the state ministry of csmes (kompas, ekonomi, thursday, 12 march 2015). with respect to women entrepreneurs, despite studies and national data on entrepreneurship development by gender in indonesia are limited, available evidence suggests that the development of women as business owners/managers in the country shares the same features as women's entrepreneurship development in many other developing countries. as stated in e.g. tambunan (2009c, 2015), in indonesia women are many times less likely than men to own businesses, especially in large size with many employees. this fact was also confirmed by shinta widjaja kamdani, the founder of global entrepreneurship program indonesia (gepi) that the number of women as entrepreneurs in indonesia is much less than men. according to her, as quoted from antara news.com accessed online in 2011 the year when gepi was formerly established (http://www.antaranews. com/en/news/89197/gepi-hopes-number-ofindonesian-female-entrepreneurs-up), the gap between male entrepreneurs and female entrepreneur was in the range of 30 per cent in the last decade. in 2000 the gap was improved slightly to 26 per cent, but in 2002 it widen again to about 36 per cent. in 2004 the gap was 37 per cent, in 2006 38 per cent, in 2008 32 per cent and in 2010 it was around 34 per cent. unfortunately, gepi does not provide more recent information on the gap between women and men entrepreneurs. international labour organization (ilo) provides regularly key indicators of the labour market in almost all countries in the world, including data on employers by gender. it refers employers as those workers who, working on their own account or with one or a few partners, hold the type of jobs defined as a "self-employment jobs", i.e. jobs where the tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 67 remuneration is directly dependent upon the profits derived from the goods and services produced), and, in this capacity, have engaged, on a on a continuous basis, one or more persons to work for them as employee(s). based on this indicator, the percentage of women as employers in indonesia is very low, except in 2013, which suggests that the level of women involved as entrepreneurs has been increased significantly from only around 1.3 per cent in 2009 to almost 13 per cent of total employers in the country. while, those who are considered as own-account workers, the percentage is much higher although declined overtime from around 31 per cent in 2001 to 16.6 per cent in 2013 (table 4). table 4: indonesian women as employers and own-account workers 2001-2013 (%) year employer own-account workers 2001 1.1 31.1 2002 1.1 33.9 2003 1.0 29.8 2004 1.1 31.9 2005 1.2 29.9 2006 1.1 32.8 2007 1.4 34.4 2009 1.3 34.5 2013 12.7 16.6 source: ilo (key indicators of the labour market: http://www.ilo.org/global/statisticsand-databases/research-and-databases/kilm/lang--en/ index. htm). other two sources also show the same features about the development of women entrepreneurs in indonesia. first, data from world bank's enterprise survey show that in indonesia firms with women top managers are 31.2 per cent of total firms, and percentage of firms with female participation in ownership (average reported by surveyed firms) are 42.8 (https://www.enterprisesurveys.org/data). second, the special report 2015 from the gem, conducted by the international development research centre (idrc), which shows that in indonesia women intentions to start a business, is lower compared to men (i.e. around 30 per cent against 34 per cent for men). within asean, entrepreneurship intention of women in 68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) indonesia is higher than those in malaysia, thailand and vietnam, but much lower than those in the philippines (gem, 2015)2. if this gem survey result does tell the true about the real condition in indonesia, it may suggest two things. first, indonesian female entrepreneurial spirit is lower than that of male. because of culture, religious (muslim), and social status in indonesia are more in favor of men than women, which make women less independent persons and less freedom to make any decisions by their own, less women than men who may think or dream to become an entrepreneur. second the survey finding shows that entrepreneurship intention of women in indonesia is higher than those in e.g. malaysia and thailand, despite being reported (see figure 1) as having a greater gender inequality index than those two countries. this may imply that indonesian female entrepreneurial spirit is higher than those in malaysia and thailand. but, it can be assumed (as no regional data are available) that the rate of women entrepreneurs (as percentage of total entrepreneurs) in indonesia is lower than those in malaysia and thailand because indonesian higher gender inequality. based on employment data from the annual national labor force survey (sakernas), which provides data on total population aged 15 years old and beyond by status of main work and gender, total number of women not as employees but working alone (self-employment) or running their own businesses without wage-paid workers in indonesia is lower than their male counterpart. in may 2013 there were only 0.85 million women having their own businesses compared to 3.41 million men, and in february 2014 around 0.77 million women against 3.38 million men. either in percentage of total working population (aged 15 and beyond) or total employment, the share of women as self-employment or having own businesses with or without hiring workers in indonesia is much lower than that of male entrepreneurs. as a percentage of total working population, the ratio as by may 2013 was 4.83 per cent for male and only 1.95 per cent for female, and in february 2014 it changed slightly to 4.65 per cent for male against female 1.69 per cent. with respect to total employment, the ratio in 1990 was 54.7 per cent and 30.5 per cent for respectively male and female, 2 gem defines entrepreneurial intentions as the percentage of the adult population between 18-64 years (excluding individuals already engaged in any stage of entrepreneurial activity) who intend to start a business within the next three years. for indonesia, gem surveys 4,500 adults, between 15 and 64 years old, in selected 16 provinces, which represent 85 per cent of the total indonesian population (gem, 2015). tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 69 and in 2015, 41 per cent and 30.7 per cent, respectively. this low rate of women participation as business owners than is also found in all economic sectors. for instance, in the manufacturing industry, more than half of total mses are owned by male, although the ratios between female and male vary by year (figure 2). figure 2: total mses in the manufacturing industry by gender of the owner, 2003-2012 (%) source: bps this distribution of business ownership by gender in indonesia may suggest a negative relationship between the level of women involvement as entrepreneurs or business owners and the size of enterprises: becoming an entrepreneur in indonesia is still dominantly a man culture, especially in large-sized modern companies. the figure also shows that the percentage of businesses in the manufacturing owned by women varies by year and during the period 2003-2012 ever reached the highest level in 2010 and 2011. no reports or literature can be found that can explain this variety. the increase of the rate of female ownership in 2010 and 2011 can happened due to the absolute number of business owned by women increased more rapidly than those managed by men, or, alternatively, many men-led businesses closed down or died during that particular years. one thing for sure is that the global financial crisis occurred in 2009 and 2010 had hit hard many exporting companies in indonesia (e.g. textile and garments, footwear), and the effects continued in years after that. many of these companies did subcontracting arrangements with many mles. as a direct result, many of the companies had to reduce their production volume, and consequently, many mses as their subcontractors had lost their orders and so they had to stop production. another serious impact of the crisis on indonesia was the significant drop in number of foreign tourists. in bali, the most favorable 70 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) destination for foreign tourists in the country was very quiet, which led many local shops selling souvenirs, microenterprises producing handicrafts and shirts, and other small businesses in cheap accommodations, restaurants and cafes, entertainment activities, and motorcycles rentals experienced great losses, and many of them had to stop their businesses (tambunan, 2010, 2011). the above evidence again confirms what has been seen or discussed before that in indonesia due to a variety of reasons already discussed the number of women doing own businesses, including in the category of 'selfemployment' (e.g. as a trader, a food vendor or an owner of food stall) is much lower than that of men. existing studies in other countries also come with the same evidence that the number of women as entrepreneurs or business owners in mies is higher than that in larger-sized and more modern firms3. the mdg development report (un, 2010) confirms this that women are also more likely than men to work in informal sector/vulnerable income generating activities, either as own account workers or as contributing family workers, characterized by low earnings and productivity and lack of security and benefits. for indonesia, this structure may suggests two things: on one side, the larger the size of an enterprise the less women involvement as owners or managers, or women seems to have more barriers to be involved as entrepreneurs in modern businesses, and, on the other size, mses are more important than larger enterprises for the development of women entrepreneurs. lack of education, strong 'men culture' inside the company, i.e. intense internal competition in working environment with very strict working hours and position promotion process, and less time flexibility that women have due to their other female duties such as taking care family and domestic works are among important reasons why only few women who manage big companies. as said before in introduction, many initiatives and programs have been initiated by the government, such as vocational trainings, technical 3 the term modern businesses means well organized business activities with clear internal labour division with wage-paid professionals, computerized, and adopted advanced technolgies including informmation technology (it) and modern management practices. based on number of workers, initial invested capital, and current asset values, many modern businesses are large sized enterprises with head offices located in big cities and registered in stock market. see further, e.g. unsrid (2005), lasse henriksen, et al. (2010), un (2010), and dianna fletschner and lisa kenney (2011). tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 71 assistances, and microloans to promote the development women entrepreneurs in the country. but, the fact shown above may suggest that all these initiatives and programs and resources used have not been so effective. women in indonesia are still lacking behind their men counterpart with respect to entrepreneurship development. there are two most likely reasons for this. first, the coverage of the programs is low, caused by e.g. too much concentrated in big cities (urban-biased), and lack of women condition sensitivity (as explained before related to the weo index from the eiu). unfortunately, detailed information on the performance of existing training programs in the country which are specially organized for women is scarce. so, it is hard to assess the quality or the effectiveness of the programs on development of women entrepreneurs in indonesia. second, many women who may have attended such programs are still unemployed or they could not open their own businesses due to a variety of constraints including lack of fund and other inputs (although it is not necessary because they are women) and cultural or religious constraints that limit their free of movement (as discussed before), or make them difficult to find competent employees as in many cases muslim married women are well permitted by their husband to manage a business outside home but they are not allowed to recruit male workers. so, it can be argued here that all training programs, no matter how good they are, will fail to reach its objective to improve women capability to run their own businesses, if not fully supported or complemented by other key determinants of women entrepreneur development such as free of movement, equal legal status, no gender discrimination within family and community, and easy access to financing, technology, information, and other required inputs. motivation generally, women enter entrepreneurship for many of the same reasons as men, such as wish to become an entrepreneur, to have own businesses, self-fulfillment, being their own boss, to support themselves and their families, to enrich their lives with careers, to attain financial independence (karen hughes, 2006; jodyanne kirkwood, 2009a,b; karyn loscocco and sharon bird, 2012), or they start their own business in response to the demands of parenthood and spouse/partner roles (kirkwood, 2009a,b; john breen and stan karanasios, 2010; margo hilbrecht, 2016). 72 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) however, in indonesia and many other developing countries, especially from low-income countries, women often show marked differences from their men counterpart in many characteristics that influenced their decision to run own businesses or to become entrepreneurs. such age, work status, education, income, social ties, cultural norms or customs or tradition, family background, marriage status, family obligations, discrimination against women in many aspects of life (which is often the result of gender beliefs inherent in a culture or society), disproportionate bargaining power against men, and public/community perceptions are all significant social, economic and institutional factors are among key characteristics which determine a woman‘s decision to start a business (tambunan, 2009c, 2015). many studies in other parts of the world, show the same evidence that the great variety of women‘s involvement in economic activities as entrepreneurs across countries reflects distinctions in culture and customs regarding women‘s participation in the economy, for example, societal views about women‘s role in the labor force and in business more specifically, and also in current economic conditions4. basically, individual persons or in this case women open their own business or become producers instead of working as employees in someone else' companies or, for married women, staying at home doing domestic works, can have two different motives. either their decision to conduct own businesses is purely market orientation reflecting their high spirit of entrepreneurship, i.e. they are 'pulled' by market opportunities to conduct their own businesses. or, a means to survive: they are 'pushed' to do that because all other options for them to get better jobs outside home are either absent or unsatisfactory, or to support family incomes. based on her own study on women entrepreneurs in indonesia, janti gunawan (2012) comes with conclusion that there are two different main motivation that woman decide to run own businesses, namely to help the family income or to optimize the talent. the first reason is linked to her family's income condition or poverty, while the second one can be considered as a sign of entrepreneurship. the relative prevalence of market/business opportunity motivated versus economic necessity-motivated entrepreneurship activity provides useful insights into why women enter entrepreneurship. the former 4 see, e.g. wim naudé (2010), josé amorós and niels bosma (2013), and donna kelley et al. (2013). tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 73 motivation can be considered as 'pull' factors driven entrepreneurship, and the later motivation as 'push' factors driven entrepreneurship. in gem (2015), economic necessity-based is defined as the percentage of those driven by having no better choice for work. market/business opportunitybased is defined as the percentage of those who are motivated to pursue opportunity. this includes taking advantage of a business opportunity or currently having a job, but still looking for a better opportunity. table 5 shows that in indonesia there are more male than female as necessitymotivated entrepreneurs in their early stage of entrepreneurship. in other asean member states also surveyed by gem share the same ratio. table 5: necessity-motivated entrepreneurship by gender in selected asean member states, 2015 member states female male (% of total early-stage f entrepreneurial activities) (% of total early-stage m entrepreneurial activities) philippines 60 85 vietnam 70 71 indonesia 76 81 malaysia 80 86 thailand 81 82 source: gem (2015). besides gem (2015), there are only very few good studies on female entrepreneurs in developing countries which also discuss women's motivation or reason to conduct their own businesses. these studies are mainly on women entrepreneurs in rural south asia which include babak mahmood, et al. (2012), hina shah (2013), sidra saeed, et al. (2014), hina shah and punit saurabh (2015), and fathema hani (2015) who found that many women do start micro-level businesses to support themselves and their families. by doing a survey on 160 women entrepreneurs in four major cities in pakistan, mahmood, et al. (2012) aimed to explore the factors responsible for motivation and hindrance in the way of female entrepreneurs and also address the pertinent gender issues in context of pakistan. the findings illustrate that female entrepreneurs are motivated to earn money for personal use, to contribute to family income, personal ambition, and for self satisfaction. shah (2013) and shah and saurabh (2015) have found that many women in india, especially in rural areas, do start micro-level businesses to support themselves and their families. saeed, et al. (2014) 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) interviewed 120 female entrepreneurs in lahore (pakistan) with the aim to explore social, cultural and economic implications of female entrepreneurship and identify the causes and motivational factors, obstacles, and gender discrimination. the result reveals that the majority of their respondents started their business to contribute to family income and personal interest. hani (2015) conducted a survey on women entrepreneurs in micro businesses in sylhet city (bangladesh). types of businesses include tailoring, handicrafts, boutique shop, catering, agro based/live stock, and clothing businesses. the finding shows that the major reason to start business of 14 out of a total of 50 respondents was generating income for the family. while the main motivation of the remaining respondents range from 'be self-dependent', 'continuation of family businesses', and 'gaining economic freedom'. constraints and challenges to women’s entrepreneurship in indonesia unfortunately, not so many studies have been made until now on the development of entrepreneurs by gender in indonesia, especially those focusing on key challenges facing women to become entrepreneurs and main constraints that women-owned businesses have to face. among very few studies available, is from tambunan (2009b,c, 2015) who stated that the low representative of women as entrepreneurs in indonesia can be attributed to a range of the following factors: (1) low level of education and lack of training opportunities which made indonesian women severely disadvantaged in both the economy and society. it is especially true for women living in rural areas or in relatively backward provinces. many rural women speak only their native language and never read newspapers and thus they are very restricted to communicate with the outside world. also there are still many social, cultural and religious taboos that prevent those women who can and should be accessing higher education from doing so. as widjajanti suharyo (2005) has found, many parents living in rural areas still have the traditional thinking that (higher) education belongs to men only. tambunan (2009c) has found that enterprises owned by women with only primary school are mainly from the category of mies with very low income. by region, better educated women entrepreneurs are tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 75 found more in the western and more developed part of the country, i.e. java, the most populated island, and sumatera, the second important island in terms of economic activities and population density, than in the eastern part, the least developed area; (2) heavy household chores. especially in rural areas, women in general have more children, and they are more demanded to do their traditional role as being responsible for housework and child care than women in urban areas, especially in big cities. according to a 2013 study on access to trade and growth of women’s msmes in apec developing economies, cited by federica gentile from ubi business, gender-specific constraints such as childcare responsibilities are also an important issue that women entrepreneurs in indonesia and other apec developing members need to deal with in running their businesses (http://www.ubibusiness.com/topics/businessenvironment/indonesian-women-entrepreneurs-a-catalyst-forgrowth-/#.vlow1fxotjo); (3) there may be legal, traditions, customs, cultural or religious constraints on the extent to which women can open their own businesses. especially in rural areas where the majority of population are muslims and rather isolated from big cities like jakarta, islamic-based norms have stronger influence on women daily life. this makes female behavior or attitude in rural areas less open than male (or than urban women) to “doing modern business” culture. in such society, women must fully comply with their primary duty as their husband’s partner and housewife, they are not allowed to start their own businesses or to do jobs that involve contact with or managing men, or simply they are not allowed to leave the home alone. marital status also plays an important role in the women’s choice of job. older and married women in indonesia, for instance, are more likely to be found in informal enterprises such as trade or other activities which enable them to combine household work and paid work. on the other hand, young single women who migrated from rural areas are more likely to be found working as wage employees in services and trading enterprises; (4) limited access to financing from banks or other formal financial institutions. this is indeed is a key concern of women business 76 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) owners in indonesia. this is found to be more problematic for women in rural areas or outside of major metropolitan areas such as jakarta and surabaya. this constraint is related to ownership rights which deprives women of property ownership and, consequently, of the ability to offer the type of collateral normally required for access to bank loans. in indonesia, men are still perceived as the head of the family, and thus, in general, men are still perceived as the owner or inheritor of family assets such as land, company and house. a 2013 study on access to trade and growth of women’s msmes in apec developing economies, cited by federica gentile from ubi business, reports that in indonesia, on one hand, the number of women’s owned msmes is growing quickly at around 8 per cent annually, but, on the other hand, their growth is potentially hindered by specific challenges, and access to credit is considered in this report as the main challenge for women entrepreneurs, because of complicated loan paperwork and high interest rates (http://www.ubibusiness.com/topics/businessenvironment/indonesian-women-entrepreneurs-a-catalyst-forgrowth-/#.vlow1fxotjo). in their study on patterns of indonesian women entrepreneurship, ummu hania, et al. (2012) found that indonesian women entrepreneur has high independent financial aspect in running their business. only few women that use bank credit. evidence from a case study: motivation and constraints in order to explore main reason or motivation of women in doing own businesses and to identify their main constraints in running their businesses, a study was conducted with a series of surveys on a total of 108 female owned/managed-mses. the survey used a semi-structured questionnaire and interviews and took place during february-april 2016. there were two main reasons why the selection of respondents was only from the mse category, not including mles. first, based on the fact of the distribution of women entrepreneurs by size of enterprises in indonesia that (as already explained in previous sections) more women entrepreneurs or doing own businesses are found in this category of enterprises than in mles. second, it is not easy to identify mles managed or owned by female. annually, the tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 77 indonesian national statistics agency (bps) publishes statistics on mles in selected sectors, including industry manufacturing, with a list of names and addresses of all companies in the sectors. but, the list does not have information on the names and gender of the owner or top executives. also to interview owners of big companies normally require a lot of time as they are usually very busy and also no guarantee that invitation for interviews will be accepted after waiting for weeks. table 6 represents various aspects of profile of the surveyed women entrepreneurs. as can be seen, most of the respondents aged above 35 years old, followed by those aged between 20-<25 years old, and some of them are still studying in academy (diploma) or university. the majority of the respondents were selected from jakarta (the capital city of indonesia), although many of them born in outside the city. they came to the city when they were very young with their parents or already married and followed their husbands as migrants. the remaining respondents were selected randomly from other cities surrounding jakarta, which include tangerang, bekasi, cilegon, depok and bogor. more than half of the total respondents are married women, although some of them at the moment of the survey were widows. more than half of the total respondents started their businesses after 2000. as the aim of this study was not to test any hypotheses but to explore experiences of indonesian female entrepreneurs regarding their initial motivations or reasons to establish own businesses, instead of working in someone else companies as paid employees or staying at home doing domestic works, especially married women, all those respondents were selected fully randomly. the selection of the cities was just a matter of time and cost efficiency. the finding of this exploration study may add new information to the existing study on women entrepreneurs especially in developing countries. the majority of the respondents were doing their own businesses in trade and restaurants. the selection of these two sectors was based on the fact (national data) that the majority of mses owned by women are found in these sectors. trade includes such as conventional small shops, market traders, and only trade. however, there are few respondents who were found in manufacturing industry making simple consumption/household items including food such as making bread, and in "other sectors", which include event organizer, contractors, beauty salon, and catering. 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) table 6: various aspects of profile of the surveyed women entrepreneurs aspect distribution percentage 1. age group (years old) <20 1.9 20-<25 13.9 25-<30 11.1 30-<35 2.8 >35 70.4 2. region jakarta 68.5 tangerang 13.0 other cities 18.5 3. status married 76.2 single 23.8 4. period of establishment <1990 6 1990-2000 9.6 2001-2005 13.3 2006-2010 22.9 2011-2016 48.2 5. sector industry 3.6 restaurant 25.0 trade 58.3 others 13.1 6. highest level of formal education primary school 9.5 junior high school 9.5 senior high school 44.1 diploma/academy 19.1 university 16.7 no education 1.2 source: field survey: february-april 2016 as the main objective of the survey was to explore what are their initial motivations or reasons to establish own businesses, the respondents were given a variety of alternative answers that they have to choose only one, and tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 79 these answers can be grouped into two categories: "push" and "pull". if a respondent selected an alternative answer from the "pull: category, then it indicates that she was attracted by e.g. market opportunities to become an entrepreneur or to establish her own business, although she may have better income/employment opportunities somewhere else. this may suggest that she has an entrepreneurship spirit. alternative answers open to the respondents from the "pull" category are such as "i want to be an entrepreneur", "i want to have own businesses", or "i want to be financially independent". while, alternative answers from the "push" category are "to supplement family income", "i could not find job", or "i have to run/continue business of my parents". although the survey used a deductive approach with pre-determined push and pull questions, during the interviews the respondents were asked first to tell their initial reasons or motivations in their own words, and also their social and economic conditions at the time they decided to establish their own businesses. then, they were asked to choose one of the given alternative answers they think appropriate. when the chosen answers were found inconsistent with their told initial stories, they were asked to elaborate further their stories to get the real picture. obviously, based on their answers, the majority of the respondents (i.e. 60) can be categorized as "push" (or "forced") entrepreneurs, and the remaining 48 respondents as "pull" (or "encouraged") entrepreneurs. from the "push" category, 56 respondents said that they run their own businesses just as a means to survive or to supplement their family income, or as the only source of income because they could not find a job elsewhere. whereas, the reason of the remaining 4 respondents is that they have to take over their parent's businesses. from these 56 respondents whose motivation was to "supplement family income", most of them have only senior high school or lower, and they are married. for married respondents, status of employment of their husbands varies, e.g. regular employees in private company, small trader, civil servant, office boy, driver, self employment, and some were unemployed. the respondents said that they have never dreamed before to have own businesses. most of them claimed that one day after finished school she would get married and, if allowed by their husband, they will work as an employee or just became a housewife. they said frankly that salary of their husband is not enough to support their family, and so, when finding jobs 80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) elsewhere is difficult, open own small businesses according to their ability was their only option. finally, the respondents from both categories were asked about their constraints in running their businesses. as with other issues investigated, here too they were given a number of alternative answers in which each of them had to choose only one that they considered as the main constraint they faced. the alternative answers were: (i) limited access to finance, (ii) no support from family or husband; (iii) difficult to manage time for family/household and business; (iv) difficult to get business license; (v) difficult to get market access (heavy competition); (vi) difficult to get raw materials (no stock available or prices are too expensive); (vii) difficult to find workers (in many cases in indonesia as in other "muslim" countries, many women owned businesses are allowed by their husbands to have only female employees); and (viii) others (e.g. market demand declines, inflation, difficult to find location). as shown by figure 3, the most interesting finding is that almost all "push" respondents said that lack of access to finance (problem i) is their most constraint; while only very few of the "pull" respondents said the same. there is no theoretical explanation for this, as for banks they do not make or they cannot see the difference between "push" or "pull" entrepreneurs. for financial institutions only business visibility and bankability of an applicant are their most concern. another interesting finding is that problem ii (no support from family or husband) was only found in "pull" category, although only few of them said this as their main constraint. the same for problem iv (difficult to get business license), only found by (though only few) "pull" respondents. in overall, it reveals that limited access to finance is the most serious constraint. there is no evidence that banks in indonesia discriminate against women in their lending of fund. officially, there is no a special designed credit application procedure which discriminates between male and female or between single women and married women in the credit application procedures. in the past, for married women applicants banks used to require a signature of their husband; but not anymore (although it may happen occasionally in some villages). moreover, as indonesia fully supports the achievement of un-mdg/sdg, the indonesian government commits to empower women, and, as explained earlier (see page 1), many programs have been initiated to supports women's capacity building, including easy access to financing (microloans). tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 81 figure 3: respondents from both categories by main constraints source: field survey: february-april 2016 as a matter of fact, in indonesia lack of finance is not only a constraint faced by female-led mses, it is also a general problem faced by men-led mses, as also evident in many other developing countries. the lack of registered valuable assets (e.g. land with license) to be used as collateral, the lack of proven track records, the lack of proper business plans and the need to show good sales turnover, the lack of information about financial possibilities from formal sources (e.g. banks), and the high interest rates charged by the financial institutions are often mentioned as the main reasons. also, many often, businesses of especially mses, are not promising; at least from the banks' perspective. from the banks-side, even if they are interested in providing loans to these enterprises, they find it difficult to significantly expand their lending while meeting lending criteria. also many banks have perception of mses as a high-risk sector and the high transaction costs for loan processing and appraisal (i.e. relatively small loan amounts that are below banks' normal lending threshold), and conversely, low returns. the perceived high risk is a more serious issue for microenterprises (mies) that require small loans, and for first-generation entrepreneurs with little or without credit history, few or no reliable records, and lack of or inadequate collateral (e.g. world bank, 2008; adb, 2014a,b). the respondents who said that limited access to bank is their main 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) constraint admit that lack of valuable assets as collaterals as the main reasons. from the discussions with the respondents during the survey, none of them mentioned that they ever attended any government initiated programs, for example, vocational trainings. some said that they do not really need; they only need access to finance or others such low prices of raw materials. while, others told that they never heard about all those government programs. indeed, lack of socialization or dissemination of existing government programs often said as among reasons why many of mses development programs in indonesia turn out to be ineffective (e.g. low level of coverage). conclusion entrepreneurship development, especially the growth of women entrepreneurs, in indonesia has attracted a serious attention from the government and it has become a popular and important issue within the academic community after the asian financial crisis in 1997-98. after the crisis the indonesian government has at last realized that to have a good and sustain economic development performance, not only technology, capital, natural resources and skilled workers are needed but good entrepreneurs with bright ideas and creativity are also required. whereas the increasing government attention on women entrepreneurship development was initially based on the strong believe that it may contribute to gender equality and poverty reduction. available data indicate that women running or managing their own businesses are rising. but, the key question here is whether the increase in number of businesses owned by women does really reflect to increase of entrepreneurship among women in indonesia? the results of the field survey shown in this chapter indicate that many women in indonesia do own businesses, especially those in mses generally operated in the informal sector, as a means to survive, reflecting their economic hardship, not because they have a high spirit of entrepreneurship. it does not mean, however, that businesses run by "push"-motivated women entrepreneurs would not grow. they can become successful entrepreneurs someday in the future, as long as their motivation can change from initially "push" to "pull" motivation, i.e. from doing own businesses just to earn some money to doing own businesses to generate high profit. although tambunan, t.t.h., women entrepreneurs in indonesia, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 56-86) 83 government supports have an important role to play, this change of motivation will occur naturally, encouraged by their environment (e.g. family, friends, new market opportunities). another important finding from the survey is that limited access to finance is the most serious constraint faced by the respondents, and lack of valuable assets as collateral is the main reason. this may suggest that female entrepreneurship development programs in indonesia should be focused on access to finance. this does not mean, however, that other programs are not important. as lack of finance faced by a company is often caused by its low revenues, and the latter is often the result of the company's internal problems, e.g. mismanagement, low productivity, inappropriate marketing strategy, and lack of appropriate technology, other development programs such as management and marketing trainings and technical assistance are also needed. but, from the survey, it was found that none of them ever attended government initiated training programs and one reason for that was lack of information about existing programs. thus, it is obvious that the implementation of all government programs need to be reviewed with the focus on, among others, the improvement of their dissemination process and the increase of their geographical coverage. it should be noted, however, that the finding of the survey, given its small sample and only in great jakarta, should not regarded as the real picture of indonesia female entrepreneurs. it may only confirm what generally believed that in developing/low income countries the increase of number of businesses owned or managed by women, especially in mses which are generally operated in the informal sector, does not necessary reflect the increase of women entrepreneurship spirit. references [1] adb. 2014. asia sme finance monitor 2013. manila: asian development 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"financing technology entrepreneurs & smes in developing countries: challenges and opportunities, philippines country study", june, washington, d.c. article history: received: 22 february, 2017 accepted: 21 april, 2017 13_jwe_3-4 final udc: 37.014.1-055.2(676.2) ; 305-055.2(676.2) jel: i2 id: 203435276 scientific review educational gender party: challenges of the kenyan girl ombati mokua1 department of sociology and psychology moi university, kenya a b s t r a c t this paper based on a critical analysis of official reports and related literature, focuses on girls’ education in kenya within the context of a larger development paradigm that centres on the importance of their education for both economic and social development. it asserts that a country that does not invest enough in educating and empowering girls is undermining its socio-economic resilience, productivity and competitive potential. investing in girls’ education is investing in development. girls’ education has significant multiplier effects; in particular, as resources shrink, investing in girls should be recognized as a high-return investment. despite the strides that kenya has made in expanding the educational opportunities since independence in 1963, the access of girls to educational opportunities continues to be limited due to various socio-economic and political barriers. the paper contends that, until all vestiges of these inequities are eliminated, gender equality in education and in the larger development paradigm remains but a pipe dream. measures to level the educational playing field remain critical for girls, families, communities and the nation as a whole, which cannot afford to be dispossessed off the full potential of over half of its population women key words: girls, education, development, gender inequality 1 e-mail: keombe@gmail.com 110 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) introduction this paper examines the educational gender inequalities in kenya, its probable causes, consequences and the benefits accrued from equalising educational opportunities. the study makes recommendations on what can be done to reverse the marginalization of girls in education and the implications of these to the socio-economic development of the nation. education is a fundamental human right and a fulfilling experience that helps girls and boys reach their full potential in the society. education also serves as the means to bring about the desired change in society, to develop a generation of virtuous individuals and to contribute to the development of the society. it equips individuals with the knowledge and skills they need to realize their potential and to protect themselves from harm of ignorance, disease and poverty. it is important that the society ensures that all children have access to a rights-based, quality education that is rooted in gender equality, in order to bring about the ripple effects of opportunities that translate into huge benefits for society (subaru & raney, 1993; eshiwani, 1993; shanti & chaya, 1995; floro & wolf, 1990). yet millions of children in sub-saharan africa are still out of school, a majority of them being girls. despite national statistics that show narrowing disparities, girls in kenya still receive less education than boys, particularly in northern, northeastern, and coast regions, and in the slums of major urban settlements especially nairobi. education at all levels is still a gendered terrain and gender disparities are widest at the secondary and tertiary levels. at an overall enrolment rate of 49 percent, girls’ primary school participation is nearing that of their male counterparts at 51 percent. but north-eastern region still lags far behind compared to other provinces in the country by recording the lowest figures for girls’ enrolment in school. in 2006, only 20.8 percent of children in the north-eastern province (24.3 percent of boys and 16.5 percent of girls) were enrolled in school, compared with a national average of 86.5 percent for both boys and girls (ministry of education, 2007; republic of kenya, 2008). government of kenya and ministry of education statistics continue to indicate that the rate of women transition from primary to secondary education is much lower in fragile and marginalised regions like northeastern. in 2006, the secondary gross enrolment rate (number of enrolled children as a percentage of the number of children in the official school-age group) was 6.3 percent in north-eastern, (8.6 percent of boys and 3.6 ombari, m., challenged of the kenyan girl, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) 111 percent of girls), compared with a national average of 32.2 percent (34.6 percent of boys and 29.9 percent of girls). at university level, women’s representation remains low despite the fact that they are admitted at a lower entry point, based on grades attained and difficulty of courses taken at the secondary level. this university admission quota system is meant to improve women’s access to university education (committee on the elimination of discrimination against women 2006). women accounted for only 40 percent of the total university student population in 2007. the effects of this low representation in education are reflected in the labour market, where women represent only 30 percent of all wage employees in the modern sector (republic of kenya, 2008). women’s low rates of attendance at the university level reflect the cumulative effect of factors hindering their progression in education from the time they enter school at the pre-primary level. addressing gender disparities will not only benefit women but also men, children, and the society in general. this will also enhance women’s empowerment and contribution to the society. justification for girls’ education there are several compelling benefits associated with girls’ education. zahidi, (2009 argues that countries that have a large gender imbalance in their education system have ended up growing slower than those countries that have gender balance, basically because countries with a gender imbalance do not draw on the best talents of women, and therefore, neglecting one half of their population. apart from talent waste, educated women tend to have children who are better educated, children who are healthier, and they also tend to have fewer children, all of which are important factors for attaining other millennium development goals (mdgs), and economic growth (republic of kenya, 2008; tembon & fort, eds., 2008). accordingly, the returns of educating girls include the reduction of child and maternal mortality, improvement of child nutrition and health, lower fertility rates, enhancement of women’s domestic roles and their political participation, increase in productivity and economic growth, and protection of girls from hiv/aids abuse and exploitation. it may thus be argued that until equal numbers of girls and boys are in school, it will be impossible to eradicate the vicious cycle of poverty and hunger, combat disease, ignorance and ensure environmental sustainability. 112 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) around the world, a woman dies every minute from pregnancy-related causes. globally, there are more than 500,000 maternal deaths per year, the majority of which are in africa where in many places the maternal mortality rate (mmr) is as high as 1,000 deaths per 100,000 live births. and these death threats are only increasing: one in every 16 african women face the lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy and delivery-related complications. those at more risk are from marginalized communities and those living in poverty (banda, 2009). it has been established that educated women tend to have better knowledge about health care practices, are less likely to become pregnant at a very young age, tend to have fewer, better-spaced pregnancies, and seek preand post-natal care (cochran, 1997; king & annhill, 1993). education for women helps to prevent maternal deaths. by redefining the maternal role as more time intensive, education acts as an important deterrent to high fertility rates. when women have an education, their children tend to be healthier. in kenya, as in many developing countries, a baby born to a woman who has attended primary school is twice as likely to be healthier as one born to a mother without any education (leistikow 2003). king (1990) contends that educated women are more likely to have fewer children, to be informed about appropriate childrearing practices and to ensure that their children start school on time and are ready to learn. higher standards-of-living goals and higher educational aspirations for children usually lead to the decision by educated women to have a small manageable family so that adequate resources can be allocated to each child. education is the single most important determinant of both age at marriage and age at first birth in developing countries, since women in the region tend to give birth soon after marriage. general observations reveal that a majority of girls in kenya with no education or who do not complete primary school are likely to be mothers or pregnant before age 20, as compared to those who complete secondary or higher education. women who have had some schooling are more likely to get married later, survive childbirth, have fewer and healthier children, and make sure their own children complete school. they also understand hygiene and nutrition better and are more likely to prevent disease by visiting health care facilities. girls' education means a comprehensive change for the society. even bigger changes become possible as girls' education becomes the cultural norm. women cannot defend themselves against physical and sexual abuse until they have the authority to speak against it without fear. education gives ombari, m., challenged of the kenyan girl, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) 113 women authority. educated women are less likely to undergo harmful cultural practices such as female genital mutilation (fgm) and four times as likely to protect their daughters from them (unfpa, 2004; jensen and thornton, 2003). children-especially daughters-of educated mothers are more likely to be enrolled in school and to have higher levels of educational attainment. an additional year of formal education completed by a mother translates into her children remaining in school for additional years too. a mother with a few years of formal education is considerably more likely to send her children to school. educated women tend to have a sense of efficacy for helping their children succeed in school and support their daughter’s children education because they believe that through their involvement they can exert positive influence on their children’s educational outcomes (oyaro, 2010). more and more women are moving into the job market as many of them are accessing and attaining post-primary education. but women's participation in the labour force is still low: only 30 percent of women in kenya are in the labour force (mulama, 2010). those women working outside the agricultural sector are mostly post-secondary educated professionals. education enables women to acquire the skills needed for job entry, improves chances of vertical mobility, and enhances overall labour market productivity. the longer a girl is able to stay in school, the greater her chances to pursue worthwhile employment, higher education, and a life without the hazards of extreme poverty. educated women are essential to ending gender bias, starting by reducing the poverty that makes discrimination even worse in kenya as is the case in most developing countries. education opens up opportunities for better-paying jobs for women. women are key agricultural producers in kenya, contributing 75-80% of all labour in food production and 50% in cash crop production (rebouché, 2003). agriculture is a major component of rural livelihoods of most kenyans who grow crops like coffee, tea and cotton and raise livestock such as cattle, sheep, donkeys and camels. a majority of pupils in kenya primary schools return to rural areas to farm, in search for a livelihood, after graduating, instead of going on to secondary school or university (turana, 2010). while both young boys and girls benefit from education, it is especially important for young girls because they are largely responsible for raising much of the agriculture work. women produce more than half of the 114 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) food grown in the world and roughly 1.6 billion of them depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. in kenya, as is the case in most of the developing countries, women are often not able to benefit from general agriculture funding because of the institutional and cultural barriers they face including lack of access to land, lack of access to credit, and lack of access to education. worldwide, women receive only about 5 percent of agriculture extension services and own about 2 percent of the land (theobald, 2010). there is no doubt that education will benefit women to tend the farm better through increased physical capital and purchased inputs, and better raising of livestock and farming of crops. the global campaign for education observes that basic education defends women against hiv/aids infection women or girls bear a disproportionate share of contracting hiv/aids and comprise the majority of new infections in kenya as is the case all over the world (ombati, 2012). studies have established that girls with primary school level of education are more likely to be able to protect themselves from hiv/aids and other diseases (unicef, 2010). education is thus a social vaccine that helps to reduce the spread of hiv/aids by contributing to female economic independence, delayed marriage, family planning, and work outside the home, as well as conveying greater information about the disease and how to prevent it. unschooled women are likely to have little or no social and political say and are unable to support themselves. their rights and access to land, credit and education are limited not only due to discrimination, but because of more subtle barriers such as their work load, mobility and low bargaining position in the household and community (maendeleo ya wanawake organization, 1999; government of kenya and united nations children fund, 1992). as women get the opportunity to go to school and obtain higher-level jobs, they gain status in their communities. status translates into the power to influence their families and communities. barriers to achieving educational gender parity while much progress has been made in kenya since independence in 1963 to address the gender imbalances in education and development, girls remain woefully outnumbered in schools, especially at the higher levels. many girls are not enrolled, or drop out of schools for various reasons including negative cultural values, attitudes and practices that foster teenage ombari, m., challenged of the kenyan girl, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) 115 pregnancy, early marriage, sexual harassment, excessive domestic chores and the disregard of the importance of girls’ education. lack of gender responsiveness among the teachers, in the curriculum, teaching methodology, teaching and learning materials, school management systems and the overall school environment affects girl’s education. there are also factors such as financial difficulties, adverse cultural practices, family responsibilities, early marriages and pregnancy, lack of gender appropriate facilities in schools (such as latrines and sanitary towels), low self-esteem, gender-based violence and harassment, hiv/aids, orphan-hood, and conflicts affecting the education of girls . experts have pointed out that for the government to end the cycle of gender imbalance in education, conditions must be set to improve the environment in which the girl child studies. girls must remain in school until they complete the school cycle. poverty is a big factor militating against the schooling of both boys and girls. children coming from poverty-stricken homes have little chance of starting, let alone completing school, because of the costs involved such as school fees, activity fees, school uniforms and related school expenses. though, it is stated that primary education is free and secondary schools do not charge tuition fee, this is far from the truth of the matter on the ground. parents do pay a lot of money levied by school management committees. this money is not audited and normally the total amount for the year is not specified. kenya is a low-income food-deficit country. the united nations development programme (undp) 2007 human development report ranked kenya under the “medium human development index,” placing it 148th out of 177 countries. more specifically, 1 in every 2 kenyans lives below the poverty line (undp, 2007). the number of those living in abject poverty is rising every day and they constitute those with no access to education, health-care, water and proper nutrition and sanitation. wamahiu and wangoi (1995) opine that when a choice has to be made between education and food, the latter is given priority. the number of cases of children dropping out of school increases due to the fact that parents faced with the burden of satisfying other basic needs cannot afford the cost of educational demands together-with. the net result is an increase of the number of street children in virtually every urban centre in the country. countries that have boosted enrolment and attendance rates have done so because of bold leadership. some countries abolished primary school tuition and now classrooms are brimming with children eager to learn. up 116 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) until 2003 there was a fee to attend kenyan schools that many families could not afford. in a country where the average income is less than $400 a year, spending the meagrely available money on education is a challenge for many parents. families simply cannot afford to send their children to school, leaving millions of prospective students out of the classroom. the high cost of education from 1990 to 1998 shows that the percentage of kenyan children in primary school actually dropped and the country's combined primary and secondary enrolment rate rested at only 34 percent. the elimination of school fees, an obstacle to education for impoverished families in many african countries, put kenya “on track” to meet the millennium development goals (mdg) of enrolment and gender parity objectives, at least in primary education. some 1.2 million children flooded kenyan primary schools in 2004 and it was estimated that the country’s total primary school enrolment neared 7.4 million, compared to less than 6 million in the millennium year of 2000. though the quality of education is questionable in overcrowded classes and the dropout rates are high, and critics question the morality of an education without adequate teachers, books, supplies and space, it can be argued that that this is an ambitious and necessary first step. many children in kenya, especially girls from poor households are engaged in exploitative child labour in violation of the convention on the rights of the child and international labour standards (international labour office, 2002). these children are not only being exploited but also denied educational opportunities. girls are usually ‘needed at home’ and/or ‘need to earn money.’ these are major reasons why poor girls drop out of school in most poor households in kenya. girls are preferred for certain kinds of child labour, particularly those involving domestic work (collecting water and firewood, taking care of siblings, assisting in household chores, and taking take care of the family). the opportunity costs are usually much higher for girls to stay home than for boys (aikma & unterhalter 2005, p. 39-40; jayaweera, 1997; wanjama & kimani, 1995; wamahiu & wangoi, 1995). while educating a boy is generally seen as a sound investment, sending a girl to school is frequently seen either as bringing no gain at all, or, worse, as an actual waste of resources. female discrimination must be overcome through levelling the educational playing field, increased awareness on the importance of education for all, and in particular, affording quality education to all children that prepares them for a productive life. legislation can also help to tackle this problem but, in many ombari, m., challenged of the kenyan girl, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) 117 cases, incentives are needed to persuade households to forego the income benefits they derive from their school-age children. cultural beliefs are another barrier to girls’ educational access. some parents attach little value to girls’ education because they believe that educating girls simply enriches her husband’s family, while educating a boy is seen as enriching his own family. in a culture where it is widely understood that a girl will eventually benefit the family that she marries into, educating a girl is sometimes likened to ‘watering someone else’s lawn (ombati, 2003). education in some communities is seen as a long-term investment decision: when a boy marries he stays in the family and the family can benefit from his education and expanded opportunities. a girl is a temporary family member as she joins another family upon marriage. once a girl is married, she is no longer part of her parent’s family. therefore, educating girls is seen as a poor investment because their earnings will be moved to the other family when they get married. boys are usually sent to school over girls, as finances are severely limited. a negative attitude towards educated women is prevalent bringing gender stereotypes against their educational attainment or schooling. in some communities, an educated girl beyond a certain level may either miss a suitor to propose for marriage, or a suitable husband because she will have no time to learn to take care of the house and other "womanly" tasks cooking, cleaning, collecting water and firewood, caring for the children, and farming. in some parts of kenya, education for girls has faced a hard tide with a history of conservative patriarchal customs that have caused tribal cultures, to many times marginalize girls’ education, placing it at the bottom of the list (ombati, v, et al., 2012). the pastoralist communities of the pokot, turkana and maasai, for example, have little value to education because education goes against tradition and makes the educated (boys and girls) forgo their roles in society. female enrolment and persistence have shown to adversely affect parents’ perceptions, which include investment costs in heavy non-financial expenses. for instance, time is lost in preparation for motherhood and marriage and the opportunity cost of sending a girl-child to school is high as opposed to gains from marrying her off for dowry. traditional biases against educating girls often influence parents to give priority to their sons over their daughters for schooling, particularly when poverty make it difficult for parents to send all of their children to school (abagi, 1993; ilon, 1992). some communities especially in the remote marginal areas of north-eastern and eastern provinces of the 118 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) country view girls’ education as alien. early marriage is also a major factor affecting girls’ retention in school. marriage age for samburu girls, for example, is 12 years and in some cases, is 10 years old. female genital mutilation (fgm) widely practiced by the maasai and other communities cause girls to withdraw early from school. girls circumcised at a younger age, and their subsequent ‘adult’ behaviour includes sexual activity and a lack of interest in schooling. in rural areas, parents are unwillingly to send their daughters to school and those in school are removed at puberty, for fear of an unwanted pregnancy, and are made to marry to fetch a good dowry. the journey to school is often not safe. children who have to travel long distances to school have a greater chance of encountering difficult situations on the trip than those who live close to schools. in urban areas, girls are harassed both physically and verbally when they use public transport, and in rural areas young girls may be accosted while walking on remote paths. many parents in rural remote areas of the country are discouraged from sending their children, specifically girls, to school when the schools are far from their homes. distance to school can also cause delayed enrolment if girls have to wait until security structures are established. often late enrolment is particularly damaging as girls reach adolescence and puberty while still in lower school. mature girls are likely to be married off, become pregnant resulting in public stigmatization, ridicule, loss of self-esteem, and expulsion from school. parents are unwilling to send girls to school if they are in danger of being kidnapped, raped, molested and subjected to other forms of abuse (wanjama & kimani, 1995; government of kenya and united nations children fund, 1992). schools are often not safe havens for learning, and in most of the world, it is girl children who are more at risk in unsafe schools. there is much gender violence in schools that goes unreported because students fear victimization, punishment or ridicule, and parents are unwilling to let their girls go to school under such circumstances. girls are subjected to unequal treatment, intimidation, harassment, bullying, and undervaluing by other pupils and teachers. children who are not secure in a learning environment are not able to take full advantage of the learning opportunities offered, regardless of the richness of the environment. placing schools closer to homes is also important where the distance to school is long the safety of children during the journey to school is particularly ombari, m., challenged of the kenyan girl, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) 119 influential in affecting parental decisions to send their girls to school (sharon, 2005). in many schools, teachers segregate boys and girls in the same class and focus more on encouragement of boys than girls. at school, boys often get more teacher attention than girls. teachers are often heard prophesying to girls that if they do not improve on their academic performance, they can only join local secondary schools instead of reputable national schools. the teachers constantly remind the class that girls do not use common sense and that is why they might not pass in the national examinations. often, girls in such schools are required to provide maintenance at the school, while the teachers and the boys use their time for academic work or leisure. more commonly girls are assumed to be non-participant observers or amazed onlookers. they are made to sit at the back of the classroom, and are called on infrequently to answer questions; actions which make them develop negative self-images. their self-confidence is further eroded when teaching materials portray them as lesser beings than men. they are conditioned to set learning and career goals that are lower than their potential. prevailing stereotypes and images transmitted by books continue to route women to feminine roles of motherhood and home making rather than towards economic productivity and leadership (obura, 1991; jones, kitetu, & sunderland, 1997). at every level, the kenyan educational system is failing girls by encouraging them to take an academic and scholarly career route that leads to lower pay, a route that will eventually limit them in providing for their families. studies have established that girls have higher academic achievements in reading skills, while boys have higher educational outcomes in mathematics and natural sciences. this is particularly true for kenyan candidates sitting the kenya certificate of secondary education (kcse). boys are known to perform better than girls in most of the subjects, apart from english, kiswahili and christian religious education in the subsequent years. at each education level, structural barriers discourage women from entering into the challenging, and much higher-paid, fields of physical, biological and chemical sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics. it can be argued that with a strong patriarchal environment, girls face powerful obstacles in choosing their own careers and activities, and in such circumstances, gender sensitization courses are seldom a standard part of education in kenyan schools. at the undergraduate level, women are more often clustered in social science programmes, while men 120 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) dominate engineering and the physical sciences (jones, kitetu & sunderland, 1997; obura, 1992). the report of the government of kenya economic survey (1997) indicates that boys outperform girls in key subjects such as mathematics and science. women are normally discouraged from the technologically oriented disciplines of engineering, architecture, natural sciences, mathematics, computer sciences, and skilled trades such as carpentry, masonry, electronics, and mechanics, and are therefore channelled to arts-based subjects that have limited openings in employment other than traditional gender careers, such as teaching and nursing. for example, in the 1998/1999 academic year only 9 percent of the college female student population, which totalled 2,679, was taking engineering courses. females comprised 21 percent of the total 4,677 applied science students, 24 percent of the 966 in medicine and 24 percent of the 3,363 students pursuing agriculture. many of the female students were enrolled in teaching education and arts subjects, comprising 37 percent of the total 14,038 in arts-based courses and 34 percent of the 5,478 students pursuing teaching education subjects. one solution to this problem is to create a female friendly environment in schools and communities. teachers, parents and the community should encourage girls to select applied science-oriented and technological subjects by cultivating self-confidence and assertiveness in girls. girls should be encouraged to venture into male dominated subjects to acquire skills needed for senior level decision-making positions in both the public and private sectors. perhaps curriculum modifications, among other changes addressing gender stereotyping might ensure fuller participation and better performance of girls in science and technological subjects. the 1997 government of kenya economic survey analysis on student enrolment by course in vocational and technical training reveals a serious replication of an insignificant number of female students compared to their male counterparts enrolled in applied science courses. out of the 641 students enrolled in mechanical engineering, only 9 percent were women. less than 30 female students out of 741 were taking electrical, electronic, building and civil engineering courses in 1999, for example. women only comprised 18 percent of the 339 students pursuing surveying and mapping and less than 40 percent of those pursuing applied sciences, graphic arts, information, and library and computer sciences. however, the trend is reversed in subjects like institutional management and business studies where women constituted 84 and 58 percent respectively. for example, at the mombasa polytechnic (which is now a full-fletched charted university), ombari, m., challenged of the kenyan girl, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) 121 women made up 50 percent of the students pursuing business studies, while in the mechanical, automotive, electrical, building and civil engineering courses, less than 5 percent were female. they made up 20.7 percent of those in engineering and less than 40 percent in applied science, computing and information technology courses. the applied scientific subjects that women do not elect to pursue have attractive remunerations in the job market, with the result that women stand to lose since they end up in careers with low remuneration packages. educating girls is thus the single most effective policy to raise overall economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality, improve nutrition and promote health. research has shown that educated mothers immunize their children 50 percent more often than mothers who are not educated, and their children have a 40 percent higher survival rate. moreover, mothers who have had some education are more than twice as likely to send their own children to school as are mothers with no education. the heroic educational efforts to reach school-age children, especially girls, have been thwarted by the hiv/aids pandemic. the epidemic is seriously threatening the education sector to the extent that kenya, as is the case of some other sub-saharan african countries is beginning to experience a reversal of the hard-won educational gains; affecting supply, demand, and quality of education. the hiv/aids pandemic is presenting enormous challenges in education, and girls’ are disproportionately affected whether they are infected or not. for example, hiv/aids prevalence among kenyan women between ages 15 and 24 is about 5 percent as compared with 1 percent for their male counterparts (unaids, 2009; cohen, 2001). while the disease results in horrendous circumstances for all children that it affects, cultural practices and deeply seated beliefs exacerbate the impact on girls than boys. not only are girls "more readily pulled out of school” when someone in the household is ill, but their rate of hiv/aids infection is higher than that of boys of comparable age. they are hard hit and susceptible to exploitation and sexual abuse because they are the ones to be withdrawn from school to function as caregivers to infected parents or family members, perform domestic chores, and head the households when the parents die (kelley, 2001). the epidemic’s direct toll on africa’s children is immeasurable. because of hiv/aids, they may have never seen the inside of a classroom. orphans and other children affected by hiv/aids are kept from school to care of sick relatives, or they join the labour market to bring extra income into the household. girls are 122 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) disproportionately affected by hiv/aids and represent the fastest growing segment of new infections. conclusion the study has established that the education of girls is one of the most powerful forces of development. the broad social benefits of girls' education include increased family incomes; later marriages and reduced fertility rates; reduced infant and maternal mortality rates; better nourished and healthier children and families; lower childbirth-related death rates; greater opportunities and life choices for more women (including better chances to protect themselves against hiv/aids); and greater participation of women in development, as well as in political and economic decisionmaking. girls' education is widely perceived as the best investments that a country can make. the study also affirms that addressing concerns about the education of girls requires a gender sensitive education system that would eliminate all gender biases and discrimination. considerable effort needs to be directed towards identifying the causes that are obstacles to girls' education, researching alternative solutions, implementing a range of solutions to enable girls to acquire quality education, and contribute to development. as the leading provider of education, the government should acknowledge that compensatory mechanisms may be required to level the playing field for disadvantaged girls, and it should adopt an approach that customs these mechanisms. similarly, the government can make education equitable through adopting policies and initiatives that support equal provisions across genders. these concerns can also be addressed through advocacy and intervention activities that aim to create conditions for the elimination of gender disparities and promote overall development in the country. references [1] abagi, o. 1993. “education for all in kenya: improving access and retention of marginal groups within the school system.” basic education forum, 3: 5364. [2] banda, p.s. 2009. africa steps up the fight against maternal and child deaths. available at: http://thewip.net/contributors/2009/05/africa_steps_up_the_fight_agai.html [3] cochran, s. 1997. fertility and education: what do we really know? baltimore: johns hopkins university press ombari, m., challenged of the kenyan girl, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) 123 [4] cohen, d. 2001. poverty and hiv/aids in sub-saharan africa, sussex university, press. [5] eshiwani, s.g. 1993. education in kenya since independence. nairobi: east african educational publishers. [6] floro, m and wolf, j. 1990. the economic and social impact of girls’ primary educationin developing countries, washington dc: creative associates international. [7] government of the republic of kenya. 2008. millennium development goals status report for kenya–2007.ministry of state for planning, national development and vision 2030. [8] government of kenya. 1997. economic survey. nairobi: central bureau of statistics, [9] government printer. government of kenya and united nations children fund. 1992. children and women in kenya. a situation analysis. nairobi: reader printers ltd. [10] ilon, l. 1998. “the effects of international economic dynamics on gender equity.” international review of education, 44(4): 335-356. [11] ilon, l 1992. “fitting girls' schooling into existing economic paradigms: confronting the complexities.” international journal of education development, 12(2): 147-159. [12] turana, j.o. (2010). free secondary education favours wealthy children. 24th june 2010: allafrica.com/stories/201006240087.html [13] jensen. r. and thornton, r. 2003. “early female marriage in the developing world.” gender and development 11(2): 9-19. [14] jones, a. m., kitetu, c and sunderland, j. 1997. “discourse roles, language textbook dialogue: who learns from john and sally." gender and education, . 9(4): 469-490. [15] king, e. 1990. educating and girls: investing in development. washington, dc: world bank. [16] king, e and annhill, m. 1993. women’s education in developing countries: barriers, benefits and policy. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. [17] leistikow, n. 2003. teen girls flooding kenya's new no-cost schools. wenews correspondent, sunday, september 7, 2003 [18] maendeleo ya wanawake organization. 1999. reducing reproductive health barriers toprimary school completion among kenyan girls. the academy for educational development and the johns hopkins university center for communication programs. [19] mulama, j. 2010. “nomadic schools for mobile”. inter press service news agency. october 29. [20] obura, a. 1991. changing images: portrayal of girls and women in kenyan textbooks. nairobi: act press. [21] ombati, v., et al. 2012. gender inequality in education in sub-saharan africa, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 4-5: 140-145. 124 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) [22] ombati, v.f.o. 2012. the feminization of hiv in sub-saharan africa, africa policy journal of harvard. [23] ombati, v.f.o. 2010. women in society: the participation of women in educational leadership in kenya municipal primary schools. saarbrucken, germany. lap lambert acad. publ. [24] oyaro, k. 2010. “teenage mothers denied education”. inter press service news agency may, 23. [25] rebouché, r. 2003. “labor, land, and women’s rights in africa: challenges for the new protocol on the rights of women”. harvard human rights journal 2003. [26] shanti, c. and chaya, n. 1995. “education girls: the gender gaps and gains.” population action international, washington, dc [27] subaru, k. and raney, l. 1993. “social gains from female education.” world bank discussion papers. washington dc. [28] sharon, l. 2005. „for girls in africa, education is uphill fight.“ new york times, december, 23. [29] tembon, m., and fort, l. eds. 2008. girls’ education in the 21st century: gender equality, empowerment, and economic growth. washington, dc: world bank. [30] theobald, m. 2010. female farmers overcome barriers to feed africa. world watch institute. available at: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6431. [31] unaids 2009. hiv/aids epidemic update sub saharan africa 2009: unaids outcome framework 2009–2011: nine priority areas. 24th november 2009 [32] unfpa. 2004. child marriage advocacy programme: fact sheet on child marriage and early union. [33] unicef 2010. progress for children: achieving the mdgs with equity (no. 9. september 2010) [34] wamahiu, s and wangoi, n. 1995. “schoolgirl drop -out and adolescent pregnancy: counting cost.” basic education forum, 6: 1-22. [35] wanjama, l.n and kimani, e.l. 1995. „justification in making gender a critical variable in education.” basic education forum, 6: 23-45. [36] zahidi, s. 2009. why investing in girls education makes sound economic sense. tuesday, june 23, 2009 udeo poslova u obrazovanju kenijskih devojaka a p s t r a k t ovaj rad se temelji na kritičkoj analizi službenih izveštaja i literature, fokusirajući se na obrazovanje devojaka u keniji i važnost njihove edukacije za privredni i društveni razvoj. autor tvrdi da zemlja koja ne ulaže dovoljno u ombari, m., challenged of the kenyan girl, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 109-125) 125 edukaciju i osnaživanje devojaka, podriva svoj društveno ekonomski oporavak, produktivnost i konkurentnost. ulaganjem u obrazovanje devojaka istovremeno se ulaže u razvoj. stoga, obrazovanje devojaka ima značajne multiplikativne efekte, tako da se ulaganja u obrazovanje devojaka moraju priznati kao investicije, koje se brzo vraćaju. uprkos tome, kenija ide sporim koracima u pogledu širenja obrazovnih mogućnosti. naime,od sticanja nezavisnosti 1963, pristup devojaka obrazovnim institucijama je i dalje ograničen zbog različitih društveno ekonomskih i političkih prepreka. u radu se tvrdi da uprkos eliminisanja nejednakosti medju polovima, ravnopravnost polova u obrazovanju ostaje u sferi lepih želja. mere na nivou obrazovanja treba da odigraju ključnu ulogu za devojke, porodice, zajednicu i narod u celini, kako bi se iskoristili puni potencijali devojaka i žena koje čine više od polovine stanovnika u ovoj zemlji. ključne reči: devojke, obrazovanje, razvoj, neravnopravnost polova article history: received: 15 april, 2013 accepted: 18 novemebr, 2013 doi: 10.28934/jwee19.34.pp53-72 jel: j16, l26 scientific review strategic management in women’s entrepreneurship ivana jolović1 university of novi sad, faculty of economics subotica, study program business economics and management, subotica, republic of serbia a b s t r a c t strategic management is a comprehensive approach to managing a company with the aim of its high positioning in the market. regardless of the level of development, market share and business scope, all aspiring businesses should have a defined strategy. with the help of it, they will be able to plan and organize their activities, and the business moves they make on the "market chessboard" will be tactical, purposeful and, in the final instance, successful. the smallest "figures" in the market competition entrepreneurs, can gain the most out of this management process. in today's market conditions, male entrepreneurial businesses dominate over women, and this is partly due to the numerous stereotypes that the public, investors, and other market participants have about women's ability to successfully manage entrepreneurial businesses. the conducted research aims to provide insight into the strategic management process in women's entrepreneurship and to increase the awareness of women entrepreneurs about the importance of conducting strategic management activities. the descriptive method, analysis, and synthesis techniques, and a detailed analysis of the content of the available literature by reference authors were used for the preparation of this paper. the result of the research confirmed the attitude that women entrepreneurs who promptly incorporate 1 address: segedinski put 9-11, subotica, serbia, e-mail: ivanajolovic@uns.ac.rs, tel. +381 64 0357795 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) elements of strategic management into their business have a better chance of gaining a competitive advantage over those who do not do the same. key words: strategic management, strategy, women's entrepreneurship introduction the modern market can be compared with a chessboard. it is made up of numerous figures of varying significance, size, influence, and ambition. figures can collaborate, compete, and in some cases, clash when it comes to taking advantage of specific market areas. the smallest figures, "pawns", in the market competition are entrepreneurs. they are characterized by a lack of resources, knowledge, and capital that, unlike their competitors, have not yet been acquired. what can improve their disadvantage is the implementation of the strategic management process. more specifically, entrepreneurs, all of these shortcomings can compensate by quality strategic planning, organization, management, and control of their activities. in today's market conditions, male entrepreneurial businesses dominate over women's, and this is partly due to stereotypes that the public has about women's ability to successfully manage entrepreneurial businesses. more precisely, when faced with the dilemma of whether to support a male or a female entrepreneur, investors and other market participants put their faith into male entrepreneurs for no apparent reason. women entrepreneurs can confront stereotypes and fight for their field on the "market chessboard" with appropriate strategic management. strategic management is, therefore, one of the crucial activities that can support the survival of women's entrepreneurial businesses. it creates conditions for securing competitive advantage and takes care of the profit potential of a particular business entity. women entrepreneurs who approach this process promptly are already several steps ahead of their competitors. the conducted research aims to provide insight into the strategic management process in women-led entrepreneurial businesses. the analysis above will cover four essential elements of the strategy environment scanning, strategy formulation, and policy implementation, and evaluation and control of all previously implemented phases. particular emphasis will be placed on the first element of strategic management the scanning of the environment, by the characteristics of management carried out by women entrepreneurs. the primary hypothesis of the research is defined as follows: jolović, i., strategic management, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) 55 − h0: women entrepreneurs who promptly recognize the importance of strategic planning, i.e. incorporate elements of strategic management into their business have a better chance of gaining a competitive advantage over women entrepreneurs who do not do the same. specific research hypotheses are presented below: − h1: women entrepreneurs who focus their attention on scanning complex business environment will, in comparison to business entities that do not, more realistically perceive the strengths and weaknesses in the internal, and the chances and threats in the external environment, and provide a safer basis for gaining a competitive advantage; − h2: adequately and precisely formulated management strategy contributes to better quality and faster achievement of specific market goals of women's entrepreneurial business; − h3: implementation of management strategy depends on the quality of the execution of the previous management phases, but also on the personality of the women entrepreneur, i.e. her persistence, demands, and insistence on fulfilling goals defined in the strategic plan; − h4: evaluation and control, as an integrated management process, disintegrate the entire strategic management system and point out to the women entrepreneurs what is the quality of implemented strategic activities they made highlighting the wrong steps, i.e. mistakes made during the previous stages. the theoretical framework strategic management can be defined both as art and as the science of formulating, implementing and evaluating multifunctional decisions that help a company achieve its goals. a synonym for strategic management, which is often featured in the literature is "strategic planning" (david, 2011). tesee; hitt and co-workers defined (mentioned in a recent issue by hitt, ireland, sirmon & cheryl, 2011) strategic management as a whole set of obligations, decisions, and actions that need to be implemented for a company to achieve strategic competitiveness and above-average returns. strategic management involves understanding the strategic position of an 56 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) organization, strategic choices for the future, and current managing strategy (omalaja & eruola, 2011). andrews considers that (mentioned in kraus & kauranen, 2009) strategy, as the basis of strategic management, is an instrument for reconciling the internal strengths and weaknesses of an enterprise with its chances and threats in the environment. therefore, strategic management is a process in which an assessment of an enterprise and its environment is made to fulfill its long-term goals. hitt and sirmon developed (mentioned in hitt, ireland, sirmon & cheryl, 2011) an initial model of strategic management that encompassed three key dimensions: entrepreneurial mindset, culture, and leadership; strategic management of organizational resources; and the application of creativity with the development of innovation. schendel and hofer (mentioned in kraus & kauranen, 2009) identified several major vital management tasks. some of them relate to formulating goals, analyzing the environment as well as creating, implementing, evaluating, and controlling strategies. similarly, other authors in strategic management recognize four essential elements, namely: environment scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and evaluation and control. in the past three decades, entrepreneurship has become a very active field of periodic research in various socio-scientific disciplines, and a constant theme of economic policy. according to campbell (mentioned in shmailan, 2016), entrepreneurs are individuals who find new opportunities that other people are not capable to notice and/or to exploit. sarfaraz and coworkers (mentioned in a recent issue by sarfaraz, faghih & majd, 2014) that in less developed countries with high unemployment, entrepreneurship can be a practical solution to finding sources of income and reducing unemployment and poverty. accordingly, removing barriers to the development of entrepreneurship for each country is a priority. the way of promoting and developing entrepreneurship in the modern economies lies in the engagement of the female workforce in the entrepreneurial world. namely, it is about stimulating economic development through the form of women's entrepreneurship. the term "women entrepreneur" refers to a woman or group of women who initiate, organize, and manage activities in a business environment, i.e. woman who accepts this challenging role in aim to provide the satisfaction of her personal needs and securing of her economic independence. women entrepreneurs are a new driver of growth and are characterized as initiators of development in developing countries. women entrepreneurs provide income to their families, employment to their communities, jolović, i., strategic management, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) 57 and new values, products and services to the global economy. women's entrepreneurship is today one of the major contributing factors to the prosperity of the country and the global market as a whole (achakpa & radovićmarković, 2018). women usually become entrepreneurs in situations where they are unemployed, earn low incomes in current jobs, or when they estimate that through their new activities they can solve the issue of their existence. in addition, women often join the entrepreneurial system, due to the existence of a family entrepreneurial tradition; the desire to acquire an individual status in society; due to discrimination based on gender and race in previous workplaces, and due to the creator-innovators drive for developing a new products/services. it is not wrong to conclude that women all over the world have already taken a step forward to change their own lives and provide their loved ones and themselves with livelihoods in harsh conditions of a capitalist society (nhuta & mukumba, 2012). connecting strategic management and women entrepreneurship mayer and co-workers point out that (mentioned in kraus & kauranen, 2009) research in strategic management often takes the view that entrepreneurship can be seen as a subset of strategic management. schendel and hofer (mentioned in kraus & kauranen, 2009) linked the two research areas as early as the 1970s, defining strategic management as a process that addresses the entrepreneurial work of an organization and is strictly dynamic to organizational renewal and growth. all this implies that entrepreneurial choices are at the heart of the concept of management strategy. many women entrepreneurs think that they do not make strategic decisions on a day-to-day basis, not even recognizing that some of their activities are exactly like that. the fact is that no matter which way and which activity they choose, women entrepreneurs will have to use the concepts and tools of strategic management (munitlak-ivanović, 2012). analoui and karami state that (mentioned in kraus & kauranen, 2009) small market entities led by women (according to their size, more precisely the number of employees) do not have top management teams and experts who will specifically devote to smaller parts of their entrepreneurial business, and that they depend on women who at the same time are managers, business strategists and decision-makers, planners and executors who develop the vision, mission and strategies, and who implement them. kraus points out that (mentioned in kraus & kauranen, 2009) strategic decisions reflect the subjective orientation and atti58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) tudes of women entrepreneurs, and that her role and attitude towards strategic issues is often crucial for the implementation of the strategy. as already emphasized in the earlier part of the paper, strategic management consists of four elements: environment scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and evaluation and control. for a more detailed analysis of strategic management in women's entrepreneurship, each of these elements will be viewed from the perspective of women-based entrepreneurial businesses. strategic scanning of the environment in which women’s businesses are operating when we talk about entrepreneurship as an activity that is made up of three related components: innovation, risk and proactivity, which drive job creation through self-employment and small business creation, it is essential to keep in mind many barriers internal and external, that can hurt the entrepreneurial process (bobera, leković & berber, 2014). business is determined by the environment, i.e. internal and external factors that influence its daily activities. to achieve the desired goals, the entrepreneurial business must promptly identify and analyze all barriers that affect its business and create adequate business strategies which will minimize their negative impact. bernard points out (mentioned in hitt, ireland, sirmon & cheryl, 2011) that the environment faced by many women entrepreneurs is very dynamic, complex and unpredictable. an analysis of the environment in which women entrepreneurs operate will be conducted below through the external and internal environment. the analysis of relevant elements in the external environment of women's entrepreneurial business in this research will be viewed through the prism of five factors: socio-cultural (s), technological (t), economic (e), environmental (e) and political-legal (p). such an analysis of the external entrepreneurial environment is called the steep analysis, and it represents a variation of a well-known pest analysis. socio-cultural variables these variables can be seen as one of the most limiting factors when it comes to women's entrepreneurship. in the 21st century, women have been discriminated on numerous grounds, both in the business and in the social environment. the roots of this discrimination are multiple. first, they address the stereotypical prejudices inherent in the underdeveloped economies. in such states, there is a publicly proclaimed jolović, i., strategic management, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) 59 attitude that women have no place in entrepreneurship. jome and coworkers point out that (mentioned in stošić-panić, 2018), in most societies, entrepreneurial activity is traditionally not considered a women-friendly employment opportunity. gupta and co-workers believe that (mentioned in stošić-panić, 2018) gender stereotypes are often transferred to the business environment by creating male and female vocations. men's vocations are mainly related to jobs that include: power, prestige, and authority, while women's vocations predominantly include: caring for others, administrative and, generally, less lucrative jobs and positions. these stereotypes represent a robust social force that encourages and justifies the segregation of gender occupations. at the same time, this categorization of male and female occupations influences the choices that individuals make (stošić-panić, 2018). the socio-cultural environment affects the attitudes of individuals, in this case, women create an image of recommended and acceptable behavior, including vocation. following the line of less resistance, women accept such "restrictions" and do not oppose them. thus, there are exclusively male (usually better paid) vocations and only female activities which often involve lower cash benefits. also, the quality of job performance within a single business position occupied by individuals of different genders influences the perception of the rest of society of the suitability of a particular gender to perform that type of work. by the same logic, a few decades ago, a society characterized entrepreneurship as a male business. this created prejudices in the socio-cultural environment, whereby women were less likely to take up this vocation, finding themselves not sufficiently empowered and competent to do the job. one of the significant elements of the socio-cultural environment whose performance is deeply reflected in the women entrepreneur business is their family. this factor of the external environment can be limiting if it involves insufficient support from the family to the woman regarding her entrepreneurial venture. baines and wheelock find that (mentioned in de bruin, brush & welter, 2007) the nature and extent of family support can influence the work of a woman-owned business, citing emotional and financial support that family can provide, as well as family work that can contribute business performance in the initial phase of its development. however, many members of the women entrepreneur family, in line with the stereotypes mentioned above, clearly state that an entrepreneurial business is not the right business decision for their female member. 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) technological variables modern technological development is causing many changes in the world economies and unambiguously determines the success of the market entities operating within those economies. when it comes to women's entrepreneurship, it can be concluded that new, modern forms of technology make businesses much more comfortable with these entities. thus, women entrepreneurs have the opportunity to do business from home. this can further strengthen their business, i.e. they do not have to rent expensive office space at the very beginning of their business, but perform all activities according to the internet and modest technical equipment in a home environment. also, their family roles and responsibilities will be neglected to a much lesser extent. social networks as a product of technological development can also be used for business purposes. more specifically, women entrepreneurs can use them to analyze the personality, consumption habits and purchasing power of potential customers, i.e. to "target" their market. in these virtual platforms, it is straightforward for women to build business relations and communities, which is reinforced by the fact that the digital economy requires skills that traditionally excel to most women (stošić-panić, 2018). by recognizing and adequately assessing technological variables from the external environment, women entrepreneurs will be more cautious when formulating a strategy, i.e. more aware of the risks that daily technological changes bring with them. the strategic plans will accordingly be adapted to a dynamic and uncertain technological environment. economic variables these environmental variables are a basic premise for the development of entrepreneurship as a whole. looking at the real situation in all economies, it is clear that fundamental macroeconomic indicators form a positive/negative basis for the development of economic entities. for example, the gross domestic product (gdp) per capita rate is linked to women's decisions to start their entrepreneurial businesses. the lower the rates of this macroeconomic indicator are, the more frequent and numerous the entrepreneurial ventures of its members will be. allen and langowitz believe that (mentioned in stosić-panić, 2018) a high level of entrepreneurial activity in systems with low gdp per capita is a response to limited employment opportunities in the paid employment sector. in addition to the macroeconomic indicators, in terms of the external economic environment, it is essential to pay attention to specific processes that caused the breakdown of many economic systems. women's entrepreneurship in developing countries has, throughout history, often suffered the jolović, i., strategic management, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) 61 consequences of poor national governance of specific economic systems. thus, for example, the poorly preserved industrial sectors, the numerous privatizations, and layoffs of many workers have influenced, and continue to affect, women's entrepreneurship. men (usually the most numerous workers in the industry), due to the aforementioned economic breakdowns, often lose their jobs, and due to their inability to find another type of employment in their profession, are geared towards starting entrepreneurial businesses. shortly after becoming involved in entrepreneurship, men began to assume dominant positions in the entrepreneurial spheres in which women had been "dominated" by then. competition as such is not a problem for women entrepreneurs. the problem arises when above mentioned socio-cultural discriminatory events occur in a competitive environment. namely, the still insufficiently developed awareness of the companies about the equal quality of the execution of numerous jobs by men and women results in the fact that trust is given to the man entrepreneur when there are male and female entrepreneurial businesses on the market as opposed businesses. this economic moment builds on the social perception of male entrepreneurs as more capable and better-performing workers than women, which in turn has a negative impact on the economic stability of women entrepreneurs. storey points out that (mentioned in tur-porcar, mas-tur & belso, 2016) when starting a business, women typically fund their ventures using family-owned funds. therefore, the state of the family budget is crucial for women entrepreneurs. however, the fact is that the lack of capital in the early stages can have a negative impact on their business in the long run. likewise, a lack of start-up capital and assets (as collateral) can adversely affect a women entrepreneur's ability to secure the necessary bank financing. namely, given the lack of adequate financial capacity, lack of sufficient collateral, risk of ownership, lack of credit history, the names of women entrepreneurs are the most commonly written names on the lists of rejected borrowers. it is not wrong to conclude that by formulating a women entrepreneurial strategy, it's essential due will be to anticipate potential economic changes as it is to plan future actions to cope with them. ecological variables the fact is that in all modern societies, there are some differences in the education of women and men. women have more caring behavior and higher consciousness of the importance of nurturing and conservation resources. the male members are much more moderate in this. contemporary theorists believe that such differences in behavior and attitudes are also reflected in the business environment. the assumption is 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) that women entrepreneurs as such will be more concerned with the environmental performance of their businesses and socially responsible behavior. environmental protection, through the creation of environmentally responsible business, can positively affect the attitude and behavior of other businesses, and cumulatively speaking, can solve a large part of the environmental problems of a community. the strategy formulated by the women entrepreneurs, which takes into account ecological factors from the external environment, taking care of the "ecological footprint" that will leave their business, will be more socially acceptable, positively evaluated and internally recognized as correct. political and legal variables elements of a political and legal system of a country can determine the characteristics and performance of an entrepreneurial activity (stošić-panić, 2018). smallbone and welter believe that (mentioned in leković, marić & leković, 2014) the state is responsible for creating a favorable economic environment for women's entrepreneurship at all levels and that it should provide an appropriate institutional and legal framework for it. the legal situation that has a disincentive to women's entrepreneurial businesses concerns women's rights to maternity leave and absences related to family needs. namely, the legal regulation in underdeveloped countries does not sufficiently protect women who, due to such life events, spend some time outside their workplace. an aspect of the legal environment, which overlaps somewhat with the economic variables in women's entrepreneurship, concerns the financing of women's entrepreneurship. namely, in many cases, the financing of women's entrepreneurial businesses is a legally inadequate area. banks, as the largest financiers of the economy, are not required to establish a gender balance in lending. thus, for example, it may be that all bank loans are geared towards financing men-run entrepreneurial businesses. what further complicates the position of women in terms of funding from banking sources is the lack of ownership of assets held in their names. obtaining various collaterals that banks set as a condition for placement of their funds is difficult because a very small percentage of private property is owned by women (đuričin & pantić, 2015). namely, women who own real estate are rare, and those who still own some kind of property often renounce their rights and inheritance. such a process usually results from specific life events. in these circumstances, in most cases, women entrepreneurs do not have collateral, i.e. guarantee necessary for granting significant banking loans and is not made available to them by these financial institutions. the lack of financial jolović, i., strategic management, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) 63 resources further weakens the position of their businesses, and the strategies they adopt at the entrepreneurial level should proclaim maximum rationality in the use of resources. the analysis of relevant elements in the internal environment of women's entrepreneurial business will be presented below. kyrgidou and petridou believe that (mentioned in sovick, 2017) the internal environment fosters extraordinary demands on the personality and traits of female entrepreneurs concerning: required skills, ability to "absorb" knowledge, resourcefulness in obtaining financial resources, and ability to formulate and implement the entrepreneurial strategy. the analysis of relevant elements in the internal environment of women's entrepreneurial business in this research will be viewed through the prism: motivations, skills, perceptions, and status of women, to identify the strengths and weaknesses of women entrepreneurs as the main drivers of business activities. the reasons why women choose to take the first steps in the entrepreneurial world are related to the many factors and situations they have been exposed to. some of them were unemployed, discriminated against in their previous jobs, underpaid and inadequately treated, etc. before starting their businesses. for these reasons, they are virtually pushed into the entrepreneurial world. many of them found themselves forced to be in this world, without too much interest and desire to engage in entrepreneurial activities as such. the negative effects of their, often unwilling, engagement is not hard to see. generally speaking, female individuals who are "driven" by economic poverty to carry out a specific type of work are unlikely to be of high quality or dedicated to performing the job, i.e. their motivation and commitment will be low. apart from motivation, what influences the advancement of women's entrepreneurial businesses concerns their traits and characteristics. brothers and co-workers point out that (mentioned in oben uru, caliskan, atan & aksu, 2011) the personal characteristics of the decision-makers influence the quality of the decisions made. in small entrepreneurial businesses, where business decision making is centralized, the overall rationality of the decisions made threatens to be compromised by the strong personal influence of the individual (in this case, the women entrepreneur) who makes them. also, entrepreneurs' skills are even more significant when it comes to identifying the strengths and weaknesses of entrepreneurial business in the process of formulating a strategy. if they are not enough, it is clear that the women entrepreneurial business will disappear from the "market map" of economic entities in the short term. the lack of 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) entrepreneurial skills and performance of women is mostly caused by external factors, namely: inadequate educational system, insufficient institutional support and an inappropriate number of specialized programs (todorović, komazec, jevtić & obradović, 2016). the development of women personality, traits, and competences can be ensured through the implementation of training, education and further training. women entrepreneurs who undergo such empowerment will fit perfectly into the profile of quality and adaptable market leaders. the cumulative effect of such changes will be significant, as it will not only contribute to the empowerment of a particular women entrepreneurial business but also the growth and development of markets and national financial performance indicators. one of the most important implications is that empowered women entrepreneurs will serve as an example to other women, and suggest that women's entrepreneurship can be a very costeffective activity by which the average woman can relatively quickly secure her livelihood and meet professional goals. as has been emphasized several times, women enter the entrepreneurial world more carefully and unwillingly, partly because of the negative perception they have of the knowledge and experience they possess, and partly because of perceiving their skills as inadequate and insufficient to meet market needs. the perception of the personal entrepreneurial abilities of women entrepreneurs is a determinant of their long-term success factor. summarizing the information on the elements of the internal entrepreneurial environment related to the entrepreneur's motivation, skills, and selfperception, it is concluded that the women entrepreneur must carefully and realistically evaluate all these variables, formulate her business strategy according to them, more precisely on the principle of dealing with potential problems caused by personal traits. strategy formulation in women’s entrepreneurship according to gruber (mentioned in kraus & kauranen, 2009), the emergence of a new women entrepreneur in the market requires the formation of a strategic basis by which it will try to gain a competitive advantage. the formulation of a strategy is a continuous effort to develop the desired set of directions, develop a plan, or "draw roadmaps" that will guide the entrepreneurial business. strategy development involves a lot of research and decision making. through this process, a new entrepreneurial business needs to answer the question: "how to achieve the goals and how to get to jolović, i., strategic management, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) 65 the desired market position?" before asking this question, the women entrepreneur must clearly define the goals she is aiming for. the process of formulating a strategy consists of identifying: the mission and goals, but also selecting the appropriate concept or strategic template to apply (alkhafaji, 2003). generally speaking, almost every business entity forms three strategic levels within its enterprise. it is about: corporate strategy (which defines: scope of work, structured activities and the most effective ways of management); business-level strategy (oriented towards creating competitive advantage); and a functional level strategy (which, according to business functions, according to thompson; analoui and karami, may include financial, marketing, and human resources and r&d strategies) (kraus & kauranen, 2009). in most cases, the first two of the three strategic levels mentioned above are merged into women's entrepreneurial businesses. the favorable implication of this grouping is the simpler, faster and more efficient determination of the strategic goals of the whole business and the fulfillment thereof, and the negative in the insufficient elaboration of details that would make such a strategy sufficiently reliable, applicable and desirable. also, the implication of this grouping, which does not know whether it will positively or negatively affect the entrepreneurial business, is to assign full power in formulating strategies to one person women entrepreneur. namely, in the process of formulating the strategy, the women entrepreneur will follow her philosophy and will be guided by the values that, in her opinion, the entrepreneurial business should cultivate. that can have a positive or a negative impact on their business. duhaime and schwenk believe that (mentioned in alkhafaji, 2003) the perception of the entrepreneur in the process of formulating a strategy is very significant, i.e. that it depends on the understanding of objective reality and the creation of the process of strategy creation. in women entrepreneurship, the perception of the entrepreneur and her experience of the environment, the internal and external factors that make it up, will influence the formulation of the strategy and the choice of different paths, ways and strategic options for its realization. however, it should be emphasized that not all entrepreneurs are also managers of their businesses and that according to neider (mentioned in shmailan, 2016) entrepreneurs may have different roles in the entrepreneurial business, i.e. they can only be business drivers, without control and management rights; entrepreneurs who assume full managerial powers and responsibilities; and entrepreneurs who carry out their activities smoothly within a larger enterprise, which is in practice recognized by the term "intrapreneurship". accordingly to the posi66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) tion that women entrepreneur has within her business, as well as on the activities of experts to whom she may have outsourced certain strategic operations, it will depend the successful formulation and fulfillment of the strategic plans in the mentioned entrepreneurial unit. a women entrepreneur can choose between three main strategies: cost leadership strategy, a differentiation strategy, and a focus (niche) strategy (kraus & kauranen, 2009). an insight into the business practices of women's entrepreneurial businesses, it is noticeable that the first two of these strategies are used very rarely and superficially. on the other hand, the strategy of focusing on a niche market is becoming more current. bamford and co-workers believe that (mentioned in kraus & kauranen, 2009) a niche market focus strategy enables a woman-led entrepreneurial entity to 'target' the desired customers and present their businesses to them by focusing their limited resources on a narrow market segment. this strategy is most recognized by the market and is most popular among entrepreneurial entities of this type precisely due to the fact that it enables the establishment of a firm position in a limited and unrecognized market segment by competitors. numerous empirical studies confirm that a niche market strategy is by far the most successful strategy that women entrepreneurs can use. strategy implementation in women’s entrepreneurship the implementation of the strategy represents one of the final acts of the thought process of strategic planning. some of the reasons why the strategic plans are partially or not fully implemented are: vague formulation of the strategy itself, conflicting priorities to be achieved, inefficient managerial management of the strategy, poor communication and allocation of functions, and inadequate skills of the persons who should lead the overall strategic planning process (crittenden & crittenden, 2008). their interaction with all stakeholders, a precise definition of tasks and responsibilities, allocation of available resources, monitoring and rigor that display in the process of controlling the degree of fulfillment of set requirements and skills in organizing the entire strategic planning process, are the elements that determine the successful implementation of the strategy. in this case, the implementation of the strategy depends on the women entrepreneur's willingness to take risks in business and adapt to the implications of the strategic decisions she has made earlier. jolović, i., strategic management, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) 67 strategy implementation is a process in which previously formulated strategies and policies are more closely implemented through the development of: programs and tactics (the program is the sum of tactics, and the term "tactics" is used to denote individual action taken by an entrepreneurial entity and represents a set of efforts invested in the process of achieving a specific plan); budget (this is a program report that is quantitatively presented, used for planning and control, and includes a detailed account of the costs of each strategic program implemented); and procedure (representing a system of successive strategic steps or techniques that detail how a particular task or job should be done) (wheelen, hunger, hoffman & bamford, 2018). according to the above mentioned, but also the understanding of bonom and crittenden suggesting that (mentioned in crittenden & crittenden, 2008) implementation consists of two complex variables structure and managerial skills, it could be said that the real complexity distinguishes this process. the structure provides a working framework within which women's entrepreneurial businesses operate effectively and includes: actions, programs, systems and policies as structural levels of implementation. managerial skills are behavioral activities that women entrepreneurs incorporate into entrepreneurial business structures, and include: interaction, allocation, monitoring, and organization, which can also be considered structural levels of implementation. the whole process works by implementing strategies through the structure, with entrepreneurial, managerial skills as crucial indicators of successful or unsuccessful implementation efforts. strategy evaluation and control in women’s entrepreneurship evaluation and control are an integrated process within which the activities and performance of women's entrepreneurial businesses are monitored in the strategic planning process so that actual results can be compared with the desired and expected outcomes (wheelen, hunger, hoffman & bamford, 2018). it is not difficult to conclude that evaluation and control play a central role in strategic management. their purpose is to critically evaluate how things are done at each stage of the strategic management process and to take all necessary measures to improve performance. the terms "evaluation" and "control", although almost always appearing in tandem, are not necessarily the same thing. entrepreneurs who, inter alia, perform the role of strategic managers must be able to exercise appropriate control over the entire strategic management process, i.e. they must know at all times the ex68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) tent to which strategic plans have been formulated and implemented in practice, and in what areas corrective measures need to be taken to improve the performance of the entrepreneurial business they manage. the evaluation and control process can be seen as a five-step feedback model and involves: determining the indicators to be measured; establishing performance measurement standards; measuring actual performance; comparing actual performance to rule; and taking corrective action (hunger & wheelin, 2011). if the actual results violate the framework of the desired tolerance range, it is imperative that the entrepreneur takes steps to correct these deviations. these activities should not only affect the correction of aberrations but also prevent them from recurring in the long term. evaluation and control represent the last segment of strategic management, point to the weaknesses of previously implemented phases of strategic planning, and often ask for the whole strategic process to be repeated from scratch. the repetitive process may involve modifying the strategy formulation, the strategy implementation process, or both (wheelen, hunger, hoffman & bamford, 2018). strategy evaluation always depends on the definition of specific criteria, while control depends on the sharpness of the requirements that an entrepreneur chooses to apply. the evaluation and control of overall business performance, in principle, complete the strategic management model. conclusion the purpose of strategic management is reflected in the exploitation of "today's" potentials and in creating "tomorrow's" opportunities for all businesses, regardless of their development, size, market share or business sphere. the core of the concept of strategic management in entrepreneurship is the strategic plan. entrepreneurial businesses run by women are, according to numerous disincentives from the external environment, forced to plan every next step which they will make while competing on a "market chessboard". without an adequate strategy, their defeat is certain, and the ungrateful market position of the "pawn" is chronic, and the only one they can hope for. due to these circumstances, the women entrepreneurs are directing all available capacities towards formulating a strong strategy that neither competitors nor numerous external "attacks" will be able to harm. in the strategic planning process, they start from a detailed analysis of the "black and white market fields" external and internal environment, formulate and implement a strategy that will be applied for the achievement of the ultimate jolović, i., strategic management, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) 69 goals, and in the last phase they pay attention to the evaluation and control of the taken moves. the conducted research analyzed the role of strategic management in the business process of women-run entrepreneurial businesses. the challenges and perspectives which the external entrepreneurial environment brings with it; internal strengths and weaknesses firmly linked to the entrepreneur's personality; the mission and goals that an entrepreneurial business should follow; selecting the appropriate strategic template and how to implement it; and evaluation and control mechanisms that verify the correctness of the implemented strategy in the women's entrepreneurial entity was highlighted. only a meticulous analysis of all of these processes in a particular entrepreneurial business will influence the empowerment of its women manager to strategically win a dominant market position. by all the detailed data and relations in the paper, it is possible to, regarding the hypotheses set in the research, reach the following conclusions: − hypothesis h1 is fully accepted. specifically, it has been pointed out that strategic scanning of the internal and external environment of entrepreneurial business is the first step towards achieving positive business results and ensuring market success and dominance. in this way, the entrepreneurial business is firmly on its feet, women entrepreneur knows what its weaknesses are, what strengths it can count on, what chances it can use and which threats will have to bypass, so that business cannot be "shaken" by internal and external character and prevented by intent to stand for the high market position it seeks; − hypothesis h2 is fully accepted. when all the activities that precede the formulation of the strategy are explained and detailed from all perspectives, and when the process of formulating the strategy is carried out in a quality way, it can be said that the entrepreneurial business has created the basis for success. in formulating the strategy, the women entrepreneur looks at the real reach of her business neither overestimates nor underestimates its potentials. with a well-defined strategy, she forms a clear picture of the direction in which her business is moving, towards achieving which goals such a strategy leads to, and what deadlines it must meet, the risks it must take, and the challenges it must face. the woman entrepreneur has only a difficult choice which strategy she 70 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) will use in achieving the specific market goals. the better choice she makes, her path to achieving market goals will be shorter; − hypothesis h3 is fully accepted. the fact is that for entrepreneurial businesses and strategy implementation, investing all available resources in the stages preceding the implementation are need and inevitability. only in situations where activities that precede this process are adequately conducted, i.e. when the environment is analyzed in detail, and the strategy formulated clearly enough, implementing will not be a complex and stressful job for the women entrepreneur. during the process of strategy implementation, it may happen that the culture, management system and business structure change. the success of this whole process depends on the character traits of the person who conducts it the women entrepreneur. her persistence, precision and (non)agreement to compromises substantially determine the degree to which implementation will deviate/match to the formulated strategic framework; − hypothesis h4 is fully accepted. a rightly, objectively, and rationally implemented evaluation and control process will allow comparability of the actual and expected results of the women's entrepreneurial business. as this process represent the last stage of strategic management, its conclusions often take the women entrepreneur a few steps back. in this case, it will be necessary to disintegrate the entire strategic management system, and the women entrepreneur will be obliged to take corrective actions and solve the identified problems. starting the whole strategic process over and over again is not a rareness. the basic hypothesis h0 is fully accepted, given the full validation of the previous four specific hypotheses that more closely define it. based on all of the above, it is concluded that strategic management is a tactic which women entrepreneurial entities, in order to achieve a dominant market position, should use. as soon as women entrepreneurs during the "chess market match" realize that strategic management is a "figure" that can enable them to achieve goals and to ensure market dominance, they will use it to "mattify" market competitors. jolović, i., strategic management, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 53-72) 71 references [1] achakpa, priscilla, and mirjana radović-marković. 2018. 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[22] wheelen, thomas l., david j. hunger, alan n. hoffman, and charles e. bamford. 2018. strategic management and business policy: globalization, innovation, and sustainability. 15 th edition. harlow: pearson education limited. article history: received: 10 september, 2019 accepted: 5 november, 2019 microsoft word 10_jwe_3-4.doc editor’s note this is the second issue of the year 2010. in this issue we published, seven articles, and this time twelve authors from seven different countries are placed. these published articles are from, slovak republic, spain, serbia, usa, nigeria, zimbabwe and turkey. “european integration and position of women in business enterprise sector (bes)” has been sent from slovak republic and written by zuzana maliková, technical university of košice. the purpose of this article is to describe gender gap in a field of research and to investigate the changes after slovak republic entry to eu. the research on gender gap is mainly focused on business enterprise sector. the second paper on “female employment in formal and informal sectors of the serbian eeconomy” sent by mirjana radović marković, isidora beraha and ana jelača, institute of economic sciences, serbia. in their paper they mentioned that serbia has a large informal sector estimated at 35 per cent of gdp in 2007, fuelled by a weak regulatory framework, inappropriate tax and expenditure policies, and weaknesses in law enforcement, including the fight against corruption. it remains an important challenge as it reduces the efficiency of economic policies. the third paper has been sent from spain, written by bojica ana maria, fuentes maria del mar and albacete sáez carlos, university of granada, which is titled as “public support and inter-firm collaborations in women-owned firms”. this article goes beyond the descriptive analyses of women entrepreneur’s networks, and advances the idea of interdependency between the different types of relationships they build. it emphasizes that developing ties with support institutions can reinforce and legitimate them in the interactions with peers organizations. the fourth paper on “women of heraldry” was written by lawanna blount, vice-president of american school of genealogy, heraldry and documentary sciences, usa. she discussed the important traditions and rules that the age of chivalry demanded of women in the bearing of arms and how their education reflected the needs of the era. she then indicated current changes about women and the bearing of arms. the fifth article of this issue is coming from faculty of education, lagos state university by abari and oshun on “enrolment, attrition and graduation of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 3-4, 5-6) 6 the girl child in public junior secondary schools in south west nigeria, 1999 – 2006”. the paper deals with very interesting and important problematic of the girl child education in nigeria. applied methodology is appropriate, time series sufficient and the contribution leads to adequate analysis. this paper can be an inspiration for other similar studies in developing countries. the sixth paper arrived from, national university of science and technology, zimbabwe written by moreblessings siziba on “strategies on women entrepreneurship survival: a case study of women entrepreneurs in zimbabwe between 2007-2009”. this paper gives an insight on how various women entrepreneurs managed to adapt to the zimbabwean unfamiliar business environment during 2007-2009. these women state the different challenges that they faced and the strategies they used to win over and be successful. the seventh article is from turkey written by kemal yıldırım on “social changes and their impact on women in turkey and its membership to the eu”. the aim of this paper is to reflect gender, discrimination and human rights in turkey. my sincere appreciation goes to the members of the editorial board and for the effort they put in to make the journal a success. prof. dr. carl edwin lindgren, a leading international scientist in the field of education, was appointed as a special advisor to the journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education starting with this issue. i also wish to thank the contributors of the articles and excellent work that they have done with hope that they continue to send their worth papers, comments and reactions on the issues. in addition, i would like to remind you that journal of women's entrepreneurship and education is published two times a year, april and october. editor-in-chief professor mirjana radović-marković, phd doi: 10.28934/jwee20.34.pp165-180 original scientific paper low-income women entrepreneurs and household sustainability in badagry; a border community in lagos, nigeria bolawale abayomi odunaike1 olarenwaju emmanuel ajiboye2 lagos state university, faculty of social sciences, department of sociology, ojo, lagos state a b s t r a c t traditionally, the contribution of women to household sustainability was limited to reproduction, raising of children and carrying out domestic chores, while men solely take up the economic responsibilities. due to changes in the family institution, gender-based roles were becoming blurred as couples tend to share both domestic and economic responsibilities. although, many studies have been done on women entrepreneurs but little has been done on low-income ones in border communities. this study, therefore, was designed to examine the means by which low-income women entrepreneurs sustain their households and trades in badagry area of lagos state, nigeria. gender role ideology, and role resilience theory provided theoretical orientation while descriptive design was adopted using both qualitative and quantitative methods of research. agbalata market was purposely selected owing to its size and commercial activities involving both local and cross border women traders. two hundred and fifty women were selected for the survey, while twenty were selected for in-depth interviews. quantitative data were analysed using spss, while interviews were content analysed. however, most women engaged in trade to support their household economically which negatively affected the expansion of their business. majority of the elderly women engaged in trades to cater for their grandchildren. family size was a determinant of the sustainability of the 1 corresponding author, e-mail: bolawale.odunaike@lasu.edu.ng 2 e-mail: olanrewaju.ajiboye@lasu.edu.ng 166 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 165-180) business, also engagement of women in multiple trades depending on the season. the study recommends that governmental intervention in terms of loan provision is essential to the survival of low-income women traders in border communities. key words: low-income entrepreneurs, household, sustainability, traditional roles, gender-based roles, border communities introduction due to modernity and changes in the family system and social structure at large, the gender-based role allocation is gradually becoming a mechanism of the past. women are now taking up economic roles to support their husbands. in some cases also, the society has galvanized into a stage whereby the experiences of the female-headed household is becoming more pronounced (odoemene, 2003; mansor, 2005). the study of dual-career couples started in the late 1960s, and the concept was introduced as a sociological concept by rapoport and rapoport (1969). the concept has become a common phenomenon in all parts of the world. nowadays, couples are committed to the survival of the household, managing both economic and social responsibilities together. the imminent economic situations, high cost of living, destruction of public social infrastructure, private provision of basic amenities, among others inform the engagement of women in the informal sector of the economy. therefore, the wish to make ground-breaking contributions to their societies is very high for women entrepreneurs (unctad, 2013). societal attitudes and norms inhibit women from considering starting a business. at the same time, systemic barriers mean that many low-income women entrepreneurs confined themselves to small businesses, especially in the informal economy. this, in turn, limits their ability to earn substantial income for themselves and their households. it also impedes them from realising their full potential to contribute to socioeconomic development, job creation and environmental stewardship (ilo, 2013). household sustainability has become a significant problem in this very crucial period of economic reform especially in border areas where lowincome entrepreneurs engage in the sales of commodities smuggled through into the country through illegal routes (akatsa-bukachi, 2012). therefore, sustaining the households of the women entrepreneurs and in turn, the survival of small scale businesses will become a herculean task in the nearest future (amuchie and asotibe, 2015). it should be made known that while the bolawale abayomi odunaike, olarenwaju emmanuel ajiboye 167 government is involved in revitalizing the economy through strict monitoring of international borders and the surrounding communities, circumventing illegal movement of goods in and out of the country; the survival of small scale businesses that guarantee household sustainability in those communities is being questioned (cunha, 2007; garba, 2011). in essence, the success of these low-income women entrepreneurs depends on regular supplies of goods and constant patronage by people from in and out of town contributing to employment provisions through the engagement of individual in the supply chain (iyiola and azhu, 2014). thus, the usage of the income generated from the trade on the sustainability of the household may likely threaten the survival of the business which may probably be informed by the size of the family and the profits generated periodically. objectives of the study 1. to identify the variety of trade engaged in by low-income women entrepreneurs in badagry area of lagos. 2. to examine the effect of family size on the sustainability of the trade. 3. to examine the relationship between monthly income and the sustainability of the trade. 4. to examine the survival strategies adopted by low-income women entrepreneurs in sustaining their trades and households. brief literature review in all human societies, the family is the first contact of the individuals. in essence, the household becomes the most important and inherent part of the lives of people. it remains the primary unit of the society where individual members cooperate for its survival and replicate societal norms, power, values, privilege and authority (damaske, 2011). traditionally, the head of the house is the crucial economic provider, the chief decision-maker and taker; identified as the person with the utmost authority within the household. men (husbands) assume the roles of heads of households recognizing the women (wives) as part of the husbands’ property that must be cared and catered for. the women handled domestic chores, caring for their husbands, children and other immediate family members. the patriarchal nature of african and specifically nigerian societies informs the practice of men 168 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 165-180) dominating the household while the women remain submissive and dominated (mordi et al., 2010). the woman has no voice in the home but is an adherent listener who acts according to the instruction of the man. even at the demise of the husband, the widow is inherited by a kinsman closely related by blood to the late husband. as such, the womenfolk in patriarchal societies remain eternal properties of their husbands’ family. the allocation gender-based roles in the home and society vary from one traditional space to another. generally, women are the dominated while men dominate the social, economic and political spheres of life. the women make up a considerate proportion of the labour force, most notably in the informal sector. instead of engaging in formal employment, women get involved in occupations such as petty trading, street vending, etc., where the wages are meagre and too low for sustenance (ilo, 2013). this accounts for the high rate of poverty among women in sub-saharan. the poverty level among women has continued to be on the increase and sustenance especially in the female-headed households becomes exceedingly difficult. also, women tend to move in and out of poverty, depending on how relatively they could endure and recover from such situations. in the quest to survive and sustain the family, women entrepreneurs tend to adopt strategies for successful manoeuvre and amelioration of the circumstances surrounding them. the quantum of pressure and the level of contribution to the household by women is predetermined by the kind of job of their spouses engages in, the income of the spouse, the size of the family (types of marriage and fertility decisions), family crises such as sickness or death, income-generating, economic strategies, social networks, access to loan facilities, etc. (aderanti, 2002; eichler and schwarz, 2019). the status of women’s spouse is a significant factor that informs the level of contributions to the household. it is on the basis also that the survival of the business and the household leans. where the husband earns much and sustains the family, the woman has a better capacity to support the business in terms of finance and expansion. otherwise, low income generated from by women entrepreneurs would be spent on household sustenance (martin, mcnally and kay, 2013), which may negatively affect the growth of the business and its savings (ogundiwin et al., 2018). furthermore, the size of the family is also a compelling factor responsible for determining the level of contribution of low-income women entrepreneurs to household sustenance. the larger the family size that is the number of people especially dependents in the household, the more the bolawale abayomi odunaike, olarenwaju emmanuel ajiboye 169 expenses incurred and the higher the propensity of the wife’s contribution to the survival of the household. on the other hand, a smaller household may have a lesser dependent, and the liability for the woman becomes lesser, she accumulates more profits to sustain her business, more wealth and the propensity of being poor is drastically reduced (mckay, 2001; brush, 2004) marriage and fertility decisions could also be linked to a woman’s survival strategy. the status of her husband’s family could predetermine her contribution to the household and the extended family of her husband. therefore, the choice of who to marry is a cogent factor because the welfare of woman’s family and also that of her husband may be resting on her shoulder. therefore, her capability to provide for the enormous needs might drench her in poverty. fertility decision, that is, the spacing and number of children is also a survival strategy for the woman (damaske, 2016). in essence, it determines the time spent by the women within the household taking care of domestic chores and children at the expense of concentrating on their businesses to generate more income for sustenance and growth. also, the consumption requirements such as food, clothing, books, toiletries, stationeries, etc., increases in respect to the number of children bore by the woman (claudia, 2006). unfortunately, fertility decisions in rural african societies are not determined by women but by their husbands and relatives. in essence, the level of poverty among women is predetermined by people around them; husbands, relatives, parents, etc. therefore, the reproductive function is a burden on women and their businesses is also negatively affected. the ages of children also play an important role. the younger the children, the more the burden posed on the woman. despite the domestic roles played by women, zororo (2011) found that about 40% of small scale enterprises in developing countries are owned and run by women, putting the relationship between women entrepreneurship and the sustainable development as positive. the ability of the woman to create a social network with other women within and outside the community helps in entrepreneurial development. the networks offer benefits such as problem sharing, provides information on business sustenance, child care, making goods available on credit while monies are recouped after-sales, as well as loans provisions and support individually or collectively (ekpe, 2011). all these improve the quality of life of the woman; give her a sense of belongingness and a broader financial capability. 170 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 165-180) in literature, more works have been done in the area of entrepreneurship and sustainable development goals (koveos, and yimin, 2012; kato and kratzer, 2013; khan, r., 2016; pansera and sarkar, 2016; apostolopoulos et al., 2018); entrepreneurship development, education and training (griffiths et. al., 2012; woolf et al., 2013; martin, mcnally, and kay, 2013; fayolle 2013; walter, 2016; kremer, brannen, and glennerster, 2017; huis et al., 2019), entrepreneurship theories and challenges (baumol, 2010; baumol et al., 2011; rashid, 2018; yunis, hashim, and anderson, 2019), while there is a dearth of empirical research on the relationship between the sustainability of the household and businesses of low-income women entrepreneurs especially in border communities. theoretical orientation it is widely accepted among scholars with traditional gender role ideology that the primary responsibility of the woman is domiciled in the home; taking care of the children and close relatives even when the woman is formally engaged in paid employment or self-employed. however, the transition from traditional to egalitarian role ideology is being experienced in many societies on the globe. the ideology proclaims equity in the allocation of roles and engagement in economic activities. despite this, the status of the man, the kind of economic activity he engages in predetermines the wife’s occupation, her economic status and wealth accumulation. this might inform the high level of poverty among women in nigeria. traditional domestic roles, among other factors, make them low-income entrepreneurs also limited by their level of involvement in domestic economic responsibility. hence the more the woman contributes to the upkeep of the household, the more negatively affected her business funding and growth. methods the research design for this study was descriptive, adopting both qualitative and qualitative methods of research. the study area was lagos. it is the most complex metropolitan centre in nigeria with people of diverse culture and political orientations. it is a major focus of financial power as it serves as the commercial and industrial capital. the high rate of migration of people from other regions of the country to lagos contributes to high rate of dependence of a large family on few members, high levels of illiteracy, high bolawale abayomi odunaike, olarenwaju emmanuel ajiboye 171 proportions of unemployed women, poverty, divorce, and low marriage rates. despite being a patrilineal society where husbands are expected to take absolute responsibility for their household, the metropolitan nature of lagos with the peculiar problems aforementioned, made the engagement of women in low-income entrepreneurship inevitable. whether a woman is married or not, the quest to support the household or survive as an individual warrant engagement in one trade or the other as the cost of living in lagos is higher than most parts of the country. also, expectations of family members and associates on remittance back home are responsible for the exceptional engagement of women in entrepreneurship since lagos is perceived as the centre of success and excellence. badagry was purposively selected as a border community in lagos, southwest, nigeria. it shared border with seme in the benin republic. as a result, cross-border was prominent, and women engage in the petty sales of imported and locally made goods. the agbalata market (popularly known as badagry central market) was purposively selected because of its large size, its status as an international market, and high level of commercial activities. low-income entrepreneurs were selected by the size of their business, kinds of trade, capital invested, and monthly income. in that light, two hundred and fifty (250) respondents were purposively selected for the survey while twenty (20) respondents were selected for interviews to corroborate the survey. quantitative data were analysed using statistical package for the social sciences (spss version 20) while qualitative data were content analysed. it should be noted that quantitative methods were adopted for objectives 1, 2, and 3, while qualitative methods were adopted for objective 4. findings and discussion the socio-demographic characteristics of low-income traders in the border town of badagry show that the age cohort of 40-49 had the highest percentage of 41.4%, followed by age group 30-39 with 33.1%, while women traders between ages 20-29 and 50 years and above had 11.7% and 13.8% respectively. by implication, the number of women engaging in low-income increased from age 20 to 49 and declined from age 50 and above. the increasing number of women below 50 years might be as a result of increased financial responsibility on the family as number of children increases (martin, mcnally and kay, 2013). on the other hand, the decline from age 50 and 172 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 165-180) above might be as a result of old age-associated health challenges. more so, older persons become dependent on caregivers to cater for their financial needs. therefore, the reason to engage in economic activities is defeated (okoye, 2011). majority (71.5%) of the women were yoruba, because the study area is in south-western nigeria where the yoruba were the dominant ethnic group. on the marital status of low-income traders, 81.2% were married informed by the intention of supporting their spouses to cater for economic needs of the family and immediate relatives. majority of the lowincome traders (38.8%) possessed a senior secondary school certificate. however, a more significant percentage of the women traders (52%) either had primary education or no formal education. this might be informed by early marriages common in rural african societies (abanyam, 2013; animasahun and chapman, 2017). also, majority (79.7%) of the women traders were christians; this is because badagry was the contact of the christian missionaries in nigeria. the identified varieties of trade engaged in by low-income women entrepreneurs in agbalata market were twenty-one. majority of the women (14.2%) engaged in the petty scales of foreign-produced provisions/beverages because of the nearness of the market to seme border through which goods are smuggled. the second most traded good was coconut (12.9%) since it was a significant farm product among the people of badagry, produced for local consumption, and export to other countries. it is easily accessible to traders and prospective customers were readily available. some of the common trades among the women included sales of second-hand dresses, popularly called ‘akube’ (11.7%), food items like rice, garri, beans, maize (10.5%), and soft drinks (10.0%). majority of the traders (36.8%) have been active in the trade of their choice for over 15 years, followed by those who have spent 6-10 years. above all, 73.1% of the low-income traders have been consistently active for a minimum of 6 years in the business of their choice. in essence, most of the traders were experienced in the trade they engage in and were eligible to give cogent information about the trade and its modus operandi. most of the traders (27.1%) claimed they earned between 20,001 and 30,000 naira monthly while the least category (12.2%) earned between 30,001 and 40,000 naira. as regards the size of household, 52.8% of the entrepreneurs have a household of a maximum of five people, 38.2% possess a household size of 6-10 people, while 9.8% have a household size of a minimum of 11 people. bolawale abayomi odunaike, olarenwaju emmanuel ajiboye 173 the majority (29.7%) of the respondents lived in room and parlour apartments, while 5.2% lived in duplexes. it was noted that most of those who lived in single rooms, room and parlor and mini flats have more enormous household than those who lived in larger apartments of two bedrooms, three bedrooms and duplex. however, majority of the entrepreneurs (84.1%) open for sales every day (monday to sunday), 0.4% open twice a week, 1.3% opens for business five times a week, while 14.1% opens six times a week. in addition, the findings show that majority of the entrepreneurs who opened for business everyday have larger households, therefore the quest to meet up with their daily needs subjected them to working for extra days and hours. hypothesis testing hypothesis 1: there is an association between the household size of respondents and the sustainability of business. table 1: relationship between household size and business sustainability variables valid (percentage) missing (percentage) total (percentage) household size and sustainability of business 246 (98.4%) 4 (1.6%) 250 (100%) chi-square analysis chi-square value 8.693 p-value 0.013 source: case processing summary of chi-square the chi-square analysis shows that the p – value <0.05, hence there is a significant statistical association between the family size of respondents and the sustainability of their businesses. as such, the size of the household affects the sustainability of the business among low-income entrepreneurs in badagry. it should be noted that, the larger the family size the more difficult it was for entrepreneurs to sustain their businesses especially in homes where members of the household depend absolutely on the proceeds from the business for survival. it was also noted that those who lived in more sophisticated accommodation have a less number of household members, also have other means of survival not basically from the proceed of the business. therefore, the ability of low-income women entrepreneurs to develop and sustain their businesses depends on the income of other members of the household. the number of times women entrepreneurs open for business does 174 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 165-180) not guarantee the sustainability of the business over time. in current literature, there is a dearth of empirical research on the relationship between family size and sustainability of business. current literature centred on generational businesses and successional plans of family business (onyeukwu and jekelle, 2019; nnabuife and okoli, 2017; adedayo and olanipekun, 2016; akinyele et al., 2015; obadan and ohiorenoya, 2013), neglecting the area concerning family and household size. hypothesis 2: there is an association between the average monthly income of low-income entrepreneurs and the sustainability of their businesses. table 2: relationship between monthly income and business sustainability variables valid (percentage) missing (percentage) total (percentage) monthly income and sustainability of business 181 (72.4%) 69 (27.6%) 250 (100%) chi-square analysis chi-square value 17.693 p-value 0.001 source: case processing summary of chi-square the chi square analysis shows that the p – value <0.05, hence there is a significant statistical association between the average monthly income of respondents and sustainability of their businesses. that is, the monthly income of the traders determines the sustainability of the business. the more the monthly income, the more viable and encouraging the business is. proceeds from the business can be re-invested for expansion. of course, the larger the business, the higher the income and the propensity for the business to expand (onyeukwu and jekelle, 2019; oudah, jabeen and dixon, 2018; cho, okuboyejo and dickson, 2017) the survival strategies adopted by low-income women entrepreneurs in sustaining their trades included loans, spousal support, daily, weekly and monthly contributions, thrift, credit purchase of goods, collecting of goods from fellow traders, and investment of proceeds from other trades and jobs. however, the sources of loans, as mentioned by the traders included microfinance banks, family members, and market association. on this, a 45-yearold trader has this to say: “most of the women here get loans from microfinance banks popularly called “lapo”, some are bolawale abayomi odunaike, olarenwaju emmanuel ajiboye 175 supported by their family members when they need to stock their shops, and those who are close to market executives also get loans from them. however, loans from friends and family members are most convenient for me as an individual”. (idi/fooditems/45yrs/2019). spousal support was a prominent strategy of sustaining businesses among low-income entrepreneurs. majority of the women attested that their husbands support them with cash and at times products for those whose husbands engaged in cross-border trades. the trade served at times as a cushion to sustain the household when their husband’s supports to household sustainability fails. a trader in fairly used clothing (akube) said: “my husband has been the pillar of this business. he supports me with cash to get goods and also get goods for me from my customers in seme at times. he is a ‘crosser’ (those who move goods using specially built vehicles across the border), and there are times when they might have issues with customs officials for days or weeks. during this period, the family feeds from the proceeds of this small trade, and god has been faithful”. (idi/akube/32yrs/2019) furthermore, majority of the traders engaged in daily, weekly, and monthly contributions to sustain the trades and households. contributions were necessary for the women to sustain their businesses and take care of the households. contributions were made to thrift collectors. also, contributions were organised among traders coordinated by a trusted individual who is also a trader either within or outside of the agbalata market. another trader reiterated: “i am involved in three sets of contributions. i make regular contributions to the thrift collector who comes around in the afternoon daily. i make weekly contributions coordinated by one of the traders in the market who sells drinks just like i do. i also make a monthly contribution with one of my husband’s associates which he supports most times when i am unable to meet up. these contributions are reinvested 176 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 165-180) in the business and spent on pressing needs of the household”. (idi/coconut/41yrs/2019) purchasing goods on credit from wholesale suppliers were also common among low-income women entrepreneurs. furthermore, products not available in stock for a particular trader were collected from another trader(s) if customers are readily available for the purchase of such goods. both traders negotiate on the minimum selling prices of such goods before sales. the seller can then add her profit margin. a trader in beverages said: “there are situations when we collect goods that we don’t have in stock from our colleagues for sales after negotiating the minimum price and adding our profit margins. this is a usual practice among traders in the market to sustain the business and maintain our customers. also, i get goods on credit from another woman who supplies and get paid within a week. that is one of the reasons traders have to open for sales more often”. (idi/beverages/29yrs/2019). lastly, few of the traders who engaged in other trades and paid employments invested proceeds and/or salaries into the business for it to survive and develop over time. a fish seller has this to say: “my mother owns and sponsored this business; she works with the local government. she inherited the trade from her mum, who is still alive but very old. she invests her salary at times in this trade, especially when there is a need to make bulk purchase and supplies. without her investment on the trade, it would have been difficult to expand the business and meet up with supplies which come once a while”. (idi/fishseller/29yrs/2019). low-income women entrepreneurs have as part of their objectives to sustain generational businesses passed from one generation to theirs. therefore, raising capital from other personal businesses or jobs might just be to keep the business that has been traditionally known to such family alive. bolawale abayomi odunaike, olarenwaju emmanuel ajiboye 177 conclusion and recommendations in conclusion, low-income entrepreneurs engaged in twenty-one variety of trades as identified by this study. majority of the commodities traded were foreign goods and edibles brought in through the seme border into badagry township. the study found that household size of the women determined the size and sustainability of their businesses. therefore, the larger the household, the more challenging it was for the business to thrive. also, monthly income of the women determined the sustainability of the trade over time. the level of income generated was a factor to the number of times women open for business per week. sustaining the household and business by low-income women entrepreneurs is a difficult task owing to the socio-economic situation in nigeria and the border town in particular. strict border regulations and surveillance of the border communities prevented smooth movement of goods without payment of customs duties to the agbalata market where low-income entrepreneurs sell at retail to prospective consumers. another prevalent factor was the availability of loan facilities for the women to expand their businesses and also remain in business. if loans are available and businesses developed, taking care of the household might not be as difficult as it would have been when the business was smaller. therefore, the study recommends the adequate provision of loans with low-interest rates should be made available to low-income women entrepreneurs to expand their businesses, make more profits for the sustainability of the household. secondly, women in this category might be prepared to pay fewer customs duties to bring in durable goods across the border under strict supervision. also, channeling the distribution of locally made commodities to the traders would not only ensure the sustainability of the household and businesses but encourages the consumption of locally made goods and reduces the importation of foreign goods. references [1] abanyam, n. l. 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(2019). enablers and constraints of female entrepreneurship in khyber pukhtunkhawa, pakistan: institutional and feminist perspectives. sustainability, 11, 27-43. article history: received: 31 july, 2020 accepted: 4 october, 2020 udc: 005.961:005.914.3(598) ; 305-055.1/.2 jel: l26, j82 id: 198564620 original scientific paper gender as a moderator for firm resources, networks and operation factors on firm performance in lao msmes, laos inmyxai sengaloun1, ministry of finance, vientiane, lao pdr takahashi yoshi, hiroshima university, hiroshima city, japan nham phong tuan university of economics and business-vnu, hanoi, vietnam a b s t r a c t the objective of the present research is to examine the gender of entrepreneurs as a moderator for the relationships between firm resources, networks and operation factors affecting firm performance in lao micro, small, and medium sized enterprises (msmes). the sample consisted of 1,534 observations. the ordered probit model is adopted because the dependent variable is ordinal numbers. the findings show that the gender of entrepreneurs moderates the relationship between some firm resources (notably, human resources and tangible resources) and firm performance, indicating that even if male and female entrepreneurs have the same levels of these resources, male entrepreneurs outperform female entrepreneurs due to differences in decisions in implementing strategic choices. furthermore, the gender of entrepreneurs moderates networks (network participation and ict adoption) on firm performance, meaning that even if male and female entrepreneurs have similar network and ict availability, male entrepreneurs perform better than female ones. lastly, gender of entrepreneurs moderates businesses premises on firm performance. in other words, even if male and female entrepreneurs choose the same types of premises for businesses, such as outside premises, male entrepreneurs perform better than female ones. this research provides policy implications for academics, policymakers and 1 vientiane, lao pdr; e-mail: sengaloun777@yahoo.com inmyxai, s., et al., gender as a moderator, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) 91 implementers, to the effect that gender of entrepreneurs is a key factor in deciding the destiny of firms, in terms of better or worse performance. key words: gender, networks, rbv, feminist theories, firm performance introduction  in lao people’s democratic republic (lao pdr) there is a greater female population than males (nsc, 2007). moreover, female participation in the work force, at above 70 percent, is similar to cambodia and is the highest in the region after vietnam (grid, 2005).in lao pdr, society has traditionally and explicitly segregated the duties between females and males. at the family level, males are the heads of the families and work outside to get financial support for their families while females are cast in domestic roles, doing housework and taking care of family members. in the workplace, females have seldom received leading positions, a fact that continues today. in laos, female entrepreneurs play significant roles in small and medium sized enterprises (msmes). for the entire economy, 29 percent of all businesses with more than five employees are owned or headed by females (lao department of statistics, 2009). in the case of msmes, about 64 percent of lao businesses are owned/headed by females (mih and gtz, 1996). this research adopts three theories, with feminist theory (liberal feminist theory and social feminist theory) as the base theory but also, as sub-theories, the resource-based view (rbv) and the network theory. the research encompasses the controversies between liberal feminist theory and social feminist theory in terms of moderation of gender, the former suggesting that there is no moderation while the latter considers the presence of moderation influences. this research hypothesizes in a way that is consistent with social feminist theory, because significant impacts of social and cultural structures seem to be present in the case of lao msmes. specifically, the performance of male and female entrepreneurs is expected to be different since their gender is expected to involve different social and cultural features. however, to date, hardly any empirical research has been undertaken in terms of gender of entrepreneurs as moderator for the relationship between firm performance and its antecedents such as firm resources, networks and operation factors in the case of least developed countries, particularly for lao msmes. 92 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) the objective of this research is therefore to examine gender of entrepreneurs as moderator the relationships between firm resources, networks and operation factors on firm performance in the lao msmes. it provides an understanding of the pre-requisites for lao male and female entrepreneurs to succeed in their businesses, which is of critical importance in the competitive business environment. conceptual framework  the overall conceptual framework is based on social feminist theory, with rbv and network theory as sub-theories. the specific rbv model is drawn from grant (2002), the network model is drawn from network theory, and the operation model is drawn from feminist theories. as illustrated in figure 1, this research aims to link these three theories by examining gender of entrepreneurs as moderator between firm performance and its antecedents (firm resources, networks and operation factors). gender of entrepreneurs moderates the relationship between firm resources, networks and operation factors and firm performance, meaning that the different approaches and strategies adopted by different genders in using and implementing: firm resources, networks and operation factors can result in different firm performance. thus, even if male and female entrepreneurs have or hold the same levels of firm resources, networks and operation factors, they are expected to perform differently. this is in line with the social feminist theory in the next section. figure 1: gender as moderator between firm resources, networks and operation factors on firm performance gender firm resource network s firm performance operation inmyxai, s., et al., gender as a moderator, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) 93 literature review and development of hypotheses  there are several key terminologies that are needed to be defined for this paper. msmes in the lao pdr are defined according to prime ministerial decree no.42 (2004) that defines a micro firm as consisting of 1 to 2 employees; a small firm as 3 to 19 employees, a medium firm as 20 to 99 employees and a large firm as 100 employees or more. gender refers to the differences between females and males within the same household and between cultures, which are socially and culturally constructed and change over time (moser, 1993). in this context, gender refers to the sex of entrepreneurs. the term “female-headed and male-headed firms” refer to owners/managers of msmes and/or entrepreneurs. male-headed firms hereafter are referred to as mhfs and female headed firms hereafter referred to as fhfs. since this research is based on social feminist theory, it is necessary to review overall feminist theories (black, 1989), namely liberal feminism and social feminism. liberal feminism is based on the assumption that females are equally capable as males (fischer et al., 1993). the observed differences in the achievements of males and females are explained by the proposition that females have less frequently realized their full capabilities only because they were deprived of essential opportunities such as education. in contrast to liberal feminism, under social feminism (sf) males and females are not considered essentially the same. sf has somewhat more diverse theoretical origins, ranging from social learning theory to psychoanalysis (fischer et al., 1993). it holds that there are differences between males’ and females’ experiences from the earliest moments of life, and these result in fundamentally different ways of seeing the world. the foundations of this paper are based on liberal feminism and social feminism, with a focus on social feminism, as applied to msme practices. in this regard, liberal feminism is concerned with different levels of control over resource endowments, while social feminism is not only involved with different levels of resource endowments but is also concerned with different motivation in terms of using these endowments in order to achieve better performance (fischer et al., 1993). in particular, applying the two theories is significant for the case of comparative study on firm performance and its antecedents. because “liberal feminism” is based on the assumption that if male and female entrepreneurs have the same levels of firm endowments, they expect to achieve similar firm performance, whereas “social feminism” makes the argument that even if male and female entrepreneurs control 94 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) similar or same levels of endowments, they will not achieve similar firm performance. this is based on the notion that decisions and strategies, in terms of implementation of these endowments, are influenced by culture, by socialization and the environment within which these entrepreneurs have grown up, and so these differences between mhf and fhf may be reflected in differences in firm performance. this research puts emphasis on social feminist theory, because significant impacts of social and cultural structures can be observed in lao society and its msmes. gender as moderator between firm resources and firm  performance  different strategic choices in using the firm’s resources (human, intangible and tangible resources) can lead to different performance by male headed firms (henceforth, mhfs) and female headed firms (henceforth, fhfs). even if males and females have the same types of firm resources, kantor (2002) reports that many females are reluctant to transform their economic resources into empowerment outcomes within family because of the threat of social isolation if their husbands should leave them. thus, attitudes of females can result in difference in firm performance. in other words, decisions about utilization of firm resources are influenced by the gender of the entrepreneur. hence, gender is adopted as moderator on the relationship between firm resources and firm performance. generally speaking, better utilization of capabilities and competencies of human resources (hr), which accumulate from factors such as education, work experience and training, can lead to better performance. however whether fhfs utilize firm resources as effectively as mhfs has been a controversial issue. the liberal feminist theory proposes that if males and females have equal access to available resources such as education, work experiences and other resources, females are expected to behave in a similar way as males do (unger and crawford, 1992), and eventually utilization of accumulated knowledge and skills from education and work experience by mhfs and fhfs may result in similar outcomes. however, despite having the same level of hr, lao female entrepreneurs may not be effective as male entrepreneurs, in terms of utilization of their hr, due to different strategic choices that they make and, based on the social and cultural structures in laos, the social feminist theory seems to be more applicable. intangible resources are kinds of assets that are legally possessed by the firm such as intellectual property right, contracts, confidential data, inmyxai, s., et al., gender as a moderator, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) 95 brand, trademark, relationships with customers, the reputation of the firm’s products and services for quality and reliability, and the reputation of the firm with suppliers (peteraf, 1993, grant, 2002). due to limitations of data relating to intangible resources, ‘reputation’ can be used as proxy, through investments in marketing and advertising (inmyxai and takahashi, 2009; inmyxai and takahashi, 2010). more specifically, despite using the same amount of firm resources in building the reputation of goods and services through investments in advertising and marketing, the performance of male and female entrepreneurs is expected to differ. one of the explanations is that decisions in selecting target customers and consumers may differ since male and female entrepreneurs perceive the world differently and therefore their targets in advertising and marketing strategies may differ. the significance of tangible resources (physical technology and business finance) to firm performance is exemplified by three out of five previous studies concluding that there are positive relationships between the sophistication of technology and the speed of the firm’s growth (storey, 1994). furthermore, steiner and solem (1988) also found that the use of new technology or improved technology has a strong connection with business success. it can be argued that even if male and female headed firms have similar tangible resources, decisions regarding utilization of the resources can result in different performance according to gender that is different performance between mhfs and fhfs. also, finance-related success factors in small-scale business include the amount the initial investment and ongoing access to finance (yusuf, 1995), and having an appropriate financing strategy is crucial for the achievement of business success (storey, 1985). therefore, finance activities were positively associated with performance (hitt and ireland, 1985). differences in effectiveness of using tangible resources can be expected because of gender. thus, based on the rationale in the foregoing literature, different strategic choices in using the firm resources (human, intangible and tangible resources) can lead to different performance by mhfs and fhfs even if they have the same level of resource endowments. this means that gender of entrepreneurs moderates the relationship between firm resources and firm performance. hence, h1. gender of entrepreneurs moderates the relationship between firm resources and firm performance. 96 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) gender as moderator between networks and firm performance  strategic choices relating to networks utilization and implementation can be expected to lead to different performance by mhfs and fhfs, despite having similar levels of network availability. there are three indicators of ‘networks’ in this study: (1) membership in business association (as soft-infrastructure); (2) information communication technology (ict) adoption (as hard infrastructure); and (3) utilization of business development services (bds) (as knowledge and information flow through networks). these three components contribute to firm performance, but the extent of the contribution varies in the different ways of implementing of strategic choices by mhfs and fhfs. soft-infrastructure decisions are important in improving firm performance, with gender differences being apparent. for instance, networks have been one of the decisive factors in the survival of firms established by females (blanco et al., 1996; brodsky, 1993; shim and eastlick, 1998). this is because the members of networks can benefit from support systems, mentors and advisors. in this regard, business associates and friends, and participation in trade associations and women’s groups, are important networks, which have positive relationships with firm performance (hisrich and brush, 1987). networks also play a significant role in boosting the sales and supply functions, through personal contacts with customers and suppliers, thus, contributing to superior business performance. furthermore, networks formed through membership of business organizations are expected to lead to links with key external parties. such associations can provide an opportunity for msme-members to obtain information, to share experiences, to participate in training and to have access to markets. this can create good networking with key business partners, suppliers, government and development agencies. kodithuwakku and rosa (2002, p.431) agree that successful entrepreneurs have the ability to extract value from their social networks and contacts, thus being creative in finding ways to mobilize scare resources and market access. however, even if male and female entrepreneurs having similar memberships of business organizations, it is not necessarily true that male and female entrepreneurs have similar performance. diverse gender behavior on the part of entrepreneurs in using either formal or informal networks is expected to lead to different performance. even if business networks are available, female entrepreneurs facing business problems or difficulties, are more inmyxai, s., et al., gender as a moderator, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) 97 likely to seek assistance first from family and then from close friends. and, only after discussions within these private networks will female entrepreneurs seek help from knowledgeable business sources (blanco et al., 1996). in contrast, male entrepreneurs tend to seek advice from business development services right away. in short, different ways of using either formal or informal networks can contribute to differences in performance between male and female headed firms. another aspect of networks is through utilization of ict, as hard infrastructure is very important to improve firm performance. this is because ict can support business activities to achieve their goals and create improvements in both productivity and business operations. it is evidenced by firms where ict adoption has substantially changed the communication, sales and information methods (lapierre and denier, 2005; wang et al., 2006), therefore enabling firms to achieve improved competitive advantage. despite male and female entrepreneurs holding the same ict capacity, their performance can be different. one of the reasons could be that genders use different ict strategies. female entrepreneurs seem to be stereotyped as conservative and risk averse, whereas male entrepreneurs are seen as risktakers (meier and masters, 1988). lastly, different ways of using knowledge and information from business development services (bds) can contribute to differences in performance. generally, bds can be sources of valuable knowledge, information and skills, gained from professional advisors such as lawyers, bankers, accountants and technical specialists with the aim of improving business performance, particularly for msmes. although male and female entrepreneurs may obtain similar bds, their application of this knowledge and information can be different, which is part of the reason why female entrepreneurs tend to underperform male entrepreneurs. this is because female entrepreneurs are traditionally risk-averse in nature so that they are unlikely to (or have less opportunity to) utilize the full potential of knowledge and information from bds even if they have the same opportunities as male entrepreneurs. therefore, gender of entrepreneurs is used as moderator for the relationship between networks and firm performance. thus, the following hypothesis can be derived: h2. gender of entrepreneurs moderates the relationship between networks and firm performance. 98 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) gender as moderator between operation factors and firm  performance  operation factors include selection of the firm’s premises, putting time and effort into running the business, and taking strategic approaches to cope with the presence of competitors. in general, it is expected that these operation factors affect performance of msmes. but, female entrepreneurs face different conditions from male entrepreneurs and so, even if there are the same types of operation factors, different performance by mhfs and fhfs can result. hence, gender of entrepreneurs is adopted as moderator between operation factors and firm performance. decisions regarding selection of business can lead to differences in firm performance. for example, when both male and female entrepreneurs choose between a home-based business and outside premises, their firm performance can differ (fasci and valdez, 1998; loscocco et al., 1991). fasci and valdez (1998) found that adopting a home-based business has a negative impact on performance, meaning that outside premises can provide the positive influence on firm performance. however, for females, collinsdodd et al. (2004) assert that home-based businesses are more productive, as it can allow them to allocate time for business as well as time for domestic roles such as childcare responsibilities, thus providing flexibility in relation to work time and work place (fasci and valdez, 1998). as an indicator of the importance of gender-related decisions regarding selection of the business premises, even if male and female entrepreneurs select the same type of premises (either home-based businesses or external), their performance can be different. different gender approaches in time-allocation for business can contribute to different performance. for example, the number of hours worked by individual owners/managers has been observed to impact on performance (fasci and valdez, 1998). the number of hours (full-time/parttime) spent on the business, on a weekly basis, as a measure of inputs to the business, contributed positively and significantly to earnings. in this connection, the question can be raised that, despite the number of hours spent on business by male and female entrepreneurs being the same, male entrepreneurs expect to perform better than female entrepreneurs due to different social condition and different working styles. firm performance can also be affected by the competitive environment. singh et al. (2001) state that the presence of competitors in the inmyxai, s., et al., gender as a moderator, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) 99 same industry helps firms to perform better than firms without competition. the presence of competitiveness can be perceived as threats and opportunities for firms, related to their external environment. however, the impact of competition can differ between genders. when competitiveness exists, male entrepreneurs are more self-assertive and like to achieve mastery than females (eagly and wood, 1991). males may see competition as an opportunity for things such as growth and sustain performance better than female counterparts. besides, there are other ‘hidden’ effects related to the traditional genders’ social and family roles. females face domestic demands such as remaining the primary parent, emotional nurturer and housekeeper, which influence their entrepreneurial ventures’ growth prospects (lee-gosselin and grise, 1990, p.431). in contrast, the primary family responsibility of males is to be a good provider, which is compatible with their role as head of a growing firm (unger and crawford, 1992). therefore, the different, traditional gender-roles of entrepreneurs can lead to the expectation that there will be different performance between mhfs and fhfs. as discussed above, even if males and females implement similar operation factors, their performance may be different. therefore, gender of entrepreneurs is adopted as moderator of the relationship between operation factors and firm performance. thus, the following hypothesis can be derived: h3. gender of entrepreneurs moderates the relationship between operation factors and firm performance. firm performance  financial performance in this research is a subjective measure, assessed on annual sales turnover as reported in the questionnaire. this method has been used in previous literature (rosa et al., 1996; du rietz and henrekson, 2000; anna et al., 1999). such subjective performance measures have been widely used in strategy-related research and in organizational research (dess and robinson, 1984; spanos and lioukas, 2001; powell, 1992; powell and dent-micallef, 1997). control variables control variables are used in this study, to justify factors other than the theoretical variables that can explain the variance in the dependent 100 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) variable. in this regard, firm size, firm age and industry sectors are adopted as control variables. research methodology  sample and data collection  this research uses unbalanced panel data that was collected in 2005, 2007 and 2009 by the enterprises baseline survey (ebs) from the german agency for technical cooperation (gtz). the gtz conducts the ebs every two years. the sample selected only enterprises that were formally registered. the questionnaires sought responses from entrepreneurs in msmes with between 1 and 99 employees. the survey in 2005 included 370 msmes that covered four lao provinces namely, vientiane capital, champasack, luang prabang, and luang namtha. the first three provinces are economically dynamic provinces and the fourth is a rural province. for the 2007 survey, the sample size was 470 lao msmes that covered five lao provinces, with savanakhet being added to the four 2005 provinces. for the 2009 survey, the sample size was 694 lao msmes that covered the same five provinces as the 207 survey. the total sample therefore consisted of 1,534 observations of firms, 896 of which were male headed firms and 638 were female headed firms. measurement  table 1 shows the measurements and descriptions of variables that are directly from the questionnaires developed from extant literature, as cited for most variables. table 1: measurements of variables variables measurements/descriptions control variables firm size the total number of current full-time employees. firm age the numbers of years the msmes have been established/incorporated. industry sectors three industry dummy variables by controlling manufacturing, trading and service. dependent variable performance measured by ordinal numbers from 1 to 5 corresponding to a level of annual sales turnover (as reported to the national tax inmyxai, s., et al., gender as a moderator, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) 101 variables measurements/descriptions office). from the lowest to the highest level these are: less than 200 million kip; 200-400 million kip; 401-700 million kip; 701-1,000 million kip; and more than 1,000 million kip. (as of late 2010, 1 dollar is equal to approximately 8,041 lao kip). independent variables gender male entrepreneur is represented by 1 while female entrepreneur is 0. firm resources firm resources are based on the concept of rbv and grant (2002) which classified firm resources into three categories: human, intangible and tangible resources. human resource variables education of entrepreneurs measured by ordinal numbers from 1 to 11, corresponding to the level of education of owners/managers. from the lowest to the highest level these are: no schooling, some primary school, completed primary school, some lower secondary school, completed lower secondary school, some upper secondary school, completed upper secondary school, vocational, technical, higher (undergraduate) and post graduate. training of entrepreneurs it is whether or not any training was received since they started their business. if the respondent chose ‘yes’, then the next question asked to the respondent to describe the kind of management training, including: health and safety, cost calculations, business management, accounting, marketing, law and regulations, quality management, business finance and others. this variable is measured as a dummy variable. training of employees this question is whether or not the employees received any training. if the respondent chose ‘yes’, then the next question asked was to describe the kind of management training they have had, whether it was on: customer services, accounting, record booking, operation of machinery and tools, computer, documentation and filing and others. thus, this variable is measured as a dummy variable. working experience it is measured by the age of owners/managers, after subtracting the total years spent in education. experience of entrepreneurs has a close relationship with their education and thus working experience is defined as the number of years an individual has been able to work after completing his or her education (ibid). intangible resource reputation is used marketing and advertising, as proxies, to 102 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) variables measurements/descriptions variable build reputation. reputation the question is whether the firm had some investment in marketing and advertising for the last year or not. in this research, this variable is measured as a dummy variable. tangible resource variables physical technology and business finance physical technology the question is measured by ordinal numbers from 1 to 5 corresponding to the level of technology in the business from the lowest through the highest level: hand tools/utensils; portable power tools and electric appliances; small fixed motorized equipment; large machinery; and motorized vehicles. business finance the question is whether the firm received loans or not. consequently, this variable is measured as a dummy variable. network variables network variables include three main indicators: network participation (as soft infrastructure); ict (as hard infrastructure) and business development services (as information and knowledge flow through the networks). network participation the question asked whether the firm is a member of any specified organization or not. this way of measuring network membership is consistent with teoh and chong (2007, 2008). thus, being a member in any of the mentioned organizations is a proxy for networks. this variable is measured as a dummy variable. information communication technology (ict) the question is whether the firm uses some type of equipment for communication. if the respondent chose ‘yes’, the next question asked what types of equipment for communication did respondents have including, for example: telephone, fax, telephone/fax, internet, and others. in this research, ict measurement is consistent with erffmeyer and johnson (2001), using aggregated types of communication. business development services (bds) this question is whether or not the owners/managers of a firm received any advice for the development of his/her business. this variable is measured as a dummy variable. operation factor variables operation factors include three main indicators: premises for businesses, operation months and presence of competitiveness (used as a proxy for a degree of taking a risk for operation). premises for businesses this question is whether the place of business is home-based or in outside premises. if the business uses places outside the home as an office, it is given 1. if the business uses the home as the office, it is given 0. operation months this question indicates the amount of time that the inmyxai, s., et al., gender as a moderator, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) 103 variables measurements/descriptions entrepreneurs have put into the business (part-time/full-time). presence of competitiveness this question is whether or not the owner/managers have any problems with competitiveness. this variable is measured as a dummy variable. presence of competitiveness is used as a proxy for a degree of taking a risk for operation. source: authors  analysis and discussion  ordered probit regression models  the dependent variable was measured by using ordinal measures from 1 to 5. therefore, adoption of an ordered probit model (long, 1997; davidson and mackinnon, 1993) is appropriate in the analysis to examine gender of entrepreneurs as moderator on the relationship between firm resources, networks and operation factors and firm performance for lao msmes. the firm’s performance or dependent variable is the ordinal numbers from 1 to 5, corresponding to a level of annual sales turnover as stated above. based on baron and kenney (1986) to test moderation effects of gender of entrepreneurs, there are three main models, namely resource, network and operation models that are analyzed as follows: resource models for h1 the specifications of three ordered probit regression models can be derived, a latent variable yi* representing firm performance being estimated as in equations [1] to [3] below: model 1: model 2: model3: 104 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) herein, equations [1-3] is a latent variable (dependent variable) and independent variables refer to firm size (fs), firm age (fa), manufacturing (man), trading (tra), service (sev), education (edu), training of entrepreneurs (trnfe), working experience (wexp), training of employees (trne), reputation (rep), physical technology (ptec), and business finance (bf). network models for h2 the specifications of the three ordered probit regression models can be derived, with a latent variable yi* representing firm performance estimated as in equations [1] to [3] below: model 1: model 2: model 3: herein, equations [1-3] is a latent variable (dependent variable) and independent variables refer to firm size (fs), firm age (fa), manufacturing (man), trading (tra), service (sev), network participation (nwp) and information communication technology (ict) and business development services (bds). operation models for h3 the specifications of three ordered probit regression models can be derived, with a latent variable yi* representing firm performance being estimated as in equations [1] to [3] below: model 1: model 2: model 3: inmyxai, s., et al., gender as a moderator, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) 105 [3] wherein, equations [1-3] is a latent variable (dependent variable) and independent variables refer to firm size (fs), firm age (fa), manufacturing (man), trading (tra), service (sev), premises for businesses (pb), operation months (opm), and presence of competitiveness (pc). analysis results and discussion  h1: the findings show that gender of entrepreneurs moderates the relationship between some firm resources (human resources and tangible resources, but not intangible resources) and firm performance, as displayed in model 3 in table 2. these findings are not only in line with previous studies but it also are consistent with social feminist theories that, even if male and female entrepreneurs hold the same level of human resources and tangible resources, male entrepreneurs outperform female entrepreneurs. it is most important to emphasize that different genders adopt different strategic choices in using the mentioned firm resources to achieve better performance. this is because male entrepreneurs tend to have higher levels of self-assertion a ‘master’, which is required to handle business competition. another reason is that, partly, female entrepreneurs are reluctant to transform their economic resource endowment into increasing their incomes within the family because of the threat that this empowerment poses in terms of isolation from their husbands (kantor, 2002), especially in south asia. for intangible resource, the hypothesis centered on male and female entrepreneurs using the same levels of firm resources in building reputation through investments in advertising and marketing. the results were found to be negatively significant for firm performance, indicating that male entrepreneurs did not outperform and even perform worse than female ones. in conclusion, the finding confirms that gender of entrepreneurs moderates the relationship between two of the three firm resource indicators (human resources and tangible resources but not intangible resources) and firm performance. this means that mhfs are better than fhfs in terms of 106 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) utilizing/implementing human resources and intangible resources. therefore, h1 is partly supported. table 2: moderation effect of gender for resource model firm performance model 1 model 2 model 3 firm size 0.045*** 0.044*** 0.036*** firm age 0.006 0.004 -0.004 manufacturing -0.245 trading 0.207** 0.263*** service 0.043 0.036 -0.380*** gender 0.355*** 0.24*** firm resources human resources education x gender 0.177*** working experience x gender 0.023*** training of entrepreneurs x gender 0.387*** training for employees x gender 0.412*** intangible resource reputation x gender -0.460*** tangible resources physical technology x gender 0.153*** business finance x gender 0.299*** pseudo r2 0.1222 0.1298 0.1777 lr statistics 399.23*** 424.13*** 580.53*** log likelihood -1434.11 -1421.66 -1343.46 n 1434 1434 1434 *** significant at 1%≤; **5%≤ h2: the results show that gender of entrepreneurs partly moderates the relationship with networks (network participation and ict adoption) on firm performance but not bds, as shown in model 3 in table 3. again, these findings confirm social feminist theory that, even if male and female entrepreneurs have the same/similar levels of network and ict availability, male entrepreneurs outperform female entrepreneurs. an explanation for this is that there may be gender differences in choices relating to using networks, which may be influenced by males and females’ experiences from earliest moment of life that lead them to have different views on business operation. when female entrepreneurs face business inmyxai, s., et al., gender as a moderator, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) 107 problems or difficulties, they seek assistance first from family and then from close friends, instead of seeking immediate advice from professional advisers, whereas male entrepreneurs seek advice from bds right away. furthermore, even if male and female entrepreneurs hold the same capacity of ict, male entrepreneurs perform better than female entrepreneurs. one explanation is that male and female entrepreneurs adopt different choices in using the ict, whereby male entrepreneurs respond with more enthusiasm to challenges of achieve growth, whereas female entrepreneurs are risk averse and conservative (meier and masters, 1988). regarding bds, even if male and female entrepreneurs use the same/similar informal or formal bds, the performance of male entrepreneurs is not different from female counterparts. one reason could be that the knowledge and information through bds are neither relevant to male entrepreneurs nor female ones. table 3: moderation results of network model firm performance model 1 model 2 model 3 firm size 0.045*** 0.044*** 0.041*** firm age 0.006 0.004 0.003 manufacturing trading 0.207** 0.263*** 0.299*** service 0.043 0.036 -0.010 gender 0.355*** 0.291*** networks network participation x gender 0.338*** ict adoption x gender 0.388*** business development services x gender -0.038 pseudo r2 0.1222 0.1298 0.1485 lr statistics 399.23*** 424.13*** 485.22*** log likelihood -1434.11 -1421.66 -1391.12 n 1434 1434 1434 *** significant at 1%≤; **5%≤ in short, the results show that gender of entrepreneurs moderates the relationship with two of the three network indicators (network participation and ict adoption) on firm performance, but not bds. thus, h2 is partly supported. 108 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) h3: the findings indicate that gender of entrepreneurs partly moderates the relationship between operation factors (premises for businesses) on firm performance, but not operation months and presence of competitiveness, as displayed in model 3 in table 4. the results can be interpreted that, even if male and female entrepreneurs select the same types of premises for business such as outside home-based businesses, male entrepreneurs outperform female ones, as suggested by social feminist theory. more importantly, the decisions in selecting premises between male and female entrepreneurs may reflect social, cultural, institutional and environmental surroundings that can influence decision making. as a result, the performance of male and female entrepreneurs is different. however, gender of entrepreneurs does not moderate the relationship between firm performance and its antecedents (operation months and presence of competitiveness). when male and female entrepreneurs spend same/similar numbers of hours in their business, male entrepreneurs fail to perform better than female entrepreneurs. in addition, when male and female entrepreneurs are faced with the same levels of competition, the different reactions and behavior of genders in terms of degree of risk-taking to respond to the competitiveness, seems to have no significant different impact on the performance of mhfs and fhfs. that is, male and female entrepreneurs under the same/similar levels of competition do not perform differently.in summary, the finding indicates that gender of entrepreneurs only moderates one of the three operation factors (premises for businesses) but not operation months and presence of competitiveness. therefore, h3 is partly supported. table 4: moderation effect of gender for operation model firm performance model 1 model 2 model 3 firm size 0.045*** 0.044*** 0.043*** firm age 0.006 0.004 0.006 manufacturing -0.265*** trading 0.207** 0.263*** service 0.043 0.036 -0.248*** gender 0.355*** 0.344*** inmyxai, s., et al., gender as a moderator, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) 109 firm performance model 1 model 2 model 3 operation factors premises for businesses x gender 0.217*** operation months x gender -0.067 presence of competitiveness x gender 0.022 pseudo r2 0.1222 0.1298 0.1334 lr statistics 399.23*** 424.13*** 435.9*** log likelihood -1434.11 -1421.66 -1415.78 n 1434 1434 1434 *** significant at 1%≤; **5%≤ findings and conclusion  the objectives of this study are to examine gender of entrepreneurs as moderator the relationships between firm resources (human, intangible and tangible resources), networks and operation factors on firm performance, in the case of lao msmes. three hypotheses have been empirically tested from a sample of 1,534 observations of lao msmes from different industries and economic activities. as discussed in section 5.2, the results partly supported three hypotheses. the findings are mainly consistent with social feminist theory that even if entrepreneurs hold similar firm resources and networks, they will not necessarily achieve similar performance. for h-1, gender of entrepreneurs moderates the relationship between two of the three firm resource indicators (human resources and tangible resources) and firm performance but not intangible resource. the results indicate that even if male and female entrepreneurs have the same levels of human resources and tangible resources, male entrepreneurs outperform female entrepreneurs due to differences in decisions in implementing choices among them. for h-2, gender of entrepreneurs moderates two of three network indicators (network participation and ict adoption) on firm performance, but not bds. this means that even if male and female entrepreneurs have similar network and ict availability, male entrepreneurs perform better than female ones. this is because male entrepreneurs are risk-takers take more challenging approaches in utilization of the networks and ict. for h-3, gender of entrepreneurs only moderates one of the three 110 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) operation factors (premises for businesses) on firm performance, but not operation months and presence of competitiveness. in other words, even if male and female entrepreneurs choose the same types of premises for businesses such as outside-home based businesses, male entrepreneurs perform better than female ones. acknowledgments we would like to express our appreciation to several anonymous reviewers and editors for their helpful suggestions and valuable comments in order to improve this research. special thanks, too, are given to the german agency for technical cooperation (gtz), which provided the data from the 2005, 2007 and 2009 surveys. finally, we wish to add that any errors, shortcomings and limitations in this research are entirely the authors’ responsibility. references  [1] anna, a. l., chandler, g. n., jansen, e., and mero, n. p. 1999. “women business owners in traditional and 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[50] yusuf, a. 1995. “critical success factors for small business: perceptions of south pacific entrepreneurs”, journal of small business management, 32(3): 68-73. uticaj pola preduzetnika na odnose između resursa u firmi, njihovo umrežavanje i faktore funkcionisanja firmi, koji određuju performanse mikro, malih i srednjih preduzeća (mmsp) u laosu a p s t r a k t cilj ovog istraživanja je da se ispita kako pol preduzetnika vrši uticaj na odnose između resursa u firmi, njihovo umrežavanje i faktore funkcionisanja firmi, koji određuju performanse mikro, malih i srednjih preduzeća (mmsp) u laosu. uzorak se sastojao od 1.534 ispitanika. ponuđeni „probit model“ je izabran zbog zavisnih promenljivih izraženih u rednim brojevima. rezultati istraživanja pokazuju da pol preduzetnika ima veliku ulogu kod odnosa između resursa pojedinih firmi (pre svega, ljudskih resursa i materijalnih sredstava),kao i kod performansi firmi. to znači da čak i kada muški i ženski preduzetnici imaju isti nivo tih sredstava, muški preduzetnici su u prednosti zbog razlika u sprovođenju strateških odluka. osim toga, pol preduzetnika ima uticaja na umrežavanje, što znači da čak i ako muški i ženski preduzetnici imaju sličnu mrežu i dostupnost informacionim i komunikacionim tehnologijama (ict), muški preduzetnici ostvaruju bolje rezultate od ženskih. na kraju ,pol preduzetnika različito utiče na poslovne performanse firmi. ovo istraživanje pruža praktične primere za naučne radnike, kreatore politike i one koji je primenjuju, s obzirom da je pol preduzetnika 114 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 90-114) ključni faktor u odlučivanju o sudbini preduzeća, u smislu njegovih boljih ili lošijih performansi. ključne reči: pol, umrežavanje, feminističke teorije, performanse firmi     article history: received: 20 august, 2012 accepted: 25 february, 2013 female entrepreneurship: theoretical approaches radović-marković mirjana, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia introduction different approaches to female entrepreneurship conclusion references characterising women in the informal sector and their struggles to eke a living lessons from ruwa, zimbabwe innocent chirisa, university of zimbabwe, dept of rural & urban planning, harare, zimbabwe introduction characterizing the study area and the research methodology women challenges in working in the streets as vendors characteristics of the commodities and services by wiis in ruwa markets and transportation modes for wiis in ruwa income and expenditure for wiis in ruwa place-based considerations (working contexts) for wiis in ruwa coping strategies by women in ruwa source: according to the author findings conclusion and policy alternatives references social organization of textile – trading among yoruba women textile traders: implication towards entrepreneurial development in informal economy in nigeria yusuffm olabisi, lagos state university, department of sociology, ojo, nigeria introduction literature review nexus between social action theory and organization of textile trading research methods data analysis and critical discussions purchasing strategies of ankara textile materials purchasing strategies of lace materials purchasing strategies of aso-oke materials important findings from purchasing strategies of yoruba women textile traders marketing strategies of textile materials important findings from marketing strategies of women traders bookkeeping strategies of yoruba women textile traders conclusion implications for policy and research limitation of study and implication for further research references identifications and exploitation of a business opportunity: case of women entrepreneurship in india agrawal reena, jaipuria institute of management, vineet khand, gomti nagar, luckow, uttar pradesh, india entrepreneur profile franchisee model future growth agenda conclusions improving entrepreneural marketing learning: a study of business graduates, pakistan usman yousaf, quaid-i-azam school of management sciences, quaid-i-azam university, islamabadmohsin altaf, university of sargodha, pakistan, zunaira rani, university of sargodha misbah alam, university of sargodha madiha aslam introduction literature review relationship between entrepreneurial mindset & desire to be an entrepreneur relationship between satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues and desire to be an entrepreneur methodology data analyses frequency analysis means analysis regression analysis discussion limitations references appendix gender as a moderator for firm resources, networks and operation factors on firm performance in lao msmes, laos inmyxai sengaloun, ministry of finance, vientiane, lao pdrtakahashi yoshi, hiroshima university, hiroshima city, japannham phong tuan university of economics and business-vnu, hanoi, vietnam introduction conceptual framework literature review and development of hypotheses gender as moderator between firm resources and firm performance gender as moderator between networks and firm performance gender as moderator between operation factors and firm performance firm performance research methodology sample and data collection measurement source: authors analysis and discussion ordered probit regression models analysis results and discussion findings and conclusion references book reviewwomen and entrepreneurship: female durability, persistence and intuition at work dr martin west untitled-1 udc: 005.5(497.11) jel: b54; l26 professional paper characteristics of female leaders and their position in the business world poslovnom svetu *, faculty of economic sciences, subotica, serbia a b s t r a c t this paper points out the importance of the role of leaders in modern organizations in the context of achieving business success as well as gaining and maintaining competitive advantage in a dynamic and complex surrounding. special attention has been devoted to the characteristics of female leaders, their style of management, challenges and barriers that businesswomen are faced with in the world and in serbia as well as the expectations about their future position. kew words: leadership, female leaders ,characteristics of female leadership introduction leaders represent the basis and precondition of successful business of modern companies and other organizational systems. whether or not a company is going to achieve its business objectives, be successful in making and maximizing profits, as well as in competitive imposing on the market depends on leaders' knowledge and skills and on how well they perform their function. to a large extent, it depends on the leader how well * -mail: ivanamisic985@gmail.com characteristics of female leaders, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 76-93) 77 the employees are going to be managed whilst fostering their positive attitude towards work through motivation and inspiration. in the modern business environment, leadership emphasizes flexibility and the encouragement of strategic change, and through the aspects that are associated with identifying and exploiting of opportunities in the market, it has an entrepreneurial component as well. on the other hand, proactivity and innovations characterize the business environment and represent a foundation for the implementation of successful strategies and achievement of sustainable competitive advantage. historically, leadership has always been depicted in masculine terms as many theories of leadership have been focused on stereotypically masculine qualities, while women have been considered not to have adequate capacity to meet the complex requirements of the job. nevertheless, in contemporary organizations, feminine qualities of cooperation, mentoring and collaboration are becoming increasingly important for effective leadership. therefore, it is necessary to incorporate women, their experience and opinions in new business concepts and their creation (helgessen, 1990, regan, brooks, 1995).1 characteristics of leaders comparative features of managers and leaders as leadership and management are sometimes identified and sometimes strictly separated, it is necessary to explain the relationship of these two terms more closely in order to identify their common points and draw the line of demarcation. leadership can be viewed as a constituent, integral part of management as leadership represents one of the functions of management (at the same time the most important one for the business success of an organization) which, together with the other functions planning, development and control, completes the process of management. management should be viewed as an activity much more broader than leadership. it does not include only people; it also includes activities and 1 this work is part of a research project under the code 179015 (challenges and prospects of structural changes in serbia: strategic directions for economic development and compliance with the requirements of the eu), funded by the ministry of education and science. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no.3-4, 76-93) 78 decisions related to finance, raw materials, market, technological innovation, information processes. in comparison with management, leadership activates people who will use money, process raw materials, work on machines (wren and voich, 1994). however, one should bear in mind that leadership can not be viewed as part of the management process due to the fact that not every leader is at the same time a manager as leaders can occur outside a formal organization. quality leadership represents the essence of successful management. the basic characteristic of a manager with leadership qualities is the ability to create a strategic vision that will mobilize people to make efforts in order to realize it by their own free will. on the other hand, it should be emphasized that an effective leader can only be the one who is, at the same time, a good manager. the manager should possess technical and conceptual skills as well as the skills that explain interpersonal relationships. the skill of working with people represents an essential prerequisite for any manager who wants to be a leader in a company. that skill of working with people incorporates the ability to understand and accept the past behaviour, to predict a future behaviour so it could be directed, modified, controlled. to accept the role of a leader means to adjust to the responsibilities of influencing the behavior of other people. thus, it can be said that a leader is a person who is able to influence the attitudes and opinions of others, whilst the manager is rarely able to achieve that goal. (stefanovic, 2004) the power and authority of a manager is based on the formal position that he has on the vertical hierarchical scale and his having the power to reward and punish. therefore, he builds structural power. on the other hand, the power and authority of a leader is based on the success achieved through constant communication with employees, that is to say, and its power rests on the power of ideas which it expresses. the difference in interpretation of managers and leaders corresponds to the understanding of efficiency and effectiveness as well. in this sense, on the efficiency of a company. research of the most effective and most successful managers has found that in companies there are few leaders, and too many managers. this is one of the key reasons why companies lose their competitive advantage. in many characteristics of female leaders, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 76-93) 79 companies, business is well organized, yet the management is weak. they carry out everyday tasks well, seemingly everyone and everything works perfectly, without ever questioning whether that work is necessary at all, what the meaning of these activities is and what the benefits of carrying out those tasks are. now we return to the previously presented view about the difference between leaders and managers, according to which, leaders are people who do what is to be done whereas managers are people who work as it should be done. both things, although different, are important in a company. however, for lasting competitive advantage, leadership is needed. management is considered to be programmed and structured, as opposed to leadership that includes the freedom of spirit, possession of education, talent, imagination, confidence and risk. while managers work conservatively and with limited choices, the leaders work on developing new approaches to long-term problem solving and finding options. therefore, leaders engage in dangerous, risky and exciting ventures. further analysis of the essence of leadership suggests that managers tend to be oriented to incremental changes by using strategic choices while leaders are aimed at drastic (saving) changes in order to create a strategic position which implies a permanent competitive advantage and success of the company. leaders initiate a real turnaround in the company. a manager as a strategist takes into account the objective analysis of available factors of production. a leader as a strategist in creating a vision of the company relies on the talent of imagination that allows him to normal circumstances. therefore, one should bear in mind his visionary ability to make good, or above-average results out of an average or bad company. based on the above-mentioned, we find that managers are more engaged in the field of strategy, structure and system, while leaders are more interested in styles, human resources, skills and common goals (mullins, 1990, 421). comparative analysis of leadership and management was made by john p. kotter, who has defined management as dealing with complexity, resources such as planning and budgeting, organizing and controlling, staffing and troubleshooting. according to kotter, leadership connotes dealing with changes, by such means as establishing policies, directing of people in accordance with these guidelines as well as inspiring people. the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no.3-4, 76-93) 80 scheme of the mentioned key subprocesses of management and leadership is given in table 1. table 1: comparison of management and leadership management leadership creating a work program planning and budgeting-establishing detailed steps and the time required for achieving results and allocating the necessary resources. establishing guidelines, establishing a future vision and establishing change strategies for achieving the vision. developing a network of people required for the realization of the work program organization and staffing establishing a structure which meets the requirements of the plan, filling the structure with the relevant individuals, delegating responsibility and authority for carrying out the plan, securing the policies and procedures that help people management and creating a management system to monitor the implementation. directing people communication of guidelines through words and actions, forming teams and coalitions that understand the vision and strategy and accept their validity. execution controlling and problem solving monitoring of the achieved results and their comparison to the plan, identifying the deviations and replanning in order to solve problems. motivating and inspiringencouraging people to overcome major political, bureaucratic and resource barriers. results achieving a certain degree of predictability and order and the formation of the potential for consistent achievement of key results expected by stakeholders. the implementation of, often dramatic, changes and possessing the potential for the realization of extremely useful changes. source: kotter, j.p., (1990), a force for change: how leadership differs from management based on the table and the aforementioned, we can conclude that it is the best for an organization that its leadership roles are occupied by those leaders who are at the same time good managers. the work of a leader and the one of a manager is not competitive but complementary, and both are needed so that an organization could prosper. strong leadership and weak management can easily lead an organization into danger because its characteristics of female leaders, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 76-93) 81 consequence is a strong long-term vision not short-term planning and budgeting, but without much specialization, structure and rules, inspired people who scarcely or not at all use control systems and problem-solving discipline. on the other hand, strong management and weak leadership lead to short term concerns, details, yet with minimal insistence on integration, equalization, and personal involvement of people, as well as placing the control and prediction in the first plan while neglecting growth, training and inspiration. (adzic, 2008). characteristics of female leaders in order to analyze the characteristics of female leaders we will start from the characteristics of transactional and transformational leadership styles. in the past few decades, scientists have made a distinction between transformational and transactional leadership in order to identify the leadership style that suits the conditions of accelerated changes and intense competitive pressure, which are common in the modern setting. the transformational style of leadership, rated as more effective, is peculiar to leaders who set extremely high standards concerning behaviour and set themselves as role models by gaining the trust of their followers. such leaders are innovative, even in organizations that are successful, and by providing mentoring and empowering they encourage their followers to develop their full potential and thereby give a fuller contribution to their organization. in contrast, transactional leaders establish exchange relationships with their subordinates. they manage by clarifying responsibilities to subordinates, monitor their work and reward them when they meet objectives and correct them for failing to meet them. (burns, 1978). finally, transformational and transactional leadership can be contrasted with the laissez-faire style, defined by an overall failure to take responsibility for managing. studies that examined the relationship between these styles and measures of leadership effectiveness (judge and piccolo, 2004) used the multifactor leadership questionnaire (mlq; antonakis, avolio, sivasubramaniam, 2003), which represented transformational leadership by five sub-scales, transactional leadership by three sub-scales and laissezfaire leadership by one scale (see table 2). transformational leadership journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no.3-4, 76-93) 82 was assessed as a style that provides the highest level of leaders' effectiveness. table 2: definition of transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership styles in the multifactor l eadership (mlq) questionnaire mlq scale and sub-scales description of leadership style transformational idealized influence (attribute) demonstrates qualities that motivate respect and pride from association with him or her idealized influence (behavior) communicates values, purpose and importance of organization's mission inspirational motivation exibits optimism and excitement about goals and future states intellectual stimulation examines new perspectives for solving problems and completing tasks individualized consideration focuses on development and mentoring of followers and attends to their individual needs transactional contingent reward provides rewards for satisfactory performance by followers active management-byexception attends to followers' mistakes and failures to meet standards passive management-by exception waits until problems become severe before attending to them and intervening laissez faire exhibits frequent absence and lack of involvement during critical junctures source: eagly, a. h., johannesen-schmidt, m. c., and van engen, m. l. (2003), transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles the classification of skills of transformational leaders, known as '4 i' includes the following skills (bass, avolio, 1994): idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration. idealized influence represents the ability to build followers' trust and respect in leaders thus creating the basis for the acceptance of radical characteristics of female leaders, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 76-93) 83 changes in the organization. if performing his business well, the leader will be appreciated by others and people will trust him. in other words, he will become a leader possessing the idealized influence and serve to his leaders with the idealized influence. in this way, leaders' efforts to implement radical changes in the organization are met with approval and support of the staff because those leaders are trusted, followers admire them, respect them and they identify with them. their position and leadership skills are not used for achieving personal interests, but are focused on the usage of their followers' potential and on the achievement of organizational goals. inspirational motivation is a characteristic of a successful leader that qualifies him as a figure who inspires and motivates followers' appropriate behaviour. at a time when an organization implements changes, the leader is faced with the task of clear and continuing encouragement of others to pursue a new idea. such a behaviour implies not only the manifestation of enthusiasm and optimism and the inclusion of followers but also encouraging teamwork, accentuating positive results, highlighting strengths, emphasizing goals. intellectual stimulation, as a quality of successful leaders, plays an important role in the process of transforming the organization. successful leaders encourage the efforts of their followers concerning innovation and creativity, they encourage continual review of the existing assumptions, actuate a change in thinking about problems, advocate for the use of analogy and metaphor. in that way, there is a possibility to gain new and creative ideas for solving problems from the followers themselves. individualized consideration, as a feature of a successful leader, boils down to the ability of individual analyzing of followers. therefore, apart from having the general knowledge about the followers, the leader must know what motivates each of his followers in particular. the leader is to be alert; he must observe, analyze and anticipate the needs and desires of his employees. successful leaders are aware of individual differences and are able to make use of those different requirements in an adequate way by assigning tasks to the followers, which are in accordance with their personal preferences. by monitoring the progress of carrying out the individual tasks, the leader gains insight into the correctness or incorrectness of his own action of 'individualized consideration'. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no.3-4, 76-93) 84 assuming that women differ from men when it comes to the behaviour of leaders, particularly in transformational aspects of the style, extensive studies were made, of which the most recent is the meta-analysis, which compared the leadership styles of men and women and examined contemporary distinctions between transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire styles (eagly, johannesen-schmidt, van engen, 2003). this critical review integrated the results of 45 studies, of which 53% of the studies examined managers in the united states and 47% examined managers in other nations. the studies included managers from business and educational institutions, the median age of whom was 44 years. the measures of managers' typical leadership styles elicited estimates of the frequencies of the different types of leader behaviour, which were provided by leaders' subordinates, peers, superiors or by the leaders themselves. this analysis revealed that female leaders were more transformational than male leaders. women exceeded men in the field of idealized influence, inspirational motivation and individualized consideration. these results indicate that female leaders more than male leaders: manifested characteristics that motivated their followers to have a sense of respect and pride due to their closeness with them; showed optimism and excitement concerning the future goals, and tried to develop and advise followers as well as to meet their individual needs. female leaders were also more transactional than male leaders in their contingent reward behaviours, which suggests that they, more than male leaders, rewarded their followers for good work. in contrast, male leaders more often than women leaders, manifested the two other aspects of transactional leadership (active and passive management by exception) as well as laissez-faire leadership. the results of this analysis indicate an advantage for women leaders as they, more than man, appear to lead in styles that recomment them for leadership. in contrast, men, more than women, appear to lead in less advantageous styles by: attending to subordinates' failures avoiding solving problems until they become acute being absent and uninvolved at critical moments. characteristics of female leaders, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 76-93) 85 one of the reasons why women scored better than men when it comes to style and effictiveness is the double standard (biernat, kobrynowicz, 1997), in which men have greater access than women to leadership roles, requiring women to be more qualified than men so as to obtain leadership roles and show better performance in order to maintain those roles. greater likelihood that men will exhibit inefficient management style suggests that men may remain in the role managers in spite of poor leadership, i.e., male leaders need stronger evidence of poor performance before it is concluded that they are incompetent for certain positions. another reason why women are more inclined to the transformational leadership is that it can help women to resolve some incongruity between leadership roles and the female gender role (as will be continue with the implementation of the traditional command-and-control styles of leadership, and they opportunistically discover the benefits of an interpersonal, sensitive, yet inspiring type of leadership inherent to the results of the survey which associate women leaders with the efficiency can be corroborated by findings that assess the efficiency by some more direct measures such as research that links the success of an organization with the percentage of women who are executive managers. organization dedicated to encouraging career women, analyzed data from the fortune 500, which are the largest corporations in the united states as defined by their revenues. using appropriate measures of financial performance for the period 1996-2000, catalyst found that the companies in which prevail female executives had substantially better financial results. a more detailed study related the percentage of women in the top management teams in the fortune 1000 to their financial success from 1998 to 2000 (krishnan, park, 2005). the findings showed that companies with larger percentage of women in their top management attained better results. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no.3-4, 76-93) 86 the position of women in the business world although female leaders possess the right mix of skills necessary for effective leadership, in the business environment they face obstacles and challenges that men do not face. specifically, women tend to occupy leadership positions and be successful in leadership roles that are maledominated, and there are still more of those people who prefer male bosses over the female ones. women are faced with conflicting requirements of their roles as women and the roles as leaders. in general, people expect and prefer that women be communal, manifesting traits such as kindness and concern for others, and that men be agentic, manifesting traits such as confidence, aggressiveness, and self-direction (newport, 2001). since leaders are thought to have more agentic qualities (powell, butterfield, parent, 2002; schein, 2001), stereotypes about leaders generally resemble the stereotypes of men more than the stereotypes of women. as a result, men can seem usual or natural in most leadership roles, thereby placing women at a disadvantage (eagly and karau, 2002; heilman, 2001). as a result, people more easily credit men with leadership ability and more readily accept them as leaders. because of these cultural stereotypes, female leaders face a double bind (eagly and carli, 2004). they are expected to be communal because of the expectations inherent in the female gender role, and they are also expected to be agentic because of the expectations inherent in most leader roles. however, since agentic displays of confidence and assertion may be incompatible with being communal, women may become targets of prejudice. sometimes people view women as lacking the stereotypical directive and assertive qualities of a good leader, that is, as not being tough enough or not taking charge. sometimes people dislike female leaders who display these very directive and assertive qualities, because such women are unfeminine that is, just like a man or like an iron lady. the tension between the communal qualities and the predominantly agentic qualities that they expect in leaders produces cross-pressure on female leaders. they often experience disapproval for their more masculine behaviour, such as asserting clear-cut authority over others, as well as for their more feminine behaviours, such as being supportive of others. given such cross-pressures, finding an appropriate and efficient leadership style is challenging for women, as many female leaders acknowledge. in particular, a study of characteristics of female leaders, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 76-93) 87 1000 female executives found that 96% rated as critical or fairly important 2001). female leaders solve the problem of this pressure by seeking a compromise solution that is effective yet neither unacceptably masculine nor feminine. that is the reason why women more practice transformational style which can help them solve the incongruity between leadership roles and the female gender role, because that leadership style is not prominently masculine, whereas some aspects, especially individualized consideration, are relatively feminine (yoder, 2001). leader roles that are highly male dominated or culturally masculine in their demands present particular challenges to women because of their incompatibility with people's expectations about women. this incompatibility not only restricts women's access to such leadership roles but also can compromise their effectiveness. when leadership roles are extremely masculine, people may suspect that women are not qualified for them, and they may resist women's authority (eagly, karau, 2002; heilman, 2001). as evidence that the success of female leaders can be reduced when they find themselves in the roles that are predominantly male can serve research aimed to examine how well the male and female leaders carry out their management function (eagly, karau, makhijani, 1995). this project integrated the results of 96 studies that had mainly evaluated leaders' effectiveness based on the evaluation of their work by colleagues, subordinates, superiors. these subjective evaluations of efficiency showed bias particularly because of prejudices against women in the maledominated organizational environment in particular. as anticipated, women were judged to be less effective than men in leadership positions occupied by more men or associated with a higher proportion of male subordinates (when more men assess the effectiveness of women), and on the other hand, they are evaluated as more effective than men in educational, governmental and social service organizations that have more women in managerial roles. female leaders can objectively prove as less effective in a male environment because they often have to contend with criticism that they lack the toughness and competitive spirit needed for success, and in such a setting, it is more difficult for women to gain control and build helpful relationships. (silvestri, 2003). given these obstacles, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no.3-4, 76-93) 88 advancing up a highly male-dominated hirerarchy requires more an especially strong, skillful and persistant woman. if women who are equal to men according to their qualities and abilities are treated differently either in their access to leader role or in evaluations of their performance when they find themselves in leadership positions, then they are really faced with unfavorable treatment despite their objective equality with men. evidence for that can be found in the research of attitudes towards female and male leaders, among which national polls are especially informative. namely, for many years, pollsters have asked people what they think about personally having a job in which a woman or a man has authority over them. the responses obtained in the years ranging from 1953-2006 show a preference for male bosses over female bosses, although the difference in favour of men has decreased through the years. a particularly sharp decline occurred between 2000 and 2002, albeit followed by a modest increase in favour of men from 2002 to 2006. despite this decline of the enormous advantage that male bosses had in the mid 20th century, men still retain a clear advantage in 2006, with 37% of respondents prefering male bosses, compared with 19% preferring female bosses, while 2006). as for political leadership, it is more difficult for women to become candidates, but once they achieve nomination, they are successful in winning primary and general elections for state legislature (seltzer, newman, leighton, 1997). there is evidence that in recent years, women have been slightly preferred in some elections, even though this type of female advantage has emerged only among female voters. (smith, fox, 2001). prejudice against women can encourage discriminatory evaluations when they are found in managerial roles. thus, studies that examine whether sex still predicts wages or promotions (blau and kahn, 2000), even after the effects of the other variables are controlled thus making men and women statistically as equivalent as possible, clearly shows that women have a discriminatory pay and disadvantage in relation to career advancement. prejudices about sex can be compounded by prejudices based on other types of group membership, such as race, ethnicity, and it is likely characteristics of female leaders, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 76-93) 89 that women of colour encounter double barriers as leaders or potential leaders. (ferdman, 1999). at the end of this analysis we draw attention to the expectations concerning the position of women in the business world. although there is still preference towards male leaders, biased attitudes towards female leaders have significantly decreased along with the change of attitude on sex. the fact is that women today have far more access to leadership roles than at any previous period in history. thus, in the united states women constitute 24% of the chief executives, 37% of all managers and 43% of individuals in management,financial and financial operations occupations. (eagly,carli, 2004). the inroads of women into positions of power and authority implies other changes, an increase in female education, followed by higher ambitions concerning careers and further ascent to greater power and authority. the position of women in the business world in serbia the first study (m. radovic markovic, 2005) conducted in serbia in order to investigate as to whether women can be effective as leaders in business and how it is viewed in environments in which they live and work has shown that as many as 63% of the respondents of 1476 randomly selected have trust in women and want to see them at the head of a firm. the research was conducted in several major cities (belgrade, nis and novi sad), and a random sample consisted of respondents of both sexes and aged between 18 and 60. more trust in women and a positive attitude among the male respondents showed men aged between 18 and 40 years, 52 percent, as opposed to men older than 40 years, 29 per cent. the reason for this negative attitude towards female leaders among the particular group of men of middle and senior years is the traditional attitude that the role and place of women is exclusively in the family and at home. many men equated female leaders and feminists, and even 20% of women act on behalf of such a view. about 10% of men fear female domination in the business world because, in their opinion, it would reduced the male authority both in the society and family. unlike male respondents, women have, to a large extent, accepted female leaders, and many younger female respondents themselves wanted to prove as leaders. they argued that women have greater capabilities than journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no.3-4, 76-93) 90 men, that women are more educated, more persevere and responsible than men and that they should be given a chance to prove themselves in the the author of the reasearch has concluded on the basis of the findings that women are more discriminated against in this environment, and the reasons for that are the male dominant cultural patterns, which are most often mentioned by the respondents, and which, in combination with economic and social conditions, provide a clearer picture of the situation. women usually wait longer for a job than men, and they lose their jobs and incomes faster than men in times of crisis. (radovic, beraha, jasko, 2010) the difference between the employment rate of working-age women and men is high (in 2010. 45.3 % for men, 31.1% for women). women's salaries for performing work of the same complexity, with the same qualifications and quality are lower than the earnings of men. women lack financial resources in order to start their own business. according to the agency for business registers, women run only around 6,700 small and medium enterprises, that is to say, they have a leadership role. the access of women to managerial and executive positions in serbia is very low. among the directors of companies in the year 2009, only 20.6% were women. (radovic, beraha, jasko, 2010). women in serbia in times of transition often lose their jobs and are, therefore, forced to deal with marginal jobs in the informal sector, so most of them do not have an opportunity to advance. in the previous fifteen years, women did not have a real opportunity to demonstrate their leadership predisposition and affinities due to the fact that most of them did not fight for leadership positions in companies but for mere existence and survival (radovic markovic, 2005). conclusion the leaders are a key, essential part of any successful company, the part that actuates, leads and directs. leaders in an organization are the people who initiate and implement changes successfully. they have the knowledge, imagination, talent and ability to produce change in others. most often they occur in times of crisis, when their complete activity is subject to risk and courage, i.e., coming up with fresh ideas for the success of the company. the demand for them is increasing in the labour market because they provide the companies they come in with the comparative characteristics of female leaders, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 76-93) 91 advantage over the competition. greater leaders' knowledge and skills will be required in the times to come so as for companies to remain competitive in the increasingly complex and turbulent economic conditions. female leaders manifest high quality, efficient management styles and companies in which they predominantly occupy leadership positions achieve better results. on the other hand, there seems to be a general understanding that women are often inferior to men when they compete for the occupation of management positions, because the affirmation of women is more difficult as they are still in the minority in the business world. therefore, women leaders must invest much more effort than their male colleagues in order to gain confidence in the male dominated environment. however, since gaining competitive advantage in the contemporary environment increasingly emphasizes the need for teamwork, cooperation and other leadership styles that female characteristics, their advancement and greater presence in the leadership roles are expected. references [1] antonakis, john, bruce j. avolio, and nagaraj sivasubramaniam. 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[29] yoder, d. janice. journal of social issues, 57(4): 815 828. a p s t r a k t idera, njihovom stilu upravljanja,izazovima i preprekama sa article history: received: 30 august 2011 accepted: 30 october 2011 << /ascii85encodepages true /allowtransparency false /autopositionepsfiles true /autorotatepages /none /binding /left /calgrayprofile (gray gamma 1.8) /calrgbprofile (apple rgb) /calcmykprofile (photoshop 4 default cmyk) /srgbprofile (srgb iec61966-2.1) /cannotembedfontpolicy /error /compatibilitylevel 1.3 /compressobjects /off /compresspages true /convertimagestoindexed true /passthroughjpegimages true /createjdffile false /createjobticket false /defaultrenderingintent /default /detectblends true /detectcurves 0.0000 /colorconversionstrategy /leavecolorunchanged /dothumbnails false /embedallfonts true /embedopentype false /parseiccprofilesincomments true /embedjoboptions true /dscreportinglevel 0 /emitdscwarnings false /endpage -1 /imagememory 524288 /lockdistillerparams false /maxsubsetpct 100 /optimize false /opm 1 /parsedsccomments true /parsedsccommentsfordocinfo true /preservecopypage true /preservedicmykvalues true /preserveepsinfo true /preserveflatness true /preservehalftoneinfo false /preserveopicomments false /preserveoverprintsettings true /startpage 1 /subsetfonts true /transferfunctioninfo /preserve /ucrandbginfo /preserve /useprologue false /colorsettingsfile () /alwaysembed [ true ] /neverembed [ true /courier /courier-bold /courier-boldoblique /courier-oblique /helvetica /helvetica-bold /helvetica-boldoblique /helvetica-oblique /symbol /times-bold /times-bolditalic /times-italic /times-roman /zapfdingbats ] /antialiascolorimages false /cropcolorimages true /colorimageminresolution 150 /colorimageminresolutionpolicy /ok /downsamplecolorimages true /colorimagedownsampletype /bicubic /colorimageresolution 300 /colorimagedepth -1 /colorimagemindownsampledepth 1 /colorimagedownsamplethreshold 1.50000 /encodecolorimages true /colorimagefilter /dctencode /autofiltercolorimages true /colorimageautofilterstrategy /jpeg /coloracsimagedict << /qfactor 0.15 /hsamples [1 1 1 1] /vsamples [1 1 1 1] >> /colorimagedict << /qfactor 0.76 /hsamples [2 1 1 2] /vsamples [2 1 1 2] >> /jpeg2000coloracsimagedict << /tilewidth 256 /tileheight 256 /quality 15 >> /jpeg2000colorimagedict << /tilewidth 256 /tileheight 256 /quality 15 >> /antialiasgrayimages false /cropgrayimages true /grayimageminresolution 150 /grayimageminresolutionpolicy /ok /downsamplegrayimages true /grayimagedownsampletype /bicubic /grayimageresolution 300 /grayimagedepth -1 /grayimagemindownsampledepth 2 /grayimagedownsamplethreshold 1.50000 /encodegrayimages true /grayimagefilter /dctencode /autofiltergrayimages true /grayimageautofilterstrategy /jpeg /grayacsimagedict << /qfactor 0.15 /hsamples [1 1 1 1] /vsamples [1 1 1 1] >> /grayimagedict << /qfactor 0.76 /hsamples [2 1 1 2] /vsamples [2 1 1 2] >> /jpeg2000grayacsimagedict << /tilewidth 256 /tileheight 256 /quality 15 >> /jpeg2000grayimagedict << /tilewidth 256 /tileheight 256 /quality 15 >> /antialiasmonoimages false /cropmonoimages true /monoimageminresolution 1200 /monoimageminresolutionpolicy /ok /downsamplemonoimages true /monoimagedownsampletype /bicubic /monoimageresolution 1200 /monoimagedepth -1 /monoimagedownsamplethreshold 1.50000 /encodemonoimages true /monoimagefilter /ccittfaxencode /monoimagedict << /k -1 >> /allowpsxobjects false /checkcompliance [ /none ] /pdfx1acheck false /pdfx3check false /pdfxcompliantpdfonly false /pdfxnotrimboxerror true /pdfxtrimboxtomediaboxoffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /pdfxsetbleedboxtomediabox true /pdfxbleedboxtotrimboxoffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /pdfxoutputintentprofile () /pdfxoutputconditionidentifier () /pdfxoutputcondition () /pdfxregistryname () /pdfxtrapped /false /description << /enu () >> >> setdistillerparams << /hwresolution [2400 2400] /pagesize [2069.185 1927.460] >> setpagedevice microsoft word 11_jwe_1-2 udc: 37.062 jel: k4; i20 scientific review paper ethical values in education and society lindgren carl edwin, blount la wanna lease a b s t r a c t today, many educators, administrators, and parents are concerned over the startling rise in teen violence. theories are expounded and old concepts are discarded. still, within most school systems, violence, disrespect, and moral decay are quickly becoming the norm. this article provides some insight into how these concerns may be addressed within the school environment by teachers, parents, and administrators. kew words: moral, ethics, ethical values, moral duty, ethical teaching, faith, moral education, values, critical thinking introduction one of society's most important duties should be the teaching of ethical values, i.e. “the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation” (ethics research center, n.p.) the noted scientist and humanitarian albert schweitzer stated, “ethics is the activity of man directed to secure the inner perfection of his own personality” (schweitzer and campion 1987, 57). dr. schweitzer (1979, 119) further states: the presupposition of morality is to share everything that goes on around us, not only in human life but in the life of all creatures. this awareness forces us to do all within our power for the preservation and advancement of life. the great enemy of morality has always been indifference. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 65-76) 66 whether studying mathematics, english or physics, ethical teachings can, in one way or another, be incorporated into the lesson plan. today's muddle of lesson plans, meetings, new curricula, specialization and restrictions leaves teachers and administrators little time for teaching honesty, ethics, values or integrity. in fact, many educators believe that these topics are better covered by religious teachings. however, unlike religion which is based on faith and beliefs, ethics is more a “system of principles of conduct for man as a social being …” and deals with the realm of actualities. (mathews 1896, 376). other educators believe that values must be instilled by parents. however, during the most developmental period of a child’s life, the role of the teacher is paramount. although students are told not to cheat on exams, most other value comments are ignored. even comments regarding cheating are shrouded in fear, embarrassment and getting caught, and not on character development and lofty principles. many high school students graduate, having disrespect for order, authority, justice or values. these students learn many of these characteristics through peer pressure and ethical laziness on the part of instructors. these scientists, future leaders, parents and politicians are, in many ways, devoid of ethical consciousness. replacing time-honored values are indecency, snobbishness, and disrespect for values. (cobbett, 1829: gopalan, k. 1990 195-97). according to the national education association of the united states, it is undeniable that at present there is sweeping over the country, over the entire world in fact, a wave of disrespect for authority. if it affected only the older people, that is, those whose age would presuppose some lingering fragments of gray matter-—somewhat atrophied it is true—the condition would not be so serious. time and a series of first-class funerals, more or less continued, would gradually effect a cure. but the young, by heredity and environment, by precept and example, are being rapidly imbued with the same spirit. our boys and girls have become infected with the identical virus, and one of the most important problems that confront a genuine educator today is how to combat this widespread disaffection. (national education association, 1919, 661). the above statement was written in 1919, alas nearly 100 years later, the situation has gotten worse. william bennett indicates the major downhill disciplinary problems of students between1940-1990. lindgre, c.e., et al., ethical values in education, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 65-76) 67 top disciplinary problems according to a public school teachers table from william j. bennett, the index of leading cultural indicators, facts and figures on the state of american society (new york: touchstone. 1994), 83. source material is from the congressional quarterly. 1940 1990 talking out of turn chewing gum making noise running in the halls cutting in line dress-code violations littering drug abuse alcohol abuse pregnancy suicide rape robbery assault in 1996, robert heron bork write that regarding his opinion of america’s swing toward liberalization and the terrible effect it was having on values and morality. bork maintains that what has gone wrong appears to flow from a poisonous combination of radical egalitarianism and radical individualism. egalitarianism means that faculties have lost self-confidence to tell students what it is they ought to learn.” radical individualism causes students to resist dictation by college authorities and faculty to prefer following their own interests to learning what the institution wants taught. these two forces press higher education in the same direction. (bork 1996, 256). many of these attitudes and values, or lack thereof, derived from the lack of quality general education programs. these programs comprised 55 percent of requirements in 1914 to be reduced by the 1930s to only 33 percent (bork, 1996, 257). bork believed that there must always remain a rigor and moral compass in higher education. bork showed in the final chapter of his book, that there has been for nearly 100 years a constant decline of educational stringency and logic revealed through fewer assignments, the lack of quality work, poorer curriculum, and less work in completing educational goals (bork 1996, 257). the national association of scholars found that the degree of rigor in a curriculum is important to more than how much the student learns. “it also has implications for character formation. the ability to work hard, to persevere in exacting tasks, and to master detail is all critical in determining individual achievement.” (bork, 1996, 257). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 65-76) 68 by 2008 the digest of educational statistic shows an ever increasing trend in criminal disciplinary problems (national center for educational statistics 2007-08, 3). john locke stated that a child’s mind is a blank slate or tabula rasa (p.c.1897, 471). emphasis on learning should be placed on four major cornerstones: wisdom, virtue, breeding and learning (an anglosaxon mother 1917, 7). it is the responsibility of the instructor to make connections between the pre-consciousness and conscious mind. (an anglo-saxon mother 1917, 17). immanuel kant believed that man was neither morally bad nor good (an anglo-saxon mother 1917, 47). moral education in our schools in the 1800s, moral education within the school system was merely an extension of religious teachings. these teachings based on puritan and victorian ethics were beneficial in that they directed the student toward lofty goals and a more spiritual viewpoint. however, the discipline in teaching these goals was often based on misguided obedience to the teacher and total authority. all power was taken from the student and in many cases the child’s will, individuality and spirit were crushed. “spare the rod and spill [sic] the child” (butler, 1662.) was the general adage of the period. in vogue, was the theory as put forth by noted educator herbert spence: the first steps in self-control are taken at the behest of immediate consequences, be these either pleasant or painful. until mind can look into the future and govern adjustment with reference to remote ends, the primitive pleasure-pain economy will and must be the only guide. civilization imposes requirements the true value of which cannot be comprehended in the narrow span of the primitive mind. to wait until natural consequences shall correct misdemeanors is impossible under these conditions (bagley 1907, 111). william bagley offered the viewpoint that teachers must implement many qualities in order to bring about order. they included: authority, effective discipline, tact, persistence, scholarship, justice, good nature, mechanized routine, individual treatment, ability to keep students occupied and substitution rather than repression (bagley 1907, 92-104). even with this viewpoint, children still disobeyed and the outcry of many teachers and administrators was for a change. although teachers see the importance of discipline as it relates to ethics, many also realized that students must be provided with ways to create an inner barometer, using lindgre, c.e., et al., ethical values in education, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 65-76) 69 reason, which would strive to direct children toward ethical living (tiatoria 2010, u.p.). as long as students are taught to strive for personal gain and interests, this selfishness mentality cannot obtain an altruistic spirit. (mathews 1896, 374). by the early 1900s, moral philosophy had begun to gradually change and the pendulum of social and philosophical change was swinging toward a more liberal interpretation of what constituted ethics and morality. according to james l. hughes (1911, 149): rational men and women speak no longer audaciously of breaking a child's will. they aim to aid in giving the child wisdom commensurate with his increasing power, and to keep him occupied, as far as possible, in the execution of his own plans, so that his will may grow strong and controlling by directing his own powers in the achievement of his own purposes. a self-active will is the supreme element that gives real value to character. such a will cannot be developed by subordination; it does develop by co-operation and partnership… . according to this philosophy, the right of a child, and the fullest opportunity to have a life of his own, is a right which should be sacredly respected by his parents. hughes (1911, 149) believes that it is essential to a child’s true growth in character. in the 1920s and early 1930’s many of the writings of the period, reflected the philosophy of getting ahead, securing better training, pleasure seeking and humanism (brown, (ed.), 1936, 118; gilbert, 1933, 178). this mentality continued until the depression era (mcelaine, 1993) when moral teachings once again were emphasized by teachers as a way of facing the difficult social and economic issues of the time. in an issue of educational review, dr. k. gopalan (1990, 195-97) of madras christian college (india) suggested that educators establish a moral and ethical values course for university students. most behavior is, however, well established before college entry. instilling moral responsibility should therefore be assimilated into curricula throughout the lower grades. the graduate school at penn state has developed priorities toward developing commitment to ethics guidelines in their practices. these include: (penn state, n.p.) − promise-keeping by the faculty; − honesty; − respect for students and faculty; journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 65-76) 70 − fairness in grading; − content competence; − pedagogical competency through objectives, and methods; − dealing with sensitive topics in a positive and honest manner; − student intellectual development; − not showing favoritism; − valid assessment of students; − keeping student grades confidential; − faculty being cooperative and respectful to each other and their disciplines; and − respect for institution’s goals and policies. lindgren notes: as an educator, an individual [must be] aware of the social spheres which influence his decisions concerning school policy and those actions which directly influence his students. … a teacher is responsible for correcting those whom he regards as misinformed. at the same time, … [he] should do so with love and kindness. … the teacher should guide the student from ignorance to enlightenment through the use of empirical and rational knowledge.(c. e. lindgren 1977, 1-3.) rather than creating a specific course (a greater burden on the teacher), moral values and concepts should be inter-woven into the coursework and after school activities. teachers, through their actions inside and outside the classroom should strive to live a moral life. this is not done by merely attending church on sundays and believing in an all powerful being but by performing daily, those actions which denote love, virtue, nobility, honesty and understanding. with widely differing political, social and cultural views, such a task is not easy. the benefits, however, would be enormous (miller 1843). amoral and immoral activities there are primarily three theories explaining immoral activities. first, man is inherently evil. without guidance he will choose evil. second, man is basically good. he, will in time, with guidance and direction, evolve into a "perfect" god-like creature. third, some philosophers believe man, as a natural being, will do wrong if given the opportunity. according to this philosophy, man has good intentions but should be trained to choose good over evil (lindgren 1977, 2). lindgre, c.e., et al., ethical values in education, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 65-76) 71 accordingly, a child as a ‘natural being’ has the tendency to do wrong, if given the chance and will continue to do so unless corrected for his failures. this is not to say, however, that man is mean, selfish, sinful and indifferent to the truth, but rather that he is, due to his nature, more willing to take the easy path of existence. it is only during severe crises that the best of man’s nature reveals itself in all its glory and brilliance. the corruption of man’s nature does not compel him to follow evil, because god has supernaturally restored a measure of free will within every man. man as a being of god has the liberty to choose good or evil. an individual is, therefore, responsible for his actions, not only to his fellowmen, but also to his creator (lindgren, 1977, 2). regardless of which theory one accepts, peer pressure, surroundings and home environment play roles in influencing behavior (todd 1846). since children are involved in school activities for most of the day, every attempt should be made to impart ethics and moral values. value teaching should not be aimed at creating perfect individuals but rather ones that perceive right and wrong and can choose those values society and environment deem correct and proper. true education attacks wickedness and bigotry and instills justice, mercy and truth. teachers must emphasize the importance of showing mercy. additionally, it is the role of the educator to assist pupils in developing critical thinking and motivate learning, even at an early age (lindgren 1977, 2; lindgren 1992). to achieve such a goal, learning must be interesting and a teacher must possess a clear apprehension, sound judgment, good understanding and a capacity for reasoning (harris 2011). knowledge of higher goals or purposes is also inherent in most people. it is these principles which we should aspire to develop in the 21st century. with blackberries©, the internet, ipods© and ipads© we often lose sight of our humanity. it is of upmost importance that moral education be structured so pupils can receive intellectual training in the social skills of perception communication and identifying. any society achieving brilliance without conscience is dangerous (gopalan 1990). as we, of a civilized society, continue to grow intellectually and technologically, we have somehow lost many of our hopes, dreams, goals, ethics and morals. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 65-76) 72 values in the 21st century unless good values and morals are taught, and pupils trained in understanding ethical concepts, brilliant and inquisitive minds will be swayed toward the 'darker side' of society. an individual who possesses many degrees and awards but has learned neither ethics nor integrity is still like a small child and deserves no respect (miller 1843). he can easily be persuaded in either direction and his intellect and genius used to the detriment of mankind (fanthorpe 1991, 23-26). as in stalinist russia, nazi germany and other countries, individuals lacking a strong foundation of moral values were easily influenced by leaders possessing intellect, cunning and amoral behavior. moral values as children are spending less time with their parents than in previous generations, emphasis should be upon the impact of schools and their obligations of providing moral education (regarding responsibility of the school, read moral values in public education) (ellis ford hardwick, 1958). educational philosopher john dewey stated that the educational system (teachers, professors and administrators) should try to become more closely related to true life experiences. educator max lerner echoed this view stating that, "the aim of education should be to teach and learn how to aim an education, for the whole person, in the total life span."(lindgren, 1992, 5). dewey, however, believed an absolute good did not exist. "every moral situation is unique having its own un-replaceable good." (jensen and knight 1981, 89). dewey (1909, 17) stated that, "interest in community welfare, an interest that is intellectual and practical, as well as emotional -an interest, that is to say, in perceiving whatever makes for social order and progress, and in carrying these principles into execution -is the moral habit…" moral habit, therefore, comes from educating the student in understanding the benefits of possessing a chivalric spirit and in intensification society's customs and beliefs. if forced to conform due to fear the student “is basically unmoral and may, when provided the opportunity, become immoral when restrictions are removed.” (lindgren 1992, 5). following a tradition with blind faith can be good or bad. habitually following customs does not represent custody of true ethical values. without coherent lindgre, c.e., et al., ethical values in education, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 65-76) 73 thought-provoking understanding of each moral principle amoral behavior exists. as intellectual creatures, we should create a rule and then follow that law, because the law strengthens society. if, however, the rule becomes disadvantageous to society and we still continue in following this custom due to blind tradition, then individuals “no longer operate on a moral basis as we are no longer using the powers of perceiving rationalized conduct. (lindgren 1992, 5) according to strayer and norsworthy (1920, 172), "morality requires that men have a reason for the faith that is in them." the kinetic theory of ethics a belief does not become goodness until the student or educator possessing this faith implements it into his or her behavior pattern. an excellent example would be that of the bible patriarch, abraham who by faith was led to implement his faith through a deed. (genesis 12). an individual may declare the highest beliefs but through his actions remain immoral. saint bernard of clairvaux (1091-1153), states that "hell is full of good intentions…" (killigrew 1894, 213). intentions must be implemented. the statement, "faith without works is dead", which appears in the king james bible (1994, 1649) applies well to this situation. (belok 1966). responsibility although teachers should provide ethical education, this does not always indicate making decisions or supplying laws of do and don't. rather, ethical training denotes that the pupil is taught that integrity is behavior which is reliable and individualized and is foremost to the betterment of one’s self and community. (lindgren, 1992, 6; hall and davis 1975). often, society may deem a certain action immoral (english gentlewoman 1845). this assertion may be based upon what is good for the betterment of society. it is the student’s duty to rationally and morally pick the correct path. one must "establish fixed principles of benevolence, justice, truthfulness . . . and adhere steadfastly to them, despite the allurements of the world, the temptation of ambition or weariness of self conflict." (lunettes 1868). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 65-76) 74 conclusion motivating the student toward moral learning is therefore the educator's primary responsibility. encouraging this type of consciousness, the educator should transmit the information which the pupil has learned to specific situations that have moral meaning (lindgren 1992, 7). it is also the educator's duty to supply opportunities, allowing the pupil to implement new ethical concepts to realistic problems. references [1] an anglo-saxon mother, hindu mind training (london: longmans, green and co., 1917), 7. [2] bagley, william charles. classroom management: it’s principles and technique (ny: macmillan co., 1907), 111. [3] belok, m. o. , r. boltrager, h. c. oswalt, m. s. morris, and e. a. erickson. approaches to values in education. dubuque: wm. c. brown co., 1966. [4] bennett, william j. the index of leading cultural indicators, facts and figures on the state of american society (new york: touchstone. 1994), 83. source material is from the congressional quarterly. [5] bork, robert h. slouching towards gomorrah, modern liberalism and american decline (new york, regan books, simon and schuster, 1996), 256. [6] brown, raymond (ed.), popular science apr 1936 – vol. 128, no. 4, 118. [7] butler, samuel. hudibras, 1662. [8] cobbett, william. advice to young men, and (incidentally) to young women in the middle and higher ranks of life. london: mills, jowett and mills, 1829: [9] dewey, john, moral principles in education (ny: houghton mifflin company, 1909), 17. [10] english gentlewoman: or, hints to young ladies on their entrance into society. london: henry colburn, publisher, 1845. [11] ethics research center . ethics glossary, http://www.ethics.org/resource/ethicsglossary accessed 1 january 2011, n.p. [12] fanthorpe. "moral and ethical education: a question of priority," education today 41(2) 1991, 23-26. [13] genesis 12, bible (king james version) (nashville: thomas nelson publishers 1994), 15-6. [14] dan gilbert, crucifying christ in our colleges (ca: alex dulfer printing co., 1933), 178. [15] gopalan, k. "whither moral education in college curriculum?" the educational review (india) 96(11), (november,1990) 195-97. [16] harris, robert. “on the purpose of a liberal arts education,” http://www.virtualsalt.com/libarted.htm accessed 15 january 2011. lindgre, c.e., et al., ethical values in education, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 65-76) 75 [17] hartford, ellis ford moral values in public education lessons from the kentucky experience. new york: harper & brothers, publishers, 1958. [18] hughes, james j. “old and new training,” educational foundations (n y: the ives-butler co. vol. 22., 1911), 149. [19] james 2:20, “book of james,” bible, (king james version) (nashville: thomas nelson publishers 1994), 1649. [20] jensen, larry c. and richard s. knight. moral education (washington, d c: university press of america, 1981), 89. [21] killigrew, notes and queries (the oxford journals, march 17, 1894), 213. [22] lerner, max “values in education notes toward a values philosophy.” bloomington: phi delta kappa, 1976. [23] lindgren, c. e. "a philosophy of education," the educational review 83(1), (january, 1977), 1-3. [24] lindgren, c. e. “pearls of wisdom, gems of life,” the educational review, 98(1), (january 1992), 4-7. [25] lunettes, henry. the gentleman’s guide to politeness and fashion, philadelphia: claxton remsen & haffelfinger 1868. [26] mcelvaine, robert s. the great depression: america, 1929-1941, ny: random house, inc., 1993. [27] mathews, byron c. “sociology in ethical education,” appleton’s popular science monthly, william jay youmans (ed.) (ny: appleton and co., vol. 24, 1896), 374-76. [28] miller, samuel. letters from a father to his son in college. philadelphia: grigg and ellot, 1843. [29] national center for educational statistics, 2009 u.s. department of education crime, violence, discipline, and safety in u.s. public schools, findings from the school survey on crime and safety: 2007-08, 3. [30] national education association. addresses and proceedings of the national education association of the united states (nea, vol lvii, 1919), 661. [31] p. c. “history of philosophy,” a review of history of philosophy by alfred weber. the monist, vol 7, 1897, 471. [32] radcliffe, david hill. “a thinker behind and ahead of his time, “ a review of character and culture: essays on east and west, by irving babbitt, with a new introduction by claes g. ryn. this is a bibliography of babbitt's writings, and an index to all of babbitt's books. [33] schweitzer, albert and c. t. campion, the philosophy of civilization: part i, the decay and the restoration of civilization : part ii, civilization and ethics (prometheus books, 1987), 57. [34] schweitzer, albert. reverence for life: sermons 1900-1919 (ardent media, 1979), 119. [35] strayer, george drayton and naomi norsworthy. how to teach (new york: the macmillan co., 1920). 172. [36] the graduate school http: www.gradsch.psu.edu//facstaff//atethics.html. penn state as accessed on 20 november 2010. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 1-2, 65-76) 76 [37] tiatoria, anthony. ethics in education, http://www.ethicsineducation.com/ as accessed 8 september 2010. these workbooks aid in assisting student to learn ethics as they learn the discipline of world history. [38] todd, john the young man hints addressed to the young men of the united states. northampton: j. h. butler, 1846. "it discusses in an able, earnest, and affectionate manner the subject of character, and its value and foundation; of the temptations of young men, their habits, industry and economy, cultivation of the mind, self-government and religious views; …”— bjingor [me.) whig and courier. article history: received: 8 march 2011 accepted: 14 april 2011 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.34.pp123-145 jel: m53, o13, 031,032, 033, 035, q01, q42, q43, q46 scientific paper ‘women power’ in renewable energy: the role of nested institutions in vocational training of solar energy entrepreneurs in india boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay1 westminster international university in tashkent, school of business and economics, tashkent, uzbekistan a b s t r a c t conventional myths such as the poor are misfit to manage smart technologies or that women-led rural enterprises generally fall through faster than men managed ones have since been broken as evidenced by various empirical studies. however, the research on solar energy enterprises managed by women, particularly in rural or peri-urban areas, has remained largely elusive while the impact of such womenled entrepreneurial energy-based start-ups has significant personal, social and community level consequential impacts. a range of institutional arrangements that support these entrepreneurs starting from identifying, training to building and sustaining of such start-ups are explored and evaluated in this paper. this paper shows that not only do women collectively run these enterprises but they also successfully incubate others in the community. the context of solar energy in rural communities has become all the more important for both a practitioner as well as a theoretical understanding of women entrepreneurship. this research deploys a qualitative method approach that uses both primary and secondary data; this is then put through a lens of systematic thematic analysis for discussion. the work contributes to policy discussions as well as build an empirical knowledge of how 1 e-mail: rick.boidurjo@wiut.uz 124 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 123-145) women-led solar technology-based enterprises are built, managed, sustained and scaled in rural areas key words: entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial mindset, solar energy technologies, gender, rural development, community development, renewables industry, india, institutions, aiwc, entrepreneurial training, learning and education introduction the initiatives in south asia to disseminate solar energy technology applications in poor rural households and also develop rural energy-based entrepreneurship have proven positively consequential in contributing to community development and rural development. the penetration of renewable energy technologies (rets, hereafter) in the form of solar home systems (shs, hereafter), solar lanterns, solar headlamps, solar crop dryers amongst several other types in rural households and the use of these technologies to create micro-enterprises have been widely cited as successful cases of solar renewables transforming communities and wider society. in rural india, the importance of women, being the primary users of household energy for cooking and heating, in the context of energy have been widely recognised by prominent and effective renewable energy-based institutions like the energy and resources institute (teri), aiw c (all india women’s association), sewa (self employed women’s association), tide (technology informatics design endeavour), & selco (solar electric light company of india) and many others. one of the core objectives of these institutions have been to involve more women and transform them into energy entrepreneurs. households who receive the shs use the technology to start micro-enterprises from home by making and selling different home-made handicraft goods e.g., jute and silk products (mukhopadhyay, 2017). cases can be found across rural societies of south asia where microfinance organisations would offer small credit to women entrepreneurs to start renewable-based enterprises in their community (e.g., gramin bank and brac in bangladesh offering similar credit facilities). empirical studies exhibit that these women are found to be marketing photo-voltaic (pv, hereafter) systems, co-farming with their household heads using solar irrigation pumps and solar crop dryers, and also operating/running solar mobile charging systems (barua, 2007). besides their entrepreneurial initiatives with solar energy technologies, the women entrepreneurs in rural societies are not only actively engaging in complex business decision making boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 125 processes but also making, servicing, marketing, installing and selling solar energy technologies. it is therefore important to understand the background enabling conditions of these entrepreneurs that creates this scenario – this is where the current literature remains elusive and this research paper positions itself to fill the knowledge gap. all india women’s conference (aiwc) in india started providing women with solar lanterns and solar charging stations in urban and peri-urban regions of the country. these women in urban and rural areas would charge their lanterns during the daytime, and then later in the evening, they would rent out the solar lanterns to street vendors (selling vegetables, flowers, fruits, and other perishable commodities) and also to households that do not have electricity or face long hours of a power cut. the aiwc has also successfully implemented initiatives in solar-powered water purifier systems where women would sell purified potable water to the locality at very nominal rates (aiwc, 2009). in many communities across india, these solar energy-based micro-enterprises also hired other people from the local community. this has encouraged and in fact, triggered local entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial mindset (especially women, who count for 36% of the same) (unep, 2011), rural women are assembling solar accessories in village-based technology centres, solar engineers are increasingly employed in designing shs, working in battery factories, and other accessory related businesses. importantly, therefore, it becomes crucial to understand the ‘packaging’ of rural energy-based programmes. the references made to the solar energy technologies earlier and related enterprises speak of a combination of various entrepreneurial components such as capacity building, technology transfer, training, financing, costing, and marketing. it would be imperative that innovative credit system, appropriate product design, grassroots-based effective and efficient after-sales-service along with other consumer-friendly options play a colossal role in above-mentioned cases. in light of the theoretical content, practitioner terms in rets, and conceptual references made in this study, some of the keywords solar energy entrepreneurs, institutions and institutional arrangements in particular, are explored in the literature in the following section. 126 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 123-145) background institutions and institutional arrangements the concept of an institution can be popularly perceived as “enduring regularities of human action in. situations structured by rules, norms, and shared strategies, as well as by the physical world. the rules, norms and shared strategies and constituted and reconstituted by human interaction in frequently occurring or repetitive situations.” (crawford & ostrom, 1995: 582). institutional arrangements are the policies, systems, and processes that organisations use to legislate, plan and manage their activities efficiently and to effectively coordinate with others in order to fulfil their mandate (undp, 2000). institutional arrangements are interpreted as different (in)formal regimes and coalitions for collective action and inter-agent coordination, ranging from public-private cooperation and contracting schemes, organisational networking to policy arrangements (geels, 2004; klein & teisman, 2000). they include both formal and informal arrangements, can range from local to the global level, and may give rise to compliance or resistance. institutional arrangements, understood as the dynamic set of formal and informal regulations and networks, are shaped by economic exchange, socio-cultural norms and political regimes, and may provide welfare, identity, solidarity and sense of belonging (knack & keefer, 1997). when related to development, the challenge is to understand the correlation between weak, missing or perverse institutional arrangements and poverty, inequality and resource degradation (rodrik, 2002; knack & keefer, 1995). institutional arrangements play a significant role in determining the efficacy of a given set of policy or technological intervention (north, 1990). at the same time, the institutional design is key to development as it determines whether an institution promotes socially productive ends that benefit all members of society or are redistribute and benefit a small segment of society at the expense of others (firmin-sellers, 1995: 204). in the context of this research, nested institution is the concept that is of particular relevance. ostrom (1990) suggests that ‘multiple, nested institutions’ matters because “in many urban policy spheres private and social benefits are mixed together defying attempts at pure market or pure government classifications for the provision of services”. in other words, multiple institutions, ‘appropriately nested’ can correct either gross market or boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 127 state failure when single rather than multiple institutional provisions are applied (pugh, 1996). entrepreneurship and defining a solar energy entrepreneur the archetypical and for-profit entrepreneurs who have been widely defined and explored as someone who initiates, organises, manages and controls the affairs of a business unit. they can also be the organiser (say, 1840), speculator (marshall, 1961) and also an innovator (schumpeter, 1934) and the concept of entrepreneurship is often invoked to explain aspects such as economic development (schumpeter, 1939), firm organisation (knight, 1921), market dynamics (kirzner, 1973), and leadership (witt, 1998a). social entrepreneurs, on the other hand, “play the role of change agents in the social sector, by adopting a mission to create and sustain social value (not just private value), recognising the relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission, engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning, acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and exhibiting heightened accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created” (dees, 1998:15). sustainable entrepreneurship or ‘sustainopreneurship’ is also very relevant in the context of this research, this is defined as “the discovery and exploitation of economic opportunities through the generation of market disequilibria that initiate the transformation of a sector towards an environmentally and socially more sustainable state” (hockerts & wustenhagen (2010: 82). a solar energy entrepreneur is “someone who would do one or a combination of the following buy, rent, borrow, sell, maintain, service, manufacture or install any or a mix of solar energy technologies for setting up one or more income-generating energy-based enterprise/s.” (mukhopadhyay, 2020). examples of these technologies would include solar home lighting systems, solar lanterns, solar crop dryers, solar kilns, solar wax melters, solar cookers, solar lamps and headlamps, solar irrigation pumps, solar mobile phone chargers, solar vans, and short-haul transport mobility vans amongst many others. the applications and multi-faceted use of these technologies are visible in both rural and urban areas. however, a wide range of local-level applications is largely seen in rural areas where communities get involved in the process of use and expansion of these technologies by eventually perceiving that the solar energy technologies are not ‘additives’ or ‘add-on’ energy options but an ‘asset’ (mukhopadhyay, 2020). 128 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 123-145) methodology an exploratory research strategy was adopted that used qualitative case study method using a systematic thematic analysis. this is in line with important recommendations in the literature (dana & dana, 2005, dana & dumez, 2015) pointing out the need for expanding research methodologies in the area of entrepreneurship beyond quantitative studies and thus embracing more inductive and holistic perspectives. braun and clarke (2006:79) views thematic analysis as a method used for ‘identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns (themes) within the data’. generally, thematic analysis is the most widely used qualitative approach to analysing interviews. thematic analysis involves the identification of themes through ‘careful reading and re-reading the data’ (rice & ezzy, 1999: 258). it is a form of pattern recognition within the data, where emerging themes become the categories for analysis. this approach complemented the research questions by facilitating an investigation of the interview data from both data-driven and research question perspectives, to check whether the data remained consistent with the research questions and providing sufficient information (crabtree & miller, 1999). codes and themes the coding process involved recognising an important moment and encoding prior to a process of interpretation (boyatzis, 1998). encoding the information organises the data to identify and develop themes from them. boyaztis (1998:1) defined a theme as ‘a pattern in the information that at minimum describes and organises the possible observations and at maximum interprets aspects of the phenomenon‛. coding is the process of organising and sorting data since it serves as a way to label, compile and organize data. in linking data collection and interpreting the data, coding becomes the basis for developing the analysis. the questions employed in the interviews were open-ended to begin with, followed by semistructured questions keeping the key points relevant to the research questions and respondents’ posts and positions. the main categories and codes were identified from the data by observing patterns in responses from different interviewee groups. the fieldwork took place in new delhi and the state of karnataka in india. interviews were held in aiwc offices in both new delhi and bangalore city in india. it included senior management staffs and project managers, in addition to project level-staff members, a total of 18 women boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 129 entrepreneurs with a mix of some who were either being trained or those already running their solar energy-based enterprises for at least 2 years. participant observation and key informant interviews were conducted during field visits. in addition, secondary data from aiwc such as case files and reports, white papers, project evaluation reports and portfolios were consulted for this research. in both places where fieldwork took place, the regions have experienced a wide range of similar initiatives from renewable energy-based institutions and actors involved. the research, therefore, made use of both primary and secondary sources of data. for the primary data, a semistructured questionnaire was used along with participant observation method which had two versions – one for selected women entrepreneurs and the other for aiwc staff members supporting these entrepreneurs through training, helping to develop business ideas and management of the same, providing finance and helping to access new markets. findings and analysis investigating the patterns of interaction and outcomes generated by looking at aiwc’s operational model and the extent to which they regularly interact with a broad range of (see figure 1) main clients are women entrepreneurs, research bodies, mnre, rural cooperatives and ireda. besides the ngos and vos, the aiwc also buys rets from private rets manufacturers such as tata power solar and urja unlimited; they also organise training programmes so that women in relatively disadvantaged communities can learn how to make basic rets at home and develop micro enterprises based on it. it is thus important to understand these different stakeholders and their patterns of interaction to study what outcomes are generated for solar based entrepreneurial initiatives. codes are identified in each of these sections that would help in the thematic analysis presented later. looking at the range of services that aiwc offers to their clients, the following are discussed. 130 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 123-145) figure 1: an illustration of stakeholders of aiwc source: adapted from mukhopadhyay (2017) partnerships to facilitate training and development programmes some primary and also major impediments to any solar-based micro enterprises sources from lack of basic and practical knowledge. the women and youth who are running the solar-based enterprises are not able to solve the minor problems of solar devices & maintain, repair and install the solar devices. consequently, they are dependent on external sources and that can be both costly and time-consuming process. thus, the aims of training programmes conducted by the aiwc have been to identify and enhance the capability of low-income group of women/youth from identified resettlement colonies to develop into potential entrepreneurs to assemble, repair and maintain solar devices/energy efficient devices and create a self-sustaining model and local eco-system. the model shall result into a successful demonstration that a women/youth group could be successful entrepreneurs and contribute to consequential and value (monetary) generating livelihood activities. “the training programmes are easy to follow and have a good organisation of resources, we basically start from zero in terms of technical knowhow but we’re familiar with the usefulness of the rets as (ngo) colleagues have talked about that earlier. this provides a good starting point. women are particularly focused on understanding how to boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 131 make use of the rets to run a business that can be home based, income-generating and involve other women from the local community” the training programmes that aiwc designs and sets up are either in resettlement colonies in new delhi or in the suburbs around noida, there have been around 15-20 trainees in each group. the time period of each training program has been approximately 1 month with 20 sessions that contained both theory as well as practical classes. urja unlimited provided the technical training and products (e.g., solar lanterns, home lighting system & led devices) for these programmes. with an increase in discussions around climate change and global warming, products such as solar dryer, parabolic and box type cookers; waste management, vermin compost, biogas, self-help group formation & peat pot development have been taught by experts from the industry who were hired as consultants. aiwc staff gets invited to cover the exhaustive syllabus for both theoretical as well as practical classes. at the end of each training programme, there is a test and evaluation session. these training programs had been conducted in the supervision of training-convener and trainees had been selected with the help of local ngos and the local contacts. “one month is a less fragile period of terms of holding up to their motivation; what i am learning is less important than how is it going to affect me after the training is over is what the participants carry in their minds. so, 20 sessions in one month involves quite a lot of training input, and they do take these in before they are evaluated where most of the participants have been noted to get a pass there are some really smart women who continues to stay in touch and look for further training programmes” the above quote captures the strategy of the programme design and content, it is to be noted once again that the participants are mainly poor or from relatively less poor categories of the society, so it does make sense not to design programme that will probably going to take them off from their daily lives for a longer period of time leading to possible drop outs. in regards to selecting 15-20 participants in each group, it is highly important to note that in most of these programmes, there is often more than 1 trainer per group, there is usually an additional facilitator who also responds to individual queries and address problems encountered by the participants. the training programmes are highly hands-on, and this allows the participants to get 132 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 123-145) individual attention from the trainer and the training assistants, this leads to higher efficiency and thus clearly more involvement during the process. engaging unemployed youth/women who are potential solar engineers the end goal of aiwc’s training programmes is to provide an opportunity to trained women/youth to do the following. at each of these stages above, it involves a range of actors that contributes towards the final outcome. it has to be noted that the participants are usually allotted a time frame to engage in the process with a specific firm. since aiwc is also the nodal agency for the mnre (ministry of new and renewable energy), it has got quite a commendable list of networks of firms that they can closely ally with to support these individuals (youth/women). upon completion of the apprenticeship period, the individuals are then supported to set up their own solar charging station, or a maintenance store where users can come down as a one stop troubleshoot store. these trainings are usually provided during the training and awareness campaign as discussed in the earlier section, and it has been observed that in most cases it is the women who set up the maintenance and repair shops where men are found to set up solar charging stations. the role of ngos is also key here to the success of these initiatives because it helps in collaborating with multiple stakeholders at the grassroots. once these individuals are found to be set up as a solar engineer, there appears to develop a trend in the colonies or in the suburbs where neighbors of these newly built entrepreneurs try to step up and do something similar. this would involve not only to set up newer and more solar charging stations, but includes the use of solar lanterns and solar cookers to set up mini stalls and small business around their living areas. the community develops over time consequently. 1. engage with solar manufacturer and service firm and to establish their own service centre 2. to create income by providing service as maintain, repair and installation of solar devices 3. to maintain their own solar based charging station 4. to start a sales centre boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 133 “rita was managing her maintenance shop for over two months and she secured around 20 clients who came on a repeat basis with their cookers, lamps and batteries, over time her neighboring family decided to use one of the lanterns given for free by the ngo to use it for selling garlands in the colony after dark for customers returning from offices after 7pm. this trend was missing before because people haven’t used these technologies before but now, they realise the technologies are giving them additional opportunities, time and money” partnerships across regions on potential incubation aiwc tested simulation using solar lanterns and solar air dryers, these two being the most popular rets used by their entrepreneurs. for the solar air dryers, the awic launched two very similar schemes in two different parts of the country in 2011. first in new delhi followed by installing the same capacity in kerala in south india. interestingly, one succeeded while the other did not and this simulation was particularly useful for building up the lessons learnt and knowledge database. primary objectives were to demonstrate the commercial viability of solar drying of fruits & vegetables on a microenterprise scale and also to establish its suitability for wealth creation among the poor women. secondary ones were to study the market for dried/processed fruits and vegetables in general and solar dried/processed products in particular; in addition, that the objective was also to explore the various means of structuring the solar drying project in terms of financing and asset ownership; also, to establish a set of specifications for solar dryer (hardware) and processing technology (software) for the various dried/processed fruits and vegetables. a case is presented below to clarify how the rets business simulation was run. (aiwc, 2013) drying of fruits and vegetables is one of the chief means of preserving the wide variety of seasonal fruits that india abounds in. among the many techniques of drying, sun drying is widely practiced. in india, hardly 2% of the horticultural produce i.e. fruits and vegetables are processed whereas countries like thailand, philippines, and the usa process more than 70% of their produce. the fruits and vegetables processed in the form of fruit pulp constitute 50% and dehydrated products only 2.22% i.e. 33,000 tons per annum (aiwc, 2008). solar drying technology offers an alternative (to sun 134 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 123-145) drying) with zero energy cost and processes the vegetable and fruits in a clean, hygienic and sanitary condition of national and international standards. aiwc realised that the solar dryer technology can be utilised in smallscale food processing industries for producing hygienic quality food products while at the same time this would promote renewable energy sources in income-generating unit. they had some success with it in new delhi in the past, so they decided to go ahead and replicate the model in tamil nadu. the process had two parts, firstly, training and installation of dryer in four locations and secondly, to carry out production on experimental basis. experiments were done with different products in different locations based on available resources and demands along with the validation of technology. mango bars, ginger powder, need powder and fenugreek powder for diabetic patients, desiccated coconut powder are some of the many products. figure 2: steps identified in the sample simulation using solar lanterns and solar dryers training programme included demonstration on mango bar processing in solar dryers in the selected regions. the program basically focused on preparation of mango bars. it also gave demonstration on processing of tomato, ginger, coconut, green chilies, curry leaves, and mint leaves using solar dryers. trainers demonstrated the use of the ret, participants found the solar dryer very good for use in the micro-level food-processing programs that are ideally suited for selfhelp groups. in kerala, solar dryer training was a five day intensive training program with 13 beneficiaries, 10 from shgs boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 135 (self-help groups) and 3 from mahila samagam branch. 17.3 kg of mango bar was prepared as a part of training. table 1: marketing of solar air dryer products product preparation steps marketing details 1.the products were identified on the basis of season, fruits and vegetables available in the local market and market survey 2.the branch in tamil nadu experimented with tomato powder, curry lead powder, kasuri methi and bitter gourd powder. 3. delhi pilot prepared dried tomato slices, kasuri methi, mango. bars, kadi masala powder, tomato powder, amla powder and ginger powder. the members at delhi centre dried basil, pudina and drumstick leaves. 1.the prepared products were sold at the calculated prices based on the production cost. a percentage of packed products were supplied as samples to retailer and canteens for testing. till the pilot stage all the solar dryer units were promoting marketing through known linkages. 2.at the delhi centre, packs of tomato slices were distributed, as samples to specialty outlets, restaurants and other products were sold through aiwc counter at main branch. mango bars, methi leaves and ginger powder were sold like hot cakes. table 1, above, shows the marketing procedure. the market study at delhi and experiences revealed that mango bar toffee can be marketed through school canteens and can fetch a good profit. kerala unit tried to market the products through known linkages. while tamil nadu pilot experimented with tomato powder, kadi leaf powder, kasuri methi, mango bar and bitter gourd powder, the pilot in delhi tried tomato powder/slices, kasuri methi, kadi masala powder, mango bars and ginger powder. pilot in kerala experimented with curd green chilies, curd bitter gourd, black pepper, rice wafers and tapioca wafers. all the products were selected carefully on the basis of availability of raw materials. results showed that dried tomato slices/powder was prepared at tamil nadu and delhi pilots. at tamil nadu about 1.7 kg of tomato powder was produced and 1.65 kg was sold which fetched 25% profit. solar dried tomato powder was preferred in chennai as tomato finds a very prominent place in south indian cuisine. delhi pilots prepared tomato slices and powder but faced a loss of 47%. the reason was one batch got fungus infestation due to 136 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 123-145) humidity in rainy season. again, consumers did not prefer dried tomato slices. these products find market in specialty stores who already had supply linkages with other enterprises. tomato powder produced by delhi pilot was received well in the market because consumers used the powder to make tomato soup. kadi masala powder is prepared by mixing kadi leaf powder with red chili powder, channel dal powder, dhania powder, garlic powder, salt and refined oil. the powder is used in south indian cuisine and north indians also use the same in curd to make it spicy. delhi pilot prepared the kadi masala powder. the consumers appreciated the product and encouraged the unit by placing orders. the product was found marketable in delhi market. summary of key lessons learnt and shared from the case the project experiences will be used in the recent future when a shgs or individuals will use solar dryer concept in an enterprise. project provides sufficient space for the women to use the experiences for income generation. this will not only fetch income for the women but will also cultivate entrepreneurial ability and self-reliance amongst them. the products should be identified on the basis of cheap raw materials available in the raw market. it’s better to prepare the products in the season when the local market is flushed with the raw material. otherwise, a tie-up could be made with the farmers that the unit will buy a particular amount of the harvest at wholesale price. due emphases should also be given to consumers’ preference in the local area. a particular product is preferred in delhi market but is rejected in chennai market because of differences in food habits. market research should be done for local market. initially the product must satisfy the nearest market lesson 1: tomato powder is more profitable to produce in southern india lesson 2: ‘regional conditions and consumer preferences’ needs to be considered as a determining factor for solar air dryer food products. the choice of solar technology isn’t the key condition lesson 1: product rightly identified and marketed lesson 2: regional condition and consumer’s preference is after all an important determinant before setting up a rets generated food based micro enterprises boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 137 demand, as it will make the marketing easier. each product should necessarily bear the message that the product is solar dried and hygienically prepared. develop self-sufficiency in youth/women to run energy-based businesses aiwc runs a series of initiatives starting from running awareness and training programmes to setting up small firms installed with solar charging stations to replicating successful models elsewhere to increase the organisational knowledge database. in the process of doing so, the development of self-sufficiency in youth/women to run energy-based businesses is visible. “the feeling of self-sufficiency takes a long time to develop, it starts from the training programmes when they (the participants) are informed about the prospective benefits of running an energy-based business and that they don’t have to rely on their local municipality or gram panchayat anymore to avail their social protection benefits. women were also told that they don’t have to migrate out from their base and most of the initiatives can be home-based and they can send their kids to the school. we provided adequate training to these women for over 20 years now, for various different initiatives, it started off with the simple technology of parabolic solar cooker which was new at that time, and now solar charging stations that are quite popular in the communities these days” two more things observed here – firstly, the concept of security and stability of women in their home area. generally, men are more likely to migrate out than women running renewable energy-based businesses. the assurance that aiwc provides plays a vital role in securing the expectations of the women that the business can be run from home without the need to move out and leave an established set up. secondly, the entrepreneurs are made known that aiwc starts their supporting mechanism from early awareness meetings through the process of training and nurturing entrepreneurial capacities in the entrepreneurs to guiding them till the 138 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 123-145) business takes off. this is a great support for entrepreneurship at any level for both motivational, stability and security purposes. discussions and implications the public-private partnership model visible in the aiwc’s operation is interesting. the actors that are involved with the aiwc at different levels are ngos, mnre, ireda, renewable energy manufacturers, trainers and leaders from university as well as industry. for each particular purpose, starting from awareness campaigns (partnering with ngos), sponsoring training programmes (partnering with mnre and ireda), providing technologies (urja unlimited) to building entrepreneurial capacity by development workshops (trainers and research agencies). these actors are thus vital components of aiwc’s working model. in particular, the role of ngos is undermined but the importance of awareness raising programmes are vital because the rets and initiatives to develop women entrepreneurs requires a societal support and especially from the households where they belong to. a big part of the operational success of any such initiative calls for a well-nurtured and sensitised community where they have been made aware of the benefits and challenges of adopting a change. table 2: data analysis structure for aiwc patters of interaction and outcomes generated codes themes working with partners to facilitate training and development programmes 1. practical training 2. skills-based test 3. simulation programmes 4. guided and participatory process participatory training and learning, simulation opportunities engaging with unemployed youth/women who are potential ‘solar engineers’ 1. support from apprentice to start-up stage 2. participatory learning support 3. women maintain and repair solar technologies comprehensive long run entrepreneurial support, women repairing rets. working with partners in different regions to replicate 1. importance of situational factors situational factors of business, identifying right business and boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 139 patters of interaction and outcomes generated codes themes 2. inclusion of entrepreneurs as a part of the simulation to share learning 3. identifying the right business to choose and grow 4. cultivate entrepreneurial ability region specific, funding available for start-ups develop selfsufficiency in youth/women to run energy-based businesses 1. early awareness meetings 2. developing a sense of independency 3. ensuring stability 4. support from training stage to business takeoff focus on awareness and knowledge sharing, entrepreneurs developing a sense of self-sufficiency a ‘participatory approach’ in training, learning and simulation opportunities the cases cited earlier in the paper shows that training and learning programmes are developed and run by a host of institutions that are partnering with the aiwc. during the training programmes, trainer and facilitators coming in from universities and research institutes participates and interacts with the entrepreneurs in person, shaping it like action-learning and answering any questions. the opportunity provided for business model simulation enhances a higher understanding of situational factors that play a large role in ensuring potential business success, especially in the case of food business where entrepreneurs are trained to use solar air dryer. the knowledge of lessons learnt ensures that the learning process is continuous both for the entrepreneurs as well as aiwc as an institution. 140 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 123-145) figure 3: identifying stakeholder partnerships and interaction levels for aiwc provision of a holistic and long-run entrepreneurial skill-building support as evidenced earlier in this section, aiwc help in building women ‘solar engineers’ who are also entrepreneurs boosted by various initiatives. in some cases, men are leading a solar charging station while women are repairing and maintaining the technologies. the process that aiwc follows to build women entrepreneurs is a journey with several steps and over an extended timeline. they start by awareness campaigns whereby the benefits and challenges of using rets are explained. this includes not only explaining the benefits of using renewable energy technologies or becoming an entrepreneur; but also making women more aware of societal issues such as they do not need to leave their community and the business can be based at home – this ensures a sense of stability and security. awareness campaigns, training and development – being the initial steps, the institutions also offer finance to support a new start-up while providing business training and knowledge support. after a business takes-off, aiwc also remain in frequent touch to see the progress of the enterprise and helps in further scaling up in the future. •partnering with mnre and ireda •partnering with urja limited •partnering with ngo •partnering with training and research agencies building entrepreneur ial capacity 1. awareness campaigns 2. sponsoring training programmes . 3. providing solar energy technologies boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 141 this is largely missing in most other development impact initiatives in rural areas. situational factors of business identifying the right business and region, accessing start-up capital “it was important to learn what were the food habits of people in order to popularise the solar cookers and solar dryers and solar pumps while working with tribal area in mozda, gujarat, before any change was introduced. what kind of cattle the household has for instance norms could for a gobar gas plant is viable for 5-6 cattle? it is not always the number but also the health and the nutrition available to the cattle would be accounted for. rigid specifications would lead to failure. sometimes the government officers had gone making structure for gobar gas plants without training or involving the people. ngos and government need to work as active collaborators to popularize these technologies and make any programmes successful. thus, for any organisational working closely with the grassroots needs an entire set of local knowledge at various levels in order to start designing program planning and approach” mnre and ireda are the two other key actors that the aiwc closely collaborates with, this is firstly because mnre had appointed aiwc as its nodal agency to disseminate technology and training campaigns on nonconventional energy in different regions of the country and secondly, ireda provides the seed funding for all programmes and initiatives that aiwc comes up with. this also acts as a security because in several cases (as the solar air dryer case in kerala), some of the costly initiatives may not generate expected result. the renewable energy manufacturers are, however, a key actor for aiwc, this is because the nature of demand has been constantly changing and thus the consequence on cost. aiwc’s wide network of manufacturers, considering it is a nodal agency for the mnre, brings in the best deals with guaranteed maintenance provision in the country. aiwc also brings in industry experts from both the re industry and the universities – and these actors can be seen providing training in their awareness 142 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 123-145) programmes. this evidences that this sector has activised and benefits from the triple helix relations at play. in addition to the above factors, another common phenomenon noticed from most of the initiatives that aiwc have taken up, especially the recent ones (over the past 10 years) with renewable energy technology development and dissemination of the same to rural masses, is the continual involvement of voluntary agencies. this has clearly increased public awareness of various energy-saving devices and people have expressed a higher level of interest and perception of the same due to the fact that these voluntary agencies work closely with the communities and households to help them understand/accept any change. this is important because in rural areas, no new change or a technology so to speak, can be introduced without an initial stage involving ‘sensitisation’, and this is very much possible with the action and involvement of voluntary agencies. the initiatives and activities of aiwc over the years have set an example for several other institutions, both at the regional and national levels to develop rural livelihoods especially by targeting and benefitting women in peri-urban and rural india by providing nonconventional technologies alongside providing adequate training and business support. aiwc also organised a wide range of awareness programmes on other technologies like the use and maintenance of biogas plant, solar cooker improver and other rets sources such as wind mills, solar stills, solar drier, solar lanterns. these became a regular series of programmes under the wing of ‘strategies for mainstreaming women in science and technology, policy formulation, development and dissemination’. since aiwc is one of the key and dominant nodal agencies of the mnre, funding and access to resources is not a problem and thus the programmes were ably demonstrated in different parts of the country on a regular basis. this ensured consistency and regularity which kept up the motivation and interest of the growing pool of participants who became advocate on using rets for creation of incomegenerating micro enterprises. implications and conclusion firstly, in light of the findings of this study it is crucial to acknowledge and understand the importance of knowledge of the local context and situational business factors. having active hands-on knowledge partners helps design and develop better support mechanism. secondly, the case study boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 143 evaluations in this paper strongly suggests that rigid technical specification may limit the success of the programmes, e.g., when government officers tried to make structure gobar gas plants without training or involving the people, programmes have failed. thirdly, when technologies are designed tailored to region-specific conditions, it has been found that they can be transferable. fourthly, the many benefits that triple helix relations in this sector brings. this study explored and analysed a large number of training programmes organised by the aiwc that were also micro-enterprise specific, e.g., the solar cooker and solar battery charger programmes was meant to train women and youth to be self-sufficient to run their charging station without external support. the objective was to engage unemployed women and youth folks to become ‘solar engineers’ to cater to local energy needs, establish their own service centre, 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[39] witt, u. 1998a. “imagination and leadership – the neglected dimension of an evolutionary theory of the firm”. journal of economic behaviour & organization. 35(2), 161–177. article history: received: 2 august, 2020 accepted: 12 november, 2020 microsoft word 10_jwe_1-2.doc review book review entrepreneurship types of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade, 2009 trying to perceive the versatile structure of entrepreneurship, we realize that this research area can be analyzed from several aspects. whether we look at the entrepreneurship through the contribution it provides to economic growth, through job creation, competition growth or from the perspective of various forms in which it occurs, it is certain that it now includes all the creative aspects of human behavior and thinking, stimulates the development of ideas and enrich social needs. looking back, its first manifestations maintained the structure that is recognizable today, and it used to adapt to time needs, market and social consciousness. trying to perceive the versatile structure of entrepreneurship, we realize that this research area can be analyzed from several aspects. whether we look at the entrepreneurship through the contribution it provides to economic growth, through job creation, competition growth or from the perspective of various forms in which it occurs, it is certain that it now includes all the creative aspects of human behavior and thinking, stimulates the development of ideas and enrich social needs. looking back, its first manifestations maintained the structure that is recognizable today, and it used to adapt to time needs, market and social consciousness. the book "entrepreneurship types of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs," written by professor mirjana radovic markovic, gives the entrepreneurship a new, more modern note by looking at this concept much journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 131-133) 132 deeper than at a set of entrepreneurial activities in small private businesses in which the economic value and profit are realized. the author discusses other aspects of entrepreneurship (social, women, internet and rural entrepreneurship). not much has been written on this subject in the scientific literature. we should emphasize a good technical solution of "entrepreneurship-types of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs," because each chapter has test questions, issues for discussion, key concepts, a reminder of the most important parts and the literature. the book is divided into three topic areas: introduction to entrepreneurship and the definition of entrepreneurship, school of entrepreneurship, types of entrepreneurship within the first topic, the author is engaged in addressing the problems of entrepreneurship as a scientific discipline by showing many definitions of entrepreneurship in historical context and different approaches to the study of entrepreneurship as a social phenomenon. the other topic includes the analysis of entrepreneurship, from multidimensional view presented by different schools. the first school, presented in the book is a psychological school that approaches the entrepreneurial activity in terms of personal characteristics and entrepreneurs’ required skills. parallel was presented a personality typology of entrepreneurs and a model of successful entrepreneurs who identify personal attributes and qualities such as optimism, action orientation, persistence, integrated monitoring of problems, good communication ability, etc, which may be the most important in achieving the successful business. the following is a traditional school, which examines entrepreneurship from the point of economic growth and innovation, and explores the impact of entrepreneurship on economic growth and views innovation as a basic aspect of successful entrepreneurship. the second unit, based on the view of basic principles and ideas of different schools, ends by a description of school based on management, which approaches the entrepreneurship from the aspect of entrepreneurship management activities. the school analyzes the importance and impact of management on the entrepreneurship, and unlike the previous schools, it raises its entrepreneurial approach to the global level. the special attention is given to the entrepreneurship based on the project, according to which baranenko e., et al., book review, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 131-133) 133 the organizations are classified into four groups: centralistic firms, tightly linked firms, loosely linked firms and decentralized firms. in the third thematic unit, the author focuses on the presentation of broad dimensions of different types of entrepreneurship, with special emphasis on the social, women, internet, international and global entrepreneurship, and in this way, she realizes a new approach to the conceptual typology of entrepreneurship. it is important to mention that all of the above concepts (social, women, internet entrepreneurship) in the near future, will play an important role in creating changes in areas of quality, transparency in business, gender equality in the sphere of business. the author of the book also refers to the specificity of entrepreneurship development in the countries undergoing the transition process, as in these countries the share of women business owners who, conducting their business contribute to the growth of gdp is very low. the author gives equally important significance to the rural entrepreneurship, since the establishment of businesses in rural areas is of great importance for the restructuring and modernization of the rural areas. recognizing the changes in social, economic and technological conditions that allow business activities from home, the author of the book professor dr. mirjana radovic markovic tells us about entrepreneurship from home, that certainly is one of the most popular forms of self-employment. in her book, prof. dr mirjana radović marković, first of all by professional and very pragmatic approach, deals with various aspects of entrepreneurship. as such, this book is very valuable to domestic and foreign public, as well as universal textbook for students of undergraduate and postgraduate studies. baranenko elena, jelača ana, institute of economic sciences, belgrade 20_jwee_12 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.12.pp53-71 jel: f01, d60 preliminary report the competitiveness and gender equality overview of serbia, montenegro and croatia in 2019 nina miković1 university union, faculty for banking, insurance and finance, belgrade banking academy, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t competitiveness has always been substantial component of sustained and durable economic growth. this article presents a comparative analysis of competitiveness and gender equality of countries in western balkans region serbia, montenegro and croatia with reference to a correlation between the competitiveness and gender equality level of eu member states including serbia and montenegro. competitiveness level is measured by global competitiveness, doing business and economic freedom index. gender equality level is measured by gender equality index. there are some areas where some improvement is needed to increase the level of competitiveness and gender equality. based on results of the analysis, serbia is more competitive than montenegro and croatia in 2019, mainly due to solid doing business practices and level of freedom in economic terms. croatia is second placed country, followed by montenegro. regardless of their competitiveness ranking, significant progress will be needed in terms of innovation capacity development, rule of law and fiscal policy. serbia has also slightly higher level of gender equality than montenegro and croatia but significantly lower level than eu member states average. also, it is determined that higher levels of competitiveness are largely followed by higher levels of gender equality in eu member states, including serbia and montenegro. 1 ph.d student, e-mail: mikovicnina@yahoo.com 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) key words: competitiveness, gender equality, index, western balkans region, comparative analysis introduction in a rapidly changing global economic environment, competitiveness is even more significant in achieving economic prosperity and better country's living standard. krugman (1997) defined competitiveness as another way of expressing productivity and stated that a country's capacity to improve its living standard depends almost entirely on its ability to increase its productivity. in this regard, competitiveness is one of the key factors in achieving sustainable economic growth. however, krugman believed that the obsession with competitiveness was a "misguided and harmful" approach, especially since focusing on competitiveness could diminish the quality of economic policy-making processes and contribute to the wrong choice of economic policies (hassett, 2012). significant scope of organization for economic cooperation and development work is related to the background and framework of competition policy, as well as to how competition authorities can develop through academic work to improve their effectiveness (oecd, 2019). also, competition is an important process forcing companies to become more efficient and to have a greater offer of products and services at lower prices, which leads to increased consumer well-being and allocative efficiency, thereby incorporating the concept of "dynamic efficiency" based on which companies engage in innovation and drive technological change and progress (khemani & shapiro, 1993). the country competitiveness also depends on the innovation of its economy. one of the key determinants of economic innovation is the country's innovation system, which denotes a network of public and private institutions which activities and interactions determine the emergence, import, continuous innovations improvement. on the other hand, according to the research by cvetanović and sredojević (2012), improving the country's innovation capacity is an important premise for establishment of country’s innovation structure. scientists and policy makers broadly agree that the green economy should be given priority in defining a sustainable economic growth strategy, because it represents an important support for economic growth, investment and competitiveness (radović marković, nikitović & jovančević, 2015). miković, n., the competitiveness and gender equality, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) 55 nowadays, the gender equality issue is also a substantial challenge and it seems that there are even more obstacles on that path due to numerous demands placed by the modern age. in particular, development of information technologies has contributed to increasingly difficult achievement of countries competitiveness. many countries have adopted certain strategies for encouraging and developing women's entrepreneurship with defined action plans and strategic goals. however, in many cases, strategies are only documents that prove that some action has been taken on improving gender equality, while addressing specific challenges on gender equality largely remains in the shadow of other political and economic issues. this article presents a comparative analysis of competitiveness of serbia, montenegro and croatia based on the values of global competitiveness index, doing business index and economic freedom index as well as analysis of gender equality level based on the value of gender equality index for 2019. based on the values of the competitiveness indexes and pillars for each country, there are areas with low or high levels of competitiveness and gender equality. in this regard, a null no. 1 hypothesis states that competitiveness and gender equality measured by these indexes for 2019 is higher for the eu member states (in this case for croatia), than for the countries that are still in the eu negotiation process (in this case for serbia and montenegro). also, null no. 2 hypothesis states that there is a significant correlation between competitiveness and gender equality level in eu member states, including serbia and montenegro in 2019. the wef global competitiveness report for 2019 presents economic growth outlook for 141 countries through the global competitiveness index (gci) and includes about 99% of world’s gdp. in line with measured values, guidelines are set out to achieve economic growth that is crucial for improving living standards in countries. in addition, the report describes the link between competitiveness, shared prosperity and environmental sustainability in a way that indicates that it is possible to achieve competitiveness, inclusion and transition towards more sustainable systems simultaneously. a leadership approach and proactive economic policies are needed to be implemented to achieve a new inclusive and sustainable system. in 2018, a significant revision of the former wef methodology was carried out to assess the competitive position of the economies, regarding 56 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) names, positions, structure and methodology of calculation of indicators, organized in 12 so-called pillars of competitiveness which relate to functioning of institutions; establishment of infrastructure, ict level, macroeconomic stability, health system development, skills development, product and labour market issues, financial system in general, market magnitude, business dynamics and innovation capacity level (schwab, 2019). last year's change in methodology affected a number of indicators used to monitor the 12 pillars of competitiveness (instead of the previously used 114, last year were used 98, 64 of which are completely new), as well as a different classification of indicators within the pillars and sources for data collection. due to new fundamental changes in functioning of national economies with the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, the so-called principles were introduced that dominate multiple factors and refer to resilience, agility, innovative ecosystems and people-centered approach. the aim of change in methodology was to significantly increase the objective comparability of global competitiveness indexes between countries and to reduce excessive fluctuations in values, influenced by last year's realized values. the method of grouping countries into stages of development was abolished. the value of index for measuring global competitiveness is currently includes 103 indicators obtained through data from international institutions, but especially from specific survey. the pillar values of competitiveness and indicators within the pillars were transformed from 0 to 100, with 0 being the lowest and 100 being the highest grade. all factors have a similar impact on the competitive position of the economy, regardless of income level so that each pillar could be a potential trigger of competitiveness (tanasković & ristić, 2015). the world bank group's doing business index is based on the principle that economic activity benefits from clear and coherent rules that introduce strong protection of property rights, facilitate dispute resolution and provide protection against abuse in cooperation of contracting parties. such rules are much more effective in promoting economic growth and development when they are effective, transparent and accessible to those who are targeted. the power and inclusiveness of rules also have a decisive influence on how societies distribute benefits and finance the costs of development strategies and economic policies. miković, n., the competitiveness and gender equality, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) 57 the doing business project, which was launched in 2002, analyzes domestic smes and measures the regulations that apply to them throughout their life cycle (doing business, 2019). the doing business index measures business regulation in small and medium entreprises that are in the largest city in each of the 190 countries. doing business for 2019 targets ten areas of business regulation included in score and ranking related to easiness of business procedures. by scores2, countries are compared relative to benchmarks which reflect implementation of the best regulatory practice for each indicator. on the other hand, ranking based on ease of doing business score can only point out changes of regulatory environment relative to other countries (world bank group, 2019). the doing business team with expert advisers, composes a questionnaire which data are subjected to a number of rounds of verification, that can be subject to many ex-post revisions or expansions of collected data. (doing business, 2019). within the methodology of the doing business project, property rights protection and contracts have a significant impact on investment, exchange and economic growth. in this way, the positive connection between judiciary’s functioning and investment is highlighted. countries are competing in attracting foreign investment, so it is crucial to have an institutional framework that will provide a supportive investment environment. in this regard, strengthening the rule of law contributes to a more favorable business environment, as it creates a climate of stability and predictability, where business risks can be rationally assessed (golubović, 2019). the heritage foundation's economic freedom index is based on four key aspects of the economic and entrepreneurial environment that are typically monitored by the country's executive authorities in terms of adequate policy implementation of rule of law, government size, regulatory efficiency and open markets. based on assessment of conditions in these four aspects, the index measures 12 specific components of economic freedom, each rated on a scale from 0 to 100. the score of these components of economic freedom are calculated using multiple variables that are equally weighted and whose 2 in 2019, the name "distance to frontier score", or "distance to the border", was changed to "ease of doing business score" to better reflect the basic idea of the measure a value that indicates the country's position in adopting regulatory best practice. the procedure for calculating this result remained unchanged. 58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) average represents the total value of country’s economic freedom index. then, the average of these scores is calculated, using equal weights, to calculate the final score of economic freedom in the country. the profiles of countries presented by the index provide examples from the real environment, i.e. the effect of executive authority policies on the economic welfare of individuals and households. economic policies that have impact on the increase of economic freedom are usually associated with greater economic and social progress. from total of 186 countries in the 25th edition of the 2019 index, 180 are fully rated and ranked (index of economic freedom, 2019). countries with substantial economic freedom also have higher level of political stability and income with greater social mobility conditions and labor environment with high innovation and experimentation capacity. countries with lower level of economic freedom are at a lower range of development of economic and social background (miller, kim, & roberts, 2019). if the growth of a country is based on innovation, economic freedoms are crucial for advancing economic growth, i.e. economic institutions that allow economic freedoms are crucial for economic growth of such countries (begović, 2019). the experience of highly developed countries shows that clusters are an effective instrument for strengthening the competitiveness of industrial enterprises, while clustering enhances the competitiveness of industry on international level by increasing productivity, innovation and starting new businesses (mićić, 2010). growth in a number of employees and companies in the region is almost completely positively correlated with gdp growth. the perfect correlation exists in the interdependence of clusters, attractiveness of business environment and quality of government service. the analysis also indicates the great importance of investing in science and innovation capacity. these indicators show that growth of research and innovation investment has a great impact on gdp growth of the region (vuković, 2013). research results according to the wef global competitiveness report, countries in the western balkans region have been positively evaluated in terms of product, labor and financial market effectiveness. although there has been the lowest unemployment rate on record in these countries, there is still uncertainty miković, n., the competitiveness and gender equality, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) 59 about its future developments, with gdp per capita of about 29% of germany's gdp. although there are positive results in the market and in adopting skills in the region, significant progress is needed in creating a favorable environment for improving competitiveness. (world economic forum, 2019). the highest value of global competitiveness index was recorded for croatia (61.9), slightly lower for serbia (60.9) and montenegro (60.8). serbia is ranked 72nd of 141 countries in the 2019 rankings, seven positions lower than last year (65), due to progress made by some countries. for serbia, achieving a certain degree of competitiveness of the national economy is one of the requirements for becoming a fully-fledged member state of the european union. achieving a higher level of competitiveness of the domestic economy is the basis for the realization of the so-called domestic soft power3 (bubanja, 2019). among the countries in the region, according to the new methodology, the highest increase in the index value was recorded by croatia by 1.8 points, thus improving its ranking by five places (63). despite increasing its gci value by 1.2 points, montenegro is ranked two places lower (73) than in last year's ranking. in total value of the index for croatia, the highest value was achieved for the pillar of macroeconomic stability, which was mostly contributed by a stable level of inflation. in total value of the index for serbia and montenegro the highest value was recorded for the pillar health. on the other hand, within the index for croatia and serbia the lowest value was realized within the pillar the ability to innovate, where significant progress is needed in area of r&d for serbia, i.e. interaction and diversity (of workforce) for croatia. the lowest value for montenegro was recorded in the market size pillar mostly due to the low level of gdp measured by purchasing power parity, expressed in billions of dollars. compared to values measured for each pillar, montenegro had an advantage over serbia and croatia in seven pillars of competitiveness, i.e. in institutional quality and information techology level, skills, product and labor market, financial system and business dynamics; croatia has been most successful in infrastructure, macroeconomic stability and health and serbia in market size and innovation capacity. all three countries had poor results in their innovation ability. however, according to despotović, 3 the term "soft power" was introduced by harvard university professor joseph ney in the early 1990s, which he defined as the ability to influence international relations through culture or ideology. 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) cvetanović & nedić (2014), there was not statistically significant correlation of innovation and national competitiveness for countries lower income level. on the other hand, it was found that for small countries in transition there is a significant link between openness to foreign trade and their level of competitiveness, and that the link between openness on the export side is far stronger than the link between openness on the import side and competitiveness (tešić, 2013). serbia has made the largest progress in pillar value of business dynamism due to improvement of administrative requirements and entrepreneurial culture, as well as a slight improvement in pillars of infrastructure, financial system and market size comparing to 2018. lower values were recorded in pillars of health, product market and ict adoption, where the largest decline was recorded. montenegro has made the biggest progress in value of information technology adoption pillar and some progress in quality of institutions, infrastructure, skills, financial system, market magnitude, level of business dynamics and innovation ability. lower values were realized in pillars of product market and health, where the greatest decrease was recorded compared to the previous year. finally, croatia has made by far the largest progress in value of macroeconomic stability pillar due to stability in inflation and debt dynamics, as well as some progress in infrastructure, digital infrastructure, labor market and financial system. a more efficient role of state owned institutions and improvement in tax, monetary and investment policies is needed to mitigate negative effects of globalization. serbia as well as other countries in transition, should define an adequate strategy in terms of responding to challenges of world economic trends to facilitate the convergence to level of income of developed countries. in the forthcoming period, the key goals of economic and development policy are achieving macroeconomic and market stability, sustainable economic growth based on industrial gains and exports, increased employment, reducing external debt and negative balance of foreign trade. development policy should shift investment to enterprises engaged in production and exports of higher-level production by targeting sectors that will mostly contribute to stable and dynamic economic development and increase competitiveness of country (aničić j, aničić d. & kvrgić, 2019). although index results are published for each pillar individually, they have miković, n., the competitiveness and gender equality, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) 61 substantial impact on each other and vulnerabilities in one pillar often have an impact on other pillars (kamenković & lazarević moravčević, 2018). serbia has the highest score of world bank doing business index (73.49), slightly lower than montenegro (72.73) and croatia (71.4). serbia is ranked 48th in the 2019 ranking of 190 countries, with score that is for 0.36 better compared to last year’s, but the ranking is for five places lower. there was a slight decrease in index values by 0.45 and 0.3 for montenegro and croatia and a decrease in ranking by eight (50) and seven places (58), respectively. the cross-border trade parameter showed the best performances in the total index value for all three countries. on the other hand, serbia has the lowest value obtained for parameter protection of minority investors, montenegro and croatia for supply of electricity and obtaining loans, respectively. serbia was more successful than montenegro and croatia in starting a business and granting building permits, mainly due to smaller number of procedures and shorter period for their implementation. montenegro has the best performances in three parameters, namely in giving loans, paying taxes and resolving bankruptcy proceedings. croatia was most successful in electricity supply, registration of property rights, protection of minority investors, cross-border trade, as well as contract execution. compared to values of competitiveness pillars for 2018, serbia has made the biggest progress in giving building permits, as well as some improvement in starting business, electricity supply, registering property procedures, tax payment, and settling bankruptcy proceedings. montenegro has made the biggest progress in procedures for giving building permits and a slight progress in electricity supply and property registration. weaker performances were realized in bankruptcy resolution and starting business, where the largest decrease was recorded. finally, croatia has made the biggest progress in electricity supply, as well as a slight improvement in asset registration, tax payment and bankruptcy resolution. substantially weaker performances were realized in giving building permits, and slightly lower in starting a business procedures and minority investors protection. no parameter value decrease was recorded for serbia. in terms of business conditions of western balkans region, including serbia, montenegro and croatia, as european union member state, in period from 2006 to 2018, based on three indexes, ranking of countries and adoption of best practices, the western balkans economies have made 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) significant, but not yet enough progress in creating favorable business conditions in observed period of time. based on indexes for the western balkans countries and croatia, being a member state of eu does not mean having more favorable business conditions than those existing in countries non-members of this regional economic integration (cvetanović, nedić & despotović, 2019). serbia has the highest value of heritage foundation's economic freedom index for 2019, higher than croatia and montenegro. serbia is ranked 69th in the 2019 ranking of 186 countries with an economic freedom index score of 63.9. the overall result increased by 1.4 points, with significant improvements in fiscal policy, business freedom and government spending, but also a weakening of trade freedom score value and judiciary’s efficiency. serbia is ranked 34th among 44 countries in the region of europe, and its overall result is below the regional, but above the world average. in the forthcoming period, slower progress is expected in public administration reform and privatization of state-owned enterprises in the electricity, communications and natural gas sectors, so deeper institutional reforms are needed to modernize the tax administration, reduce corruption and strengthen the judicial system. montenegro is ranked 92nd with an economic freedom index value of 60.5. the total score decreased by 3.8 points compared to last year, with a sharp decline in score value of fiscal policy pillar and slightly better results in freedom of work, public sector integrity and property rights protection. montenegro is 39th out of 44 european countries and its total score now is below the regional and world average. croatia ranks 86th in the 2019 rankings with an economic freedom index of 61.4. the total score value increased by 0.4 points compared to 2018, with a sharp improvement in fiscal policy and a weakening in judicial efficiency. croatia ranks 38th among 44 countries in europe, with its overall score below the regional but above world average (index of economic freedom, 2019). serbia has the poorest performances in fighting against corruption. montenegro has the lowest score value in fiscal policy pillar, given the budget deficit averaging 6.5% of gdp in 2017, 2018 and 2019 as well as 67.5% of public debt in gdp. croatia’s lowest performances were realized in managing general government expenditure, due to government spending amounting to 47.1% of gdp also in 2017, 2018 and 2019. remaining challenges refer to political instability and public sector debt levels that miković, n., the competitiveness and gender equality, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) 63 make government spending on health and pensions fiscally unsustainable (miller, kim, & roberts, 2019). corruption has a negative and substantial impact on starting new businesses and this impact is much more pronounced in countries characterized by less developed regulatory environment. corruption is the most dominant in areas where the largest number of administrative procedures are necessary for starting a business, such as obtaining construction permits, registering property and obtaining electricity connections (lepojević, ivanović djukić & stefanović, 2019). montenegro has better performances than serbia and croatia in fight against corruption, judicial efficiency, business freedom, monetary freedom and tax burden. croatia has the best performances in property rights protection, trade and financial freedom, so as serbia in general government expenditure and fiscal policy. serbia and montenegro were equally successful in freedom of doing business and at the same time better than croatia, while montenegro and croatia recorded the same values in freedom of investment and achieved higher index values than serbia. compared to economic freedoms index for 2018, serbia has the largest improvement in fiscal area and a slight improvement in doing business freedom, expenditures management, protection of property rights level as well as in lower the level of corruption. lower results were realized in trade freedom, as well as slightly lower results in judicial efficiency, monetary freedom and business freedom. there was no change in investment and financial freedom. serbia improved somewhat the area of rule of law and significantly more the size of public sector. however, there was some deterioration in open markets and regulatory efficiency, where further work is needed to improve country performance. montenegro has the largest improvement in index value of business freedom, while slight increase was realized in strengthening the fight against corruption, protection of property rights and judiciary’s efficiency, as well as in business freedom. however, a significant drop in index value was realized in fiscal policy. the decrease of value was realized in general government expenditure as well as in monetary freedom. based on 2019 index values for montenegro, slight improvement was noted in rule of law area. croatia has the largest progress in fiscal policy, as well as a slight improvement in fight against corruption, protection of property rights, general government expenditure and tax burden, in business and work freedom. 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) the decrease of index value was realized in judiciary’s efficiency, as well as a slight weakening of performances in fight against corruption and monetary freedom. there was an improvement in size of public sector pillar according to all sub-indicators (general government expenditure, tax burden, fiscal policy). the decrease of value was realized in trade freedom, while the values in investment and financial freedom remained unchanged. by comparing institutional development of croatia and selected eu member states with corresponding economic growth, the authors indicated that there is significant room for quality improvement of institutions in croatia and stated that progress in the field of property rights protection, especially rule of law, would contribute to higher economic growth rates and that institutions and clear and unambiguous and fair rules are linked to economic growth (buterin, olgić draženović & jakovac, 2018). despite increasing competitiveness in western balkans economies, there is still a clear gap between this region and the eu-11. this statement is supported by company surveys, which indicate that one of the biggest impediments to business is unfair competition from informal sector, while other significant obstacles include corruption, obtaining electricity and access to financing (radović marković, 2019). gender equality of serbia, montenegro and croatia is analyzed through gender equality index from 2019, based on data from 2017. the calculation methodology of this index includes measuring the country's performance in six domains of work, money, knowledge, time, power and health. the value of the index is shown on a scale from 1 to 100, where 1 represents complete inequality and 100 represents complete gender equality. since its first edition in 2013, gender equality index provides a complex value that measures gender equality and, based on the eu policy framework, monitors gender equality improvement. it points out both improved areas and areas for gender equality enhancement to make some changes that could provide better living environment (eige, 2019). according to the gender equality index for 2019, serbia achieved a score of 55.8, which is significantly below the eu member states average of 67.4 (the calculation also included great britain, which was still eu member state at the time of data collection). serbia has achieved a slightly better index score than montenegro and croatia. there will be required substantial improvement in many areas to improve gender equality. serbia recorded by far the weakest performance in the domain of power. in this case, the domain of power implies political (ministers, members of miković, n., the competitiveness and gender equality, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) 65 parliament and regional assemblies), economic (members of boards in the largest companies and supervisory board or board of directors and board members of central bank) and social power (board members of research funding organizations, publicly owned broadcasting organizations and olympic sport organizations). although poor performance was noted for almost all domains, it seems that the highest degree of gender equality in serbia, montenegro and croatia has been achieved in health system. this area refers to health status (individual health perception, life expectancy at birth and years of healthy living life at birth), behavior (smoking and harmful drinking and physical activity and/or consummation of fruits and vegetables) and access to health care (population with needs for medical examination and dental examination already met). certainly, the fact that the percentage of women entrepreneurs in the republic of serbia is growing is encouraging. research conducted a few years ago indicated the participation of the female population in the total domestic entrepreneurship from only 15 percent, while last year this percentage increased to 34 percent. in research from 2019 conducted for the fourth time in a row by the auditing consulting company ernst & young, among the 115 entrepreneurs who run successful, fast-growing companies in the republic of serbia, only 23% were female. although the ratio of women to men entrepreneurs continues to benefit men, the number of women entrepreneurs is increasing year by year. the most substantial impediments that women face when starting a business are sources of financing regarding the fact that they belong in a smaller group of property owners and therefore have more difficulties to obtain credit support. however, there is a significant shift when it comes to women's entrepreneurship so that is a strong resource new employment (chamber of commerce of serbia, 2019). the gender equality index score for montenegro is 55. according to data for 2019, 24% of companies are owned by women, which was inconceivable ten years ago. in montenegro in 2011 there were only 3 021 companies which had female majority ownership, and in 2019 that number increased to 6 996 (chamber of commerce of montenegro, 2019). however, other countries have the lowest level of gender equality in power and the highest in health area. the index value for croatia is 55.6. although the values of the index for these three countries are approximately the same, 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) croatia has significantly better score than the other two countries in domain of money and slightly worse in knowledge and power. in this case, the domain of money refers to financial resources (mean monthly earnings (pps) and mean equivalised net income (pps)) and economic situation (not at-risk-of-poverty and income allocation). the area of knowledge here refers to attainment and participation (tertiary and formal/non-formal education) and segregation (tertiary students, health and welfare, humanities and arts). according to the data from women in adria for 2019, 22% of companies in croatia are 34% owned by women, i.e. 2.63 male-owned companies per one female-owned company and 1.9 maleowned companies per woman. however, the number of women represented not only in business but also in public and political life is growing slowly and hard, i.e. the situation within the legal profession is as follows: from 70% of female judges in the judiciary, but none of them were presidents of the supreme court; from 70% of female lawyers, none of them was the attorney general; although 50% are female lawyers in legal profession, none of them was president of the croatian bar association, and since the founding of the faculty of law in zagreb in 1776 year, there have been only two female deans (deloitte&touche, 2019). the bulk of this unpaid work continues to fall on women and that makes it harder for them to juggle work and personal life, which impacts on their earning potential and the well-being of the women themselves and their family and friends. the topic of work-life balance affects both women and men and is a top priority for the eu and this is why we chose it as this year’s thematic focus of the index (gei, 2019). correlation analysis of competitiveness and gender equality for eu member states including serbia and montenegro in 2019 correlation analysis of competitiveness and gender equality level was determined by using the spss statistics program, i.e. correlation examination method in evaluating the strength and direction of linear correlation between these two variables in a sample of 30 countries (eu member states, including serbia and montenegro). this analysis included these countries because the gender equality index doesn't cover all countries covered by the global competitiveness index for 2019. the correlation between competitiveness and gender equality was analyzed using the pearson linear correlation coefficient. preliminary analyzes were performed to prove the fulfillment of the assumptions linked miković, n., the competitiveness and gender equality, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) 67 to normality, linearity and homogeneity of variance. there is a strong positive correlation between competitiveness and gender equality calculated (r = 0.883, n = 30, p <0.01) with higher levels of competitiveness largely followed by higher levels of gender equality in a sample that includes eu member states, serbia and montenegro. figure 1: results of correlation analysis correlations competitiveness gender equality competitiveness pearson correlation 1 ,883** sig. (2-tailed) ,000 n 30 30 gender equality pearson correlation ,883** 1 sig. (2-tailed) ,000 n 30 30 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). source: spss statistics figure 2: correlation curve source: spss statistics the coefficient of determination represents how much a part of the variance of two variables represents the so-called common variance, i.e. how much a part of the variance of one variable is explained by the variance of the other. in this case, this coefficient was calculated by squaring the 68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) pearson correlation value of 0.883 (0.883x0.883=0.779), i.e. competitiveness of eu states including serbia and montenegro explains almost 78% of their gender equality according to the values of indexes for 2019, which is a significantly high share of the common variance obtained. conclusion the comparative analysis of competitiveness and gender equality in 2019 indicates that the null no. 1 hypothesis which states that the competitiveness and gender equality in 2019 is higher for the eu member states (croatia), than for the countries that are still in the eu negotiation process (serbia and montenegro), can be rejected. based on the values of doing business index and economic freedom index for 2019, serbia is more competitive than croatia and montenegro. also serbia has slightly greater gender equality than montenegro and croatia. croatia has the highest value of global competitiveness index, while montenegro has the lowest level of competitiveness country, mostly due to lower values of global competitiveness index and economic freedom index compared to the other two countries. in 2019, serbia is the most competitive country in cross-border trade, starting business procedures and fiscal policy. significant progress will be needed in fight against corruption and improving the judicial effectiveness, as well as in developing the innovation capability. in order to make progress in eu accession process, republic of serbia needs to ensure full implementation of key reforms and regulations, especially in judicial reform, fight against corruption, public administration reform, institutional independence, media reform, anti-discrimination and minority protection (mfa, 2020). montenegro showed the highest values in cross-border trade, tax burden and free trade level, but further progress will be needed in market and innovation development, as well as in general government expenditures reduction. as part of the negotiations with the eu, montenegro has not opened only chapter 8 (competition). it’s needed further human capital and labor market development. local companies have to strengthen efforts to increase international competitiveness for durable growth. montenegro have to develop access to networks and facilitate business entities the use of digital technologies (european commission, 2019). miković, n., the competitiveness and gender equality, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 53-71) 69 in 2019, croatia was the most competitive in developing cross-border trading and trade freedom, but also in achieving macroeconomic stability. the lowest levels of competitiveness were measured because of poor innovation capability, high levels of corruption as well as general government expenditure. croatia, as an eu member state, is part of the eu internal market, which is based on ‘four freedoms’ of goods, people, services and capital. however, based on 2019 economic freedom index values, serbia has better performances than croatia in business freedom, labor, monetary freedom, fiscal policy as well as in judicial efficiency. the analysis indicates that all of three countries should make substantial progress in fight against corruption, judicial effectiveness improvement and general government expenditures reduction, regardless of being an eu member country. although poor performance was noted in almost all domains regarding gender equality, it seems that the highest degree of gender equality in serbia has been achieved in the field of health, as in the other two countries. however, there will be needed significant improvements in domains of political, economic and social power. also, higher levels of competitiveness are largely followed by higher levels of gender equality in eu member states including serbia and montenegro in 2019. that means the null no. 2 hypothesis which states there is a significant correlation between these variables in these countries in 2019 can be confirmed. regarding the selected sample of countries, the more competitive country becomes, it has the better outlook to achieve higher gender equality levels. references [1] aničić, j., aničić, d. & kvrgić g. 2019. 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[39] world economic forum, 2019. how the western balkans can keep its economic momentum. www.weforum.org (accessed december 5, 2019). article history: received: 23 april, 2020 accepted: 27 may, 2020 doi: 10.28934/jwee19.34.pp17-32 original scientific paper creative accounting in income statement: the case of entrepreneurs in serbia nastasja stašević1 faculty of economics in subotica, subotica. serbia slavica stevanović2 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t financial reports represent the main base for the decision-making process taken from users of financial statements. when financial statements contain wrong information, or they do not contain pieces of information at all, that can result in wrong decisions. quality of financial reporting implies that the financial statements need to be compiled by with applicable legal, professional, and internal regulations. creative accounting techniques include increasing or decreasing expenses, overstating assets, or early recognition of income. the primary purpose of this paper is to identify the existence of creative financial reporting and its main techniques used by entrepreneurs in serbia. considering the unique way of the financial reporting of the entrepreneurs in serbia, in the paper were analyzed income statements from ten entrepreneurs containing men and women. the research included a horizontal analysis of the income statements, sales growth index, which shows the possibility of creative accounting among the entrepreneurs and the analysis of average financial costs for five years. the central hypothesis is the existence of creative accounting, but not to create or show better results, but to show worse financial results to minimize tax liability 1 ph.d. student, the grantee of the ministry of education, science and technological development, e-mail: nastasja.stasevic@gmail.com; tel. +381 65 2511393 2 zmaj jovina street 12, e-mail: slavica.stevanovic@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381 63 8729970 18 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) key words: entrepreneurs, creative accounting, income statements, serbia introduction the main goal of accounting information is to provide a base for decisionmaking the process for both internal and external users of financial statements. this information is useful if they genuinely and accurately present the financial position and performance of the entity. accountings can use their knowledge, creativity to create financial statements which were desired by users by finding gaps and loopholes in the standards and laws. moreover, managers have a significant influence on the decision-making process. managers can have a high impact on accountants in choosing accounting policies, estimation of the life of fixed assets, selection of depreciation method, and calculation of inventories are just one of the possible ways of impact. creative accounting can be defined as the use of procedures and methods to manipulate with balance sheet positions and their values in the financial statements to achieve different objectives. in this process, the knowledge of the accountant is crucial (mirdala et al., 2014). creative accounting is not a fraud, because fraud is defined as an “act of bad faith that violates the law,” while creative accounting “appeals to accounting practices derivates from standard accounting practices” (crenusca et al., 2016). manipulation in the income statement is one of the most common ways. given the link between the balance sheet and the income statement, creative accountants often do not stop at a single report. given the importance of the information provided by the income statement, manipulation techniques may have two different goals, increasing financial results or reducing financial results. an entrepreneur is person who attracts risks. entrepreneurs are not a legal entity, and they are responsible for their business with their total personal assets. the goal of their business is to create a positive financial result. in serbia, the entrepreneurs were allowed to choose as to how to conduct their business books. meaning there was a choice between whether they will conduct a simple or dual principle of bookkeeping. since 2019, the existence of this option has been disabled, so entrepreneurs have to apply the principle of double-entry bookkeeping (poresko računovodstveni instruktor, 2018). stašević, n., et al., creative accounting, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) 19 data has been collected for ten female and male entrepreneurs. income statements were analyzed for five years (2014-2018), and the results were compared between female and male entrepreneurs. one of the ways to identify possible creative accounting is horizontal analysis. in horizontal analysis, we analyzed revenue, profit, and financial expenditures over the years. as an addition, the interview was conducted with entrepreneurs about their business. the goal of this paper is to try to identify the existence of creative accounting in the income statements of entrepreneurs. the hypothesis is that entrepreneurs could use creative accounting intending to decrease business result. the paper contains three parts, the first part examines the definition of creative accounting, the second part identifies the possible techniques of creative accounting and the third part of the paper shows the results of the research. literature review the first use of the term “creative accounting” was by luca pacioli in venice. relationship between traders in those times was recorded in the main and secondary registers. when the inconsistencies appeared most of the times, the ink was poured over the registers (cernusca et al., 2016). according to remenarić et al. (2018), creative accounting represents the process of transforming accounting information and harmonizing it with the wishes of the company using loopholes in the rules. the cause of many accounting scandals, we can find in creative accounting. balaciu et al. (2009) consider this term as “transformation of the accounting figures from what they are in accordance with the economic reality into what the managers want.” mirdala et al. (2014), argued that creative accounting could be positive and negative. positive, creative accounting refers to the “beautification” of financial statements by actions that do not violate legislation, and it is also called “white” creative accounting. creative accounting is not always illegal, but we can say that it is always unethical. with “positive” creative accounting, entrepreneurs use so-called “loopholes” in the legal or professional regulations. on the other hand, the negative of „black “creative accounting represent the violation of legal regulations. “creative accounting includes the use of aggressive or other questionable accounting techniques in producing the financial result which only suits 20 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) the purpose of the preparer” (oyedokun, 2016). the main goal of creative accounting is not always creating a better financial result, and it can be the opposite, creating worse results. the goal for decreasing profit can be transferring profit to next year. oyedokun (2016) gives an example of the writing of the asset but using it in the future creates a situation where there are no future expenses against the future revenue. supriya and vidhi (2017) defined creative accounting as the aggressive use of accounting tools and methods to create a better image of the company, ignoring the accurate and objective business position and results. according to harun rutere et al. (2011), creative accounting uses earnings management technique to minimize tax liability. the possibility to choose between accounting policies and the need in some companies for estimation or prediction can lead to creating a suitable environment for the development of creative accounting (amat et al., 1999). madan (2016) conducted a study in which was shown that a large number of respondents believe that creative accounting is legal (about 53% of respondents), but on the other side 45% of the respondents believe that creative accounting is illegal. if we consider who is behind the creative accounting, or earning management, how is called in the usa, most of the respondents agreed that accountants and managers are one to blame. tassadaq and malik (2015) analyzed how to reduce creative accounting in firms. about 30% of respondents were an opinion that the company needs to improve its accounting standards; 45% stated the importance of audits and the rest of the respondents agreed on increasing the punishment. as an answer to a question who suffers from loss due to creative accounting, most of the respondents agreed that investors suffer the most. according to tassadaq and malik (2015), ethical environment plays a significant role in decreasing manipulative behaviors in companies. when we think about the term "creative accounting, “we always picture it unethical. however, butt et al. (2011) have a different point of view. they argued that creative accounting is not always wrong and if “used correctly, it can be of great benefit to the user.” in the research, they mentioned the example of pakistan's cement industry. pakistan’s government had an incentive plan for the cement industry. however, the country's economy got into bad shape, and it did not have enough resources to proceed with the incentives. therefore, companies used creative accounting to show better results, lower the losses, and keep investors. after that situation had changed, demand rose, and it eventually led to capacity expansion. moreover, butt et stašević, n., et al., creative accounting, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) 21 al. (2011) defined creative accounting as a tool that represents the use of accounting standards and policies to show the results of the company in line with managers wishes. research in britain has shown that manipulations are usually implemented with the provisions, revenues, and expenditures. according to belak (2011), if in croatia were conducted similar research, the result would be similar. according to škarić-jovanović (2007), the goal of creative accounting is achieved if users of financial reports do not realize that manipulation has been performed and they believe that the report presents objectively and accurately the financial position and performance of the company. when discovering manipulation, it is necessary to analyze the accounting policies and quality management. škarić-jovanović (2007) also stated that creative accounting is conventional in developing economies with a large share of the “gray economy.” in the balkan countries, tax evasion was perceived as a normal phenomenon; however, nowadays, this point of view is changing. we distinguish three types of taxation of entrepreneurs: flat rate, the self-taxation system with the payment of personal earnings and self-taxation without the payment of personal earnings. in this research, we will focus on the entrepreneurs' which use self-taxation system regardless of the payment of personal earnings. the primary purpose of the tax is to enable the government to fund different types of programs. however, tax evasion makes this impossible. it can be stated that tax evasion represents the major problem of one country. the purpose of the financial statements is to represent the base for the decision-making process for external interest groups; creative accounting can appear because of the existence of too many options in legal or professional regulation. within the research, the opinion of bookkeepers in serbia about creative accounting was examined. the result showed that half of the respondents think that creative accounting represents the use of techniques and methods within the framework of regulations." (mirdala et al., 2014). the quality of financial reporting in the republic of serbia is at a very low level. the main reasons are the non-harmonization with the regulatory framework of the european union, the legal regulations in the republic of serbia do not follow the best practice defined and advised by the profession, and the issue of accounting ethics can be ignored entirely, as can be seen from the previously mentioned research where most professional bookkeepers think that creative accounting is one of the uses of techniques and meth22 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) ods that are within the framework of regulations. stanojević (2016) believes that the quality, or better the lack of financial reporting in serbia, is influenced by the fact that ifac is not included in the legal framework of the republic of serbia. however, there was made an effort towards harmonization of the accounting system in the european union. nowadays, the theory that claims that large companies have a significant impact on the national economy has been abandoned. the significant influence on the economy's growth has small-medium enterprises and entrepreneurs. petrović (2019) has stated that entrepreneur’s sector in serbia contributes about 30% of gdp. according to petrović (2019), serbia should improve the environment for entrepreneurial growth to create better economic development. entrepreneurs have unique characteristics that are reflected in the ability to take over the risk, the ability to transform their dreams into a plan that can be realized, they are the bearers of change and innovation (stašević, 2018). radović-marković et al. (2019) stated that entrepreneurial activities are usually connected to an individual who appears to be a leader. an entrepreneur is described as “the driver of an entrepreneurial initiative and organizer and manager of operational processes.” manipulative techniques in income statement one of the leading accounting goals is to provide information that is fair and objective. the creative accounting can be linked to the existence of various options whose primary goal is to improve or increase the information power of financial reporting through the introduction of the concept of fair value and other models. however, many saw this option as a possibility of permitted manipulation to create the desired performance. the income statement is one of the financial statements that confront income and expenditure. dimitrijević (2018) defined four possible ways of manipulations in the income statement: increasing revenue and decreasing expenditures aiming at creating better results, or increasing expenditures and decreasing revenue as a goal to generate worse results of the company. increase in revenue through recognition of non-existent revenues, double-entry, income infusion, and others. this technique aims to generate a fictive positive financial result. since income represents the most crucial part of the income statement, that makes it the most vulnerable. one of the ways to increase income is early recognition of income. ias 18income de stašević, n., et al., creative accounting, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) 23 fines the circumstances which should be met to recognize the company's income. “revenue is recognized when it is probable that future economic benefits will flow to the entity, and those benefits can be measured reliably” (ias-18). as an example of a fictitious increase in income, invoicing of the service or goods at the end of december, and then the cancelation of the same invoice in january next year. the described technique is called window dressing, whose main goal is increased profitability and liquidity in the financial statements (oyedokun, 2016). one of the exciting ways of creating income can be the use of loans from the founders. renouncing the founders' loan can increase the income, which is frequently used in the praxis — renouncing the loan lead to creating the extraordinary income in the income statement of the entrepreneurs which in most cases create a positive financial result. these types of extraordinary income cannot be connected with cash flows, which makes them suitable for so-called „soft” manipulations. „soft” manipulations are not real criminal acts; they are just a way to create a desirable financial result (belak, 2011). in profit smoothing technique, the company recognizes some fabricated assets or liabilities and then use them to increase or decrease profit (oyedokun, 2016). namely, revenue-raising techniques are most often used by entrepreneurs in search of external sources of funding (applying for loans of various uses). reduction of revenues is usually made through various techniques such as sales through „black” market, avoiding to invoice or using the technique of partial invoicing, transferring revenues in the next year, etc. introducing the sales tax, the space for manipulation has drastically decreased. as an extremely vulnerable transaction, we can classify transactions with related parties. for both entrepreneurs and even legal entities, transactions with related parties may be one of the possible and most common forms of manipulation. manipulation can be carried out through product placement at lower prices to influence sales revenue to show a lower financial result. the opposite way is to sell at higher prices to show the achieved result higher than it is. the fact that entrepreneurs are not mandatory to compile a report about transfer prices opens an additional opportunity to manipulate them. the decrease in income is most common in the case of entrepreneurs toward a reduction in tax obligations. increasing expenditures fictively has a goal to reduce taxable profits. the most common example is the recognition of private expenses of entrepreneurs as the expense of entrepreneurial activity. namely, through the purchase of personal resources for entrepreneurial activity, an entrepreneur 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) achieves “fitness,” reducing the amount of taxable profit by calculating depreciation on the purchased asset. big bath accounting is described as recognizing all bad news in one year and then making the company stronger in the following years. this technique means writing off assets than using it in the following years, recognizing liabilities (oyedokun, 2016). cookie jar reserves technique is used to transfer the amount of positive business result into the next year (butt et al., 2011). also, one of the methods of reducing taxable profit may be the recording of fictitious amounts of expenditures, fraudulent accounts. expenditures reduction is an act of creative financial accounting aimed at increasing the profit of entrepreneurs. the most common goal is the presentation of better performance of the entrepreneurial business results to obtain more favorable sources of financing (short-term and other types of loans). reduction of expenditures is encouraged by the prolonged depreciation calculation, through poor timing of expenditures, recognition, or transfer of “december” expenditures in the next year (dimitrijević, 2018). income statement contains the essential information about the business of entrepreneurs, that makes it the most vulnerable to manipulation. the most common goals of manipulation in the income statement are decreasing business results or showing business perform better than it is. the aim for false improvement in the performance of the entrepreneurial activity, creation of an artificial positive financial result is usually to obtain external sources of financing or to achieve more favorable conditions in terms of the lower interest rate. škarić-jovanović (2007) stated that creative accounting could eliminate the threat of the loans which were already received. when applying for external financial sources of financing, it is necessary to show stability in income which is done by various methods of inflating revenues in the form of early recognition, showing non-existent or even transferring non-business revenues into incomes which were realized in the regular business of entrepreneurs. however, reduction of the positive financial result has a goal, to the manipulation of taxable profit to the acceptable amount for the entrepreneur. the aim of this action is the lower monthly payment of the tax rate. manipulating with the profit tax can be legal on the one hand, while on the other hand, it is illegal. legal manipulation of taxable profit is defined as “the full use of all options for reducing the tax liability provided by the law” (dimitrijević, 2018). illegal manipulation of the profit tax can be defined as a failure to pay or avoid payment of a statutory tax. stašević, n., et al., creative accounting, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) 25 it should be noted that the boundary between these two categories is fragile. škarić-jovanović (2007) agreed that one of the oldest and most common motives for using creative accounting could be tax evasion. that provides the company a way to „acquires a non-interest-free and nontaxable source of funding." creative accounting with entrepreneurs in serbia research methodology and data the research included five female entrepreneurs and five male entrepreneurs. the income statements were analyzed from 2014 to 2018. as an addition to the analysis of the income statement, the interview was conducted with the entrepreneurs. data from income statements were collected during the interview. the analyzed entrepreneurs deal mainly with trade and service activities such as hospitality service. most of the female entrepreneurs deal with small trade business and catering facilities. male entrepreneurs deal with services and trade too. female entrepreneurs represent a vulnerable group in the labor market; the focus of the research will be on the analysis of their business. the research included an analysis of average income, average profit, average financial costs, and sales growth index. sales growth index can show the possible use of creative accounting in the income statements of entrepreneurs. sales growth index was calculated from the data in income statements, and it represents the ratio of the income (belak, 2011). sales growth index = � ��� (1) with horizontal analysis, we were able to identify the possible use of creative accounting. illogical movements and deviations through the years of individual items can be one of the signs of manipulation in the financial statements. from 2019 there was a reduced possibility of choosing between two principles of bookkeeping; the author believes that there will be a reduction in the possibility of creative financial accounting within the entrepreneurs. 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) research results searching for the traces of creative accounting can be done by analyzing the quality of profit and income through the years. during the interview, most of the female entrepreneurs stated that they prefer stable business and that they do not prefer taking loans. they mentioned that they think if it would be desirable that there are some of the incentive measures for the development of the female entrepreneurship from the government, as well as the better information about programs. however, male entrepreneurs are more goals orientated, and they prefer taking loans. figure 1 shows the analysis of average income for entrepreneurs. the average income of the female entrepreneur is stable in the observed period. as an explanation of this result, it can be stated that male entrepreneurs tend to be riskier, while female entrepreneurs choose a more secure way of business and choose stability. figure 1: analysis of average income (in 000 rsd) source: authors based on research results the research that was conducted by dechow et al. has shown that most of the companies that used techniques of creative accounting manipulated with the income. just 11.5% of the companies used expenditures (škarićjovanović, 2007). when using creative accounting, many entrepreneurs in serbia tend to manipulate with profit, mostly in decreasing the profit. in figure 2 is shown stašević, n., et al., creative accounting, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) 27 the analysis of average profit. movement of the average profit is similar to the average income. moreover, in this case, we can notice that male entrepreneurs have a higher average income, while the average profit for female entrepreneurs is relatively stable over the years, although in 2017 there was a slight decline. figure 2: analysis of average profit (in 000 rsd) source: authors based on research results sales growth index (sgi) is calculated as a ratio of income, and it shows the possibility of manipulation in financial statements. when sales growth index is higher than 1.134, it shows a probability of manipulation in financial statements (belak, 2011). however, if the financial statement is manipulated for several years in a row, this way of analysis will not be realistic. sgi in 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 was higher than the critical value, and there is a slight possibility that income statements were manipulated. the highest value of sgi for observed entrepreneurs was in 2016/2017 (76.52). during the interview, the entrepreneur explained that in 2016, she had only been in business for several months due to personal reasons. in 2017 she began to do business as usual. 28 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) table 1: sales growth index sales growth index 2014/2015 2015/2016 2016/2017 2017/2018 male entreprenuals 1.22 1.36 1.16 1.10 1.01 0.96 0.96 0.96 1.61 0.62 1.06 1.25 0.79 1.34 1.52 0.55 0.92 0.99 1.05 1.05 female entreprenuals 8.19 1.28 1.04 0.63 1.32 1.33 1.04 1.12 1.50 0.87 0.94 0.84 0.85 0.17 76.52 1.14 0.73 0.73 1.10 1.03 source: authors based on research results figure 3: analysis of average financing costs source: authors based on research results stašević, n., et al., creative accounting, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) 29 average financing costs can show a tendency for risks, the desire for business growth, but it can also imply the dependence of external sources of funding. figure 3 shows the movement of the average financing costs for female entrepreneurs and male entrepreneurs. average financial costs for female entrepreneurs were stable over the years. however, average financing costs for male entrepreneurs in the first two years significantly rose, but in 2017, there was a significant decrease. conclusion in the last decades of the previous century, even in the early 2000s, we witnessed numerous financial scandals that hit the world. as a result of manipulation, there was a significant loss in confidence in financial reporting. the main goal of financial statements is to provide objective information for external users. creative accounting leads to the loss of the information in the financial statements, the creation of hidden reserves or latent losses. this kind of financial reporting undermines the entire purpose of financial reporting. creative accounting can be defined as the deliberate use of knowledge of the accountant to present the desired financial status. entrepreneurs can use creative accounting to magnify their business results when applying for external sources of financing. the reasons for magnifying results can be a lower interest rate. however, entrepreneurs can show their business results worse than they are to minimize tax liability. in the research, we compared the business of the male and female entrepreneurs, and authors have concluded that male entrepreneurs accept the bigger risk, which eventually led to a higher positive financial result. male entrepreneurs have more significant average income and average profit in the observed period than female entrepreneurs. in the 2014/2015 and 2015/2016, the value of sgi was higher than the critical value meaning that there is a possibility of the use of creative accounting. however, there is an equal possibility of implementation of creative accounting, between female and male entrepreneurs. acknowledgments this paper is a part of research projects european integrations and social and economic changes in serbian economy on the way to the eu no. 47009 and challenges and prospects of structural changes in serbia: strate30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) gic directions for economic development and harmonization with eu requirements no. 179015, financed by the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic of serbia. references [1] amat, oriol, john blake, and jack dowds. 1999. "the ethics of creative accounting". economics working paper, 349, 715-736. [2] aleksić, milanka, bogdana vujnović-gligorić, and nina uremović. 2015. "uloga i značaj forenzičkog računovodstva u otkrivanju finansijskih prevara". emc review-časopis za ekonomiju, 10(2): 229-236 [3] balaciu, diana, victoria bogdan, and alina beattrice vladu. 2009. "a brief review of creative accounting literature and its consequences in practice". annales universitatis apulensis: series oeconomica, 11(1): 170-183. [4] ali shah, syed zulfiqar, safdar a. butt, and dr bin tariq. 2011. "use or abuse of creative accounting techniques". international journal of trade, economics, and finance, 2(6): 531-536. [5] bešlić ivana, dragana bešlić, and vladimir zakić. 2014. "data mining tehnike za otkrivanje lažnog finansijskog izveštavanja". sinteza 2014-impact of the internet on business activities in serbia and worldwide, 583-587. 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"uticaj kreativnog računovodstva na kvalitet finansijskog izveštavanja". ekonomski horizonti, 13(1): 155-168. [13] tassadaq, fizza, and qaisar ali malik. 2015. "creative accounting & financial reporting: model development & empirical testing". international journal of economics and financial issues, 5(2): 544-551. stašević, n., et al., creative accounting, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) 31 [14] malinić, dejan. 2008. "kreativno finansijsko izveštavanje: motivi, posledice i etički izazovi". in tranzicija i posle u regionu nekadašnje jugoslavije, 15-28, belgrade: the serbian association of economists. [15] mirdala, rajmudin, mizdraković, vule, arežina, nada, and stefanović, danka. 2014. "creative accounting: from creativity to misuse". the book of proceedings finiz, 5-7, singidunum university. [16] radukić, snežana, and jelena petrović. 2019. "an analysis of the development of entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia with a special focus on female entrepreneurship". journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, (1-2): 1-16. [17] remenarić, branka, ivana kenfelja, and ivo mijoč. 2018. "creative accounting–motives, techniques, and possibilities of prevention". ekonomski vjesnik: review of contemporary entrepreneurship, business, and economic issues, 31(1): 193-199. [18] radović-marković, mirjana, zvonko brnjas, and vladimir simović. 2019. "the impact of globalization on entrepreneurship". economic analysis, 52(1): 56-68. [19] oyedokun, godwin. 2016. "creative accounting as a double sided coin". available at ssrn 2913126, https://www.academia.edu/31711458/creative_accounting_as_a_ double_sided_coin [20] stanojević, ljubiša. 2016. "accounting legal framework and quality in the republic serbia", association of accountants and auditors of serbia, http://bsn.rs/en/vesti/serbia-leader-creative-financial-reporting/ [21] poresko računovodstveni instruktor. 2018. računovodstveni aspekt prelaska sa prostog na dvojno knjigovodstvo počev od 2019. godine, 156163. [22] stašević, nastasja. 2018. "finansijsko izveštavanja i modaliteti oporezivanja u republici srbiji", master thesis, economic faculty subotica university of novi sad. [23] khaneja, supriya, and vidhi bhargava. 2016. "a comprehensive review of literature on creative accounting". international journal of business insights and transformation, 10(1): 46-60. [24] john, harun rutere, john gathii kamau, and paul muoki nzioki 2018. "influence of creative accounting practices on tax evasion amongst small and medium enterprises in nakuru, kenya". international journal of business and processes, 4(2): 9-9. [25] škarić-jovanović, kata. 2007. "kreativno računovodstvo–motivi, instrumenti i posledice". zbornik radova: mjesto i uloga računovodstva, revizije i finansija u novom korporativnom okruženju, 51-70, xi kongres saveza računovođa i revizora republike srpske, teslić. 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 17-32) article history: received: 15 august, 2019 accepted: 23 september, 2019 microsoft word 10_jwe_1-2.doc udc: 005.44 jel: b21, b50, l2 professional paper motivation for small and medium-sized entrepreneurs for internationalization on the european union market mandysová ivana, university of pardubice, faculty of economics and administration, pardubice, czech republic a b s t r a c t this study sums up a circumstances related to motivation of smes for internationalization process. it provides overview of certain essential areas like european charter for small enterprises, legislation harmonization etc. the article also provides insights in the ict sphere as opportunity for smes internationalization. the article watches out pitfalls for smes going to be internationalized. it sets methodology distinguished by six blocks. study is finalized by case study of internationalized smes. kew words: entrepreneurship, smes, internalization of smes introduction business of smes plays an important role in the european union. the european union as a market is characterized by the freedom of movement of goods, services, workers and capital, where businesses can compete on fair terms. economic barriers between the various national member states are still being broken down. nearly every day, the european institutions launch initiatives promoting the internal market and measures to enhance the competitiveness of european enterprises to become internationalized. it is essential that sme entrepreneurs know these rules, which shape today’s economic reality. beyond any doubt, those who have journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 71-80) 72 thoroughly acquainted themselves with europe’s rules and their application will gain a head start. this applies equally to smes and to big companies. how european charter for small enterprises supports and eencourages smes small and medium-sized enterprises will continue to assume an important place in the enlarged europe. they create new jobs. they are highly innovative and dynamic. smes are central to the “lisbon strategy”, or the goal of re-forming europe into a dynamic and competitive knowledge society. ensuring stable business climate is the best support for smes. the european charter for small business, from june 2000, called on the member states to support and encourage smes in ten subject areas for the european commission, taking in consideration all small business needs: [1] 1. education and training for entrepreneurship european union commits to work along the certain lines for action, taking due consideration of small business needs. europe nurtures entrepreneurial spirit and new skills from an earlier age. general knowledge about business and entrepreneurship needs to be taught at all school levels. specific business-related modules should be made an essential ingredient of education schemes at secondary level and at colleges and universities. intention is to encourage entrepreneurial endeavours, and develop appropriate training schemes for managers in small enterprises. 2. cheaper and faster start-up the costs of companies' start-up should evolve towards the most competitive in the world. countries with the longest delays and most burdensome procedures for approving new companies should be encouraged to catch up with the fastest. online access for registration should be increased. 3. better legislation and regulation national bankruptcy laws should be assessed in the light of good practice. the learning from benchmarking exercises should lead to the improvement of current practices in the eu. new regulations at national and community level should be screened to assess their impact on small yildirim, k., social changes and their impac, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 71-80) 73 enterprises and entrepreneurs. wherever possible, national and ec rules should be simplified. governments should adopt user-friendly administrative documents. 4. availability of skills to endeavour to ensure that training institutions, complemented by in-house training schemes, deliver an adequate supply of skills adapted to the needs of small business, and provide lifetime training and consultancy. 5. improving online access public authorities should be urged to increase their electronic communication with the small business sector. thus, companies will be able to receive advice, make applications, file tax returns or obtain simple information online, therefore faster and more cheaply. 6. more out of the single market small businesses are feeling the benefits from the reforms underway of europe’s economy. the commission and member states must therefore pursue the reforms underway aiming at the completion in the union of a true internal market, user-friendly for small business, in critical areas for development of small businesses including electronic commerce, telecommunications, utilities, public procurement and cross-border payment systems. 7. taxation and financial matters tax systems should be adapted to reward success, encourage startups, favour small business expansion and job creation, and facilitate the creation and the succession in small enterprises. member states should apply best practice to taxation and to personal performance incentives. entrepreneurs need finance to translate ambitions into reality. 8. strengthen the technological capacity of small enterprises to create information and business, support systems, networks and services which are easy to access and understand, and relevant to the needs of business; ensure eu-wide access to guidance and support from mentors and business angels. 9. successful e-business models and top-class small business support to encourage small enterprises to apply best practice and adopt successful business models that enable them to truly flourish in the new economy. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 71-80) 74 10. develop stronger, more effective representation of small enterprises’ interests at union and national level to complete a review of how the interests of small businesses are represented at eu and national level, including through the social dialogue. legislation harmonization the free movement of goods is one of the fundamentals of the european single market. this is only possible if there are standards that are recognized within the whole union. this, it must not be that a different product has to be produced for each market. by means of mutual recognition, technical barriers between member states are being eliminated. goods and services that satisfy the rules of one member state can in theory also be sold in the other member states. this applies to all goods and services that are not subject to european harmonized legislation. industrial products with a high degree of product safety fall under the european harmonized legislation. this because for reasons of public safety, health or environmental protection, member states can derogate from the principle of mutual recognition. there are two types of harmonization: – product-specific legislation, such as for motor vehicles and foodstuffs; – legislation that contains only the essential requirements but no detailed technical specifications, such as for toys, gas appliances and radio and telecommunications equipment. this latter type of harmonization is hallmarked by a new approach. this is that europe does not give a prior approval but merely carries out checks once the goods are already on the market. depending on the risk profile of the product, either the manufacturer itself issues a statement of conformity or an accredited agency issues a certificate of conformity. the system is therefore founded on a great trust in business. the member states also have to transpose these community provisions into their national laws. in addition, they also have to create independent, recognized institutions that can certify the conformity of products. yildirim, k., social changes and their impac, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 71-80) 75 the member states have already incorporated their legislation on industrial standards into their national laws. the european commission monitors this transposition process via periodic reports. companies are faced with international market on a daily basis. confidence in europe and the “acquis communautaire” is great. this perhaps explains why businesspeople are preparing for internationalization of their companies. nonetheless, structured preparation is necessary, since the impact of big international european market on companies that do business is significant. the ongoing harmonization of company law has also contributed to the practical realization of the freedom of establishment of international company. a common market with free competition requires that companies from various member states have more or less the same rights and obligations which would enable them to become international. societas europea the european company or societas europaea has the abbreviation: se. the abbreviation se is to be also added after a company’s name, like plc or ltd. the regulation therefore is of direct effect in all the member states. the regulation allows companies established in more than one member state to -incorporate in the form of a single company within the eu. a european company is then controlled by one system of rules regarding its functioning and the publication of information. the intention is to greatly reduce the administrative burden in each member state. a recurring criticism of the european company, however, is that the tax rules have not been harmonized, as a result of which the benefits of the regulation are limited. any limited company (such as, e.g. a uk ltd, french sa, a dutch bv or a german ag) can re-incorporate as a european company provided it has its registered office and principal management in the eu and: – it merges with one or more existing public limited companies that have their registered offices and head offices within the eu, provided that at least two of them are governed by the law of different member states; or – together with one or more companies that have their registered office and head offices in the eu, it forms a holding se, provided that each of at least two of the companies journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 71-80) 76 • are governed by the law of different member states or • have had a subsidiary for at least two years that is governed by the law of another member state or a branch that is situated in another member state; or – together with one or more companies that have their registered offices and head offices in the eu, it forms a subsidiary se by subscribing for its shares, provided that each of at least two of the companies • are governed by the law of a different member state or • have had a subsidiary for at least two years that is governed by the law of another member state or a branch that is situated in another member state; or – it is a public company which has its registered office and head office within the eu and transforms itself as an se provided that it has had a subsidiary company for at least two years that is governed by the law of another member state. methodology this methodology comprises a number of different building blocks. it allows businesses to manage the internalization process in a structured manner so as to ensure compliance with the (new) rules and benefit from any opportunities resulting from international market accession. the approach distinguishes six building blocks: 1. impact study: the first step consists in mapping out the undertaking in order to examine where the international environment will have an impact. subsequently, the legal framework is identified. thus, a gap analysis can be drawn up, by which it can be determined where the new conditions affects the undertaking. on the basis of this gap analysis, a project plan is drawn up and the actions to be taken within the various departments are defined (purchases, sales, production, environment, logistics, finance, ict, hr and legal affairs). 2. programme management: the efforts needed to bring the undertaking into line with the international market are reflected in a “programme” respecting all good project management principles including milestones and deliverables. this yildirim, k., social changes and their impac, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 71-80) 77 programme is best managed centrally. the project leader is the pivotal point and manages the programme across the various departments of the company. 3. systems and process alignment: the various changes to systems and processes in the undertaking as a consequence of european market accession have to be attuned to one another. 4. change management: changes have to be well prepared for and guidance has to be given. the staff, customers and suppliers have to be aware of the changes that may occur. this can be done by means of information sessions, training and appointing an inhouse or external adviser for front-line assistance. 5. knowledge management: knowledge is important. businesses need reliable information in order to work out developments in the gap that is to be bridged. businesses can collect this information themselves, use the services of trade associations or advisers. to help ensure that the new tax legislation is valid in a correct and timely manner, and that european environment is business-friendly. 6. business strategy. bearing in mind future changes connected with internationalization of the company, it is important for business to reflect strategically on their operations in europe. in which of the 27 european countries do they want to or need to have operations? economic, fiscal and legal considerations should not be lost sight of when defining business strategy. internationalization via information and communication ttechnologies opportunities for smes european union initiative includes measures for easing access to the ict market while protecting the rights and privacy of consumers. member states have already outlined their policy lines and the legislative framework with regard to ict. in addition, they are making extensive investments in introducing ict into government, education and the private sector. with help from european funding, the ict infrastructure is being further improved. by means of education programmes, the smes are also being made more familiar with ict. this is also increasing the possibilities for electronic trade. since automation is not yet very far advanced, there is little resistance to replacing current systems with new technologies. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 71-80) 78 ict makes communication with suppliers, trade partners and customers easier. european businesses can take advantage of existing trading platforms based on the internet and thus conduct electronic trade with partners in other member states. international smes should be open to new commercial practices. they can get new ways of doing business introduced. they can exercise influence on commercial practices and the underlying application software. the smes are in the course of adapting quality standards in order to be able to get international certification from institutes. up-to-date technical skills are available within the whole eu. ict developments can thereby be developed offshore. pitfalls to be watched out for by smes when choosing new international trading partners trade partners are required to adjust their information systems to the eu rules regarding trade obligations, taxation, security and privacy. if the business model changes, for example by outsourcing transport, then the internal business processes also have to be adjusted. at the same time, the integrity of and supervision over existing commercial practices and systems have to be maintained, if only to avoid creating hiatuses in switching from the old to the new manner of working. looking for a trading partner in an unknown international surrounding is not always easy. for advice, one can always consult “interest groupings” or specialist advisers. but sometimes such groupings represent the whole industry sector and not just a limited group of private businesses. trade agreements and trade activities are already possible before the governing framework is fully operational. in this, it is important that any transitional provisions are complied with and the final rules become effective as quickly as possible. only where the rules have been definitively set down in the company will the chance of fines or damage to the business’s reputation be smaller. yildirim, k., social changes and their impac, jwe (2010, no. 1-2, 71-80) 79 case study our first survey was conducted in november 2006. it appeared that the vast majority (80%) of czech sme businesses still had not thought about the consequences and internationalization possibilities. this appears to accord with another survey conducted in may 2009. this second survey was carried out among 100 smes in the czech republic. it appeared that they underestimate not only the impact of bigger competition on the european market but also the preparatory costs and the time necessary to get their business internationalized. of interest in this regard is the fact that smes that were aware of the internationalization were thinking more strategically and not only focusing on the impact on their daily operations. conclusions in order to improve internalization of the smes it is needed to: – increase the access of small enterprises to financial services, – identify and remove barriers to the creation of a pan-european capital market – improve the relationship between the banking system and small enterprises by creating appropriate access conditions to credit and to venture capital – improve the access for smes to the structural funds and welcome initiatives by the european investment bank to increase funding available to start-ups and high-technology enterprises, including equity instruments. – to strengthen existing programmes aimed at promoting technology dissemination towards small enterprises as well as the capacity of small business to identify, select and adapt technologies – to foster technology co-operation and sharing among different company sizes and particularly between european small enterprises, develop more effective research programmes focused on the commercial application of knowledge and technology – develop and adapt quality and certification systems to small enterprises. it is important to ensure that a community patent is available and easily accessible to small enterprises journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2010, no. 1-2, 71-80) 80 – foster the involvement of small enterprises in inter-firm cooperation, at local, national, european and international levels as well as the co-operation between small enterprises and higher education and research institutions actions at national and regional levels aimed at developing inter-firm clusters and networks should therefore be supported, pan-european cooperation between small enterprises using information technologies enhanced, best practice in co-operative agreements spread, and small enterprises co-operation supported to improve their capabilities to enter pan-european markets and to extend their activities in third country markets. the sme´s internalization process does never end. it is the permanent task for smes, businesses of europe, national governments, professional associations and providers of corporate services to inform business appropriately and show them the way. in conclusion, a range of various issues for smes will be passed into practice. as a result, a company can know what to expect and what it has to do to manage its business to prepare for the internalization. references [1] http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/files/charter/docs/charter_en.pdf [2] http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/enterprise_policy/sme_definition/index_en.htm [3] http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/econtentplus/index_en.htm [4] http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/enterprise_policy/charter/index_en.htm [5] http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sme/fund_tools/fund_tools_theme8_cs.htm [6] http://eurlex.europa.eu/lexuriserv/lexuriserv.do?uri=celex:52008dc0394:en: [7] http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/entrepreneurship/sme_envoy.htm received: 12 january 2010 article history: accepted: 19 march 2010 doi: 10.28934/jwee19.12.pp36-55 original scientific paper land ownership patterns and livelihood of women entrepreneurs: implications for sustainable development in ado-odo local government in ogun state, nigeria olabisi s. yusuff1 faculty of social sciences, department of sociology a b s t r a c t land is an essential commodity everywhere in the world, for people who use it mainly as a source of livelihood, either for farming or other subsistence purposes... women who are the primary users of land for farming faces challenges on owning landed properties as a result of their gender. women entrepreneurs frequently and systematically lack access to land rights in many developing countries. yet, land rights are keys for a life with dignity; for adequate standard of living, for economic independence and for personal freedom. this study therefore examined land ownership patterns and livelihoods of women entrepreneurs in ado-odo local government of ogun state. the paper was hinged on social exclusion and feminist theory. method of data collections was triangulated. five hundred questionnaires were distributed to participants through multistage sampling technique, while 20 indepth interviewed were conducted for respondents that were purposively picked. quantitative data was analyzed using simple percentage and frequency distribution. hypothesis was tested with chi-square method. qualitative data was analyzed through content analysis and ethnographic summaries. findings from the study revealed that patterns of land ownership in ado-odo local government affects women entrepreneurs livelihoods and that majority of women respondents want change, as they narrated their challenges as regards patterns of land ownership. the paper recommends that for women entrepreneurs to have full access and rights 1 e-mail: soyusuf@yahoo.co.uk, tel: 23407030386279 yusuff, o.s., land onwership patterns and livelhood, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) 37 to ownership of lands, there is need to deconstruct, re-construct, and reconceptualize customary law notions as they pertain to issues of land inheritance by women. this is important for sustainable development in ogun state, nigeria. key words patterns, land ownership, livelihoods, women entrepreneurs aocial exclusion. nigeria introduction in rural areas, land is the basis for agricultural production and the source for securing natural resources through fishing, hunting, pasturing or other activities. land is used by many people for different purposes (e.g. for agricultural production, housing, industry, services and government). land also has social, cultural and political functions related to each country’s history. land rights have broad impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. these rights refer to the rules that specify who can do what with which resources and assets, for how long and under what conditions. land rights increase women’s powers in social, economic and political relationships. rural women claim that a secured land right increases their social and political status and improves their sense of self-esteem, confidence, security and dignity” (crowley, 2001). land is therefore, vested in trusteeship with uncles and other male relatives, and is inherited by children when they become of age” (eide, 2006). there are several reasons to these constraints, for instance. the community orientation is that if women buy and own land under their names, they ultimately undermine family unity and ties. women may feel they do not need their husbands. part of the old practice is that if a woman wants to invest on land, such land should be bought in the husband’s name, after which she can use the land as she pleases. widows are often ejected by their in-laws out of the family land when their husbands die. many women lose their rights to property after divorce or the death of a spouse. women‘s socially sanctioned dependence on men, leaves them vulnerable to 'cultural traditions' that do not recognize women‘s ownership of land and other property. men most often are willing to enforce such so-called customs. it is also emerging that some women who were themselves denied rights because of retrogressive practices uphold such practices to deny other women their rights” (agarwal, 2003). 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) however, this work tries to examine the effects of land ownership pattern in ado-odo local government area of ogun state as women does not have much access to owning landed property, and how this poor access to land can affect livelihood, lack of food, and inability to make adequate sustenance provisions for their households. the land ownership system discriminates against women in many parts of the world, in traditional customary law, the wife is considered the property of the husband and so whatever she owns devolves to the husband. in addition a woman‘s continued interest in a property owned by her husband is dependent on two factors: whether she bore children with the husband, or whether on the death of her husband she chooses to remarry a male relation of her deceased husband” (caroline, 1995). it is therefore necessary to delve into the study of land ownership patterns and effects on women’s livelihood in ado-odo local government areas of ogun state with the view to examine the implications for sustainable development in the state. in view of the foregoing, the objectives of this study, therefore, include to a. examine socio-economic characteristics of women’s entreprenuers in ado-odo b. find out the effects of land ownerships on women’s livelihood in adoodo c. determine the challenges women faces on land ownership pattern in ado-odo d. find out women’s perception on improving land ownership in ado-odo brief empirical literature patterns of land ownership in developing countries nwabueze (1972) sees land ownership pattern as the most comprehensive and complete relation that can exist in respect of anything. it is the fullest amplitude method of rights of enjoyment, management, and disposal over property. it implies that the owner’s title to the rights is superior and paramount over any other rights that may exist in the land in favour of others. ownership therefore connotes the totality of or bundle of the rights of the owner over and above every other person or thing. tobi (1987) in affirmation views land ownership pattern as a method of collection of rights to use and enjoy property, including the right to transmit it to others. one fun yusuff, o.s., land onwership patterns and livelhood, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) 39 damental feature of ownership is the right of alienation of a property without seeking anybody’s consent. a person owning a parcel of land has the right to take decisions on the land without consulting anybody. quan (2006) land ownership pattern is the perception of having secured rights to land and property on a continual basis, free from unreasonable interference from outsiders, as well as the ability to reap the benefits of labour and capital invested either in use or rented to another. thus, the way in which access to land is regulated, property rights are defined, and ownership conflicts are resolved has bread implications beyond the sphere of agriculture production (deinniger and binswanger, 1999). emeasoba, (2012) studied land ownership among the yoruba of south west nigeria: a case for women land inheritance. the researcher focused on the position of women’s land inheritance and ownership rights in the south western states of nigeria and relates them to what is obtains in some selected societies in nigeria and other countries. it then makes proposals on how to come out of the quagmire (inability of women to own land), and concludes that for law and policy to positively influence gender relations in the land tenure realm in these states, there is need to deconstruct, reconstruct, and re-conceptualize customary law notions as they pertain to issues of land inheritance by women. yusuff (2013) studied the challenges of women entrepreneurs in rural informal economic activities: implications for sustainable rural development in ogun state, nigeria. the researcher found that acquiring farmland is not easy thing around the study area. it was also discovered that the farmland although belong to the father, yet women has no legal rights to the farmland. the researcher also finds that when women want to buy land from indigenous owner, they are asked to bring their husband or brothers. on the other hand, the land owners will advise the women to plant only food crops. this position made the widow and divorced rural women to be more insecure as this vital means of production becomes more difficult. conceptual framework interpretation social exclusion theory is a process in which individual or peoples are systematically blocked, or denied full access to various rights, opportunities and resources that are normally available to members of the different group and which are fundamental to social integration and observance of human right, within that particular group example, housing, employment, 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) healthcare, land use, civic engagement, democratic participation and due process. social exclusion theory is of the perspective that people are socially excluded from what is supposed to be their rights, like not having access to communal land. women are deprived of their inheritance and recognition, because they believe they are in transit, i.e. they will get married some day; and go to their husband house. the customs and traditions oppress women and therefore created no room for access to communal or inherited land. women are separated and are seen as inferior being when it comes to fundamental rights and this inequality affects their livelihood or income and access to land. patriarchy, the dominance nature of man, and the level of education of women limits their access to land. these stumbling blocks or marginalization affects the livelihood of women. a woman who does not have access to these types of lands suffers; and is unemployed. unemployed women cannot afford to rent or lease land, unless through gift which does not easily come by, while women who can afford to rent, lease, or purchased land are more educated, could be self-employed as they can use the land for different purposes. likewise women, who are widowed, divorced, separated, and without a male child can only acquire land through rent, lease, gift or purchased. women who are unemployed cannot acquire education; and know about land use act, and will not be able to pay levies or charges on acquiring government land. however, to address this menace created by social exclusion in the society, the feminist theory came to play. feminist theory is a movement that agitates for women’s emancipation, equality, and equity in the society. from the feminist perspective, women for example, are denied access to land in some areas, through inheritance, deprived of their rights of inheriting their father’s properties which might likely affect their livelihood. from the feminist paradigm, women are separated, oppressed and intimidated and are seem as second class citizens, and not been equal to men in the society. feminism came to fill the gap, which social exclusion created by fighting for the emancipation of women from marginalization, inequality to equity. however, with this intervention, women, no matter their statuses will be able to acquire education, be gainfully employed, self-employed and will be able to purchase, rent, or lease land even if they cannot have access to the land through inheritance it is hoped that at the end of the study, some of these issues will be resolved through positive changes to land ownership, equity and equality to land ownership and inheritance. yusuff, o.s., land onwership patterns and livelhood, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) 41 methods and materials study areas ado-odo/ota local government area is one of the 19 local government areas of ogun state, nigeria. it came into existence on may 19, 1989, following the merging of ota, part of the defunct ifo/ota local government with ado-odo/igbesa areas of the yewa south local government. ado-odo/ota borders on metropolitan lagos. the local government area is the second largest in ogun state and it is headquartered at ota (or otta) at 6°41′00″n 3°41′00″e to the north of the area. other towns and cities include ado-odo, agbara, igbesa, iju-ota, itele, kooko ebiye town, owode, sango ota etc. it has an area of 878 km² and a population of 526,565 at the 2006 census. being primarily agrarian in nature, the local government area produces cash and food crops especially cocoa, kola nut, palm oil, coffee, cassava, timber, maize, and vegetables. mineral resources include kaolin, silica sand, gypsum, and glass sand. method of data collection method of data collection was triangulated using quantitative and qualitative methods. methods of data collection include structured questionnaire, and interview guide. quantitatively, data was collected using multi stage sampling techniques. five hundred questionnaires were distributed to rural women that engaged in farming activities. qualitatively, twenty women farmers were purposively picked for in-depth interview. the questionnaire was personally administered to the respondents that were available at the time of this interview. the feed backs were also collected in the same manner. method of data analysis the data collected from samples was arranged and organized into frequency tables. responses to structured oral interviews were analyzed using content analysis, and ethnographic summaries. responses to questionnaires were analyzed based on research questions and the data was placed on a frequency table and was analyzed using percentage and tables of illustration. the percentage and frequency are based on statistical order. the researcher then put into tabulation the data collected in pursuance of the main object of the study, testing of hypothesis and the outcome made necessary recommendation. the analysis was grouped according to the research objectives https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php?pagename=ado-odo/ota&params=6_41_00_n_3_41_00_e_region:au_type:city_source:gns-enwiki 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) data presentation and analysis table 1: socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents statement variables frequency percentage 1. age 18 – 28 29 – 38 39 – 48 49 – 58 59 and above total 51 101 86 60 202 500 10.2 20.2 17.2 12.0 40.4 100.0 2, marital status single married divorced widow/widower separated total 207 227 10 43 13 500 41.4 45.4 2.0 8.8 2.6 100.0 3, religion christianity traditional islam total 499 1 0 500 99.8 0.2 .0 100.0 5. number of children 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 no child total 19 39 62 48 32 29 18 23 10 3 1 216 500 3.8 7.8 12.4 9.6 6.4 5.8 3.6 4.6 2.0 0.6 0.2 216 100.0 source: authors field work 2018 the findings shown in the table 1 goes thus; ages of women in number and percentages, according to their responses, 51 (10.1%) of the respondents were between the ages of 18 – 28 years old, 101(20.0%) are between the ages of 29 – 37 years old, 86 (17 -.0%) are between the ages of 39 – 48 years old, 60 (11.9%) are between the ages of 49 – 55 years old, while 202 yusuff, o.s., land onwership patterns and livelhood, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) 43 (40.4%) are between the ages of 58 years and above. this shows that those who are between the ages of 59 and above have the highest frequency. the implication of this finding was that there are older persons in rural areas than younger ones. the finding supported olurode (1999) that demographically, rural areas are populated by older persons because younger ones had gone to rural areas in search of greener pastures the findings showed that the highest number of respondents in the rural environment of ado-odo, are married women, 207 (41.4%) of the respondents were single, 227 (45.4%) are married, 10 (2.0%) are divorced, 43 (8.6%) are widow/widower, while 13 (2.6%) are separated. this shows that those who are married have the highest frequency. the religion status of the respondents indicates that majority of the ado-odo women practice christianity, 499 (99.8%) of the respondents are christians, 1 (.2%) are traditional. this shows that those who are christians have the highest frequency. the findings on number of children showed that respondents who have children have the highest frequency. 19 (3.8%) of the respondents have just one child, 39 (7.8%) have two children, 62 (12.4%) have three children, 48 (9.6%) have four children, 32 (6.4) have five children, 29 (5.8) have six children, 18 (3.6%) have seven children, 23(4.6%) have eight children, 10 (2.0%) have nine children, 3 (0.6%) have ten children, while, 1(0.2%) have eleven children. a total of 284 respondents have children, while 216 respondents do not have children. the fertility rate is someone stable in rural areas. this may be because of poverty level and economic issues associated with rural populace. table 2: patterns of land ownerships in ado-odo community variables statement frequency percentage patterns of land ownerships individual land ownership government land ownership family land communal land ownership 10 40 210 240 2 8 42 48 do women have rights to inherit land as their permanent property no yes 500 0 100 0 inheritance of land in the community to male and female children to male children alone to female children alone 0 500 0 0 100 0 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) variables statement frequency percentage do you have land in your name yes no total 106 394 500 21.2 78.8 100 means of acquisitions of land by purchase a gift from husband leasing total 85 06 15 106 80 5.6 14.1 source: author’s field work (2018) from the table 2, community owns 48 percent of total land in the community. this means that everyone has rights to land in ado-odo local government. different traditional families’ members own 42 percent of the land. government acquired 8 percent of the land and individuals own only 2 percent of the land. this finding translated that family and community own more than ninety percent of ado-odo land. despite, the fact that each gender has rights of inheritance, women do not inherit land or entitled to inherit land from family or community. this is because of ethno-cultural beliefs system that women do not have rights of inheritance within her family and community. however, only 21.1% have lands in their names, while 78.8% do not have lands in their names. among the 21.1% that have lands their names, 80% of them acquired the land through purchase, while 14.1% have access to the land through leasing either from families or community. the remaining 5.6% of them acquired the land as a gift from their husbands. this was supported by some respondents in idi session who said the following; we do not practice individual ownership of land here, but communal ownership. one person does not own land here. it is a public property. “women are not entitled to inherit land in ado-odo community” she went further to say that “women can get land through other means like purchase, rent, and lease or through gift, but not through inheritance from their father. that’s why stopping the deprivation is not an easy thing as the wicked ones amongst the men will not agree. (idi/ female/49yrs/3rd march, 2018) yusuff, o.s., land onwership patterns and livelhood, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) 45 another respondent said: “woman are not entitled to inherit land in this community, land is not one man business, but the entire communities. we met it that way, and we get along with well, although sometimes the widows and women with no male children suffers intimidation and sexual harassment from men and their family members regarding land, as the men do demand for sex or ask women to give out their young female children to them for marriage, in other to be on their side in time of troubles, or giving them land to farm on, in exchange to sleeping with them. (idi/female/40yrs/3rd march, 2018) another respondent said: “woman are not entitled to inherit land in this community, because of tradition, which made a woman a property to her husband, and therefore a woman should marry and go to her husband’s house, where she will be recognized, and this recognition is based on her ability to have a male child for her husbands or else she will still be marginalized, and this tradition has been there before i was born, (idi/female/39yrs/3rd march, 2018/) communal land ownership significantly limits and weakens’ women’s interest to struggle for liberation and their rights. women cannot fight the whole men in the community, unlike in individual ownership of land, where one can easily struggle and get results from respective families. communal land ownership also limits access to credit and productive resources, and thereby constrains options for self-employment in agriculture and social protection in times of shocks (fao, 2010). it was observed that women are totally discriminated by denying them the right to own or inherit land from their parents, or spouse after the husband demise, unless the spouse has given them the land as a gift before his demise. culturally, women are seen as properties that can be inherited and women that do not have male children suffer most from discriminations against land ownership. findings of this study are line with the findings of yusuff (2013), who in her study found that acquiring farmland is not easy thing around the study area. it was also discovered that the farmland although belong to the father, yet women has no legal rights to the farmland. the researcher also finds that when women http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1638e/i1638e.pdf 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) want to buy land from indigenous owner, they are asked to bring their husband or brothers. tradition supports this system of inheritance. this shows that all the respondents agreed that the system supports the gender discrimination on land. this is therefore supports the opinion of the social exclusion theory which states that women are totally excluded from certain things in the society. in order words, women are excluded when parents/family property are being shared. more broadly, many women face social exclusion. moosa-mitha (2012) discusses the western feminist movement as direct reactions to the marginalization of white women in society. women were excluded from the labor force and their work in the home was not valued. table 3: the effects of land ownership pattern on women’s livelihood using education and nutrition statement variables frequency percentage does this land ownership pattern affect your income? yes no total 294 206 500 58.8 41.2 100.0 does your child or children go school? yes no no response total 235 218 47 500 50.0 43.6 9.4 100.0 reasons poverty parents’ nonchalant attitude to child or children’s education. health related issues total 335 108 57 500 67 21.6 11.4 100 source: authors fieldwork 2018 analysis in table 3 indicates that 294 (58.8%) of the respondents were affected by land ownership pattern. this may be due to the facts that women farmers may not be allowed to plant cash-crop because the land does not belong to them. while 206(41.2%) said they are not affected by land ownership pattern. those not affected by landownership may engage in other economic trading activities. despite lack of land ownership, which affected income, majority of the respondents 233(48.6%) of the respondents send their children to school, while 46(9.2%) of the respondents don’t send their children to school. this shows that majority of the respondents can afford their children’s education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/feminist_movement yusuff, o.s., land onwership patterns and livelhood, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) 47 this shows that majority of the respondent’s income are not directly affected by this land ownership pattern. this is because women already have idea of the culture so they prepare themselves ahead of time by engaging in other activities that will improve their livelihood; this was further buttressed by the respondents from idi, who said as follows: the culture is too harsh to women, it affects our income and livelihood indirectly, and although we are able to get along with the system, because we met it that way, i wished the custom will be abolished, in favor of both gender (idi/ female/49yrs/ march, 2018) there is peace with our culture, we don’t want women to come and be causing problems with land inheritance this and that, from their marital homes. it does not affect our income. we are okay. we do many jobs to survive. land or no land we have been surviving (.idi/female/25yrs/march, 2018) land has long been recognized as key to advancing the socio-economic rights and wellbeing of women and their position in society (rodernberg and wichterich, 1999). despite this assertion, women are still experiencing a lot of challenges concerning the issue of land ownership. for the majority of women in africa, access to land is still linked to their relationship with a male family member and is forfeited if the relationship ends (rodernberg and wichterich, 1999). radical feminist argued that women’s subservient role in the society was too closely woven into the social fabric to be unraveled without a revolutionary revamping of society itself (yusuff, 2017). they believe women have been subjugated, and men primarily benefited from subordination of women in the society. they are exploited because they undertake free labour for men by carrying out childcare and house work and are denied access to positions of power haralambos and holborn (2003). 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) table 4: nature of livelihood using nutrition statement variable frequency percentage how many times do you eat food daily? three times two times once total 306 174 19 500 61.2 34.8 3.8 100.0 how often do you eat meat daily? once two times occasionally total 129 255 116 500 25.8 51.0 23.2 100.0 what is the main source of potable water? pipe borne borehole hand dug well stream total 47 278 1 174 500 9.4 55.2 0.2 34.8 100.0 source: authors fieldwork 2018 indicates that 306 (61.2%) of the respondents eats three times a day, 174(34.8%) eats two times a day, while 18(3.6%) eats once a day. this shows that majority of the respondents eats three times a day. how often do you eat meat daily? this showed that 129 (25.8%) of the respondents eats meat once a day, 254(50.8%) eats meat two times a day, 115(23.8%) eats meat once a day, this shows that majority of the respondents eats meat two times a day. what is the main source of potable water? the study showed that 47 (9.4.%) of the respondents have pipe born water as their source of potable water, 276(55.2%) have borehole as their source of potable water, 1(0.2%) use hand dug well, 164(32.8%) gets their potable water from stream. this shows that majority of the respondents gets their potable water from borehole. this was confirmed by idi respondents a respondent in in-depth interview has this to say,” i eat food two or three times a day, depending on how hungry i am; but mostly three times a day. i also eat meat as i eat food unless the food does not require meat like tea and bread; but i eat meat mostly two or three times a day, or even more than. as for potable water, we have boreholes, and also we do fetch from other people’s own when there no yusuff, o.s., land onwership patterns and livelhood, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) 49 light; or we go to the stream. we don’t have problem with water. idi/ female/49yrs/3rd march, 2018 the study shows that the women of ado-odo are hard working as they struggle hard to take care of their family. even though ado-odo women are marginalized in terms of inheritance on land, which is the major source of livelihood in the society, they still struggles and fight to succeed within the context of harsh culture which they found themselves. challenges of women in accessing land in ado-odo community according to cooper (2010), gender discrimination in inheritance system is a violation of human rights and linked to asset stripping, poverty traps, intergenerational and trans-generational transmission of poverty. the custom does not recognized and acknowledged joint acquisition of land by both spouses to give women some rights or privileges to land. therefore women experiences deprivation, sexual harassment, intimidation, betrayal and the rest of them from men, this assertion was supported by some respondents in in-depth interview as they narrate their experiences; a respondent narrated her ordeal, “i witnessed in my family two orphans, ladies to be précised, being rubbed of their fathers land by our uncles, and ask them to go and get married, leaving them with no alternative than to go to court, and as god will have it the girls won the case in the court, but the problem is after settling in court, they still come home to face these set of people with this barbaric culture, and they are not ready to release these land, as they use every means, like poison or even diabolic powers to intimidate these girls”. she also narrated another ordeal, as she said “a popular nigerian actor from ado-odo, beside my house, collected land from widows forcefully and built mansion on it, not minding how this women feel and how they will cope”. efforts are also jeopardized even by the women themselves out of ignorance and different views of the tradition. 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) (idi/female/40yrs/3rdmarch, 2018/ adoodo) another respondent shed more light on these challenges: i would have inherited many acres of land, as my father has many acres of land and we have only one male child, who leaves some acres to fallow, though i’m not regretting being a woman, because i can’t blame god who created me to be one, but all i’m saying is that this culture is barbaric, and not favorable to the opposite sex, as some women don’t give birth to male children, some women don’t also marry at all, many women experience abuse physically, psychologically, emotionally and otherwise, because of the different harassments they get from men regarding this marginalization” we want change in the custom, if it should come, we will be happy. (idi/female/40yrs/, 2018) despite the clarity of the marriage laws, the rights of the widows are often not upheld in regular courts and almost never upheld in traditional courts especially in ado-odo and yoruba land generally. women‘s land rights are critically important. we know that they are correlated with increased empowerment and better outcomes for women and children (rodernberg and wichterich, 1999). the additional exclusion of women from access to land pushes them towards cities, where they often join the ranks of increasing number of women-headed households in slum area. according to amanda (2007), a quarter of the world‘s 1.1 billion poor people are landless. women’s perception on improvement of patterns of ownership of land among peasant communities in nigeria and africa generally, land ownership has been the main assurance of their sustainability and livelihood (odoemene, 2012; daniel and mittal, 2009; oxfam international, 2011). for the various communities and individuals in this part of nigeria, land is a treasured possession which is seen as the only enduring legacy an individual or community could bequeath posterity. respondents were asked about their perceptions on how the patterns of land ownership can be improved. several respondents expressed optimism on this issue: some respondents felt that it yusuff, o.s., land onwership patterns and livelhood, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) 51 will be a waste of time to embark on such struggle. some felt that women themselves were not ready to fight, that women are the enemies of themselves. some expressed their opinions that land ownership patterns are cultural and men will do everything within their powers to preserve the culture. some respondents below illuminated on this issue: a respondent in idi had this to say i don’t know how this can be improved because it has been in existence before we were born so i feel it is only government that can come to our aid because even we the women do not have one voice. some people will be scared, while some ho are willing to fight those does not have enough support to encourage them. so i feel its only government that can assist the women. idi/female/35yrs/april 2018 /, ado-odo another respondent expressed her opinion on this: we do talk about it in our gathering like the august meeting which is done once in every year but its not every member that indicates interest on the issue when it is been raised because they feel it is a waste of time and effort while some ignorant ones who are ignorant of the effects are in support. but they believe it is only the government and change of attitudes towards the women that can bring the desired change. so government should come to their aid through the traditional rulers and council of elders to have a change of orientation taking into cognizance the modern trend (idi/female/40yrs/april, 2018) sdc gender equality network (2014); monimart (2014) reported that different cultural discriminatory systems occur and a lack of understanding of land policies and laws often coexist and make it very hard for women to claim their rights. women’s rights to land often include inadequate legal standards and/or ineffective implementation at national and local level, because of weak institutions, as well as customary/religious laws and discriminatory cultural attitudes and practices. 52 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) recommendation 1. on the operational level, a community-based approach involving the whole community seems to be a crucial element for success in promoting equal rights to land. community leaders and religious and other leaders are key people who need to be consulted and guided – even when perseverance and patience is needed. 2. quotas and titling for women will be a useful strategy, but depend strongly on the context and always require acceptance by the community. successful example such as favourable court cases can serve as a positive .example and encourage other women to fight for their rights. an international human rights framework is not sufficient to promote equal rights to land for women and men – and neither is a favourable legal framework on the national level. related effectively functioning institutions and control mechanisms have to be in place and women and men need to know about their rights, as they need equal participation in decision making 3. religious leaders should be carried along in the move for change as they can provide a veritable avenue for the dissemination of the idea. federal state, local government and traditional rulers who are the custodians of culture, non-governmental organizations, men and women, are all needed to achieve the necessary change against the high level discriminatory practices on women’s land inheritance and ownership. it may not be easy considering that in the final analysis the issue has to be legislated upon and passed into law and most of the legislators are men with their inherent biases. 4. civil societies, especially non-governmental organizations, can play significant roles in ensuring that women have rights to land by advocating and supporting gender inclusiveness in national laws and policies, and in the development of land. they can also monitor, document, and publicize gender issues arising from land development. this should include raising awareness of the benefits of ensuring that women have input in managing and developing land, and publicizing violations of rights to land where applicable. individuals and institutions involved in land law and administration can ensure that women have adequate input in decision making and that interpretations of custom that give greater recognition to women’s rights are favoured over interpretations that give less recognition to them. civil society yusuff, o.s., land onwership patterns and livelhood, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) 53 groups can also play a role by increasing women’s awareness of their rights and improve their access to justice. conclusion pattern of land ownership and women livelihoods: implications for sustainable development this study aimed at identifying land ownership pattern and livelihood of women in ado-odo community of ogun state. the paper x-rayed the position of women’s land inheritance and ownership rights in the community and how its effect on their livelihoods. this is to find out if land ownership pattern influences women’s livelihood, there are many oppressive cultural practices that exits in various other parts of the country. such practices include among others denial of land to women as inheritance and lack of interest to female western education among others. less than 2% of the land available worldwide is owned by women (actionaid 2010). under the yoruba culture, women are regarded as inferior to men. this attitude is reflected in all facets of life, be it social, economic or political. the predominance of patriarchy in law, policy and practice in the political zone ensures that land has owners but they are not women. women are even seen as properties inheritable by men. the findings of this work validated this assertion. it was discovered in this work that majority of the population that made up ado-odo community believes that there is relationship between land ownership pattern and their livelihood. culture is its self-dynamic and not static, as the issue of women inheriting and owning land has achieved global attention with both national and international women summits clamoring for change. this means that the importance of women land inheritance rights cannot be over emphasized if women are given equal opportunity. it would facilitate increase in economic opportunities, encourage investment in land and food production, and improve family security, fight poverty and achieve sustainable development. this paper argues that land is essential to secure a livelihood, especially for rural people, and to reduce poverty in other to promote sustainable development. equal rights to land must therefore be an unchallenged asset in the new post-2015 development framework. the most common way to achieve equal access for women and men to land as well as control over it are land tenure reforms (fao 2010; pallas 2011) . 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) references [1] action aid. 2010. her mile: women’s rights and access to land. the last stretch of road to eradicate hunger. rome, action aid [2] agarwal, b. 2003. “gender and land right revisited: exploring new prospects via the state, family, and market”, journal of agrarian change, vol. 3 nos. 1&2 pp 184-224. 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[11] international land coalition (ilc). 2011. strategic framework 20112015. rome. a transformative stand-alone goal on achieving gender equality, [12] haralambo and holborn. 2002. sociology theme and perspective. london harper collins [13] nwabueze, b.o. 1972. nigerian land law, enugu, nwamife press, nigeria [14] odoemene, a. 2012. “land grab conflicts in africa: engaging landscapes of resistance and alternatives”, research proposal presented for the african peace building network (apn) fellowship competition of the social science research council (ssrc), new york (june). [15] oxfam international. 2011. “bio-fuelling poverty: why the eu renewablefuel target may be disastrous for poor people.” (oxfam briefing note (november 1) [16] pallas, s. 2014. women’s land rights: the key to sustainable development food and agriculture organization of the united nations. [17] quan, j. 2006. land access in the 24th century; issues, trends, linkages and policy options .food and agriculture organizations, rome. yusuff, o.s., land onwership patterns and livelhood, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 36-55) 55 [18] rodernberg. b., and wichterich, c. 1999. empowerment: a study of the women's projects abroad supported by the heinrich boll foundation. berlin: heinrich boll foundation [19] tobi, n. 1987. nigerian land law nigeria, ahmadu bello university press. nigeria [20] yusuff, olabisi. s. (2015) the challenges of women entrepreneurs in rural informal economic activities: implication for sustainable rural development in ogun state, nigeria. in olutayo, a.o. omobowale, a.o and akanle, o. contemporary development issues in nigeria. cambridge scholars publishing.uk. article history: received: 4 december, 2018 accepted: 8 may, 2019 publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade associate editors aidin salamzadeh, faculty of entrepreneurship, university of teheran, iran hiroko kawamorita kesim, ondokuz mayis university, turkey editorial office journal secretaries dejana pavlović, ma elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by donat graf, beograd jelena petrović0f snežana radukić1f introduction literature review methodology data – analysis of economic growth and entrepreneurial activity in republic of serbia results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references milica slijepčević2f karolina perčić3f creating fashion creative process in fashion creation the process of fashion diffusion, creation of identity and fashion product image life cycle of a fashion product fashion, style, hit fashion product pricing cost-based pricing market-based pricing promoting a fashion product fashion magazines fashion blogs conclusion olabisi s. yusuff4f introduction brief empirical literature patterns of land ownership in developing countries conceptual framework interpretation study areas data presentation and analysis challenges of women in accessing land in ado-odo community women’s perception on improvement of patterns of ownership of land recommendation references daniela petríková5f tatiana varadyová6f introduction objectives the concept of financial literacy financial literacy components financial education financial literacy and financial education in slovakia methodology results practical implementation of the inclusion of financial literacy in the teaching process discussion conclusion ann terngu makar vandefan7f introduction literature review /conceptual frame work financial support for women as entrepreneurs discussion conclusion references victoria burgess8f introduction theoretical overview discussion conclusion references an analysis of the development of entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia with a special focus on female entrepreneurship fashion product development process with reference to women's participation local government in ogun state, nigeria preparation of future teachers at vocational secondary schools and financial literacy assessing institutional founding sources and challenges facing women entrepreneurs in nigeria being a female entrepreneur case study 13_jwe_3-4 final udc: 005.32-055.2 ; 005.961:005.914.3 ; 005.412:334.722 jel: l26; b54 id: 203433740 original scientific paper female entrepreneurs’ motives and sme’s growth: an international study1 yves robichaud, laurentian university, canada egbert mcgraw, université de moncton, canada jean-charles cachon, laurentian university, canada, dawn bolton, western kentucky university, united states josé barragan codina, universidad autonoma de nuevo leon, mexico, cristina eccius-wellmann, universidad panamericana, mexico ann d. walsh, western illinois university, united states a b s t r a c t the growth of the proportion of female-owned businesses has been constant over the past decades. however, despite the persistence of the phenomenon, research has shown that female-owned businesses were still smaller and underperforming in terms of growth as compared to male-owned firms. this research contributed to updating the state of knowledge on this topic given the constant evolution of female entrepreneurs’ profile, as well as the characteristics of their businesses. a sample of 1,211 entrepreneurs from canada, mexico, and the united states, was tested in order to examine these issues key words: female entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs’ profile ,motives 1 the research team thanks the certified general accountants of canada (cga) for their financial support. 2 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 1-27) introduction the number of female-owned businesses has grown constantly over the past decades. for example, the number of self-employed females in canada increased from 513,300 to 953,000 between 1987 and 2011 (an 85.7 % increase), while the number of self-employed males grew 44.7% over the same period (1,185,800 to 1,715,800; government of canada, 2012). moreover, while in 2007 slighly over 260,000 businesses were femaleowned or controlled, which represented 16% of the total canadian smes, over 47% of the firms had at least one female owner (jung, 2010). a similar phenomenon was observed in the u.s., where 7.8 million firms were reported as female-owned in 2007, representing 28% of the total number of companies across the nation. these firms employed 7.6 million workers or 6% of the workforce. moreover, the number of female-owned businesses had grown 20% since 2002 (us census bureau, 2010). mexico is known as one of the most entrepreneurial countries in the world, with selfemployment rates of 25.8 percent for men, and 17.0 percent for women (fairlie and wooodruff, 2007). while the 2010 gem report shows a smaller number of female-owned firms as compared to male-owned businesses (10.2% vs 10.7%), the tea factor (total early-stage entrepreneurial activity) created by gem shows that women created more businesses than men did in the recent period (10.8% vs 10.2%). ifc (2011) reported that 23 percent of mexican smes were female-owned, while kantis, ishida, and komori (2002) reported a higher proportion of women involved in “dynamic firms” (having 15 to 300 employees) in mexico and three other latin american countries (9.9%), as compared to japan, korea, singapore and taiwan (4.4%). galli and kucera (2008) observed that, in latin america, female entrepreneurship was mainly an urban phenomenon outside the poorest areas. these data show the importance of female-owned businesses for each country’s economy as well as their rapid growth over recent years. despite these facts, entrepreneurship research keeps concluding to the smaller size of firms under female ownership as well as their lesser orientation towards growth when compared to their male-owned counterparts (cliff, 1998; lerner, brush and hisrich, 1997; orser and hogarth-scott, 2002; manley and gallivan, 1997; anna et al., 2000; du rietz and henrekson, 2000; rooney et al., 2003; robichaud and mcgraw, 2003; minniti et al., 2005; fuller-love, 2008 ; cole and mehran, 2009). the bulk of these results suggest that for a number of female entrepreneurs increasing profits and robichaud, y., et al., female entrepreneurs' motives, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-27) 3 generating growth may not be driving motives for managing the firm, or possibly that some factors might act as barriers preventing women from growing their business as fast as men do. research also showed the presence of various dimensions when trying to explain the attitude of female entrepreneurs towards growth. davis and shaver (2012) found that growth intentions among both female and male entrepreneurs are formed within the ambit of the individual’s life course: life course theory (elder, 1999; elder and giele, 2009) suggests that social phenomena (such as entrepreneurship) are influenced by life processes, family formation, and age. these influences combine with experience, networks, and access to capital during the entrepreneurial process. when mitigating these two sets of factors, davis and shaver (2012) found that while women were not, overall, expressing high growth intentions as much as men, a life course perspective analysis revealed that it was the young men’s “very high propensity to express high growth intentions” (507) that was driving most of the gender difference. as a consequence, when controlling for age, men and women do not differed much in their intentions to pursue high growth goals. morris et al., (2006) proposed a model identifying six dimensions relative to female entrepreneurs’ orientation towards growth: personal characteristics, entrepreneurial goals, barriers, organizational characteristics, entrepreneurial expectations, as well as identity. the following section presents in detail dimensions of this model, with a focus on the following: personal characteristics, entrepreneurial goals, barriers, organizational characteristics, and entrepreneurial expectations. these dimensions were expected to lead to an explanation of why female-owned businesses were smaller in size and less growth oriented than those owned by men. there were three objectives for this study. the first one was to determine whether the organizational characteristics and growth levels of female-owned businesses in the three-country sample reflected the literature by being smaller in size and less growth oriented than male-owned firms. the second objective was to determine whether the entrepreneurial motives expressed by female entrepreneurs were significantly different from those expressed by male entrepreneurs. the third objective was to determine the orientation of female entrepreneurs’ motives and whether they were the same across the three countries. in order to meet these objectives, samples totalling 1,211 entrepreneurs (862 male and 349 female) were drawn from canada, mexico, 4 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 1-27) and the u.s. this research is original as it compares direct surveys’ results from the three countries2. there appeared to be no other recent empiricallybased international comparison in the literature dealing directly with the link between motives and growth among smes, and this justified in these authors’ view the conduct of this study. it was expected that results would bring fresh empirical evidence helping the advancement of the field of entrepreneurship, while providing decision makers with critical information about potentially successful female business owners. for example, at a time where governments are worried about unemployment and job creation, as well as reducing unnecessary public spending, identifying effective means of boosting selfemployment by tuning programs to the specific needs of growth-oriented female entrepreneurs has become a necessity. this is notwithstanding the importance of understanding in more detail the determinants of performance among female-owned businesses. hopefully, some of the finding could benefit entrepreneurs themselves by identifying pitfalls to be avoided, how to prevent them, critical skills leading to success, as wells as problems and challenges. financial institutions and other categories of lenders would also potentially benefit from the findings of this research. theoretical framework and literature review the theoretical framework for this research is based upon the morris et al., (2006) model which identifies six dimensions relevant to female entrepreneurs’ orientations towards growth: personal characteristics, entrepreneurial goals, barriers, organizational characteristics, entrepreneurial expectations (i.e. their definition of success), as well as the entrepreneur’s identity. the morris et al., (2006) model assumes that a stronger tendency to be growth-oriented will have a positive effect upon the growth of the firm. each of these dimensions is discussed in more detail below. research on personal characteristics has unveiled obvious gendered differences among entrepreneurs, observed a levels such as work experience, education, financial and social skills (hisrich & brush, 1984; fischer et al. 1993; brush, 1992; belcourt, burke and lee-gosselin, 1991; 2 the institutions involved in the study were part of an international consortium on entrepreneurship. this consortium included teaching and research universities in canada, mexico, and the united states and was mainly geared towards raising students’ awareness to entrepreneurship and self-employment across the three countries. robichaud, y., et al., female entrepreneurs' motives, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-27) 5 mcgraw and robichaud, 1998; government of canada, 2012; filion et al., 2004). some findings (mcgraw and robichaud, 1998; government of canada, 2002; filion et al., 2004) pointed out that female business owners had a higher propensity than males to have training and experience from fields outside business or outside sciences and engineering (marvel and lee, 2011), while hisrich and brush (1984) and chaganti (1986) highlighted the fact that women frequently reported possessing lower financial skills than men but higher interpersonal skills. regarding entrepreneurial goals, researchers have uncovered a wide variety among the general entrepreneurial population (robichaud et al., 2001). when trying to identify gender goal distinctions, cadieux et al. (2002), cliff (1998), holmquist et sundin (1988), chaganti (1986), kaplan (1988) as well as hisrich and brush (1987) suggested that women had a tendency to give a comparable importance to economic and social goals, while men were more often inclined to express economic goals as predominant (kent et al., 1982; stevenson et gumpert, 1985). more recent research confirms this distinction and concludes to the importance of intrinsic or non economic goals among women, including taking control of one’s life, doing something you enjoy, personal growth, and proving yourself to others (mcgregor and tweed, 2000; lee, 1997; kirkwood, 2003; robichaud et al., 2005; almobaireek and manolova, 2012). marvel and lee (2011) observed that men’s focus on wealth creation drives them to establish new firms in clustered locations more likely to grow faster, by opposition to women who would more often choose a location likely to also meet their social goals. in terms of barriers, diaz-garcia and jimenez-moreno (2010) have pointed out evidence that entrepreneurship per se had a masculine connotation among the population, while shinnar, giacomin and janssen (2012) reported gendered differences in barrier perceptions across different cultures. several scholars have mentioned conflicts between personal and business responsibilities as a recurrent problem among female entrepreneurs (belcourt, burke, lee-gosselin, 1991; bullers, 1999; scarborough and zimmerer, 2000; robichaud and mcgraw, 2004). these conflicts are often related to social roles imposed upon women (justo et al., 2006), not only for biological reasons but also due to their social environment: lack of family support, uncertain or unstable income, financial risk, high stress levels and long working hours (liang and dunn, 2002; ferguson and durup, 1997). balancing business and family responsibilities is described as an additional source of pressure imposed upon business women, which tends to reduce 6 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 1-27) the time spent for planning, for networking (welter et al., 2006) and generate growth. barriers can also be financial, at least as found by a number of scholars (marleau, 1995; taylor et schorg, 2001; coleman, 2000; haines et al., 1999; haynes and haynes, 1999; government of canada, 2010; coleman, 2002). there are two schools of thought in that respect: for a first cohort of scholars (marleau, 1995; coleman, 2000; riding and swift, 1990) gender discrimination is present when it comes to borrow for a business: women are observed as obtaining lending conditions that are less favorable than those imposed upon men, with higher interest rates and more collateral being imposed. other findings suggest an absence of discrimination ceteris paribus: the appearance of discrimination would in fact be mitigated by factors such as the sector in which the business operates, its size and the past experience of the owner (coleman, 2002; government of canada, 2010). networking effectively has been identified by several scholars as one of the keys to entrepreneurial success (filion, 1990; aldrich, reece and dubini, 1989; staber, 1993; mcgregor and tweed, 2000; lerner et al., 1997, st-cyr and gagnon, 2004). for example mcgregor and tweed (2000), st-cyr and gagnon (2004), and lerner et al. (1997) found a relation between networking and performance. the 2004 gem report on female entrepreneurs (minniti et al., 2004) suggested that women who are connected with other entrepreneurs were more likely to start a business, while others (lavoie, 1988; collerette and aubry, 1990; cromie and birley, 1992) observed that women had a tendency to under-utilize networks. research about organizational characteristics, the fourth dimension of the morris et al., (2006) model, pointed to the smaller size of female-owned businesses and to the lesser importance of growth as a goal for them when compared to their male-owned counterparts (cliff, 1998; lerner, brush and hisrich, 1997; orser, hogarth-scott and wright, 1997; manley and galliran, 1997; du rietz and henrekson, 2000; anna et al., 2000 ; rooney et al. 2003; robichaud and mcgraw, 2003; reynolds, bygrave and autio, 2004). it has also been established that female-owned businesses are disproportionately concentrated within the retail and services sectors (jung, 2010; government of canada, 2012; smaili, 2002; légaré and st-cyr, 2000; ratté, 1999; baygan, 2000; belcourt, burke and lee-gosselin, 1991). one of the reasons identified in the literature to explain the aforementioned discrepancies is the lower levels of growth normally associated with the robichaud, y., et al., female entrepreneurs' motives, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-27) 7 retail and service sectors, where returns on investments tend to be relatively low when compared to other sectors (cooper et al., 1994). scholars have found that female entrepreneurs had different expectations than males when it came to determine their level of success and satisfaction with their business endeavours. according to the literature (robichaud, mcgraw, roger, 2005; rosa, carter, and hamilton, 1996; romano, 1994), the main reason for this gendered difference stems from the fact that female entrepreneurs expect a mix of economic and non-economic rewards from their business, and, as a consequence, measure their success differently than males do. the same phenomenon was observed in a qualitative study (robichaud, 2001) where nine of the 28 respondents (including eight women) defined performance and success for their firm according to the recognition obtained from clients and from the community, personal satisfaction, and personal achievements. for these entrepreneurs, financial rewards do not represent a priority but simply a prerequisite to the achievement of intrinsic rewards. these insights could explain why femaleowned businesses tend to remain smaller and less growth-oriented than male-owned ones in the same sectors. recent research, however, has demonstrated that age and life course factors could be involved as mitigating factors as well (davis and shaver, 2012). in general terms, research focused upon the morris et al., (2006) dimensions tend to demonstrate the presence of gendered differences regarding personal and organizational characteristics, entrepreneurial objectives and expectations, as well as issues specific to female entrepreneurs in the following areas: financing and access to credit, networking, and work-family conflictual goals. it has also been emphasized that female entrepreneurs experience a wide array of social contexts (justo et al., 2006; brush et al. 2009, 2010a; hughes and jennings 2012; hughes et al., 2012): they can be summarized by the notion of “gender embeddedness of women entrepreneurs” (brush et al., 2010b), which encompasses motherhood, family embeddedness, cultural norms, and society expectations. another issue at play regarding female entrepreneurship is the liberating effect for women associated with creating one’s own business as one’s source of income, thus eliminating gendered dependency (welter et al., 2006) or gaining independence from an employer in order to combine business and child-rearing activities from or near the home (justo et al,, 2006). 8 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 1-27) method smes defined there is no standard definition of an sme, particularly at the international level. for the sampling purposes of this research, the organization for economic cooperation and development's (oecd) definition was adopted, i.e. any business having less than 250 employees. instrument data were collected through a previously developed questionnaire that was translated into spanish and validated. items measuring entrepreneurial goals and subjective performance derived from those developed and validated by robichaud (2011). the entrepreneurial goal scale included 18 statements identified from the literature and quantitatively validated using a five-point likert scale. the 18 variables relating to entrepreneurial goals measures asked respondents to rate them from “unimportant” to “extremely important”. the two questions on performance evaluations were asking respondents to subjectively rate the level of success of their business (“unsuccessful”, “below average”, “average”, “very successful”, or “extremely successful”) and to what extent they were satisfied with their business success (“very dissatisfied”, “dissatisfied”, “somewhat dissatisfied”, “very satisfied”, or “extremely satisfied”). samples selection in canada, the sample selected included 6,000 firms, of which 3,000 were located in the four atlantic provinces, and 3,000 in ontario (these five provinces represented 46 percent of the population of canada as of july 2012). the databank was obtained from infocanada. data collections were conducted separately in the two regions: in ontario, telephone interviews were conducted, while in the atlantic, entrepreneurs were first contacted by telephone to be invited to answer the questionnaire online with either the « surveymonkey » software, or by regular mail, in which case a paper copy was sent to them with a reply envelope. in both cases, preliminary telephone calls were made in order to secure participation. in ontario, 2,544 firms were contacted, and 221 or 8.7 percent of them filled a questionnaire; in the robichaud, y., et al., female entrepreneurs' motives, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-27) 9 atlantic region, 154 responses were obtained (15.4 percent) from 1,002 firms contacted. as a result, the total number of canadian respondents was 375. in the united states, 5,530 firms were contacted across western kentucky and tennessee (3,530) as well as illinois (2,000). business listings came from chambers of commerce and regional business centers in western kentucky and tennessee, and from dun and bradstreet in illinois. similarly to what was done in canada, respondents were invited to fill out the survey online with « surveymonkey » or by mail. response rates were 11.2 percent (395/3,530) in western kentucky and tennessee, and 11.2 percent (224/2,000) in illinois, for a total of 619 u.s. respondents. chamber of commerce registration being mandatory in mexico rendered business listings readily available. 278 respondents participated, of which 78 were from guadalajara (state of jalisco, mexico’s second largest urban center) and 200 from monterrey (state of nuevo leon, third largest city). all mexican entrepreneurs were interviewed in person. data analysis statistical data analyses were performed with spss software. data were first coded from the instruments at each participating institution, and then sent to western kentucky university to be compiled and verified uniformly. results respondents' profiles descriptive data analyses were performed in order to describe the general characteristics of the respondents and their firms. results are summarized in table 1. the combined samples included 29 percent female entrepreneurs and 71 percent males. it is notable that 29.5 percent of the mexican respondents were female, which is higher than the proportions reported earlier in the literature (ifc, 2011). while both genders had almost the same proportion of respondents in the 20 to 29 years of age category, 58 percent of the male respondents were in the 50 years and above age category, as compared to 49 percent of the female respondents. male respondents had a higher level of 10 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 1-27) education, as 71 percent of them had postsecondary degree vs 61 percent for females. in terms of experience, 50 percent of the men had six years of management experience or more, while 45 percent of the women did; in terms of past experience in the business sector, 37 percent of both gender groups had six years of experience or more. a majority of respondents were the founders of their business (69 percent of the men and 76 percent of the women) and a similar proportion of 30 percent had started their business out of economic necessity rather than opportunity. finally, 40 percent of the men and 37 percent of the women had their spouse involved in the business, but the proportion of the household income provided by the spouse was higher with female entrepreneurs (30 percent) than with males (18 percent). female-owned businesses had been created more recently on average than male-owned ones (29 percent vs 18 percent were less than five years old), and were smaller in terms of number of employees (74 percent with five employees or less vs 56 percent), and sales (39 percent had sales under $ 100,000 as compared to 17 percent). the distribution of businesses across community sizes were almost identical, with 30 to 32 percent of the firms located in communities of less than 25,000 population, 31 to 32 percent in cities of 25,000 to 100,000, and 37 to 38 percent in larger cities over 100,000. distributions across sectors were also similar, except that women were slightly overrepresented in the retail and wholesale sectors, while underrepresented in manufacturing. table 1: entrepreneurs' three-country sample profiles by gender (female: n=349, male: n=862) personal characteristics organizational characteristics male % female % male % female % age* 20 to 29 years 30 to 49 years 50 + 6 36 58 7 44 49 population of the city under 25 000 25 000 to 100 000 over 100 000 30 32 38 32 31 37 education** high school college/university degree 29 71 39 61 sales*** under $100,000 $100 001500 000 $500 001 + 17 28 55 39 31 30 robichaud, y., et al., female entrepreneurs' motives, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-27) 11 mode of creation of firm** created by owner bought inherited/ franchised 69 21 10 76 16 8 number of employees*** 1-5 employees 6-10 employees 11 employees and + 56 16 28 74 14 12 married or living with spouse*** spouse involved in business spouse contributes to family income*** 87 40 18 76 37 30 economic sector retail wholesale other services manufacturing 21 9 48 22 25 10 46 19 started for economic necessity yes no 30 70 30 70 age of the firm*** 1-5 years 6-10 years 11+ years 18 21 61 29 23 48 past experience in current business sector none 1-5 years 6-10 years 11+ years 38 25 17 20 35 28 16 21 past management experience* none 1-5 years 6-10 years 11+ years 24 26 19 31 32 23 16 29 *: p<0.05; **: p<0.01; *** p<0.001 (t-test for continuous variables, and chi-square for discrete variables) results on growth business growth was assessed by comparing the number of employees and the sales level within the three categories of ages for the firms, as presented in table 2. results reveal a similar significant increase among both genders of the number of employees and the sales level with the number of years of existence of their firm. 12 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 1-27) as an example, whether businesses were female or male-owned, those businesses created within the last five years were also those most likely to have one to five employees (86 percent for female-owned firms and 79 percent for male-owned ones). from six to ten years of existence, these proportions fell to 85 percent and 71 percent and after ten years to 67 percent and 52 percent. conversely, the proportions of male and femaleowned businesses with six employees or more had increased with the age of the firm from 21percent to 48 percent for men and from 14 percent to 33 percent for women. results for the sales variable showed significant results in the same direction for all firms, regardless of their owner’s gender. data analyses by country clearly revealed that the contribution to statistically significant results on both sales and number of employees variables were mainly due to u.s. female respondents (p=0.02 for sales, and p=0.01 for number of employees). this category of respondents was much more growth-oriented than its canadian and mexican counterparts, for which results were not significant. conversely, results for male entrepreneurs revealed that, regarding the number of employees, canadian and mexican respondents produced the most significant results, while respondents from the aggregated three countries displayed significant results for the sales variable. table 2: business growth by gender, age, and business characteristics organizational characteristics age of the firm 1 5 yrs 1-10 yrs 11 + yrs total men number of employees*** (n=553) 1-5 employees 80 (79%) 85 (71%) 174 (52%) 339 6 employees + 21 (21%) 35 (29%) 158 (48%) 214 sales*** (n=514) 0 $ 500,000 75 (74%) 65 (64%) 121 (39%) 261 over $500,000 27 (26%) 37 (36%) 189 (61%) 253 women number of employees** (n=235) 1-5 employees 55 (86%) 41 (85%) 82 (67%) 178 6 employees + 9 (14%) 7 (15%) 41 (33%) 57 sales*** (n=225) 0 $ 500,000 59 (92%) 38 (84% 73 (63%) 170 over $500,000 5 (8%) 7 (16%) 43 (37%) 55 **: p<0.01; ***: p<0.001 (chi-square test) robichaud, y., et al., female entrepreneurs' motives, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-27) 13 table 3 shows that a majority of respondents saw their business as being very successful or extremely successful, 63 percent for males and 55 percent for females. the satisfaction level of male entrepreneurs was significantly higher than the female entrepreneurs’ one (chi-square test, p=0.05). respondents of both genders were equally very satisfied with their business success level, even if female-owned ones were smaller in terms of organizational characteristics (sales and number of employees), as 70 percent were extremely satisfied with their business success. while qualifying their success level as being lower on average than did their male counterparts, female respondents still expressed the same level of satisfaction. these results were similar to those observed among new england entrepreneurs where 91 percent of women expressed satisfaction with their business success, as compared to 80 percent of the men (the hartford, 2012). table 3: business success evaluation and performance satisfaction by gender business success* males females performance satisfaction males females unsuccessful/ below average moyen very successful/ extremely successful 35 (4%) 285 (33%) 535 (63%) 20 (6%) 134 (39%) 190 (55%) very dissatisfied/ dissatisfied somewhat dissatisfied/ very satisfied extremely satisfied 52 (6%) 201 (24%) 599 (70%) 26 (7%) 78 (23%) 243 (70%) *: p<0.05 (chi-square test) results on motives two comparisons were made in order to bring to light how entrepreneurial motives could explain the results obtained: table 4 compares entrepreneurial motive variables' mean scores between genders, while table 14 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 1-27) 5 compares results for female respondents by country. results on table 5 were ranked by mean score differences, from the highest to the lowest gap. for both genders, the first and second-highest scores were for «to make my own decisions» and «to be my own boss», while the third-highest score was «to increase sales and profits» for male respondents and, «to create my own job» for female respondents. mean score differences also revealed males to exhibit significantly higher scores with four extrinsic motives: « to maximize business growth» (p= 0.029), «to increase sales and profits» (p=0.022), «to build up equity for retirement» (p=0.046) and «to increase my income» (p=0.034). female respondents were significantly more preoccupied than males by the motive stated as «to create my own job» (p=0.047). table 4: mean scores for motivation variables by gender – total sample motivation variables male n=860 female n=348 mean score difference to maximize business growth * 3.89 3.75 0.14 to increase sales and profits * 4.08 3.94 0.14 to build up equity for retirement * 3.92 3.78 0.14 to increase my income * 4.19 4.06 0.13 to build a business to pass on 3.11 2.99 0.12 to make my own decisions 4.30 4.22 0.08 to meet the challenge 3.98 3.92 0.06 to provide jobs for family members 2.82 2.76 0.06 to acquire a confortable living 4.16 4.12 0.04 to be closer to my family 3.53 3.50 0.03 for my own satisfaction and growth 4.11 4.10 0.01 so i will always have job security 3.82 3.83 -0.01 to maintain my personal freedom 4.05 4.03 -0.02 to gain public recognition 2.85 2.87 -0.02 to prove i can succeed 3.85 3.90 -0.05 to be my own boss 4.21 4.27 -0.06 to have fun 3.38 3.44 -0.06 to create my own job* 4.04 4.17 -0.13 *: p<0.05 (chi-square test) when analyzed by country, the data revealed that statistical significances for extrinsic variables mean score differences came from robichaud, y., et al., female entrepreneurs' motives, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-27) 15 canadian and u.s. male responses. in both countries, all statements pertaining to extrinsic motives were significant in terms of mean score differences between genders except for one («to maximize business growth»), which was not significant for canada. in the case of mexico, there were no statistically significant mean score gender differences established. female entrepreneur motives by country are compared on table 5, which suggests the following: − five out of the six motivation variables with the highest scores were the same among the canadian and u.s. samples: «to make my own decisions», «to be my own boss», «to create my own job», « to acquire a confortable living», and «for my own satisfaction and growth». the only difference observed was that «to maintain my personal freedom» had been ranked third in the u.s., while «to meet the challenge» was ranked fifth by canadian female entrepreneurs. it is noteworthy that all six preferred motives selected by female entrepreneurs from these two countries belonged to the intrinsic category. − the least important motives for female respondents as a whole were «to provide jobs for family members» and « to gain public recognition», while «to build a business to pass on» was the third least preferred motive only for canadian and u.s. female entrepreneurs; mexican women chose «to have fun» as their third least preferred motive. − to the opposite of canadian and u.s. women, mexicans preferred a mix of intrinsic and extrinsic motives. for example, intrinsic motives included «to be my own boss», «to create my own job», «for my own satisfaction and growth» and «to maintain my personal freedom», but extrinsic motives were also high on their list, notably: «to increase sales and profits» and «to increase my income». the latter was the highest scored motive among mexican women, thus reinforcing the notion that mexican female entrepreneurs were in business more by necessity than by pleasure. 16 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 1-27) table 5:motivations of female entrepreneurs by country motivation variables canada n= 145, r* united states n= 118, r* mexico n= 84, r* for my own satisfaction and growth 3.93 06 4.19 04 4.28 02 to create my own job 4.25 03 4.09 06 4.17 03 to have fun 3.63 14 3.71 12 2.73 18 to gain public recognition 2.89 16 2.67 17 3.12 17 to maintain my personal freedom 3.86 11 4.25 03 4.07 06 so i will always have job security 3.74 13 3.71 12 4.08 05 to meet the challenge 3.95 05 3.94 08 3.86 11 to make my own decisions 4.36 01 4.26 02 3.94 10 to prove i can succeed 3.92 08 3.94 08 3.81 12 to be my own boss 4.29 02 4.32 01 4.16 04 to increase my income 3.93 06 3.98 07 4.41 01 to maximize business growth 3.77 12 3.57 14 3.98 09 to acquire a confortable living 4.16 04 4.13 05 4.02 08 to be closer to my family 3.44 15 3.40 15 3.71 13 to increase sales and profits 3.92 08 3.88 10 4.07 06 to build up equity for retirement 3.91 10 3.85 11 3.37 15 to build a business to pass on 2.76 17 2.81 16 3.65 14 to provide jobs for family members 2.74 18 2.38 18 3.35 16 *r = rank within country in order to better confirm the results from table 5, two motivational variables were created by grouping intrinsic and extrinsic motive items together. these two new exploratory variables were then submitted to a ttest of differences between mean scores across the three countries. details of the construction and tests of these two variables appear in table 6. results revealed similar results as table 5, as there were no statistically significant differences between the three countries in terms of intrinsic motives. a statistically significant difference was observed between canadian and mexican female entrepreneurs (p=.04), as well as between mexican and u.s. female entrepreneurs (p=.001). in both cases, mexican women were more motivated by extrinsic motives than their counterparts in the rest of north america. robichaud, y., et al., female entrepreneurs' motives, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-27) 17 table 6: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation variables – country comparisons intrinsic motivation variables extrinsic motivation variables for my own satisfaction and growth to have fun to gain public recognition to maintain my personal freedom to meet the challenge to make my own decisions to prove i can succeed to be my own boss to be closer to my family so i will always have job security to create my own job to increase my income to maximize business growth to acquire a confortable living to increase sales and profits to build up equity for retirement to build a business to pass on to provide jobs for family members country/mean intrinsic variables scores canada 3.81 united states 3.86 mexico 3.73 country differences t-test canada vs united states .571 canada vs mexico .453 united states vs mexico .204 country/mean extrinsic variables scores canada 3.69 united states 3.58 mexico 3.90 country differences t-test canada vs united states .264 canada vs mexico .042 united states vs mexico .001 discussion and conclusion as a first observation, results of this three-country study indicate that female-owned businesses were smaller in size than male-owned businesses in terms of both number of employees and sales. these results are consistent with the literature. results regarding female-owned business growth (as measured by growth in the number of employees and sales) in relation to the age of the firm suggest that growth takes place in a similar direction among businesses regardless of gender: in other words, all businesses grow with experience, thus confirming previous research. chaganti and parasuraman (1996) as well as fischer et al. (1993) had found that growth in the number of employees were similar for all businesses regardless of the owner’s gender. hughes et al., (2012), as well as davis and shaver (2012) have recently emphasized the importance of considering the influence of age and family 18 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 1-27) formation in studying female entrepreneurship. the data obtained in this study are showing that age definitely mitigates growth, particularly among u.s. respondents, while canadian and mexican female entrepreneurs had not significantly grown their business as far as men even after a long experience. similar findings were made across latin america and other developing countries (sabarwhal and terrell, 2008; sabarwhal, terrell and bardasi, 2009). results about business performance showed that despite qualifying the level of performance of their business as significantly lower (p<.05, as compared to male business owners), female entrepreneurs expressed the same level of satisfaction as males. other scholars (cooper and artz, 1995; callahan-levy and messé, 1979; collins-dodd, gordon and smart, 2004) also found female entrepreneurs expressing higher levels of satistaction than males for the same financial performance. cooper and artz (1995) even described female entrepreneurs more satisfied than their male counterparts with lower financial performances: this lead them to hypothesize that being one’s own boss was more rewarding than employment in terms of personal satisfaction. such results support the hypothesis of a prevailing role of intrinsic motives as a trigger for female entrepreneurship, while extrinsic motives are seen as necessary for the well-being of the business rather than the main goal for being in business. as motives are concerned, results showed gender divergences as men tendent to pursue extrinsic goals, while women were more interested in intrinsic goals. these findings confirm previous research that suggesting that female entrepreneurs were not starting businesses for economic reasons but more often for personal satisfaction, or to fulfill a need for autonomy and independence (malaya, 2006; mcclelland et al., 2005; buttner and moore, 1997). country data revealed that motives were almost identical among canadian and u.s. female entrepreneurs, as five of their six first choices were the same intrinsic ones. mexican women displayed a different pattern of behavior as they preferred motives such as « to increase sales and profits» and «to increase my income» as their sixth and first choice respectively. among the factors that could explain these cross-country differences, one is the significantly high proportion of women who declared having started a business for necessity reasons in mexico (47 percent) as compared to canada (18 percent) and the u.s. (30 percent). moreover, among mexican female respondents only 10 percent had a spouse robichaud, y., et al., female entrepreneurs' motives, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-27) 19 contributing more than 30 percent to the family’s income, while 41 percent of the canadian respondents and 23 percent of the u.s. respondents did. as a result, it can be inferred that a much higher proportion of the mexican female entrepreneurs had compelling reasons to try reaching economic goals prior to reaching more personal ones. this is also consistent with basic motivation theory (maslow, 1943; herzberg, 1968), whereby basic subsistence needs must be satisfied prior to trying to reach needs of a higher level (see maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and herzberg’s two-factor model). two feminist perspectives have been proposed in order to better understand the different motivational orientations of women as opposed to men. these feminist perspectives were labelled as “liberal feminism” and “social feminism” (fischer et al. 1993). the liberal feminist point of view affirms that women’s rationality is similar to men’s, but that women are at a disadvantage in the business world due to their lesser amount of experience, lower level of management education, and because of discriminatory factors (such as unequal treatment when seeking financing in various forms) as a result, gender differences can be explained by the fact that women could not develop their full potential because of their biological difference. the liberal feminist perspective concludes that women will be able to reach their full potential at the same level as men when they are given the same opportunities. conversely, the social feminist view is that women have a tendency to fail or to be absent from business and other professions because they involve social settings and technologies that are male-dominated. unlike liberal feminism, social feminism does not look at the woman as an individual belonging to a sex type, but rather as a genderized social person. as a result, women develop distinct skills from men as a result of society’s history and of their own socialization process as compared to men’s socialization in a given society. these distinct skills then shape the entrepreneurial behavior particular to each gender. the social feminist point of view can explain why women would be mainly motivated by job-related goals, while men would have more of a tendency to privilege monetary rewards. the hypothesis about the prevalence of intrinsic motives among female entrepreneurs as compared to males has been supported by this research, particularly in canada and the u.s. the findings from this crosscountry study also supported earlier research regarding the smaller size of female-owned businesses and the lesser growth orientation of female 20 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 1-27) owners. the life experiences of women and their socialization process as compared to men’s also helped explaining the motivational differences observed between women from mexico and from the two other countries. as per the limits of this study, there are issues related to the external validity of the sample. for example, the firms that were selected were not necessarily representative of all smes in each country: while the canadian sample had a relatively balanced representation of rural and urban firms, the u.s. sample had a high proportion of rural firms, while the mexican sample was drawn almost exclusively from urban settings. as a result, conclusions for mexico could only be applied to urban female entrepreneurs. this study is also limited as its scope was narrowed to entrepreneurial motives and organizational goals and did not take into account other determining factors of firm development and growth. further research could add more variables to the model in order to render it more comprehensive. references [1] almobaireek, w.n., & t.s. manolova (2012). who wants to be an entrepreneur? entrepreneurial intentions among saudi university students. african journal of business management 6(11), 4029-4040. 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(2006) enterprising women in transition economies. aldershot, u.k.: ashgate. motivi žena preduzetnica i razvoj malih i srednjih preduzeća: internacionalna studija a p s t r a k t rast broja preduzeća koja su u posedu žena konstantno raste u poslednjim decenijama. ipak, uprkos istrajnosti ovog fenomena, istraživanja su pokazala da su preduzeća koja poseduju žene manja i da nemaju bas tako dobre rezultate kada je u pitanju rast u poredjenju sa preduzećima koje poseduju muškarci. ovo istraživanje doprinosi unapredjenju zananja na ovu temu zbog konstantne evolucije robichaud, y., et al., female entrepreneurs' motives, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 1-27) 27 profila preduzetnica kao i krakteristika njihovih preduzeća. testirali smo uzorak od 1.211 preduzetnika iz kanade, meksika i sjedinjenih američkih država da bismo istražili ove teme. ključne reči: samozapošljavanje, profil preduzetnica, rast msp-a article history: received: 7 june, 2013 accepted: 23 october, 2013 doi: 10.28934/jwee19.34.pp86-102 jel: a20 original scientific paper entrepreneurship education among university students as a predictor of female entrepreneurial undertakings valentina vukmirović1 university of belgrade, faculty of organizational sciences, department for management and specialized management disciplines, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t female entrepreneurship is gaining significant attention from both researchers and practitioners, since it is observed as a new female movement as well as an important contributor to global economy. anyhow, female entrepreneurs are still facing numerous obstacles while making efforts to realize their vision and achieve success in the world of business. the aim of this paper is to investigate characteristics of female entrepreneurship and gain insight into main obstacles for female entrepreneurship development. on the basis of information collected, author of this paper provided a conceptual model which could contribute to resolving the obstacles to female entrepreneurship development. guidelines for model implementation and recommendations for further research are provided. key words: entrepreneurship, education, university education, female entrepreneurs. 1 address: jove ilića 154, belgrade, serbia, e-mail: valentina.vukmirovic@fon.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381 60 3443013 vukmirović, v., entrepreneurship education, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) 87 introduction according to (villasana, alcaraz-rodríguez, & alvarez, 2016) a growing number of women is starting their entrepreneurial ventures, whether as a result of a business opportunity or due to unemployment. in 2016, an estimated 163 million women were starting or running new businesses with 111 million women already running established business (gem, 2017). aware of the impact that female entrepreneurship can have on the economic situation, state governments and policy makers as well as universities and business sector representatives are making efforts to encourage women to start and grow their businesses (islam, bokhari, & abalala, 2018). anyhow, when compared to their male counterparts, female entrepreneurs are less likely to start a business, as only six countries in the world have an equal total entrepreneurial activity (tea) rates between women and man (gem, 2018). furthermore, in 2015 women were two times less likely than men to be self-employed (oecd/eu, 2017). arguing on reasons for gender gap in entrepreneurship, authors stated that women lack appropriate education and business experience as well as financial management competences (kesting & jaeger, 2013). therefore, jones (2014) proposes that entrepreneurship education, as an integral part of formal education, could encourage and enable women to start their own business. this can be confirmed by research results of unger et al. (2011), who established positive connection between business education and entrepreneurial activities. furthermore, literature suggests that limiting beliefs about personal competences and negative perception about existing business opportunities additionally influence female determination in terms of starting a business (díaz-garcía & jiménez-moreno, 2010). anyhow, authors of this paper assume that both limitations could be tackled by adequate education of female population on business chances and encouraging them to seize those opportunities. since entrepreneurship education is observed as an important factor in developing national economies (muhammad et al., 2011), state policy makers worldwide are focusing on promoting entrepreneurial culture among youth. according to (zhang, duysters, & cloodt, 2014) entrepreneurship programs which make part of education curriculums have an encouraging effect on entrepreneurial intention among university students. even though women have higher level of education, lack of practical experience in busi88 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) ness results in lower survival rate of companies ran by female entrepreneurs (siemieniak & pawlak, 2017). the aim of this paper is to explore following research questions: (1) which factors have limiting impact on female entrepreneurship development? (2) could entrepreneurship education have a positive impact on tackling limiting beliefs of female students towards starting their own business? (3) could providing practical experience for female students during university years result in higher rates of self-employment after graduation? (4) could universities be strategic drivers of entrepreneurship among young women? to examine stated issues, this paper is organized as follows: first, authors have discussed the nature of female entrepreneurship intention and practice as well as limiting factors to its development. second, the impact of entrepreneurship education on encouraging young women to start their own business is discussed. third, authors suggest that alongside entrepreneurship education, female students should be provided with the opportunity to gain practical experience in running a business in order to be able to successfully start and manage their entrepreneurial ventures. fourth, by presenting successful cases from practice, universities were observed as strategic drivers of entrepreneurship among young women. fifth, key research findings are discussed. finally, conclusions are presented and recommendations for further research are given. the nature of female entrepreneurship women's entrepreneurship is considered to be a „source of economic and social development” (gem, 2017) while others observe it as a global phenomenon in entrepreneurship or „the new women's movement“ (macneil, 2012). avolio (2011) states that women's entrepreneurship refers to the activities of female entrepreneurs who own more than 50% of a business entity and have a managerial position within the enterprise. more specifically, in order to be an entrepreneur, one must meet the following criteria: 1) own more than 50% of a business; 2) employ at least two persons; 3) play an important role in business decision-making; 4) work full time; 5) have been working in the company for a minimum of two years. arguing on the motivation for starting a business, it can be concluded that some women are motivated by necessity, in cases when finding lucrative employment is an unattainable goal. the reason for this can be lack of formal education, professional experience or skills, age, personal back vukmirović, v., entrepreneurship education, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) 89 ground or socio-economic factors, such as economic instability, access to education, large pay gap in comparison to male wages, freedom to pursue a profession, rights to inherit or own capital or properties or unfavorable regulations for maternal leave. on the other hand, some women wish to seize business opportunities, as they are able to spot the gap in the market and create a product for specific market niche, even though adequate workplaces are available to them. the third group of female entrepreneurs is motivated by both necessity and opportunity, whereas they can organize their ventures through partnerships or independently. even though women don't lack knowledge or creativity for starting their own business, kelley et al. (2015) argue that fear of failure is very common among women and results with reduced participation of female entrepreneurs in the world of business. furthermore, social prejudices based on traditional gender roles may have a discouraging effect on female entrepreneurs, as negative attitudes of potential partners or investors can limit their access to funds and opportunities for business collaborations. the importance of overcoming barriers towards funding female business ideas is even stronger if we take into consideration the benefits that economic incentives result in. according to radović-marković and salamzadeh (2012), awarding female entrepreneurs with microcredit programs has a positive effect on increasing their economic power and income. this reflects positively on their perspective for reaching gender equality in business world, as chances for participating in entrepreneurial ventures, establishing partnerships and even influencing legal order in the entrepreneurship field is possible only for capital holders. traditional perception of a successful entrepreneur created by the society and media is sometimes criticized, as it favors masculine characteristics such as risk taking, being dominant and taking control, whereas female characteristics such as having empathy, providing support and understanding for co-workers or employees are not perceived as of vital importance. furthermore, literature indicates that female and male entrepreneurs practice different styles of management. it is believed that female entrepreneurs, most commonly, apply democratic management style. furthermore, they tend to develop mutual respect with co-workers as well as establish relationships and collaboration through creating entrepreneurial teams and groups. on the other hand, man tend to manage entrepreneurial ventures in the autocratic style, motivating employees with rewards and penalties, centralizing control and expecting employees to follow their orders. 90 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) apart from managerial style, female motivation towards starting their own business is also significantly different than the male motivation. sleger et al. (2014), stated that young and educated latin american women are less prone to become firm owners than their male counterparts, even though they showed interest in starting a business which would enable them to realize their professional aspirations. furthermore, (shinnar, hsu, powell, & zhou, 2018) have proved that american men are more likely to realize their entrepreneurial intentions than female peers. on the other hand, (ng, huang, & liu, 2016) investigate an interesting phenomenon in chinese economy. namely, by using chinese smartphone application called „wechat“, many entrepreneurs have founded their businesses. among these modern entrepreneurs called wei-shangs, the majority are women (61,7%), while student population participates with 39,4% in the overall structure of wei-shangs. authors argue on reasons for this phenomenon, stating that especially in emerging economies, women are faced with slow professional progress, „glass ceiling“, and salary not adequate to the invested effort. therefore, women might perceive entrepreneurship as an adequate solution to the challenges their face in workplace or while searching for lucrative employment. obstacles towards female entrepreneurship development according to (westhead & solesvik, 2016) research, female entrepreneurship is an important subject of interest among researchers as well as european organizations and policy makers since it is observed as a „source of innovation“ which represents an „engine of growth“ due to its potential to generate wealth and employment. anyhow, literature indicates that women are less likely to become entrepreneurs due to factors such as social norms, stereotypes, lack of business experience and unfavorable self-assessment when it comes professional competences. marlino and wilson (2007) state that young women in particular express “lower levels of self-efficacy in entrepreneurship”. this statement can be confirmed by the fact that, on a global level, women are less likely to become entrepreneurs, while their businesses are “less growth oriented” than those owned by men (van ewijk & belghiti-mahut, 2019). this is especially the case in transition and developing economies where women are more likely to work in least profitable industries or residual sector rather than start their own business (radovićmarković, 2015). vukmirović, v., entrepreneurship education, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) 91 literature indicates that gender stereotypes can also be a discouraging factor for female participation in entrepreneurship. it is believed that women lack masculine characteristics which are considered to be a necessity in achieving business success. for example, characteristic such as propensity towards taking risks, is normally associated with men, not women (wheadon & duval-couetil, 2017). authors add that female entrepreneurship is less developed as a consequence of unequal dissemination of knowledge between genders. throughout history, man have always had bigger chances of acquiring knowledge and education as well as practical experience. this has resulted with common belief that characteristics of a successful leader and entrepreneur are only possessed by men. other authors (siemieniak & pawlak, 2017) emphasize the significance of socio-cultural aspects on the perspective of female entrepreneurship development. this means that the degree of social approval towards female self-employment can be a significant determinant of women's entrepreneurship success rates. apart from prejudices, beliefs and limited access to knowledge, kirkwood (2009) emphasizes the role of media in establishing a prototype of successful entrepreneur being male, as a factor of creating an unfavorable image among general public about female entrepreneurs. (bruni, gherardi, & poggio, 2004) claim that main focus of media in reporting about female entrepreneurship is the difficulties that women face while trying to make balance between family life and professional obligations. society and media perceive family as female obligation and responsibility, whereas family enterprise is thought to be founded and managed by male. therefore, women might have a negative perception about their ability to reach the qualifications of entrepreneurial role model created by media, and might face obstacles while trying to enter business communities. these barriers may be especially challenging to overcome in cultures which cherish traditional values, favoring male individuals as suitable candidates for successful entrepreneurs and expecting of women to adapt their ambitions to traditional gender roles. therefore, it can be concluded that female entrepreneurs are more commonly faced with the lack of support from their families, communities, government and financial institutions (shinnar, giacomin & janssen, 2012). common belief about women not being successful at managing their finances might limit their access to much needed capital, therefore authors suggest that entrepreneurship education and training should be provided for female already during middle and high school (wilson, 2007). 92 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) for women, the importance of introducing entrepreneurial courses to educational programs is twofold. apart from getting a degree, these courses could empower women to consider pursuing career in entrepreneurship. since literature indicates that women face fear of failure more often than men, have negative perception about their competences as entrepreneurs and are not exposed to successful female role models (noguera, alvarez, & urbano, 2013) it can be concluded that entrepreneurial education should consider resolving these issues as well. namely, authors (ng, huang, & liu, 2016) suggest that women should become aware of the fact that their competences and personal qualities are of utmost importance for achieving success in entrepreneurship. the latter could be achieved through educational programs directed towards tackling social barriers and personal insecurities by encouraging women to perceive themselves as equal to men in chances of achieving success in entrepreneurship. entrepreneurship education as university education has unquestionable impact on students’ career choice, exposing students to entrepreneurship education could encourage them to start their own businesses (zhang et al., 2014). according to salamzadeh et al. (2014) universities, particularly those oriented towards teaching entrepreneurship and business, can be observed as crucial points in developing leadership, innovative thinking, creativity and problem solving skills within future academics. this kind of education is of utmost significance not just for students who want to pursue a career in entrepreneurship, but also for students of other orientations as it can “prepare them to navigate an ever-changing world filled with uncertainty and opportunity” (neck, greene, 2011). authors (westhead & solesvik, 2016) argue that entrepreneurship education can help women develop skills and competences which could be implemented for solving problems in their future entrepreneurial careers. anyhow, there is a need for distinguishing entrepreneurship education from regular business studies, due to the fact that it focuses on developing student creativity for innovative problem-solving as well as competences for selfemployment (douglas & grant, 2014). as entrepreneurship education is proved to have positive impact on students' entrepreneurial behavior (gelaida & abdullateef, 2017), it has become a practice among european universities to include entrepreneurship into graduate and postgraduate vukmirović, v., entrepreneurship education, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) 93 courses. furthermore, studying entrepreneurship has been incorporated into curriculums of not only business studies, but also technical and social sciences. the need for introducing entrepreneurship education to different curriculums is the result of ever-changing circumstances in modern day labor market. apart from implementation of modern technology to work places, which has significantly altered the set of required skills and competences of employees, economic instability has resulted with the need for educating and empowering individuals to develop skills needed for self-employment. starting a business can be a suitable alternative to finding lucrative employment in times when „supply of jobs in labor market shrinks“ (looi & lattimore, 2015). therefore, entrepreneurship education is observed as a suitable instrument for entrepreneurship promotion among young population, due to the fact that it might help in popularizing it as a career choice. it is believed that knowledge and education have crucial role in entrepreneurship intention development (zhang et al., 2014). authors (radovic markovic et al., 2012) state that the new age requires new forms of education which would focus more on development of creativity and critical thinking, emphasizing that entrepreneurial education can encourage development of creative spirit. creative spirit can result in innovative solutions, job creation and economic development. anyhow, (siemieniak & pawlak, 2017) argue that formal education is necessary but not sufficient requirement for achieving success in entrepreneurship as one needs practical knowledge and experience about running a business. this can be observed as a reason why firms ran by female entrepreneurs start smaller and have slower revenue growth (jpmorgan chase & co., 2019) even though they have higher levels of formal education than male counterparts (weisul, 2018). on the other hand, researchers (shinnar, giacomin & janssen, 2012) claim that education is necessary not only as it is a source of knowledge, but also as a mean for changing female students perception about pursuing a career in entrepreneurship. therefore, authors propose introducing case study method of learning which main focus would be on female entrepreneurship or organizing lectures of successful female entrepreneurs. these activities are believed to have beneficial effect on encouraging young women to change their perception of entrepreneurial career. what's more, these activities might encourage them to seriously act upon their entrepreneurial intentions. 94 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) it is proved that entrepreneurial education has a positive effect on improving female students’ competences and self-esteem, due to the fact that it helps them develop entrepreneurial and networking skills (van ewijk & belghiti-mahut, 2019). furthermore, entrepreneurial education should focus on promoting the significance of female characteristics for achieving business success. namely, (ng, huang, & liu, 2016)) have contributed to the existing body of literature by explaining how young female entrepreneurs in china managed to outperform their male peers. authors state that women tend to pay more attention to the relationship they establish with customers than the business itself, which significantly differs from traditional perception of how entrepreneurial undertaking should be managed. therefore, by emphasizing the importance of implementing female characteristics to the creation of successful enterprise management model, the image about female contribution to the world of business could be changed. furthermore, through education, students should be exposed more to successful female role models in entrepreneurship, which might alter their perception of women’s capability to run a prosperous entrepreneurial venture. apart from receiving formal business tuition, the opportunity to gain practical experience during university education can be a strong predictor of one’s capability and competence to succeed as an entrepreneur in the future. cooper and park (2008) claim that practical experience collected during the period of education can later help potential entrepreneurs to recognize and seize opportunities for making profit. universities as strategic drivers of entrepreneurship economies worldwide are aware of the need to develop and cultivate entrepreneurial culture as well as entrepreneurial knowledge and skills, especially among students (salamzadeh et al., 2013). as universities represent institutions in which the synergy of education and research activities results in “new knowledge and cutting-edge technology” creation (wissema, 2009), higher education institutions should be the „driving force in forming entrepreneurial ecosystems“ where students would be the initiators of new value creation, rather than just human resource (european research universities, 2019). stam (2015) states that universities should be observed as focal point of entrepreneurial ecosystems due to the fact that they are both „knowledge and talent creators“. furthermore, audretsch and belitski (2017) argue that the role of universities in modern society has changed significantly, due to vukmirović, v., entrepreneurship education, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) 95 the fact that nowadays they no longer provide just the necessary education, but enable students to think critically and develop leadership skills needed for accomplishing entrepreneurial undertakings. most economies are paying attention to the need for development of this field and to development of entrepreneurial skills, attitudes, and culture. the role and significance of universities in modern day education can be observed in the light of „knowledge-based innovation-driven economies” rise (audretsch & chowdhury, 2011). in order to be competitive participant in this kind of markets, one must be highly educated. therefore, policymakers are aware of the fact that universities can be the incubators of innovative ideas and entrepreneurial competencies development. furthermore, higher education institutions should provide encouragement for their students in order for them to realize that the skills they gained through education could be implemented for new value creation as well as solving economic and social issues. as a result of national policies and incentives, universities are developing the infrastructure for start-up incubators and innovation centers. these collaborative programs are designed to help students realize their innovative ideas by providing space, financial and legislative support, mentoring, help while entering the market, etc. universities can contribute to students' change of perception and attitude towards starting a career in entrepreneurship in three different manners (jabeen, faisal, & katsioloudes, 2017). first of all, universities can „create a culture of entrepreneurship” providing students with the opportunity to develop creativity and ability of critical thinking, which can be applicable to both business and non-business courses. furthermore, universities can establish entrepreneurial courses within curriculums in order to educate students on principles of entrepreneurship. for those students who opt for entrepreneurship as a career choice, universities should organize professional courses and trainings, as certain studies indicated that receiving university education was a strong predictor of future self-employment (kuratko, 2005). numerous researches have proved that entrepreneurial education can be a strong predictor of students' propensity towards becoming entrepreneurs (gioannis, 2016). therefore, author of this paper proposed a model for introducing entrepreneurship education to the system of empowering young women to pursue a career in entrepreneurship. 96 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) model of encouraging entrepreneurial spirit among female students proposed model for encouraging female entrepreneurship was developed on the basis of literature review. namely, by observing scientific and advice papers as well as strategies for entrepreneurship development, the author of this paper has generated a knowledge base which has served as a starting point for model creation. the information gathered as a result of desk research indicate that entrepreneurship education can strongly influence students' propensity towards starting a business or opting for a career in entrepreneurship. therefore, focal point of the model presented in this paper is entrepreneurial education, which should serve as a medium for changing female students' perception about their chances of becoming successful entrepreneurs. according to a study conducted by leru (2019), universities should observe development of „entrepreneurial skills and attitudes” among students as an educational priority. according to the same source, entrepreneurial education should be realized through project-based learning and interdisciplinary work. nonetheless, literature highlights that exposing individuals to stories of successful entrepreneurs as role models can have a motivational effect on them when opting for a career in entrepreneurship. by introducing students to specificities of prosperous entrepreneurial ventures, they might be encouraged to think in an entrepreneurial way, notice market gaps and develop adequate solutions for them. the significance of entrepreneurial education is even larger for female students, as they are prone to negative self-assessment of their competences and having less confidence than male counterparts when trying to pursue a career in entrepreneurship. this is caused by the fact that business world is saturated with male role models, making it harder for women to break the social stereotypes about their competences and beliefs about skills that successful entrepreneur should possess. therefore, this model proposes that entrepreneurial education should be directed towards emphasizing the significance of normally female personality traits for achieving business success. the above mentioned activities should result in an increased interest of young women for starting a career in entrepreneurship. by providing additional education, trainings and assistance for those female students who are interested in starting their own businesses, the number of enterprises owned by women could be enlarged. female entrepreneurship education should be vukmirović, v., entrepreneurship education, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) 97 given necessary attention as, especially in underdeveloped countries, women have limited access to funds, lack of practical knowledge and face prejudices. figure 1: conceptual model of encouraging female entrepreneurship through education source: author possible results of these incentives could be a contribution to the dynamic growth of innovative small and medium-sized enterprises. their growth can have effects which are beneficial not only for female entrepreneurs, but for the entire society. these effects are primarily achieved through: job creation in smes run by female entrepreneurs; gross domestic product growth through the creation of new value in women-founded smes; balanced regional development achieved by faster growth of underdeveloped areas where labor-intensive activities can be developed more quickly; increased standard and quality of life through greater personal income etc. as it can be concluded from literature review presented in this study, female entrepreneurship still falling behind male entrepreneurship. to close this gap, it is necessary to improve the business environment, that is, the social environment in favor of female entrepreneurship. it is necessary to 98 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) adopt a strategy for female entrepreneurship development in serbia, as well as set of measures which would benefit female entrepreneurship development. it is necessary to motivate women to start new entrepreneurial ventures by introducing special incentives such as financial support, information and communication infrastructure and continuous promotional activities. according to the gem women's entrepreneurship 2016/2017 report, five most developed countries regarding female entrepreneurship are: new zealand, canada, usa, sweden and singapore. these countries also have the best conditions for encouraging female-owned smes development, and thus the most advantageous opportunities for innovative female entrepreneurship growth. following the model of these countries, similar incentives should be provided for female entrepreneurs in serbia. this would contribute to the dynamic growth of innovative smes, and their growth would result in the following effects: job creation, gross domestic product (gdp) growth; even regional development; increasing the volume and quality of foreign trade in goods and services; increasing population standards and increasing the quality of life and work of the population conclusion significant number of researchers claim that female entrepreneurs have competencies equal to, or even greater than male entrepreneurs, such as the ability to develop new business ideas and innovate solutions and quickly adapt to unexpected market changes. furthermore, female entrepreneurs demonstrate persistence and responsibility in the realization of business ideas, avoidance of taking unnecessary risks and reducing them to the lowest level possible. in addition, studies show that female entrepreneurs establish better interpersonal relationships and are more efficient in resolving interpersonal conflicts. in addition, they are capable of quickly directing business activities of the enterprise on providing scarce services in the market. the problems that female entrepreneurs most often face are lack of business experience especially when doing business in a foreign market, insufficient business education when dealing with countries with special business practices, insufficient involvement in international entrepreneurial networks which are still dominated by male entrepreneurs. additional barriers to the advancement of female entrepreneurship are social, cultural and religious attitudes regarding female competences for starting entrepreneurial vukmirović, v., entrepreneurship education, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 86-102) 99 ventures. difficulties in accessing financial resources due to lack of experience that diminishes their confidence, can also be a setback for female entrepreneurs. the lack of experience needed for entering new markets, which cannot be achieved through formal and non-formal education, is also noticed as one of major barriers for female entrepreneurs to reach their full potential. in order to improve the competencies of female entrepreneurs, additional education is needed. it should result in strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit and confidence in starting and managing new ventures. furthermore, education for female entrepreneurs should include trainings in the field of communication skills development. these skills could be especially beneficial when communicating with financial as well as legislative institutions and policy makers. therefore, the author of this paper recommends further investigation on skills and traits that female entrepreneurs should develop in order to be able to realize their business aspirations, achieve better deals, and obtain financial support under more favorable conditions. desk research limitations conducted for the purposes of this paper have to be taken into consideration before interpreting its results. limitations refer to the scope of analyzed body of literature which could be increased by introducing papers which support other points of view. the limitations of this study could also refer to the possible subjectivity of the attitudes which author has taken into consideration. therefore, the author of this paper proposes conducting empirical research with the aim of testing the arguments presented in this study. acknowledgement this paper is a result of strategic project founded by the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic of serbia: exploring modern trends of strategic management by application of specialized management disciplines in the function of the competitiveness of serbian economy, no 179081. references [1] audretsch, d.b., and chowdhury, f. 2011. “knowledge spillover entrepreneurship and economic development,” international review of entrepreneurship, 9(2), 67-82. 100 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"entrepreneuring entrepreneurship diversity through critical theory and reflexivity", international journal of gender and entrepreneurship, vol. 9 issue: 2, doi: 10.1108/ijge-02-20170010. article history: received: 11 september, 2019 accepted: 24 october, 2019 13_jwe_3-4 final udc: 005.961:005.914.3 ; 005.412:334.722-055.2(497.11) ; 331.57055.22(497.11) jel: l26; b54 id: 203435788 scientific review female entrepreneurship in serbia and opportunities for its development vujičić sladjana1, ivković dragan, faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship, belgrade, serbia nikolić ivica, “serbian railways”, požarevac, serbia manojlović goran, “ljubica radosavljević nada” primary school, zaječar, serbia a b s t r a c t today, entrepreneurship is a key element in the development of the economic potential of each country. recently, one of the possible directions of development of entrepreneurship that stands out is female entrepreneurship, and the number of companies and businesses whose owners are women is increasing. problems that exist and need to be solved in order for this sector to develop properly are, in the first place, to provide adequate financial assistance to women who want to step into the world of entrepreneurship. improving of the environment for the development of female entrepreneurship through the introduction of tax incentives, easier access to finance, women support through monitoring, advisory services, are just some of the possibilities to develop female entrepreneurship in the right way. this paper presents the current state of female entrepreneurship in serbia. key words: female entrepreneurship, development, unemployment, serbia 1 mitropolita petra 8, 11000 belgrade, serbia,e-mail: sladjana.vujicic@vspep.edu.rs vujičić, s., et al., female entrepreneurship, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 126-136) 127 introduction well-developed entrepreneurship in a country today is one of the conditions for the survival and development of all economic entities and systems of the country. entrepreneurship can be said to represent one of the main factors of economic growth because it helps the development of the country's competitiveness, stimulates job creation and creates conditions for the reduction of unemployment. lately, female entrepreneurship has stood out and it is booming thanks to the destruction of legal, customary and traditional norms. female entrepreneurship makes a significant contribution to the world economy, particularly in low-and middle-income countries (allen et al., 2007). at the beginning of the seventies in the oecd countries there was a massive step of women forward the world of business. this trend has continued and soon engulfed the whole world. the global economic crisis has brought certain problems such as: increasing unemployment, lower wages, more difficult access to markets, lower purchasing power, which resulted in a large number of women being out of work. female entrepreneurship the process of equalization of men’s and women’s rights as well as the democratization of the whole society in recent years has led to the emergence and development of female entrepreneurship. the first significant scientific papers on the subject of female entrepreneurship occurred in 1976. the american magazine'' journal of contemporary business'' published the paper '' entrepreneurship: a new female frontier'', which drew attention to the growing trend of this type of entrepreneurship (vukmirovic, 2005). since the 1990s, the growth of companies founded by women has been noticed and this number is still growing. according to the oecd (2004) female entrepreneurship is an important but untapped source of economic growth. female entrepreneurship can be a way out for the women who want control over their career and want to oppose the effect of “glass ceiling” (dafoe, 2001). women entrepreneurs in small and mediumsized enterprises have become the driving force in promoting and strengthening the role of women (panda, 2011). starting and maintaining your own business is one of the strategies for the economic development of women who are oriented towards entrepreneurship (nziku, 2012, p.73). 128 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 126-136) in the world, there is a growing number of companies headed by women, so it can be clearly seen that the development of female entrepreneurship is 21st century’s trend (vujicic et all, 2012). female entrepreneurship in serbia the fact is that, in times of crisis, expectations from the country are increased (ivkovic et all., 2012). however, one of the key problems that serbia has been facing for many years is the lack of meaningful transition strategy, but also the strategy of development of society as a whole. also, we do not have an answer on how to avoid the negative effects that globalization brings (karavidic et. all, 2012). entrepreneurship in serbia is also faced with many problems. the lack of favorable sources of financing, low purchasing power as well as a high level of gray economy are just some of the problems that hinder the development of entrepreneurship in serbia in a right way. female entrepreneurship is underdeveloped and insufficiently exploited potential of serbia and, as such, it should be developed because it can solve the above mentioned problems in the development of entrepreneurship. “the development strategy of competitive and innovative small and medium sized enterprises” for the period from 2008 to 2013 is of greatest immediate significance for the development of female entrepreneurship in serbia. this strategy essentially relies on the framework and the recommendations defined in the european union in a series of documents, such as “a small business act for europe, 2008”, the european commission document entitled “green paper entrepreneurship in europe”, “the european charter for small enterprises” and “the european agenda for entrepreneurship action plan” . one of the key principles that are provided by “a small business act for europe” highlights the commitment to encourage entrepreneurship among women, as well as to simplify procedures and provide favorable conditions for the development of entrepreneurship among women (babovic, 2012). in serbia, women own only 26% of companies and they are mostly owners of small companies, which shows that the economic potential of women is rarely exploited; that is only one in four women is the owner of a small business. a woman is at the top of the ownership (management) hierarchy of every fifth company, and that is mostly in smaller companies whose activities are health and beauty care and recreation (vujicic et all., vujičić, s., et al., female entrepreneurship, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 126-136) 129 2012). in belgrade region, every fourth company is led by a woman and in šumadija and western serbia region, female entrepreneurs run every seventh company (sme report for 2010). study on female entrepreneurship, which has been realized by a development initiative group (secons) as well as analysis of selected state measures for entrepreneurship support, realized by the foundation for the advancement of economics with the support of the ministry of economy and regional development and the un office gave a review of entrepreneurial activity of women in serbia. the above mentioned study was a part of the project “improvement of economic and social rights of women” which is conducted in serbia and montenegro by the un women. according to the analysis of the study it was found out that women have begun to engage in entrepreneurship later than men, as well as that they run independent stores more often than enterprises. in addition, female entrepreneurship is also characterized by a higher rate of closing down their companies: 47% of stores and companies that were founded and led by women have been closed down versus 38% of companies which were founded and led by men (avlijas et all., 2012). the results of various studies on the subject of women's participation in the economic life of serbia show that women in serbia are given a low level of support, and that they are under-utilized economic potential. the employment rate of working-age women in serbia aged 15-64 was 38.3% in 2011 compared to 52.4% of men (statistical office of the republic of serbia, 2011). in eu countries this percentage is 58.5% for women and 70.1% for men. chart 1: main labor market indicators for the working age population (15‐ 64) in serbia, according to gender (2011) in % source: statistical office of the republic of serbia, labor force survey 2011 130 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 126-136) the average share of women on the labor market in serbia is 50.7% while it is 64.9% in the eu, which means that serbia significantly lags behind the eu in this regard. maximum participation of women on the labor market with 66.5% is in slovenia. chart 2: activity and employment rate of the female population, comparison with regional countries in % source: eurostat and statistical office of the republic of serbia women are two times less likely to be self-employed than men and three times more likely to be help members of a household. position of women on labor market is less favorable because they have less support than men both in the public and private life sphere. a survey which was conducted among female entrepreneurs in serbia showed that more than a half of the youngest ones (19-30) had at least one parent entrepreneur (51.5%), while that percentage was much lower among the oldest ones (10.6%) (secons, 2012). this data suggests that entrepreneurship is learned as a lifestyle (blagojevic, 2012). the following graph shows that the number of people employed by women entrepreneurs is greater than the number of entrepreneurs themselves, while it is slightly different with men. these data should be viewed in the light of the findings of some studies that show that female entrepreneurship is often associated with solving family problems, mostly vujičić, s., et al., female entrepreneurship, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 126-136) 131 unemployment of wives and children (secons, 2012). however, the motivation for entrepreneurship is different to some extent with men and women, which results in different effects on employment (blagojevic, 2012). graph 1: entrepreneurs according to gender and employment by entrepreneurs from 2003 to 2010 (in thousands) source: blagojevic h.m.(2012) “women and men in serbia: what do numbers tell us?”, un women united nations agency for gender equality and empowerment of women it has already been noted that the percentage of enterprises run by women is 26%, which is a significantly smaller percentage compared with the enterprises run by men. in table 1 we can see the structure of business entities in serbia in 2011 according to the activities. table 1: structure of business entities according to the activities structure of business entities according to the activities status of a business entity total % active companies and stores 322.556 59,6 companies and entrepreneurs/in registration process 1.052 0.2 companies and entrepreneurs in liquidation and bankruptcy process 6.154 1,1 companies and entrepreneurs/closed down and deleted from the registry 211.935 39,0 other 466 0,1 total 543.163 100 source: statistical office of the republic of serbia, 2011 132 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 126-136) table 2 shows the percentage of active enterprises run by women and men but also the percentage of enterprises in which they carry out this role together. if we compare the data on the number of active enterprises run by men with the number of enterprises run by women, we come to the conclusion of a significantly higher participation of men in the management of enterprises. table 2: active enterprises according to an entrepreneur’s gender active enterprises according to an entrepreneur’s gender number of active enterprises share in the total number of active enterprises enterprises owned and led by men 205.202 63,4 enterprises owned and led by women 83.490 25,8 enterprises in which entrepreneurs are both men and women 8.570 2,6 enterprises where the gender of an entrepreneur is not known 26.294 8,1 total 323.556 100 source: statistical office of the republic of serbia, 2011 from the above-mentioned tables and graphs, we see that women have lower rates of participation in entrepreneurship than men, which leads to the conclusion that their career is seen as less important for economic development and growth. opportunities for the development of female entrepreneurship in serbia during the last decade, female entrepreneurship in serbia has recorded significant progress and there is an increasing participation of women in business. most current problem to be addressed in order for this sector to develop in the right way is financial support to women who want to step into the world of entrepreneurship. besides the problem of finding financial resources, the persistence of risk is also evident. women in the stage of early entrepreneurship (whose businesses are up to 42 months "old" vujičić, s., et al., female entrepreneurship, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 126-136) 133 according to the gem methodology2) are particularly vulnerable to risks, so they need a greater support in the early stages of business. in order to create better opportunities for the development of female entrepreneurship it is necessary to build a policy of development of female entrepreneurship systematically. this can be done in two ways: by a systematic integration of a gender perspective into key strategies and other documents relating to entrepreneurship development policy (such as sme development strategy, the strategy of industrial production development, the regional development strategy, etc.) as well as developing a specific strategy / action plan for the development of female entrepreneurship (as it has been done in croatia or planned in montenegro) (avlijas et all, 2012). in recent years in serbia through various measures of support to the development of female entrepreneurship, women have been helped to develop their entrepreneurial ideas and enter the world of business. examples include the establishment of the european network of female entrepreneurship ambassadors. establishment of a network of successful business women should serve as a model of behavior for future entrepreneurs across europe. initially, the network consisted of 150 ambassadors from 10 european countries (denmark, france, germany, iceland, ireland, italy, norway, poland, slovakia and sweden), and at the end of 2010, 12 other countries, including serbia, joined them (http://narr.gov.rs/index.php/projekti/podrshka-preduzetnishtvu/-european network dial-ambassador-zhenskog-preduzetnishtva-wens). also, within the support program for female entrepreneurship in serbia, the national agency for regional development published a public call for grants aimed at developing female entrepreneurship through business alignment of operations with international standards of business, improving business processes, products and services and strengthening human resources. association of business women of serbia is conducting a research on the training needs of female entrepreneurs in south eastern europe 2 gem research is conducted on the basis of annual estimates of national levels of entrepreneurial activity, based on a harmonized approach used by all participating countries in order to comprehend the role of entrepreneurship in national economic growth.gem research is based on the data collected from three sources: the data collected through polls on a representative sample of the adult population, the data collected through polls and interviews of experts in the field of entrepreneurship, the data collected from standardized secondary international databases. 134 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 126-136) countries with the aim of defining the state policy and supporting female entrepreneurship. chamber of commerce of serbia within its chamber system has set up the council for female entrepreneurship of the chamber of commerce of serbia. the role of the council is to provide professional assistance and support to its members, as well as to propose actions for the development of female entrepreneurship in serbia. recommendations of “initial study on female entrepreneurship in serbia” indicate the need for a systematic way to develop female entrepreneurship development policy, to reduce the gap in entrepreneurship between men and women, to improve support for women entering entrepreneurship, to create a better business environment, to provide good funding sources for female entrepreneurs, to improve the visibility of programs designed for women especially among women enterprises through various types of advertising and promotion of successfully applied projects. conclusion female entrepreneurship today should be given special attention because its development creates preconditions for the creation of new jobs, both for female entrepreneurs and others, which also provides economic development and the development of a society as a whole. female entrepreneurship today has an effect on reducing unemployment, creation of businesses in new areas, application of new technologies and entrepreneurship development. in countries with low and middle-income female entrepreneurship makes a significant contribution to the world economy. therefore, encouraging female entrepreneurship in serbia is important for utilization of fuller economic potential, but also for the achievement of gender equality in the area of economic participation. it is possible to encourage female entrepreneurship development through adequate programs of support, and thus contribute to the overall economic growth and increase in employment in serbia. references [1] allen, i. e., elam, a., langowitz, n., dean, m. (2007) “report on women and entrepreneurship” global entrepreneurship monitor, babson, london. [2] avlijas, s., babovic m., vladisavljevic, m., popovic-pantic, s. (2012) “the most important findings and recommendations from a study on female entrepreneurship in serbia and gender analysis of selected government vujičić, s., et al., female entrepreneurship, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 126-136) 135 measures for entrepreneurship support” un women united nations agency for gender equality and empowerment of women, belgrade. [3] babovic, m., (2012) “initial study on female entrepreneurship in serbia” un women united nations agency for gender equality and empowerment of women, belgrade. [4] blagojevic, h. m. (2012) “women and men in serbia: what do numbers tell us?”, un women united nations agency for gender equality and empowerment of women. [5] dafoe, s. (2001) financial dilemma of women entrepreneurs. [6] ivković d., čukanovic karavidić m., vujičić s.(2012) “small and mediumsizedenterprises as a factor of serbian economy” economic analyses 34/2012:31-45. [7] karavidić, s., čukanović karavidić, m., ivković, d. (2012) “development of entrepreneurship in conditions of the transition process in the republic of serbia” proceedings the first international conference “employment, education and entrepreneurship” faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship, belgrade. [8] nziku, m.d. (2012) “tanzanian education and entrepreneurial influence among females” journal of female entrepreneurship and education (jwe), no. 1 2/2012: 52-73. [9] pandi s.j. (2011) “factors for motivating women in small business and micro enterprises”. [10] sme report for 2010, http://narr.gov.rs/index.php/ dokumenta/istrazhivanja-ianalize). [11] statistical office of the republic of serbia (2012) “poll on working-age population 2011” beograd. [12] vujičić, s., kvrgić g., ivković, d., vujadin, r., vujadin n.,(2012) “the development of female entrepreneurship in the function of overcoming unemployment of women in serbia” journal of female entrepreneurship and education (jwe), no. 3-4/2012: 1-16. [13] vukmirovic, n. (2005) “models of supporting the development of female entrepreneurship”, industry, vol. 33, no. 4, p. 1-18. žensko preduzetništvo u srbiji stanje i mogućnosti razvoja a p s t r a k t danas je preduzetništvo ključni elemenat razvoja privrednog potencijala svake zemlje. u poslednje vreme kao jedan od mogućih pravaca razvoja 136 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 126-136) preduzetništva izdvaja se žensko preduzetništvo, a broj preduzeća i radnji čije su vlasnice žene je sve veći. problemi koji postoje a koje treba rešiti da bi se ovaj sektor razvijao na pravi način je na prvom mestu obezbeđivanje adekvatne finansijske pomoći ženama koje žele da zakorače u svet preduzetništva. unapređenje ambijenta za razvoj ženskog preduzetništva putem uvođenja poreskih olakšica, lakšeg pristupa izvorima finansiranja, podrške ženama kroz monitoring, pružanje savetodavnih usluga, su samo neke od mogućnosti da se preduzetništvo žena razvije na pravi način. u radu je prikazano trenutno stanje ženskog preduzetništva u srbiji. ključne reči: žensko preduzetništvo,razvoj, nezaposlenost, srbija article history: received: 18 september, 2013 accepted: 25 october, 2013 note of guest editor dear authors and readers, тhe current situation is very challenging for all of us, not only as individuals, but it also has affected the whole society. while in the past the epidemics were quite common at the local level, today the whole world is fighting together against the covid-19 virus. the pandemic affected our common lives, it paralyzed them to a great extent. undoubtedly, it poses a health, economic and social threat. it has also brought many negatives, speaking from a psychological point of view fear, anxiety, hopelessness, conflicts or uncertainty. these are all reasons why it is necessary to look at the impact of a pandemic situation on different areas of our lives. that is the reason i was pleased with the offer from the editor-in-chief of the journal of women entrepreneurship and education, mirjana radović-marković, to become a guest editor for a journal’s special issue dedicated to the impact of covid19 on business and education from a gender perspective. since our collaboration began after i published an article in the jwee on the education and training of future teachers, i agreed with her proposal. as a university teacher and at the same time a woman, i perceive the field of education as one of the most affected. in many countries, there has been a lockdown at all levels of the educational system from kindergartens to universities, including non-formal education as well. the usual way of teaching was transferred to the online space, which placed high demands not only on teachers but also on parents. in many cases, parents had to stay at home with the children, what has affected their business or work attendance and, of course, the family's economic situation. how did other teachers cope with the pandemic? how were women able to cope with the economic and social impact of the pandemic after having to stay home with their children after schools were closed? how did female and male approach differ in distance learning? how did women manage their businesses so that they could continue providing quality services? given that the covid-19 pandemic is a new experience for all of us that has gotten us out of the comfort zone, i believe that the submitted empirical studies will help build a knowledge base that will support the building of a sense of security and safety. stay safe! dr. radka čopková guest editor microsoft word probni.doc the word of editor-in-chief the second issue of women`s entrepreneurship and education has just been presented to readers. a central focus of the current issue is lifelong learning and the impact of female entrepreneurship on economic growth and job creation. we are focused on lifelong learning because countries with the most participants in life-long learning have the highest rate of employment and the lowest gender employment gap. the topic of ‘lifelong learning’ gained in importance in the european debates in the 1990s, until it was given a definition by the commission’s communication of 2001 entitled “making a european area of lifelong leaning a reality. it should be considered for permanent process, so the workforce gets more adaptable for the needs and challenges of the labour market. in terms of these facts it is necessary to obtain the close partnership among universities, companies and research centres. the importance of lifelong learning is pointed out in the paper, ”problematic aspects of women employment in slovakia in comparing with visegrad countries” (emília jakubíková and marianna siničák). female entrepreneurship and economic growth focuses on the role of female entrepreneurship in economic development. a particular emphasis is placed on countries that are in transition from a public-led to a private sector-led economy. while most countries in transition are still navigating their ways through the newly-adopted business environment, for some, there has been a number of adjustments and an increased urgency to re-align their economic policies to adapt to globalization pressures and the new economic order. contributors to this issue have concluded that women and female-owned enterprises (foes) have a significant role in this transition. the papers assembled in this section of the journal have a wide coverage and have covered recent empirical researches in this field. i hope this page will inspire you to participate with your original scientific papers. in addition, we will greatly appreciate it if you can distribute the call for papers to your colleagues, students and other community members and encourage them to contribute to the journal. thank you! editor-in-chief professor mirjana radović-marković, phd doi: 10.28934/jwee19.12.pp56-70 original scientific paper preparation of future teachers at vocational secondary schools and financial literacy daniela petríková1 tatiana varadyová2 technical university of košice, department of engineering education, košice, slovakia a b s t r a c t the aim of this paper is to find out how to motivate future teachers of vocational subjects to implement financial literacy as a natural part of the teaching process. if a teacher does not have a positive attitude towards economics, it is challenging for him to include the proper activities in the field of financial literacy into the process of teaching vocational subjects. the education of future teachers in this field has a wide scope for improvement and implementation of new trends. the purpose of the paper is to examine the initial experiences of introducing the topic financial literacy into the training of future teachers in vocational subjects at secondary vocational schools which are taught at the technical university in košice (the course of additional pedagogical study). financial literacy was the part of a compulsory subject called didactics in vocational subjects, which aimed to determine the awareness of students about the document the national standard of financial literacy in a sample of 67 students. the participants used the document and its attachments in practice. our results point out that most students did not know about the existence of the document and that none of the students had ever worked with the document before. an incompatibility between the document 1 address: němcovej 32, 040 01 košice, slovakia, e-mail: daniela.petrikova@tuke.sk, tel. +421 55 602 26 11 2 e-mail: tatiana.varadyova@tuke.sk, tel. +421 55 602 26 03 petríková, d., et al., preparation of future teachers, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) 57 and its attachments makes difficult to implement financial literacy into the teaching process at secondary vocational schools. in the paper, we present an overview of some methods that shift the problem of financial literacy to a practical level. key words: financial education, financial literacy, future teachers, the national standard of financial literacy introduction financial literacy is defined differently. the definitions vary according to authors and institutions. there is a systematic testing of the financial literacy of the population in developed countries. various aspects such as age, highest education or work activity are important when testing the population. a prerequisite for developing financial literacy is a good financial education system. financial education is part of the country's government strategies and slovakia considers it important. in slovakia, financial education is covered in several documents. in this paper, we focused on a document entitled national financial literacy standard (nsfl). this document defines the necessary knowledge, skills and experience in financial education and personal finance management. the document regulates individual levels of primary education to the level of upper secondary education graduates. the implementation of nsfl is based on a methodology that should include elements of education and training according to modern european trends. objectives the department of engineering education (dee) at the technical university of košice (tuke) offers to students and graduates of university study programs to acquire the pedagogical ability to teach specialized subjects at secondary vocational schools. this specific study course is called the additional pedagogical study (aps). one of the compulsory subjects of this study course is the subject called didactics of professional objectives (dpo). dpo is included in the 3rd and 4th semester of study. this paper offers some insights of the introduction of the nsfl theme into the content of the subject didactics of professional objectives. the reason for introducing the topic of the nsfl was to update the content of the dpo. the nsfl document is important for the implementation of financial literacy in the teaching process at elementary and secondary schools in slovakia. 58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) theoretical framework literacy in modern society is one of the most used terms. in the past, literacy represented the ability of a person to read and write (magalová, 2013). this understanding has gradually changed, expanded and reflects society's needs. today, literacy represents a wide area. zápotočná (2002) describes literacy as a transdisciplinary research problem. other attributes added to the basic concept of literacy were aimed at widening the perception of specific literacy elements (mathematical, numerical, literary, financial, computer, information, legal literacy and others). gavora (2002) suggests four models of literacy: initial literacy, text literacy (including functional literacy), literacy based on socio-cultural theory and e-literacy. the author points out their basic features, ways of detecting and evaluating literacy performance of individuals and the educational implications of this evaluation. in modern society, literacy can be considered as a gateway to education, information acquisition and processing. literacy can be regarded as an instrument for professional success, as well as a basis for media perception, the creation of cultural and other personal hobbies and the functioning of various life situations. sociologists and economists perceive literacy in a relationship with the development of human resources. the individual should also have the knowledge, skills and abilities that allow him to work with information and to be able to communicate effectively. the individual should be flexible and ready to change, know how to work collectively, make efficient use of working and non-working time, and be able to participate in civil and general terms (rabušicová, 2002). the concept of financial literacy there are a number of definitions of financial literacy. authors and institutions define financial literacy differently. remund (2010) points out to many sources of financial literacy and he argues that each definition includes five components: understanding financial concepts, communicating about these concepts, solving personal finances, being good at making financial decisions, and being convinced of the effectiveness of decisions in future financial needs. the oecd (2012) pisa document states that financial literacy means the knowledge and understanding of financial concepts and risks. it is the ability, motivation and selfconfidence to use the acquired knowledge to make effective decisions in financial contexts. the goal is to improve the financial situation of the indi petríková, d., et al., preparation of future teachers, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) 59 vidual and society and enable participation in the economic process (miklovičová, 2017). financial literacy consists of three main pillars: financial capacity and behaviour, financial knowledge and state support. state support requires the cooperation of the relevant financial institutions and continual improvement of the level and quality of the two previous attributes of financial literacy (lusardi, 2012). opletalová & kvintová (2014) characterize financial literacy as a set of competencies that are applied in ordinary life and are necessary for active and responsible participation in the financial market. financial literacy means the state of ongoing development (belás et al., 2016). this allows each individual to respond effectively to new personal events and a changing economic environment. financial literacy is most often characterized as the ability to use knowledge, skills and experience to effectively manage personal financial resources (sivák, 2011). it is understood as ensuring life-long financial security for individuals and households (mesras, 2018). financial literacy is more than just the knowledge of terms. financial literacy is influenced by factors such as age, education, family background, culture, tradition, place of residence, cash income, attitude to money and so on. the factors can increase as well as reduce financial literacy, especially in relation to the various effects of events in the life of an individual or family, or changing economic environment of society. financial literacy components the definition of financial literacy is structured and represents the relationships of other components that are interrelated. kovalčíková, smoroň & strenk (2011) have mentioned the various components of financial literacy: monetary literacy, price literacy and budget literacy. opletalova & kvintová (2014) divide the budgeting component of literacy into various parts such as managing assets (such as deposits, investments and insurance) and managing financial liabilities (such as loans or leasing). škvára (2011) refers to the broader concept of financial literacy in the context of economic literacy as a whole. it focuses on the essential effects of other literacy. the components of financial literacy (figure 1) effect each other. in the process of education, it is necessary to focus on all components of financial literacy and to develop them. a financially literate individual in society is the result of mastering the required level of all components of literacy 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) figure 1: financial literacy and its relation to other literacy source: škvára (2011) and republiky (2007) financial education financial education is important in expanding global awareness of the importance of financial literacy. the oecd has created a generally accepted definition of financial education for its member states. financial education is a process in which financial services users and investors increase knowledge of financial products and services. financial education is an important complement to market behaviour and includes prudent business rules and improved individual financial behaviour in many countries. the oecd has set up an international financial education network (ifen) to conduct research and develop tools to support policy makers and public authorities to implement a national financial education strategy (oecd, 2018). the oecd gives countries the basic strategies to increase the level of teaching financial literacy. subsequently, individual countries implement financial education at different levels. stakeholders public partners, financial institutions and governments, but also individuals invite teachers of economics, business, social sciences, mathematics and ultimately all teachers to engage in defining financial literacy, sharing ideas and experience needed for developing financial literacy of students (coleman, 2015). financial literacy and financial education in slovakia in slovakia, the national standard of financial literacy (nsfl) has become the basic document for the creation of a uniform and comprehensive economics literacy financial literacy money literacy price literacy budget literacy managing financial assets managing financial liabili numerical literacy information literacy law literacy other components of economic literacy petríková, d., et al., preparation of future teachers, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) 61 system of financial education in schools. the ministry of education, science, research and sport of the slovak republic (mesras sr), the ministry of finance of the slovak republic (mf sr) and the interdepartmental expert group on financial literacy worked together with the mesras sr. the nsfl is the basic document which determines the minimum requirements and the competencies for the graduates of primary and secondary schools in the field of financial literacy. table 1 compares three documents of national standard of financial literacy in sr. table 1: comparison of the national standard for financial literacy nsfl v. 1.0 nsfl v. 1.1 nsfl v. 1.2 a date release 30.10.2008 31.3.2014 9.3.2017 themes 1. a person in the sphere of money 2. financial responsibility and decision 3. securing money for satisfaction of living needs reception and work 4. planning and managing money 5. credit and debt 6. savings and investments 7. risk management and insurance 1. the financial responsibility of consumers 2. planning, reception and work 3. decisionmaking and management of consumers 4. credit and debt 5. spending and investing 6. risk management and insurance 1. the financial responsibility of consumers 2. planning, reception and work 3. decisionmaking and management of consumers 4. credit and debt 5. spending and investing 6. risk management and insurance annexes directly in document: glossary of basic terms methodology for the incorporation and application of financial literacy topics in school education programs of primary and secondary schools. no updated attachments: attachments are used nsfl v 1.1 source: prepared by authors from nsfl v. 1.0 (2008), nsfl v. 1.1 (2014), nsfl v. 1.0 (2017), mesras sr (2014) 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) each competence represents the skills and abilities the pupils should acquire. individual competences are divided into partial fields. in the literature we can find the partial competencies which are recommended for graduates at three levels. the first level is, for the purpose of this standard, the first stage of the primary school; the second level is the second stage of primary school, first up to fourth grade of eight year secondary school, the first grade of bilingual secondary school as well as lower vocational education and middle vocational education. pupils are assigned to the second level because the primary purpose of field of study is the preparation for the profession. the third level is intended for pupils of fields of study, who acquire full middle general education or full vocational education. (nsfl v 1.1, 2014) all sub-competencies have created expectations that describe the way in which pupils should be able to use the acquired knowledge in day-to-day financial decisions. it is supposed to allow acquiring the knowledge, skills and experience needed to solve different life situations of individuals and families. mesras sr (2014) has issued a methodology for teachers of primary and secondary schools to the renewed document of nsfl v. 1.1. the publication describes the ways of incorporating individual topics of the nsfl v. 1.1 especially for the first level of primary school, the second stage of primary school, for grammar schools, for secondary vocational schools and conservatories. in the case of grammar schools and the first two levels of education, there are also subjects to which financial literacy can be directly integrated. there are no specific subjects in the subchapter for incorporating the topics of nsfl into secondary vocational schools and conservatories, but this subsection contains a series of steps that should introduce the issue of financial literacy into the school education program. these are the following steps: 1. get acquainted with the updated nsfl; 2. acquire, use and apply professional terminology, professional expressions corresponding to the age and adequacy of pupils; 3. study the content and performance standards of the educational standard; 4. incorporate content and performance standards into the graduate profile; 5. establish a learning area; petríková, d., et al., preparation of future teachers, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) 63 6. select the content and performance standards from the graduate profile and work with them in view of selecting the topics of the nsfl in relation to the education department. the methodology also describes ways, methods, and forms by which topics can be incorporated into a particular educational curriculum (mesras, 2014). the order of individual topics is not precisely defined and the school determines it on the basis of its implementation into the school education program. school and teachers are responsible for the incorporation of financial literacy into the curriculum. nsfl v. 1.1 was replaced by nsfl v. 1.2 in 1. september 2017. a new version was created due to the need to update the nsfl, which was based on the suggestions of the ministry of economics, the mf sr and government office of the slovak republic. the individual institutions try to respond to the constantly changing conditions in economic policy and the financial market in order to prevent possible negative impacts. the main objective of updating nsfl was to optimize it. in the implementation of the nsfl v. 1.2 document, there is a relatively large leeway for introducing of financial literacy topics into the vocational subjects in education by teachers. this is based on teacher’s decision, the needs of the students and the educational conditions of the school. teachers can also collaborate in the creation of new themes within the curriculum of general education and vocational subjects of primary and secondary schools or financial literacy courses. mesras sr offers a portal for digital educational content (https://www.edu-centrum.sk) as well as a portal for financial education and financial consumer protection (https://www.fininfo.sk) to help pedagogic staff, pupils and graduates in identifying relevant educational materials. methodology we analysed 67 seminar reports prepared by students who want to teach professional subjects in the future. it was the task of the students to elaborate their own teacher's preparation for the teaching lesson of the vocational subject, incorporating elements of financial literacy. the assignment of the seminar paper included the tasks to include in the course of the subject a selected theme of nsfl v. 1.2 and implement it into the content of the curriculum. students were asked to select partial competencies according to a level corresponding to a particular level of education. they had to use the 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) methodology for incorporating and applying the topics of financial literacy into the school education program (mesras sr, 2014). future teachers should specify the possible application of the chosen topic of financial literacy and its partial competence in the preparation of the lessons. the data for this paper were obtained through interviews with students, by analysing the seminar reports and through a questionnaire survey. there was no idea to observe anything at the beginning. it was only on the basis of the results that we decided to draw some knowledge of the conclusions that we observed and seemed to be interesting. results aps students could choose from several topics from the nsfl v. 1.2, which were later analyzed in their seminar report. table 2 presents the main topics from the nsfl v. 1.2. subsequently, students selected the competencies they wanted to develop in the individual topics. table 2: number of students choice topics nsfl v. 1.2 number of students % 1. financial responsibility of consumers 7 10.4% 2. planning, reception and work 25 37.3% 3. decision-making and management of consumers 21 31.3% 4. loan and debt 6 9.0% 5. saving and investing 2 3.0% 6. risk management and insurance 6 9.0% source: prepared by authors many future teachers have chosen the theme “planning, reception and work”. it was not ascertained why they chose this topic. we believe that the topic was the easiest to include in the subject content. as part of this theme, students most often chose partial competence in the preparation of a financial plan. the second most frequently chosen topic was “decision-making and consumer management”. even in this case, it is possible to deduce that the topic of consumer behaviour is easier for teachers to use in teaching. ever teacher is also a consumer and he can count on his own experience in petríková, d., et al., preparation of future teachers, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) 65 this area. within this topic, students most often chose to develop consumer skills in responsible purchasing decisions. we hypothesize that students are influenced by their studies and professional orientation in tertiary education when they choose a topic from the nsfl. due to the unparalleled representation of individual departments, we divided students into two categories for our analysis purpose only: students with an economic focus and students with a non-economic technical focus. table 3: area of professional study area of professional study economic focused students non-economic focused students topics of national standard of financial literacy v. 1.2 number of students % number of students % topics 27 100% 40 100% 1. financial responsibility of consumers 2 7.4% 5 12.5% 2. planning, reception and work 12 44.4% 13 32.5% 3. decision-making and management of consumers 4 14.8% 17 42.5% 4. loan and debt 4 14.8% 2 5.0% 5. saving and investing 1 3.7% 1 2.5% 6. risk management and insurance 4 14.8% 2 5.0% source: prepared by authors the findings corresponded with our hypothesis that students with a technical focus will be more decisive on the topic “consumer decisionmaking and management” (42.5%), as this involves the adoption of a financial decision with the consideration of alternatives and their implications. comparing multiple alternatives and choosing the best and also the most economical way is characteristic for technical decision making. students with an economic focus chose the theme “planning, income and work” (44.4%). this may be related to the anticipated focus on teaching business economics. analysing the seminar reports has led us to conclude: 1. nsfl v. 1.2 does not fully coincide with the attachments that are created to the nsfl v. 1.1. 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) 2. nsfl v. 1.2 also does not fully coincide with individual state education programs. 3. many of our students have never heard about the nsfl (80.6%), the remaining students (19.4%) had heard about the nsfl but did not work with it. 4. students with a technical focus had a problem to devise an appropriate activity for students that would involve financial literacy and would need twice the time to prepare a seminar report compared to the students with an economic focus. 5. students had problems working with images in a text editor, and they also had problems with the correct quoting of resources used to process the semester assignment. 6. in the context of working with the mentioned documents, we can conclude that some of the recommended websites do not work. practical implementation of the inclusion of financial literacy in the teaching process we believe it is very important to choose good teaching methods for developing financial literacy. the topic is usually reflected in the lesson. if the information from the teacher to the students moves (by speaking or explaining) only in one direction, the passivity of receiving information leads the students to perceive it only on a theoretical level. there are more appropriate teaching methods for teaching financial literacy where students need to build their attitudes. these are methods in which a teacher requires student activity. we recommend using methods that lead students to find a specific type of literature with financial information always related to the trade union area (price list of components, components, services) and then discuss with students. this will make it possible to appropriately incorporate the financial literacy theme into lessons. another option is to select one of the problem methods, for example: heuristic method or brainstorming. case studies and project methods are also appropriate. education of vocational subjects with elements of financial literacy will bring the desired effect in the form of strengthening students' cognitive and affective competences. it is also essential that teachers of vocational subjects are able to successfully manage the course of teaching. attention petríková, d., et al., preparation of future teachers, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) 67 should also be paid to this problem when preparing future teachers of vocational subjects. discussion cole, paulson, & shastry (2012) reported that the understanding of the financial decision-making process is limited. they point out that education has a major impact on financial market participation and smaller but statistically and economically significant effects on financial management. they argue that education significantly reduces the probability of declaring bankruptcy or suffering during the financial crisis. the authors argue that education can influence decision-making through attitudes, lending behaviour, discount rates, aversion to risk, and the impact of co-workers and neighbours. later, cole, paulson & shastry (2013) did research at a secondary school to find out whether it is possible to learn good financial behaviour at secondary school. they found that classical lessons of financial education, where the change of decision had no real effect, while the added math lessons specializing in financial tasks, made it possible to learn good financial behaviour. fernandes, lynch & netemeyer (2014) compared many studies on financial education. the authors argue that financial education is inevitable, but its importance for real-life decisions is overestimated. the authors also found that consumers with low financial education have the problem of saving and their economic decisions unduly increase household debt. however, they also report the same results for consumers who underwent financial education. according to their findings, the financial literacy of "trained" consumers may have increased although consumer behaviour has not changed. they point out that personality traits in financial management cannot be explained by differences in financial education. family education, especially among children significant influence on financial behaviour of an individual has family education, especially among children (kláseková, 2017). the aim of our contribution was to draw attention to the education of future teachers of vocational subjects at secondary vocational schools and their education in financial literacy. we haven't noticed an observation similar to ours in the postings available. we realize that it would be useful to examine a larger number of students, which would make the survey more valid. however, we could only carry out the research on the number of stu68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) dents enrolled for additional pedagogical study (aps). we will continue to observe the future. we recommend that the theme of financial literacy should be introduced into all aps programs and to create a single tool for examining the training of future teachers in this field. every graduate has to be financially literate to be ready for career, college education, and ultimately real life in society. there for, it is necessary to have competent high-skilled teachers who will be able to introduce financial literacy into the teaching process of each individual subject. the nsfl gives enough space for vocational schools to implement their financial literacy in education. teachers of vocational subjects should be able to understand how to meaningfully teach students about financial literacy, because it is very important for their career and real life. stakeholders involved in creating standards and participating in enhancing financial literacy in schools (public partners, financial institutions and government bodies) should primarily focus on teachers themselves not only to motivate but especially competent in the field of financial literacy, because the work of teachers is crucial in teaching. teachers need to know and understand what is needed to become financially literate, and why it is also necessary for the future development of society. conclusion the main objective of the paper was to introduce the teaching concept of financial literacy for future teachers of vocational subjects at secondary vocational schools. as part of the study on the supplementary pedagogical study at the technical university in košice, the content of the subject dpo was updated in the academic year 2017/2018. we summarized the results obtained on the basis of students' work in the processing of the semester work with the implementation of financial literacy into the content of education of specific subjects. we can conclude that many future teachers do not know about the existence of the national standard of financial literacy document, and those who know about it have not worked with it. that is why we propose an introduction of this topic into additional pedagogical study. petríková, d., et al., preparation of future teachers, jwee (2019, no. 1-2, 56-70) 69 references [1] belás, j., 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[25] zápotočná, o. 2002. súčasné teoretické reflexie čítania a gramotnosti a ich odraz vo výskume a vzdelávaní. pedagogická revue. 54(2), 140-155. article history: received: 18 january, 2019 accepted: 17 april, 2019 publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade associate editors aidin salamzadeh, faculty of entrepreneurship, university of teheran, iran hiroko kawamorita kesim, ondokuz mayis university, turkey editorial office journal secretaries dejana pavlović, ma elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by donat graf, beograd jelena petrović0f snežana radukić1f introduction literature review methodology data – analysis of economic growth and entrepreneurial activity in republic of serbia results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references milica slijepčević2f karolina perčić3f creating fashion creative process in fashion creation the process of fashion diffusion, creation of identity and fashion product image life cycle of a fashion product fashion, style, hit fashion product pricing cost-based pricing market-based pricing promoting a fashion product fashion magazines fashion blogs conclusion olabisi, s. yusuff4f introduction brief empirical literature patterns of land ownership in developing countries conceptual framework interpretation study areas data presentation and analysis challenges of women in accessing land in ado-odo community women’s perception on improvement of patterns of ownership of land recommendation references daniela petríková5f tatiana varadyová6f introduction objectives the concept of financial literacy financial literacy components financial education financial literacy and financial education in slovakia methodology results practical implementation of the inclusion of financial literacy in the teaching process discussion conclusion ann terngu makar vandefan7f introduction literature review /conceptual frame work financial support for women as entrepreneurs discussion conclusion references victoria burgess8f introduction theoretical overview discussion conclusion references an analysis of the development of entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia with a special focus on female entrepreneurship fashion product development process with reference to women's participation local government in ogun state, nigeria preparation of future teachers at vocational secondary schools and financial literacy assessing institutional founding sources and challenges facing women entrepreneurs in nigeria being a female entrepreneur case study 17_jwe_3-4 udc: 005.961:005.914.3(4) 334.722-055.2(4) jel: j16, l26, m13 cobiss.sr-id: 253622796 original scientific paper a generational approach to female entrepreneurship in europe peter ester1 research center business innovation rotterdam business school, rotterdam university of applied sciences, rotterdam, the netherlands amelia román2 centre for applied research on economics and management, amsterdam school of international business, amsterdam university of applied sciences, amsterdam, the netherlands a b s t r a c t female entrepreneurship is still a limited phenomenon in european countries and its promotion ranks high on the eu policy agenda. various frameworks have been offered to explain the main structural differences in entrepreneurship between men and women, emphasizing a variety of underlying factors. with a novel approach, this paper argues that due to a process of generation renewal the numerical difference between male and female entrepreneurship will diminish. generation replacement is seen by sociologists and other social scientists as the motor behind cultural renewal. our core interest in this paper in developing such a dynamic interpretation within the european context is the role of different generations (silent generation, babyboomers, generation x, millennials). 1 address: p.o. box 25035, 3001 ha rotterdam, the netherlands, email: pester@hr.nl rotterdam, the netherlands 2 address: p.o. box 22575, 1100 db amsterdam, the netherlands, e-mail: a.a.roman@hva.nl 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) younger cohorts of females are hypothesized to be more pro entrepreneurship and pro self-employment both in terms of attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, compared to older cohorts. they are furthermore assumed to converge with their male generation members in this regard. this paper empirically tests these two hypotheses by analyzing multi cross-sectional european data from the eurobarometer over a span of thirty-five years (1980-2015). results show that this generational approach sheds new light on explaining trends in female entrepreneurship. we find evidence of an increased growth in female entrepreneurship that can be attributed to generation replacement. this rise in total female entrepreneurship is characterized by diversity among european countries in the study. positive attitudes toward entrepreneurship are essential to considering future self-employment. education is a key factor. female entrepreneurship, it is predicted, will become more prominent in europe. key words: generations, female entrepreneurship, europe, trends, attitudes, empirical, self-employment introduction3 europe shows substantial gender differences in entrepreneurship. on average, male business ownership is twice as likely as female ownership. although women outnumber men in europe, the proportion of selfemployed women is only 34% and the share of female startup entrepreneurs is just around 30%. only 10% of working european women is selfemployed. women are much more prone then men to prefer a career as an employee above a career as an employer or business owner (eurobarometer, 2012). quantitatively, female self-employment is still a relatively limited phenomenon in europe, i.e. compared to the united states.4 given these small numbers, it is understandable that promoting female entrepreneurship has become a rising priority on the economic policy agenda of an increasing number of european countries. the european commission explicitly addresses the issue of lagging behind self-employment and business startups by women. “women represent the most underused source of entrepreneurial potential in europe” as the commission states in its entrepreneurship 2020 3 many thanks to didier fouarge and henk vinken for their very helpful comments on the interand intragenerational analyses. 4 see the findings of the multi-university diana project on women business owners: http://www.dianaproject.org/data/publications/publicationsfordow/themythsdispelled/myth s_dispelled.pdf ester p., et al., a generational approach, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) 3 action plan.5 boosting female entrepreneurship also fits the basic aim of the european union to decrease gender inequality. in order for europe to become a world leader in innovativeness, competitiveness, and sustainable growth, the action plan encourages women to start their own business through a variety of targeted policies and specific guidelines for the eu member states. among them are providing access to funding, access to information, business training, access to business networks, and reconciling business and family concerns. the eu policy on promoting female entrepreneurship is part of its broader economic strategy that aims to strengthen entrepreneurship in europe. promoting female entrepreneurship according to european policy makers is good for the economy, it adds to economic growth and employment, utilizes the female potential, contributes to innovation, reinforces diversity, and reduces gender inequality.6 various frameworks have been offered to explain the main structural differences in entrepreneurship between men and women, emphasizing a variety of underlying factors. at least four explanatory frameworks can be distinguished in the entrepreneurship literature. institutional explanations underline the importance of structural hindrances that negatively affect female entrepreneurship such as bureaucratic obstacles, regulative restrictions or tax policies (coleman & robb, 2012; eastwood, 2004; hegewisch & gornick, 2011).7 this framework zooms in at gender barriers in access to venture capital, business funding, and other support structures (brush et al., 2014; buttner & rosen, 1988; coleman, 2000; shaw et al., 2001). starting female business entrepreneurs have poorer access to traditional networks for resource acquisition and entry barriers seem high for women (brush et al., 2004; katz & williams, 1997; piacentini, 2013). 5 european commission (2013), entrepreneurship 2020 action plan. reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in europe. quote from european commission, dg enterprise and industry. report on the results of public consultation on the entrepreneurship 2020 action plan, 2012: 2. 6 the european economic and social committee (eesc), a consultative body of the european union, made a number of proposals for policy interventions to promote and develop female entrepreneurship in order to support sustainable growth in europe. among which: enforcing current legislation in areas of gender equality; fighting stereotyping in education and career paths; promoting academic studies which can lead to new business start-ups for women; ensuring fair access to funding and resources on equal terms; and improving social protection for the self-employed. eesc: female entrepreneurs – specific policies to increase eu growth and employment. brussels, 2012. 7 an alternative explanation are demand-side gender differences in use of credit. see piacentini (2013). 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) cultural explanations point at divergent values and norms regarding male and female career goal setting, family care, work life balance, and risk attitudes. the family context has a stronger impact on female entrepreneurship than on male entrepreneurship (aldrich & cliff, 2003; brush et al., 2009; harun & pruett, 2014; jennings & mcdougald, 2007). career values and options still affect men and women differently (patrick et al., 2016; sanchez & licciardello, 2012); women have more diverse and disrupted career patterns then men (román, 2006). women, moreover, tend to show a higher risk-aversion profile than men and typically invest in lower-risk activities (eckel & grossman, 2008; parotta & smith, 2013; sexton & bowman-aupton). social explanations underline possible gender discrimination factors and male/female resource differences due to educational choices and social capital. female entrepreneurship is found to be subject to gender-characterization and stereotyping (gupta et al., 2005; lewis, 2006). education also affects entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship segregation: women are underrepresented in science and technology and overrepresented in the humanities (oecd, 2004). psychological explanations, finally, accentuate personal factors related to individual differences between women and men with respect to e.g. fair of failure and risk-taking, self-efficacy, locus of control, or networking (dawson et al., 2011; klyver & grant, 2010; mazzarol et al., 1999; shinnar et al., 2012; zhao et al., 2005). these four distinct (but related) frameworks explaining differences in entrepreneurship between men and women vary in terms of antecedents and motives, or more generally: in push and pull factors. the general feeling among european policy makers as well as among the eu member states is that female entrepreneurship needs stronger encouragement. the underlying assumption is that women are less interested than men in pursuing a career in self-employment, to start a business of their own, to become an entrepreneur. on an aggregated level this evidently is the case as the figures mentioned above illustrate. men are more likely to consider self-employment than women (eurobarometer, 2012).8 but these static figures may also mask more dynamic changes in entrepreneurship intentions, attitudes, and behaviors among segments of women. developing a more dynamic understanding of entrepreneurship 8 in the field of technology and innovation data show that the percentage of patents awarded by the european patent office to women is lower than 10%. moreover, less than 25% of businesses started with venture capital belong to female entrepreneurs (european commission, 2008). ester p., et al., a generational approach, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) 5 views among women would certainly improve our perspective on female self-employment and its future potential. us data, for instance, have shown that the rate of new business formation by women has surpassed the rate of new ventures by men (diana project; minniti & naudé, 2010). compared to europe, the united states demonstrates much more pronounced female entrepreneurship growth trends. our core interest in this paper in developing such a dynamic interpretation within the european context is the role of different generations. it can be hypothesized that generations differ in selfemployment preferences, in becoming an entrepreneur, in starting one’s own business. younger generations, so one may argue, have more positive intentions to becoming an entrepreneur, hold more favorable attitudes towards self-employment, and are more likely to start their own business compared to older generations (eurobarometer, 2012). the female members of these younger generations will resemble their male counterparts with respect to their needs for autonomy, self-direction, and flexibility, as well as in terms of their assessments regarding self-efficacy and risk proneness. self-employment becomes a much more “natural” and culturally accepted career choice among young women. if this hypothesis is empirically substantiated it would imply that generational renewal affects entrepreneurship which in turn would gradually but consistently increase entrepreneurship rates among young females. if this pattern of intergenerational gender differences in entrepreneurship attitudes would occur europe-wide, it would change female self-employment considerably in the near future. a trend towards more positive attitudes to entrepreneurship and self-employment among younger cohorts of females may mirror broader intergenerational changes. and if these attitudes would converge between younger females and younger males it would also reflect major intragenerational changes. analyzing how generations differ in their views on entrepreneurship in general and their intentions to start a business in particular will improve our comprehension of the social dynamics underlying changing attitudes towards female self-employment. it is remarkable to observe that the standard entrepreneurship literature and research hardly pay attention to the role of generations in changes in social outlooks on entrepreneurship, selfemployment, and startup activities. the 64-pages long index of the renowned oxford handbook of entrepreneurship (casson et al., 2006) does not include the term “generation”, nor does the 23-pages long index of the reputed handbook of entrepreneurship research (acs & audretsch, 2003). mainstream entrepreneurship literature and research, so the conclusion 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) holds, lack the sensitivity of thinking in terms of generations or even of age cohorts. the impact of generational renewal on the rate of female entrepreneurship is vastly understudied. theoretical perspectives generations and social change sociology has a solid theoretical and empirical track record of understanding social and cultural changes as caused by generational renewal. the most prominent theorist on generations is hungarian-born sociologist karl mannheim (1893-1947). mannheim can be viewed as the founding father of the sociology of generations who inspired a new generation paradigm and a new research tradition. he defines a generation as a birth cohort which was exposed to the same societal developments and changes (“schicksale”) during its common formative period, within the same “socio-cultural space”, and whose members share a joint generational awareness and social destiny. the experiences they gained during their formative years or youth period (e.g. wars, national crises, periods of economic recession or growth) are assumed to have a lasting effect on the further life course of generation members. a new generation, according to mannheim, may be a carrier of new values orientations, new lifestyles, and new behaviors, proponents of new social visions, and instigators of social change. in its most explicit form a new generation may be an avant-garde or trendsetting cohort; a vanguard, in short. generations share a common consciousness of belonging to a generation which sets them apart from other generations. particularly in times of intensive social dynamics and political or economic turbulence, new generations are likely to emerge. examples are the world war ii generation which shares the existential impact of the war horrors during its formative period, the baby boomers who experienced the making of the welfare state, the protest generation which fought for civil rights and democracy, the lost generation which suffered from massive youth unemployment, or generation y which combines pragmatism, selforganization, and networking, and is notoriously tech-savvy. generation replacement is seen by sociologists and other social scientists as the motor behind cultural renewal. new generations grow up in different eras with distinct political, economic or social challenges which impact their formative period in a marked sense and evoke new generational responses. political scientist ron inglehart has forwarded the well-known ester p., et al., a generational approach, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) 7 thesis that modern western society is witnessing a structural shift from materialist to postmaterialist values due to a gradual cohort replacement (inglehart, 1990, 1997). inglehart states that older generations were socialized in periods characterized by economic insecurity and warfare, and therefore hold materialist values such as physical sustenance and safety. younger generations, however, were raised in relatively prosperous and peaceful times and therefore give more priority to postmaterialist values such as quality of life, personal freedom, and self-actualization. though cohort replacement is a slow process but associated with a substantial shift towards postmaterialist values, this shift according to inglehart actually signifies a silent revolution. inglehart’s contribution to generation theory is that he combines a scarcity hypothesis (one places the greatest value on things that are in relatively short supply) and a socialization hypothesis (one’s basic values reflect the conditions that prevailed during one’s formative pre-adult years). inglehart’s theory has inspired a wealth of studies that link cultural change in western society to generational replacement (braungart, 1984; diepstraten et al., 1999; ester et al., 1993, 2006; van den broek, 1996). most generation theories are based on a similar set of assumptions: old generations with distinct value preferences are replaced by new generations who forward their own preferences. new generations, entrepreneurship attitudes, and self-employment a generational perspective may help to develop a better and deeper insight in the social mathematics and dynamics of female entrepreneurship. it starts with the assessment that compared to older generations, younger female generations in europe grew up in quite different cultural and economic times. their coming of age periods differ substantially and in line with generation theory this impacts their basic cultural and economic beliefs and attitudes, including their beliefs and attitudes towards entrepreneurship and self-employment. young europeans were (and are) socialized under unique cultural and economic circumstances that marked their outlooks, their worldview, and their lifestyle. these distinctive circumstances shaped the way they think about work, career, and self-employment (diepstraten et al., 2006). europe as well as other western societies witnessed a number of cultural changes that directly and indirectly transformed the way younger generations imagine their life course and frame their career choices. due to broad but far-reaching processes of individualization, emancipation, secularization, and de-traditionalization, prevailing standard biographies 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) changed into free-choice biographies (du bois-reymond, 1990; ester et al., 1993; 2006). young generations were the first to embrace personal values that stress autonomy, self-determination, and flexibility (van bommel et al., 1995; howe & strauss, 2000). older generations largely grew up in times when standard biographies dominated based on socially prescribed norms and trajectories. entrepreneurship was a modest part of these trajectories, certainly among women. the typical life course favored lifelong employment preferably with one or two major employers. starting a business was still exceptional and not an intrinsic part of the standard set of career choices of older generations. for younger generations career options are more open and diversified. becoming an entrepreneur, starting a business, being self-employed is much closer to their values and career preferences which emphasize self-direction, independence, and personal challenges (eurobarometer, 2012; ferreira & kleinert, 2015). this is true across sexes. traditional gender roles become less self-evident among male and female members of younger generations, also as a consequence of their higher education (inglehart & norris, 2003). consequently, the views of young european females on entrepreneurship and their self-employment intentions are assumed to converge with the views of their male generation members. the world of entrepreneurship itself also changes. the emphasis on innovation is central and distinguishes successful from non-successful companies. “turning business into innovation” and “turning innovation into business” become leading mantras (burns, 2014; schaufeld, 2015). disruptive innovation, creativity and think out-of-the box, advanced technology, social media, international mindset, and passionate entrepreneurship are the new buzz words (boyd, 2014; boyd & goldenberg, 2013; drucker, 1993; ester & maas, 2016; moore, 2014; world economic forum, 2014). they are the key drivers of entrepreneurial success and economic growth. these drivers push entrepreneurship policies. european countries prioritize the founding and funding of innovation hubs and new hightech entrepreneurship, and european capitals compete in becoming the leading european hotspot for startups.9 this brings about a european startup community and new business culture which nicely fit the personal values and career choices of younger generations (špigel, 2015). they are the first cohorts that adopted and experimented with digitalization, social media, and high-tech innovations (palfrey & gasser, 2008). to some observers the 9 see for a global ranking of startup cities: compass (2015). the global startup ecosystem. ester p., et al., a generational approach, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) 9 millennial generation is the entrepreneur generation par excellence, as they prioritize freedom over job security.10 entrepreneurship, furthermore, becomes more prominent on the curricula of european secondary and university education. as a result of these developments there is a continuous search for young entrepreneurial talent in the rising european startup and knowledge economy (ester & maas, 2016). it may be assumed that the more the startup community expands in europe, the more visible new businesses founded by young people become which in turn adds to its “normality”. it will create new male and female business role models which will reinforce self-employment and inspire new business ventures among younger generations. it has to be italicized that entrepreneurship as a professional career trajectory for younger generations is not merely a matter of attractive pull factors based on matching personal values, career preferences, and destandardized individual biographies but may also be the result of less alluring economic push factors (arum & müller, 2004). self-employment is not only choice-driven but may also be necessity-driven (dawson et al., 2009; henley, 2015; margolis, 2014). due to the economic crisis that hit european economies hard, younger european generations face high unemployment (scarpetta et al., 2010). the gloomy economic situation forced many young europeans to reconsider their career opportunities, and self-employment became an involuntary but widely chosen option (oecd/european commission, 2012; oecd, 2015). in numerous cases, moreover, companies outsourced their employees and hired them back as self-employed. the netherlands, for instance, witnessed a remarkable rise of the number of self-employed as a result of both pull and push factors (corvers et al., 2011; cpb, 2014). as a consequence of the combined effects of these pull and push factors it may safely be predicted that irrespective of gender differences, self-employment among younger generations is a phenomenon that is here to stay. it generates benefits at both the individual and macro level. “entrepreneurship, i.e. starting one’s own business, can offer an alternative option for young people to use their skills and for the economy and society to benefit from new talent.” (oecd, 2015: 128). self-employment by starting one’s own company has become a common option among the career choices that young european generations face. 10 see: http://vator.tv/news/2013-05-14-why-millennials-are-the-entrepreneur-generation. 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) hypotheses the interand intragenerational analysis of the relationship between entrepreneurship and gender yields the following two hypotheses that will be tested empirically in this paper: h1: european countries show an intergenerational trend towards more entrepreneurship among females h2: european countries demonstrate a converging intragenerational trend towards entrepreneurship among females and males methods: ddata and measurement all analyses are conducted using secondary research applying quantitative data analyses. the data for this research come from the eurobarometer surveys which provide an extended view in time, something essential for investigating generational trends. the trend data from the eurobarometer are from the standard eurobarometer. surveying approximately 1000 respondents per country, the method of data collection is a face-to face interview in the respondents’ homes.11 the eurobarometer surveys individuals age 15 years and older using a random sampling method, and since 1989 using a multistage method of random sampling.12 the standard eurobarometer, originating in 1973, is cross-sectional, with waves in the spring and autumn of each year. this research uses the data collected in the autumn waves from 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 enabling the research to cover a thirty-five year period. all countries surveyed were used in the analyses with the exception of norway as this country was surveyed twice during our period of observation (1990 and 2000) and did not remain in the study. for an overview of countries surveyed per wave, please see the gesis website.13 for the ols regression model, the flash eurobarometer 354 with a special edition on entrepreneurship from 2012 is used. the data from the flash eurobarometer are collected applying the same methods as the ones 11 with the exception of sweden, where telephone interviews are conducted. 12 before 1989, the sampling designs were either multi-stage national probability samples or national stratified quota samples. 13 http://www.gesis.org/eurobarometer-data-service/home/ ester p., et al., a generational approach, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) 11 described for the standard eurobarometer with the exception of the period of collection (june-august, 2012). construction of indicators on the eurobarometer entrepreneur is created by the variable ‘occupation of respondent’ using categories of self-reported business ownership or self-employment. generation is constructed as follows: survey year-exact age to create ‘year of birth’, year of birth used to create ‘generation’ with four values: − silent generation: born 1925 to 1945 − baby boomers: born 1946 to 1964 − generation x: born 1965 to 1976 − millennials or gen y: born 1977 to 2000 method of analyses all descriptive analyses of the eurobarometer are conducted on the individual countries in the dataset using the population size weights. the multivariate analysis performed dataset from the flashbarometer is conducted with the weight application for the european countries supplied by the eurobarometer. 14, 15 analyses the first part of the analyses comprises a descriptive approach to the eurobarometer data analyzing trends across europe from 1980 through 2015. here we look at key variables in the data before testing our hypotheses in the multivariate analyses. we include: employment and entrepreneurship by gender (figure 4.1 and figure 4.2), female entrepreneurship by country (figure 4.3), and entrepreneurship by generation (figure 4.4). 14 in the flashbarometer, countries outside of europe were surveyed as well, but these were not included in our analysis and the weight for the european countries was applied. 15 on the gesis website there is a section with the title “to weight or not to weight”. the researchers followed these suggestions using the application of the population size weights for individual country analyses, and average country analyses. 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) figure 4.1: entrepreneurship and employment as percentage of occupational status by gender 1980-2015 source: eurobarometer figure 4.1 represents the percentages of entrepreneurship and employment by gender from 1980 to 2015. entrepreneurship includes farmers, fishermen, business owners, and any working professionals, who are not in paid employment, and have not responded as being retired, as a percentage of the total adult population. during the period of observation there is a trend toward convergence in entrepreneurial activity between the sexes which supports our hypothesis. the rate of self-employment for men has decreased over the period of observation from 21% to approximately 13%, whereas an increase for female entrepreneurship from 5% to 7.4% is seen during the period of observation. the decrease in entrepreneurship for men can be attributed in part to the reduction in privately owned farms and fishing businesses, most of which occurred between 1975 and 1995 (goffee & scase, 1987). where the male employment rate has been stable between 58 and 63 percent over the period of observation, women have exhibited an impressive growth from 31 to 57 percent, almost doubling their percentage of participation in paid labor. the effect of the financial crisis is clearly discernible in the ‘dip’ in employment in 2010. 0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 male entrepreneurship male employment female entrepreneurship female employment ester p., et al., a generational approach, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) 13 figure 4.2: comparison of male to female entrepreneurship as total percentage of entrepreneurship 1980-2015 source: eurobarometer figure 4.2 brings the male to female entrepreneurship comparison more clearly in perspective. this time, the relation of male to female entrepreneurs is depicted as a percentage of total entrepreneurship. most important to note, from figure 4.2, is the narrowing of the ratio in total entrepreneurship between males and females over the period from approximately 4:1 to 3:2. in 2015, women’s share of total entrepreneurship has risen to more than 37% of the total share of entrepreneurship in europe, almost 4% more than reported in 2012. men’s entrepreneurship has dropped from 77% to 63%. this growth in the share of total entrepreneurship by women is most remarkable when one considers their substantial growth in employment during the same time period. the convergence in male and female entrepreneurship patterns is clear and provides support for our hypothesis h2 albeit without knowing if this convergence is predominantly caused by the younger generations. 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 male female 14 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) figure 4.3: female entrepreneurship 2015 by country (percentages) source: eurobarometer figure 4.3 depicts female entrepreneurship in 2015 by country. the eu average female entrepreneurship rate in 2015 is 7.7%. finland, slovakia, czech republic, poland, austria, luxemburg, east germany, great britain, the netherlands, italy, slovenia and greece are all above the eu average. 0.0% 2.0% 4.0% 6.0% 8.0% 10.0% 12.0% 14.0% 16.0% gr si it nl gb-gbn de-e lu at pl cz sk fi total ee gb-nir hu pt ro bg lv fr lt dk be cy es de-w se ie mt hr ester p., et al., a generational approach, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) 15 hungary has the lowest percentage with only 3.6% female entrepreneurship. there is a marked difference between east and west germany in the percentage of female entrepreneurship, with west counting just shy of 4.6% which is quite a bit lower than the 9.3% in the east of germany. in terms of the overall percentages across europe, there is no clear picture of how these differences in female entrepreneurship are distributed. it does not appear to be an east-west pattern, which looked to be the case for the two germanies. one might assume it has something to do with a north-south pattern by looking at the difference between the high percentage in finland (8.1%) as compared to malta (3.7%), but this pattern is not really replicated. regarding any trends in terms of country size, france as a large country with 5.7% female entrepreneurship is easily surpassed by the much smaller slovenia at 12.4%. but this picture is also not a constant throughout the country data. the next step is to analyze the trends in a generational perspective. figure 4.4 displays the trends in female entrepreneurship across europe from 1980 to 2015 by generation. figure 4.4: entrepreneurship by generation as percentage of total female entrepreneurship (1980-2015) source: eurobarometer 0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 silent generation (1925-1945) babyboom generation (1946-1964) generation x (1965-1979) millennials (1980-2000) 16 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) in figure 4.4, the generations are clearly presented with the older generations diminishing and the younger generations increasing over our period of observation due to age effects16. in 1980, the silent generation represents two-thirds of the female entrepreneurial market compared with only one-third representation by the babyboom generation. the oldest members of generation x are gingerly making their first appearance in this same year. the generations are a sociological classification and for this reason not every generation has the same number of years (silent=21 years, babyboom=19 years, generation x=15 years, millennials=21 years). the babyboom generation surpassed the silent generation in percentage of female entrepreneurs in 1990, continuing to dominate the entrepreneurial field until 2015, when the share of generation x grew to almost 43 percent female entrepreneurs. the strong branding of such large previous generations as the silent and the babyboomers are not likely to be repeated simply due to their numbers. the silent generation was quite impressive in terms of female entrepreneurship. the women from the babyboom generation never reached the level of entrepreneurship attained by their predecessors. no other generation is so strongly represented in public sector jobs as this sector grew during the 1960s and the 1970s (eipa, 2012). these career choices reflect the fact that babyboomers were the generation par excellence that built the postwar welfare state. what is clearly depicted is the steady growth in the percentage of female entrepreneurs from generation x throughout our period of observation. the millennials appear to be unaffected by the financial crisis; their share of the total percentage of female entrepreneurship grows steadily from their entrance in 2000 to 2015. however, what we are more likely observing are the push factors of entrepreneurship due to a less than appealing perspective on the labor market, particularly for the youngest generation due to high unemployment rates and lower numbers of job vacancies across europe. these descriptive analyses provide some support for our hypotheses but we turn now to the multivariate analyses to test them more effectively. 16 we have not done an apc (age-period-cohort) analysis as it is not our intention to isolate cohort effects and realize that due to our lengthy period of observation, age effects are clearly present in our data. ester p., et al., a generational approach, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) 17 multivariate analyses this section addresses the two basic hypotheses: a) european countries show an intergenerational trend towards more entrepreneurship among females, and b) european countries demonstrate a converging intragenerational trend towards entrepreneurship among females and males. multivariate analysis will be used to estimate the model. the analysis uses an ols regression with the feasibility of becoming an entrepreneur as dependent variable. the regression is used to analyze the feasibility of becoming an entrepreneur as explained by generation, drivers of entrepreneurship, and country: � = � + �� + � the model intends to investigate entrepreneurial attitudes and what we may expect in terms of entrepreneurship growth in the future. in model 1 using an ols regression analysis, the dependent variable is the feasibility of being an entrepreneur. the variable is based on the question (q7), “regardless of whether you would like to become self-employed, how feasible would it be for you to become self-employed within the next five years?” using a likert scale coding 1-5 from not very feasible (1) to very feasible (5). drivers for becoming an entrepreneur are applied using the flash eurobarometer 2012 for the youngest generations, generation x and the millennial (males and females) to project what we can expect in the future. we base our analysis, applying the drivers for entrepreneurship to our specific group(s) of interest. there are five positively loaded factors, or positive drivers: − educational course – have you taken part in any activity or course about entrepreneurship in school or university? (q10) − entrepreneurship desirable – (q9) personally, how desirable is it for you to become self-employed within the next five years? − entrepreneurs create jobs – entrepreneurs are job creators. (q12_3) − education stimulates interest in entrepreneurship – my school/education is making me interested in becoming an entrepreneur. (q11_3) − education provides entrepreneurial skills – my school/education has given me skills to help me run my business (q11_4) 18 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) and three negatively loaded factors which could inhibit becoming an entrepreneur: − lack of financial support – it is difficult to start one’s own business due to a lack of available financial support. (q21_1) − complex administrative procedures – it is difficult to start one’s own business due to the complex administrative procedures. (q21_2) − entrepreneurs are selfish – entrepreneurs only think about their own pockets. (q12_2) all variables on drivers were tested for multicollinearity with the dependent variable. the diagnostics showed no problematic variables. table 4.1: ols regression of perceived feasibility of entrepreneurship within the next 5 years males females generation ref: silent babyboom 0.361*** 0.317*** generation x 0.711*** 0.637*** millennial 0.625*** 0.608*** desirable to start business in next 5 years 0.452*** 0.391*** took entrepreneurship course 0.259*** 0.275*** entrepreneurs create jobs 0.026** 0.029** education stimulated interest in entrepreneurship 0.005 0.016 education provided skills to start a business 0.053*** 0.064 lack of financial support -0.029** -0.086*** complex administrative procedures -0.031** -0.043*** entrepreneurs are selfish -0.025** -0.043*** country ref: great britain france 0.030 -0.009 belgium 0.021 -0.076 netherlands 0.562*** 0.285*** germany 0.339*** 0.189*** italy -0.036 -0.080 luxembourg 0.104 0.110 denmark 0.317** 0.128 ireland -0.026 0.095 greece -0.217** -0.154 spain -0.215*** -0.286*** portugal -0.050 -0.162** ester p., et al., a generational approach, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) 19 males females finland 0.157 0.016 sweden 0.840*** 0.617*** austria 0.327** 0.226** cyprus -0.169 -0.187 czech republic -0.196** -0.246** estonia -0.045 -0.114 hungary -0.200** -0.185** latvia 0.299 0.434** lithuania 0.131 -0.035 malta -0.237 -0.251 poland 0.563*** 0.359*** slovakia 0.357** 0.244** slovenia 0.101 -0.029 bulgaria -0.044 -0.020 romania -0.244*** -0.289*** constant 0.746*** 1.101*** observations 11422 13126 r-squared 0.31 0.30 source: flashbarometer 354, ** significant at 5%, ***significant at 1%. the multivariate model looks at the attitudes towards entrepreneurship in the near future. the model has been analyzed separately for men and women to simplify interpretation. the analysis for the men explains 31 percent of the variance in the population with a total of 11,422 observations. the women’s analysis with 13,126 observations explains 30 percent of the variance. compared to the silent generation, belonging to the babyboomers, generation x or the millennial generation has a positive effect on how men and women assess the feasibility of becoming an entrepreneur within the next five years. in this analysis, generation x already has a stronger positive effect than the babyboom generation and the millenials, also have a strong positive effect, although slightly less. seeing entrepreneurship as a desirable option also has a positive effect on whether men and women see this as a feasible option in the next five years. clearly, having a favorable attitude towards entrepreneurship positively affects how feasible it would be to become an entrepreneur. having taken a course on entrepreneurship also has positive influence on how a person views the feasibility of selfemployment in the near future. this effect is stronger than the other positive drivers for entrepreneurship. and the effect of being motivated by one’s 20 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) educational curriculum is not even significant in the model. that their education provided them with the skills to start a business, has a small positive effect in the men’s analysis, but this is not so for women. all three negative drivers are significant at 5% in the men’s analysis and at 1% for the women. the effects of these drivers on the feasibility of becoming an entrepreneur are very similar: a lack of financial support, complex administrative procedures, and having the opinion that entrepreneurs are selfish and just out to fill their own pockets all have negative effects on viewing entrepreneurship as a feasible course of action within the next five years. countries showing significant positive effects on the feasibility of entrepreneurship in the next five years (compared to uk) are the netherlands, germany, denmark (for men but not women), sweden, austria, latvia (for women but not men), poland, and slovakia. in terms of attitudes towards the feasibility of becoming an entrepreneur within the next five years, we can expect a positive trend for entrepreneurial growth in these countries. regarding attitudes towards entrepreneurship, we have found evidence for both of the hypotheses. younger generations have a more positive attitude towards entrepreneurship than their older cohorts and men and women are converging in these attitudes as well. this is not so for all countries in europe. the negative effects on the perceived feasibility of entrepreneurship in the near future in countries such as greece, spain, portugal, cyprus, malta, bulgaria, and romania show the clear division of north-south that was not apparent in our other analyses. and this negative country effect could undermine the younger generations from starting businesses which are so vital for the economic recovery in these countries. conclusions in explaining gender differences in entrepreneurship, researchers typically point at institutional, cultural, social, and psychological factors. trend changes in gender differences are primarily understood in terms of these sets of factors. in this paper we aim to augment these perspectives by looking at the role of generation replacement in explaining changes in gender differences in self-employment. more specifically, we tested two basic hypotheses: a) european countries show an intergenerational trend towards more entrepreneurship and self-employment among females, and b) european countries demonstrate a converging intragenerational trend ester p., et al., a generational approach, jwee (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) 21 towards entrepreneurship and self-employment among females and males. the paper distinguishes between four types of sociological generations: silent generation, babyboomers, generation x, and millennials. using longitudinal data (1980-2015) from the annual eurobarometer surveys we find evidence to support both hypotheses. younger female generations are more self-employed than older female generations (with the exception of the millennials), and among the younger generations entrepreneurship rates tend to converge among male and females. possibly more important are the positive attitudes we find in each younger generation towards the feasibility of entrepreneurship in the near future. looking back and comparing the overall labor market behavior of men and women from 1980 to 2015, the decrease in male entrepreneurship during the period of observation is not compensated by an increase in the total male employment rate. women exhibit a major increase in employment as well as an increase in their self-employment. there is a narrowing of the ratio in total entrepreneurship between males and females from approximately 4:1 to 3:2, with women accounting for almost 38% of the total entrepreneurship in europe. we do observe between-country differences. taking stock of the current situation, the eu average percentage of female entrepreneurship for the potential labor force in 2015 is 7.7%. the netherlands, italy, slovenia, and greece are trendsetters each with more than 11% female entrepreneurs in the total potential labor force. our search for discernible country patterns in the current state of female entrepreneurship across europe was to no avail. there appears to be no relationship by geography: north-south, east-west, or country size. nor is there evidence of a relation between old and new member states. however, regarding the attitudes and the feasibility of becoming an entrepreneur in the next five years, there is a clear north-south divide. this requires additional in-depth analysis. our results lead us to conclude that the european entrepreneurship agenda should take interand intragenerational gender factors into account. it provides an appealing perspective on understanding and bridging the gap between male and female self-employment and on boosting female entrepreneurship. the role of education is crucial in this respect. our findings indicate that a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship is essential in overcoming self-employment barriers and in encouraging growth in female entrepreneurship. countries in which women have positive attitudes towards starting businesses in the near future are the netherlands, 22 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 3-4, 1-27) germany, sweden, austria, latvia, poland, and slovakia. in general, women are neither experiencing encouragement toward becoming selfemployed nor do they feel that they gain the skills necessary to start businesses during their education. clearly, more needs to be done in our educational field to stimulate female entrepreneurship. education must be a key factor in policies that aim to tap hidden female entrepreneurial talent. in this way the potential of entrepreneurship among the youngest generations of female europeans can be more fully realized. references [1] acs, z.j. & d.b. audretsch (eds.) 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[74] welter, f., brush, c.g. & a. de bruin (2014). the gendering of entrepreneurship context. bonn: institut für mittelstandsforschung (ifm), 2014. article history: received: 15 september, 2017 accepted: 4 december, 2017 microsoft word 09_jwe_1-2.doc the sustainability of serbian civil society organizations: evidences and remarks daniele mezzana* * associazione di ricerca e formazione in roma (cerfe), italy a r t i c l e i n f o article history: received 21 march 2009 accepted 7 april 2009 jel: k4, n44 k e y w o r d s: sustainability, civil society organizations, obstacles, legal framework, social regimes a b s t r a c t this article try to analyze the question of sustainability of serbian civil society organizations (csos) on the basis of a research carried out by cerfe about juridical and non-juridical obstacles for csos. as the study highlights, csos: still face difficulties in obtaining real recognition of certain fundamental human and juridical rights; still do not have full self-governance; have several problems in professional identity, as regards knowledge and operative capacities; have an inadequate image and poorly recognised public role; face serious problems of sustainability. these last problems deals with such aspects as whether csos have the possibility to conduct certain economic activities, their taxation treatment, their opportunity to access credit, the way to obtain government funding and funds from abroad, tax incentives for individuals and firms wishing to make donations to csos, and more besides. on the basis of the research results, at least 5 types of “social regimes” can be identified, concerning: the production of appropriate knowledge about csos situations; the capacity building of csos; the legislative reform concerning the economic and financial aspects of csos life; the public communication about csos; the awareness-raising of political society about the csos problems and opportunities. daniele mezzana / jwe 1-2 (2009) 60-71 61 the pravok project crucial obstacles for the civil society organizations (cso) all over the world are those to the life and growth of csos as regards economic and financial activities, resources, and tax benefits, thus affecting the sustainability (moore 2005; salamon, sokolowski, list 2003; cacace m., quaranta g., quinti g. 2002; irish, simon 1999; barbetta 1999). even some studies carried out in serbia have underlined that many problems the csos are coping with have to do with the limited sources of finance available, among others due to the dependency from the decreasing financial commitment of foreign donors, the modest funding by the state and private sector, the low capacity in fund raising, several legal problems concerning taxation and economic activities (fens 2006; golubović, bullain, 2006; usaid 2006). this article try to analyze the question of sustainability of serbian csos on the basis of a research carried out by cerfe, within the framework of a broader project envisaging assistance to the institutions concerned of the government of serbia in order to facilitate citizens’ participation by creating favourable legislative frameworks1. the project was conventionally referred to by the term “pravok” (from pravni okvir, the serbian expression for “legislative framework”). the project has been granted by the italian ministry of foreign affairs – directorate general for cooperation and development. the pravok project was organised as an integrated itinerary including research, training and public communication activities, from 2006 to 20082. as many studies conducted over the last few years show, despite the start up of forms of cooperation between state and civil society and the fact that important service, information and legal assistance structures have been set up within the associations sector, there is for several aspects a weakening of civic participation, and most csos in serbia today face many problems that hinder their full participation in public governance (argument 2006; civic initiatives 2005; dereta 2004; ngo policy 1 the web site of pravok project is: www.pravok.org 2 the project was conducted in partnership with the european center for not-forprofit law (ecnl), and with the cooperation of the associazione italiana dei comuni, delle provincie, delle regioni e delle altre comunità (aiccre), the association of local democracy agencies (alda), the standing conference of towns and municipalities of serbia (skgo), and the municipalities of subotica and kragujevac. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 60-71 62 group 2001). these problems concern aspects such as knowledge and skills, public image, the available structures and resources, and interorganisational coordination. some of these difficulties depend on the environment these organisations operate in and, in particular, on the juridical structures whose context they work in. a notable obstacle for civil society development in serbia has been the non adaptation of the legal framework of reference for csos that is still fragmented and weak (paunović 2006; skgo 2006; golubovic, paunovic, 2004; kovačević vučo, milenković 2004), even if this difficulty should be partly overcome, by some new laws recently submitted to the parliament. some of these problems have to do with the csos sustainability, as the research carried out by cerfe in serbia has shown. the map of obstacles and the guidelines the research was focused on the drafting of a map of the juridical and non-juridical obstacles to the emergence and operative capacity of civil society. the map was drafted first by analysing the existing literature and documentation in order to create an international inventory of obstacles (both juridical and non-juridical ones) that are potentially present, in that they have been found in other countries (thus a “virtual” map of obstacles, because it has still not been verified locally), and comparing this “virtual” map with the specific reality of serbia in order to produce a “real” map of the obstacles found in this country; this took place by consulting 53 leaders of csos working in serbia and 7 serbian experts in the legal, administrative and political fields. the map of obstacles concerning serbia includes 120 obstacles. the research results formed the basis for drafting the “guidelines on the management of the juridical and non-juridical obstacles for civil society” (mezzana, bormioli, cacace 2008)3, addressed to national and international public, private and non-profit organisations interested in carrying out initiatives aimed at removing the existing obstacles to the activation of civil society organisations. as the study and the guidelines highlights, csos: 3 the guidelines have been presented and discussed in belgrade on december 16th 2008, within the framework of a seminar at institute of economic sciences (ies). the guidelines can be downloaded at: www.pravok.org daniele mezzana / jwe 1-2 (2009) 60-71 63 ─ still face difficulties in obtaining real recognition of certain fundamental human and juridical rights; ─ face serious problems of sustainability driving many of them to limits of subsistence; ─ still do not have full self-governance; ─ have several problems in professional identity, as regards knowledge and operative capacities; ─ have an inadequate image and poorly recognised public role. in essence, what appears to emerge from all this is that csos still do not have a socially and publicly recognised “place”, so to speak, in the serbian context. hence, there is no full interpretation and adequate legitimisation of their existence, and of their work, that can lay the foundations for drafting legislation, strategies and policies. we can now underline some of the findings of the research concerning namely the sustainability problems. these problems deals with such aspects as whether csos have the possibility to conduct certain economic activities, their taxation treatment (also with respect to other organisations), their opportunity to access credit, the way to obtain government funding and funds from abroad, tax incentives for individuals and firms wishing to make donations to csos, and more besides. it should be recalled that as many as 9 obstacles concerning these aspects rank among the top 20 obstacles identified by the cerfe research. the set of sustainability problems both juridical and non-juridical obstacles, specifically referring to some political and cultural aspects. the set consists of the following obstacles. obstacles about sustainability of serbian civil society organizations juridical obstacles ─ disparity between the framework regulation and tax law in defining public benefit organisation (pbo) (i.e. activities deemed for public benefit) ─ lack of standardisation in dealing with pbos in relation to the different organisational forms adopted ─ lack of clarity of the definition of “economic activity of csos” journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 60-71 64 ─ uncertainty as to the possibility of conducting certain economic activities ─ no distinction, for tax purposes, between occasional economic activities and on-going ones ─ low threshold of tax-exempt income generated from cso’s economic activities ─ difficulties in obtaining credit ─ fundraisers’ need to meet complex legal criteria which sometimes come from different levels of authority ─ prohibition for foundations financed by private enterprises to do fundraising or to ask for donations ─ prohibition or restrictions on government funding ─ lack of transparency of government funding ─ existence of laws that create difficulties and restrictions for accessing foreign funds ─ difficulties in exchanging currencies at real market rates ─ lack of tax incentives for individuals making donations to csos ─ few tax incentives for firms making donations to csos ─ insufficient tax benefits for csos ─ existence of cso tax reporting standards of the same level of forprofit enterprises ─ the need for a formal procedure before the administrative authorities in order to enjoy tax benefits, despite there being a legal exemption system ─ impossibility for csos to apply for tax exemptions before some years have elapsed since the start of their activities ─ the need to renew the status of tax-exempt organisation every few years ─ taxation of cso real estate property ─ lack of public policy instruments (public funds, for instance) to mitigate the burden vat imposes on non profit entities engaged in activities deemed for public benefit ─ lack or ineffectiveness of a tax system favorable to csos for customs duties ─ lack or insufficiency of the inheritance tax exemption system for csos ─ difficulty for governmental bodies to make fund transfers in favour of csos daniele mezzana / jwe 1-2 (2009) 60-71 65 non-juridical obstacles ─ poor development of individual philanthropy and lack of donations for the cso sector ─ widespread expectations of receiving free services from csos ─ government inertia in accessing european union funds ─ no government policy for enhancing the non-profit sector’s capacity to access european union funds ─ lack of transparency in commissions charged with distributing public funds to csos ─ inadequacy of cso quality evaluation systems ─ unfair competition by csos financed by governmental or municipal agencies ─ lack of transparency in public contracting procedures ─ delays in public administration payments to csos ─ bureaucratic dysfunctions in handling european funds ─ occasional nature of private sector contributions ─ excessive structural and financial fragility of the non-profit sector ─ insufficiency of self-financing mechanisms ─ conflicts of interest for advocacy organisations that receive public funding ─ gradual withdrawal of foreign funds source: cerfe 2008 the current situation and open issues the existence of serious problems of sustainability for serbian csos clearly emerges from the analysis of the obstacle map drafted on the basis of the research carried out by cerfe. the map analytically shows what the various kinds of impediments are in this sphere. on the whole, the obstacles linked to this aspect firstly show the difficulty of csos to operate in the economic space. this difficulty emerges in many obstacles (see the above list) which highlights the existence of restrictions to csos’ economic activities and the resulting difficulty in generating income for the organisation’s operations and for its staff. there is also a significant problem of lack of confidence and lack of recognition regarding csos. on the economic and financial side, this problem is seen through things like: journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 60-71 66 ─ the difficulties in obtaining credit; ─ the lack of tax exemptions and facilitations for csos, both serbian and foreign ones; ─ the poor clarity of public financing procedures for csos. the lack of confidence often comes about in forms of conflict or competition between csos and other public or private actors. this can occur through such things as: ─ the procedural obstacles to financing; ─ the poor transparency of fund allocation criteria; ─ the presence of forms of explicit blockage of financial provisions in favour of csos; ─ the presence of forms of unfair competition in public competitions. there is a strong problem of competition also within the cso sector itself, in which the study found a great perception of disparity in fund access, such as between large and small organisations, between those closer to political centres and those less so, or between organisations based in belgrade or in other large cities compared to those operating in small towns. one need hardly say that all this makes for considerable risk for the very survival of csos – even the most important ones. the possibility of a prolonged interruption (or great downsizing) of activities, or closure, is something very real for many organisations. all this may lead to stress, demoralisation and demotivation for csos. however, there are signs, albeit contradictory ones, of change in relations between csos and fundraising that can deeply affect the way csos can guarantee their sustainability: ─ the existence of good practices of cooperation between the public and non-profit sector, and the resulting ways of cso financing, such as in the case of governmental programmes for combating poverty; ─ forms of operative convergence between political leaders and csos that can also thus generate funding opportunities; ─ the emergence of a new generation of csos that are more careful of strategic aspects of sustainability. daniele mezzana / jwe 1-2 (2009) 60-71 67 new practices are also emerging, especially as regards “corporate social responsibility” (csr) (mezzana, mastropietro 2004; parodi luna 1999). in this field, there is an initial spreading of theories and practices linked to csr, also due to drives on the part of international and foreign organisations, and multinationals as well as csos and their networks, such as civic initiatives, fens or the balkan community initiative fund (belgrade ngo center 2008). however, csr is only slowly and very unevenly spreading. in this context, the study found: ─ the persistence of a culture still linked to state intervention and thus poorly inclined to considering private initiatives favourably; ─ the entrepreneurs’ poor awareness of the role of csos and the resulting tendency to finance just sporting and cultural initiatives rather than cso activities themselves; ─ private firms’ lack of confidence in csos’ operative capacities; ─ the tendency for firms to associate their image to success themes rather than to those of support to marginal people (the main activity of many csos); ─ the lack of tax incentives. underlying the csos difficulties in sustainability are particularly some elements of a juridical nature: ─ the lack of legislation (such as tax incentives for csos and for donors, or the attribution of pbo status); ─ the existence of restrictive legislation on such things as the possibility to carry on certain economic activities or to transfer government funds to csos; ─ legislative uncertainty on aspects such as the definition of economic activity applicable to csos; ─ the lack of cso classification criteria in order to provide funding. here, too, the reasons underlying the obstacles in this field include a history, albeit a recent one, characterised by mutual suspicion or forms of conflict between state actors and civil society ones. to this may be added the existence of inadequate cultural and professional models – inside some contexts, both as regards public administration and csos – for dealing with the need to financially support journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 60-71 68 civil society, and that are characterised by a certain degree of selfreferencing. in this regard, the respondents stressed the following aspects. • as regards public administration: ─ the existence of a public “machine” that is still backward and little inclined to relations with external actors like csos; ─ public administration’s poor support in enabling csos to access european funds; ─ the lack of formalised criteria for evaluating the quality of cso activities in order to take public funding decisions. • as regards csos: ─ the attitude of many csos to attribute to external subjects the responsibility of solving their own financing problems; ─ the little interest of many csos to have relations with public administration. to this must be added, as already mentioned, the poor dissemination of a donor culture (see above). the situation appears aggravated also by the gradual withdrawal of international donors, which is driving csos towards new forms of financing compared to the ones they were used to. this is a serious problem – at least until such time as an appropriate system of financing by also local actors comes into operation. some “social regimes” on the basis of the research results reported above, at least 5 types of “social regimes” (d’andrea l., quaranta g. 1996) can be identified. in particular, the research tried to identify some “dangers”, that is, the facts underlying the obstacles or clusters of obstacles, like the ones depicted before. we call “social regime”, in this case, the set of laws, institutions and policies that as a whole increase the capacity to handle the various dangers. these social regimes are the ways to turn these dangers into “risks”, that is, dangers made known, predictable and manageable in some way. these social regimes, in the case of serbian csos sustainability, could be: the production and management of appropriate knowledge about csos situations; the capacity building of csos; the legislative reform concerning the economic and financial aspects of csos life; the public daniele mezzana / jwe 1-2 (2009) 60-71 69 communication about csos; the awareness-raising of political society about the csos problems and opportunities. the five social regimes could be entail several kind of actions like the following ones. i. knowledge (i.e. promoting studies on csos sustainability at a local level; creating portals and websites on csos sustainability; creating networks for promoting information exchange on civil society’s sustainability, etc.). ii. capacity building (i.e. promoting courses on cso management and development; promoting courses on fund raising; organising courses on euro-project designing; favoring contacts and international visits for cso and public administration actors; facilitating cso and public administration access to counseling and networking services, etc., etc.). iii. legislative reform (i.e. promoting a favorable legal framework for endowments and foundations; promoting a favorable legal framework for voluntary organizations; broadening the definition of public benefit activities; creating incentives for firms that support csos; abolishing taxes on donations, etc.). iv. public communication (i.e. promoting public initiatives in the territory in order to enhance citizens’ knowledge of csos; promoting communication campaigns on csos; promoting competitions and prizes for csos; disseminating information on relations between csos and the private sector; promoting information channels and awareness-raising on csos for credit sector actors, etc.). v. awareness-raising of political society (i.e. organising seminars and meetings on civil society geared to political actors at national and local level; creating government interfaces with csos about the problems of sustainability; setting up local interfaces between local public administrations and csos; favoring the implementation of local partnerships, etc.). the discussion, elaboration and implementation of these, and possible further, social regimes could be a useful way to cope with the several problems connected to sustainability of civil social organizations in serbia. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 60-71 70 references argument (2006), civil society in serbia. suppressed during the 19990s – gaining legitimacy and recognition after 2000. civicus civil society index report for serbia, belgrade: argument barbetta g.p. (2000), il settore non profit italiano. occupazione, welfare, finanziamento e regolazione, bologna: il mulino belgrade ngo center (2008), «corporate social responsibility. new challenges for businesses», in eobserver, may 2008, vol. 3 cacace m., quaranta g., quinti g. (2002), marcos legales para el desarrollo de la sociedad civil en latino américa, rome: cerfe civic initiatives (2005), ngo sector in serbia, belgrade: civic initiatives dereta m. (2004), dugo a površno, belgrade: vreme d’andrea l., quaranta g. (1996), civil society and risk. contribution for a general theory, paper presented at workshop cerfe-amsterdam school of social research, amsterdam, february 26 fens (2006), vesti: civilni sektor polozaj i perspektive, belgrade: fens golubović d., bullain n. (2006), perspective on regulatory issues for social enterprise development in cee, budapest: ecnl golubović d., paunović ž. (2004), saradnja nevladinog sektora i vlade, belgrade: crns, građanske inicijative, icnl irish l., simon k. (1999), the role of a good legal framework capacity building and sustainability, a paper presented at the "ngos in a global future" conference, birmingham, england, january 10 13, 1999, (download: http://www.icnl.org/gendocs/birmingham.htm) kovačević vučo b., milenković d. (2004), nevladine organizacije, belgrade: yucom mezzana d., bormioli s., cacace m. (2008), guidelines on the management of juridical and non-juridical obstacles for civil society, rome: cerfe (download: www.pravok.org) mezzana d., mastropietro e. (2004), guidelines for the dissemination of corporate social responsibility among small and medium-sized enterprises, rome: cerfe (download: www.cse-net.org/kb/files/234.pdf) moore d. (2005), laws and other mechanisms for promoting ngo financial sustainability, washington: icnl ngo policy group (2001), treći sekor u srbiji. stanje i perspektive, belgrade: crnps parodi luna m.b. (1999), establishing new interactive forms of collaboration between non profit organizations and enterprises, washington: icnl paunović ž. (2006), nevladine organizacije. pravni i politički status nvo u srbiji, beograd salamon, l. m., sokolowski, s.w. & list, r. (2003). global civil society: an overview, baltimore, md: the john hopkins university institute for policy studies daniele mezzana / jwe 1-2 (2009) 60-71 71 skgo (2006), citizen participation at the local level. analysis of the legal framework and policies in serbia and other european countries. research of the current situation, belgrade: skgo usaid (2006), the ngo sustainibility index for central and eastern europe and eurasia, serbia, usaid. 12_jwe_1-2 ne ovaj note from the the editor-in-chief jwe publishes original papers, case studies, book reviews and other peer papers. special issues dedicated to important topics in gender aspects of entrepreneurship and education. they are also published on the occasional basis. this is a special issue of the journal, devoted to "educating women entrepreneurs: past, present and future perspectives". we are grateful to the journal guest editors dr. doan winkel, assistant professor of entrepreneurship college of business, illinois state university, united states; dr. jeff vanevenhoven, assistant professor in management, college of business & economics, university of wisconsin–whitewater, united states and mark geiger, doctoral student,school of business,university of kansas, united states for their a valuable contribution in its creation. thank you! editor-in-chief prof. dr mirjana radović-marković, fea, frsa, fwaas, femaas 13_jwe_1-2 udc: 005.961:005.914.3(049.32) ; 334.722-055.2(049.32) jel: b54, l26 id: 198564876 book review women and entrepreneurship: female durability, persistence and intuition at work beatrice e avolio alecchi, mirjana radović-marković imprint: ashgate publishing ltd, london, united kingdom published: september 2013, 160 p women and entrepreneurship comes from two authors with especially rich experience in this field of research. embracing experience in a range of developed and developing countries and examining both dependent and independent roles, beatrice avolio and mirjana radović-marković profile women entrepreneurs and consider their motivations, together with the obstacles and challenges that they face and often overcome. a focus on emerging forms of entrepreneurship leads to a concentration on what is happening in newly developing economies, with a major case study set in a south american context. the authors deal in particular with how rural entrepreneurship, virtual entrepreneurship, and project-based and home-based businesses particularly lend themselves to providing opportunities for women. the authors’ findings reveal that increased participation of women in business leadership has brought about completely new ways of business communication; new business strategies and company development models; and is imposing a new behavioural style on businesses. what is particularly encouraging is the evidence that female kinds of durability, persistence and intuition are producing business advantage. this 116 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 115-116) means that the authors can clearly identify success factors and propose guidelines for the benefit of female entrepreneurs, female-led businesses, and business in general. this book will serve the needs of an academic audience of researchers in the growing field of studies into entrepreneurship; as well as those teaching or studying business or women’s studies topics. it will of course appeal particularly to women owning and running businesses, or aspiring to do so. contents: foreword; preface; part i female entrepreneurship: introduction; female entrepreneurship: why do women become entrepreneurs?; typology of female entrepreneurs; female entrepreneurship: obstacles faced by women entrepreneurs; mompreneurs; women and inequality problems; women in managerial jobs. part ii special topics on entrepreneurship: introduction; rural entrepreneurship; virtual entrepreneurship; project-based firms; home-based firms; index. „your book is authored, whereas the other two i mention were contributed. one was differentiated by its focus on migration and was the outcome of a single research project. the other is arranged countryby-country, but in terms of individual topics is quite an eclectic mix. we think your proposed book differs from both of these and looks academically rigorous, comprehensive, and distinctive by virtue of its emphasis on female entrepreneurship in different environments (rural, virtual etc.). beatrice’s and mirjana’s qualifications and credentials are impressive and your own connections and memberships should provide access to sales channels“. dr martin west commissioning editor, gower applied research 12_jwe_3-4 udc: 37.043.1 jel: i2; i28 scientific review gender inequality in education in subsaharan africa ombati victor∗, mokua ombati, department of psychology and sociology, eldoret, kenya a b s t r a c t this paper examines the issue of gender inequality in education in subsaharan africa. it argues that in sub-saharan african countries, the provision of education for boys and girls is uneven, and biased through gender, location, class and regionresulting to high illiteracy rates for girls and women. the paper concludes that political instability and violence, poverty and economical challenges, negative cultural values, female genital mutilation, early marriage, and sexual harassment are some of the leading contributors to gender inequality in education. other factors that exacerbate gender inequality are lack of gender responsiveness among the teachers, ineffective teaching, and lack of learning materials, poor learning environment, and impact of hiv/aids. the paper contends that gender inequality in education holds back the growth of individuals, the development of countries and the evolution of societies to the disadvantage of both men and women if not addressed-should be at the beginning. strategies and interventions that have the potential to eliminate gender disparities in education in developing countries are discussed in this paper. kew words: gender inequality, education, sahara, africa ∗ address: 717 braeside road, baltimore md, 21229, (512)850-3825, e-mail: burethi@yahoo.com ombati, v, et al., gender inequality, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 115 introduction the post world war period has witnessed a significant increase in the importance accorded to education, with both “instrumental” as well as “intrinsic” arguments made for increasing financial investment and policy attention to education provision in sub-saharan africa. the sub-saharan africa region comprises the forty-two countries on the african continent south of the sahara africa and the six island nations close to it. the considerable importance that has been attached to education in this area is based on the assumption that education plays a crucial role in promoting social and economic development (nwomonoh, 1998; world bank, 95).besides encouraging changes in behavior that lead to improvement of the human condition, education instills self-confidence and selfreliance in an individual. it also enables one to make informed decisions in such areas as health and nutrition, family planning, water and sanitation, food production and its management (gartner, 2010; watkins, 1999). the education of girls or women in particular has cascading benefits, including helping to decrease poverty, prevent disease, eradicate violence and deter political instability. it is also a means of securing intergenerational transfers of knowledge, and providing the substance of long-term gender equality and social change. sub-saharan africa has registered profound change in both participation and educational expansion in all levels of education since independence. the number of children in enrolled in primary education grew more than six-fold jumping from 12 million to almost 61 million (excluding south africa) between 1960 and 2000. the net-enrollment ratio (ner) for primary education climbed from 56% in 1999 to 70% in 2006. in 2006, more than 23 million of the region’s children entered a classroom for the first time – an increase of some 7 million over the level in 1999 (unesco, 2009).the region accounted for the world’s highest increase in total primary enrollment, which rose by 42% between 1999 and 2006. this increases enabled countries such as botswana, cape verde, congo, malawi, mauritius, namibia, south africa, swaziland and, togo, and zimbabwe) to achieve primary gross enrollment rate of 100 percent (unesco, 2008). while the number of primary school aged children outof-school has dropped by 10 million since 1999, still 35 million children of primary school age were not enrolled in 2006, about one-third of this area’s population. the region accounts for 47% of the world's out-ofjournal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 116 school population, with 54 percent of being girls (unesco 2009; buchmann, 1999). the average primary school completion rates for boys stand at 56 percent, but only 46 percent for girls (low in both cases). countries such as burkina faso, guinea, madagascar, mozambique and niger have less than 15 percent of girls completing primary school. girls make up more than half of the school-age population in most ssa countries and account for only 44.0 percent of primary school enrollments in 1980s. at the secondary level, enrollment increased by fifteen times between 1960s and 1990s. the number of student enrolled jumped from almost 800,000 to 12 million between 1960 and 1999. girl’s only accounts for 34.0 percent of secondary school enrollments in 2008, and few african countries will achieve gender parity target by 2015 at the secondary level if the current trends continues unesco, 2008). tertiary enrollment increased by twenty times with the number of those enrolled rising from 21,000 to 600,000 between 1999 and 2006 (unesco, 2006; cockerton, 2004). female consisted 21.0 percent of university level enrollments in 1980s. they were less than two-fifths of the population, with only 38 percent enrolled in tertiary education in 2007 furthermore, those female students enrolled in postsecondary education concentrated in humanities, arts and social sciences, with a weaker presence in scientific and technological subjects. for example, female students constituted a mere 40 percent of total enrolment in sub-saharan africa in technical and vocational education in 2005 (unesco, 2009). the factors behind the gender inequity and inequality in education expounded later are driven by socioeconomic and political and factors that include political instability and violence, poverty and economical challenges, negative cultural values, attitudes and practices that foster female genital mutilation, early marriage and sexual harassment are some of the leading contributors to gender inequity and inequality in education. there is also the lack of gender responsiveness among the teachers, in the curriculum, teaching methodology, teaching and learning materials, school management systems and the overall school environment account for gender imbalance in education. political instabilityand civil strife political instability and civil wars in sub-saharan africa are regarded as serious malaise harmful to the development of education. apart from the ombati, v, et al., gender inequality, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 117 destruction of education systems, political instability and civil wars cause gender inequality in education. political instability and wars: political instability and strife and has become endemic to sub-saharan africa. since the early 1960s, when most of the african countries began to achieve independence, more than fifty coups have taken place in the continent. in the past ten years, the number of wars and internal conflicts have escalated, nearly a third of the forty-five countries in sub-saharan africa are embroiled in international or civil wars today. in the period between 1990 and 2005, 23 african nations have been scarred by violence. the list includes algeria, angola, burundi, central africa republic, chad, democratic republic of congo (drc), republic of congo, cote d’ivoire, djibouti, eritrea, ethiopia, ghana, guinea, guineabissau, liberia, niger, nigeria, rwanda, sierra leone, south africa, sudan and uganda (khadija, 1997; richardson, 2000). countries in the grip of civil strife have seen their education system suffer destruction because of the schools destroyed or damaged, while others have been used for residential purposes or barracks. in the on going wars in the democratic republic of congo, somalia and areas of sudan, children caught up in conflicts are not merely bystanders, but targets. the shocking part of war is the cynical exploitation of thousands of young people as combatants. children do not attend schools during the war because parents may be afraid to let them, especially their daughters, out of their sight for fear that they will be abducted to become fighters or combatants' wives (abdi, 1998; boyden and ryder, 1996). some children fall victims to general onslaught against civilians; while others die as part of a calculated genocide. still other children suffer the effects of violence or the multiple deprivations of armed conflict that expose them to hunger or disease. conflicts also results in dramatic falls in student enrolments, displacement of teachers, looting of property and destruction of textbooks and damage of the educational curricula (richardson, 2000). children in conflict areas have been reported to experience trauma and suffer rampant diseases from malnutrition, sanitation problems, injuries, and lack of medical logistics that kept them from schools whenever they reopened (richardson, 2000; abdi, 1998). besides the obvious blow to education of razed school buildings, a less deleterious cause may be the drawing away of funds for increased military expenditures to fight the civil war. the real truth magazine (2007) estimates that $18 billion is used on war per year and in the past 15 years, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 118 almost $300 billion has been squandered on armed conflict in africa, capital that could have been used to lift the continent out of extreme poverty and to prevent the continuation of disease , poverty and ignorance. safety and distance to school: insecurity and long distances to schools, and often the relationship between the two, are leading factors affecting children’s attendance to school. the distribution of schools in most of subsaharan africa is concentrated in urban areas, and there are large rural areas without schools. in some countries, children who want to go to school have to walk long distance through village paths to get there. in some situations, children walk many hours to and from school, this is not welcoming to those who are young, ill, physically disabled, or girlsexacerbating inequalities. there are two dimensions to this concern: one relates to the length of distance and the energy children have to expend to cover the distance, often with an empty stomach. the other relates to vulnerability while going to or coming from school each day. parents are unwilling to send their children especially girls to distance schools where danger of being kidnapped, raped, molested and subjected to other forms of abuse looms large (abdi, 1998; unesco, 2009). in rural ethiopia, girls tend to drop out of school at a significantly higher rate when distance to walk to and from school is long. location and distance of schools is a compelling factor for the flow of girls to schools in eritrea. the gender difference in north eastern province of kenya, among others, can be attributed to their remoteness and inaccessibility to schools (ombati, 2003). in most of sub-saharan africa urban areas, girls are harassed both physically and verbally when they use public transport to and from school. economic constraints prospects for increasing educational opportunities to many children as possible in sub-saharan african countries have been undermined by poverty, insufficient national budgetary allocations to education, debt servicing burdens and declining foreign aid to education. poverty: poverty is the single largest factor that causes disparities in education. poverty is pervasive across sub-saharan african the region. most people live on less than $1 per day. a strong association between poverty and gender inequalities in education has been established. inability to pay school fees, the costs of uniform, shoes, transport, stationary, added to the opportunity costs of what children might be contributing to ombati, v, et al., gender inequality, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 119 household labor, eat away at meager resources and push children from school. if all of their children cannot attend school, then parents will most likely give boys precedence over girls (unicef, 2006; king and anne, 1997; ervin and muriithi, 2009). studies have established that poverty weighs more heavily on girls than boys and gender differences in net attendance rates tend to be wider for poorer households in countries with relatively low school attendance (watkins, 1999; assie-lumumba, 2000; king 1993). for example, the attendance disparity ratios of the richest to poorest quintile are significantly higher for girls than for boys in burkina faso, chad, guinea, mali and the niger. these ratios say something important about the unequal distribution of opportunity. for example, in mali girls from the richest households are four times more likely to be attending primary school than the poorest girls (unesco, 2009).waiving school levies and providing teaching materials can reverse this situation for both girls’ and boys’ enrollments. the abolition of school fees that prevents many children from going to school positively resulted in increased enrollment of 12 percent in mozambique, 14 percent in ghana, 18 percent in kenya, 23 percent in ethiopia, and 51 percent in malawi were record in primary schools following the abolition of school fees. similar increases in enrollment in the year with the abolition of school fee have occurred in many other countries; for example, cameroon, 26 percent in total primary enrollment (59 percent in grade 1); lesotho, 11 percent in total enrollment (75 percent in grade 1); tanzania, 23 percent in total enrollment (43 percent in grade 1); and uganda, 68 percent in total enrollment (unesco, 2009). this increase in enrollment demonstrates the importance of fee abolition because cost considerations determine whether parents will be able to enroll and maintain their children at school. limited budget allocations: much as the rate of primary school enrollment in africa jumped from 39 percent in 1960 to 85 percent in 1982 as the continent’s postcolonial governments invested heavily in education, the successes were reversed during the 1980s and 1990s, due in part to structural adjustment programs imposed by the world bank and the international monetary fund that led to deep cuts in education spending (manuh, 1998; world bank, 1988). as a result, african education ministries found themselves without enough money to even maintain existing school systems, let alone expand them. this led to cost sharing policy that required parents to get involved in education of their children. the policy of cost sharing included household contributions in the form of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 120 formal fees (school levies and examination fees), indirect charges (for uniforms and books) and informal payments (including illicit fees to teachers). it also applied to capital spending, with contributions of cash, labor and materials for school construction and maintenance. household contributions were seen as being vital to maintenance of quality basic education in situations of extreme budgetary constraints. however, few parents were able to shoulder the increased costs of educating their children and this resulted to decline enrollment rates at all levels of education especially among the poor (unicef, 2006; world bank, 1988; manuh, 1998). the decline was evident largely in seventeen countries– angola, burundi, cameroon, central african republic, comoros, côte d'ivoire, the democratic republic of congo, kenya, lesotho, liberia, madagascar, mozambique, nigeria, sierra leone, somalia, tanzania, and zambia-countries with more than half of africa's school-age population. in (burkina faso, burundi, ethiopia, liberia, mali, niger, and somalia) primary gross enrollment rate declined below 50 percent. it many be argued that the implementation of structural adjustment programme in sub-saharan africa do not only create, but merely exacerbate the disenfranchised position of women in education. national economic hardships typically force governments and households to allocate resources in ways that directly discriminate against women's education. when resources are scares, parents especially in low-income household are more likely to invest on boy’s education to that of girls due to cultural gendered reasons (logan and beoku-betts, 1996; tanye, 2008; world bank, 1988).this illustrates the interaction of poverty, education deprivation and gender bias. if access to education has to depend on the ability of a family to pay, then only the better off can get quality education and boys will get preference while children from household especially girls will be left even further behind. it is on this reason that most governments, donors and development institutions are opposing the principle of user fees on education. the scrapping of the user fee and increased spending in education is bearing fruitful outcomes because children especially those excluded before are enrolling and remaining in school. it is important to note that financing education – globally and in africa – has not been in line with the ambitious education for all targets agreed to by donors at the landmark world education forum in dakar, senegal in 2000. according to the u.n. human development program, the region only spends 2.4 percent of the world’s public education resources despite having 15 percent of the world’s school age population. ombati, v, et al., gender inequality, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 121 debt burdens: debt burdens remain high in many sub-saharan african countries. of the 32 countries classified as severely indebted lowincome countries, 25 are in sub-saharan africa. africa spends four times as much on debt repayment as she does on healthcare. sub-saharan africa owes more than £140 billion (83 per cent of its total gnp) (kaya, 2005). this enormous debt means that repayments to western creditors take priority and ordinary people suffer in poor health, restricted access to education, lack of employment and limited ability to trade and provide for themselves. the crippling foreign debt burden is one of the principal reasons education budgets in africa has suffered (buchmann, 1999). debt burdens that sub-saharan african countries owed forced schools to charge fees to make up for what they were not receiving from the government. educations in sub-saharan africa become available only to the better off who managed to send their children to school. high school drop out, poor quality education and widespread gender gaps were evident in most of subsaharan africa countries. the combination of low school enrollments, high drop out rates and poor quality education restricted progress towards improved literacy. this perpetuated further the economic and cultural neglect and limitation of educational opportunities for women and girls in most african societies (bendera and mboya, 1999; wanjama and kimani, 1995; king and anne, 1993). however, donor-supported debt relief has allowed heavily indebted african countries to redirect to increase social sector spending, primarily health and education. for example, debt relief to benin, burkina faso, cameroon, chad, the gambia, guinea, guineabissau, madagascar, malawi, mali, mauritania, mozambique, niger, rwanda, senegal, tanzania, uganda, and zambia has enabled these countries to increase their expenditure in service sector like education. the school fee abolition initiative (sfai) seeks to accelerate progress toward quality education for all children by supporting policies that remove cost barriers, preventing parents from enrolling and maintaining their children at school. as explained further in the preface to this book, sfai was launched by the united nations children's fund (unicef, 2006) and the world bank in 2005 as an instrument to ensure that existing education for all (efa) commitments were met. increased spending in education allows more children to attend school, in turn, narrowing the gender gab. declining foreign aid: the proportion of foreign aid allocated to education for sub-saharan africa by the donors declined from 17 per cent in 1975 to 9.8 per cent in 1990, increasing slightly to 10.7 percent in 1994 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 122 (riddell, 1999). financing from g8 countries for primary education in africa peaked in 2003 at $680 million, but dropped back to $535 million in 2004 (unesco, 2010). in 2007-2008, increased external support in the form of debt relief and higher inflows of financial support, favorable external environment that encouraged exports, relative economic growth and increased investor confidence like never before created enabling environment for implementation of sound economic policies that accelerated development in areas like education in many sub –saharan african countries. however at the end of 2007, the world experienced an increase in commodity prices like fuel and food, followed by the global financial crisis. the crisis has seen commodity prices drop with negative effects on export earnings and the external current account, fiscal revenues, and household incomes. this precipitated pressure on exchange and fall in equity markets and capital flow reversals in many of the african countries. the result is that some countries are already experiencing a decline of remittances and foreign aid from the donor nations because of increasing pressure in donor nation to cut spending and balance their budgets (ervin and muriithi, 2009). a unesco all global monitoring report of 2009 indicates aid disbursement to basic education in sub-saharan africa (shown in the adapted graph below) reveal that aid dropped – from us$1.72 billion in 2007 to $1.65 billion in 2008. graph 1: aid to education disbursements to sub-saharan africa ombati, v, et al., gender inequality, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 123 this decline of donor funding is making it harder for many of the low-income countries to pay their teachers and keep the school doors open for 32 million out-of-school african children returning to school (elliott, 2010). the crisis is making western donors to ditch their pledges made at the world education forum in dakar, senegal, in 2000 that they would provide the finance to deliver universal primary educationthe donors are contributing less than one fifth of the $11bn (£7.3bn) annual cost of meeting the pledge in the low-income countries of sub-saharan africa. it is feared that if this trend is not reversed, there would still be 23 million children out of school by 2015, with knock-on effects on economic growth, poverty reduction and health in sub-saharan africa. this could mean a drop in the gains made on girl child education, reversing the progress made towards gender equity in education, with parents choosing to invest in education of boys and removing girls from school due to high cost education. cultural constraint there are myriads of social and cultural constraints that bring about the gender gab in education in sub-saharan africa. they include entrenched cultural practices such as female genital mutilation, the trokosi and voodoo practices, early marriage and child labor that affects education of girls more than boys. female genital mutilation (fgm): female genital mutilation is a culturally-entrenched rite of passage that is often used to mark a girl's transition into adulthood. young girls are pressurized by cultural and family to believe that fgm is part of proper upbringing; it is part of becoming a woman. it is linked to what is considered proper sexual behavior, virginity, and marital fidelity, designed to prepare them for adulthood and marriage. they are also taught to believe that fgm makes them “clean and beautiful,” by ridding themselves of external vestiges of “maleness” which are considered “unclean (kiragu, 1995). female genital mutilation makes girls to feel grown up, and they have no qualms having sexual relations, and the community also views them as mature and ready for marriage. in countries or areas such as kenya, nigeria, mali, upper volta, ivory coast, mozambique, and sudan where female genital mutilation (fgm) is practiced, there are higher rates of teenage pregnancy and school drop outs. girls and communities that practice female genital journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 124 mutilation should be provided with information about the practice, and why it needs to be stopped. governments also should make and enforce laws outlawing the practice. early marriage and teenage pregnancy: in some african communities, religious and traditional norms dictate that children are married at a certain age early. among the nomadic pastoralists of kenya (the samburu, maasai, turkana, pokot, somali, rendile, borana and oromo), marriage is common at or shortly after puberty, especially for girls. the practice of early marriage is known to affect all children but most affected are girls. in countries like central african republic, chad, guinea, mali, and niger, girls as soon as they reach maturity, they marry parents choose to have them marry early for a number of reasons. poor families may regard a young girl as an economic burden and her marriage as a necessary survival strategy for her family. they may think that early marriage offers protection for their daughter from the dangers of sexual assault, or more generally, offers the care of a male guardian. early marriage may also be seen as a strategy to avoid girls becoming pregnant outside marriage. early marriage has been cited as "a barrier to continuing education because one is expected to quit school and engage in parental activities (unfpa, 2004; jensen and thornton, 2003; dagne, 1994). it has been established that married adolescents are particularly vulnerable population largely due to lack of educational attainment. studies have shown that illiterate women have generally high levels of maternal mortality, poor nutritional status, low earning potential, and little autonomy within the household woman’s lack of education also has a negative impact on hindering development and deterring progress (ombati, 2003; wamahiu and wangoi, 1995). additionally, the lack of an educated population can be an impediment to the country’s socioeconomic and political development (schultz, 1999). enforcement of the laws against child marriage is very effective way of addressing this issue. also through media campaigns and educational outreach programs, governments need to take responsibility for stopping this practice. teenage pregnancy: teen pregnancy contributes to high-school drop out rates in sub-saharan africa. in most countries of the region, when a girl gets pregnant, she is less likely to drop out or complete school thereby negatively affecting her future earning potential (wamahiu and wangoi, 1995). in tanzania, for instance, half of the school dropouts each year are girls of 12 to 14 years who have to leave school because of pregnancies. ombati, v, et al., gender inequality, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 125 schools policies in most of sub-saharan africa have for a long time have and the school been advocating for expulsion of pregnant girls who are seen as a bad influence on other girls in the school. very few schools allow pregnant girls or young mothers to complete their education. the pregnant girls mostly get their education terminated and never allowed to continue with school because is argued that allowing these teenage mothers back to school would trigger multiplier effect among other girls (oyaro, 2010; wamahiu and wangoi, 1995; wanjama and kimani, 1995). however, few countries like zimbabwean and kenya have changed their policies and now are permitting girls to go home to deliver and nurse their children and thereafter they are free return to continue their schooling without hindrance (oyaro, 2010).this policy guideline is to ensure access to quality education of all children without any form of discrimination. traditional practices: in most of sub-saharan africa countries, access to education continues to be limited because of traditional practices that prevent some children from going or staying in school. for example, in ghana, as well as in togo, benin, and southwestern nigeria, the trokosi and voodoo practices (trokosi is a ghanaian word meaning "slaves to the gods") have been found to keep enslaved young virgin girls from enrolling or attending school. the practice requires that young innocent virgin girls are sent into fetish shrines as reparation for misdeeds of their family members. the virgin girls spend their days collecting water, cooking, cleaning, farming, and caring for livestock. they are denied access to education, prohibited from leaving, banished from her family home, and soon to face the sexual advances of their master, the priest. reports of school going teenage girls in parts of ghana removed from school by their parents and given up for training as traditional priestess are common (tanye, 2008). the imposition of strict islamic purdha (the islamic practice of keeping girls and women in seclusion from public and outside) impedes girls or women from venturing out of the home to attend school (papanek, 1982). in some of the region's rural communities of sub-saharan africa, girls’ dropout rates accelerate dramatically at the onset of menstruation (kristof, 2009). in most of these communities, menstruation itself is so taboo that girls are prohibited from cooking or even banished to private sphere during their periods. establishing separate sanitation facilities for girls and boys is crucial part of retaining girls in particular in schools because schools that lack latrines are often seen as unsafe by both parents and children. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 126 child labor: child labor poses a great threat to education systems, as children are forced to work rather than attend school, or have to divide their time between work and school; thus greatly affecting their ability to learn. around the world, 246 million girls and boys are working instead of attending school and enjoying their childhood (international labour office, 2002). girls, in particular, are systematically deprived of their right to education by family expectation, society’s norms or the mere lack of attention given to their specified needs. the working children are the most vulnerable in society who are exploitedincluding girls, orphans, ethnic and minority groups and street childrenall of which together make up the majority of the out-of-school population. in rural ghana, children carry foodstuff for miles to market areas for sale in order to aid their parents and sometimes to get money for family upkeep. in kenya, most children work on family farms picking or plucking cash crops (such as coffee, tea, pyrethrum, fruit and vegetables or working as livestock tenders, and do not attend school. most child laborers in nigeria work in the cocoa fields. young togolese from poor families go to do agricultural work in nigeria. in eritrea, collecting fire-wood, fetching water from a long distance and grinding mills are some of the unavoidable tasks of the girl, especially in the rural areas. it can be argued that child labor poses a great threat to education systems, as children are forced to work rather than attend school, or have to divide their time between work and school; thus greatly affecting their performance. compared to boys, girls bear the burden of child labor which in most cases deprives them of their right to education. parents often reluctant to send their girls to school because the labor substitution is not equal to the service the girl child provides at home, replacing her mother, who can then go out to work. the opportunity costs are usually much higher for girls than for boys, since girls are expected to do more domestic work than boys (bendera and mboya 1999). in kenya's north eastern region, for example, enrolment of girls in schools continues to lag behind because the nomadic and semi-nomadic lifestyle favors only boys to be in school. parents in this area force boys to go to school and the girls are required to stay home and look after the animals. they (parents) leave the boys under the care of relatives who ensure they go to school, while girls move around with their parents from place to place in search of pasture for their livestock (mulama, 2010). girls who happen to go to school are overburdened with work resulting in their poor academic performance. a ombati, v, et al., gender inequality, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 127 study adapted from kane (1996), as shown in table 1 on time girls and boys spend in studies at nepal fits the situation for most of most subsaharan african children working and attending school. table i. time girls and boys spend in studies at nepal time time girls spend in studies time boys spend in studies 6 a.m. rises, bathes, prays sleeping 7 a.m. sweeps the compound, fetches water, washes dishes rises, bathes, prays, revises lessons 9 a.m. goes to school goes to school 9:30 a.m. in school in school 2 p.m. school ends. lunch in school, extra studies until 6 p.m. same. if studies end early, plays football 6 p.m. takes food to the mother in the farm fetches water, bathes 7 p.m. cooks dinner, bathes various (play and study) 8 p.m. dinner, washes dishes dinner 9-11 p.m. goes to school for extra studies goes to school for extra studies 12 p.m. goes to sleep goes to sleep source: adapted from kane, e. (1996) gender, culture and learning, washington d.c. advancing basic education and literacy 2 project education is fundamental to the empowerment of girls and women. a quality education provides the tools for self-sufficiency that will enable them to escape poverty and exploitation. this is particularly prescient for the situation of girls, many of whom are driven into work that can be hazardous and abusive at a premature age, without an accessible, free, and high standard education system. effective pressure, both internationally and nationally, for the eradication of all forms of girl child labor and for the eradication of work-based discrimination against women should be applied. this will emphasize the harmful nature of excessive or inappropriate work for children and young people and will serve to highlight that employment after schooling can be profitable for women as well as men journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 128 institutional and instructional constraints there are a range of institutional and instructional factors that impede gender equality in education, from poor quality schools, sexual harassment by classmates and teachers, lack of models the gender bias in learning materials affect girls educational attainment and performance. poor quality schools: millions of children in sub-saharan africa attending to school but are not receiving quality education. the most affected are girls because there are few schools for girls than boys, particularly at post primary level in most of sub-saharan africa. there are more girls than boys in the poorer-quality private and community schools in sub-saharan africa (hillman and jenkner, 2004). the schools tend to have inadequate facilities, are crowded with children/students and are also staffed with overworked and often under qualified teachers. students in these schools largely move through the strictly exam-based system, and often continue to be, ill-equipped with skills necessary for university-level education and entrance to career employment. in addition, girls than boys are less likely to enroll in, and more likely to drop out of, schools that are in poor physical condition (for example, with leaky roofs, no latrine, and no water) whose teachers are often absent, and have inadequate resources (sharon, 2005). the environment in which girls and boys learn is as important as the fact that they are in school. where schools do not provide a safe environment for girls, where they do not address behavior patterns that contribute to gender disparity, there is the risk that many young women will leave school early or graduate without the skills and selfesteem they need to participate as equals in the world). girls would simply prefer to stay at home due to the lack of adequate sanitation facilities which include sufficient water, adequate toilet facilities and proper disposal facilities for sanitary wear which are necessary not only during a girl's period but at all times (kristof, 2009). historically, the educational planners and policy makers have not taken into serious consideration female education girls’ to determine how many schools are needed. these deceptions are allowed to flourish, either due to ignorance and bad intentions or because of lack of women in decision making position has among to influence policy. violence and harassment in schools: in the 21st century, children especially girls still encounters violence and harassment in the place they should be the safestat school. on a daily basis in schools across the subombati, v, et al., gender inequality, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 129 saharan africa, pernicious forms of gendered violence, whilst not easily quantifiable, including physical, verbal and sexual assault and harassment happens to girls making it impossible for them to realize their right to education (ofeibea 2003; haffejee, 2006). for example, in south african schools, rape, assault, and sexual harassment of girls are widespread. girls are frequently fondled, raped in school toilets in empty classrooms and hallways, subjected to aggressive sexual advances verbally degraded and these are committed by both teachers and male students (prinsloo, 2006). a study in guinea indicates that boys are very aggressive towards girls and that they use physical force threats and tease girls to silence them in class. teachers also prey on girls, threatening to fail them, or publicly humiliate them, to prod them into sexual liaisons. those girls who given in to teacher demands are often rewarded with grades high marks and other goodies. in zimbabwean, malawi, rwanda and angola, nigeria, tanzanian, uganda and ethiopia violence against children in schools is a widespread problem and often leads to emotional and behavioral problems that physically abused children experience, such as depression, aggression, disobedience, nightmares, physical health complaints and poor academic performance (delano, 1998). sexual violence and harassment in schools erect a discriminatory barriers for children especially girls seeking education. violence is a key challenge to girls’ school attendance and achievement, undermining their social and economic advancement. violence against women and girls also compromises efforts to combat hiv/aids by undermining their ability to protect themselves in intimate relationships. the disturbing reality of violence against girls is it is rarely treated with the abhorrence that it deserves. even in countries where there are comprehensive legal frameworks to address such issues, the reality on the ground is very different. lack of role models: absence of role model is a problem that the girl child in sub-saharan africa faces both at home and at school. women role models are in short supply in sub-saharan africa as few women are in formal economy, leadership positions and in the field of science and technology (duncan, 1989). for example, throughout their lives, girls are taught mainly by male teachers, especially the sciences and mathematics which they come to perceived as male subjects. therefore girls seem to have no role models to look up to, no one to identify with and no one to serve as a mentor. if there were to be more women leaders who could act as a role model to girls, there would possibly be an increase in the number journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 130 of girls aspiring for higher positions in the society. ombati (2003) suggests that the promotion of female teachers to position of responsibility as a strategy to encourage girls' education and provide them with role models. apart from providing positive role models to young girls, particularly in rural areas, parents are put at ease about their daughter's safety by the presence of female teachers. gender biased curriculum: in sub-saharan africa as elsewhere in most of the world, he school curriculum continues to be genderdifferentiated and, when offered a choice, girls and boys choose subjects that fall within the traditional male/female split, which is promoted by teachers, parents, and peers (gordon, 1998). research has established that the curricula and teaching materials used in schools across sub-saharan africa remain gender-biased to a large degree, and are rarely sensitive to the specific needs of girls and women (bailey, 1992; clark and elaine, 1998). close scrutiny on the curriculum and educational material at schools reveal that girls and minorities, among other things, are asked to relate to curriculum and material that are not produced in their perspective, not presented from their perspective, and tends to ignore their existence (obura, 1992). gender bias in curricula varies from country to country within the region, but instructional programs and texts generally reinforce subordinate or domestic roles for women. discriminations based on gender stereotype surface in many ways in the school context. it may occur, for example, through teachers' samples of group placements and activity assignments, the content of compliments and criticism. examples range from the treatment of females in textbooks and curriculum materials to differential treatment of males and females in the classroom, to mistaken beliefs about attitudes and cognitive abilities (marshall and reihartz, 1999). perhaps curriculum modifications among other changes addressing sex stereotyping might ensure fuller participation and performance of girls in science and technological subjects. biased instruction: in teaching, research has established that in most schools, female students can become nearly invisible, as teachers interact more frequently with boys, asking them better questions and providing more precise and helpful feedback. studies show that teachers tend to answer boys more often than girls in math and science classes and pay more attention to girls in ‘softer’ classes, thereby sending messages about gender capacities. teaching materials, textbooks and lectures tend to depict science and technology as a male domain, depriving girls of role models ombati, v, et al., gender inequality, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 131 (sadker and sadker, 1994. the immediate outcomes of these practices are channeling of girls and boys to what are seen as gender appropriate subjects and careers. in botswana, for instance, boys are channeled into the so-called masculine areas such as mathematics, science and technology, while girls opt into stereotypical "feminine" jobs in teaching, nursing and clerical work. few women are found in scientific or technical education where they could develop better skills to secure better paying jobs (duncan, 1989). generally, the participation in science and mathematics education at primary level in sub-saharan african countries is compulsory for all children. however, the participation rates drop significantly from primary to secondary school, especially for girls. at the tertiary education reveal, average science education participation was 5.1 % for male and 2.8% for females in 2001. the way out is to have gender-equitable materials to enable students have a more gender-balanced knowledge, to develop more flexible attitudes towards gender roles, and to imitate role behaviors contained in the materials. there is also need to create a female friendly environment in schools and communities. teachers, parents and the community should encourage girls to select scientific and technological subjects by cultivating self-confidence and assertiveness in girls (orenstein, 1994). girls should be encouraged to venture into male dominated subjects to acquire skills needed for senior decision-making positions in both public and private sectors. developing instructional and learning methodology that are child-friendly and gender sensitive is an important element of gender and child-friendly schools. hiv/aids and education there exists a strong relationship between gender and hiv/aids, with gender inequalities contributing to hiv, and hiv/aids in turn worsening gender inequality in education. one way of addressing the challenge is to extend quality skills-based hiv/aids education to both boys and girls. challenges of hiv/aids: hiv/aids pandemic is presenting enormous challenges to subsaharan african countries, and girls’ are disproportionately affected whether they are infected or not. it has been established that hiv/aids is exacerbating the gender-based disparities that already exist in the education sector, which disadvantage girls in their access to quality education and disadvantage women in career employment journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 132 (whiteside, 2002; bennel, 2005).girls than boys are at greater risk of contracting the disease, bear a disproportionate share of its burden and comprise the majority of new infections globally. in sub-saharan africa, women constitute 60% of people living with hiv/aids, and female aged between 15-24 years old constitute more than two out of three newlyinfected with the virus (unaids, 2009). in high prevalence countries of eastern and southern africa, girls’ enrolment in school decreased in the last decade because they are the first to be pulled out of school or not to enroll to care for sick relatives or to look after younger siblings (bennel, 2005). girls and young women know little about sex and sexuality because they are often denied an education to protect them against infection. research has established that fewer girls than boys aged 15-19 have basic knowledge about how to protect themselves from hiv/aids and many misconceptions exist and remain uncorrected in communities with limited access to accurate information. often, these myths can be damaging to girls and women, for example, “having sex with a virgin can cure hiv” (suzanne, 2002; meel, 2003). education is one of the key defenses against the spread of hiv/aids. studies show that educated women are more likely to know how to prevent hiv infection, to delay sexual activity and to take measures to protect themselves. education also accelerates behavior change among young men, making them more receptive to prevention messages. children who stay longer in school and receive education on life skills and sexuality benefit from delayed sexual debut, increased hiv prevention knowledge and condom use rates among those already sexually active, and improved understanding of hiv testing (bennel, 2005).it can be argued that universal primary education is not a substitute for expanded hiv/aids treatment and prevention, but it is a necessary component that complements these efforts. conclusion education is a fundamental human right to every child. it is universally acknowledged to benefit individuals and promote national development. education expands the opportunities and life choices for both boys and girls. when all children have access to a rights-based, quality education that is rooted in gender equality, a ripple effect of opportunity that impacts generations to come is created. despite efforts to expand educational opportunities to all children, barriers to educational access, ombati, v, et al., gender inequality, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 114-136) 133 participation and achievement persist and gender inequity continues to flourish to the detrimental of girls in sub-saharan africa. gender equity and equality in education is but a pipe dream if barriers that keep girls from enrollment and having quality education are not addressed. references [1] abdi, a. 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[60] world bank (1988). education in sub-saharan africa: policies for adjustment, revitalization and growth. world bank, washington, dc rodna nejednakost u obrazovanju u subsaharskoj africi a p s t r a k t ovaj rad se bavi pitanjem rodne nejednakosti u obrazovanju u sub-saharskoj africi. u radu se naglašava da u sub-saharskim afričkim zemljama obezbeđivanje obrazovanja za dečake i devojčice nije jednako i određuje se polom, lokacijom, klasom i regionom, što ima za posledicu visoku stopu nepismenosti devojaka i žena. u radu je zaključeno da su politička nestabilnost i nasilje, siromaštvo i ekonomski izazovi, negativne kulturne vrednosti, žensko genitalno sakaćenje, rano stupanje u brak, kao i seksualno uznemiravanje su neki od vodećih faktora (participanata) u rodnoj nejednakosti u obrazovanju. drugi faktori koji pogoršavaju (negativno utiču) na nejednakost polova su nedostatak rodne odgovornosti od strane nastavnika, neefikasna nastava, kao i nedostatak nastavnih materijala, loše okruženje za učenje, kao i uticaj hiv-a i side. u radu se tvrdi da je rodna nejednakost u obrazovanju sprečava razvoj pojedinaca, razvoj zemalja i evoluciju društva na štetu kako muškaraca, tako i žena. u radu se između ostalog raspravlja o strategijama i intervencijama koji imaju potencijal da eliminišu nejednakost polova u obrazovanju u zemljama u razvoju. ključne reči: rodna nejednakost, obrazovanje, subsaharska afrika article history: received: 18 may, 2012 revised: 23 august, 2012 accepted: 10 september, 2012 13_jwe_1-2 udc: 005.961:005.914.3(540) ; 334.722-055.2(540) jel: b54, l26 id: 198561548 original scientific paper identifications and exploitation of a business opportunity: case of women entrepreneurship in india agrawal reena1, jaipuria institute of management, vineet khand, gomti nagar, luckow, uttar pradesh, india a b s t r a c t this case study showcases the initiative and hard work of a women entrepreneur from india, who had a passion to guide and counsel the young graduates towards their professional education. this case study discusses in detail the education acquired by the entrepreneur, her vision, initiative, development and operation of her venture, major impediments that came her way, measures adopted by her to overcome them and her plans for future expansion and growth. it also showcases how the women entrepreneur was successful in creating several new jobs in the society, besides assisting the youth to take up their desired career path. key words: entrepreneurial alertness, entrepreneurial traits, opportunity recognition, franchisee model introduction in india for generations women have been perceived as home makers with their role limited to nurturing their children, providing emotional and psychological support to their spouses. stepping out of their home to take up a job or to start a venture was a social taboo. prevalence of education, change in cultural and economic scenario has led to a paradigm shift. especially the last five decades have seen phenomenal changes in the status 1 assistant professor, e-mail: reena.agarwal@jaipuria.ac.in agrawal, r., case of women entrepreneurship in india, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 62-73) 63 of women in india. in sixties women created small enterprises, which they operated from their home, just to keep themselves engaged. in seventies besides looking after their home and children, they also worked hard for the success and growth of their enterprise. in eighties, the number of women pursuing highly sophisticated technological and professional education increased and these women made personal choices, stood up for their convictions. the women of the nineties and thereafter are found to be competent and confident, with clear cut goal and objectives in life, have courage to establish new ventures and create innumerable jobs in the economy. thus the role of women in family and in economy has being redefined as equally contributing partner. today when the global economy is experiencing a slowdown and there is a need to escalate economic growth and create more jobs in the society, it is necessary that the efforts made by governments across the globe should be supplemented by the support from entrepreneurs as well. it thus becomes equally important that we also motivate and encourage women to initiate and develop small and medium size ventures to promote inclusive growth. this story is about a women entrepreneur named charu srivastva who acquired a professional education and then decided to initiate her own venture to earn her livelihood and in the process created innumerable jobs in the society. entrepreneur profile charu srivastva is a management graduate from lucknow. she always had a keen interest in english and political science. in her school days she was an introvert and quiet person. but her decision making ability gave her confidence while her ability to empathize with people made her popular. people of all age-group confided in her and often took her advice on crucial matters. these interactions gave her valuable insights and the ability to see things from different perspectives. her father’s untimely death forced charu to take care of her siblings. the hardships of her formative years instilled in her the following attributes – sense of responsibility, boldness, intuitiveness and perseverance. in college she became popular among her peers and teachers. her strength primarily was her strong sense of self belief, firm determination, empathy, assertiveness and self-motivation. she took several bold initiatives such as protecting her colony from illegal encroachment, tabling petition to the mayor of lucknow city for improvement of the public utility services and counselling the females. 64 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 62-73) figure 1: profile of the entrepreneur source: author during 1990s in india the job scene was not good, and there was lot of job insecurity. it so happened that char`s husband had to quit his job and they decided to start their own venture ,which would provide freedom to work stability, sense of satisfaction and above all financial stability. this was the time when mba course was gradually becoming popular among the young graduates. young aspirants hardly knew about the premier management institutes of the country and their admissions process. lucknow also did not have good coaching institutes, which could guide these young people to prepare for professional examinations and thus most of the candidates had to travel to metropolitan cities, to seek expert guidance. charu realized that, with the increasing level of education and general awareness, good coaching institutes would be in great demand in lucknow. initially she thought of taking franchise of a renowned coaching institute having a brand name and national visibility, but then she dropped agrawal, r., case of women entrepreneurship in india, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 62-73) 65 this idea because (1) it required huge finances (2) it would not provide freedom to operate (3) it would not have given sufficient scope for creativity and innovation. she finally decided to establish her own institute and create her own brand. professional education, inherent attributes, entrepreneurial alertness and necessary networking helped her to tap the huge unexplored market potential. figure 2: opportunity recognition model source: author • entrepreneurial vision charu realized that there was an apparent need for specialized institutes that could provide necessary counselling to the young graduates and help them in identifying their innate potential, assist them in choosing professional courses of their aptitude & ability and prepare for the same. • choice of product /service to begin with she started offering coaching classes for the entrance of most sought after courses like management programs, defence courses and probationary officers for banks. she then introduced coaching classes for the 66 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 62-73) preparation of the combined admission test (cat) for management program offered at the premier management institutes in the country. • business model she established a venture in the name of institute for careers & competitions (icc) to provide coaching to young aspirants for cat. the acronym ‘icc’ to her mind meant “i see sea” which aptly reflected her inherent feeling that, there was a sea of opportunities for entrepreneurial people. establishing an institute was a great challenge for her, as she did not have any work experience, neither did she came from business family and nor was she aware of the modalities of operating a coaching centre. she approached renowned faculties with the request to join her project, her passion, self-belief and zeal convinced them to give their consent and soon she succeeded in constituting a very dynamic, strong and motivating team of instructors. there was an appropriate mix of youth and experienced people in her team. she and her husband shared their roles and responsibilities according to their respective personality traits. charu was outgoing so she became the first face of her institute and as her husband was an introvert he preferred to remain at the backend. due to family constraints charu could only work from home. the institute started operating in a two room set, where she used one room as classroom and the other as office. initially ten candidates joined the course and gradually the number increased. everything was done from scratch on a trial and error basis. over a period of time, as more and more people joined and the institute grew in size and offered quality services. charu`s institute was the first institute to launch a programme exclusively for mba entrance in the whole of uttar pradesh, the maiden batch had sixteen students, out of which fourteen got selected in top b-schools in india and other asian countries. this increased the organization`s visibility and students started approaching in large numbers. over next few years the institute opened four more self-owned centres in the prominent areas of lucknow and four franchisee centres in the neighbouring cities kanpur and allahabad. these centres provide employment to more than two hundred fifty people and the total strength of the students has grown to ten thousand. beginning with a meager annual turnover of inr twenty thousand, the institute moved upto an annual turnover of approximately inr thirty million. the institute`s flagship product is coined as catalyst: an eight months to two years long preparation for combined entrance test for premier management institutes. apart from this they offer various other programs agrawal, r., case of women entrepreneurship in india, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 62-73) 67 such as (1) foundation: a three to six month long course building the basics of math, english , personality etc, (2) elite: rigorous classes for the sixty days are given to students who qualified the in-house test series ,(3) techno cat : program focused on preparing engineers for the cat, (4) mpop: an mba oriented program for gds and pis which trains students for personality development, (5) camp: campus placement program for students of various engineering colleges, takes care of aptitude tests, personality tests, gds and interviews, (6) young managers: intensive preparatory programme for 10 + 2 students for undergraduate entrance tests for law, hotel management, bba, bms, bca ,clat etc, (7) career counseling: to enable students identify and choose careers for themselves based on their aptitude and interest. the other variants include designing and conducting soft skill and personality development workshops for young aspirants. the institute faced intense competition from prominent national brands, which were able to leverage their pan india presence. charu felt a need for creating national visibility; otherwise the institute would not be able to retain and grow its market share. to fulfil this objective she thought of an innovative strategy, which was to conduct natcatmock cat test series across states. she personally visited number of cities like indore, bhopal, bangalore, ludhiana, pune, mumbai, new delhi, chandigarh etc, to create a consortium of similar stand-alone coaching centres, which did not have pan india presence, but had a strong desire to remain in the race and grow. with continuous hard work and perseverance charu could consolidate her efforts and today natcat gets conducted in sixty five centres across thirty two cities of india. recently she started conducting placement training programs [ptps], workshops for working professionals such as conducting a fifteen day compulsory training program on general management and communication skills [gmcs] for fresh chartered accountants, an assignment given to her by institute of chartered accountants of india. charu could achieve this success due to her diligent stewardship and focused approach. she developed a well-defined organizational structure. level i consists of two directors ; level ii comprise of business managers; academic heads ; finance manager ;centre managers and a consultant and level iii constitutes of the faculties; marketing assistants ;centre coordinators and accountant at the . every person has a distinct role in the organization. 68 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 62-73) figure 3: organization structure of icc source: according to the author findings both charu and her husband arvind are the directors. charu looks after (1) financial aspects: financial planning and review, capital budgeting decisions and cost analysis approval of functional and master budget. (2) business development: finding new business opportunities, establishing brand equity, supervising the franchisees. (3) academics: taking reports from academic head about the performance of the faculty members , review the of performance of the students via center coordinator, managing brand ambassadors. (4) human resource management: recruiting staff, doing performance appraisal, resolving issues within and outside the organization. arvind manages (1) marketing activities: designing and implementing advertisements and promotional campaigns and observing competitors` strategies (2) business development: building up relations with faculty, social groups, students community, academic community, media etc (3) research and development: ensure up to date and comprehensive teaching material is used in all the programs (4) operations: keep an eye on overall progression of syllabus and smooth conduct of programs and (5) strategy: develop new strategies. role of the business manager / franchisee officer is to: design the operating procedures; implement promotion strategies; conduct market intelligence; ensuring targets are achieved by centre managers, identifying training and development needs and design necessary training programs. finance manager monitors the financial transactions; ensures the agrawal, r., case of women entrepreneurship in india, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 62-73) 69 compliance of statutory obligations; manages the tax departments, bank and the auditor; manages working capital and prepares the budget. the centre manager looks after admission and marketing. academic head monitors the progression of course and the performance of the faculty; looks after the new product development. the consultant recommends innovative products and methods. with an aim to make the institute self-driven and self-sustaining organization charu has developed several standardized in-built processes these include procedures for admissions; development of course material; recruitment; marketing and purchase etc. necessary delegation of work is done so that every person can focus on his/her duty and responsibility. she works hard for the growth and development of the in-house staff and often designs and conducts extensive training and development programmes for them. figure 4: procedure for purchase source: according to the author findings charu uses pull strategy for marketing. newspaper advertisement; flyers; radio advertisement; magazines (career & economy, business & management); hoardings ; bus shelters are used to gain substantial visibility in the city. she also conducts seminars and events such as free mock cat, 70 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 62-73) career vision, and ‘masti ki pathshala’ in colleges to attract the target customers. institute for careers & competitions spends about thirty percentage of their annual revenue on the marketing activities. it offers fee discounts up to thirty five percent if groups of ten or more candidates wish to join a course. it also has a policy of differential pricing, under this different fees is charged from different candidate. in case there is a candidate, who has already acquired technical education and now intends to prepare for mba course then he is charged reduced fee. the brand ambassadors who refer students are also given monetary incentives. once the organization started growing and more people were inducted into the system, ego clashes, personality clashes and difference of opinion started surfacing. building an organization culture based on precept that every employee is a part of the ‘icc family’ required a blend of strong leadership in consonance with a soft human touch. the biggest challenge for any leader is to develop a common vision amongst all those who work in the organization and make them toil towards it. according to charu this can be achieved only if the leader has empathy and regards every individual as a human being rather than as a resource. she feels that every human being has some aspirations, he/she at time might unintentionally commit mistakes and everybody loves to get appreciation and recognition. therefore, it becomes crucial for a leader to let his employees know that he/she cares for them. if the leader is impartial, has integrity and uses an ideal mix of appreciation and constructive criticism, to deal with his subordinates, he/she will be successful in creating an environment of confidence and trust in the organization and this also will help in building goal congruence. for an entrepreneur who has no previous work experience and no precedence to follow every experience is valuable and every decision a milestone. while charu proceeded on the path of growth and success she came across several challenges some were financial in nature while others were related to human resource. there were occasions when influential people tried to force unreasonable demand, but charu stood firm on her principles and gained a reputation of not yielding to unwanted demands. today, the major impediment is immense competition posed by national level brands, which have huge turnovers, and can afford to offer heavy fee reduction to the students. these competitors enjoyed huge economies of scale in regards to printing of study material, advertisements etc. and their financial strength got consolidated by their massive branding and advertising campaigns. such tactics were not at all feasible for a small agrawal, r., case of women entrepreneurship in india, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 62-73) 71 venture that was struggling hard to maintain its status quo and yearned for sustainable growth. other challenges faced by the organization were optimum utilization of resources, creation of well-developed systems and healthy environment within the organization and sustaining the economic slowdown. franchisee model after gaining recognition and acceptance in the education sector, where institute for careers & competitions is considered as a brand, charu thought of making use of the franchisee model to expand the reach. charu developed a franchisee model wherein an individual is accepted as business partner if he/she has: (1) own or rented space of twelve hundred square feet, with provision for future expansion as well, (2) necessary fixtures and furniture and (3) adequate number of workforce. assistance provided by the institute for careers & competitions to the franchisee includes: (1) academic support: fully developed course plan, training in teaching methodology ,study material, instructors` material, evaluation tools, performance enhancement capsules, conducts two seminars and one scholarship test (2) faculty support : helps in faculty selection and make available core faculty at icc for limited time period. (3) systems & processes support: provide to franchisee enquiry form, enrolment form, student feedback form and help in designing class schedule etc.(4) marketing support: help in designing leaflets, posters etc, advice on effective use of marketing budget, give five complimentary advertisements (5cc) in a year. (5) training support: training the proprietor on business issues, training the faculty in handling students ,training of counselors in handling teachers and students and training of administration manager in systems and processes. the franchisees are expected to: (1) conduct market research for potential clients (2) increase the awareness about mba and cat and other such examinations (3) conduct seminars and student counselling camps regularly (4) appoint competent faculty and manage the show wisely (5) understand market requirements and work with the institute for careers & competitions towards new product development (6) submit weekly report (7) ensure continuous up gradation of the faculty. the franchisee is expected to pay royalty which is based on the location and size of the coaching centre this also includes the cost of the course material provided to the students. 72 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 62-73) figure 5: franchisee model source: author future growth agenda charu takes pride in her achievements over last fifteen years where she assisted thousands of youth in building their future, but she feels that this is just the tip of an iceberg still and she still has a long way to go. she would like to expand her business all over uttar pradesh, bihar and uttarakhand. the projects on which charu intends to work are (1)create a soft skill and managerial skill development centre by the name of ‘converse’ which will cater to people in the lower rung of management and provide the service of improving spoken english, office etiquettes development, accent development etc.(2) launch a company by the name of ‘ed consultants’ which shall bridge the gap between the b-schools and the students community in a more effective manner, creating a forum, where all the bschools can show case their offerings to the potential candidates by holding events, seminars and other promotional activities. she has inclination towards social welfare as well. she intends to set up shelter for homeless children, especially homeless girls. she also dreams to join politics, because she feels that people with empathy and integrity seriously need to venture out in politics and work for the betterment of society at large. she wants her successors to act smart and be more business savvy, so that delegation of leadership for her becomes smooth. agrawal, r., case of women entrepreneurship in india, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 62-73) 73 conclusions the youth can draw innumerable learning from charu`s case study. there is no shortcut to success. hard work and smart work must go hand in hand. in today’s time one must have a very sound education base with a wise mix of theoretical knowledge and practical experience. for those who wish to start their own projects, the necessary traits are: strong belief, courage to take initiative; ability to plan and implement; perseverance and dedication. no success is permanent, as business is governed by external environment, which is very dynamic and ever changing. until and unless one has the capability to foresee change and move ahead accordingly, one cannot survive in the business. the key factors for organizational success are: optimal and judicious use of resources; proper alignment of organizational and individual goals; highly motivated team; healthy work environment and cohesive teamwork. identifikacija i korišćenje poslovnih prilika: primer poslovnih žena iz indije a p s t r a k t ova studija slučaja prikazuje inicijativu i naporan rad žena preduzetnica iz indije, koje su imale pasiju da usmeravaju i savetuju mlade diplomirane studente u smeru njihovog profesionalnog usavršavanja. ova studija slučaja govori detaljno o obrazovanju, koje je stekla jedna poslovna žena, njenoj viziji, inicijativi, razvoju i funkcionisanju njenog poslovnog poduhvata, glavnim preprekama na njenom putu, merama usvojenim za njihovo prevazilaženje i njenim planovima za buduće širenje posla i njegov rast. studija takođe prikazuje kako je žena preduzetnik bila uspešna u stvaranju nekoliko novih radnih mesta, pored pomaganja mladim da ispune njihov željeni profesionalni cilj. ključne reči: preduzetnička budućnost, preduzetničke osobine, šanse article history: received: 21 september, 2012 accepted: 4 april 2013 13_jwe_3-4 final udc: 005.57:371 ; 371.113:316.77 jel: i21, i29 id: 203435020 research work, review innovative management in education using communication instruments čukanović karavidić marija1, karavidić slavko, gavrić gordana faculty of be and entrepreneurshi, belgrade a b s t r a c t in paper titled innovative management in education using communication instruments is recorded existed communication practice and possible ways of its improvement in the educational system, seen through the prism of global and social changes. new strategies in application communication instruments should contribute easier adaptation of educational system to changes which are result of changed way of business and needs of environment for education. empirical research which is carried out disproved that educational institutions use some kind of communication, professors recognize importance of changing information, but in the same time don’t give significant support to placed it in the public keywords: innovations, communication, management, organizational changes introduction generally speaking, world is continuously changing and education is the key factor of those changes. new acknowledgements discover new horizons and require new efforts in the implementation of those changes. also, as the needs of a user expand, thus the trends which follow the changes and needs also grow. 1 e-mail: cukanovickaravidicmarija@gmail.com čukanović karavidić, m, et al., innovative management, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) 89 therefore, deep changes in doctrine and the application of management in education are necessary. in order to meet the requests which characterize a modern business it is necessary to use the concept of the active innovative management whose key of success is in the integration and communication, by applying the corresponding communication technology and communication instruments. education has a significant role in the creating of society as well as the relations in society and the influence on the socially-economical level of its development. there are 3 points where they meet: the quality of education effects; the quality of the inner components of the process of education; the orientation of the education towards the development of qualities as the features of a certain level and value – the goal towards which the education is directed. jacques delors, in his explanation of the conclusions of the international education commity for 12th century, underlines: education is not just one of many development instruments, but it is also one of its consisting parts and one of its crucial goals. the goal is that the education institutions position themselves as reliable, organized and innovative institution which follows contemporary trends of education and in a qualitative manner meets the needs of the user and the society in general. high level of integration is necessary for realization of that aimboth horizontal and vertical. that imposes huge number of questions. does the education in serbia integrate “densely”? no! this has caused crisis of results, values and morality crisis. who is the best representative of educationits problems and possibilities? it could be educational institutions, employees or students. does the government (on state and local level) listen to their problems at work? no! discrepancies between the system and sub-system of education have caused the disintegration that is manifested problems. how much time and energy managers in education spend in attending transparency, openness and integrity between employees? it’s a very little time. do the parents take an active part in children’s education? no! and more other questions without answers. 90 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) if the disintegration is the cause of problems, what is the cure? integration! one of the best ways to reach the integration and manage changes is to achieve different aims using effective communication by applying communication instruments establish, keep and improve relations between participants in education. if we want to realize necessary changes in education, we need to change the way we think about them. opinions and attitudes about education, application of communication technics and instruments and implementation new model of communication in education we checked by empirical researches presented in this paper. to obtain answers it was necessary to conduct an analysis of data and find answers to the following questions: 1. do the schools plan communication? 2. who is recognized as a target group by schools in communication? 3. what message is sent by schools to external public? 4. what are the new communication channels? from the viewpoint of communication, it was very significant to consider the field of ethos. for the purpose of this analysis targeted was to monitor the field directed both internal and external communication. the area ethos consists of the following sub-fields and data validation: a) school reputation and promotion − reputation and features of schools; − expectations and success promotion; − culture behaviour. b) ambience and interpersonal relationships − respect of a person; − equality and justness; − aesthetic and functional organization of school facilities. c) partnership with parents, school board and local community − communication with parents; − implementation of parents in school life and work and school learning; − relationship between the school and school board; − school role in local community. čukanović karavidić, m, et al., innovative management, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) 91 methological framework of research research subject: planning and creating communication in education: do the schools plan their comunication; who is recognized as a target groups; do they send messages to „external“ public and what that messages consist of; as well as what is the channels of communication? main research objective: introducing transparency in institutions, and implementation of new types of communications which are based on permanent communication with target public, represent a new approach to communication in educational institutions in serbia. specific research objective: explore attitudes and opinions of employees in education institution about: openness in communication, type and needs in public approachable data and directedness information about school. sample of research: sample size was 117 primary schools (71, 3%) and 47 (28,7%) high schools, and by type of place where is the school located, in research participated 107 urban schools (65%) and 57 rural schools (35%). sample size was 1269 examinees. sample structure: 834 (65, 7%) examinees from primary schools and 435 (34,3%) from high school. from rural area are 438 (34,5%) teachers and from urban schools 831 (65,5%) teachers. according to gender structure 427 (33, 6%) examinees are male and 818 (64,5%) female, while 24 (1,9%) is not endorsed belonging sex. age categories: 10% is from 20 to 30 years old, one-third of examinees are from 31 to 40 years old, the second-third are 41-50 years old, and the rest of examinees are over 50 years old. according to position in school almost 70% examinees are teachers in older classes, about 15% teachers in younger classes and 15% are directors or research associate. the analysis and the research interpretation the selection of subsections to which schools pay most attention regarding the monitored indicators ((table 1) schools mentioned two sections each) it appeared that schools pay most attention to the evaluation of the atmosphere and the interpersonal relationships in the organization (33 92 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) schools), while the insignificantly less attention was dedicated to the reputation and promotion of the school (26) and partnership (22). table 1: chosing of subsections in valuation section subsection number of choices % % of choices school program and annual work program school program 16 4,2 12,8 annual work program 22 5,8 17,6 teaching process and learning planning and preparing 28 7,4 22,4 teaching process 27 7,1 21,6 learning 18 4,8 14,4 follow the improvement of students 20 5,3 16,0 school achievements quality of school achievements 24 6,3 19,2 support to participants care for students 20 5,3 16,0 learning support 16 4,2 12,8 personal and social development 15 4,0 12,0 professional orientation 14 3,7 11,2 ethos reputation and promotion of school 26 6,9 20,8 ambience and interpersonal relationships 33 8,7 26,4 partnership with parents, sb (school board) and lc (local community) 22 5,8 17,6 resources human resources 21 5,6 16,8 materially tehnical resources 26 6,9 20,8 financial resources 16 4,2 12,8 leadership, organization and quality assurance leadership 5 1,3 4,0 organization of school work 4 1,1 3,2 quality assurance 2 0,5 1,6 school plan development 3 0,8 2,4 total number of choices 378 100,0 302,4 planning of key activities for the improvement of school work these relate first of all to the improvement of reputation and promotion of school (38,5%), then partnership with parents, school board čukanović karavidić, m, et al., innovative management, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) 93 and local community (23,1%) and, at the end, ambience and interpersonal relationship (28,2%). in order to determine strategies to achive improvement in those filds, we need to determine planning activities for reaching aims in three subsections, related to communication in organization and communication with certain groups in public and public communications (school promotion). partnership with parents, school board and local community on graph 1 we can see that 31 school planned activities with different participants in education, but firstly with parents (16). graph 1: partnership high school it is necessary: to increase the level of parents’ participation in school; to include parents in work and life of school via various educations; to modernize the parent meetings; to enable more active approach to parents in the realization of extracurricular activities; to involve parents and the members of a local community in the life of school via panels, lectures and organized meetings, to involve parents in the various school activities, to report to parents about various isues, for example, various purchases, to organize the parents’ day for the participation in the teaching, to organize 94 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) open door day, as well as the active participation of parents in quizzes and literature evenings. it is also necessary to intensify the activities which refer to the cooperation of a school with other institutions (cultural and educational) and local municipality, (cooperation with schools in country and abroad, the improving of the coopeartion with local municipality). school reputation and promotion graph number 2 shows that 21 schools want to improve school reputation and promotion without specification of any activities, while 13 schools specified specific activities as design of web site (10) and school magazine (3). graph 2: planned activities for improvement school reputation and promotion who is recognized as a target group by schools in communication? the focus of communication was monitored by the segment of communication with environment, where schools explicitly state target groups through open question. to this question answered 82, 3% schools. out of that, 131 (79,9%) stated one or more organizations with which cooperates successfully, while (2,4%) stated only general statement (communication with environment is satisfactory, communication with the čukanović karavidić, m, et al., innovative management, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) 95 environment takes place continuously, communication with the environment is reciprocal, and in a very satisfactory level, the school ruled by good interpersonal relationships and good communication with the environment). schools gave responses which could easily be grouped into several categories, which pointed out the type of cooperation and communication which they accomplish (graph 3.). most of the schools, in total 97 of them (59,1%) stated that they accomplished a good communication with state administration (ministry of education, including school commitee, ministry of internal affairs and local municipality). then there are, in the similar percentage, cultural institutions, sport institutions or communions (43,9%), health and social services (43,3%), other educational services (schools and universities), parents (36,6%), while at least are represented industry, media and sponsors, not more than one quarter (26,8%) out of total number of schools. the only difference is in the setup of highschools, which give more significance to the communication with the industry than with the other educational institutions, which is probably influenced by the number of trade schools which constitute the majority in the high school model. graph 3: high school with environment 96 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) what message is sent by schools to external public? out of 164 schools, 30 schools (18,3%) have no response. the remaining 134 (81,7%) schools sent message to the public. their messages were sent via two dimensions of message formation: structure (general / directed) and message contents. from the point of view of message structure, 91 schools (55,5%) sent a general message, while 43 schools (26,2%) had structurally specific messages (table 2) general messages in some cases represent a motto, vision and message which school sends to whole community. only one quarter of schools (table 3) had targeted communication, by sending their messages specifically towards certain groups, first of all parents and students (17,1%) and decision makers (9,1%). table 2: the message structure message structure frequency % without message 30 18,3 general public 91 55,5 target public 43 26,2 total 164 100,0 table 3: directedness of messages directedness of messages frequency % without message 30 18,3 to whole public 91 55,5 to the parents and students 28 17,1 to decisions makers 15 9,1 total 164 100,0 messages related to decisions makers are primary an appeal to everyone who can obtain resources for school improvement and development. from the viewpoint of message content almost half from whole number of school sent message with rational appeal (56,7%), while one-fifth had message with emotional (12,8%) and onefifth with moral appeal, and the rest were without message. čukanović karavidić, m, et al., innovative management, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) 97 after analyzing the messages to the public, it can be said that the observed throught independent variables there are small differences that are not statistically significant, so we can say that no matter what type or size of the institution or place from which they come, schools prefer appeal to the general public and send them messages with rational appeal. new communication channels does the school have a website and email? out of 164 schools which participated in the research, they all have emails, but somewhat less than half of them, that is 66 schools, have their own websites (40,2%). analyzing the structure of those who have website related to place where school is located and level and type of educational institution, it’s clear that the majority of schools that have website belong to urban area, although it is only 53,3% of the total number of schools in urban areas. the most unfavorable ratio is at rural schools, because only 15,8% schools in rural area have website. regarding to level of education, 72,3% high schools have website, while the ratio of primary school is worse 27,3%. graph 4: schools and websites the scope of this research did not imply the school website analysis, but it is certainly a topic which can be started in the new researches. it 98 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) would orient us towards how to use websites, the usability and the marketing orientation of schools. table 4: the attitude of teachers about importance of school info to the public disagree undecided agree a b o u t s c h o o l general data about school 57 (4,5%) 120 (9,5%) 1038 (81,8%) about school environment 94 (7,4%) 91 (7,2%) 1106 (87,2%) about subjects and school activities 79 (6,2%) 31 (2,4%) 1203 (94,8%) about school safety 22 (1,7%) 77 (6,1%) 1095 (86,3%) about school specificities 55 (4,3%) 122 (9,6%) 1043 (82,2%) about experiments/projects 88 (6,9%) 55 (4,3%) 1003 (79,0%) a b o u t s t u d e n t s general data about students 153 (12,1%) 145 (11,4%) 946 (74,5%) about ses of students 174 (13,7%) 175 (13,8%) 874 (68,9%) about general students success 74 (5,8%) 66 (5,2%) 1122 (88,4%) about special (non) success 86 (6,8%) 113 (8,9%) 1056 (83,2%) about results of qualifying exams 67 (5,3%) 90 (7,1%) 1093 (86,1%) about special testing 123 (9,7%) 153 (12,1%) 973 (76,7%) about success and competitions 51 (4,0%) 58 (4,6%) 1148 (90,5%) a b o u t r e s about professors 146 (11,5%) 118 (9,3%) 997 (78,6%) about professors work experience 201 (15,8%) 146 (11,5%) 912 (71,9%) about competently training of professors 176 (13,9%) 124 (9,8%) 951 (74,9%) about financial resources 129 (10,2%) 140 (11,0%) 984 (77,5%) čukanović karavidić, m, et al., innovative management, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) 99 o u r c e s about the use of financial founds 145 (11,6%) 130 (10,2%) 974 (76,8%) about external evaluation 117 (9,2%) 163 (12,8%) 972 (76,6%) about self-evaluation 156 (12,3%) 177 (13,9%) 922 (72,7%) about school development plan 119 (9,4%) 161 (12,7%) 978 (77,1%) the attitude of teachers about the availability of school info to the public first data group that is related to information about schools, include general information about school, and data about specific school and educational environment. it seems that teachers mostly agreed about the communication and information which referred to safety. even 94,8% thinks that they are significant for public (н 1256; м 4,88; a=0,60). more than 80% of teachers agree about the importance of the other info refering to the educational environment of a school. for example, there is a big compliance (87,2%) regarding the publishing of data about the specific features of a school (н 1252; м 4,68; a=0,95). by researching the statistic importance of differences, it turned out that teachers from urban support it more (90,4%), than teachers from rural environments (84,5%) which record a higher percentage of indecision in that case (n 1252, x2=9,345; df 2; sig 0,01, cramer's v =0,09). similar situation refers to the agreement about public information about subjects and activities in school (82, 3% ; n 1251, м 4,62; а =1,05). there is again confirmed that consist significant statistic difference in attitudes between areas in favor of urban area. for publishing of the info about the subjects and school activities more concurrent are teachers from urban (90,1%) than the teachers from rural areas (82,6%) (n 1251, x2 =17,72 ; df=2; sig 0,01; cramer's v=0,12). there is also a big number of those who agreed about the school environment info 82,2% (n 1259; м 4,50; а=1,16) although here was the biggest number of dilemmas (9,6%). those data are more supported by teachers from urban (86%), than rural areas (76,8%) (n 1259, x2=18,3052; df 2; sig 0,01, cramer's v=0,12), as well as the teachers from high schools 100 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) (87,2%) in comparison to primary school (80,6%) (n 1259, df = 2; sig 0,05; cramer's v=0,10). regaring experiments/projects data, note that 81,8% agreed, while 9,5% are indecisive (n 1246; м 4,52; a=1,14). percentage of teachers who disagree with publishing these information is between 2% and 7%. it’s interesting to see that exist statistically significant differences in all three grups of observed variables. in relation to school boards, according to this question those who comes from schools with average achivements of students are more indecisive (11,5% у односу на 6,5%; n 1246; x2 =9,091; df 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v =0,09), but this is more supported by the teachers from urban areas (86,1%, against 78%; n 1246; x2 =21,708 df 2; sig 0,01, cramer's v =0,13) and high schools (87,3% against 81,2%; n 1246; x2=14,233; df 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v = 0,11). least of examinees agreed that the info about school should be published (79%). if we know that less then one tenth of examinees aren’t sure about this question or they disagree, and 12,1% were omitted to indicate, the explanation of this result is maybe in fact that this is the first item and graphic don’t enough visible, which causes less percentage of answers. the second data group involves teacher’s attitudes about presentation information about students and their success. big percentage of compliances (90,5%) refers to the presentation of the students’ achievment on the competitons (n 1257; м 4,75; a=0,88) – from urban environments (93,3%) on contrary to 87,6% from rural environments (n 1257, x2 =12,1642 ; df 2; sig 0,01, cramer's v=0,10). in total 88,4% of teachers agree that it is important for the public to present general achievement of students (n 1262; м 4,66; a=1,02). that is how there is a bigger percentage of teachers from urban environments 92,1%, on contrary to teachers from rural environments 82,8% (n 1262, x2 =29,4792 ; df 2; sig 0,01, cramer's v=0,15). it is also something that highschool teachers would gladly talk about 92,8%, on contrary to primary school teachers 86,9% (n 1262; x2=11,5602; df 2; sig 0,05; cramer's v=0,10). also, there is somewhat less concordance among teachers (86,1%) regarding publishing of the qualifying examination results (n 1250; м 4,64; а=1,01), particular success or failure (83,2%; n 1255; м 4,54; a=1,12) and information about particular testing (76,7%; n 1249; м 4,36; а=1,29), where was noted higher percentage of acceptance at high school teachers čukanović karavidić, m, et al., innovative management, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) 101 (82%) compared with primary school (75,8%, n 1249, x2=6,729; df 2; sig 0,05, cramer's v =0,07). in these categories were the least indecisive. most of the discordances, as well as the indecisive choices referred to the general data about the students and the data about the sociallyeconomical status of students. although 74,5 % of students thought that the data about the students were important to the public, even 12,1% did not agree with that, аnd 11,4% was indecisive (n 1244; м 4,27; a=1,38). out of teachers which support it, greater percentage comes from highschools 81,8%, than from primary schools 73% (n 1244, x2= 9,282 ; df 2; sig 0,05; cramer's v=0,10). the situation with the publishing of the data about the sociallyeconomical status of students is even more disadvantageous. while 68,9% (n 1223; м 4,14; a=1,45) of teachers agreed that those were the data important for the public, even one thirt of all teachers does not agree with that (13,7%) or they are indecisive (13,8%), regardless of the kind of educational institution where they come from, or on the other hand, the size of the environment. the only noted difference is between schools boards. thus, teachers from schools that achieved average on national testing are more ready to publishing data about socially-economical status of students (73,8%) than schools from schools boards where were students attain better achivements (67,5%) (n 1223, x2 =6,992; df 2; sig 0,05, cramer's v=0,08). according to all this categories, exist statistically significant differences between the dimensions of urban and rural areas. very similar situation is in the rest data categories: data about particular success or failure, 86,6% from urban agains 79,4% rural area (n 1255, x2 =10,954 df 2; sig 0,05, cramer's v =0,09); data about qualifying examination results, 89,1% from urban, against 84,3% from rural area (n 1250, х2=13,484 df 2; sig 0,01, cramer's v=0,10); data about particular testings, 80,9% from urban, against 72,4% from rural area (n 1249, x2 =12,693 df 2; sig 0,01, cramer's v=0,10), data about success on the competitions, 93,3% from the urban against to 87,6% from rural area (n 1257, х2 =12,164; df 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v=0,10). the third group of data refers to the human and financial resources in schools. within this group of data there is a lowest degree of discordance between teachers and it is from 71% and 79%. it can be said that they mostly agree about the significance of the data which refer to hr (78,6%; n 102 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) 1261; м 4,35; a=1,34), financial resources (77,5%; n 1253; м 4,36; a=1,30) and the data about the school development plan (77,1%; n 1258; м 4,36; a=1,27). then there are info about the expenditure of the financial assets (76,8%; n 1249; м 4,33; a=1,35) and the external evaluation (76,6%; n 1252; м 4,36; a=1,27), specialized training of teachers (74,9%; n 1251; м 4,24; a=1,44), work experience of teachers (71,9%; n 1259; м 4,13; a=1,50), as well as the school self-evaluation (72,7%; n 1255; м 4,22; a=1,40). the percentage of those who are agree, and that is there abstemiously high and ranging between 72% and 75%, the most of them are those who disagree or indecisive with statements that are relation on data about selfevaluation school (12,3% are disagree and 13,9% are indecisive), work expirience of teachers (15,8 are disagree and 11,5% are indecisive) and specialized training of teachers (13,9 are disagree and 9,8% are indecisive). this result announced possibly higher variability within groups in three dimensions, what was realized afterwards. regarding the publishing of general data about the teachers, school teachers with higher achievements of students unexpectedly do not agree more about this issue (14,6%) than the teachers from schools with average achievements (9,8%) (n 1261, x2 =9,1802 ; df 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v =0,09). publishing is also supported by the bigger percentage of high school teachers (88,2%), than primary school teachers (74,3%) (n 1261, x2 =33,9102; df 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v =0,16) and more approved by teachers from urban (82,8%), than rural environments (72,0%) (n 1261, х2 =20,422; d f 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v =0,13). it is a little bit different situation in relation to data about work experience of teachers. teachers from schools bords with average achivements of students are more agree with that (75,4%),, while the teachers from schools boards with achivements over average are more distanted about that (67,5%) (n 1259, х2=9,267; df 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v=0,09). in data about work expiriance of teachers and specialized training of teachers exist differences within dimensions of education and size of settlements. then, teachers from high school give more support to data about work expirience (77,8%) against primary school (69,6%) (n 1259, х2 =13,278; df 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v=0,10), as in urban area (77,1%) against rural area (63,7%) ( n 1259, х2=27,117; df 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v=0,15). čukanović karavidić, m, et al., innovative management, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) 103 it is a similar situation with the specialized training of students, where the data about it are more supported by teachers from highschools 82,1% in relation to primary schools 72,8% (n 1251, х2 =14,3212; df 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v =0,11), also more in urban (80,3%) than in rural environments (67,9%) (n 1251, х2 =24,3212; df 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v =0,14). the group of data which referred to the evaluation divided teachers only regarding the size of the environment where they come from. accordingly, the data about the external evaluation are more welcomed in the category of urban environment (81,4%) in comparison to rural one 70,5% (n 1252, х2 =19,5922 ; df 2; sig 0,01, cramer's v =0,13), somewhat less in relation to the data about the school development plan, 80,3% on contrary to 72,8% (н 1258, х2 =9,3592 ; df 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v=0,09), while the smallest difference is regarding the data about the self-evaluation (76,5% on contrary to 67,7%; n 1255, х2 =12,1902 ; df 2; sig 0,01; cramer's v=0,10). the attitude of teachers about directedness of school information the attitude of teachers about target groups which should know data of schools and their internal and external activities were researched by questionnaire too. because of possibility of circling more then one answer, there were 6574 choices. on graph 5 are choices data. the greatest number of choices related to decision makers (86,68%) and school board as an administrative unit of the state government (85,60%), than school board (79,28%), parents (73,52%) and local government (69,11%). over half belive that data should be public for the media (63,12%), and rest belive that data should be public for the students too (48,38%). one third as a target group see total citizen (27,27%), while the economics operators as a target group are on the last place with only 11,26%. the last question was about identification of target groups which can have the most advantages of having access to information. graph 5 shows that half of examinees state that the most advantages could have decision makers (46,1% from the total number of examinees). school board (29,6%) and parents (28,0%) are almost equal and local government with 20, 8%. significantly less number of teachers were identify students (11%) and school board (8,5%) as a target groups, and very little of them saw the economics operators (3%), citizens (2,6%) and media (0,4%) as a users of information. 104 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) graph 5: targeted groups which should have access to information the attitudes of the teachers regarding target groups which can have the biggest advantage from having insight to the offered information half of the examinees stated that the biggest advantage can have the decision makers (46,1% out of total number of examinees). school commitee (29,6%) and teachers (28,0%) are almost equal, and then comes local municipality with 20,8%. significantly smaller number of teachers identified students (11%) and school board (8,5%), and negligible number identified businessmen (3%), citizenship (2,6%) and media (0,4%) as users. graph 6: targeted groups which can have the most adventages čukanović karavidić, m, et al., innovative management, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) 105 education management knowledge test we believed that this research would not be complete if we do not come to certain acknowledgements through education management knowledge test as neccessary to manage the innovative processes in education. in that sense a research was done (a knowledge test) among 70 managing directors of the educational institutions, in the area of education management – test of basic skills, procedures, functions and the practice of management in education. by statistic analysis of the education management test results and the importance of the test points the following results were obtained: − number of questions in the test: 14; − maximum number of points in the test: 21; − the highest score: 13; − the lowest score: 1; − the number of examinees which got 50% and more points in the test: 11 (here are calculated also the examinees who achieved score 10). it is important to mention that to some of the questions a number of examinees did not answer (even 13 out of 14 questions, which is the number of total questions in the test, were unanswered by a number of examinees). a great majority of principals found the excuse in their lack of information about the literature from which they can meet with the education management. considering that in addition to particular tasks necessary for the successful management of educational institutions certain psychological predispositions are also necessary, that is psychological characteristics: communication competence, emotional stability, conscientiousness, responsibility, intelectual efficiency, data processing speed, etc, it is necessary to convey the additional examinations, which will be helpful for the more precise defining of the preferrable profit of manager/principal, as well as the defining of more precise criteria for the evaluation of the capability. conclusion complex reality requires a dynamic school which will flexibly adapt to the demands of society in order that young people prepare themselves 106 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) properly for the world of frequent and permanent changes and to be capable to find their own place in such a world. the above mentioned implies that the quality standards of education institutions are to be raised in accordance to the always growing requests and expectations of the users, to demonstrate transparency in work and social responsibility from one side and to give positive and innovative responses to the requests of the society on the other side. educational institutions and their employees gradually start to develop sensitivity towards various kinds of changes, especially the changes which relate to the accomplishment of the progress in communication with the environment in order to develop partnership relations and integrations with the social community. empirical research implies that: educational institutions use certain forms of communication, teachers recognize the importans of the information exchange, but in the same do not support significantly their placement to the public. the obtained results say that teachers see the school data first of all as „rendering of accounts" to the authorities on a national level, because both the local and the school level are almost neglected. except parents, which are the main interlocutors in communication, the other users are not identified as the target groups which could benefit from the offered information, not even students as the most direct users. on one hand it can mean that teachers basically are not familiar with the moving potential which information have, about the lack of understanding of needs which various users can have in comparison to the possession of the information about the institution or implicit non-support of the necessity that the information are given to the public. it is necessary to plan the activities (the training of students and teachers for the mediation of students of same age; seminars for teachers in the area of communication skills; establishing of the mutual cooperation between the experts within the school, etc.). this research needs to be amended by the means of oral interview with examinees which would also enable the evaluation of their character and the strength of their motivation, which is a necessary precondition of the validation of the total research procedure. the important thing is to define who and how will be the decision maker, which requires: precise defining of the preferable management profile; which managers/principals could be considered as successful, and which as unsuccessful in accordance to the experience characteristics, that is čukanović karavidić, m, et al., innovative management, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) 107 in accordance to the professional evaluations of their work, in order to implement the innovative management in education. references [1] bagley, c., woods, p., glatter, r. 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[11] vracar, d. 2007. strategies of market communication, faculty of economics, belgrade. inovativni menadžment u obrazovanju kroz korišćenje instrumenata komunikacije a p s t r a k t u radu koji je naslovljen inovativni mendadžment u obrazovanju kroz korišćenje instrumenata komunikacije dat je pregled postojeće prakse u komunikaciji i mogućih načina njenog boljitka u obrazovnom sistemu, vidjen kroz prizmu globalnih i društvenih promena. nove strategije u primeni instrumenata 108 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 88-108) komunikacije bi trebalo da doprinesu lakšem prilagodjavanju obrazovnog sistema promenama koje su rezultat promenjenog načina poslovanja i potreba okruženja za obrazovanjem. empiričko istraživanje koje je sprovedeno pokazalo je da obrazovne ustanove koriste neki oblik komunikacije, da profesori prepoznaju važnost razmene informacija, ali ujedno da se i ne trude da to iznesu u praksi. ključne reči: inovacije, komunikacija, menadžment, organizacione promene article history: received: 15 june, 2013 accepted: 20 september, 2013 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.34.pp59-78 original scientific paper work-related stressors of female teachers during covid-19 school closure alexander loziak1 denisa fedáková2 radka čopková3 the institute of social sciences of slovak academy of science, department of social psychology, košice, slovakia a b s t r a c t in slovakia, the covid-19 pandemic lockdown in the educational sector lasted for three months and caused unexpected changes with demands on pupils and their parents, students and teachers. the global school closure at all educational levels occurred suddenly and caught the school system and its actors unprepared. teachers were forced to quickly adapt to the “new” work approach with minimal and/or confusing directions. female teachers who predominate at primary schools in slovakia, around 90%, faced even greater challenge and experienced stress, as many of them simultaneously took care of their own children and households. the aim of the presented paper is an examination of stress level that primary school female teachers experienced during the schools´ lockdown period. two measures of stress were used: teacher stressor questionnaire (clipa, boghean, 2015) and the perceived stress scale (cohen, kamarck & mermelstein, 1983). additionally, an open question was added to learn about the teachers´ subjective perception of work pressure caused by the lockdown. the research sample consisted of 103 female primary school teachers (47 at the first primary education stage, 56 at the second 1 corresponding author, e-mail: loziak@saske.sk, tel. +421948728188 2 e-mail: dfedak@saske.sk, tel. +42155625 58 56 3 e-mail: radka.copkova@tuke.sk, tel. +421556022612 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 59-78) primary education stage). data were collected online in april 2020, with teachers being invited to participate via teachers´ online forums. significant differences in the perceived intensity of work stressors were present between the first and the second stage primary school teachers. the most frequent problems teachers reported were the challenging preparation of teaching materials, unclear directions from school management and strenuous communication with children and their parents. teachers also suffered from work uncertainty, strain from too much use of pcs and other technology, and problems with time management. key words: female teachers, stress, covid-19 school closure introduction covid-19 pandemic has caused many sudden changes over the world and the same has happened in slovakia. one of the major changes was the initial lockdown in the educational sector that started on march 16th of this year. the lockdown lasted for more than two months till june 1st, when pre-schools and primary schools were re-opened under strict conditions. during the lockdown period pupils, students, their parents and teachers experienced demands they have never faced before. this was especially true for teachers who were forced to rapidly adjust their work approach, sometimes with confusing directions. for instance, the directions from the ministry of education, science, research and sport of the slovak republic stated that distance online education should be applied to those school subjects where it was applicable and classic education should be postponed until schools reopened (minedu.sk, 2020). based on these directions, teachers did not know how the transition from regular education to distance education should take place and were unsure for how long such a situation would continue. additionally, adding to the stressful situation were the (home) working parents who were demanding the continuity of their children in the educational process. in general, teaching is a highly stressful profession even under normal circumstances as it brings numerous challenges. educators are burdened with administrative duties, classroom management problems and lack of cooperation with their peers (mccarthy, 2019). stress impacts teachers both personally and professionally, it affects job satisfaction, student engagement and even causes feelings of attrition and burnout (shernoff, mehta, atkins, torf & spencer, 2011). high levels of perceived stress are often regarded as alexander loziak, denisa fedáková, radka čopková 61 one of the reasons why between 25 and 50% of new teachers leave the profession (algozzine, wang & violette, 2011). this was also confirmed in czechia where primary school teachers reported alarmingly high rates of burnout, which quickly leads to feelings of unhappiness (ptáček et al., 2018). research has repeatedly and over a long-term period proved that teaching is full of hurdles and stress (kyriacou & sutcliffe, 1979; chan, 2002; lazuras, 2006; chaplain, 2008). in this line teachers in slovakia are not an exception. in 2017, research on work stress on 50 slovak primary school teachers was conducted. educators rated 15 possibly stressful situations they encounter in their occupation. the most stressful situations rated were: working with pupils with special educational needs, professional acknowledgement and frequent legislative changes. excessive work stress in teachers frequently manifested itself as physical exhaustion, disease vulnerability, mental exhaustion, internal strain and headaches (žitniakovágurgová & behúňová, 2017). as paulík (2012) argues, educators are constantly monitored by pupils, their parents, superiors and even the media. moreover, evaluation of teacher´s work results by parents and media is often negative (vašutová, 2011). this creates a system of complicated relationships which might be difficult for teachers to manage during the prolonged period of distance education that was the case of covid-19 schools´ lockdown. distance education, especially applied abruptly and with no preparation as happened during the initial covid-19 lockdown, can be very demanding and brings several problems. firstly, many pupils and teachers may have little to no experience with this form of teaching (fojtík, 2018). this point was very true for slovak primary schools, as a situation that required long-term distance education in a primary school setting had never happened before. secondly, for distance teaching to function properly, students and pupils need to be highly motivated and be able to deal with time efficiently. the same applies for educators because preparation for distance education is far more time-consuming. slovak teachers also had to check on numerous daily school assignments and communicate with pupils individually. as paulík (2012) states, in the teacher´s profession, many tasks must be completed by certain deadlines, which often forces teachers to take their work duties home. this causes a problematic mixing of work-related and non-work-related tasks. it is fair to speculate that these problems only increase during school closures. thirdly, pupils´ ownership of and access to technology is also major problem (fojtík, 2018). not all children in slovakia are properly equipped 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 59-78) with ict for distance education and the internet coverage in slovakia is only about 80-85% (mirri.gov.sk, 2019). this of course disrupts effective schooling. fourthly and lastly, a period of generalized distance education requires not only intense communication with pupils but also more intense communication with parents. interacting with parents is an important task in the teaching process and can be more demanding for teachers than we realize (gartmeier, gebhardt & dotger, 2016). the need to interact with parents solely through technology certainly puts additional strain on teachers. a survey among students in nursing courses on distance education also shows that they perceive the limited personal contact with teachers and other students as a fundamental disadvantage (hannay & newvine, 2006). this effect is even more prevalent in a primary school setting where pupils require more direct supervision, support and motivation. a lack of personal contact limits teacher’s means for motivating and managing pupils (furrer & skinner, 2003). the slovak education system is divided into the primary education stage and secondary education stage. the first education stage consists of 4 grades and children enter the first stage at the age of 6 or 7. the second education stage comprises of five grades. education in both stages is performed through independent programs (bernátová, 2013), but in both stages the teacher’s role is significantly different. in the first stage teachers lead their own class and teach nearly all subjects to the class. in the second stage teachers have a specialization in specific school subjects and teach multiple classes. not surprisingly, research on slovak teachers indicates that in the first education stage and second education stage teachers perceive stress differently. according to a 2017 study, the general rate of burnout was higher in teachers in the first education stage compared to ones in the second stage. a critical state of stress (a state that is close to the actual burnout syndrome) was present in 36 % of the first stage teachers, compared to 20 % present in second stage teachers. additionally, the presence of actual burnout syndrome was higher in the first stage teachers. research also confirmed statistically significant differences in average stress levels between experienced teachers and teachers at the beginning of their careers. the average stress levels of experienced teachers were comparatively higher. (žitniaková-gurgová & behúňová, 2017). the teaching profession in primary education in slovakia is hugely dominated by women, with 90 % (education and training monitor, 2019). alexander loziak, denisa fedáková, radka čopková 63 even though the number of working women is constantly increasing, their weekly time capacity for taking care of children and household did not change compared to the past (bianchi, robinson & milke, 2006). a study from 2018 suggest this inequality is truly significant, as women involvement in household chores is more than double compared to the involvement of their male partners (cerrato & cifre, 2018). a recent report at edweek.org claims that teachers are “…trying to be there for pupils and their own families. and many are also juggling the needs of their own children or other loved ones while managing their own coronavirus fears”. many of the discussed factors potentially complicate the work of female teachers and have raised their stress levels during the covid-19 pandemic school closures. the main aim of the present paper is an examination of stress level that primary school female teachers have experienced during the schools´ lockdown. we aim to examine which specific stressors were perceived as the most intense and which are most frequent. moreover, the stage of primary school, the teacher´s age and the amount of work experience also entered the analysis. additionally, we aim to analyse statements which teachers have submitted as answers to open questions. due to the different working routine and also the different age and maturity of pupils, we consider it important to analyse responses from the first and the second stage of primary schools separately, as two independent groups. methods our research sample included 103 primary school female teachers (47 at the first primary education stage, 56 at the second primary education stage). the ages of the first primary education stage teachers ranged from 23 to 63 (mean 44.8) with 19 years of work experience on average. the age of the second primary education stage teachers ranged from 24 to 64 (mean 43.3) with 17 years of work experience on average. the sample was built on self-selection. we have used voluntary response sampling. teachers were informed about the research through teachers´ online forums and they completed the online questionnaire on a voluntary basis. the completion of the questionnaire took about 15 minutes. all participants’ questions were answered in the comment section. data were collected in april 2020. it was the first month of school closure, which was the period of most intense changes and adaptation. 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 59-78) we used two methods for measuring stress – a teacher stressor questionnaire (clipa & boghean, 2015) and a perceived stress scale (cohen, kamarck & mermelstein, 1983). additionally, one open question was added to collect more specific information about teachers´ perception and management of the demand of the covid-19 lockdown work situation. the teacher stressor questionnaire (tsq) was utilized for identifying specific stressors for school teachers. the method was used previously by slovak researchers on a sample of 50 primary school teachers (žitniakovágurgová & behúňová, 2017). from the original 25 items, researchers used 15 items. for our study, only 5 items were included in the questionnaire. the reason for this was that the rest of the items were not appropriate for the teachers’ current working conditions. for example, the item school equipment was irrelevant when considering distance teaching. an additional original item, extra hours for preparation, was included. this item was included because we assumed extra preparation for distant education might be stressful in the current situation. cronbach´s alpha for our reduced and modified version of the questionnaire was evaluated at 0,79. to assess the perceived intensity of stressors, a 5-point scale was used from 1 (not stressful at all) to 5 (extremely stressful). to measure the general basal stage of teachers´ perceived stress the perceived stress scale (pss) was applied. the pss is widely used and a popular tool for measuring the frequency of psychological stress. the method evaluates the stage to which individuals perceive their life as being uncontrollable, unpredictable and overloaded in a previous month’s work. a study from 2012 reports its psychometric properties as being acceptable. in all 12 studies that were tested for internal consistency reliability, cronbach´s alpha was evaluated at >.70. the study also reports satisfactory test-retest reliability when its first and second administrations were separated by between two days and four weeks (lee, 2012). for the purpose of this study a shortened 10-item version of pss was used. an item example is: in the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly? respondents answered on a 5-point scale (1never, 2almost never, 3sometimes, 4fairly often, 5very often). the purpose of open questions was to attain more specific and deeper information on what female teachers truly undergo during school closures and what specific stressor burdened them the most. the formulation of the question was as follows: from the start of school closure due to the pandemic, what specifically caused you the most intense feeling of pressure? the alexander loziak, denisa fedáková, radka čopková 65 responses were analysed using the content analysis. the method of open coding was used for analysis. themes or categories of reported ´feelings of pressure´ were identified from all submitted answers. results following the main aim of this paper we examined the stress levels that primary school female teachers experienced during the schools´ lockdown and also identified the level of stressors. the data showed that the value of distress measured by tsq was referred as significantly lower by the first stage female teachers (mean=14.09) compared to the second stage teachers (mean=16.68). there was no significant difference between the first (mean=29.87) and second stage teachers (mean=30.13) in the pss score. figure 1: stressors of female teachers at the first stage of primary school altogether there were six tsq stressors evaluated by teachers on a fivepoint scale (1 – not stressful to 5 –extremely stressful). the results are shown in figure 1 for stressors values of the first stage teachers and in figure 2 for stressors of second stage primary school teachers. 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 59-78) figure 2: stressors of female teachers at the second stage of primary school the significant difference in the level of reported stressors was present in the higher level of stress intensity in the second stage teachers caused by a lack of professional recognition. this was the top ranked stressor for the second stage teachers while for the first stage teachers the top ranked stressor was associated with spending extra hours on preparation of new lessons and courses (based on the changes brought about by distant teaching) (see figure 1). low wage and poor relationships with the school management were reported as lower-level stressor. in general, the second stage teachers reported a higher level of all six stressors (see figure 2). our results include a comparison of order of our mean scores of tsq items and order of mean scores of 5 selected items of same method measured in the slovak study carried out in 2017 (žitniaková-gurgová & behúňová, 2017). the results indicate that the item we included in the list, extra hours for preparation, had the highest average score of all items, and it was a very significant stressor for teachers that participated in our covid-19 study. additionally, extra working hours seems a comparatively more important stressor in our sample than in the 2017 sample. low wage, the item with the highest average score out of 5 in the 2017 study, ranked the second lowest in our average scores comparison. the results of the analysis are presented in table 1. alexander loziak, denisa fedáková, radka čopková 67 table 1: comparison of orders of tsq items average scores in our study and in the 2017 study tsq items (žitniaková-gurgová & behúňová, 2017) tsq items (our data set) 1. low wage extra hours for preparation 2. professional acknowledgement extra working hours 3. communication with children´s parents professional acknowledgement 4. extra working hours communication with children´s parents 5. relationships with management low wage 6. relationships with management in figure 3 and 4 we display scores of the first and the second stage female teachers in pss items. figure 3: perceived stress frequency of the first stage primary school female teachers (pss items: in the last month, how often have you…(pss1) been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly? …(pss2) felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life? ...(pss3) felt nervous and “stressed”? …(pss4-r) felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems? …(pss5-r) felt that things were going your way? …(pss6) that you could not cope with all the things that you had to do? …(pss7-r) been able to control irritations in your life? …(pss8-r) felt that you were on top of things? 3,45 3,44 3,42 3,12 3,10 2,87 2,76 2,61 2,59 2,46 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00 pss1 pss9 pss3 pss6 pss2 pss10 pss8 pss7 pss4 pss5 68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 59-78) …(pss9) been angered because of things that were outside of your control? …(pss10) felt difficulties were piling up so high that you could not overcome them? r-reversed figure 4: perceived stress frequency of the second stage primary school female teachers (pss items: in the last month, how often have you …(pss1) been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly? …(pss2) felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life? …(pss3) felt nervous and “stressed”? …(pss4-r) felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems? …(pss5-r) felt that things were going your way? …(pss6) that you could not cope with all the things that you had to do? …(pss7-r) been able to control irritations in your life? …(pss8-r) felt that you were on top of things? …(pss9) been angered because of things that were outside of your control? …(pss10) felt difficulties were piling up so high that you could not overcome them? r-reversed there were no significant differences confirmed between the first and the second stage primary school teachers in pss frequency. the most frequent stressor for teachers was reported to be the unexpected situations and events, which probably mostly reflects the unexpected shutdown of schools and related changes. the second most frequent stressor of the first stage teachers was reported to be the feeling of being unable to control the important things in life; while for teachers at the second stage it was the feeling of being nervous and stressed. altogether there were five stressors reported above the mid-scale value, meaning that teachers experienced the stressor fairly often or very often. the 3.50 3,44 3,37 3,29 3,14 2,93 2,71 2,62 2,57 2,53 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00 pss1 pss3 pss9 pss2 pss6 pss10 pss8 pss7 pss4 pss5 alexander loziak, denisa fedáková, radka čopková 69 most frequently perceived stressors for teachers at both stages were: the feeling of being upset because of something that happened unexpectedly; feeling of being unable to control the important things in your life; being nervous and “stressed”; feeling of being able to cope with all the things that had to be done; being angered because of things that were outside their control. following the second aim of this paper we examined whether age and years of work experience in primary school female teachers correlates with their stress level experienced during the lockdown. we present results separately for the first stage teachers and the second stage teachers. a correlation analysis did not show any significant relationship between tsq items and the age of teachers neither between tsq items and years of work experience of teachers at the first stage of primary school. however, there were negative significant correlations confirmed for age and years of experience of teachers at the first stage of primary school and the pss items. the results indicated that lower age correlated significantly with higher frequency of (pss1) being upset because of something that happened unexpectedly; (pss3) feeling nervous and “stressed”; (pss4-r) feeling confident about the ability to handle personal problems; (pss5-r) feeling that things were going one’s way; (pss6) feeling of failure to cope with all the things one had to do. also, years of teachers´ work experience correlated significantly negatively with the pss items. shorter work experience correlated with higher frequency of (pss3) feeling nervous and “stressed” and (pss5-r) feeling that things were going one’s way. we present these correlations in table 2. table 2: correlations between pss items and age/years of work experience in primary stage teachers pss age years of work experience pss1 -,289* ns pss2 ns ns pss3 -,294* -,317* pss4 -,290* ns pss5 -,391** -,380** pss6 -,338* ns pss7 ns ns 70 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 59-78) pss age years of work experience pss8 ns ns pss9 ns ns pss10 ns ns correlation coefficient strength: under 0,1 trivial; 0,1 –0,3 weak; 0,3 –0,5 moderate; more than 0,5 strong; ns (non-significant). correlation analysis of the second stage teachers´ data did not show any significant correlations between pss items and the age of teachers neither between pss items and years of work experience of teachers at the second stage of primary school. significant correlation was confirmed between years of work experience and salary conditions (tsq stressor). the more experienced teachers were the more there were stresses from the low wage. we present these correlations in table 3. table 3: correlation between tsq items and age/years of work experience in secondary stage teachers tsq age years of work experience low wage ns .314* professional acknowledgement ns ns communication with children´s parents ns ns extra working hours ns ns relationships with management ns ns extra hours for preparation ns ns correlation coefficient strength: under 0,1 trivial; 0,1 –0,3 weak; 0,3 –0,5 moderate; more than 0,5 strong; ns (non-significant). using content analysis, we analysed data from open questions (we received responses from 75 teachers) that asked: from the start of school closure due to the pandemic, what specifically caused you the most intense feeling of pressure? from submitted answers we have identified dominant, repeated themes or categories of reported stressors. 12 distinct topics/categories were specified. categories of stressors varied widely in frequency, from 12 answers to 1 answer. we present these categories in table 4. alexander loziak, denisa fedáková, radka čopková 71 table 4: categories of reported stressors and their frequency frequency categories of reported stressors 12 unclear directions from superiors 10 extra hours for preparation 10 communication with children´s parents 9 communication with children 8 extra working hours, time management 8 work uncertainty 7 strain from using too much pc and other technology 5 adaptation on distance education 3 work-family balance 1 feeling that children will forget what they have learned 1 documentation of work 1 absence of social connections discussion the main objective of this paper was the examination of stress level that primary school female teachers experienced during the schools´ lockdown. one of the important findings of our study is the significant difference in value of distress measured by tsq between the first stage female teachers (mean=14.09) and the second stage teachers (mean =16.68). however, no significant differences were confirmed between the first and the second stage primary school teachers using pss. the first stage teachers thus reported (according to tsq methodology) less perceived stress. this finding is not in line with a previous study that measured stress in slovak primary school teachers (žitniaková-gurgová & behúňová, 2017). the study concluded that both a critical state of stress (a state close to burnout syndrome) and the presence of actual burnout syndrome was significantly higher in the first education stage teachers, compared to second education stage teachers. however, this trend was not confirmed during the covid-19 school lockdown. generally speaking, both the first education stage teachers and the second education stage teachers could have experienced serious challenges managing their work during covid-19 schools´ lockdown. it is plausible to assume that organizing and managing younger pupils (from ages 6 to 10) during times of distant education was fairly challenging as a class of younger children is naturally less organized and their teachers need to direct them and motivate them more. a lack of personal contact in this time did not make this objective any easier (furrer & skinner, 2003). also, we assume that the first 72 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 59-78) stage teacher needed to communicate with children´s parents more frequently. concurring with other authors’ work (gartmeier, gebhardt & dotger, 2016), this may cause additional workload. the secondary stage teachers, on other hand, work with multiple classes. during lockdown, they monitored numerous daily school assignments from a large number of pupils. also, these teachers have less intense contact with their pupils in comparison to the first grade teachers, who work with smaller groups. communication with pupil´s parents is often limited, which can be perceived as advantage (as such communication requires additional time and energy) but it also causes problems. older pupils (aged 10 to 15) might in this setting feel less obligated and motivated to actively participate in distance schooling. this was mentioned multiple times when answering our open question, (for example an answer from secondary stage teachers “i find the effort of communication with children and the small reaction from their side as stressful” “there were children that did not respond to any form of teaching”) although we reduced these notes into the category “communication with children” for purposes of analysis. because the secondary stage teachers come into contact with a larger number of pupils, they may encounter more technical issues with the internet connection. technical difficulties can seriously disrupt the schooling process. our results indicate that the general problems of the secondary stage teachers have been emphasized by the schools´ lockdown. the top three most intense stressors were identified as follows: firstly, “lack of professional acknowledgement”, secondly, “extra non-planned working hours” and thirdly, “putting in extra hours for preparation”. the first stage teachers also perceived these factors as most stressful but in a different order: firstly “putting in extra hours for preparation”, secondly “extra non-planned working hours” and thirdly “lack of professional acknowledgement”. the interpretation of the data in the context of the unexpected lockdown of schools seems quite straightforward. for all female teachers, at both education stages, extra time for preparation and high workload in general have been difficult to manage. this finding confirms the previous findings by ptáček et al. (2018) that teachers experience a daily high-job related stressor and the educationsupport.org.uk blog shows similar survey findings in the uk. during the covid-19 school closure more than half of primary school teachers responded about feeling higher stress levels than usual. stressors related to low salary and relations with supervisors have been reported as lower-level stressors. in these specific circumstances, alexander loziak, denisa fedáková, radka čopková 73 dissatisfaction with low incomes might have seem less important to teachers than other, more pressing, issues. a major difference seems to be the fact that the “lack of professional acknowledgement” has ranked higher in the order of stressors intensity for the secondary stage teachers. based on our data, it is difficult to understand why secondary stage teachers felt less professional acknowledgement compared to primary teachers. we could only suggest that our data confirm the oecd talis study findings that the share of teachers in slovakia who feel insufficient acknowledgement is only 4.5 per cent and is the lowest from all oecd countries that participated in the study, with an average score of 26 per cent (oecd/talis). altogether, our data do show that both groups of primary school teachers felt unappreciated during lockdown and there is an evidence that it could cause severe consequences. research emphasizes that prolonged exposure of high job related stressors can indeed generate dissatisfaction and a higher rate of unhappiness in primary school teachers when job changing and early retirement can quickly follow (ptáček et al., 2018). further, no significant differences between the first and the second stage primary school teacher were found in the perceived stress measured by pss. the reasons here might be that the pss method is not sensitive enough to the occupation of teacher, and it measures a more general level of perceived stress. the most frequent reported stressor for all teachers was to “be in unexpected situations and events”. such an assessment is quite understandable and is reflecting the unanticipated shutdown of schools and related need for sudden adaptation. the second most frequent stressor of the first stage teachers was reported to be “the feeling of being unable to control the important things in life”; while for teachers at the second stage it was “the feeling of being nervous and stressed”. both of these formulations express feelings of internal pressure and a lack of control over important things, which were in period of lockdown (at least in the professional world) certainly present. following the second aim of the paper, we explored whether age and years of work experience of primary school female teachers correlates with their stress level experienced during the covid-19 lockdown. we present our findings separately for the first and the second stage teachers. correlation analysis did not show any significant correlations between tsq items and age or work experience of teachers at the first stage of primary school. however, there were significant negative correlations confirmed for 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 59-78) age and years of experience of first stage primary school teachers and the pss item scores. results suggest that the lower age of the first stage teachers correlated significantly with higher frequency of (pss1) “being upset because of something that happened unexpectedly”; (pss3) “feeling nervous and stressed”; (pss4-r) “feeling confident about the ability to handle the personal problems”; (pss5-r) “feeling that things were going one’s way”; (pss6) “feeling of failure to cope with all the things one had to do”. also, the years of the first stage educators´ work experience correlated significantly negatively with the pss items. shorter work experience of educators correlated with a higher frequency of (pss3) feeling nervous and “stressed” and (pss5-r) feeling that things were going one’s way. the strength of the aforementioned correlation coefficients varied from weak to moderate. this finding also does not correspond with recent research done on slovak primary school teachers (žitniaková-gurgová & behúňová, 2017), which indicated average stress levels in experienced teachers were higher compared new teachers. we can only speculate this discrepancy can be explained by the professional experience of teachers. simply, we have two different situations at hand. under “normal” conditions, both a teacher´s age and longer work experience can act as accumulation of long-lasting stressors, often resulting in high stress levels or burnout. however, during lockdown, age and experience might serve as a protective factor. it is possible that more experienced first stage teachers are able to keep young pupils disciplined and motivated even during changed schooling conditions. this assumption is supported by research indicating that more experienced teachers are usually more effective in many facets of teaching (kini & podolsky, 2016). their less experienced colleagues might have more problems, thus feeling more “nervous and stressed” and “upset because of something that happened unexpectedly”. correlation analysis of the second stage teachers´ data did not show any significant correlations between pss items and the age of teachers either between pss items and years of work experience of this group. nevertheless, a significant moderate correlation was confirmed between years of work experience and tsq stressor salary conditions. the more experienced teachers were, the more stressed they were from the low wage. trying to rationalize this finding would be highly and unnecessarily speculative. the findings of the content/thematic analysis were presented by categories of stressors (reported as answers to our open question: from the alexander loziak, denisa fedáková, radka čopková 75 start of school closure due to the pandemic, what specifically caused you the most intense feeling of pressure?). the frequency of identified categories confirmed some of the expected notions but it also revealed other interesting findings. “extra hours for preparation” (frequency of 10), “communication with children´s parents” (frequency of 10), “extra working hours, time management” (frequency of 8) were all, as expected, frequently submitted answers. we were able to identify other stressors as well. at the top of our list was the answer “unclear directions from superiors” (frequency of 12). that answer category supports the general concerns that directions given by the educational bodies in the slovak republic to teachers were not sufficient. we assume this problem was particularly prevalent at the very start of the pandemic lockdown. other categories of stressors identified by content analysis were: “communication with children” (frequency of 9), “work uncertainty” (frequency of 8), “strain from using the pc too much and other technology” (frequency of 8), “adaptation to distance education” (frequency of 5), “workfamily balance” (frequency of 3), “feeling that children will forget what they have learned”, “documentation of work”, “absence of social connections” (all three answers with a frequency of 1). “communication with children”, “work uncertainty” and “adaptation to distance education” were all identified stressors reflecting the difficult process of adjustment all educators had to go through. out of those identified categories of stressors the one regarding “strain from using the pc too much and other technology” requires additional attention. when analysing a teacher´s stress, the fact that might be underestimated is that primary school teachers (compared to many other professions) are not used to using pcs for long hours every day. it is not surprising then that work which suddenly requires an allocation of 8 hours per day spent in front of the pc screen might be physically tiring for the majority of teachers. “work-family balance” was another category of stressor identified by female teachers. it is in line with those studies stating that the number of working women is continually increasing, but their weekly time spent taking care of children/households did not change compared to past (bianchi & robinson & milke, 2006). it should be emphasised that the workload of female teachers combined with the load of housework and care duties stands here as factor that should not be underestimated. if the schools´ lockdown (due to a pandemic or any other unexpected situation) will happen again in future the educational bodies and school management should set regulations and offer strategies to help female teachers manage their work time easier and create support for coping with their work-family spill-over. 76 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 59-78) our findings suggest that the schooling system in slovakia was not prepared for the possibility of prolonged distance education, as teachers have reported stress from unclear directions from superiors and extra hours of preparation for appropriate forms of education. our recommendations for practice is therefore not directed at teachers but to school managers and schooling system authorities. we believe it is necessary to prepare and introduce plans for distance education that will help and support keeping the continuation of teaching at primary schools. also, appropriate forms of distance education and studying materials should be prepared and provided for the teachers. this could lead to better time management of teachers and decrease the level of stressors related to working extra hours. approaching the end of the study we would like to acknowledge the limitations of the study. the first limitation to mention is the sample size. it is not representative and does not allow for a generalisation of the findings. however, the number of 103 female teachers that were willing to devote their time and respond to the survey despite the demanding situation, can also be seen as a proof of their willingness to express their feelings and experience with a hope that their voice would not stay unheard. the second limitation of the study could come from the selected methods that had not been applied before such an extraordinary situation as the covid-19 pandemic and school´s lockdown. there were so many unexpected changes in the teaching process that applying more qualitative methods (as interviews) would maybe be more accurate for a better understanding of covid-19 circumstances in the teaching profession. we would like to conclude our study by saying that today it is more important than ever to be mindful of teachers’ feelings and perception of their situation. even though many areas of life have been postponed momentarily because of the pandemic, the education of the youngest children has not. primary school teachers help to build crucial foundations for pupils´ growth and development and they have carried out the teaching and continued the children’s education throughout the schools´ lockdown. as primary school teachers made this continuation possible, now it is a great opportunity to acknowledge and appreciate their status and occupation even more strongly than before. alexander loziak, denisa fedáková, radka čopková 77 references [1] algozzine, bob, wang, chuang, and violette, amy s. 2011. "re-examining the relationship between academic achievement and social behavior."journal of positive behavior interventions, (13): 3–16. [2] bernátová, renáta. 2013. "primárne vzdelávanie v slovenskej republike v kontexte zmien." pedagogika przedszkolna i wczesnoszkolna, (1): 57-65. [3] bianchi, suzanne, robinson, john, and milkie, melissa. 2007. "changing rhythms of american family life." new york: russell sage foundation. [4] cerrato, javier, and cifre, eva. 2018. "gender inequality in household chores and work-family conflict." frontiers in psychology, 9, 1330 [5] chan, david w. 2002. "stress, self-efficacy, social support, and psychological distress among prospective chinese teachers in hong kong." educational psychology, 22(5): 557–569. doi.org/10.1080/0144341022000023635 [6] chaplain, roland. 2008. "stress and psychological distress among trainee secondary teachers in england." educational psychology, 28(2), 195–209. doi: 10.1080/01443410701491858. [7] clip, otilia, boghean, amelia. 2015. "stress factors and solutions for the phenomenon of burnout of preschool teachers." in procedia – social and behavioral sciences. 180: 907 – 915. [8] cohen, sheldon, kamarck, tom, and mermelstein, robin. 1983. "a global measure of perceived stress."journal of health and social behavior, (24): 386-396. [9] education and training monitor. 2019 [10] fojtík, rostislav. 2018. "problems of distance education."international journal of information and communication technologies in education. 7 (1): 14-23. [11] furrer, carrie, and skinner, e. 2003. "sense of relatedness as a factor in children's academic engagement and performance." journal of educational psychology, (95): 148–162. [12] gartmeier, martin, gebhardt, markus, and dotger, benjamin. 2016. "how do teachers evaluate their parent communication competence? latent profiles and relationships to workplace behaviors." teaching and teacher education, (55): .207-216. [13] hannay, maureen, and newvine, tracy. 2006. "perceptions of distance learning: a comparison of online and traditional learning." journal of online learning and teaching, 2(1): 1-11. [14] kini, tara, and podolsky, anne. 2016. "does teaching experience increase teacher effectiveness? a review of the research" (palo alto: learning policy institute, 2016). 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 59-78) [15] kyriacou, chris, and sutcliffe, john. 1979. "teacher stress and satisfaction."educational research, 21(2): 89–96. [16] lazuras, lambros. 2006. "occupational stress, negative affectivity and physical health in special and general education teachers in greece." british journal of special education, 33(4): 204–209. doi.org/10.1111/j.14678578.2006.00440.x [17] lee, eun-hyun. 2012. "review of the psychometric evidence of the perceived stress scale." asian nursing research, 6(4): 121-127. [18] mccarthy, christopher. 2019. "teacher stress: balancing demands and resources." phi delta kappan, 101(3): 8-14. [19] minedu.2020. https://www.minedu.sk/rozhodnutia-a-usmernenia-v-casecovid-19/ [20] mirri.gov.sk. 2019. https://www.mirri.gov.sk/en/news/informatization/slovakia-is-progressingwith-broadband-internet-coverage/index.html [21] oecd/talis. http://www.oecd.org/education/talis/ [22] paulík, karel. (2012). "job satisfaction and stress among teachers."the new educational review. 30(4): 138–149. [23] ptáček, radek, vnukova, martina, raboch, jiri, smetackova, irena, sanders, edel, svandova, lucie, harsa, pavel, and stefano, george. 2018. "burnout syndrome and lifestyle among primary school teachers: a czech representative study."medical science monitor, (25): 4974-4981. [24] shernoff, elisa, mehta, tara g., atkins, marc, torf, raechel, and spencer, jordan. 2011. "a qualitative study of the sources and impact of stress among urban teachers."school mental health, (3): 59–69. [25] vašutová, jaroslava. 2011. "proměny profese učitele v rekapitulaci posledních dvaceti let." in: lazarová, b. et al. pozdní sběr. o práci zkušených učitelů 45–58. brno: paido [26] žitniaková-gurgová, beata, behúňová, lucia. 2017. "stresory a syndrome vyhorenia v práci učiteľa zš."pedagogika.sk, 8(2) article history: received: 30 october, 2020 accepted: 22 november, 2020 https://www.minedu.sk/rozhodnutia-a-usmernenia-v-case-covid-19/ https://www.minedu.sk/rozhodnutia-a-usmernenia-v-case-covid-19/ 12_jwe_3-4 review book review student cooperatives and expanded activity of schools with the aim to increase the quality of education and social inclusion of school children in the republic of serbia mirosinka dinkić, kosovka ognjenović and aleksandra branković institute of economic sciences belgrade, 2011, 171 p. this article provides a review of the monograph entitled “student cooperatives and expanded activity of schools with the aim to increase the quality of education and social inclusion of school children in the republic of serbia”, that was published by institute of economic sciences in 2011. authors of this monograph explored the introduction of expanded activity and execution of activities within student cooperatives in public primary and secondary schools in serbia. they presented both the legislative framework, that outlines realization of these activities in schools, and practical experiences, illustrated by the results of an empirical research. in addition, authors explored the practice of functioning of similar activities in public schools in selected transition countries and in old member states of the european union. according to relevant regulation in the area of education, “expanded activity” of a school is defined as an activity which complements, but does not hinder, school’s regular educational activities, and as such it may include production, sale, provision of other services, etc. on the other journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 4-5, 140-145) 142 hand, student cooperatives are regulated by laws on education and on cooperatives. these two types of additional activities may appear alike, but certain differences are present in terms of procedures that follow registration of an additional activity, obtaining permissions and certificates, establishing the managing bodies, etc. in regard to the aforementioned similarity, they are rather observed as complementary activities of schools this article provides a review of the monograph entitled “student cooperatives and expanded activity of schools with the aim to increase the quality of education and social inclusion of school children in the republic of serbia”, that was published by institute of economic sciences in 2011. authors of this monograph explored the introduction of expanded activity and execution of activities within student cooperatives in public primary and secondary schools in serbia. they presented both the legislative framework, that outlines realization of these activities in schools, and practical experiences, illustrated by the results of an empirical research. in addition, authors explored the practice of functioning of similar activities in public schools in selected transition countries and in old member states of the european union. according to relevant regulation in the area of education, “expanded activity” of a school is defined as an activity which complements, but does not hinder, school’s regular educational activities, and as such it may include production, sale, provision of other services, etc. on the other hand, student cooperatives are regulated by laws on education and on cooperatives. these two types of additional activities may appear alike, but certain differences are present in terms of procedures that follow registration of an additional activity, obtaining permissions and certificates, establishing the managing bodies, etc. in regard to the aforementioned similarity, they are rather observed as complementary activities of schools. the monograph includes nine sections. the first two sections provide background, goals and outline of the publication, emphasizing that the main goals of the research are at least twofold. the publication intends, firstly, to stimulate creators of educational policies to boost legislative activities in order to supplement existing regulatory framework, and, secondly, to encourage the schools take proactive approach, if they recognize the purpose of setting up additional activities, and to involve students, teachers and other members of schools’ staff in these activities. the publication continues with presenting a summary of key findings, conclusions and recommendations and description of the methods utilised book review, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 140-145) 143 in carrying out the research. analysis of the national regulatory framework for expanded activities and student cooperatives, and comparison with functioning of these activities in neighbouring countries and the european union, are given as separate sections. the empirical research is divided into two sections: (i) that leads to cognition on functioning of expanded activities and student cooperatives; and (ii) that reveals attitudes, expectations and state of capacities of schools which did not extend their activities. this part of the research was based on especially tailored surveys that were carried out for two nationally representative subsamples of public primary and secondary schools. both schools with and without additional activities were covered by the research. the publication ends with main conclusions and recommendations. also, the references used in the research are provided, as well as an annex with the survey tools and a broader overview of relevant regulation in force in selected countries. this publication abounds with numerous results and statistical figures. however, there are several findings that are worth mentioning. key findings related to the regulatory framework that guides realisation of additional activities in schools pointed out to the lack of by-laws, other accompanying legislation and internal documents in schools that would significantly improve realisation of additional activities. missing legislation and other documents need to be adopted in order to make procedures more precise, such as those related to the introduction of a new concept of public education financing, financial reporting, spending of revenues earned by execution of extended activities and activities within student cooperatives, creation of evidences, quality control, engagement of pupils under the age of fifteen, engagement of teaching staff, etc. in comparison with other observed countries, one can conclude that public schools in serbia have similar problems like schools in other former socialist countries. some valuable solutions that can be examined as examples of good practice in functioning of additional activities in schools can be provided by the new member states of the european union. primary schools most frequently register student cooperatives, while extended activities are more often present in secondary schools. however, secondary schools deal more successfully than primary schools with almost all types of activities registered within student cooperatives. in particular, secondary vocational schools, either due to educational profiles and available capacities or optional subjects, more successfully execute additional activities in comparison with other observed schools. expanded activities journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 4-5, 140-145) 144 are found to be more profitable than student cooperatives, particularly if they enable schools to provide various kinds of services. encouraging children to develop their entrepreneurial skills is insufficiently present in schools without extended activities and student cooperatives. utilisation of resources earned by execution of additional activities for greater social inclusion of children from marginalised groups is not appropriately recognized by schools. the general conclusion of the research is that extended activities and student cooperatives are still in the early stages of their developments, although student cooperatives have existed in schools for several decades. some important issues recognized in this publication were further explored in scientific articles. among them, the influence of factors that contribute to the increase in the likelihood of extension of schools’ activities was deeply analysed. the estimation of appropriate statistical models extracted the factors that significantly contribute to the predicted likelihood of extension of schools’ activities. one of the most important results is that participation of schools in the entrepreneurial skills development programs increases the likelihood of extension of schools’ activities by 0.14 percentage points, holding all other factors fixed (ognjenović and branković, 2012). the relevance of the topic explored in the monograph is emphasized by the reviewers, as well as the authors’ contributions to illuminating issues that are important for setting up and realisation of additional activities in schools. one of the reviewers concluded that “this monograph, classified as a publication of national relevance, represents valuable source of information, conclusions and recommendations for all participants in the process of making decisions in the ministry of education and science, in other relevant government bodies, and in schools and other institutions interested in functioning expanded activities and student cooperatives, as well as a good scientific and analytical basis for further specific research in this area” (kovač-cerović, 2011). these conclusions are confirmed by two other reviewers too. one of them has written that this monograph can be observed as an “instructive document that may be of help to creators of education policies in the conceptualisation of expanded activities in primary and secondary schools” (maksimović, 2011). the other reviewer stated that this monograph as “the first national publication” which explores setting up and functioning of expanded activities and student cooperatives “will trigger further deeper researches in this area, because of book review, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 140-145) 145 many questions that have been opened in this book” (radović-marković, 2011). as authors of this monograph we would be more than happy if this publication would contribute to the further development of these additional activities in schools, to the affirmation of active learning through regular and extracurricular activities of schools, to the rise of knowledge on importance of development of entrepreneurial skills in children, and to the greater social inclusion of children in all schools’ activities. we highly recommend this publication to academic fora, the ministry in charge of education, schools and other interested institutions and individuals, because it contains illustrative findings on the institutional setting and schools’ environment and some practical knowledge on functioning of expanded activities and student cooperatives in public schools in serbia. učeničke zadruge i proširena delatnost u cilju povećanja kvaliteta obrazovanja i veće socijalne uključenosti školske dece u republici srbiji: srbija, zemlje evropske unije i zemlje u okruženju references [1] dinkić, м., ognjenović, k. & branković, a. (2011). učeničke zadruge i proširena delatnost u cilju povećanja kvaliteta obrazovanja i veće socijalne uključenosti školske dece u republici srbiji: srbija, zemlje evropske unije i zemlje u okruženju. publisher: institute of economic sciences belgrade. [2] kovač-cerović, т. (2011). book review: učeničke zadruge i proširena delatnost u cilju povećanja kvaliteta obrazovanja i veće socijalne uključenosti školske dece u republici srbiji: srbija, zemlje evropske unije i zemlje u okruženju. institute of economic sciences belgrade, unpublished. [3] ognjenović, k. & branković, a. (2012). “expanded activity of schools in serbia: legal framework and practical experiences”. forthcoming in industrija. [4] maksimović, i. (2011). book review: učeničke zadruge i proširena delatnost u cilju povećanja kvaliteta obrazovanja i veće socijalne uključenosti školske dece u republici srbiji: srbija, zemlje evropske unije i zemlje u okruženju. institute of economic sciences belgrade, unpublished. [5] radović-мarković, м. (2011). book review: učeničke zadruge i proširena delatnost u cilju povećanja kvaliteta obrazovanja i veće socijalne uključenosti školske dece u republici srbiji: srbija, zemlje evropske unije i zemlje u okruženju. institute of economic sciences belgrade, unpublished. kosovka ognjenović institute of economic sciences 13_jwe_1-2 udc: 305-055.2(689.1) jel: b54, i38 id: 198559244 original scientific paper characterising women in the informal sector and their struggles to eke a living lessons from ruwa, zimbabwe innocent chirisa1, university of zimbabwe, dept of rural & urban planning, harare, zimbabwe a b s t r a c t the paper maps and the struggles and challenges that women in the informal sector face in emerging satellite towns providing a case of ruwa which is located some 20 kilometres from harare the capital city of zimbabwe. the study engaged forty women in informal sector and trading goods and services of various types with the objective of eking a living given the constrained job market dictated upon by the unstable macro-economic environment in urban centres and the country at large. simple random sampling was adopted to cover street (off-plot) and on-plot activities by the women in the settlement. besides, non-probability sampling applied with some of the respondents who the research interviewed to let the story of the realities of the women unfold. in their struggle to eke a living the women face and have to brace with challenges including exposure to elements weather (rain, wind, and the sun), service provision, marketing of products, and regulatory forces. given the macro-economic stability the country has been facing since the year 2000, some of the stakeholders like the town council and private actors in ruwa have been on a precarious position to offer services. the industry and other employment sectors are operating below capacity. despite this ‘freeze’ situation, stakeholders can still work together inclusive of the women in the informal sectors to create a forum of dialogue. through dialogue, it is possible to formulate poverty-reduction strategies that are accommodative of the plight and challenges of the peri-urban women and coin that in local developmental planning. 1 corresponding author, dept of rural & urban planning, university of zimbabwe, po box mp167, mt pleasant, harare, zimbabwe, email: chirisa.innocent@gmail.com. innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 11 the paper posits that a good governance approach is required in improving the life of the women in the informal sector in ruwa and elsewhere. key words: poverty reduction, gender empowerment, institutions, policy dialogue, informal sector introduction the informal sector in zimbabwe has been there for some time. it has created employment for a lot of people, especially before the dollarisation (chirisa, 2009c). the informal sector refers to the business that is carried out by the road side, in homes and as they walk (suwal and pant, 2009). these transactions are usually not documented and those who participate in such trade do not pay taxes to the revenue authority. the closest they come to being registered is through the subscriptions or hawker’s license that they pay to the city council. it is important to note only those who sell their products at designated areas usually pay these subscriptions. the majority flee every time they see the council officials approaching. existing literature suggests that the majority of the women in developing countries are engaged in the informal sector (un, 2000, brown, 2006). the proportion of women workers in the informal sector exceeds that of men in most countries. women’s share of the total informal workforce outside of urban agriculture is higher than men’s share in nine out of twenty-one developing countries for which data is available (un, 2000). the vast majority of women in the informal sector are home-based workers or street vendors. it has been noted that there is an overlap between working in the informal economy and being poor. a higher percentage of people working in the informal sector, relative to the formal sector are poor. chen (2009) asserts that there is no simple relationship between working in the informal economy and escaping poverty. informal workers typically lack the social protection afforded to formal paid workers such as worker benefits and health insurance and typically work under irregular and casual contracts (suwal and pant, 2009). it ought to be registered that there are a number of contexts (social, political, economic and environmental and psychological in which wiis operate.) women tend to work in the invisible sectors of the economy. these sectors are subject to super-exploitation (bibars, 2001). women have a weak bargaining position, as they tend to be isolated and unorganised. even in the formal sector they are crowded in the low income and low skilled jobs ibid. this is just because women tend to have problems in access to credit and 12 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) educational facilities (ombati and ombati, 2012), women have an inferior legal status and women tend to take greater responsibilities for raising children (moghadam, 2005). the majority of ash road women residents in pietmaritsburg south africa derive a living through the informal sector (cals, 2005). this is the same situation in the urban areas of zimbabwe (chirisa, 2009b). they sell food and merchandise and are dependent on jobs as day labourers or other jobs within the informal sector, where they are vulnerable to what can only be described as exploitation. the engagement by households in the informal economy is not only a headache to local authorities in the developing countries but also heartache to the households themselves...” (chirisa 2009b:257). women in the informal sector are often caught in the crossfire of this confusion. in zimbabwe the economic hardships brought about by economic adjustment programme (esap) and the economy coupled with inflationary cycles and predominantly produced a socio-economic miasma (chirisa, 2009b). a psycho-social analysis of the problems being faced by wiis (women in the informal sector) reveals that the informal traders are faced with a number of ethical dilemmas. this is because most of the time these actors are nothing but victims of circumstances (ibid). informal traders hide behind many alibis, one of them being that the formal sector is in no position to absorb them. however, formal authorities tend to let ‘sleeping dogs lie’ hence showing ambivalence as they observe informal traders tend to house themselves. stakeholders in the wiis debate include the individual women themselves, the cooperate venture’ local authorities, politicians, human rights organizations and development agencies and the state (undp, 2002: chirisa 2009a, b, c). chirisa, (2009c) notes that the informal sector in zimbabwe is marked by easy entry of operators, reliance on indigenous resources, family ownership of enterprises, labour intensive and adopted technology, and skill required outside the formal skill system. however, according to the unchs, (1998) a close link has been observed to exist between human settlements and the informal sector and a careful major between the two has been advocated for. this means that human habitat should be so designed to accommodate micro to small-scale business operations, dealing with convenient items and goods, fruits, vegetables, repairs and maintenance to mention but a few. paradza, in chirisa (2009c), identified five types of informal sector operations (isos), based on location, residences (carried out at home), shop pavements, roadside operators. innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 13 according to kolstee, et al (1994) and matsebula (1996) the informal sector in zimbabwe is characterised by a diverse range of small-scale and micro-activities usually with no corresponding institutions such as banks and with none of opportunities for growth and accumulation, which typify formal small-scale enterprises. shinda, (1998) defines informal activities as economic activities not included in a nation’s data on gross domestic product and not subject to formal contracts, licensing, and taxation. these businesses generally rely on indigenous resources, small scale operations and unregulated competitive markets. in shinda’s simplification the concept most often the informal economy refers to owner/operator businesses of the urban poor, unskilled or semiskilled workers and the chronic unemployed. these workers and entrepreneurs are often on the fringe of, if not outside, social and fiscal legality. paradza, (1999) posits that the informal sector operations (isos) are all enterprises not registered under the companies act or cooperatives act and those which are not assessed for taxation by the central government. in zimbabwe as in any other economies in the world, the informal sector enterprises have characteristics including being family organised; being small and labour-intensive; being unregulated and subject to high level of competition; related directly and personally to their clients; using local materials and being efficient at recycling materials; experiencing a serious scarcity of capital and having access to credit from financial institutions; and being rarely recipients of government or foreign aid (dhemba, 1998). there are many different points of view from which one can observe the informal sector. it can be viewed in a positive way as a provider of employment and incomes to millions of people who would otherwise lack the means of survival (dhemba, 1998). it can be viewed more negatively as a whole segment of society that escaped regulation and protection. it can be romanticised as a breeding ground of entrepreneurship which could flourish if only it were not encumbered with a network of unnecessary regulation and bureaucracy. it can be condemned as a vast sea of backwardness, poverty, crime and unsanitary conditions. or it can simply be ignored.” overall, the informal sector has enabled a lot of people to make a living and to take care of their families. the challenges that women face in the informal sector need to be addressed but the only way that can be done are by understanding what it is (avolio, 2012). in zimbabwe, urban centres, with the increasing decay in the economy since the 1990s, women in the informal sector (wiis) have been growing by 14 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) leaps and bounds (cf. chirisa, 2009a, b, c). these have engaged in a number of informal activities ranging from manufacturing to marketing of different goods and services. the article seeks to establish an understanding of the wiis operations in a peri-urban setting. it highlights the diverse challenges they face every day in their trade and quest for household economic survival. the overall purpose of the paper is to try and inform policy on the astute role stakeholders have in creating better working environments especially for the women’s trading and business. thus, the paper attempts some classification of the challenges faced by women in peri-urban informal trading. it gives a description of the different working contexts and environments in which women operate and then examines the coping strategies they have adopted in order to adapt and circumvent to their challenges. furthermore a suggestion of recommendations for different stakeholders to improve the situation of women in peri-urban settlements is made. characterizing the study area and the research methodology the study sought to answer the following fundamental questions, namely: a) how are peri-urban women in the informal sector characterised in terms of age, sex, education, income and household expenditure, etc? b) in what places do these women operate? what are the environmental conditions of these operating places? c) what good and services do peri-urban women in the informal sector market and sell? d) what challenges (environmental, personal, health, social and institutional) do peri-urban women in the informal sector grapple with on a day-to-day basis? e) what coping strategies do the women have in terms survival and continuity in business? f) do the peri-urban women in the informal sector receive any support from the local authorities and related institutions? g) what are the major determinants for the perpetration of informal sector operations in the peri-urban and related spaces? h) what options are there to make the life of peri-urban women in the informal sector better? how can this be achieved. innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 15 in light of the foregoing questions, the research applied a mixed approach. the study involved some fieldwork in which women in the informal sector who are located in the periurban ruwa were targeted. it was not easy to determine the actual numbers in the streets and others operating at home. a total sample of forty (40) women fitting the following clustering was used. subjects were identified by way of random stratified sampling methods. at the end of the day they could be classified as: those operations on plot (in the housing perimeters); those operations away from home (off plot) and; those moving around with their goods (mobile). data was solicited via observations, interviews and questionnaires. observations were made being aided by photography. translation of questions on the questionnaires helped the respondents to understand issues better and respond from an ‘informed’ stage point. data recorded on questionnaires was later analysed by way of creating frequencies and turning them into tables. photographs were presented and also analysed. the study was faced with a number of dilemmas and the following are points are note worthy: fear of victimization expressed by the participants; and expectation to be paid by some participants for them to give out information. but the researcher had to explain that the research was conducted for academic purposes only. due to financial constraints, a sample was chosen as a refection of the outcome that could accrue a comprehensive study of the whole area. triangulating methods for study was useful in providing a better picture of the realities of women in the informal sector in ruwa. the paper is organised to consist of the following sections: the state of the informal sector and women in urban zimbabwe, research design and methodology, analysis of the research findings, coping strategies by women in ruwa, and conclusion and policy alternatives. these are analysed in keeping with the primary objective of the paper which is about characterising women in the informal sector (wiis) in periurban areas in relation to the challenges that they face. ruwa, a peri-urban town located twenty three kilometres from harare, the capital city of zimbabwe was taken for a study area. the area was an outstanding peri-urban farming zone, contributing a lot towards market gardening and other farming produce, especially for the benefit of harare. however, the farming function is gradually diminishing. to date the town has so developed to include upcoming large residential area estates including windsor park, ruwa, chipukutu, sunway city, springvale, riverside, zimre park, damofalls, and norah. this can be regarded as a 16 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) solid mark of the ecological footprint for the town. ruwa is situated along the harare-mutare road and the area also has a large industrial base supported by the existence of a railway line (botswana-bulawayo-gweruharare-mutare-mozambique). provision of infrastructure in the town is mainly private-sector-driven. ruwa was established as a growth point in 1986. a local board to manage it was appointed in 1991 by the government in accordance with the urban councils act. before 1991, the goromonzi rural district council and the urban development corporation (udcorp) jointly administered ruwa. women challenges in working in the streets as vendors a number of women in ruwa, like in most urban centres in the developing world, are currently involved in “petty commodity” production and trading (that is the selling of the sweets, vegetables and fruits marketing). this number continues to grow by day. they usually line up streets, street corners and pavements women as they trade. but some are hidden and operate at homes and other potential market zones. an examination of the diverse range of the goods and service they deal in shows that both consumable and non-consumables goods are sold. petty commodity dealing, prima face, is easy and cheap to venture into. however there are a plethora of challenges that trades have to battle with social, economic, physical and environmental. apparently in ruwa, like most urban centres in zimbabwe, hordes of women joining others on the street for the promotion of better livelihoods face these challenges almost on a daily basis. the paper provides some operational definitions in the study. for example, the informal sector has been taken to mean the production and marketing of goods and services outside the established formal sector (cf. paradza, 1999). petty commodities were defined as goods of a low profile, mainly convenient goods including fruit, vegetable and small items whose profit is very meagre, sometimes as little as us0,05 per item (brown, 2006). stakeholders refer to all people or actors that affect or are affected by the operations of an organization or entity of operations (in this case, women trying to organize themselves for production and marketing for as mainly as mainly a survival coping strategy). stigmatisation was taken to refer to the tendency of shunning or ostracizing certain groups of people by their noted misfit elements or characteristics. women engaged in the low profile innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 17 business are often stigmatised and associated with high levels of poverty or sometimes with bad practices like prostitution. lastly, the term working context narrowly refers to the place, location or site in which actors (in this case, women) work in (cf. suwal and pant, 2009). but, broadly it can cover the social, cultural, economic, political, institutional and psychological environments in which operators are exposed. figure 1: age structure of wiis in ruwa source:author important in understanding the issues regarding wiis in ruwa was a demographic analysis of the participants of the study the sample of 40 women randomly ‘picked’ from ruwa’s townships and locations. their age was in an almost proportional distribution with the least range being 10-14 years of age (figure 1). regarding marital status, the married constituted a large percentage of the research population (about 57%) and on average fitted in the ages of 21 to 40 years (figure 2). this showed that the population of women in the informal sector in ruwa is probably dominated by the married. those who are single (never married) followed at 10%. this may show a trend that perhaps women in these brackets could be supplementing their spouses’s salaries or have been recently out of school and found the informal sector as a ready employer, respectively. the remainder were found to fall in the bracket of widows and the separated. usually, these minorities have no option but to try and engage in the informal sector for them to be able to fend for their dependants and relations. the peri-urban areas are often cheaper than the centres hence most indicated that they had been attracted to ruwa because the centre provided 18 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) for them with a hub of reprieve from the ‘urban penalty’ of unaffordable rents and lack of spaciousness for certain ventures like practicing off-plot farming. as the majority of the spouses’ for the married wiis were establshed as not employed (figure 3)and this had resulted in the need to search for another means of income to sustain the family (figure 4). the single women stated that they were to make a living so they are able to sustain themselves and members of the extended family. figure 2: marital status of wiis in ruwa source:author figure 3: employment status of spouses of respondents source:author innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 19 the majority of those who had their husbands working had these husbands earning between $101 and $200 per month. probably most of these worked in the industrial location within ruwa or even in harare; some might have been in government as most government and industrial workers earned an average of $200 per month, at the time of the study, in february and march, 2010. figure 4: monthly earnings of spouses source: author regarding the period of stay in ruwa, most of the interviewed women (according to figure 5) had stayed in ruwa for over 7 years and have been in the trade (informal sector) for quite some time. to them the informal sector had created an opportunity for them to survive. they were more aware of the challenges that manifest in ruwa and which go with the trade and some indicated to have adjusted accordingly in keeping with their environment and market niche. those who were recently settled in ruwa (less than seven years) indicated that they had been ‘pushed to the periphery’ due to economic hardships that characterised the economy, beginning around 1997 and which became more vicious after operation murambatsvina in 2005. after operation murambatsvina, many households had nowhere to stay and some found ‘favour’ from reations in the diaspora who asked them to go and be stewards of their stands in ruwa where they were constructing houses. this was noted to be particularly true with the upcoming suburbs including zimre park, chipukutu, springvale, sunway 20 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) city, riverside and damofalls. a significant percentage of the residents indicated that they were keeping charge of the developments on the plots of their relatives staying out of the peri-urban town. some of the were either operating at home or in the streets. those operating at home, in the new suburbs, were maily of the steward type. figure 5: period of stay in ruwa by respondents source: author with respect to highest educational level attained, the majority of the respondents (63 %) indicated that they had gone to ordinary level. form the sample only one had managed to reach advanced level and had proceeded to get a marketing diploma (see figure 8). one of the embedded reasons for this lack of advancement of women in education could be probably attributed to the the patriachal nature of the zimbabwen society the male child is perceived more important than the female child. women are victims of this oppressive and cultural values. due to this position most women tend to have an underdog position in life: their aspirations are heckled at; opportunities for them are choked up and most never rise. this explanation was echoed by one twenty-seven year old woman who said: “my parents thought the modest destiny for my life was to get married. they gave first preference to my brothers for education. they told me that if they invested in my education that was tantamount to tying money to the leg of a leopard for the investment would benefit my husband’s family than mine. it is unfortunate that some families still wield this barbaric view and many girl children suffer the innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 21 same. now i am married and am a mother of two. i somewhat observe this favouritism even in my husband giving first preference to my two year old son. he identifies with him more than the girl. woe to us women…” figure 8: highest educational level attained by respondents source: author the level of education tends to determine one’s next level of training (ombati and ombati, 2012). the vast majority of the wiss was noted to be untrained potrayed by figure 9. apart from the inhibitive and financial constraints they faced, most indicated that they had managed to get to ordinary level but had failed at that level. most training colleges required that they had at least five ordinary level passes. those who had managed to get some training, it was ironic to note that they were not practicing in the areas they had trained – figures 9 and 10specifically secretarial, marketing and computing. one computing but single graduate noted: “jobs are few in the market. unless you get it by foul means, it is very difficult to get one. even if you decide to venture into computing business, it requires a large capital for equipment and day to day operation outlay and decent space to attract customers. in this place, how many people will have their papers typed. good business can only take place in the city centre. it is better for me to be out here and sell bread than to trouble myself getting to harare everyday”. 22 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) figure 9: professions of respondents source: according to the author findings very few (less than 20%) have used their training to make a living. of those who were previously employed most of them were either shop assistants/ sales women or they worked as secretaries. the rest worked as nurse aids, house maids, worked at a food outlet or were involved in poultry production. figure 10: past work experience of respondents source: according to the author findings innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 23 characteristics of the commodities and services by wiis in ruwa figure 6 shows the types of commodities sold by wiis in ruwa. these were noted to range from fruits and vegetables (required on a daily basis), to cooked food, to clothing, textiles and furniture (long range goods). others dealt in everything through purposeful diversification, as a way to capture the needs of a variety of customers and also to ensure a stable income in all periods of the day, months and seasons. due to the fact established that most of the respondents had many dependants that banked on them for support, they had to ensure that a stable income flow was at least established per day. although the majority indicated that they were just breaking even, they still kept on engaging in business lest they literally would collapse in income sourcing. respondents indicated that meeting the needs of dependants with whom they stayed was more demanding than those away as those they were with were part and parcel of their daily life profile (figure 7). convenient goods were the ‘cash cows’ for meeting daily needs. one lady had to remark: “as you just know, bread is needed daily and it brings some cash to take us to the next day, though it’s not much. it is unlike, these sandals; the market is flooded now and finding customers, even for these cheap goods, for only $3 per pair, can take you two weeks. i seldom worry about those dependants in the village. i only major in providing them with school fees and money for the gringing mill. for the rest, they grow crops and rear animals in the village. in fact, relative to mine, their life does not require much of cash. as for me, i have rent to pay, fares to pay, and mealie meal to buy. at least i can make money here though the road is tough”. 24 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) figure 6: types products that wiis in ruwa deal in. source: author figure 7: measuring number of dependants stayed with the total number of dependants by respondent source: author markets and transportation modes for wiis in ruwa figure 11 indicates that most of the respondents purchase their goods for resale at mbare musika, the largest wholesale market for fruits and vegetables in harare. it was learnt that other items are also bought in the harare central business district (cbd). as already highlighted ruwa is well served with road infrastructure and connected to this centre. goods sourced from the cbd include clothing, footwear and saloon materials. innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 25 wiis indicated that they used various modes of transport including midi-, mini and conventional buses. some indicated that they sometimes used rail transport, but very rarely (tables 1 and 2)2. from the surrounding farms in goromonzi district, the respondents buying farming products mentioned that they sometimes buy from these farms. however, they indicated that it was a good source market if one had own private vehice to ferry the goods. another source market was the long distance involving crossborder ventures. the conventional bus was the predominant mode of transport used. in essence, crossborder commodity sourcing requires substantial amounts of capital. south africa stood out as an outstanding source market compared to the other stated countries. this is capital that the majority of wiis do not have (see figure 11). figure 11: source markets of goods sold by respondents source: author 2 most of the women (23) were content with their transport arrangements and said that there were no difficulties that they faced when transporting their goods, this was largely because they got the transport they required right at the source market. those who felt that it was not that reliable complain about tyre punctures along the way. those who travelled across the borders complained of the long lines that were a characteristic of the borders and the duty that they had to pay which would make their goods expensive and thus reduce the profits the made. 26 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) table 1: mode of transport from market (n = 40) mode frequency percentage (%) train 1 2.5 walking 1 2.5 personal car 2 5.0 private delivery trucks 9 22.5 buses (min, midi & conventional) 30 75 none 1 2.5 table 2: degree of transport reliability (n=40) aspect frequency percentage (%) very reliable 23 57.5 reliable 8 20.0 not very reliable 8 20.0 not reliable at all 0 0.00 not applicable 2 5.0 source: according to the author findings income and expenditure for wiis in ruwa as figure 12 suggests, the majority of the women required $0 to $40 to be able to purchase the goods for resale. this, ipso facto was in reference to the local mbare and cbd source markets. very few were found needing more than $41 largely because of the products that they trade in. overall, the products they purchased required low capital but in the realities of the wiis in ruwa such an amount was not easy in having it ready in the coffers as well as maintaining the capital level. this is explained by the little sales sales of just above $40 a day, showing that not much profit was realised per day (figure 13). figure 14 highlights the difference in expenditure of the respondents. most used at least $5 a day for their daily expenses, which was for bread and transportation. saving money earned was difficlut among wiis unaccounted for household consumptions, wastefulness through rotting of perishables and expenditure.also, due to stiff competition among the women and other sellers in the same area and same markets, potential profits were to be shared among the players. innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 27 figure 12: money required when buying goods daily or episodically source: author figure13: possible sales per day by respondents source: author figure 14: household daily expenditure by respondents source: author 28 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) the amount that they used per month according to figure 15, exclude daily expenditure. monthly spending included rent, payment of bills (water and power). figure 15: household month-based expenditure by respondents source: author place-based considerations (working contexts) for wiis in ruwa table 3 highlights the reasons that influenced people to embark in the trade as well as the reasons they are working where they are. 61% of the respondents were attracted by the potential business in the area. the other 41% were looking for a livelihood. table 4 shows the different working contexts in image form. table 3: what attracted/pushed you here? reason frequency percentage (%) we lacked documentation for formal places 1 3 this place is confluent and central place. more customers 13 32 this place is busier than normal designated place 5 12 we were experiencing poverty at home; quest for livelihood 12 29 to supplement spouse's earnings 3 7 this place is recognized by council 5 12 other reasons 2 5 innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 29 the challenge that affected the respondents the most according to table 4 the police and regulators (council) who frequented their areas of trade. those who claimed that there were no problems could have been afraid of stating the problems or could not have understood the question. these challenges can be classified into the social, economic, physiological, political and environmental challenges. challenges in the informal sector that women in peri-urban areas face include water shortages, police and regulator harassment, lack of protection from the elements, family care burdens found at home. table 4: challenges faced when working (n=40)scoring based on the sample of the women surveyed aspect frequency percentage (%) conflict between police and regulators 12 30.0 african science (witchcraft) 3 7.5 gossip 1 2.5 disturbance by drunkards and busybodies 2 5.0 lack of shelter against weather elements 4 10.0 bad debtors 2 5.0 lack of change 2 5.0 rotting of vegetables before sale 2 5.0 presence of dogs on premises 1 2.5 strictness of landlord to allow customers in his stand 2 5.0 failure to pay city council rates 1 2.5 failure to make daily reasonable sales 1 2.5 few customers coming 2 5.0 water shortages 5 12.5 burden of domestic responsibility 1 2.5 none 11 27.5 source: author challenges in the informal sector that affected the women at home the most were because of the family care burden. illness, visitors and even house chores affected their attendance of work as they had to take care of the home first before going for work. those who stated that there were no challenges at home can only then be biased as they might not have taken into consideration the day to day expectations of the home (see table 5). 30 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) table 5: challenges faced by wiis at home aspect frequency percentage (%) water shortage 3 5.5 power shortage 2 5.0 landlord causing problems 2 5.0 family care burden 11 27.5 exhaustion from work 1 2.5 distance 1 2.5 none 23 57.5 source: author the women have experienced a lot of challenges that have affected their lives. the illnesses that they had affected their work as in some cases they would be forced to stay at home because they could not attend work (compare table 6). table 6: physiological challenges by wiis in ruwa aspect frequency percentage (%) stomach cramps 1 2.5 chronic headache 7 17.5 arthritis 5 12.5 fibroids 2 5.0 allergies 1 2.5 chest pain 5 12.5 hyper tension 2 5.0 heart disease 2 5.0 general illness 1 2.5 none 22 55 surgical operation 1 2.5 source: author coping strategies by women in ruwa coping strategies that the women had adopted included making sure that they had paid their ‘subscriptions’ so that they were not bothered by the police and other regulatory bodies. they had also built makeshift shelters to protect them against the elements. however some chose to run away from innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 31 the police when they saw them and go home once it started raining or got too cold. some of these tactics of a “guerrilla” type can disturb the flow of business. some respondents indicated that the council has tried to assist with building structures for them to operate them what the women could do is also come up with associations that would aim at improving their situations. as noted in table 7, wiis had adopted various coping strategies to enable them to adapt to the situation that they were in. these coping strategies have enabled them to continue with their business operations. table 7: coping strategies by wiis in ruwa (n=40) aspect frequency percentage (%) medical intervention 7 17.5 help from family members 3 7.5 avoid credit sales 1 2.5 makeshift shelters 4 10.0 rotational savings' clubs 2 5.0 tolerance 3 7.5 diversifying 1 2.5 getting a hawker's license 4 10.0 hiring a help 0 0.00 lobbying council to provide marketing place 2 5.0 lack of capital 1 2.5 none 15 37.5 source: author one way of coping with the challenges women faced daily in their operational environment as well as with the challenges at home was that of maintaining a ‘positive mind’ in themselves. this is some kind of a selfempowerment tool. wiis in ruwa made some suggestions which they said could also help other women facing the same challenges as they were. table 8 portrays the suggestions that the wiis had for other women who were in the same sector. 32 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) table 8: suggestions by wiis in ruwa to other women (n=40) suggestions to other women in the same sector frequency percentage (%) be self-reliant 15 37.5 adopt zero tolerance to gossip 1 2.5 persevere and endure in business and overcome your challenges 26 65.0 be confident 1 2.5 be diligent 1 2.5 mind your own business 2 5.0 encourage rotational savings' clubs 2 5.0 embark on a better business plan 2 5.0 young women should find something to do (work own hands) 1 2.5 diversify 2 5.0 self control and good conduct 2 5.0 avid practicing witchcraft 1 2.5 support each other, relations and spouses 1 2.5 seek training and perform better 1 2.5 be brave, take it as a challenge 3 7.5 reject products should be for home use 1 2.5 source: according to the author findings conclusion and policy alternatives informal sector players operate in a risky terrain one of lessons can be deduced from this study is that wiis operate in the streets, at home and even whilst walking from one place to the other. this is not an easy job given the challenges regarding each place’s need and demand. generally, wiis like men in the informal sector experience a lot of challenges in quest for household survival. despite these challenges they have come up with their own coping strategies that have enabled them to continue with their trade. life in the informal sector is not as easy as it seems. different stakeholders with respect to wiis could be having different views about them (including) their husband, the government, and human rights organisations. though the research period the following ideas can help in the improvement of the situation of actors in the informal sector, for instance, that: women can form associations (which can lobby for the recognition of the sector at the local level) and that could address their innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 33 situation as they know their position better; in organizing round tables they can also create a system that also enables them to better their situation by ensuring a formalized civic system to cushion them against certain challenges including the need for some kind of pension, medical bills and other key contribution for life assurance; and that, training should be done so that the women (as well as men) know how to carry out their business and make profits (this training has to be hands on and participatory). in general terms, women have more challenges than men. references [1] beatrice, a. 2012. “why women enter into entrepreneurship? an emerging conceptual framework based on the peruvian case.” journal of women entrepreneurship and education, 3-4: 43-63. [2] bibars, i. 2001. victims and heroines: women, welfare and the egyptian state, london: zed. [3] brown, a. (ed.) 2006. the contested space: street trading, public space and livelihoods in developing countries. itdg and cardiff university. [4] cals. 2005. pushed to the periphery, low-income residents in pietermaritzburg. south africa, cohre. [5] chen, martha. a. 2009. women in the informal sector: a global picture, the global movement. uk: raddiffe institute. [6] chirisa, i. 2009a. “prospects for the asset based community development approach in epworth and ruwa, zimbabwe: a housing and environmental perspective.” african journal of housing and culture, 1(2): 028-035. [7] chirisa, i. 2009b. informality, deceit and the conscience: survey on ethical dilemmas in harare. journal of sustainable development in africa, (2): 257280. [8] chirisa, i. 2009c. “the geography of informal sector operations (isos): a perspective of urban zimbabwe.” journal of geography and regional planning volume, 2(4): 066-079. [9] chirisa, i. 2009d. “peri-urban dynamics and regional planning in africa: implications for building healthy cities.” journal of african studies and development volume, 2(2): 015-026. [10] dhemba, j. 1998. “informal sector development: a strategy for alleviating urban poverty in zimbabwe.” journal of social development in africa, 14(2): 5-19. [11] financial gazette, 12 june 2002, zimbabwe, harare. [12] ludler, l. 1998. women in the informal sector in malaysia, malaysia: leedish. [13] matsebula, m.s. 1996. the urban informal sector: a historical and structural analysis with special reference to swaziland. harare: sapes books. [14] moghadam valentine m. 2005. the ‘feminization of poverty’ and women’s human rights. unesco: paris. 34 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) [15] ombati, v. and m. ombati. 2012. “gender inequality in education in subsaharan africa.” journal of women entrepreneurship and education, 3-4/2012: 114-136. [16] paradza, g. 2009. “the retail and service informal sector challenge to urban design in zimbabwe” in responsive design and plan implementation, ed. brown a and c davidson, cardiff: department of city and regional planning, cardiff university. [17] shinder, l. 1998. “zimbabwe’s informal sector, zimbabwe’s solution to joblessness may be underground business.” monthly labor review, 121(3): 7273. [18] suwal rudra and bishnu pant. 2009. „measuring informal sector economic activities in nepal.” paper prepared for the special iariw-saim conference on measuring the informal economy in developing countries, september 2326, 2009, kathmandu, nepal. [19] un united nations. 2000. household accounting experience in concepts and compilation, new york. kategorisanje žena angažovanih u neformalnom sektoru privređivanja i njihove borbe za preživljavanje: iskustva iz ruwa, zimbabve a p s t r a k t rad mapira izazove sa kojima se žene suočavaju u neformalnom sektoru u naseljima u nastajanju, uzimajući za primer grad ruwa koji se nalazi oko 20 kilometara od hararea, glavnog grada zimbabvea. studija obuhvata 40 žena ,angažovanih u neformalnom sektoru u trgovini različitim robama i uslugama sa ciljem da se prehrane u uslovima ograničenog tržišta rada, kao i nestabilnog makro-ekonomskog okruženja u urbanim centrima i zemlji u celini. za prikazivanje neformalnih aktivnosti žena u nekom naselju, koristi se metod slučajnog uzorka. pored toga, metode neslučajnog uzorkovanja primenjene su na neke od intervjuisanih ispitanika .na ovaj način, omogućeno je upoznavanje sa istinitim pričama,koje su žene tokom intervjua pominjale. na osnovu njih se može zaključiti da se u njihovoj borbi za preživljavanje, žene suočavaju sa brojnim izazovima zbog izloženosti različitim vremenskim uslovima (kiša, vetar i sunce), kod pružanja usluga, marketinga proizvoda i zakonskih propisa. s obzirom na makro-ekonomsku situaciju sa kojom se zemlja suočavala još od 2000. godine, neki od akcionara poput gradskog veća i privatnih aktera u naselju ruwa , našli su se u nezavidnoj innocent, c., characterising women, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 10-35) 35 situaciji kada je reč o ponudi usluga. takodje,industrijski i drugi sektori ,koji utiču na zapošljavanje nemaju dovoljno kapaciteta da prime nove radnike. uprkos ovoj “zamrznutoj” situaciji, zainteresovane strane, uključujući i žene u neformalnom sektoru, još uvek mogu da rade zajedno na stvaranju uslova za dijalog. kroz dijalog, moguće je da se formulišu strategije razvojnog lokalnog planiranja za smanjivanje siromaštva koje, između ostalog, mogu da se prilagode izazovima sa kojima se žene suočavaju iz prigradskih područja. u radu se zaključuje da je dobar pristup upravljanju neophodan za poboljšanje života žena u neformalnom sektoru u gradu ruwa i drugde. ključne reči: smanjenje siromaštva, unapređivanje rodne ravnopravnosti, institucije, politički dijalog, neformalni sektor article history: received: 21 september, 2012 accepted: 20 february, 2013 microsoft word 12 jwe 1-2.docx udc: 005.411(678) jel: b54,l26,o55 original scientific paper tanzanian education and entrepreneurial influence among females tanzanijsko obrazovanje i preduzetnička aktivnost žena nziku m dina, southampton solent university, great britain a b s t r a c t several approaches have been proposed by researchers to the economic empowerment of women. starting and sustaining an individual business is one of the strategies for the economic development of entrepreneurially-oriented females. this study evaluated the factors influencing entrepreneurial activities; there was a further ingoing examination of the impact of education on tanzanian females starting-up their own businesses. a total of 128 business women from makambako and njombe participated in the study, which primarily employed a questionnaire for data collection. findings indicated that the government policy, strategies and support for female entrepreneurs had little or no impact on their entrepreneurial motivation. in addition, the level of formal education that women attained was found to have little impact. it was found, however, that the kind of training a female entrepreneur underwent was the most important factor in the business start-up. thus, this study proposes that more effort should be put into practical and vocational training that has a direct impact on the kind of business that women can establish. kew words: female entrepreneurs, motivation, education, business start-up, tanzania nziku, m.d., tanzanian education, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 53 introduction various studies have found that female entrepreneurs play a crucial role in the development of the world economy (brush et al., 2006; de bruin et al., 2006, 2007; european commission, 2005). business women are becoming prominent as employers, customers, suppliers and competitors in the global economy (brush, 2010). according to the global entrepreneurship monitor (gem) in 2004, more than one third of people involved in entrepreneurial activities were women. in order to make business women more aware of the great contribution they make to economic development, it is important to stimulate, support and sustain their entrepreneurial dreams and efforts. education can be one of the critical tools for accomplishing this aim. several factors which influence the engagement of females in entrepreneurial activities have been cited (cooper, 1971). according to cooper (1971) the decision to become an entrepreneur (set up a new firm) is, in every sense, a strategic decision taken by the entrepreneurs themselves. this involves non-routine decisions to commit resources to the creation of a new business at a particular time and place. following cooper (1971) it is argued that the entrepreneurial influence for business start-up involves three major groups of factors: antecedent influence, incubator organisation, and environmental factors. the most common influences on entrepreneurial decisions are social and educational factors (gibb, 1993). following the research study by gibb (1993) it was found that social factors may involve personal background, family background, stage of career, early life experiences and environmental growth. kamal, et al. (2009) suggested that in certain contexts women may be more driven by social pressures; however, according to kirk and belovics (2006), women become entrepreneurs in order to balance their work and family life. a study undertaken in tanzania by olomi (2009) found that some tanzanians who initially went into business start-ups to survive and to enhance family security eventually became successful entrepreneurs. the majority of female entrepreneurs managed to run large enterprises while adopting/applying some proactive growth-seeking strategies (olomi, 2009). together with the above, educational factors contribute to women’s decisions to start a business and to their choice of entrepreneurial activity; journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 54 these factors include the level of education, kind of education (formal or informal), type of skills developed (vocational or academic) and the school environment (amelink and meszaros, 2011; rose et al., 2006). purpose of the study this study aims to evaluate the factors influencing the entrepreneurial activities of women, with further on going examination of the impact of education on tanzanian females starting-up their own businesses. the study examined various factors that influence women’s decisions to engage in entrepreneurial activities in general, and the educational factors (level of education, kind of education, skills developed and nature of training) that influence tanzanian women in business startups in particular. the study’s specific objectives are: − to investigate the entrepreneurial influence among tanzanian females. − to examine educational factors influencing business start-up among tanzanian female entrepreneurs. literature review within tanzania, women’s participation in the informal sector or cottage industry has increased significantly in both rural and urban areas (olomi, 2009). vending, petty trade, liquor-making, and vegetable selling are some of the most common employment activities undertaken by women (snyder, 2000). morris et al. (1996) suggest that, within developing countries, the “informal sector” plays a great role in facilitating economic development. their research indicated that the current employment growth in most developing economies (like tanzania) originates from the entrepreneurial sector of the economy. in many parts of the world this comprises the informal sector, which includes all the activities that fall outside the formal structure of registration, taxation, licencing and statistically documented (officially registered) business enterprises (morris et al., 1996). langowitz and minnitti (2007) found that female propensity to start new businesses is positively related to both their alertness to existing opportunities and self-assessment of having the relevant skills and nziku, m.d., tanzanian education, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 55 knowledge. according to cromie (1987) when considering their options of whether or not to become an entrepreneur, females are less concerned with making money and often choose entrepreneurship as a result of career dissatisfaction. this is due to the fact that female entrepreneurs see entrepreneurship as a means of simultaneously satisfying their own career needs, as well as the needs of their children and wider family (brush, 2010). langowitz and minnitti (2007) found that individuals with a high level of education are more likely to engage in entrepreneurship. it was also reported by wit and van winden (1989) that people with more work experience, a higher level of education, and greater knowledge of market and business practice are more likely to be able to identify an opportunity for starting a new business. from the argument above, the conclusion may be drawn that people with a lower level of education have greater difficulties in finding a paid job, so they are more likely to get involved in small business activities. bhola et al. (2006) noted that highly educated people are more likely to pursue opportunity-based ventures, while less educated entrepreneurs are more involved in necessity entrepreneurship; thus it follows that level of education can be a differentiating factor in the choice of entrepreneurial activity. the findings from the research studies which have been conducted within tanzania on smes show that the majority of tanzanians enter into small businesses because of a lack of adequate educational achievement, and difficulty in securing formal employment (kuzilwa, 2005; mfaume and leonard, 2004; olomi, 2001; rutashobya, 1995; toroka and wenga, 1997). this implies that the majority of sme operators, including tanzanian females, engage in smes as the last option available to them to earn their livelihood. most females within tanzania are constrained by lack of education and vocational training, business experience, discrimination, inadequate socialisation/networking and unwillingness to take risks (coleman, 2002; fielden et al., 2003; nchimbi, 2002). kaplan (1988) found that motivation to start-up new business ventures differed depending on the age of a woman business owner and the circumstances under which that business was founded specifically, whether the creation of the business represented job transition or re-entry into the workforce. in addition to the above notions, desire for greater flexibility, seeking challenges and escaping from organisational bureaucracy are also journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 56 influencing factors that lead females to start-up their own businesses (lee and rogoff, 1997). following studies by schwartz (1976), hisrich (1986) and scott (1986), the major entrepreneurial influences for females to startup a business were the need to achieve, the desire to control and be independent, the need for job satisfaction, and economic necessity. entrepreneurial activity arises from different circumstances as well as influences that drive the decision to start-up a business. the decision to become self employed may stem from the push effect of (the threat of) unemployment; but also it might be from the pull effect induced by a thriving economy which creates the entrepreneurial opportunities (kirkwood, 2009). according to reynolds et al. (2002), the opportunity entrepreneurs are more prevalent in high-income countries, while necessity entrepreneurs are more common in low-income countries. similarly, brush et al. (2010) argue that women in developed economies are more likely to start-up businesses when an opportunity arises, while those in less developed economies are mostly influenced by necessity. the majority of females in developed countries do not believe they have the skills and knowledge essential for starting new businesses; while females in developing countries appear confident that they have all the skills and knowledge to start a business, and tend to become involved in a wide variety of business activities (minnitti, 2003). in these developing countries women lack education and experience prior to start-up; while women in the developed countries are being provided with special entrepreneurship education from the education institutions within their countries (langowitz and minnitti, 2007). worldwide, unemployment rates are much higher, and the gender gap is lower, among women with tertiary qualifications (some up to college level) than among less educated women with access to more interesting and better paid occupations (minnitti, 2008; minniti and bygrave, 2003). women have made significant gains in higher-education enrolment in most regions of the world (langowitz and minnitti, 2007; minnitti, 2003). in the majority of high-income countries, the female labour force has a higher tendency to attain tertiary education than the male labour force (minnitti, 2003). in contrast, in low-income countries, although the gender gap in primary and secondary schools is closing, women still lag behind men in some of the developing countries (langowitz and minnitti, 2007; minnitti, 2003). nziku, m.d., tanzanian education, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 57 education as the motivating factor for female entrepreneurship several earlier studies found that demographic characteristics, such as age and gender, and individual background, such as education and work experience, had an impact on entrepreneurial intention and endeavour (kolvereid, 1996; mazzarol et al., 1999). minniti and bygrave (2003), however, argued that people with higher levels of education are not necessarily more entrepreneurial. a study undertaken by charney and libecap (2000) found that entrepreneurship education produces self-sufficient enterprising individuals. furthermore, they found that entrepreneurship education increases the formation of new ventures, the likelihood of developing new products, and the likelihood of self-employed graduates owning a hightechnology business. also, charney and libecap’s (2000) study revealed that entrepreneurship education of employees increases the sales growth rates of emerging firms. similarly, sinha (1996) analysed the educational background of the entrepreneur and revealed that 72% of the successful entrepreneurs had a minimum level of a technical qualification, whereas almost 67% of the unsuccessful entrepreneurs did not have any technical background. sinha (1996) concluded that entrepreneurs with business and technical educational backgrounds are in a better position to appreciate and analyse hard reality and deal with it intuitively, which seems to play a critical role in entrepreneurial effectiveness. this is supported by panda (2001; in rose et al., 2006); that education and previous experience leads to entrepreneurial success. previous occupational background greatly influences the entrepreneurial venture, whereby the entrepreneur is able to bring all their knowledge and experience to the new business. in a study conducted in nepal, thapa (2007) found that education has a very positive effect on entrepreneurial success. likewise, indarti and langenverg (2004), in their study within indonesia, found that education of the entrepreneurs had a very significant positive relationship with business start-up as well as growth and success. cooper (1985) stated that factors like experience/occupational background of the entrepreneurs, family members, skills, knowledge, role models, support and the economic condition of the entrepreneurs, access to capital and the like were some of the factors influencing the decision to journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 58 become an entrepreneur. according to cooper (1971), education, knowledge and skills were also found to be among the major factors which drive the motivation of entrepreneurs. similarly, hisrich (1990) and krueger (1993) also stated that the human capital elements such as education, training, skills and experience make a positive contribution towards business start-ups. correspondingly, lussiers and pfeifer (2001) further argued that entrepreneurs with higher levels of education and experience had greater chances of growing and succeeding in business activities than people without education and experience. mehralizadeh and sajady (2006) stated that the success of the business depends on the prevailing socio-economic factors such as education, skills, and training. in the same way, rose et al. (2006) have also found that skill, education and experiences, as well as financial support, are some of the major factors affecting the entrepreneurial motivation for start-ups and growth. the cibc world markets inc. (2004) stated that high levels of education, role models, and ownership of the business are some of the major factors for the growth of revenue in the small business. in a study within kerala, raman (2004) found that factors influencing business start-up were largely due to factors such as initiatives, third party assistance, encouragement by family and friends, skill and experiences, and the need for independence. in the same way, swinney and runyan (2007) stated that generating income, creating jobs for themselves and support from family and friends were the leading factors influencing people to become successful entrepreneurs. it is in this context that the study made attempts to contribute to knowledge of the links between education, motivation and business start-up among women in the developing world. research methods the study involved 128 small-scale business women from makambako and njombe townships in tanzania. the research sample consisted of the participants who were engaged in various retail businesses such as sewing/knitting, selling fish, vegetables, fruits and food, and other forms of petty business/vending activities within both makambako and njombe open markets. an opportunity sampling approach was used to recruit the participants for this study. in this approach, the study and its nziku, m.d., tanzanian education, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 59 purpose were introduced to all the members of the social networking group known as the kirama group during their monthly meeting. the kirama group is an informal group locally formed for the purpose of social networking and communicating, as well as helping and supporting members in different social situations such as sickness, funerals and wedding ceremonies. the participants in the study were of the following age ranges: 6.3% were less than 20 years, 32.8% were aged between 21 and 30 years; 46.1% of the participants were aged between 31 and 40; 8.6% were between 41 and50 and 1.6% were aged 51 and above. the majority of these women were separated (54.7%), followed by those who had not married (30.5%). there were also widowed (8.6%), divorced (3.1%) and married (3.1%) participants. due to social demographics and tanzanian culture, most of the single parents (mothers) and unmarried women are the ones who run their own businesses, as the majority of married females tend to operate within family-owned businesses. all the females in the sample surveyed are engaged in different entrepreneurial activities as shown in table 1. table 1: business activities operated by females. frequency percent agriculture 14 10.9 construction 1 0.8 wholesale 16 12.5 retail 90 70.3 service/salon 6 4.7 professional services 1 0.8 total 128 100.0 instrument mainly, one research instrument was used to collect data; a questionnaire which comprised of close-ended questions. the choice to use the questionnaire was made based on the mapping of various research studies and the literature review, but modifications were made to some questions in order to fit with the context of this study. information related to educational factors influencing women’s start-up in business was gathered through the questionnaire. the questionnaire had a five-point journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 60 likert scale ranking, where 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral (undecided), 4 = agree and 5 = strongly agree. the questionnaires were administered in the kiswahili language so as to obtain richer information based on a language that was clear to all the study participants. questionnaires business women who attended their local informal networking group monthly meeting and expressed their willingness to participate in the study after being introduced by their leaders were all included in this study. therefore, all participants who were interested in participating in the study at makambako and njombe were first given an introduction regarding the research study by letter which was sent to one member among them, who then introduced it to the group’s chairlady. the questionnaires were then filled out the same day at the end of the normal monthly meeting. findings the purpose of this study was to investigate factors influencing business start-up among women entrepreneurs in makambako and njombe in tanzania. in this paper the researcher has described the general factors that influence business start-up decisions, and the educational factors influencing the decision to start-up businesses among females from makambako and njombe townships. the general factors influencing entrepreneurial decision are classfied into personal factors (antecedent), previous organisation/activities that an entrepreneur had engaged in (incubator organisations), and government support (environmental factors) for the entrepreneurs. factors influencing business start-up among tanzanian females findings have shown that women could engage in business if there was an assurance of market, and access to capital (table 2). nziku, m.d., tanzanian education, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 61 table 2: general factors influencing females to start-up own business. n m sd accessibility of market/customers 128 4.09 0.318 the availability of microfinance institutions like saccoss, wdf and the like 128 4.13 0.376 the presence of many successful business women in my area 128 2.96 0.926 the economic conditions of my local area 128 3.06 0.612 the support from the local government 128 1.46 0.500 the availability of support from the central government 128 1.31 0.599 the availability and accessibility of venture capital for business start-up 128 2.52 1.386 as indicated in table 2 above, women in the township of njombe and makambako agreed that accessibility to the market and availability of microfinance institutions like saving and crediting cooperative societies (saccos) were important factors influencing their decision tostart-up a business. results further indicate that support from central and local government have the lowest mean values, whereas availability of venture capital and role models (successful business women) had little impact on business start-up. in addition, the majority of respondents were neutral about the economic conditions of their local areas. this might further imply that business women in njombe and makambako were not sure whether the economic condition of their area had any influence on their business start-up decision. incubator organisation motivation for business start-up is also influenced by the history of the responsible entrepreneur (incubator organisations); that is, previous employment, experience, support network (friends) and skills or training that were acquired before business start-up (table 3). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 62 table 3: incubator organisation influencing female business start-up n m sd i had some experience in a small business setting 128 1.80 0.404 my former job influenced me to start-up my own business 128 1.40 0.714 i was redundant and i had to create my own job 128 2.25 0.996 i had good contact with fellow founders who were former colleagues 128 1.91 0.778 i had good contact with the public (suppliers and customers) 128 3.93 0.666 i had the right skills and experience 128 4.08 0.659 the geographical location of where i was working has influenced me to start-up the business 128 1.85 1.058 entrepreneurial women from the njombe and makambako townships have indicated that the right skills and experiences gained through formal and informal training were crucial to their decision to start-ups (table 3). they further indicated that prior good contacts with potential customers and suppliers also influenced their decision to start-up their own business; however, the findings in this study have shown that previous business experience, employment history, geographical location and contacts with fellow founders had little influence. this may be due to the fact that most of these female entrepreneurs have not attained a sufficient level of education to secure any formal employment. government support the govenment as the main player in the economic development of individuals and the nation at large has the role of addressing the general constraints involved, as well as the opportunities that can be used by entrepreneurs to advance their economic well being. this study evaluated the influence of some tanzanian policies, national development programmes and government strategies to overcome poverty among female entrepreneurs in njombe and makambako (table 4). nziku, m.d., tanzanian education, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 63 table 4: government policy, strategies and support n m sd there are specific policies for promoting entrepreneurship activities in tanzania 128 2.59 0.58 normally entrepreneurship policy differentiates between medium and small business start-up 128 2.64 0.73 i know the ministry/agency and public institutions which are responsible for entrepreneurship 128 2.52 0.61 there are deliberate strategies for promoting entrepreneurship in tanzania 128 2.23 0.91 there are some government efforts towards tracking entrepreneurship activities 128 2.54 0.63 tanzania’s government helps entrepreneurs to network with other entrepreneurs 128 2.43 0.60 as indicated in table 4, female entrepreneurs in njombe and makambako townships, tanzania have indicated that government policies and strategies have not contributed to their decision to start-up or grow the existing business. all items related to the government support and strategies had mean values below the average. the overall mean for the impact of government support was 2.6 with a standard deviation of 0.44, which was below the average in a five-point likert scale. personal factors results indicate that in all cases, business start-up was influenced by inherent factors within an individual; for example, career experience, education/knowledge/vocational skills, family background, inheritance and personal influence (table 5). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 64 table 5: personal factors influencing business start-up n m sd my previous career experiences influenced my business choice 128 2.42 1.45 my educational background influenced my business choice 128 4.08 0.66 i was influenced by my own family to go into business 128 4.10 0.65 i inherited an entrepreneurial spirit from my parents who run a business 128 3.08 0.66 my instinct was always to become a business woman 128 2.07 0.94 findings displayed in table 5 indicate that educational background and family issues had a higher influence on female business start-ups. the majority of respondents were neutral about the inheritance of entrepreneurial spirit from parents who run business activities. in addition, career experiences and instinct to become business women had little influence on a female’s decision to start-up a business. educational factors influencing business start-up a range of educational factors were assessed, such as level of education, formal or informal training, and how some of the trainingrelated factors have had an influence on business start-up e among female entrepreneurs from the makambako and njombe townships in tanzania. level of education in this study the researcher was interested in examining how the level of education of participants influenced their decision to start-up a business. the study concentrated on women who were running small-scale businesses; thus it is important to assess their educational level so as to establish the factors that influenced them to start-up a business. different levels of education were assessed; informal training, standard seven (certificate of primary education), form four (certificate of secondary education examination), form six (advanced certificate of secondary education examination) and post secondary education (table 6). nziku, m.d., tanzanian education, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 65 table 6: female entrepreneurs’ level of education frequeny percent 1. non-formal education 23 18.0 2. standard seven 83 64.8 3. secondary o level 21 16.4 4. secondary a level 1 0.8 total 128 100 table 6 above shows that more than 80% of the participants had received no more than a primary school education, about 16% attended secondary education and only 0.8% from the sample had attained an advanced level of secondary education. kind of training received in describing various educational factors that are likely to have an influence on the women’s decision to run small businesses, the kind of training that businesswomen received was found to be important. in tanzania there are different kinds of trainings that few women were found to have achieved from either attending formal vocational training centres or through some informal practical training/induction from fellow women, or informal networking and religious groups (table 7). table 7: kind of training programme that business women have attended frequency percent 1. mechanics 1 0.8 2. electrical engineering 1 0.8 3. carpentry 1 0.8 4. cookery 29 22.7 5. handicrafts 86 67.2 6. painting 5 3.9 7. plumbing 5 3.9 total 128 100 as indicated in table 7, the majority of the respondents who had engaged in various business activities had attended at least handicrafts and journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 66 cookery training. few had attended painting and plumbing training while only three (one in each) had attended training in mechanics, electrical engineering and carpentry. the handicraft and cookery training included both formal and informal training. the majority of the business women in makambako and njombe reported to have participated in at least informal training relating to the kind of business that they were operating. these were mainly through face-to-face practical training sessions which were offered within their own informal networks (therebykirama group) as well as from friends and neighbours. how do different educational factors influence the start-up decision of business women? each of the educational factors level of education, access to information, kind of training attained and opportunity for training that women obtained was reported to have influenced them to start-up a business (table 8). table 8: educational factors influencing business start-ups n m sd 1. my vocational training background contributed a lot towards my start-up and growth 128 4.08 0.66 2. there are support groups which provide training for women’s entrepreneurship education/skills development 128 4.02 0.60 3. the education i undertook has contributed significantly to my current business 128 3.43 0.68 4. i had informal training regarding the entrepreneurshuip programme i have engaged in 128 4.36 0.70 5. there are information centres where entrepreneurs can receive business advice and support 128 4.20 0.40 6. i have access to some business information through media within my geographical area 128 4.41 0.62 two factors were found to have the highest mean values regarding educational factors influencing women to start-up business. these were the nziku, m.d., tanzanian education, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 67 kind of training and access to information regarding the kind of business they engaged in. however, other educational factors showed means above the average.this indicates that the level of (formal) education that one attained made a very limited contribution to business start-up rather than practical training and skills. the relationship between educational factors and other factors different factors have been discussed in this study and found to contribute in influencing women’s decision to start-up a business. the researcher has so far discussed the general factors influencing such decisions, as well as the educational factors which had an influence. a correlational analysis to determine the way each factor influences others was carried out. educational factors were directly related to women’s background which was found to have a direct impact on entrepreneurial decision, and a positive correlation was also found between background experience and motivational factors, as well as background experience and personal factors. both government policy and national strategies had a negative correlation with other motivational factors. these findings suggest that the tanzanian government’s efforts to develop female entrepreneurs are not effective or have little influence on the women’s decisions to start-up a business. additionally, national strategies and general support had a positive correlation with personal factors that were influencing females’ business start-ups. research limitations/implications questionnaires were mainly distributed in makambako and njombe townships. in order to obtain a clear picture of factors influencing tanzanian women's decision to start their own businesses as well as examining educational factors towards their start-up, more opinions and views of a greater sample from other townships and regions need to be collected and analysed. the questionnaire sample survey targeted female entrepreneurs only, in order to obtain more ideas on the topic; future studies should also focus on tanzanian females who have chosen not to start their own business. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 68 conclusions and discussion the purpose of this study was to investigate the influences on entrepreneurial decisions among tanzanian females. two research objectives were addressed in this study; the first investigated the general factors influencing entrepreneurial decision to start-up, and the second examined educational factors influencing business start-ups among tanzanian business women. findings have revealed that tanzanian government policies and national strategies have had very little or no impact on the women’s decisions to start-up their own businesses. the majority of women, particularly those who were running micro-enterprises, had no idea about the government policies and strategies regarding their entrepreneurial development. however, female enterpreneurs agreed that the presence of micro-economic institutions such as saccos were important for their decision to start-up businesses. these microfinance/economic institutions were established as part of government policy to support micro-scale economic development programmes (redet, 2008). given this view of the female entrepreneurs, it can be argued that female entrepreneurs in makambako and njombe are not aware of the efforts by their government in supporting their business activities. thus, it is crucial for the government and other economic development agencies in tanzania to provide education/awareness to its citizens regarding government policies, strategies and development programmes related to women’s entrepreneurship. other influencing factors that were found to contribute towards entrepreneurial decision were the availability of market and the kind of business skills and knowledge that female entrepreneurs had. presence of the skills and knowledge related to the production of an item that was demanded in a given place was found to be important in determining the likelihood that a woman would, or would not, start-up a business. findings regarding educational factors influencing women’s decision to participate in entrepreneurial activities showed that level of education was a low determinant of business start-up; rather, the kind of training one had attended/received had greater impact on women’s start-up decisions. going or not going to school was found to make a smaller contribution to business start-up decisions, as the majority of business women had either never been to school, or were not even standard seven leavers (primary nziku, m.d., tanzanian education, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 69 school education in tanzania). very few business women were secondary education leavers, with only one graduate of advanced secondary education being found within the sample surveyed. however, despite the majority of the participants being standard seven leavers or non educated (formally), they had undergone both informal and formal technical training. most of the women entrepreneurs were basket makers, potters, salon owners, weavers, gardeners, and bakers. participants indicated that their businesses were highly related to the kind of knowledge and skills that they had gained after rather than during formal education. participants from primary schools and high level of education (secondary or university education) were engaging in paid employment jobs rather than private entrepreneurial programmes (small businesses). this suggests that the entrepreneurial development programmes should focus on developing specific entrepreneurial skills amongst those people who did not manage to receive formal training. informal training has been particularly effective in the development of some entrepreneurial skills and has had an influence on business start-up among female entrepreneurs in tanzania. women who received informal training about poultry, gardening, weaving and the like from peers, parents or social groups, embraced an effective use of this knowledge for their entrepreneurial development. however, this does not mean that formal training is not important; instead, it is argued that those who missed the opportunity to attend formal training should be provided with an opportunity to learn through informal training. in this regard, government and non-governmental organisations should support informal training programmes through social groups and religious organisations which have been found to be pioneers in providing such education to the marginalised groups in tanzania. in addition, it is recommended that government and nongovernmental organisations should provide support for networking programmes 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(2010) “factors influencing the entrepreneurial engagement of opportunity and necessity entrepreneurs,” scientific analysis of entrepreneurship and smes, eim research reports, h201011, march 2010, 1-24 nziku, m.d., tanzanian education, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 52-73) 73 a p s t r a k t postoji nekoliko pristupa, predloženih od strane istraživača, za ekonomsko osnaživanje žena. pokretanje i održavanje sopstvenog biznisa je jedna od strategija za ekonomski razvoj žena orijentisanih ka preduzetništvu. ova studija procenjuje faktore koji utiču na preduzetničke aktivnosti i ispituje značaj obuke na žene ,koje žele da pokrenu svoj biznis u tanzaniji. ukupno je kod popunjavanja upitnika učestvovalo 128 žena-preduzetnika iz makambau-a i njombe-a. rezultati pokazuju da politika vlasti, strategije i podrška ženskim preduzetnicima imaju mali, ili nikakav uticaj. pored toga, stepen formalnog obrazovanja koje su posedovale ove žene je imao takodje neznatan uticaj.utvrđeno je, međutim, da je vrsta obuke preduzetnica najbitniji faktor kod započinjanja biznisa. shodno tome, ova studija predlaže da treba više napora uložiti u stručnu i praktičnu obuku, koja će imati direktan uticaj na vrstu posla, koji žene žele da započnu ključne reči: žene preduzetnici, motivacija, edukacija, pokretanje biznisa, tanzanija article history: received: 25 may 2011 revised: 21 january 2012 accepted: 24 february 2012 17_jwe_1-2 udc: 338.121(540) 005.332:334.722-055.2 jel: l26, j16, o10 cobiss.sr-id: 238902028 original scientific paper contributions made by women entrepreneurs in augmenting socioregional-economic growth of emerging market economy reena agrawal1 jaipuria institute of management, lucknow, india a b s t r a c t women entrepreneurs have played significant role in the worldwide pursuit for sustained economic development and social progress. despite all the hurdles, women stood tall and are applauded for their achievements in their respective field. in this context the current study was taken up to (1) review the relevance of women entrepreneurship, (2) examine the contribution made by the women entrepreneurs` in the social and regional development and (3) explore the role played by the women entrepreneurs` in economic development. the aim was to investigate the working of eighteen women entrepreneurs working in uttar pradesh, the most populous state of the republic of india, who have provided employment to hundreds of illiterate, un-skilled, unemployable and under privileged women living in poverty conditions in their local community. the objective was to analyze their contribution towards the society, region and economy. it will also motivate and inspire others to replicate such businesses in their regions. the study aims to provide useful insights to the potential entrepreneurs, policy makers and other stakeholders to evolve mechanism to 1 jaipuria institute of management, vineet khand, gomti nagar, lucknow-226010 (india), email: reena.agarwal@jaipuria.ac.in 88 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 87-100) promote employment generation, poverty alleviation, and socio-economic empowerment at the grass root level, to stimulate inclusive growth. key words: women entrepreneurship, socio-economic empowerment, social development, regional development, economic growth introduction entrepreneurial activities influence economic growth and development (naude, 2008). the global entrepreneurship monitor (1999) argues that there are substantial evidence of positive relation between high rate of entrepreneurial activities and economic growth. entrepreneurship creates wealth, utilizes local resources, creates employment opportunities and has potential to reduce poverty. entrepreneurship has been recognized as engine of economic growth (josiane, 1998; galbraith, 2008). the significance of entrepreneurship incorporation in the people of a nation cannot be over stressed particularly, women who are not substantially appreciated for developing economies. women play crucial and vibrant roles in economic life, they easily adapt to change and are highly innovative. as agents of change and development, women entrepreneurs play significant role in all societies, both in formal and informal sector. women have gained substantial significance in the socio-economic growth of not only the developed economies but also the developing economies, because they constitute substantial share of micro, small and medium enterprises (kjeldsen and nielson, 2000). objective of the study women entrepreneurs have played significant role in the worldwide pursuit for sustained economic development and social progress. despite all the hurdles, women stood tall and are applauded for their achievements in their respective field. in this context the current study was taken up to (1) review the relevance of women entrepreneurship, (2) examine the contribution made by the women entrepreneurs` in the social and regional development and (3) explore the role played by the women entrepreneurs` in economic development. the aim was to investigate the working of eighteen women entrepreneurs working in different areas of uttar pradesh (india), who have created employment opportunities for the people, especially agrawal, r., contributions made by women, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 87-100) 89 women, living at grass root level and analyze their contribution towards the society, region and economy. research methodology an empirical research was conducted to find out the contributions made by women entrepreneurs to the emerging economy. interviews were conducted with eighteen women entrepreneurs who are involved in the manufacturing of jute bags and other jute products, home-made traditional snacks, pickles, spices, embroidered clothes, bedsheets, doormats, handicrafts and pottery items etc. in different areas of uttar pradesh (india), the most populous state in the republic of india. these entrepreneurs have provided employment to hundreds of illiterate, un-skilled, unemployable and under privileged women living in poverty conditions in their local community. some of the questions put forth to these women entrepreneurs were: (1) what motivated you to start a venture of your own? (2) from where did you arrange the necessary funds to start your venture and the other vital resources to run your business? (3) why did you choose the specific business idea which you are pursuing? (4) what was the basic objective of initiating such a venture? (5) do you feel that you have been able to attain your objective? (6) from where do you arrange your necessary resources such as raw material, human resource, funds, etc.? (7) what type of people do you employ in your organization? (8) what impact have you been successful in creating on the people and the region? the employees working in those enterprises and the local residents were also asked questions to validate the findings. the questions asked to them include the following: (1) what is the education and skill that you have? (2) are there enough employment opportunities for you in your region? (3) before you joined this organization what work did you do? (4) why did you join this organization? (5) is this organization doing any good to you and your family? (6) do you think there should be more such organizations in your region? and why? the above mentioned questions helped us to understand the vision and mission with which these women entrepreneurs started their venture. it also helped us to find out that how they arranged their funds and other necessary resources, whether their initiatives empowered the people living at grass root level, improved their standard of living, enhanced their social wellbeing, whether they were able to prevent people from migrating to 90 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 87-100) neighboring regions in search of jobs, what impacts were created by their ventures on the local residents, the region and the economy. the secondary data was collected from journals, reports of government and private agencies, surveys, and websites. research implication the study aims to provide useful insights to the potential entrepreneurs, policy makers and other stakeholders to evolve mechanism to boost employment generation, poverty alleviation, and socio-economic empowerment at the grass root level, to stimulate inclusive growth. it will also motivate and inspire other women to replicate such business their regions. the study shall provide food for thought to the academicians and researchers, who can design future studies to scrutinize the effect of women entrepreneurship on reduction of poverty, social well-being and inclusive growth. theoretical framework boettke et. al., (2009) stated that growth of economy will be restrained if entrepreneurs are not encouraged, as development of entrepreneurship is a global phenomenon for poverty alleviation. worldwide women constitute nearly half the population, and they can be a strong resource for sustainable socio-economic development (iheduru, 2007). earlier studies emphasized there existed intricate relationship between the domestic responsibilities of women and their inherent potential to be successful in business (boserup, 1970; boulding, 1983; dube, 1997). thus women entrepreneurs must be constructively engaged in meaningful economic growth. research have shown that women entrepreneurs are no different from men entrepreneurs (birley, 1989; bonte et. al., 2007). according to jeminiwa (1995), women are the soul of economic growth and development, as they are involved in agriculture, trading, and micro business unit. nongbri (2008) stated that women do not lack in communication or the ability to carry out their entrepreneurial tasks. if given the opportunity women can contribute more meaningfully to the greater economic development in the area (hisrich and brush, 1987; birley, 1989; manimala, 1999; kuratko and hodgetts, 2007; zimmerman et. al., 2009). agrawal, r., contributions made by women, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 87-100) 91 women entrepreneurship plays a significant role within the context of socio-economic development (allen et. al., 2007). women are crucial for overall wealth creation and creation of employment in all economies (brush et. al., 2006). many studies indicated the prominent role women entrepreneurship played in reduction of poverty (yunus, 2007) and emphasized the profound impact it had on local communities and surroundings (court, 2012). women owned businesses increased substantially in the economies across the world. the hidden entrepreneurial potential of women has gradually grown, with the increasing sensitivity to their significant contribution to the society and the economy (holt, 2006; acs, 2006; ghatak et al, 2007). skill, knowledge and adaptability were the foremost reasons for women to emerge in commercial ventures (hanushek and woessman, 2008). women entrepreneurs made a significant contribution to national economies through their participation in start-ups and their growth in micro, small and medium businesses. global entrepreneurship monitor (gem) 2005 confirmed that women across the world, took part in a wide ranging entrepreneurial initiatives and their actions resulted in establishment of numerous business enterprises, for wealth creation and generation of jobs. the role of entrepreneurs as agents for resource utilization, wealth creation, job creation, alleviation of poverty and development of human capital enormously increased the number of women owned ventures across the world (ojo, 2006; united nations, 2006). the impact of women entrepreneurship on economic development process has often been evaluated in terms of gross domestic product and per capita dynamics (fuller-love, 2008; minniti, 2010; bahmani-oskooee et al. 2012). women entrepreneurship contributed more than fifty percent to gross domestic product (gdp) of most nations both developed and less developed (ojo, 2006). a research by the centre for women’s business research in 2009, having a sample of eight million women-owned enterprises, revealed that their projected economic impact amounted to usd three trillion per year, which created more than twenty three million jobs. in 2010, over one hundred and four million women in fifty nine countries established new ventures and created employment in labour markets (kelly et. al., 2011). increased participation of women entrepreneurs has positive impact to a country`s gross domestic product (kantor, 1999). according to kerta, (1993) it was statistically proven, that more than thirty percent of the 92 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 87-100) contributions of a country`s gross domestic product, comes from women that are self-employed in micro and small sized enterprises. nobel laureate, muhammad yunus, founder of grameen bank, stated that income proves to be the best medicine for people living at grass root level. women owned businesses generate income which support their households and improve their family welfare (thomson, 2002). women support themselves and their families through the returns they generate from their entrepreneurial deeds (kantor, 1999). as steinem (1992) noted, women entrepreneurs tend to take a holistic approach to life, they try to balance work, family, economic, and cultural values. they integrate economic techniques in existing social network. women have access to and control over income and working conditions. this empowered them and encouraged their involvement and participation in economic, social and political activities. this has resulted in reducing gender inequality and discrimination especially in the labour market. self-employment and entrepreneurship, helped women to gain confidence, self-esteem and decision-making experience, leading to greater control over their lives in social, economic and political spheres (kantor, 1999). findings the interactions and discussions with the women entrepreneurs, revealed that all these women entrepreneurs were the ones who observed that a large number of women living at the grass root level, were uneducated, un-skilled, unemployable and they lived in extreme poverty. these women entrepreneurs tried to identify such ventures which would be able to absorb such women in job. these women entrepreneurs analyzed that even though a woman may be illiterate still she would know how to cook food, do basic stitching and embroidery, and this encouraged these women entrepreneurs to establish different types of manufacturing units in their backyards and garages, at micro levels. they established manufacturing units to produce jute bags and jute products, home-made traditional snacks, pickles, spices, embroidered clothes, bedsheets, doormats, handicrafts and pottery items etc. this not only helped the underprivileged women to become employable and financially independent, but also helped them to gain self-confidence, self-esteem, ability to take decision, and this leads them to take greater control over their lives in social and economic domains. agrawal, r., contributions made by women, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 87-100) 93 it was also observed that women entrepreneurs laid special stress on the family welfare of their employees. they educated the staff about health and hygiene, rendered support for the education of their employees` wards and gave medical re-imbursements etc. the improved level of earnings gave socio-economic empowerment to the women at grass root level. they could use the basic amenities and public utilities and enjoy improved standard of living. through these projects employment opportunities were generated in the semi-urban and rural regions, which helped in checking rural emigration and undesirable urbanization and resulted in boosting balanced regional growth. the research also showed that the women entrepreneurs mostly set up micro and small enterprises, which required low capital and usually utilized untapped indigenous resources. their entrepreneurial initiatives lead to value addition and creation of wealth, which is very crucial for the development of regional economies. women entrepreneurs not only created large-scale direct employment opportunities for the people, especially women, living at grass root level but also generated indirect employment opportunities for other local residents in the region. discussion in this research the contributions made by these women entrepreneurs were studied in three different dimensions, that is, in the perspective of the society, region and economy (figure 1). 94 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 87-100) figure 1: contribution made by women entrepreneurs in the socioregional-economic growth of emerging market economy social development: i. poverty alleviation: the women entrepreneurs created employment opportunities for under privileged women living in poverty condition in the society, largely regarded as unemployable, and thus helped in poverty mitigation. ii. improvement in standard of living: livelihood generated by these women entrepreneurs enabled people living at the grass root level to avail basic necessities of life which consequently resulted in improvement of their standard of living. iii. socio-economic empowerment: as women entrepreneurs were holistic in their approach they not only created job opportunities but also made their employees understand the relevance of savings, hygiene, physical wellness and education. this socio agrawal, r., contributions made by women, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 87-100) 95 economic integration helped the people living at the grass root level, to join the mainstream, boosted their self-esteem and confidence and provided a sense of financial independence and security. iv. engine of social well-being: women entrepreneurs’ fuelled prosperity, which in turn improved health, nutrition, family welfare and social well-being of the people living at the grass root level. the all india report of 6th economic survey, government of india which stated, that the total number of persons employed in establishments owned by women was 13.45 million. further, 8.2 million (61.46%) persons were employed in establishments located in rural areas and 5.18 million (38.54 %) in establishments located in urban areas, ratifies the above observations. regional development: i. utilization of local resources: these women entrepreneurs established micro and small enterprises, which required low capital and utilized unexploited human and physical resources available locally. this promoted optimum utilization of indigenous resources. ii. reduction in rural emigration: women entrepreneurs established their ventures in the regions in which they lived and created new employment opportunities for semi-skilled as well as unskilled people, this was instrumental in holding back people and lead to the reduction in rural emigration. iii. promotes regional development: most of these women entrepreneurs established industries in under-developed and backward regions. the growth of business generated demand for public utilities such as road transport, health, education etc. this promoted regional development and reduced the urge in the residents to migrate to city. the all india report of 6th economic survey, government of india which stated, that the total number of establishments owned by women entrepreneurs were 8,050,819 out of which 5,243,044 establishments constituting about 65.12 % of the total establishments were located in rural 96 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 87-100) areas and the remaining nearing three million 2,807,775 (34.88%) were located in urban areas, endorses the above observations. economic development: i. promotes capital formation: most of these women entrepreneurs established their enterprises by employing their past savings, so they were successful in channelizing the idle funds towards new venture creation and thus contributed in the capital formation in the economy. bank borrowings were used only when they succeeded in their pilot phase. the entrepreneurial initiatives lead to the creation of value and wealth, which is crucial for the development of industry and economy. this is in concurrence to the all india report of 6th economic survey, government of india, which stated that almost 79% of the women establishments were self-financed. the next important source donation or transfer from other agencies contributed 14.65%. the other sources were government assistance and bank borrowing of 3.4% and 1.1 % respectively. ii. creates employment opportunities: women entrepreneurs created large-scale direct and indirect employment opportunities for the unemployed. in this way, women entrepreneurs play an effective role in reducing the problem of unemployment, which is a chronic problem of the economy. this is in consensus with the all india report of 6th economic survey, government of india, which stated that the total number of persons employed in establishments owned by women was 13.45 million. further, 8.2 million (61.46%) persons were employed in establishments located in rural areas and 5.18 million (38.54 %) in establishments located in urban areas. report also stated that in uttar pradesh the total number of persons employed in establishments under women entrepreneur are 929,105 which constituted 6.91% of the total employment employed in establishments under women entrepreneur in the country. iii. increases gross national product: entrepreneurial initiatives by women entrepreneurs generated additional economic activities and created positive impact on the regional as well as national economy. this is in corroboration to the all india report of 6th economic survey, government of india, which stated that it has agrawal, r., contributions made by women, jwe (2017, no. 1-2, 87-100) 97 been observed that 8.05 million out of the total 58.5 million establishments were run by women entrepreneurs in india which is around 13.76 % of the total number of establishments. total workers engaged in women owned and run establishments were 13.48 million persons, which is 10.24% of the total number of workers engaged in india under different economic activities iv. reduces concentration of economic power: these women entrepreneurs created job opportunities for those who were considered unemployable by the society and stimulated equitable distribution of income and wealth among the people and geographic areas, thus benefitting the larger sections of society and nation. the economic health of a nation usually gets determined by its gross domestic product. it was observed that women entrepreneurs, were vital to gdp equation, because of the ventures they create and the employment opportunities they generate. on one hand women entrepreneurs enhance socio-economic empowerment and on the other hand they help in the growth of gross domestic product. as the socio-economic empowerment and gross domestic product are interrelated and closely integrated concepts, improvement in one automatically leads to the growth in the other and vice versa. conclusion entrepreneurship in general, and women entrepreneurship in particular, are vital for economic development and poverty reduction. economic growth necessitates an increased participation of women entrepreneurs, as they act as change makers and also inspire others to become self-dependent. women plough back their income in their families’ nourishment, well-being and education thus helping their families, communities and nations. numerous socio-cultural and political factors are responsible for gender biases. governmental intervention by way of policies of equal opportunity for women have initiated change, but it is gradual and not adequate. the government of a country is required to provide the enabling environment for women entrepreneurs by facilitating easy availability of funds, infrastructural support, favorable economic and regulatory policies and procedures. as women constitute half of population worldwide, economic growth and social development will be elusive without involvement of 98 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2017, no. 1-2, 87-100) women in generating growth and sharing the paybacks of growth. growth will not be sustainable, short of, increased participation of women in productive activities. limitations and future research agenda the limitation of the current research was that it studied some women entrepreneurs in the state of uttar pradesh, the most populous state of the republic of india. in future such study can be conducted in the other regions of the country to get a more holistic perspective. research can also be taken up to understand the efforts made by women entrepreneurs to combat the challenges posed by globalization, technological disruption and global slowdown; difficulties faced by women entrepreneurs in doing cross-border trade and other such topics. references [1] acs, z. 2006. “how is entrepreneurship good for economic growth?.” innovations, winter, 2006: 97-107. 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[39] zimmerman, t.w., n.m., scarborough, and d., wilson. 2009. essentials of entrepreneurship and small business management. edition 5, new delhi: phi learning pvt. ltd. article history: received: 10 januray, 2017 accepted: 24 april, 2017 12_jwe_3-4 udc: 331.52855) jel: b54; j82 original scientific paper studying the barriers of women’s progress in the organization & its impact on organizational commitment and job satisfaction: a case study at tehran tax organization darvish hassan∗∗∗∗, khamseh fatemeh, najafi temelie zahra, payame noor university, tehran, iran a b s t r a c t research shows that only 14% of women holding managerial posts in iran. this rate is very low when compared with other countries. in connection with this problem, this paper aims to study the obstacles in women's progress in the organization and its impact on organizational commitment and job satisfaction of members of tehran tax organization staff. for this purpose a comparative method correlation type has been applied. the number of the population sampled based on randomized method is equal to 120 personnel of the said organization. the questionnaire which was used for the purpose of this research is made up of two parts. the first part includes demographic questions and the second part relates to the questionnaires for job satisfaction (α=0.76.8), organizational commitment (α=0.87) and restrictions on the women's progress at the organization (α=0.8492). for the purpose of the qualitative analysis of the general data from the first part of the questionnaire a descriptive statistical method was used and in order to determine the significant relationship between the general questions of the questionnaire and the assumptions of the research the ttest and variance analysis were employed. the findings of this research show that the highest correlation coefficient has related to the relationship between the managers' negative attitude and female gender and ∗ corresponding author, department of economic, management and accounting, payame noor university, 19395-4697 tehran, i.r. of iran, tel: 0098-21-23322342, e-mail: dr_darvish@pnu.ac.ir darvish, h., studying the barriers, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 65 the lowest rate was for the relationship between the managers' negative attitude and women's technical skills and abilities. besides, the results of the correlation coefficient show that the most important factor hindering the women's job promotion are the cultural, socio-cultural and social factors affecting the managers' views and attitude. kew words: barriers of women progress, job promotion, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, tehran tax organization introduction recently, the women's presence at the managerial levels has increased significantly. the introduction of the women into the upper levels of the organizations has accompanied by a variety of problems. despite the number of the women as a part of the work force is increasing their progress is not considered significant in respect of the managerial positions/ranks. this is the case while a lot of undertaken researches show that there is not special reason for men's superiority to the women in getting managerial positions. rather, researches indicate that the management sector will need further and more effective utilization of the women's potentialities in the management sector in future (givarian, 2003). theoretical framework women's share of managerial jobs the women society accounts for 40% of the world's work force. despite this, their share of the high-rank managerial positions is small and unjustifiable. the upper is the positions the discriminatory gap between the men and women will be more significant. at the lower managerial levels the women usually are placed at administrative, executive and nonimportant sections thereby they are not able to make their way to upper levels. even those women who succeed to reach upper levels at big companies are usually working at the organizational sections and unit which are not considered essential and key sections. the women who are responsible for household tasks are more likely to encounter difficulties on their way to occupational progress. this is because these women are forced to distribute their time between the official job and family works while journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 66 long working hours at the managerial jobs is one of the obstacles hindering the women's progress (zafaranchi, 2008). does leadership by women differ from that by men? the answer is that there are many similarities and differences between the leadership styles adopted by the men and women. however, as it is derived from the researches the similarities in the women's style of leadership is much more than that of the men. a look at the differences shows that the women assume a more democratic manner in selecting a leadership style compared to the men (in their leadership they use superb, specialization and communication with others more and make the best use of the human skills for influencing others). on the other hand, the men select an imperative style of leadership (they emphasis on the official authority and try to influence others by means of present bases of power) (robbins, 2005). according to hofstede the men and women are offered various organizational tasks and positions in some societies and in some other societies the public behavior is different among themselves (in terms of gender). this researcher believes that some societies recognize the (intrinsic) difference between the men and women and, accordingly, available organizational positions are distributed in such a way the men would take more key roles. the men are usually the governors (of the organizations) and the women are placed in the service sectors and/or are given keeping and maintaining roles. a patriarchal society, as viewed by this researcher, is a society where the men are allowed to express their opinions and the owners of money, properties, etc. in these societies the issue of others' rights is not viewed as a serious and important matter. in contrast, in a matriarchal society – from view point of the researcher again, is the one where the matter of communication is paid much more attention and, in general, the issue of life quality and others' rights is considered important. in the matriarchal society the members of society attach importance to the issue of human relations and life quality and they try to provide assistance for each other and take the issue of environment protections as an important matter (robbins, 2005). darvish, h., studying the barriers, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 67 restrictions on women's progress to managerial positions the organizational managers and executors who are facing overwhelming daily job applications from the new-motivated women are reasonably so interested in locking themselves in the fact that in our society the smart women are educated and grown in a differently irrelevant directions. kurman (2002) believes that the women are recommended to appreciate success and achievement on the one hand and they are instilled with what is feared as a student in the university and success in the job world, a manly victory, on the other. they have taught that the success in the world of job is for the men while they are bound to the home and family as a suitable environment for the women. the glass ceiling hinders so many women from reaching upperlevel managerial and leadership positions. the glass ceiling is the same negative (social) attitudes and discrimination (against the women) which put restrictions on the women, preventing them and social minorities from promoting beyond a specified level of an organizational hierarchy. there are a lot of views about the question "why a small number of women are employed at the managerial levels/positions" (rosner. p.j, 1991). the limited extent of the women's occupational progress can be attributed to the factors that are inherent to the female gender. this does mean that the peculiar behavior and characteristics of the women causes obstacles on their way to progress and success. for example, the relationship between two different genders may lead to an increased difficulty with which the women are encountered previously. the oral and non-oral communication between the men and women is different also. consequently, the understanding is that the women are less able to make communication than the men. in addition to the women's inherent traits and behaviors that do not fit the senior and high-rank managerial positions some other factors such as their family and leadership/managerial role, occupational progress directions, organizations, etc. all go in reverse to the requirements of the high-rank managerial positions of the organization (givarian, 2003). another view is the process of cultural socialization. this process drive the women toward non-professional jobs, not managerial positions and these instances enhance the stereotype roles (of the women) (fitness of either gender to a specified line of jobs). according to the process of cultural socialization the women are more reluctant to get management positions than the men. other factors that are effective in the women's journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 68 failure to reach success are: potential impact of the assumed job on the marital life, paradox of the roles, the lack of role models and women's frustration cause by the educational consultants during the high school and/or university courses. the social acceptance of the women is in the conditions that deprive the women of their self-confidence and resolution for entering a completion with the men for getting job (robertson, 1998). another reason for the low number of women in high-level positions of the organization is the organizational/corporate discrimination. inequitable corporate regulations for giving incentives and creating job promotion opportunities and employment of old friends in the available job vacancies and favoritism are all the factors which prevent the women from reaching managerial positions. the discrimination in the form of the structure, policies, unofficial networks and organizational cultures are so patriarchal that cause encumbrances for women on their way to organizational promotion. the research undertaken by conger & kanungo, (1987), indicated that the men are granted much more job promotions than the women each year. most of these promotions are the product of available unofficial networks in the organization. additionally, another obstacle on the way of the women is the lack of enough opportunity for gaining necessary experiences in the work environment. this is often because of the consultants and organizational members supporting the women (givarian, 2003). in short, the difficulties faced by the women with respect to the managerial tenures can be described as follows: a. lack of assignment of managerial positions to women under equal conditions b. organizational staff's prejudgment about women's ability to take leadership and management roles c. scarcity of cases showing women's success in doing management and leadership d. lack of instances of successful female managers in organizations e. men's reluctance to see their wives' engagement in taxing jobs (sa'atchi, 2008). definition & concepts of job satisfaction the job satisfaction can be defined as the individual's general view of his/her own job (robbins, 1995). verom defines the job satisfaction as the employees' reaction to their role they play in a job (mdhavan, 2001). darvish, h., studying the barriers, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 69 maslow has put forth the theory of needs under title "hierarchy of needs", which includes physiological needs, safety needs, need for love, needs for being respected, self-flourish needs. maslow believes that as a specified level of any need is met it will be no longer motivating, rather higher levels of needs come to operate for motivating the individual. porter & lawler presented a more advanced pattern of motivation which is mainly based on the current expectation. the degree of motivation and applied force depends on the value of the offered incentives. the perception of the applied effort/force and actual acquisition of an incentive is influenced by the job accomplishment perspective (robbins, 1995). definition & concepts of organizational commitment the matter of organizational commitment is an important occupational and organizational attitude which has appealed to the many researchers of the organizational behavior during the past years. the organizational commitment is views as the emotional and psychological affiliation with the organization, through which a deeply loyal individual defines his/her identity by means of the organization, takes a role and gets engaged in the organization and enjoys being a member of it. the organization commitment defined as "the relative extent to which an individual defines his/her (personal) identity based on the organization, participates and gets engaged in it (steers, m & porter, 1991). according to this definition the organizational commitment includes three separate factors: 1. the belief in goals and ideals of the company, 2. the enthusiasm for making considerable effort for the sake of the company's benefit, 3. the strong and deep will to continue membership in the organization (allen & meyer, 1990). research methodology the assumptions of the research 1. the obstacles of women's progress in an organization affect the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of the employees. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 70 2. the type of gender impacts on the employees' organizational commitment. 3. the type of gender influences the employees' job satisfaction. 4. the educational level and organizational commitment are different between the male and female employees. 5. the educational level and job satisfaction level are different between the male and female employees. 6. there is a significant difference between the organization commitment and employee's job satisfaction. the sample the statistical community of the research consists of 240 employees of tehran tax organization (60 females and 180 males). the following simple random method is employed for determining the sample size. n=z*z*p*q/d*d= (1.96*1.96)*(0.25)/(0.08)*(0.08)=120 measurement the questionnaire which was used for the purpose of this research is made up of two parts. the first part includes the identification questions which have been directed at the gender, education level and work record, which are used in making a conclusion and analyzing the questionnaire information. the second part relates to the questionnaires for job satisfaction, organizational commitment and restrictions on the women's progress at the organization. questionnaire for job satisfaction in this study kendall smith's job satisfaction questionnaire that has been modified in 1987, has been used. the questionnaire included 30 questions with a likert – style 5point rating method with scores from “strongly agree to strongly disagree”. the validity &reliability in the present research the reliability of the job satisfaction has been calculated using the cronbach's alpha in the following manner, which shows that all the dimensions of job satisfaction are of satisfactory level. darvish, h., studying the barriers, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 71 table 2: reliability of job satisfaction dimensions dimension salary & benefits colleagues job promotion opportunities job nature management reliability 0.78 0.75 0.76 0.75 0.75 questionnaire for organizational commitment this scale was introduced by mowday, steers and porter (1974).the organizational commitment scale consists of 15 questions and 7-point rating scale with scores from "completely agreed" to "completely disagreed". the validity & reliability this scale has been widely employed in the studies on the organization commitment inside the country or abroad during the past years. for the present research the reliability rate of the questionnaire was 0.87 when the cronbach's alpha coefficient was used. questionnaire for restrictions on women's progress this questionnaire is a view-oriented questionnaire which has been prepared by the researches on the basis of the researches made on the women-style management and the present literatures. the initial questionnaire includes twenty questions of which validity and reliability has been established by some internal researches like esfidani (2002), givarian (2003), wellington, shila et al (2005). in the questionnaire for the impediments to the women's progress at the organization is made up two parts. in the first part a respondent can tick one of the choices of "agreed" or "disagreed". in case the respondent ticks the choice "agreed" he/she can go for the second part and determine the degree of the impart of the proposed factors on the women's progress at the organization by selecting any rating/degree as mentioned in the questionnaire. if the respondent's answer is "no" there will be no need for ticking any given rating/degree. for the purpose of this research fifteen questions have been considered for journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 72 identifying the obstacles hindering the women's progress at the organization, which are designed in the form of 5-point scale. the validity & reliability of the questionnair in the initial study for verifying the validity of the test content preliminary questionnaires which had been prepared based on the available literature and the prior studies made by like givarian (2003), wellington, shila et al (2005) were given to the specialized people, who omitted the questions that are considered invalid with respect to their purpose. besides, in order to determine the validity of the proposed questions the questionnaires were distributed among a group of thirty people and the questions with low validity rate were omitted. for the purpose of examining the validity or internal uniformity of the test questions the cronbach's alpha was used in a decreasing method. in other words, the questions of which omission contributes to the validity rate of the questionnaire were identified and omitted from the final questionnaire. the calculated cronbach's alpha was 0.8492, which is meaningful at the rate of 0.01. analysis and presentation of findings for the purpose of the qualitative analysis of the general data from the first part of the questionnaire a descriptive statistical method was used, including the frequency, percentage, mean and deductive statistics. in order to determine the significant relationship between the general questions of the questionnaire and the assumptions of the research the ttest and variance analysis were employed. assumption test & data analysis assumption (1): there is a significant relationship between the impediments to the women's progress at the organization, organizational commitment and employees' job satisfaction. for the purpose of examining the assumption pearson's correlation coefficient was used. darvish, h., studying the barriers, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 73 table 3: pearson's correlation coefficient for impacts of the impediments to women's progress on job satisfaction job satisfaction number significance rate pearson's correlation coefficient 120 0.001 -0.281 1 120 0.002 -0.369 2 120 0.001 -0.291 3 120 0.001 -0.31 4 120 0.003 -0.289 5 120 0.001 -0.305 6 120 0.001 -0.297 7 question 120 0.005 -0.252 8 120 0.001 -0.292 9 120 0.004 -0.284 10 120 0.002 -0.277 11 120 0.012 -0.228 12 120 0.009 -0.239 13 120 0.008 -0.249 14 120 0.002 -0.288 15 as we can see the obtained correlation coefficient for the research questions is significant at the rate of 0.05 negatively. in other words, as the impediments to the women's progress at the organization increases their job satisfaction level decreases proportionally. the conclusion is that there is a significant negative relationship between the obstacles hindering the women's progress and their job satisfaction level. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 74 table 4: pearson's correlation coefficient for impacts of the impediments to women's progress on organizational commitment organizational commitment number significance rate pearson's correlation coefficient question 120 0.025 -0.204 1 120 0.002 -0.275 2 120 0.008 -0.241 3 120 0.019 -0.213 4 120 0.024 -0.206 5 120 0.001 -0.259 6 120 0.008 -0.24 7 120 0.048 -0.182 8 120 0.009 -0.237 9 120 0.037 -0.191 10 120 0.018 -0.216 11 120 0.035 -0.192 12 120 0.048 -0.181 13 120 0.021 -0.21 14 120 0.009 -0.239 15 as we can see the obtained correlation coefficient for the research questions is significant at the rate of 0.05 negatively. in other words, as the impediments to the women's progress at the organization increases their organizational commitment level decreases proportionally. the conclusion is that there is a significant negative relationship between the obstacles hindering the women's progress and their organizational commitment. hence, the first assumption of the research i.e. the presence of a relationship between the impediments to the women's progress at the organization, organizational commitment and employees' job satisfaction, is supported. assumption (2): there is a significant difference between the organizational commitment of the male and female employees and employees. for the purpose of examining the assumption ttest was used. darvish, h., studying the barriers, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 75 table 5: ttest by gender and organizational commitment v ar ia b le g en d er n u m b er m ea n s ta n d ar d d ev ia ti on t v al u e d eg re e of fr ee d om s ig n if ic an c e ra te organizational commitment female 43 78.651 13.923 4.0166 118 0.001 male 77 88.831 12.968 organizational commitment female 43 78.651 13.923 4.016 118 0.001 male 77 88.831 12.968 as shown above the mean for male employees' organizational commitment (88.831) is higher than that for the females (78.651) and the calculated t value (t= 4.016) shows that there is a significant relationship between the organizational commitment of the female and male employees. hence, the second assumptions of the research i.e. the presence of a difference between the organizational commitment of the male and female employees. table 6: t-test for job satisfaction among male and female employees aspects of job satisfaction gender number mean standard deviation t value degree of freedom significance rate salary male 77 19.389 4.164 3.275 118 0.001 female 43 16.697 4.580 colleagues male 77 19.636 4.065 3.533 118 0.001 female 43 16.767 4.607 job promotion male 77 19.194 4.145 3.538 118 0.001 female 43 16.255 4.731 job nature male 77 19714 4.097 4.286 118 0.001 female 43 16.139 4.853 management male 77 20.350 4.260 4.664 118 0.001 female 43 16.372 4.855 general satisfaction male 77 96.454 21.561 2.883 118 0.005 female 84.069 24.281 assumption (3): there is a significant relationship between the job satisfaction of the male and female employees. for examining this assumption the t-test was employed. to this end, each of five aspects of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 76 the job satisfaction i.e. salary, colleagues, job promotion, job nature and management was given a score and, then, the general scores given to the employees were compared. according to the above table the mean for the job satisfaction among the male employees is higher (19.389) than that for the females in terms of the salary, and as regards the salary the calculated t value (t= 3.275) shows a significant difference in the job satisfaction of the male and female employees at the significance rate of 0.001. in other words, in terms of the salary level the male employees show higher level of job satisfaction compared to their female colleagues. with respect to the aspect of colleagues the job satisfaction level among the men (19.936) is higher compared to the females (16.767) and the calculated t value (t= 3.533) shows that there is a significant difference in the job satisfaction among the male and female employees at 0.001 significance rate. in other words, the male employees are more satisfied than the female employees in respect this respect. in terms of the job promotion opportunities the female employees (16.255) show a lower degree of job satisfaction than the male employees (19.194) and the calculated t value (t = 3.538) shows that there is a significant difference in the job satisfaction among the male and female employees at 0.001 significance rate. in other words, the male employees are more satisfied than the female employees in respect this respect. in terms of the job nature the female employees (19.714) show a lower degree of job satisfaction than the male employees (16.139) and the calculated t value (t = 4.286) shows that there is a significant difference in the job satisfaction among the male and female employees at 0.001 significance rate. in other words, the male employees are more satisfied than the female employees in respect this respect too. in terms of the management the female employees (16.372) show a lower degree of job satisfaction than the male employees (20.350) the calculated t value (t = 4.664) shows that there is a significant difference in the job satisfaction among the male and female employees at 0.001 significance rate. in other words, the male employees are more satisfied than the female employees in respect this respect. eventually, with respect to the general job satisfaction the female employees (84.069) show a lower degree of job satisfaction than the male employees (96.454) the calculated t value (t = 2.883) shows that there is a significant difference in the job satisfaction among the male and female darvish, h., studying the barriers, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 77 employees at the significance rate of 0.005. in other words, the male employees are more satisfied than the female employees in respect this respect. and therefore the third assumption of the research i.e. the presence of a difference in the job satisfaction among the male and female employees. assumption (4): there is a significant relationship between the employees' educational level and organizational commitment of the male and female employees. in order to examine the relationship between the employees' organizational commitment and different levels of education the variance analysis was employed of which related results have been shown below: table 7: the mean and standard deviation of the organizational commitment for different educational levels high school diploma associate's degree bachelor's degree master's degree v ar ia b le m ea n s ta n d ar d d ev ia ti on m ea n s s ta n d ar d d ev ia ti on m ea n s ta n d ar d d ev ia ti on m ea n s ta n d ar d d ev ia ti on organizational commitment 69.888 13.163 66.444 7.212 66.611 13.584 45.125 10.682 table 8: the results of variance analysis test for educational level – organizational commitment relationship significa nce level f total of square roots degree of freedom mean square roots change resource 0.001 8.443 1257.546 116 3772.637 intra-group 148.942 17277.230 inter-group table 9: the results from tuki test for relationship between the educational level and organizational commitment 2 1 number educational level 45.125 69.888 66.444 66.611 18 67 27 8 high school diploma associate's degree bachelor's degree master's degree journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 78 according to the table 7 the average of the employees' organizational commitment for the high school diploma (69.888) is higher than that for the associate's degree (66.444), bachelor's degree (66.611) and master's degree (40.125). as it can be seen the results from the variance analysis test in the table 8 show that there is a significant difference in the employees' organizational commitment depending on their educational level. for the purpose of finding such difference tuki test was used which, as shown in the table 9, the degree of organizational commitment among the employees with high school diploma, associate's degree and bachelor's degree is higher than that for those who are holding a master's degree. however, there was no meaningful difference in the organizational commitment among the employees with a high school diploma, associate's degree and bachelor's degree. assumption (5): there is a significant difference in the male and female employees' job satisfaction by their educational level. in order to examine the relationship between the employees' job satisfaction and their educational level the variance analysis test was used for which the following results were obtained: table 10: the mean and standard deviation of the job satisfaction for different educational levels high school diploma associate's degree bachelor's degree master's degree v ar ia b le m ea n s ta n d ar d d ev ia ti on m ea n s s ta n d ar d d ev ia ti on m ea n s ta n d ar d d ev ia ti on m ea n s ta n d ar d d ev ia ti on organizational commitment 92.556 6.608 81.407 12.899 91.597 10.229 61.250 6.627 table 11: the results of variance analysis test for educational level – job satisfaction relationship significance level f total of square roots degree of freedom mean square roots change resource 0.001 25.496 2699.581 116 8098.743 intra-group 105.884 12282.582 inter-group darvish, h., studying the barriers, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 79 table 12: the results from tuki test for relationship between the educational level and job satisfaction 2 1 number educational level 61.250 92.555 91.597 81.407 18 67 27 8 high school diploma bachelor's degree associate's degree master's degree according to the table 10 the average of the employees' job satisfaction for the high school diploma (92.556) is higher than that for the associate's degree (81.407), bachelor's degree (91.597) and master's degree (61.250). as it can be seen the results from the variance analysis test in the table 11 show that there is a significant difference in the employees' job satisfaction depending on their educational level. for the purpose of finding such difference tuki test was used which, as shown in the table 12, the degree of job satisfaction among the employees with high school diploma is higher than that for those who are holding an associate's degree and bachelor's degree and master's degree. however, there was no meaningful difference in the job satisfaction among the employees with a high school diploma, associate's degree and bachelor's degree. at the same time, the lowest degree of the job satisfaction related to the employees with a master's degree. assumption (6): there is a significant relationship between the employees' job satisfaction and their organizational commitment. table 13: the pearson's correlation coefficient for the organizational commitment and job satisfaction scores organizational commitment job satisfaction number pearson's correlation coefficient significance rate 201 0.833 0.001 as it can be seen from the above table the obtained pearson's correlation coefficient equals 0.833, which is considered significant at the rate of 0.001. in other words, the more the employees' job satisfaction is the more their organizational commitment will be. hence, the sixth assumption of the research i.e. the presence of relationship between the employees' organizational commitment and job satisfaction is supported. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 80 conclusions all six assumptions of the research were influences at the reliability rate of 95% and, hence, the impact of the managers' (negative) attitude on the women's job promotion was supported. in this connection, the highest correlation coefficient has related to the relationship between the managers' negative attitude and female gender and the lowest rate was for the relationship between the managers' negative attitude and women's technical skills and abilities. besides, the results of the correlation coefficient show that the most important factor hindering the women's job promotion are the cultural, socio-cultural and social factors affecting the managers' views and attitude. despite the availability of the equal access to the present job, economic, social and political opportunities in the country and the fact that there is no difference between the men and women in respect of the performance of most works the men usually are more likely to reach upper occupational, social, economic, etc. standings compared to the women and, instead, the female social classes are measured according to the male social classes. this is related to the public cultural understandings to some extent, and religious/ideological believes and biological characteristics of the men and women. generally, the conducted studies are connected with some variables like level of literacy, income, wealth and social standing and/or other factors that influence the inequality. according to the assumption (1) there is a significant relationship between the impediments to the women's progress at the organization, organizational commitment and employees' job satisfaction. for the purpose of examining the assumption pearson's correlation coefficient was used. tables 3 and 4 shows an analysis of the data relating to the impact of the obstacles impeding the women's job promotion and the employees' job satisfaction. as we can see the obtained correlation coefficient for the research questions is significant at the rate of 0.05 negatively. in other words, as the impediments to the women's progress at the organization increases their organizational commitment level decreases proportionally. the conclusion is that there is a significant negative relationship between the obstacles hindering the women's progress and their organizational commitment. hence, the first assumption of the research i.e. the presence of a relationship between the impediments to the women's progress at the darvish, h., studying the barriers, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 81 organization, organizational commitment and employees' job satisfaction, is supported. according to the assumption (2) there is a significant difference between the organizational commitment of the male and female employees. for the purpose of examining the assumption ttest was used. the table 5 shows the analysis of data relating to the employees' organizational commitment. as it can be seen the mean for male employees' organizational commitment (88.831) is higher than that for the females (78.651) and the calculated t value (t = 4.016) shows that there is a significant relationship between the organizational commitment of the female employees and male employees. hence, the second assumptions of the research i.e. the presence of a difference between the organizational commitment of the male and female employees. in other words, the male employees show a higher degree of organizational commitment than the females. under the assumption (3) there is a significant relationship between the job satisfaction of the male and female employees and type of their gender. for examining this assumption the t-test was employed. to this end, each of five aspects of the job satisfaction i.e. salary, colleagues, job promotion, job nature and management was given a score and, then, the general scores given to the employees were compared. then, a general comparison of the employees' general satisfaction was made. according to table 6 the mean for the job satisfaction among the male employees is higher than that for the females in all five aspects of the employees' job satisfaction i.e. salary, colleagues, job promotion, job nature, management and general satisfaction and the calculated t value shows a significant difference in the job satisfaction of the male and female employees in relation to all five aspects at the significance rate of 0.001. assumption (4): there is a significant relationship between the employees' educational level and organizational commitment of the male and female employees. in order to examine the relationship between the employees' organizational commitment and different levels of education the variance analysis was employed. according to the table 7 the average of the employees' organizational commitment for the high school diploma (69.888) is higher than that for the associate's degree (66.444), bachelor's degree (66.611) and master's degree (40.125). as it can be seen the results from the variance analysis test in the table 8 show that there is a significant journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 82 difference in the employees' organizational commitment at the significance rate of 0.001 depending on their educational level. for the purpose of finding such difference tuki test was used which, as shown in the table 8, the degree of organizational commitment among the employees with high school diploma, associate's degree and bachelor's degree is higher than that for those who are holding a master's degree. however, there was no meaningful difference in the organizational commitment among the employees with a high school diploma, associate's degree and bachelor's degree. one of the notable reasons for the decreased degree of organizational commitment among the employees with a master's degree or higher educational level is the (incorrect) macro policies adopted by the government in lowering the social gap between the employees' paid salary and equalizing it so that the employees with a master's degree are given nearly the same salary for other employees. on the other hand, the different salary levels paid by different bodies have resulted in a decreased organizational commitment. assumption (5): there is a significant difference in the male and female employees' job satisfaction by their educational level. in order to examine the relationship between the employees' job satisfaction and their educational level the variance analysis test was used. according to the table 10 the average of the employees' job satisfaction for the high school diploma (92.556) is higher than that for the associate's degree (81.407), bachelor's degree (91.597) and master's degree (61.250). as it can be seen the results from the variance analysis test in the table 11 show that there is a significant difference in the employees' job satisfaction depending on their educational level at the significance rate of 0.001. for the purpose of finding such difference tuki test was used which, as shown in the table 12, the degree of job satisfaction among the employees with high school diploma is higher than that for those who are holding an associate's degree and bachelor's degree and master's degree. at the same time, the lowest degree of the job satisfaction related to the employees with a master's degree. assumption (6): there is a significant relationship between the employees' job satisfaction and their organizational commitment. table 13 shows an analysis of the data relating to the relationship between the organizational commitment and job satisfaction. as it is observed the obtained pearson's correlation coefficient equals 0.833, darvish, h., studying the barriers, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 83 which is considered significant at the rate of 0.001. in other words, the more the employees' job satisfaction is the more their organizational commitment will be. hence, the sixth assumption of the research i.e. the presence of relationship between the employees' organizational commitment and job satisfaction is supported. suggestions 1. due to the lack of an empirical experience in most of the upper level jobs among the women and also for the purpose of making improvements in this index it is necessary for the related authorities to provide training course in order to fill the gap among the women community. 2. it is up to the related responsible authorities to make proper arrangements to provide an open clear horizons by creating equitable job opportunities for all the member of the society (irrespective of the type of gender) so that the women could gain more self-confidence and motivation. 3. by introducing successful female managers and encouraging other women to model themselves on them the authorities should pave the ground for the women's acceptance of the managerial positions. 4. it is recommended that in order to change the men's and women's attitude gradually the related responsible authorities should provide the women community with equal managerial job opportunities at organizations so that their self-confidence could be restored and their abilities be accepted by the men. 5. the involved responsible officials should take steps as to remove present obstacles and pave the way for women's participation and their membership in high rank managerial and decision making positions by passing proper laws and regulations. references [1] allen, n. j., & meyer, j. p. (1990). “the measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the organization”. journal of occupational psychology, 63, 1–18. [2] conger, j. a., & kanungo, r. n. (1987). toward a behavioral theory of charismatic leadership in organizational settings. academy of management review, 12, 637–647. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 84 [3] givariyan. h. (2003). “women in management”. journal of management.103. [4] kurman, j. (2001). “self-enhancement: is it restricted to individualistic cultures?” personality and social psychology bulletin, 12, 1705–1716. [5] kurman, j., & sriram, n. (1997). “self-enhancement, generality of selfevaluation, and affectivity in israel and singapore”. journal of crosscultural psychology, 28, 421–441. [6] mdhavan, s. m. 2001. “the j s level of chinese and indian born engineering faculty." research university dissertation, engineering faculty, morgantown, west virginia. [7] robbins, s. (2005). esswntials of organizational behavior. translated by a.parsayan & s.m. aarabi. ed 26. tehran. centre of cultural research. [8] robbins, s. (1998). organizational theory: structure, design and applications. translated by m. alvani & h. danaee fard. ed3. tehran. saffar. [9] robertson, y. (1998). introduction to community. translated by hossein behravan. ed.3.mashhad.astan qod razavi. [10] robertson, i.t., iles, p.a., gratton, l. and sharpley, d. (1991). „the impact of personnel selection and assessment methods on candidates”. human relations, 44, 963–982. [11] rosner, b. j. (1991). ”ways women lead”. harvard business review, academy of management executive, 12(1):105-199. [12] saatchi, m.. (2008). mental health at work. tehran.virayesh. [13] steers, r.m & porter, l.w (1991). “motivation and work behavior”. mcgrawhill, inc 5, th ed, 1991. [14] zafaranchi, l. s. (2008). “poverty alleviation, sustainable development approach to creating and funding sources for the realization of gender equality and empowerment of women at all levels and all sectors”. the second ministerial conference women oic member countries. egypt. proučavanje ograničenja sa kojima se suočavaju žene u organizaciji i njhov uticaj na posvećenost organizaciji i zadovoljstvo poslom: analiza slučaja u poreskoj organizaciji u teheranu a p s t r a k t istraživanja pokazuju da je samo 14% žena na rukovodećim položajima u iranu. ova stopa je veoma niska u poređenju sa drugim zemljama. u vezi sa ovim problemom, ovaj rad ima za cilj da prouči prepreke sa kojima se žene suočavaju u organizaciji i odredi njihov uticaj na posvećenost i zadovoljstvo poslom u okviru jedne poreske organizacije u teheranu. za istraživanje je korišćen metod korelacije. darvish, h., studying the barriers, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 64-85) 85 uzorak čini 120 lica pomenute organizacije.upitnik koji je korišćen za potrebe ovog istraživanja sastoji se iz dva dela. prvi deo obuhvata demografska pitanja, dok se drugi deo odnosi na upitnike koji sadrže pitanja u vezi sa zadovoljstvom poslom (α = 0.76.8), organizacione posvećenosti (α = 0,87) i ograničenja u pogledu napretka žena u okviru organizacije (α = 0.8492). za potrebe kvalitativne analize opštih podataka iz prvog dela upitnika, korišćen je deskriptivni statistički metod u cilju određivanja značaja odnosa između opštih pitanja u upitniku i hipoteza istraživanja (korišćeni su t-test i analiza varijanse). nalazi ovog istraživanja pokazuju da je najveći koeficijent korelacije između menadžera koji imaju negativni stav prema ženama generalno, a najmanji je negativni stav prema tehničkim veštinama i sposobnostima žena. pored toga, rezultati pokazuju da su najvažniji faktori koji se pojavljuju kao prepreka promociji žena na poslu kulturni, socio-kulturni i društveni faktori. svi oni opredeljuju stav menadžera prema ženama u organizaciji. ključne reči: prepreke u napredovanju žena, promocija na poslu, zadovoljstvo poslom article history: received: 13 may, 2012 revised: 3 july, 2012 accepted: 27 august, 2012 doi: 10.28934/jwee21.34.pp199-211 professional paper the impact of education reforms, employment policies and corruption on the outflow of young people from serbia nikola ceha1 electric power industry of serbia, key investment projects, beograd, srbija a b s t r a c t the young workforce has always been the most valuable resource in a country’s economic perspective, and it can be crucial in transition countries such as serbia. this paper focuses on education reform, youth employment and their contribution to the development of the country, as well as preventing the outflow of this important resource, crucial for the progress of the entire society. the emigration of young and educated professionals in the most productive period of their lives has been constant for the past ten years in the republic of serbia. accordingly, the aim of the research is to highlight the need to strengthen institutions, reduce corruption, as well as to raise collective awareness about the need to invest in reforming the education and employment system of young people, similar to the countries of central and western europe. data from relevant domestic and foreign institutions and journals were used for the analysis. research results show that the only way to reduce the trend of human resources outflow, and thus ensure continuous, sustainable economic growth in the future of the republic of serbia, is a strategy of retaining young people and access to radical structural reforms and institutional strengthening. key words: youth employment, economic growth, human resources outflow, institutional standards, education reform 1 e-mail: cehanikola@gmail.com 200 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 199-211) introduction throughout history, the republic of serbia has been a traditional emigration area. the institutional transition has been losing the race for years with an increasing outflow of quality professionals. eurostat 2019 data show that some 4000 people leave serbia every month; most of them young people under 30, who most often cite economic reasons for leaving the country. serbia is on the list of 50 countries with the highest migration rate, at 31st place. the western balkans and the gaza strip have the highest emigration rates as a percentage of the total population, according to the ebrd survey. the european union, through its donations, assists serbia in implementing measures to improve education. in the period from the beginning of 2017 to the end of 2019, the state had at its disposal donations at the level of eur 27.4 million intended to modernize the curricula (ministry of education, 2017). measures implemented in education reform remain slow and insufficient for the education and training of young people. the problem of hiring young staff is a key reason for their leaving to west europe and america, seeking to specialize their skills and start a business career, as these countries are considered to provide the greatest prospect for advancement and improvement. a clear example of the shortage of young professionals in our country is the lack of doctors during the corona virus epidemic and evident recruitment of old staff, rather than training and recruiting young people who should be the pillar of this profession in the future. the prevalence of corruption in all the parts of the system, which slows progress, economic growth and development as well as reforms in all institutions necessary for the normal functioning of a society, has a major impact on unemployment and worker outflow. serbia tops the list of corruption in institutions, ranked worse than most countries of the region, montenegro, croatia and slovenia, with only bosnia and herzegovina, macedonia and albania above (ignjatijević & čavlin, 2017). this situation has been present in serbia throughout much of its recent history and prevents society from taking a major step towards progress and prosperity, as well as achieving a higher rate of economic growth that would provide a more secure future for young people. nikola ceha 201 this paper tested the hypothesis, which indicates that without education system reforms and implementation of more advanced employment policies, the outflow of young people from the country cannot be significantly affected. under this hypothesis, the effect of corruption on the development of stable institutions was also examined. the basic methods of comparison, analysis and synthesis were used in the research. the outflow of young workers was analysed based on eurostat data. the paper is structured into three interconnected units. the first one explores the way reforms were implemented in education in the past by the republic of serbia, as well as the need for further reform. the second part examines problems when starting a business career for young people in serbia. the third part of the paper focuses on the investigation of corruption in all parts of society. necessity of education reform education reforms are one of the most commonly associated topics with the problem of young people leaving the country. the inability to provide conditions that meet high standards of education can cost our country far more than just monetary investment. among other problems, the most common reason for young people leaving is the search for better education provided by the countries of western europe and america. schools in serbia, and the education system itself, change slowly and frequently in ways failing to meet current demands. curricula do not change in accordance with the requirements of new living and working conditions, and in the age of completely new technologies and new work organization based on the tradition of encyclopaedism, monologue method, knowledge reproduction without clear competencies or past competencies (jovanović, 2011). the outflow of highly educated professionals is running in two directions: one towards other countries and the other towards larger cities inside the republic of serbia. in both cases, they are migrations from underdeveloped and less developed to more developed regions, thus not only do the regions rapidly accelerate demographic gaps but also lack the necessary development potential, which seriously jeopardizes their economic and demographic survival (ministry of demography and population policy, 2018). 202 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 199-211) the need for reforming higher education is suggested by the devastating fact that serbia’s university has fallen, in just one year, on the shanghai list by more than 100 places and is now between positions 400 and 500. first attempts to reform education were made after 2000, as it became necessary to move closer to the european union’s educational standards. this failed attempt was repeatedly revived in the previous decade but failed to produce any significant results for the improvement of educational institutions until the signing of the bologna declaration in 2005. the aim of the bologna declaration was to adopt more levels of higher education for easier employment, as well as to introduce ects in order to facilitate the transfer of students from one educational institution to another. serbia conducted its study under the bologna declaration 15 years ago, nevertheless since then, essentially, the way students study and are tested has not changed. the biggest criticism was aimed at the difficulty of different courses that needed to be made easier and adjusted for students, so as not to discourage students from further education and training. when it comes to the average number of years of education of the population, serbia is at the bottom of european countries. diagram 1: average number of years of education source: united nations development program, 2018. nikola ceha 203 the above diagram shows an overview of european countries and serbia between 2013 and 2017 for the average number of years of education of the population older than 25 years. serbia is at the forefront with slightly better results than greece and italy. it is evident that the variation between countries is not significant. time spent in school does not, by definition, best reflect the quality of the education system itself. the quality of one year of schooling in finland and bulgaria varies significantly (as indicated by other relevant research), so even if two countries have the same average schooling time, this does not necessarily mean that they have the same quality of human capital (petrović, brčerević & gligorić, 2019). the ministry of education of the republic of serbia is implementing a plan for reforms and modernization of the education system funded by the european union in order to improve the segments that have lagged most in previous years. the emphasis of the reforms is on the lack of trained persons to work with children with special needs, as well as professional development of 40,000 teachers who would implement innovative teaching methods aimed at the development of key competences in students (ministry of education, 2017). one way to retain young professionals is through various types of scholarships that would help students financially and provide them with better conditions to continue their studies. serbia awards scholarships to the most successful students, but on an insufficient scale, and often they represent symbolic amounts that cannot realistically help students to secure better conditions for further work and improvement. in addition to financial assistance, one form of incentives is to provide free services to students to provide incentives for more innovative ways of doing research, such as training and free training programs for the use of software solutions throughout studies. in the developed western european countries, it is often the case that universities, and therefore students, are involved in real business flows, by partaking in projects and supporting businesses and thus facilitating practical use of student knowledge. the document of the republic of serbia: strategy for the development of education in the republic of serbia until 2020 assumes that “the educational needs of serbia arising from assumed commitments and further development of serbia’s production system must be rapidly based on knowledge, entrepreneurship of the educated population, and transferred 204 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 199-211) technological innovation, market economy and international business, technical and other cooperation. that is why the concept of an “entrepreneurial university” should be supported, as it enables such universities to be the nucleus of creating a new knowledge-based industry. all higher education institutions should train students for innovation development and entrepreneurship through teaching or projects involving students” (jovanović-kranjec, 2013). creating better employment conditions for young adults according to eurostat 2019, about 4,000 young people leave serbia every month. the number of citizens aged 15-64 decreased by 5% between 2014 and 2018. the need to prevent migrations of highly educated professionals is great, while the state still fails to implement adequate measures to improve the employment system. the departure of young professionals is a gift of skilled labour to the countries of western europe and america. there are already places in serbia with none or very few young people. demographic depopulation has increased massively in recent years and adversely affects the strengthening and economic stability of our country, which should be based on laying a solid foundation for the future and providing better conditions for young, early-stage professionals. according to a 2018 survey conducted by the cabinet of the ministry without portfolio for demography and population policy in collaboration with the ministry of education, science and technological development and the republic bureau of statistics, the most common reason for young professionals leaving the country is the inability to find employment inside or outside their profession. such reasons account for 31.7% of the reasons for young people leaving for developed countries. nikola ceha 205 table 1: students planning to go abroad according to their place of education and reasons for leaving serbia source: cabinet of the ministry without portfolio in charge of demography and population policy, 2018. the majority of doctors, after completing their studies, leave the country and seek specialization in their profession in the countries of western europe and america. serbia will undoubtedly face a shortage of doctors and medical workers in the coming period, as a result of the massive migration of its entire medical staff. such an occurrence will result in the need for “lower quality workforce imports”, where serbia will be forced to recruit doctors from other countries whose services are cheaper on the market and, therefore, of lower quality than those provided by our specialists who have completed their education at the faculty of medicine, university of belgrade. in a society where engineers, doctors, professors and other highly educated professionals are working on flea markets and living on the dole, the middle class is losing its character, its physiognomy. when values are disrupted and the education system is at the bottom of the ladder, while the middle class is disorganized, there is much room for possible social deviations and disorientations (jovanović, 2011). unless more innovative youth employment measures are implemented, this phenomenon will be more common in other professions such as mechanical, electrical and civil engineers. 206 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 199-211) many countries are implementing youth retention strategies. serbia has lacked implementation of concrete measures for years, while the number of those leaving year after year has increased. the employment strategy of the republic of serbia is the national employment strategy covering the period from 2011 to 2020, outlining the overall objective of increasing employment, which should be achieved through four individual goals: (1) stimulating employment in less developed regions and developing regional and local employment policies; (2) improving the quality of human capital; (3) institutional capacity building and expansion of active employment policy programs; and (4) reduction of labour market duality (bradaš, 2018). providing opportunities for young people to use their creativity and innovative methods in their workplaces is a rare occurrence in the private sector, which is mainly oriented towards consolidating the profits of individuals and even less so in the public sector. often, young people are forced to work outside their profession in order to secure their livelihoods, which is not the case in the advanced european countries, increasingly becoming a destination for serbian youth. one of the frequently mentioned measures to encourage the employment of the young staff is to reduce taxes and contributions at the expense of the employer, who would then receive cheaper staff. this measure could significantly influence employers to give young people a chance to get a job after graduation and thus start a business career. also, it is necessary for the state to analyse in detail and adopt measures for granting subsidies to companies intending to recruit young professionals and thus encourage young people to start their business careers and continue living and working in our country. despite a clearly defined strategy, serbia does not seem to be able to implement an effective youth employment plan and thus reduce the outflow of such personnel into western european countries. in addition to the employment measures themselves, the state must implement a plan for the training and advancement of young people at the beginning of their careers, thus securing a promising future for them and the continued functioning of the economy, which is increasingly relying on experienced and senior staff not sufficiently transferring know-how to trainees. a problem that has been following serbia since the 2001 labour law is the lack of labour protection. nikola ceha 207 corruption as a barrier to building stable institutions corruption is present in all economic systems and in all countries. this phenomenon is one of the root causes of great economic stratification in society, with all the social and political consequences brought by stratification (milošević, milašinović & kešetović, 2010). combating corruption is one of the key factors for establishing economic stability and economic development. the prevalence of corruption is one of the biggest reasons for the slow economic growth of the republic of serbia, which reaches a modest 4% a year. corruption can destroy economic growth, hinder investment, declare democracy inefficient, generate economic costs by destroying incentives, political costs by undermining institutions, and social costs by redistributing and channelling wealth toward the rich and privileged (budak & rajh, 2011). corruption is found, to a great extent, in all the pores of our society, such as the judiciary, police and health, thus affecting the functioning of institutions. one of the most common reasons for people leaving serbia is the lack of functioning of key institutions and high incidence of corruption. low salaries of civil servants have a negative impact on reducing bribery and corruption. comparison with countries of the region shows that although salaries have increased several times since 2000, judges and prosecutors are still lagging behind the salaries of their counterparts in bosnia and herzegovina and croatia. therefore, attention should be given to this issue, depending on budgetary potential (rabrenović, 2010). the absence of democracy in the recent history of serbia, the political crisis and wars have significantly affected the development of corruption in all sections of society. it is most often associated with senior government officials and politicians. corruption has the greatest impact on the inflow of foreign direct investment, which directly affects economic growth, as well as job creation and rural development, in order to retain qualified staff in our country. foreign investments would significantly impact economic recovery at the state level, as well as the individual restructuring and revival of state-owned companies lagging behind in socialist times, whose expenditures represent a burden slowing down serbia’s economic growth. 208 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 199-211) one of the most common phenomena are bribes to get hired, mostly in state institutions, where it is almost impossible to start working by responding to official job advertisements or by recruiting the most successful students from higher education institutions. research conducted by seldi, through public polling, shows that serbia is at the top of the list in citizens’ responses to questions about whether they are likely to bribe an official (money, gift, service). serbia is in the leading position above albania, macedonia and kosovo, although it is far more economically developed than them. diagram 2: assessing the likelihood of corruptive pressure source: southeast europe leadership for development and integrity, 2016. corruption is one of the key reasons why young people choose to go to more developed countries where the system and institutions do not function this way. a large number of young people believe that this situation does not provide perspective in any sphere of life, such as starting a family, buying real estate and developing a business career. failure by the state to take key measures to combat corruption cannot significantly affect the outflow of young people, qualified professionals from the country. in a field study conducted by the belgrade centre for security policy (bcsp), on a representative sample of 1,185 adult citizens of the republic of serbia, when asked “how to improve the fight against corruption?” the majority of participants answered that strengthening institutions and tightening penalties are the best ways to reduce corruption. subsequently, citizens believe that encouraging corruption reporting, more arrests and nikola ceha 209 empowering individuals leading the fight against corruption are equally necessary to combat bribery and corruption. diagram 3: how to improve the fight against corruption? source: field investigations, petrović, đorđević & savković, 2013. conclusion we are in a period where the western balkans and the gaza strip have the highest emigration rates as a percentage of the total population, according to the ebrd survey. serbia is on the list of 50 countries with the highest migration rate, at 31st place. sanctions, the breakup of the sfry and wars have left an indelible mark on the close history of the serbian people. the future departure of young professionals may cost serbia far more than potential financial investments in reforms in all spheres. education reform needs are a burning problem facing serbia, especially when one considers the fact that serbia’s university has fallen on the shanghai list by more than 100 places and is now between positions 400 and 500. 210 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 199-211) the reason for this are extremely low state investments, as well as poor attitude towards education, which is reflected in a large number of plagiarism and dubious scientific titles of government representatives and people holding prominent positions in important state institutions. this situation gives a bad example to young people, who lose confidence that their diplomas will be valued in the future and therefore frequently leave the country. difficulties in recruiting young professionals result in their departure to more regulated state systems valuing their knowledge and providing them with conditions for further improvement and advancement. when starting their careers, young people also face very low incomes at the beginning of their business careers, jobs inside their profession or, more often, outside. furthermore, disorderly conduct and disrespect for labour laws give employers the opportunity to exploit their workforce and thus create only illusory monetary savings costing them, as well as the entire society, much more in the future. prevalence of corruption is a discouraging fact for young specialized professionals who have to fight for their basic rights to work and earnings and often fail in this fight, which is a devastating fact. this often crumbles ambitions of young professionals, who then turn the path of western europe and america to secure their future. the result of testing the hypothesis showed that without introducing education system reforms involving innovative changes that follow the trends of modern globalization, reforms and implementation of more advanced employment policies, as well as combating corruption in key state institutions such as the judiciary and the police, the outflow of young people from the country cannot be reduced. all attempts by the state so far to prevent and combat corruption and improve dysfunctional institutions are negligible compared to what serbia is losing, and these are serbia’s most important resources, its human resources. references [1] bradaš, s. (2018), employment policies in serbia, center for democracy foundation belgrade, 2 [2] budak j., and rajh e. (2011), corruption as an obstacle for doing business in the western balkans, working material eiz, zagreb, available nikola ceha 211 at: https://www.eizg.hr/userdocsimages/publikacije/serijskepublikacije/radnimaterijali/corruption_as_an_obstacle_for%20doing_business_in_the_west ern_balkans.pdf [accessed on 12.03.2020.], 8 [3] đukić-dejanović, s., bjelobrk g., and jovanović, n. (2018), employment policies in serbia, center for democracy foundation belgrade [4] ignjatijevic s., and čavlin m. (2017), analysis of the causes and consequences of corruption in society, oditor-journal of management, finance and law novi sad, 46 [5] jovanović n. (2011), education in transition, faculty of philosophy niš http://kpolisa.com/kp15/kp15-vi-2-natalijajovanovic.pdf [accessed on 10.03.2020.], 336 [6] jovanović-kranjec m. (2013), economization of higher education in the republic of serbia, economic horizons kragujevac, 94 [7] milošević, g., milašinović, s., and kešetović, ž. (2010), corruption in serbia, police education directorate banja luka, 170 [8] petrović p., brčerević d., and gligorić m., (2019), why is economic growth lagging behind?, fc working document, business economics no 67, belgrade, 20 [9] petrović p., đorđević s, and savković m (2013), field research, citizens of serbia on police corruption, belgrade centre for safety policy, belgrade [10] rabrenović a. (2010), the situation in the serbian judiciary in comparison with other european countries, institute for comparative law belgrade, 43 [11] website of the ministry of education, eu support for education reforms in serbia, available at: http://www.mpn.gov.rs/podrska-eu-reformiobrazovanja-srbije/ [accessed on 13.03.2020.] [12] united nations development program, human development reports, human development data, available at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/data [accessed on 09.03.2020.] [13] ministry in charge of demography and population policy, student migrations, https://www.mdpp.gov.rs/doc/migracije-studenata.pdf [accessed on 09.03.2020.], 7 article history: received: april 21th, 2021 accepted: november 16th, 2021 https://www.eizg.hr/userdocsimages/publikacije/serijske-publikacije/radni-materijali/corruption_as_an_obstacle_for%20doing_business_in_the_western_balkans.pdf https://www.eizg.hr/userdocsimages/publikacije/serijske-publikacije/radni-materijali/corruption_as_an_obstacle_for%20doing_business_in_the_western_balkans.pdf https://www.eizg.hr/userdocsimages/publikacije/serijske-publikacije/radni-materijali/corruption_as_an_obstacle_for%20doing_business_in_the_western_balkans.pdf https://www.eizg.hr/userdocsimages/publikacije/serijske-publikacije/radni-materijali/corruption_as_an_obstacle_for%20doing_business_in_the_western_balkans.pdf http://kpolisa.com/kp15/kp15-vi-2-natalijajovanovic.pdf http://www.mpn.gov.rs/podrska-eu-reformi-obrazovanja-srbije/ http://www.mpn.gov.rs/podrska-eu-reformi-obrazovanja-srbije/ http://hdr.undp.org/en/data https://www.mdpp.gov.rs/doc/migracije-studenata.pdf publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia halil kaya0f introduction institutional framework and female entrepreneurship formal institutions and female entrepreneurship informal institutions and female entrepreneurship data and methodology empirical results conclusion references natalia vukovic1f maksim nevalennyi2f introduction female entrepreneurship in the renewable energy market global solar market and covid-19 pandemic growth challenges of global solar power market successful international case study of female entrepreneurship in energy sector conclusion acknowledgements references đina ivanović3f vladimir simović4f ivana domazet5f marija antonijević6f introduction literature review research methodology results conclusion acknowledgements limitations of the research references parisa bouzari7f aidin salamzadeh8f maryam soleimani9f pejman ebrahimi10f introduction literature review method key findings and discussion conclusion references gulfam tasnim11f introduction literature review methods data collection data analysis limitations thematic analysis first-round of coding findings and discussion conclusion references appendix shalaghya sharma12f amit kumar introduction women empowerment – a basic understanding of the term women empowerment, non-government organizations and social enterprises research methodology analysis conclusion references ana milovanović13f danijela stojanović14f dušan barać15f introduction version control platforms and sna literature review methodology research results conclusion acknowledgements references ayoub messikh16f introduction literature review entrepreneurial intention female entrepreneurship entrepreneurial intentions among university students research methodology test of hypotheses discussion and conclusion (key findings) references jelena novaković17f introduction artist, entrepreneur and our definition of an artpreneur level of digital skills in serbia and modalities for its improvement female artpreneurs online revenue streams for artists selling art prints on a personal website online art markets with built-in search engines – the example of etsy online art galleries – the example of saatchi print on demand market places with built-in search engine – the example of society6 and redbubble transfer of knowledge conclusion references alexander loziak18f the institute of social sciences of the centre of social and psychological sciences, slovak academy of science, košice, slovakia introduction methods results discussion references ana milojević19f sladjana vujicic20f * zorana nikitović21f mirjana radović marković22f introduction the position of women in the labour market analysis of the participation of women entrepreneurs in organic production in serbia conclusion references nikola ceha23f introduction necessity of education reform creating better employment conditions for young adults corruption as a barrier to building stable institutions conclusion references do business-friendly states attract female entrepreneurs? global solar energy market and female entrepreneurship after the covid-19 pandemic average matching levels for two digcomp competence areas of the female entrepreneurs in serbia online social networks and women’s entrepreneurship: a comparative study between iran and hungary women’s beauty parlor entrepreneurship as a social change activity for ethnic workers amid covid-19 can social enterprises create holistic women empowerment? – a case of indian artisan women exploring possibilities of integrating version control platforms in higher education through github data analysis the entrepreneurial intention of algerian women (a sample study of skikda university female students) a female artpreneur in a digital age – definition, challenges, and potential revenue streams work stress of female primary school teachers during covid-19 pandemic and demographic differences women's entrepreneurship in organic production in serbia the impact of education reforms, employment policies and corruption on the outflow of young people from serbia microsoft word 09_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 331.232 (437.1/2) jel: j21, j82 original scientific papaer problematic aspects of women employment in slovakia in comparing with visegrad countries jakubíková emilia*, technical university of košice, faculty of economics siničáková marianna, technical university of košice, faculty of economics a b s t r a c t in comparing with other visegrad countries, slovakia has since 1990 permanent difficulties to reach and maintain high level of employment. high unemployment used to be traditionally in poland, too. other two visegrad countries, the czech republic and poland used to reach much better economic results. however, if we analyse the situation more comprehensively, unemployment in the czech republic and in poland is problematic, too, especially if we take into account unemployment of women, long-term unemployment, labour market rigidity and impacts of current economic crises on labour market. we will analyse gradually all these aspects focusing especially on women employment. kew words: women, employment, unemployment, labour market, visegrad countries,slovakia introduction visegrad countries (v4 – the czech republic, hungary, poland and slovakia) belong to the fast reformers among countries in transition. they generally reach positive macroeconomic results and macroeconomic stability. however, unemployment is traditionally quite high especially in case of poland and slovakia. results of the czech republic and hungary seem to be much better. we can compare it on figure 1. evolution of * address: němcovej 32, košice, the slovak republic jakubiková, e., et al., women employment in slovakia, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 22-34) 23 unemployment in the czech republic and in hungary has been for a long time comparable to the european union and to the euro zone. however, if we focus on the problematic more comprehensively, we can observe weaknesses of v4 labour markets especially with negative impacts on employment of women. among persisting problems we can gradually analyse gap between men and women unemployment, long-term unemployment that concerns especially women, rigidity of labour markets in v4, fragility of v4 labour markets to current economic crisis etc. figure 1: evolution of unemployment in v4 countries in comparison with eu 27 and euro zone, in % source: own represantation according eurostat gender unemployment gap in v4 countries gender unemployment gap is a difference between unemployment of men and women. generally, we can summarize, the less a labour market is developed the bigger the gap is. we can observe that gap between unemployment of men and women is the biggest especially in the czech republic and the narrowest one mostly in hungary. average differences of unemployment rate of men and women in these countries are depicted in the table 1. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 22-34) 24 table 1: average gap between unemployment of men and women in v4 countries in comparison with eu 27 and euro zone since 1997 to 2008, in % country eu 27 euro zone the czech republic hungary poland slovakia gap in % 1,38 2,41 2,96 0,32 2,54 1,03 source: own calculations according eurostat these results are influenced by tradition in the czech republic. czech women prefer to stay at home with their children longer than is the length of their maternity leave. in fact, they would prefer to do some part time job, but as an adequate legislation regulating part time jobs is missing, it is difficult for czech women to find a workstation. they stay at home and they are often registered as unemployed. consequently, the gap is significant. the situation is similar in poland and slovakia where part-time job is very rare in comparing with western european countries. flexible work forms are missing. figure 2: men and women unemployment gap in v4 countries in comparison with eu 27 and euro zone, in % jakubiková, e., et al., women employment in slovakia, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 22-34) 25 source: own represantation according eurostat the gap for each country in comparing with eu and euro zone is graphically depicted on figure 2. despite the fact, that slovakia does not have the worst results, we can observe negative future trend that can signalise significant worsening of situation. in slovakia, difference in employment of women and men increased by 7% in 2007 in comparing with 2000, in favour of men. in 2007, slovakia reached the biggest increase of this indicator among 27 eu countries. in slovakia in 2000, overall employment of men was 53,3 % and of women 42,8%. in 2007, employment increased in positive way in both cases, however gap became wider. employment of men reached 68,4%, but employment of women was only 53% (inštitút zamestnanosti 2008a). this phenomenon was and still is rare in european countries. in v4 countries, the most endangered group of unemployed people are women over 45 years. if they lose their jobs, they have really very little chance to find a new one. consequently, there are several projects “women 45+” (equalslovakia, 2008) in v4 countries aiming increase of employment of this group of women but their positive results appear only slowly. however, the gap in employment of men and women is problematic in europe as a whole, especially if we take into account situation in particular regions. rate of women unemployment is higher than rate of men unemployment in more than half of all european regions (mládež 2008). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 22-34) 26 rigidity of labour markets in v4 persisting problems of labour market rigidity in v4 countries are due to heavy administration and legislation, entrepreneurship barriers, missing qualification, insufficient employment policy of government, etc. the rigidity of the labour market can be measured through change of employment and change of gdp. table 2: average values of indicators since 2000 to 2008 ∅ break point of employment growth ∅ ∆ employment/∆gdp slovakia 4,97 -0,06 czech republic 3,83 0,12 hungary 3,68 -0,12 poland 3,44 -0,15 source: (czereová 2008, 47) break point of employment growth is calculated as difference between gdp growth and employment growth (marcinčin, beblavý, 2000, 376). this indicator helps us to quantify an overall rigidity of the labour market. the ideal value should be at about zero. very big number or negative number reflects negative evolution. the highest rigidity is on slovak labour market. but even other v4 countries are marked with high level of rigidity. second indicator expressing average elasticity of employment growth to gdp growth presents again negative results. the worst results are this time in poland. growth of gdp by one unit often did not cause an adequate employment growth. despite gdp growth an adequate number of workstations was not created. long-term unemployment in v4 countries according international labour organization (ilo) and eurostat long-term unemployment is unemployment over 12 months. impacts of long-term unemployment are very negative from economic point of view as well as from personal point of view. the longer are people unemployed the less chance to find a job they have. the most important problems with long-term unemployment are again in slovakia and in poland as it is obvious from figure 3. jakubiková, e., et al., women employment in slovakia, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 22-34) 27 figure 3: evolution of long-term unemployment in v4 countries in comparison with eu 27 and euro zone, in % source: own represantation according eurostat long-term unemployment is in case of the czech republic and hungry again comparable with eu 27 and euro zone. we can observe proportion of long-term unemployment on overall unemployment in v4 countries on figure 4. in eu 27 and euro zone the proportion is similar. figure 4: proportion of long-term (lt) unemployment on overall unemployment in v4 countries, in % journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 22-34) 28 source: own representations according to eurostat the long-term unemployment is the most significant in case of slovakia. in 2008, its proportion represented 10,2% on overall unemployment in slovakia, while european average was only 3,7% (euractiv, 2008). persisting long-term unemployment in v4 countries is due to lack of structural reforms and consequently creation of new workstations is very insufficient (marcinčin 2002, 348). long-term unemployment concerns especially: • women after maternity leave and women with small children, • non-qualified labour force, • handicapped people, • minorities and immigrants, • people living in country, especially in less developed regions, • older unemployed people, • young school graduates (paukovič 2007, 78). table 3 depicts gap between long-term unemployment of men and women. long-term unemployment concerns again mostly women. the worst situation is averagely since 1997 in poland. the best situation seems to be again in hungary, where long-term unemployment concerns almost equally men and women. the worst future trend is one more time in slovakia. general evolution is not so negative, but during last years the gap is getting larger as it is shown on figure 5. jakubiková, e., et al., women employment in slovakia, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 22-34) 29 table 3: average gap between unemployment of men and women in v4 countries in comparison with eu 27 and euro zone since 1997 to 2008, in % country eu 27 euro zone the czech republic hungary poland slovakia gap in % 0,47 1,32 1,65 -0,4 2,12 0,95 source: own calculations according eurostat figure 5: worsening trend in long-term unemployment of women (f) in comparing to men (m) in slovakia, in % source: own representation according to eurostat negative impacts of long term unemployment on society is that unemployed people lose their working abilities and habits, they lose motivation to work and this sinister phenomenon is transferred to younger generations of these families. impacts of current economic crisis up to now, situation seemed to be the best for hungary especially as for unemployment gap between men and women in case of overall as well as long term unemployment. however, current economic crisis influences negatively even hungary. while the czech republic maintains more less low unemployment even below eu 27 and euro zone averages, unemployment in hungary climbs slightly over eu 27 and euro zone level. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 22-34) 30 trends and several macroeconomic analyses signal even more important increase in following months. evolution of overall inflation in v4, eu 27 and euro zone during last months touched by economic crisis is depicted on figure 6. figure 6: evolution of unemployment in v4 countries in comparison with eu 27 and euro zone since june 2008 to april 2009, in % source: own representation according eurostat negative impact of crises on employment of women is more important in slovakia, hungary and in the czech republic, where gap is widening. in poland and euro zone the gap is narrowing in favour of women. in eu 27 situation stays unchanged. table 4: average gap between unemployment of men and women in v4 countries in comparison with eu 27 and euro zone since june 2008 to april 2009, in % country eu 27 euro zone the czech republic hungary poland slovakia gap in % 0,47 0,97 1,95 0,05 1,37 1,79 source: own calculations according eurostat jakubiková, e., et al., women employment in slovakia, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 22-34) 31 impact of crisis on employment in v4 is often influenced by narrow orientation of country economy. this is obvious is especially in case of slovakia where economy is orientated mostly on car industry. gender pay gap gender pay gap, i.e. difference between average gross hourly earnings of male paid employees and of female paid employees as a percentage of average gross hourly earnings of male paid employees (eurostat 2009) is another source of negative impacts on women employment. gender pay gap is expressed in table 5. table 5: gender pay gap in v4 countries in comparison with eu 27 and euro zone in 2007, in % country eu 27 euro zone the czech republic hungary poland slovakia gap in % 17,4 17,2 23,6 16,3 7,5 23,6 source: eurostat the most negative situation is in slovakia and in the czech republic. the narrowest gap is surprisingly in poland. gender pay gap exists mostly due to vertical and horizontal segregation. women work usually in sectors with lower average wage where career promotion is limited. if they work in sectors with higher average wage and more professional opportunities, they have usually badly paid positions. some sectors are strongly feminised and another strongly masculine. in some countries, e.g. in slovakia, this segregation is becoming even deeper (equalslovakia 2008). the most of visegrad women work in public sector while the most of men work in private sector. women work especially in state administration, education, social services, health care system, restaurants, hotels and retail sale services (baťo 2007). all these sectors are badly paid in all v4 countries. men work mostly in information technology sectors, automobile industry and telecommunication services. among entrepreneurs, only approximately 25% are women. encouragement of female entrepreneurship would help to reduce many problems on labour markets as it is explained more comprehensively e.g. by radović (2007). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 22-34) 32 according analyses of world bank (baťo 2007), one third of gender pay gap in slovakia can be explained by different education, qualification or labour productivity. the two third of gender pay cap can be explained by other phenomenon as e.g. discrimination. the analyses provide similar results in case of other v4 countries. however, these two thirds can be explained also by gender segregation that was already mentioned. women are concentrated in sectors with the lowest wages. in the nearest future, we cannot expect important decrease of gender pay gap. this segregation exists already at the level of secondary school and university education. e.g. girls dominate traditionally on pedagogical schools and boys on technical schools. we can hope that in long-term gender pay gap will be narrowing as it is in western european countries, however, governmental measurement bring positive effects only very slowly. conclusion v4 governments target to reduce above-mentioned problems of v4 labour market. however, their measurements are often inefficient. generally, they support little their labour policy. poland offers every year little bit over 1% of its gdp, hungary and slovakia at about 0,6% of gdp and the czech republic only approximately 0,5% each year to labour policy measurements. european average is at about 1,7% of gdp (eurostat). nevertheless in v4 countries, the most of money goes to passive measurements and active measurements are underestimated. one of the effective solutions seems to be e.g. life-long learning already dealt in numerous works (e.g. urbančíková 2003, 159) and analyses but above all confirmed by good experience of some western european countries. countries with the most participants in life-long learning have the highest rate of employment and the lowest gender employment gap. this is e.g. the case of denmark, switzerland, sweden, the netherlands and finland. v4 countries, mostly slovakia and poland pay much less attention to 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(2003) tvorba marketingového mixu pre oblasť celoživotného vzdelávania. in: scientific papers of the university of pardubice. no. 8 (2003), pp. 156-161. issn 1211-555x received: april 2009 article history: accepted: july 2009 microsoft word 11_jwe_1-2 udc: 331.055.2; 331.526 jel: b54; j21 scientific review paper women’s participation to self-employment and informal sector esema isiaka e.*, international community education association, lagos, nigeria a b s t r a c t using comparable micro-level data from three countries, we ask what type of person works in the informal sector and whether informal workers earn lower wages than observationally equivalent workers in the formal sector. the characteristics of informal workers are similar across countries. surprisingly, when we control for these personal characteristics, we find a significant wage premium associated with formal employment. a model of endogenous selection offers little help in explaining the differences in wage patterns. the research casts doubt on the received wisdom that the informal sector, always and everywhere, is a poorly-paid but easily-entered refuge for those who have no other employment opportunities. kew words: women, informal workers, self-employment, labour market introduction for many researchers, social scientists, and more generally for observers and policymakers, it is taken for granted that the bulk of female labour force, in developing countries, is engaged in the informal sector. as a consequence, it is also admitted that the contribution of women to gdp, and especially to informal gdp, is widely under-estimated, because informal sector activities are under-estimated by nature and for * professor and chairman, international community education association, lagos, nigeria esema, i.e., women’s participation, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 108-116) 109 methodological reasons, and within the informal sector, female activities are those which are the most difficult to capture and to measure (charmes, 1998). since 1993 when an international definition was adopted for the informal sector as a concept of labour force, by the xvth international conference of labour statisticians (ilo,1993a and 1993b), a great impetus has been given to data collection and statistical estimation for this sector at national level. for many developing countries, in various regions and for various periods,overall estimates of the numbers engaged in the informal sector are now available (charmes, 1998). similar data for informal sector contribution to gdp remain scarce, except in africa where such an exercise was taken as a necessity, given the very small size of the formal sector (see also charmes, 1998). but more and more countries in asia, and in latin america, are now attempting to produce such estimates which reveal particularly useful in order to understand how the households and the economy as a whole – cope with, and succeed in maintaining their levels of living and their performance during the crises of the business cycle. although the informal sector has been characterized by several attributes, noncompliance with the legal and administrative regulations is often regarded as its most important characteristic. castells and portes (1989: 12) state that the most central feature of informal sector activities is that they are .unregulated by the institutions of society, in a legal and social environment in which similar activities are regulated.. portes (1994) and assaad (1997) emphasize that it is noncompliance with the legal and administrative regulations rather than with social regulations that is important. theearly development literature assumed that in the developing countries the informal sector would disappear over time as it did in the developed countries. turnham (1993: 147) estimated the proportion of informal employment for groups of countries at different levels of development and found that the share of informal employment declines as the level of development rises. his definition of informal sector employment included wage workers in small enterprises and the selfemployed excluding professionals and technicians. recently, governments and international organizations have emphasized the dynamic features of the informal sector and its job creating aspect. ranis and stewart (1999) examined the informal sector in relation to the rest of the economy and journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no.1-2, 108-116) 110 divided it into two parts, a modernizing dynamic component and a traditional stagnant one. the traditional view sees the informal sector as the disadvantaged segment of a dualistic labor market. this view is expressed in the harris-todaro (1970) model and by mazumdar (1983) among other writers. according to an alternate view, dualism arises endogenously from efficiency wage type considerations which lead large firms to pay emuneration above market clearing levels. this is expressed by stiglitz (1974), esfahani and salehi-isfahani (1989) and rosenzweig (1989). according to a more recent conceptualization of duality, large firms confronted by global competition subcontract to unprotected workers in order to reduce costs and gain flexibility. for this view see portes, castells and benton (1989) and portes and schauffler (1993).this study focuses on the gender earnings differential of private sector wage earners and the self-employed. the wage earner in this study is defined to include regular employees (wage and salary earners) and casual workers. two groups of private sector wage earners are considered: those who are covered by a social security program and those who are not covered by any social security program. they are sometimes referred to as protected and unprotected workers respectively. they will be referred to as covered and uncovered wage earners in this paper. they are parts of the formal and informal sectors respectively. self-employment defined to include people who own their business.they are the sole workers of their enterprises. they do not hire labor or use services of unpaid family members. they exclude the professionals and technicians and as such they are part of the informal sector. in the survey used in this study no question was asked about the social security coverage of the self-employed. thus, uncovered wage-earners and all of the self-employed (excluding professionals and technicians) are taken to form the informal sector. this may not be the general way of identifying the formal and informal sectors in the literature (radovic ,markovic m.”et.al. 2010) literature review self-employment outside agriculture has increased at world-wide level over the past three decades, and so did the share of women in selfemployment, although at a lesser rhythm.the diversity of experiences of economic informality is reflected in the economic literature, parts of which emphasize the choices which workers make while other parts underscore esema, i.e., women’s participation, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 108-116) 111 the constraints on choice.some allege that the “modern” sector is incapable of generating sufficient employment. the small firms of the informal sector then offer second-best opportunities in easily-entered, competitive markets (tokman, 1989). others see the informal sector as that part of the economy which is “unregulated by the institutions of society, in a legal and social environment in which similar activities are regulated” (castells and portes, 1989, p.12). for better (de soto, 1989) or for worse (roberts, 1990), people freely shift operations between the formal sector, where licensing is enforced and worker entitlements are protected, and the unregulated informal sector (marcouiller and young, 1995). the first of these strands of thought intertwines naturally with the analysis of labor despite these recent efforts and greater concern and sensibility for gender issues, disaggregation of informal sector data by sex are not always nor often available for various reasons: even when ad hoc surveys at national level have been carried out for measuring the informal sector, the published reports and tables may have not emphasize such issues, although they are of primary importance for the understanding of the sector, where estimates are based on comparisons of various sources, it frequently and surprisingly occurs that disaggregation by sex is missing for registered employment in the formal sector. this is why it is useful to distinguish two segments or sub-sectors in the informal sector as it is internationally defined: the self-employed comprising of independent own-account workers and family workers, the micro-enterprises sub-sector comprising of employers and their regular employees in enterprises with less than 5 or 10 permanent employees. for comparisons purposes and in order to facilitate the use of existing statistical sources of data, most of the following tables and figures include the employers in the category of selfemployed, so that the micro-enterprises segment only comprises of employees in enterprises with less than 5 or 10 employees. these proxies greatly facilitate the comparisons and their impact on the overall actual figures for the informal sector is negligible, given the low number of employers in the formal sector on the one hand, and in both formal and informal sectors on the other hand. taking ground of available data or other data elaborated for this purpose through a common conceptual framework and methodology, we will present a compilation of women’s participation to the labour force and to informal sector employment in a first section, then in a second section, women’s contribution to informal sector in gdp. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no.1-2, 108-116) 112 the first of these strands of thought intertwines naturally with the analysis of labor market segmentation. theories of segmentation generally make two assertions. the first is that “rewards in different economic sectors may differ for workers of equal potential productivity” (magnac, 1991, p.165), or, more specifically, “that there is a distinct low-wage (secondary) labor market in which there are no returns to schooling and workers do not receive on-the-job training” (dickens and lang, 1985, p.792). the second assertion is that, “because of institutional barriers to occupational mobility between sectors, a worker in the lower sector has less than full access to a job in the upper sector held by an observationally identical worker” (gindling, 1991, p.585). the image of workers queued for high-wage formal jobs fits this frame. what do the data show? using individualand household-level data from surveys of urban areas in three different countries, we ask what type of person works in the informal sector and whether informal workers earn lower wages than observationally equivalent workers in the formal sector. we find significant wage premia associated with work in the formal sector in el salvador and peru. in mexico, on the other hand, a premium is associated with work in the informal sector. our paper does not formally test the segmentation hypothesis.3 however, the evidence we offer on wage differentials does challenge the widespread notion that informal employment is, by its nature, the last resort of those who have no other choice. papers using recent large-scale household surveys from different countries in a completely consistent approach to the analysis of the informal sector are few and far between. our work is close in spirit to gindling’s analysis of informal, private formal, and public labor markets in costa rica (1991). terrell (1989) estimates wage regressions for guatemala city. tannen (1991) and telles (1993) study the wage structures of parts of brazil. heckman and hotz (1986) explore a more general notion of primary and secondary labor markets in panama. a recent working paper by funkhouser (1994) presents interesting comparative analysis of household data from the five spanish-speaking central american countries. for all regions in the world, except in southeastern asia (a region which has known a rapid industrialisation in the recent period until the 1997 financial crisis which has abruptly the process, and the impact of which is not taken into account in the present statistics), and in northern, the proportion of non-agricultural self-employment (i.e.non-wage employment) has steadily increased over the past three decades. from 33.4 per cent in the 70’s, self-employment rose up to 43.7 esema, i.e., women’s participation, jwe (2011, no. 1-2, 108-116) 113 per cent in southern asia, from 23.0 to 34.0 per cent in north africa, from 28.8 to 37.8 per cent in latin america, from 3.5 to 8.5 per cent in transition countries of eastern europe (which started from quasi-universal wage employment outside agriculture) and even from 20.9 to 25.0 per cent in southern (mediterranean) europe. so that in the current period, selfemployment represents nearly 1/3 of the total non-agricultural labour force in asia, 2/5 in latin america, 1/6 in europe (but 1/4 in southern europe) and 1/10 in north america.sub-saharan africa takes however the lion’s share with an increase from 29.6 per cent in the 70’s to 66.9 per cent in the 90’s (more than 2/3 of the non-agricultural labour force). at world level,self-employment increased from less than 1/4 (22.6 percent) to 28.4 percent of the labour force outside agriculture. such a figure can be taken as a minimum proxy for the informal sector, and it could be improved and it is actually confirmed by using the data collected by informal sector surveys, as shown in tables 5, 6 and 7 hereafter: according to the most recent surveys, the share of self-employment in total non-agricultural labour force rose up to 75.6 percent in the 90’s. at country level, the most dramatic growth of this component of the labour force and of the informal sector over the past decade are recorded in poland, a country which embarked resolutely and rapidly into the process of privatization (4.2 percent in the 80’s, 15.9 percent in the90’s), italy, a country well-known for its fabric of small family enterprises particularly in its northern part (from 19.7 percent to 30.8 percent, a very huge increase for a developed country), tunisia where the small industries play a major role in the industrialisation process, and brazil (20.9 to 32.0 percent), ecuador (39.9 to 49.4 percent) and venezuela (26.8 to 35.3 percent) in latin america. coming now to the share of self-employed in female nonagricultural labour force, it comes out from the compiled data that it has also increased over the three decades and for the same regions, but less markedly: in the current period, self-employment represents nearly 1/3 of non-agricultural female labour force in latin america, 2/7 in asia,1/4 in north africa, and 1/5 in southern europe. here again, sub-saharan africa is outstanding: for women, the bulk of nonagricultural labour force is represented for more than 43 per cent by self-employment in the 70’s and this proportion has increased up to more than 5/6 in the 90’s; many indications show that this trend is continuing in the recent period. the same sources that are referred to in tables 5 to 6 hereafter show that female self-employment as a share of female non-agricultural employment has journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no.1-2, 108-116) 114 increased up to 88.4 percent in the 90’s. on the contrary, in eastern and south-eastern asia, the share of self-employment in female nonagricultural employment has slightly decreased as a consequence of the industrialization process, a process which may have transformed many of these self-employed women into piece-rate home workers, an even less secure type of job. on these grounds, the share of self-employed women at world level would represent nearly 2/7 of female non-agricultural labour force in the 90’s (compared to 1/4 in the 70’s). at country level, the most dramatic drop are recorded in mexico (from 44.3 to 19.8 percent over the past decade) and in thailand (from 42.5 to 36.8 percent), probably due to the increase of homework (or the “putting out system” which inserts women into the labour market but leaves them at home). elsewhere, and especially in the same countries where self-employment as a whole has rapidly increased, the share of selfemployed women grew steadily: poland (from 1.9 to 9.4 percent), italy and portugal (from 17.2 to 30.2 and from 9.9 to 16.0 percent respectively), brazil, ecuador and chile, but also in sweden and uk (from 1.1 to 7.5 and from 3.9 to 8.0 percent respectively, such changes highlighting various modes of insertion on the labour market). even if these trends are partly due to improvements in the measurement of women’s activities or to the extension of the definition of economic activity (or at least its better understanding by the persons in charge of data collection operations), they are also significant of the entry of women into the labour market in these times of structural adjustment and of necessity for them to undertake market activities in order to earn a living and to maintain the living standards of their families. references [1] assaad, r. 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(2010) “female employment in formal and informal sectors of the serbian economy”. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, no.3-4:18-27. article history: received: 8 march 2011 accepted: 16 april 2011 12_jwe_3-4 udc:334.71(497.11) jel: b54, l26 original scientific paper small companies access to multi guarantee mechanisms an evidence from serbian female companies dedjanski stevica, megatrend university, belgrade, serbia grozdanić radmila, faculty for ba and entrepreneurship, belgrade, serbia radović-marković mirjana, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia vukotić vladimir, frazer hume, opportunity bank, novi sad, serbia a b s t r a c t financial markets and sources of funds are scarce in serbia for small companies, especially for these owned by women. there is a little mobilized capital for various reasons to support innovative small companies, the lack of private equity funds and various multi guarantee schemes, and private public sources. the main objective of this paper is to show the opportunities for the better transfer of best current practice into the system and practical solutions of the serbian financial intermediaries and end users in the field of guarantees /loans, equity or joint venture, the proportion of the guarantee/ which covers the loan, interest rate, length, and conditions of the applications /, service/ multi societies or state agencies/. investments in the development of small companies, female owned, especially in the innovation of products, services and technology are the main precondition to their greater involvement in exporting, selling goods with higher added value to global market and sustainability of their business kew words: multi guarantee mechanisms, small companies, female owned enterprises journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 18 introduction the majority of existing and new businesses are very small. according to a recent statistical data 95-93% of serbian smes are microenterprises (0 to 9 employees). most of these micro-enterprises are selfemployed people who do not create additional jobs, do not have the resources or do not want to grow. 14% of them are female owned. those micro-enterprises wishing to grow, however, often do not have access to the necessary external financing. although there is wide debate about the exact role of small enterprises in driving economic change, most authors agree that due to their flexibility, their innovative capacities and their role in strengthening competition and female enterprises in strengthening social cohesion, small firms perform vital productivity and growth-enhancing functions in the economy. in order to make use of their potential, these firms need to be provided with an enabling environment, which encompasses the access to capital. however, one of the greatest obstacles to the entry, development and growth of small firms in emerging economies as serbia is, is access to formal finance. depending on their size and environment, enterprises see access to formal finance as more or less challenging. compared with larger enterprises, small firms are restricted in their access to commercial bank and government funds although the latter play only a marginal role for them. as a consequence of their disadvantaged status, small and, to a lesser degree medium enterprises, seek recourse to (short-term) informal finance. without sufficient long-term finance, small firms are unable to expand their businesses and to introduce productivity enhancing technology. this will have adverse consequences for the competitiveness of the sector and the economy as a whole, especially from gender aspect of the owners. bank branches outside the capital cities frequently provide only cash and do not have the authority to make loans, leaving small enterprises in rural areas un-proportionally disadvantaged. banks advance four main reasons for their reluctance to extend credit to small enterprises: − high administrative costs of small-scale lending, − asymmetric information, − high risk perception, − lack of collateral. since movable property may be difficult to store, its value declines over time (equipment depreciates and livestock dies) and inefficient dedjanski, s., et al., small companies, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 19 secondary markets lead to high liquidation costs, lenders typically demand real estate as collateral instead. this, however, is likely to belong to large firms or rich landowners. in the event of default, foreclosing on collateral will usually involve costly litigation, which may exceed the value of small loans. alternatively, it may be socially and politically difficult to seize collateral of low-income entrepreneurs. because of these problems, for serbia is very important to implement best practices in other source of funding, more favorable for small companies, especially for female ones, as guarantee schemas, multi guarantee associations, public and private support in resolving collateral problems. literature review according to storey and tether (1998a), looking at the problems of small businesses in relation to the needs of high technology, it is considered that, role of guarantees in various types of support to innovative smes grow rapidly because of: lower financial risk for smes and providers of guarantees, higher awareness and management skills of small business to use these instruments. christensen et al (1999) defines a credit guarantee scheme as a security designed to share risk between the lender and the recipient of the high-risk sector for support. shearman and burrell in 1988 put accent on the needs of small companies that develop new industries / for example medical lasers /, calling such companies, "high tech smes." according to bannock, 1997, 1998.and cressy (1997), vogel and adams (1997), guarantee schemas are very important for small, female firms with luck of collateral for their innovative efforts. in multi guarantee schemas, private small firms are often associated in sectorial association, or in cluster, / auto and electro industry /, just because of more easy access to finance. loan finance of micro sector/female eenterprises in the eu europe has a long tradition of loan finance, which remains the main source of external finance for small enterprises. equity finance, which is less developed than in the usa, is not considered to be the solution, indeed not even an option, by the majority of european small enterprises. for those enterprises with growth potential, however, some form of risk finance may be the most appropriate way to facilitate early growth. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 20 access to loans by new and small enterprises is very different in the member states and candidate countries. where sme promotional development banks or national risk-sharing schemes are available, access to small loans appears to be easier. the number of smes and new enterprises reached by these schemes however, varies considerably. a “north-south gap” can be observed in the eu: traditionally, access to debt finance by small enterprises seems easier in northern countries than in southern ones. in addition, an “east-west gap” has also become increasingly visible due to the fact that domestic credit as a percentage of gdp is much higher in the eu than in the majority of candidate countries where the banking sector is still recent: this feature is one of the reasons for the strong development of non-banks providing microcredit in the candidate countries. microcredit provision is a difficult activity because of the perceived high risk of failure and the high handling costs. some credit institutions do so though, either because it is part of their mission to accept low returns; the risk is partially taken by a public guarantee institution or a mutual guarantee society; or, to a lesser extent, it may be a marketing strategy to support enterprise creators, who could later become good clients. outside of public-private schemes, credit institutions are often reluctant to offer loans to enterprise creators. if they do so, they normally offer credit lines or overdrafts (with substantially higher interest rates) rather than short or medium term loans (with normal interest rates). credit lines represent a much higher risk for entrepreneurs, as they are more expensive and can be recalled at any moment by the credit institution. for this reason, small entrepreneurs would prefer the better contractual stability provided by short or long-term loans. public subsidies are often used to share the risks through counter-guarantees and cover at least part of the handling costs. when offering a loan, credit institutions ask for collateral, usually a personal guarantee or a mortgage on real estate. the collateral requirement for microloans often exceeds the amount of the loan (up to 150% in certain countries). as banks were not able to bridge the gap in the provision of microcredit, in some member states and candidate countries, non-banks emerged, in the form of limited liability companies, trusts, charities or other forms of associations to fill this market gap. the specific objective of the paper is to give an overview of existing good practices concerning microcredit (<€ 25,000), as well as associated guarantee schemes, to new and existing small enterprises in the member states and dedjanski, s., et al., small companies, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 21 candidate countries, with width to transferee best practices into serbian smes environment. microcredit lending the finance activities known as “microcredit” in a broader sense are focusing in eu on loans below € 25,000, as well as associated guarantee schemes, to new and existing micro-enterprises. microcredit is generally considered to be a tool to boost start-ups creation and promote entrepreneurship: over the last decade, member states have been encouraging microcredit provision by financial institutions. micro-lending differs from conventional bank lending in a number of technical aspects. credit assessment methods used focus more on the borrower and the likely impact of their business on their community than on the business plan. micro-finance providers generally attempt to reduce or avoid the need for collateral. step lending techniques, in which larger follow-up loans are provided if the initial loan is successfully repaid, reduce risk and transaction costs. the maturity period is normally short and the interest rate often relatively high compared to traditional bank loans. member state governments can intervene by offering an enabling environment in which microcredit can operate, by providing direct financial support and/or adopting appropriate rules on social protection for microenterprises, in particular for start-ups. similarly, some of the schemes subsequently described are in the form of direct financial support and others are part of a wider enabling environment. most microcredit operations generally involve public banks, either acting as finance providers to institutional customers or providing finance directly to small enterprises. their legal framework is the european banking directive and national legislation on credit institutions. credit institutions, commonly called banks, shall mean an undertaking whose business is to receive deposits or other repayable funds from the public and to grant credit for its own account. however, deposit taking, credit extension and guarantee activities fall under the supervision of different public entities (e.g. respectively under financial services, fair trading and insurance legislation in the united kingdom). depending on the national traditions and practices, several national schemes have been implemented in the last ten years. almi of sweden (microloans) and funds de participation of belgium (subordinated loans) began their current microcredit activity in journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 22 1992, followed by ico of spain (sme loans) in 1995 and finnvera of finland in 1996-97 (microloans; loans to women entrepreneurs). between 1998 and 2011, other member states, such as france, germany and the united kingdom, have also adopted measures. the national schemes often have common features: − national measures to promote the availability of funding to institutional customers; − a retail operator, to extend the credit to the micro-enterprises. in this period, several schemes have been launched: partial credit provision; partial risk sharing; tax incentive. the national schemes take into account the fact that a national finance provider is generally less well placed to establish effective business relationships with micro-enterprises, with specific accent to women, than locally or regionally-based finance providers. where a state-owned promotional bank exists for microcredit, activities (austria, belgium, finland, france, germany, italy, luxembourg, spain, and sweden), it is the finance provider of the system and local banks that are the retailers to small enterprises. these schemes have the advantage that both, promotional banks and private banks, are under public control or banking supervision. the risk of mismanagement and irregularities is therefore limited. in addition, the operations are subject to eu state aid and competition rules. the recently implemented schemes are large-scale operations with an important impact on enterprise creation. in above mentioned states, there are also state-owned promotional banks which are either under public supervision or receive specific treatment, for, in particular, the function of finance provider for institutional customers in charge of the direct contact with microenterprises. in some countries, microcredits to small enterprises are awarded by micro-finance institutions under civil code, which are generally compliant with the directive on consumer credit. as for credit institutions, these micro-finance institutions are commercially driven and following a sustainable business model. microcredits provided by ngos primarily for social inclusion purposes are also significant in some member states (france, united kingdom) and candidate countries: here they contribute to the promotion of enterprise as a tool to fight social exclusion, especially of women and unemployment. depending on national legislation and traditions, their legal framework is diverse: non-profit associations (france), charities, not-for-profit companies (united dedjanski, s., et al., small companies, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 23 kingdom). depending on the national traditions and practices, several national schemes have been implemented in the last ten years. almi of sweden (microloans) and fonds de participation of belgium (subordinated loans) began their current microcredit activity in 1992, followed by ico of spain (sme loans) in 1995 and finnvera of finland in 1996-97 (microloans; loans to women entrepreneurs). the recently implemented schemes are large-scale operations with an important impact on enterprise creation. − finland: finnvera small loans and women microcredits, lends directly to the borrower, corresponded to 12% of the number of start-ups per year (absolute figure): almost half of them are resulting from microcredits to women. in addition to the loan, finnvera offers also guarantees, if the collateral provided by the borrower is not considered sufficient. − france: prêt à la création d’entreprise (pce) of bdpme, with more than 11,000 microloans per a year, the “get your business started loan” pce corresponded to 7% of the number of start-ups.in addition, a 70% guarantee is issued through a subsidiary (sofaris) for the complementary part of the loan provided by the retailer with its resources to the business creator. fonds de participation (fdp) was created in 1984, offers loans directly to the final borrower − spain: ico sme programme in last 5 years, ico provided an average of € 120 million p.a. of microcredit (below € 25,000) to micro-enterprises. special attention has been paid to quickness in decision-making or even to giving decision autonomy to retailers. avoiding unnecessary delays is a major concern for micro-enterprises and a factor in their competitiveness. − germany: mikro-darlehen has a practice that a one-page application received by kfw through a local bank, which could be any bank in germany, where kfw then gives its decision within three days, to make its credit assessment. kfw provides guarantee up to 80% on the loan amount to the local bank. the borrowers’ survival rate is 93% after 3 years. the product has been extended to an annual average of 7,000 operational sustainability ratio is 100%36. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 24 − deutsche ausgleichsbank (dta) launched two microcredit products dta-startgeld and dtamikrodarlehen ehich are now part of kfw group. − the uk’s community tax relief (citr), provides an incentive to investors providing patient capital to specialist micro-finance institutions known as community development finance institutions (cdfis). an individual or corporate investor willing to provide capital to a cdfi either as a loan or as share capital for at least five years will receive a tax relief of 5% of the amount invested in each of five successive tax years. cdfis, which must be accredited by the uk government’s small business service to attract this investment, then lend to startups, existing enterprises and community projects. citr has been cleared by the commission as a compatible state aid. in eu, the best estimates (€) by country found by the microcredit working group in 2010, were the following: table 1: share of typical collateral for specific microcredit programmes /%/ by country share of collaterals for the microcredit provider/%/ by country real estate other fixed assets guarantees receivables no collateral austria 0% 0% 100% 0% 0% belgium 0% 0% 0% 0% 100% germany 0% 0% 80% 0% 20% estonia 5% 53% 41% 0% 0% finland 0% 0% 10% 0% 80% france 0% 0% 70% 10% 24% hungary 90% 10% 0% 0% 0% ireland 0% 0% 0% 0% 100% latvia 60% 26% 14% 0% 0% lithuania 55 20 10 15 0% poland 30% 19% 50% 0% 0% romania up to 100% up to 100% accepted if available 0% depending on the programmes slovenia 50% 0% 50% 0% 0 sweden 0% 0% 0% 60% 40% u. kingdom 0% 0% 0% 0% 100% source: survey of uk micro-lenders below € 30,000 by cdfa dedjanski, s., et al., small companies, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 25 the wide variation of reported handling costs for the lender depends mainly on four aspects and the varying amount of time awarded to each one: − support to the preparation of an enterprise loan application, reflecting the level of “investment readiness” of the borrower; − internal process to secure the credit deal, including the assessment and approval costs, identification of collateral as well as back office costs; − internal loan monitoring, including late payment and default procedures; − non-financial business support and mentoring, which is the largest single operating cost in certain cases. transaction costs vary between 6% and 35%. calculated lending margin of some major microcredit programmes: 0.9% for kfw with startgeld; 1% for finnvera microloans to women and female enterprises; 1.7% for bdpme with the pce. very important issue of microcredit support to female enterprises is connected to the new created jobs. for example in slovenia a national microcredit scheme for job creation was jointly introduced in 1996 by small business development centre and national unemployment office with the main objective to secure a number of new jobs. the scheme was introduced in five regions where national funds were complemented by local sources of finance. the real interest rate of 2 % p.a., combined with the aids of regional guarantee schemes and a six month repayment lag period was interesting enough to encourage strong demand for the credit line. the final result at the end of the project was 548 new jobs. table 2: no. of jobs created by microcredit b el gi u m g er m an y f ra n ce h u n ga ry l at vi a l it h u an ia p ol an d s w ed en u . k in gd om 1.17 1.7 1.7 1.2 1.04 1.5 1 1.7 2 source: eurostat journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 26 in candidate countries, under the phare smes finance facility, ebrd, ceb-kfw and eib are the finance providers to institutional customers and national credit institutions are providing loans to smes. regarding the enabling environment to promote microcredit, the united kingdom offers an interesting scheme of tax incentive. this incentive is not a direct financial intervention by the national government, but a part of the national enabling environment to promote the provision of microcredit to disadvantaged communities by increasing the supply of funds for the microcredit retailers. multi guarantee schemas guarantees schemes are also major microcredit facilitators, including mutual guarantee schemes. micro-enterprises are perceived as very risky by a credit provider and very often, the micro entrepreneur has no suitable collateral to offer. a way of sharing the risk is to ensure the participation of either a public, private or mutual guarantee scheme. guarantee schemes are not generally exclusively targeting microcredit or small entrepreneurs: depending on their individual features, they are open to smes in general, to a specific economic sector, to a certain area or to members only in the case of mutual societies. at the european level, two main financial programmes for smes have been active: counter-guarantees for sme lending. the activities carried out in the framework of the growth and employment initiative. a sme guarantee facility, with a specific window for microcredit guarantee, has been available within the multiannual programme (map) for the promotion of entrepreneurship and enterprise, five microcredit institutions signed an agreement with eif: adie (france), funds de participation (belgium), ico (spain), kfw (germany), prince’s trust (united kingdom). since 2003, the map has been opened to candidate countries, after the signature of a memorandum of understanding with the european commission. the window for microcredit guarantee, aiming at encouraging financial institutions to play a greater role in microcredit, is managed by the eif. as part of the enlargement process, phare smes finance facility has been the most important programme to promote access to finance to smes in the candidate countries. potential strengths of guarantee schemes − counter-guarantee element (reg., nat., eif) dedjanski, s., et al., small companies, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 27 − individual risk assessment and follow-up − leverage effect of regulatory own funds a leverage effect of 10 x € 1 with e.g. a 50% coverage allows: − € 10 of guarantees − € 20 of bank loans − even higher amount of final investment typologies of guarantee schemes. general: great variety of different legal and operational frameworks for guarantee schemes => reflection of local needs. three main models: 1. mutual, fully private sector, guarantee scheme 2. mixed model of with private mutual guarantee and public counter-guarantee (a sort of ppp) 3. public guarantee scheme or fund table 3: differences between public and private schemes public private initiative taken by public authorities initiative taken by smes and representative organizations mainly public shareholding mainly private shareholding directory board elected or nominated by state authorities directory board composed by smes, bankers. solvencyresponsibility through funds + public umbrella self-protected solvency-public support though counter guarantee mission-sme support mutuality principles-member sme support ltd company with majority from state or endowment cooperative or ltd company other goals-subsidies other goal-no important guarantee schemes are available in several member states (austria, belgium, denmark, finland, france, germany, italy, portugal, spain, the netherlands, united kingdom). they share the risk with the microloan provider. some candidate countries have also created a national or regional guarantee scheme (czech republic, estonia, hungary, poland, romania, slovakia and slovenia). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 28 − estonia: credit and export guarantee fund, supports the growth and development of smes by improving their access to finance through guarantees for credit arrangements between companies and their banks. the loan application is submitted directly to a bank. if the bank is prepared to grant the loan contract subject to the agreement of kredex to provide a guarantee, then the bank forwards the application to kredex. the scheme is focused on cases which without the guarantee, would be appraised negatively by the banks. the guarantee covers up to 75% of the outstanding loans. so there will always be a risk for the banks of a minimum of 25% to 40% of the outstanding debt. the loan guarantee scheme has been in place since 2001. kredex also runs a risk, which is reflected by the fact that there is a guarantee fee of 1.5-3% of the loan. this means that, although the scheme is intended for higher-risk activities and also projects, kredex will see to it that the risk is within limits, regardless of the potential value of the particular project. in addition to national guarantee schemes, mutual guarantee societies (mgs) play a major role in micro-finance. − a mgs is a private society or organization created by owners of small enterprises. when they are in charge of assessing a guarantee application or even the loan application before the bank, they offer a unique service: the knowledge of the economic sub-sector at local level, the precise technical skills required for the applicant and a detailed estimation of revenue prospects. they generally use qualitative methods for their application assessment. a guarantee provided by a mgs will drastically reduce the risk for the credit institution, which will therefore provide a loan more easily, and could even provide a lower interest rate to a micro-entrepreneur backed by a mgs. mgs are quite important because they are particularly complementary to banks by providing data on applicants based on deep local market knowledge thereby fighting the information asymmetry. they also reduce the risk of adverse selection and provide a guarantee from members’ funds and/or public funding, as guarantee, coguarantee or counter-guarantee. − italy: confidi is en nationwide mutual guarantee scheme for the craft sector as well as industrial and commercial microdedjanski, s., et al., small companies, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 29 enterprises. the confidi system includes 680 private companies (each with its own legal and administrative autonomy), where almost 1,000,000 entrepreneurs are members. the system facilitated the access to finance of smes for a total amount of € 4.3 billion and a loan amount average of € 37,800 through 113,000 operations. as regards microcredit in 2001, 90,000 operations were below € 25,000, which gives in 2001 a total amount of microcredit reaching € 1.5 billion. for each € guaranteed by the confidi scheme, the multiplier effect is from 10 up of awarded loan, depending on the individual confidi involved. each credit assessment is made by a local confidi. the past results are excellent: 1.6% of default rate, instead of 8% for the craft sector in general. when a confidi credit assessment is positive, the loan application is transmitted to the bank with a confidi financial deposit of 50% of the loan amount (the remaining 50% are covered by collateral provided by the micro-entrepreneur, generally a real estate mortgage). in this 50%, there is a mix of some 10% coming from the members’ fees paid to the confidi and 40% coming from public (often regional) budget. in the framework of a specific agreement (“convenzione”) negotiated by each confidi and each bank (establishing the amount of operations, type of financial product, interest rate and other terms and conditions), the bank will apply to the loan a favorable interest rate corresponding to a lower default risk of an application directed by a confidi. in certain cases, the credit assessment is made by volunteers (without remuneration) selected by the mgs from amongst local small entrepreneurs. some important characteristics that have made confidi a success are its: high quality technical management; focus on risk sharing and strengthening of smes: the large size of the mgas under confidi has led to decreased levels of peer pressure and social capital. despite this drawback, confidi has been able to maintain its success because of the principle of equality amongst its members. by empowering vulnerable smes, it has strengthened the links between smes, sme associations and the mgas. this has given the mgas in confidi a strong negotiating position and allowed them to obtain more favorable loan conditions (de gobbi, 2003). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 30 − france: socama, is a mutual /mgs/ scheme related to the banques populaires. it provides guarantees to 25,000 microenterprises, net losses in % of outstanding portfolio are 1% and the average loan guaranteed € 21,000. in this scheme, the cost of the guarantee is very low: socama members, who are experienced small entrepreneurs themselves, make the guarantee application assessment by participating in the credit committee as volunteers. this system does not receive public financial support, except from eif acting as a counter-guarantor. for an amount below € 25,000, the decision is delegated to the credit committee, resulting in a quick process (“prêt express”). − spain: cesgar and cersa are regional mgs, represented at national level by cesgar, have been active in spain for 25 years. they guarantee an amount of around € 1 billion of generally long-term loans to 27,000 micro-enterprises (<10 employees). the mgs administrative costs per file are estimated at € 171. these mgs are supported by a national state-owned counter guarantee society: compañía española de reafianzamiento, cersa. parts of cersa’s activities are counter-guaranteed by the eif. − austria: aws gmbh, success based loan guarantee fund (sbgf), with a fixed guarantee fee percentage of the guaranteed loan amount (0.5%), with a choice between two types of success based fee: either a success based guarantee fee as a percentage (0.5%) of the outstanding guaranteed loan amount, when the enterprise is generating a profit in a particular year of the guarantee term, or; a success based guarantee fee as a percentage of the profit generated by the enterprise in a particular year of the guarantee term premature termination of the guarantee. sbgf becomes a fixed guarantee fee, with two possibilities: if charged as a percentage of the outstanding guarantee loan amount, the total amount of the guarantee fee for the remaining term of the guarantee is to be paid at the termination; if charged as a percentage of the profit, instead of the profit-share, a fixed percentage of the guarantee loan is charged for the remaining term of the guarantee. − portugal: ppp spgm/sgm, mission: guarantees to member sme, mutual+advisorz; ownership: mutual sme, dedjanski, s., et al., small companies, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 31 majority+spgm /public manager of the counter guarantee+banks; statutes: legislation sgm, bank act, ltd companies; solvency: own funds+risk provisions +average 65% sunter-guarantee from public fcgm , getting 50% eif cpimter-guarantee to 2/3 of the operations; guarantee rate: up to 80% as such, the access to finance by micro-enterprises is not a new phenomenon. savings banks and co-operative banks have been partly created and developed in the 19th century to facilitate access to finance such as microcredit. in 2002, 50% of german start-ups were financed by the sparkassen-finanzgruppe (savings banks). between the “hausbanken” (local retailing bank) involved in dta programmes targeting start-ups, 60% are sparkassen (+8.3 % in the last five years). credit unions are members of european association of co-operative banks. savings banks are members of the european group of savings banks. savings banks and cooperative banks, such as banques populaires in france or caixa catalunya in spain, remain probably the main traditional operators in the field of microcredit. to take an example, the german nonprofit-oriented, public sector-owned retail savings banks, sparkassen, private co-operative banks (“volksund raiffeisenbanken”) account for more than half of the loans to smes and two thirds of customer deposits. in france and spain, savings banks and co-operative banks have partnerships with nonprofit organizations, acting as business support service providers and directing customers to these credit institutions. recent initiatives in candidate countries, credit unions are also active in the candidate countries: for example in poland, 1,500 credit unions are currently active. in the candidate countries, the credit extension to smes is however still a recent activity. the amount of loans compared to gdp is far lower than in the eu – 15 member states. the overall supply of loans is quite low, except in malta and cyprus, because banks are often reluctant to offer loans except with high interest rates and collateral sometimes higher than the loan amount. consequently, some central european micro-finance institutions are very active in this market segment. procredit bank, bulgaria, was founded in 2001 by ifc, ebrd, deg-kfw group, commerzbank ag and imi ag to provide credit and general banking services to entrepreneurs and businesses throughout bulgaria. procredit bank applies generally high interest rates reflecting the inherent risk perceived. procredit bank is part of a network of specialized journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 32 microfinance institutions. in romania, banca de microfinatare is part of the network. figure 1: total volume of outstanding guarantees in portfolio, 2000-2010 source: de gobbi, m. making social capital work: mutual guarantee associations for artisans, social finance programme, employment sector, ilo figure 2: total volume of outstanding guarantees granted per year, 2000-2010 source: de gobbi, m. making social capital work: mutual guarantee associations for artisans, social finance programme, employment sector, ilo dedjanski, s., et al., small companies, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 33 figure 3: number of smes beneficiary in total portfolio, 2006-2010 source: de gobbi, m. making social capital work: mutual guarantee associations for artisans, social finance programme, employment sector, ilo in the above-mentioned practices, the guarantee fee paid by the entrepreneur is a fixed percentage of the loan amount. recently, there was a reflection in order to introduce a risk reward relationship between the guarantor and the entrepreneur through a success-based approach. the advantage for the entrepreneur arises from the fact that part of the guarantee fee is variable and to be paid when and if the enterprise is generating a return. in particular, the entrepreneur will pay less at the beginning of the guarantee term. the concept is interesting but its profitability remains to be established. serbian case small business act (sba) implementation in serbian small companies, especially female owned, consider that after the administrative burden, finding appropriate financing for smes is major problem in their development. the reason for this is reluctance of banks to finance the initial phase of small companies’ development, luck of venture capital and microfinance. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 34 traditional sources of financing are dominant as informal ones, as: personal capital, financial support of relatives and friends. in some cases, the equity investment can be replaced with a bank loan. these loans can be approved on the basis of personal credit, which evaluates bank, such as checking and savings accounts ability to provide adequate collateral loans. many small enterprises are not in a position to use these loans under such conditions. the fact that the banks own funds based primarily on the role of their clients, since banks are taking care of these deposits, they are required to maintain prudent lending policies. mature and profitable companies have the better access to banks than beginners. the situation is nothing more reassuring to any new companies that operate one or two years. banks do not have enough experience in lending to small businesses, as well as undeveloped infrastructure and the capability of micro enterprises to write convincing business plan to the trust collateral. when it comes to established small or medium size company, funding for expansion of its operations most often come from retained earnings, additional equity investments and bank loans. for existing smes, good financial management is critical to achieving higher profits from which would be able to fund further development. most companies already operate a certain number of years finance its expansion projects combining business retained earnings and long-term bank loans. when it comes to companies that need to achieve an increase in the newer technologies, the research could be the significant investment required, they are simply not available. positive signs in the expansion base lending to smes in serbia are due to greater foreign participation in serbian banks that encourages lending to smes, many websites promote bank lending to smes, which indicates that the sme is now seen as an important factor in the customer base, the presence of micro-credit institutions aimed at smes in serbia, procredit bank and opportunity, are widespread network of branches, not only produced higher credit opportunities for smes but also popularize their lending. opportunity bank has also two credit lines especially for women enterprises and female farming. information on banking services available to smes has improved. for example, the national bank of serbia (central bank) regularly publishes a list of services that every large commercial bank makes available to small and medium-sized enterprises: the type of loan (loan) repayment, interest rates and terms (collateral). however, banks are still dedjanski, s., et al., small companies, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 35 more focused on consumer lending and less on lending to sme sector. loans granted to small enterprises are mostly short and usually not more than one year. most long-term loans (over a year) that banks approve smes are financed through external credit lines, through the european bank for reconstruction and development (ebrd), etc., and not from the bank's own funds. in serbia, the icj requires high collateral, from 150 200% for loans ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 euros, which is a major obstacle for many micro female enterprises. in practice, banks usually require a mortgage on real estate / or ownership of the land as collateral, but most of the real estate has not yet been registered in the land registry and can not be used as a guarantee. even if the real estate is accepted as collateral for loans, banks are often of little value to the assessment. this is a particular problem with small-sized enterprises in disadvantaged areas, because of their extremely under estimated property values. another problem could be the reason that the previous years small enterprises, driven by lower interest rates, taking loans denominated in foreign currencies and not in dinars, and increasing exposure to changes in the value of foreign currencies against the declining value of the dinar. the dinar loans that granted serbian banks also granted on condition that the borrower is obliged to return the loan in the counter-indicated in euros. in fact, about 75% of all local currency loans, whether consumer or commercial, are "indexed". excluding more than welcome lines of credit institutions such as the ebrd, it appears that the serbian banks will have to continue to source their loans rely solely on their deposits. one should not expect that funds will be available from foreign banks. access to deposits depends on the results of the serbian economy, employment and disposable income as well as share personal savings. financial assistance to small sized state enterprises in serbia recorded a number of state-funded support for sme businesses, including the allocation of credit, have included a number of institutions, of which the most important are: financial institution kind of support national development fund the main channel of funding in order to provide (subsidized) financing programs in the field of economic and regional development and sme development, strengthening competitiveness and related activities. approved loans can provide security to the fund and other journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 36 institutions on a commission basis or are provided by the fund's own resources. includes: long-term loans of up to five years at an annual interest rate of one percent, financed by the ministry of economy and regional development; short-term loans (6 months), with an annual interest rate of 3.5% from own resources of the fund, long-term loans of up to five years at an annual interest rate of 4.5% and a one-year grace period; loans for the development of trade and services entrepreneurial loans (4) years with one year grace period and an annual interest rate of 1-3%; guarantees issued at an annual interest rate of 2.5% . the work of the development fund of the republic of serbia is highly centralized. there are regional offices, and contacts with clients are small. the fund publishes regular competitions and awards credits based on applications received. as a result, there is an estimate that is based on a meeting with a client or a tour of his / her company, and there is no monitoring of the results in relation to a loan that has been approved and paid guarantee fund the aim is to facilitate bank lending to small and mediumsized enterprises. the main function of the fund is to provide guarantees to commercial banks for loans to small and medium enterprises, both private individuals and retail shops, in order to reduce the risk of banks and, consequently, the level of collateral required of small and medium enterprises. the original intention was that the fund issues guarantees to commercial banks as collateral orderly repayment of loans granted to small and mediumsized enterprises up to 50% of their value. guarantee fund has never achieved a significant level of activity and in 2009. the annexed to the development fund of the republic of serbia. capital guarantee fund transferred from the merger amounted to 1.885531 billion dinars (18.2 million euros). the total value of guarantees issued in 2009 amounted to 400 846 000 dinars (3.86 euros). no information on the number of guarantees. seems to be the current warranty provided coverage for 30% of the collateral and not 50% as originally planned. especial loan lines subsidized loans for liquidity of the economy. ministry of economy and regional development through the dedjanski, s., et al., small companies, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 37 development fund of the republic of serbia launched a program with commercial grandmothers that provide subsidized loans for liquidity of the economy covering investments, liquidity, long-term working capital finance permanent assets, export activities and financial leasing. a number of banks signed the contracts for participation in this program external sources of funding venture capital and "business angels", funds from private sources, and provide them, companies that invest in enterprise-beginners or expansion of business and wealthy individuals who invest in beginners. average investment of a "business angel" is usually less than the investment of a venture capital company, and the reason, venture capital companies and "business angels" is usually regarded as a separate category. unlike bank financing, venture capital companies and "business angels" do not require repayment schedule of the loan, but for the money you invest want to buy a minority stake in the share capital of the company. venture capital investors typically seek to realize their investment within five years, was going public, selling a strategic partner or a company selling its stake. to venture capital companies, and "business angels" function, you need to have investment opportunities. currently there is no information about such opportunities in serbia. besides the capital injection, venture capital investor is likely to contribute to a company's credibility with its expertise in the management and support, and access to your contacts. within the mentoring and monitoring of its investments, is likely to seek membership of the board of directors. again it should be noted that many venture capital funds prefer to invest in companies with high growth potential in much riskier than "beginner" company. sometimes different "pure" venture capital for beginners, also known as seminal capital (seed capital) and development capital to the expansion of existing businesses. in serbia there are no registered venture capital funds or rounded legislation that would allow the establishment of these funds, but operates several foreign private venture capital funds, which restrict their investments to acquire stakes in major companies in serbia. at the end of 2009 year, established the first business journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 38 angel network in serbia, titled "business angels network of serbia" (serbian business angels network sban). sban allows entrepreneurs through web portal that serves as a "matchmaking" platform, put their business ideas and projects that require investment. investors, business angels, who are members of the network, have the ability to view all of these projects and their search to areas of interest or the amount of capital needed to invest. the law on investment funds of the republic of serbia stipulates: open (similar to american and european investment funds, mutual funds investing in transferable securities-ucits) and closed-end investment funds, which are designed to incorporate the savings of small investors to invest in marketable securities that. government bonds and shares traded on stock exchanges, private equity funds, which are more flexible in terms of their investment. an investor who founded the private fund must invest at least eur 50,000. this law does not provide venture capital or the state's share of these funds. in serbia, there are two banks in microfinance procredit bank and opportunity international. despite the legal environment is not favorable for their work, there are three major microfinance institutions in serbia. these institutions receive financial support from international donors including the austrian development agency, danida, netherlands embassy, icrc, sida, unhcr and the world. three serbian microfinance institutions are: agroinvest associated with the organization world vision and has for a decade been operating in serbia. it provides micro loans to approximately 40 000 clients in serbia and montenegro. agroinvest, which is registered as a trading company, primarily focused on improving the lives of the poor in the villages. micro development fund (mdf), 2001 registered as an ngo, has a network of nine regional and local offices, supported by 12 630 small businesses in the amount of oko18 million. microfins reregistred in 2000 as a nonprofit organization with the goal of microfinance, providing housing micro loans to vulnerable groups. in the absence of a legal framework to regulate their activities, microfinance institutions in serbia are working on the basis of a cooperation agreement and the commission to be made with commercial banks. under this arrangement, the bank pays the contractor loan approved microfinance institutions as a loan on behalf of themselves and nongovernmental organization takes full responsibility for delay in payment of dedjanski, s., et al., small companies, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 39 wages and bank commission. among microfinance institutions in serbia and their supporters of the opinion that international assistance was greater when serbia was appropriate regulations for these institutions to enable them to directly pay the loans. national bank of serbia has consistently rejected proposals for the adoption of any law to regulate this issue. without multi guarantee scheme, with a very hostile commercial banking sector in serbia smes, especially small female firms with development potential to grow in the area of high technology, as well as those with ambitions of developing new products, would have difficulties to achieve their development programs and projects. these guarantees allow small businesses, which make 95% in total structure of smes, within 14% of female small companies in serbia, to pre finance a profitable growth of their income. preconditions for small female enterprises to realize better access to finance in serbia would be more dynamic enterprises themselves, the higher interest to participate in multi guarantee schemes and support organizations, at the time these schemas would be founded in serbia. for small female enterprises would be of importance the further learning of public and private entities and institutions in serbia, following the guidelines of eif / eu investment fund / in the designing of these schemes, improving the role of informal investors in the financing of innovative technologies according to the eu commission with increasing the benefits for small companies as end-users and intermediaries. conclusion europe does not have enough entrepreneurs and small business founders often have no adequate access to external finance. this insufficient supply of microloans is a major issue, in particular where business founders are unemployed persons, women or part of ethnic minorities. since the 19th century, savings banks and co-operative banks have been the main microcredit providers. the microcredit provided by banks is however not sufficient to match the microcredit demand. in the last two decades, therefore, new private microcredit institutions have been emerging, especially in the candidate countries, but also in some member states, such as france, spain, and the united kingdom. depending on national laws they are limited companies, microfinance institutions, trusts, foundations, charities or non-profit associations, which provide a journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 40 significant support to business creation. supporting the supply of microloans is therefore not only an issue of entrepreneurship and economic growth, but also of social inclusion. overall, a large number of financial institutions are not sufficiently active in this segment, but the situation varies: in some member states, 3 out of 4 business founders receive a bank loan or at least an overdraft, but in other member states, the ratio is 1 out of 4. in the majority candidate countries, the shortage of credit supply remains a major constraint for business creators and the growth of small enterprises. guarantee (coand counter-guarantee) schemes make it easier for the credit institution to provide microcredit because its risk exposure is reduced and its capital requirement is mitigated. it would be useful to carry out an overall view of sme financing in serbia by the banking, government and outside funds in order to assess their effectiveness and profitability, determine whether it may be necessary to adjust priorities to the proposed reallocation and new programs, especially those listed in the paper, pointing to a different address issues like collateral, multi guarantees and solidarity. some funds financed from the state budget, as well as greater involvement of local budgets in support of small female companies development could be allocated or reallocated to: initial and development capital for technology-based companies and beginners with development potential mainly micro enterprise, credit guarantee for young female companies with great potential, the development fundnow future development bank sources for the companies in the early stages of business, more sources for startup venture capital funds with the innovative newcomers as a target, bringing together the public and the private investors, founding local confide system of guarantees as transfer of best practices of eu. dedjanski, s., et al., small companies, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 41 references [1] aernoudt, r. (1997). eu policy and loan guarantee schemes. hoge school: gent. [2] bannock & partners. (1995). securitization of guaranteed loans in europe and finance for innovation, main findings. european commission: http://www.cordis.lu/eims/sc/eims-c3. [3] christensen, jl., jackson, s., riding, a., mensah, s. (1999). “loan guarantee schemes in six countries”, chapter 2. aalborg university. http://www.cebr.dk/publications/reports/202000_1b.pdf. [4] cressy, rc. (1997). european loan guarantee schemes: who has them, who pays and who gains? warwick business school. csme wkg paper. [5] de gobbi, m. (2002). making social capital work: mutual guarantee associations for artisans, social finance programme, employment sector, international labour organisation [6] european bank for reconstruction and development and the world bank. (2010). “business environment and enterprise performance”, world bank group, washington dc [7] european commission. (2011). 2012. progress reports, commission of the european communities, brussels [8] european bank for reconstruction and development. (2011). transition report, ebrd, london [9] european bank for reconstruction and development. (2012). country strategies, ebrd, london [10] final report of the 3rd round table of bankers and smes. (2000). european commission: http://www.europa.eu.int. [11] oecd. (2012). sme policy index 2012, oecd, paris [12] stiglitz and weiss. (1981). “credit rationing in markets with imperfect information”, the american economic review, vol. 71, pp. 393-410. [13] storey, dj. and tether, bs. 1998b. public policy measures to support new technology-based firms in the european union. in research policy 26 (1998) pp1037-1057, elsevier science bv: amsterdam. issn 0048-7333. [14] sljivic, r., grozdanic, r., damnjanovic, a. (2010). “mikrokreditiranje u srbiji”. ekonomksi vidici. no. 4/2010.str 553-563 [15] tucker and lean. (2003). “small firm finance and public policy”, journal of small business and enterprise development, vol .10, pp. 50-61 [16] vogel, r. and adams, c. (1997). costs and benefits of loan guarantee schemes. proc. inter-american development bank round table on loan guarantees. iadb: washington dc. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 17-42) 42 dostupnost multi-mehanizama garantnog fonda malim i srednjim preduzećíma: primer za kompanije u vlasnistvu žena a p s t r a k t finansijsko tržište i izvori sredstava su u srbiji oskudni za mala preduzeća, posebno ona čiji su vlasnici žene. mala je mobilizacija kapitala po raznim osnovama da bi se podržala inovativnost malih firmi, ne postoje ni privatni izvori garancija iz različitih multigarancijskih shema i unapređenih privatno javnih odnosa. osnovni cilj ovog rada da uputi na mogućnosti uspešnijeg prenosa primera dobre pakse u savremenu praksu sistemskih praktičnih rešenja srbije za finansijske posrednike i krajnje korisnike o: vrstama garancija, zajmova, imovine ili mešovitih vidova, proporcija garancije kojom se pokriva zajam, kamate, dužina, uslovi aplikacije, multi učesnika ili države. ulaganja u razvoj malih firmi, sa ženskim vlasnicima, posebno u inovaciju proizvoda, usluga i tehnologije jesu glavni preduslov njihovog većeg uključivanja u izvoz, prodaju proizvoda veće dodate vrednosti van zemlje i održivost njihovog poslovanja. ključne reči: multigarancije, mala preduezća, firme sa ženskim vlasnicima inovativna tehnologija article history: received: 1 july, 2012 revised: 20 august, 2012 accepted: 21 september, 2012 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.34.pp79-98 original scientific paper analysis of students' approach to the study of informatics during pandemic quarantine dana palová1 miroslava.nyulasziova2 martin vejacka3 faculty of economics, the technical university in košice, košice, slovakia a b s t r a c t the covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent quarantine measures to stop its spread in particular states have significantly affected the educational process at all levels of the educational system. almost instantly, teachers and students were forced to change their common practices in education, access to information and its sharing, including our educational institution. although the learning management system (lms) moodle was previously actively used in the educational process of our course, in order to streamline studies in state of emergency, it was necessary to change the approach in its environment. it was required to implement and actively use multiple tools of lms which have not been used before and to change the rules of implementation and evaluation of the students. our course is dedicated to the informatics for the students of the economic studies. in slovakia, still persists the general opinion that information and communication technologies (ict) should be the domain of men, because of its technical background, although there is a gradual improvement in the view of women in the field of ict. given the above facts, it was interesting to investigate, how this awareness of the need for active use of ict and its knowledge will reflect in students’ activity during the studying of the subject. therefore, during the pandemic quarantine, the activity of our students was 1 corresponding author, e-mail: dana.palova@tuke.sk 2 e-mai: miroslava.nyulasziova@tuke.sk 3 e-mail: martin.vejacka@tuke.sk 80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 79-98) monitored and their opinions and feelings were compared between the genders. the paper will show the description of the implementation and adjustment of the educational process during the pandemic quarantine and the subsequent evaluation of the data obtained from different perspectives, especially focusing on the different approaches of both genders in the study. key words: covid-19, education, women in it, students’ approach, gender comparison introduction the spread of the covid-19 virus and the following quarantine of particular states have also significantly affected the educational process at all levels of the educational system. from one day to another, teachers and students were forced to change their regular practices in education, access to information, and their subsequent sharing. the same happened in the case of the faculty of economics, technical university of košice. even though we have previously actively used learning management system (lms) moodle in the educational process, in order to streamline education in this unprecedented situation, it was necessary to change the approach in the environment. primary use of the lms moodle, especially for the full-time students, was a repository of study material. in this new situation was necessary to implement and actively use the other available tools offered by this platform to enhance the full experience of education process of the individual subjects. at the same time, it was necessary to change the rules of implementation and evaluation of progress of students. even though in the field finance, banking and investment does not directly fall under the field of information technology, to operate in this field is not possible without knowledge of new technologies and their possible practical implementation. in slovakia, despite the gradual improvement in the given area, the persisting opinion still is that ict is of men because of the technical background. this fact is also supported by the relatively low value of the woman digital index (only 42.8 points in 2018) and the relatively low percentage of women working in the field of ict (in the year 2019 there were just 13.7% worked as ict specialists). however, the young generation of women is aware of the importance to attain the knowledge of working with ict and the need of knowledge that will enable them to automate solution to various practical problems. to support the development of women in the ict field, the office of the deputy prime minister of the slovak republic for dana palová, miroslava nyulasziova, martin vejacka 81 investments and informatization developed the "action plan for the digital transformation of slovakia for 2019 2022" (ministry of investment, regional development, and informatization of the slovak republic, 2019), accompanied by several initiatives (e.g. ('you too in it')) given the above facts, we were interested in how this awareness of the need for active use of ict and knowledge in the field of ict of our students of informatics ii will reflect in their activity during the study of the subject. therefore, during the pandemic quarantine, we monitored the activity of the female students and compared their opinions, experiences, observations and feelings with the male students. research background and motivation the spread of information technologies and its penetration into all parts of human life is indisputable. the development of digital society and the sustainability of the eu competitiveness measures “human capital – digital inclusion and skills” (european commission, 2020). digital economy and society index (desi) for slovakia reached 45.2 points. one component of this index is human capital development, especially concerned by the level of internet user skills and advanced skills (european commission, 2019). galyani moghaddam (2010) stated, that there is about 10% of the people with no digital skills, and 35% of the people who do not have the least basic digital skills. the main problem seems to be, that they are not able to manipulate the content (almost 30%), solve the problems using ict (about 10%). what is important nearly 60% of employees at the slovakian labour market need a computer or computerized equipment at their work. in the times of rising industry 4.0, it is no longer sufficient to be a specialist in only one field, but it is necessary to have higher than basic skills and knowledge in the information technologies (it) field and to be able to monitor changes around us. in 2017, in the eu labour market has already worked 8.4 million people as it specialists. this still does not cover all demand on this part of the labour market. in 2018 alone, 53% of companies operating in the it sector declared not having enough workforce to fill their missing capacities (velšic, 2019). therefore, the graduates from other fields of studies will also find the employment in the it sector, where the automation of processes and the use of ict intersects with other areas (e.g. finance). 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 79-98) for a long time now, slovakia struggles with a shortage of people with sufficient advanced digital skills and competencies, which are essential for the development of society in the period of industry 4.0. to move the slovak republic forward to the 21st century and start fully using the benefits of available technologies, there is designed the "action plan for the digital transformation of slovakia for 2019 2022" (ministry of investment, regional development, and informatization of the slovak republic, 2019). this action plan is part of the 2030 digital transformation strategy for slovakia, which aims to transform slovakia into a successful digital country. within these documents, besides the others, this was identified as one of the important pillars of this transformation development in the area of society and education. the objective of this field is to "support the digital transformation of schools and education to improve the quality and preconditions for employment and acquisition of digital skills and competencies necessary for the digital era”. this will be done in close cooperation with a specialized digital coalition. digital coalition (slovak national coalition for digital skills and jobs) is the initiative to mobilize across a range of public, private, academic, and civic organizations and institutions in slovakia to improve the digital skills of citizens, it specialists, all employees, and also in education. it is expected this cooperation to result in providing different opportunities helping slovak citizens to develop their digital skills and competencies to be more successful in the digital age labour market. also, to be active in setting up broadly applicable profiles of graduates and their competences across all sectors and qualifications with the potential of adaptation to changes in the process of digital transformation. when considering the area of digital literacy, multiple studies (e.g. galyani moghaddam, 2010; herbert, 2017) have detected gender inequalities with lower women digital literacy scores. results of bannier et al. (2019) suggest that the digital gender gap might be present also in the implementing of novel icts such as cryptocurrencies. similarly, were also formulated conclusions by henry et al. (2018). digital skills gaps between genders in eu countries were identified by martínez-cantos (2017), especially in the area of more complex it skills. according to gilchrist (2018), gendered life patterns and socialization may negatively affect women's confidence in using digital technology, particularly older women with lower socio-economic status. in the case of the developing world, empirical studies clearly show that women have significantly lower technology participation rates than men; the result of deeply rooted socio-cultural beliefs about the role of women in society (antonia & tuffley, 2014). dana palová, miroslava nyulasziova, martin vejacka 83 however, several indicated results that counter many empirical research studies show males generally perform better with ict skills and have overall better approach towards computers than their female counterparts. for example, hohlfeld et al. (2013) detected that in the group of students of eight grade in public schools in florida that females had significantly higher digital literacy scores than males. likewise, hatlevik et al. (2017) detected in the similar age group significantly better results of norwegian females in comparison with their male peers. comparably, siddiqa and schererb (2019) indicated that girls perform better than boys on performance-based ict literacy assessments. all these results may be suggesting that situation in gender inequality in digital skills is diametrically different between developed and developing countries. slovakia reached 26th rank in the eu on the gender equality index in 2019. our country achieved 54.1 points (from 100) and it presents just a 1.7 points increase in connection with the level in the year 2015. this points to the fact, that slovakia proceeds more slowly than the other eu member states (european institute for gender equality, 2020). while comparing data the gap between men and women remains. although the numbers have increased (comparing to 2005), the size of the gap still remains at the level of 15 percent. the disadvantage of women to men is probably in all areas of life work, money, knowledge, time, power, and health (department of gender equality and equal opportunities of the ministry of labour, social affairs and family of the slovak republic, 1995). in slovakia, the government is trying to solve this problem with the measures contained in the national strategy for gender equality for years 2014 2019 ("the strategy") and a related action plan for gender equality for years 20142019 ("the action plan") (ministry of labour, social affairs and family of the slovak republic, 2014). in the document, the main factors of the disadvantageous position of women were identified: − the traditional distribution of gender roles and related ideas about men's and women's work − the gender unequal distribution of childcare, household and dependent members and family members − the lack of balancing and proactive measures such as measures to promote women's career advancement and measures to a reconciliation of family and working life, in particular the lack of flexible forms of work for mothers of young children or the 84 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 79-98) unavailability of childcare and dependent members and family members. the problems start already at a young age when girls choose their future studies and carrier. unfortunately, they still have to face the opinion, especially in more catholic based and less developed regions, that entering the science, technologies, and it by the girl is unnatural and artificial. the elimination of this important negative point of view is one of the objectives of the national strategy. it is provided by published positive images of successful women in these areas and by different kind of activities supporting women in the it sector, e.g. vocational education and workshops just for women and girls provided by it professionals organized by “you too in it” (“aj ty v it”) initiative. thanks to these activities, the number of women studying it in slovakia rose from 5% in 2012 to 10-12% in the present (ministry of labour, social affairs and family of the slovak republic, 2013). the research done by the institute for public affairs "women in the world of information technology" (velšic, 2019) resulted the reasons of unattractiveness of the it world for the women: stereotype about study difficulty, low self-esteem, but also lack of information about career opportunities in it and negative influence of parents on girls' decision about the future life. on the other side, the research tried to find out also the factors which attract and interest women in the field of it. for the 49% of asked it represents the communication and contact with other people (i.e. social networks, chatting, content sharing and communicating, especially with peers, friends, classmates, etc.) followed by the immediate and easy access to information, a wide range of interesting information available in different areas (mentioned by the 32% of women) and the opportunity to study, learn (e.g. use icts to prepare projects and tasks within the school, etc.), what was mentioned by 14% of women. but generally from the research follows, the most positive aspect, that 75% of young women have a positive attitude to subjects connected to it in the school. unlike men, most young women claim to have acquired their it skills in school as part of their teaching (up to 62%), compared to only 50% of men. the current level of computer skills of young women is lower than that of young men. the expert level (programming, analysis, modeling, development, and other creative activities in it) is achieved by only 3% of women, among men, it is 12%. on the contrary, more women (56%) than men (30%) reach only the basic – user level (work with pc, office applications, internet, e-mail, etc.). however, it is interesting to see that 5.2% dana palová, miroslava nyulasziova, martin vejacka 85 of women are involved in the category “doing an online course” comparing to 3.7% of men. what could mean that women are aware of the need to increase their it skills or more actively use it in their further education (european commission, 2019). the high quality, supporting creativity and innovative education are the cornerstones of the country’s future. in slovakia, the current education needs transformation into the digital age. the covid-19 tested the readiness of our educational system in this respect as well. as it turned out not only students but also teachers are not ready for online education. the education of the current young generation provided so far has hardly developed their digital skills. in connection to the mentioned above, the motivation to do the presented research can be covered by three levels: the social need for transformation of the education suitable for the age of industry 4.0. – how to do it in the best way; current differences in perception of ict and the possibilities to use ict between women and men; different approaches to on-line study between genders. this paper will present a description of the implementation and adjustment of the educational process during the pandemic quarantine and the subsequent evaluation of the data obtained from our subject of informatics ii and investigate if there is difference in the approach to studies between female and male students. changes in the educational process induced by covid-19 the main objective of the education at the faculty of economics is to provide education corresponding as much as possible to the requirements of the current marketplace and its continuing changes in the connection with industry 4.0. the educational process accomplishes the objective of the european union (defined in european digital competence framework for citizens), e.g. to educate digitally literate citizens with higher and specialized skills for internet of things, data science, artificial intelligence, programming, for the needs of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, teamwork and collaborative and co-creative procedures employable in creative designing and trading as well as in other fields of economy and public administration (ministry of investment, regional development, and informatization of the slovak republic, 2019). 86 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 79-98) following the previous, our graduates achieve the theoretical knowledge and the practical experience in the field of ict in each year of their studies. the ict basis is built up via obligatory subjects like informatics i and informatics ii, which are followed by optional subjects where the ict is applied to the specific field of economy, for example, electronic bank services, application for fundamental data processing, data visualization, and presentation, and economic information systems. the obligatory subject of informatics i allows to unify the level of knowledge of students (coming to the university with different levels of knowledge from various high schools) in the field ict and prepare them for the study of more advanced and novel topics in the subject of informatics ii (révészová, 2017). the ict knowledge and skills basis are built on the icdl (international certification of digital literacy) standard (icdl foundation, 2020) and extended by understanding the data analysis and processing integrated into the topic of the business processes and business informatics and its applications in practical life. the content builds on the basics acquired in the subject informatics i and it could be described by the following topics: − fundamentals of business informatics cover the history of business informatics, the introduction into different information systems used in enterprises like erp (enterprise resource planning), cms (content management systems), scm (supply chain management), bi (business intelligence), ebusiness applications, etc. − business process modeling (bpm) explains the processes in the business itself and ways how and what kind of data management need to model and improve business processes. − business data analysis introduces different types of data used in the business environment and for what purposes they are or could be used. − tools for business data processing illustrate how various ict tools are used for data modeling, analysis, and processing itself. for that part of the subject, we describe and use a tool like aris express, ms excel, and ms access. − and finally the trend of business informatics is aimed to show the upcoming technologies and their benefits for companies and human life. before covid-19 quarantine the subject was executed by regular style usually provided at the universities. students could attend the face-to-face dana palová, miroslava nyulasziova, martin vejacka 87 lectures, where the theoretical background of the subject’s topics were presented and pc labs, where by solving predefined tasks they achieved practical skills needed for the work with data. to enhance their involvement in their education and discovering new knowledge and skills we employed project-based learning (sam houston state university, 2018), and we acted as guides who helped the students in case of any problems. finally, in the end of the term, students had to present their semestral project a "mini is", which covers the small business process analysis and modeling, business data analysis, design and development of a small database, which can support the analyzed business processes. to motivate students to study also the published materials and enhance their involvement in the educational process itself, we did a special offer to them at the beginning of the semester – the "jokers”. every “joker” could be, based on the student’s decision, used as a replacement for their attempt at the final exam or its part. “jokers" are different kinds of activities and tasks, connected to the aims of the subject, and students’ participation in the solution is voluntary. under normal circumstances, students could achieve these points for cooperation in lectures, e.g. if they posted the word that best describes their feelings after the lecture (fig. 1) through the mentimeter application, or if they participated in a professional discussion during a lecture by practitioners from international it company. figure 1: example of the joker 1 results; the most frequent words were: i’m excited; it will be interesting; i’m curious source: own 88 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 79-98) at the time of the covid-19 quarantine, we completely moved to the online environment. in addition to the classic applications ms word, ms access, ms excel, and aris express, which students would be usually using during face-to-face learning, and lms moodle, which we used as a source of study materials, it was necessary to expand the options with other tools or platforms that supported our real-time contact with students. for example, as a support platform served facebook (fb) group, as a tool for notifications about what is currently being prepared for the students in the course. it acted as a fast feedback tool, where students gave direct feedback about whether the given activity attracted them or not by their like or dislike icons. the second newly used tool was ms teams. it supported direct online communication and enabled both content and active screen sharing, as well as online video conferencing. one of the advantages of this application was that students could use notifications to monitor the news, changes, and possible communication calls via notifications at their mobile devices. since not all students, despite our efforts, attended online lectures or exercises, it was necessary to activate other types of tasks, which we, as teachers, did not have the opportunity to use during personal interaction. therefore, we introduced addition, the so-called "random activities", thanks to which we tried to achieve more regular attendance of the students in the course. these activities had different content and objectives, while the students had to use mainly the applications with which they learned to work during the semester. among simpler ones can be included e.g. entering the most suitable word into the mentimeter application, participating in the discussion using the sli.do application. however, the most successful were recorded tasks such as hangman and puzzles, where the student searched for the given task to enter the password for the exercise test. among the more complex tasks in the category "random activities" were e.g. creation of a dynamic graph for the spreading of covid-19 in individual countries, a model of the process of repatriation of slovak citizens during quarantine, etc. these tasks motivated students to monitor what was happening in their surroundings and at the same time enabled them to process the issue in their familiar it environment. what is important to note, these tasks never had the correct solutions published when they were assigned. the solutions were created thanks to the active approach of the students. afterwards, the best solutions were published with the appropriate dana palová, miroslava nyulasziova, martin vejacka 89 commentary of the teacher. in this way, the educational base was expanded even for students who did not enter into these activities. as can be seen from the previous, during the covid-19 pandemic quarantine, we underwent major changes in the approach to the education, to the preparation of the study materials as well as in the framework of communication with students. immediately after entering the quarantine, we created a questionnaire, where we asked students for their opinions about online teaching and tried to adapt the form to their needs in a given situation. at the same time, we asked them to evaluate the course at the end of the term. especially, we were interested, whether there are some important differences between genders. based on the almost daily connection with the students, as we expected, women were more active during the time of social isolation. the results of our main findings are elaborated in more detail in the chapter results and discussion. research methodology research sample the data were collected from 17th february 2020 to 31st may 2020. for the first three weeks of the course, face-to-face teaching took place. then state of emergency was declared (on 9th march 2020) and the teaching took place in distance online form since then. data for the intended research were collected from students’ activity logs, task scores in lms moodle and by the electronic questionnaire survey. subsequently, the data were prepared and processed using r software. together, data contained information on 167 students, representing 187 251 records in total and 9 attributes. data preparation consisted of removing unnecessary data, the transformation of data types to another, data cleaning (removal of missing and inconsistent values) and data reduction. afterwards, the table carrying information about the daily number of moodle events by individual students was created. the table contained information about individual students and their actions within the lms and was split into two tables according to gender. other available data represented learning outcomes and student activity during the semester. these were attributes such as whether the student obtained the credit for the first or second attempt, his or hers score in credit test, if the student solved voluntary activities, attributes related to the semester 90 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 79-98) project, the score in the exam, and the overall result for the subject with the final grade. furthermore, the feedback from students on the subject informatics ii was gathered using an electronic questionnaire. the questionnaire survey can be used to collect data for an inter-gender comparison (ferencová et al., 2015). the questionnaire aimed to find out the students' opinion about the area of business informatics as well as about the teaching of the subject informatics ii as a whole, especially during a state of emergency. only students who successfully met the conditions for granting the credit answered the questionnaire. therefore, in further analysis, only students who passed the exam were considered (140 records: 92 women and 48 men). the number of logins of women and men in the lms moodle on individual days was gathered. based on this, the average daily number of logins in each of the 13 weeks of the semester was calculated. data about women and men were split into gender groups and compared with each other. the data were further processed and analyzed using ibm spss statistics software. standard descriptive statistic measures were collected. multiple statistical methods were used to evaluate the statistical significance of detected differences in answers between males and females. pearson's chi-square test was used for data from categorical answers in the questionnaire. this is a standard statistical test when comparing two groups' categorical answers (weiss, 2008). cramér’s v was calculated to illustrate the effect size on detected differences in pearson's chi-square test, while it might serve for this purpose (sheskin, 1997). furthermore, the mann-whitney u test was conducted to verify the statistical significance of detected gender differences in overall nominal scores for the whole course. mann-whitney u test is a nonparametric method used to perform a hypothesis test (weiss, 2008). statistical significance of all conducted tests was evaluated at the statistical significance level of α = 0.05. results and discussion the figure 2 shows the average number of visits by gender during the individual weeks of the semester. on average, women visited moodle more often than men. from the 4th week of the semester when the online form of teaching started, the average number of visits increased for both genders. looking at the graph, however, several facts are important to note: during the first week and the last week of the semester, there is significantly lower dana palová, miroslava nyulasziova, martin vejacka 91 activity value present. the first week's attendance is influenced by the fact that students who were in the lecture do not need to visit the lms moodle immediately. also, the 13th week represents the last week of the semester, when some of the students already finished the credit tests, went through the assignments, and performed the exam, therefore the activity of students in this period decreases again. however, from the research’s point of view, we were most interested in weeks 4 12, when online teaching took place during the covid-19 quarantine. figure 2: average number of visits in the lms moodle course by gender source: own one of the questions asked in the feedback questionnaire was the question “how often did you visit the course in lms moodle?” was asked. 2.2 8.1 3.1 9.0 14.5 6.7 8.8 6.7 8.8 10.7 16.4 13.8 4.3 1.5 9.7 3.1 6.5 11.7 3.8 3.7 3.4 10.1 7.6 12.6 13.1 3.9 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 1th week 2nd week 3rd week 4th week 5th week 6th week 7th week 8th week 9th week 10 th week 11th week 12th week 13th week average women average men 92 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 79-98) respondents replied as follows: table 1: visits to the course in lms moodle by gender visits to the course female male daily 59.78 % 35.42 % more than once a week 36.96 % 56.25 % once a week 1.09 % 4.17 % irregularly, if possible 2.17 % 4.17 % source: own based on the answers provided by students, there is a statistically significant (pearson chi-square=8.171, p=0.043, cramér’s v=0.242) difference in the number of lms moodle visits for men and women at level α = 0.05. women visited lms moodle on the daily basis in almost 60 percent of answers in comparison to 35 percent of men. the average grade acquired for the whole course was 76.70 points by women who attended moodle on daily basis. the grades achieved by men who visited moodle daily were slightly worse, they scored 71.88 points. this suggests greater effort by female students in online study. almost 37 percent of women visited the course multiple times a week, while a little over 56 percent of men (this result excludes the daily visitors, of course). again, the female students in this group scored slightly better grades on average (71.88 points) than male students (70.40 points). in total, the average grade of women was 73.38 points and 56.9 points for men, what was significantly lower (at p=0.004). in this case of overall course scores, the mann-whitney u test was executed to investigate, if the difference in the results between genders is significant. when investigating which thematic unit of the course was the most interesting for respondents, it was found out that the ms excel part clearly dominated in answers by men, while the results by women were more diverse. there is a statistically significant difference between genders (pearson chisquare=8.31, p=0.040, cramér’s v=0.244). thematic units of the course were equally interesting for women, except the unit devoted to enterprise information systems. dana palová, miroslava nyulasziova, martin vejacka 93 table 2: most interesting theme in the course by gender topic female male data management in ms excel 32.61 % 56.25 % data management in ms access 31.52 % 25.00 % business process modeling 31.52 % 14.58 % enterprise information systems 4.35 % 4.17 % source: own during the state of emergency of the country, students had several types of communication channels available. the results show that the students used primarily emails to communicate with the teachers. female students used a private conversation or group chat in ms teams significantly more often (27.37%) than male students (8.11%) to communicate with the teacher. women were more determined in this communication and they used it up to three times more often than men. the differences between genders were statistically significant (pearson chi-square=14.094, p=0.015, cramér’s v=0.327) in this case. the frequency of communication with teachers was also higher in the case of women. table 3: the preference of communication channel in the course by gender communication preference female male e-mail 57.89 % 62.16 % messages in ms teams 27.37 % 8.11 % call (cisco webex, ms teams) 7.37 % 10.81 % facebook messages 7.37 % 10.81 % another form 0 % 8.11 % source: own furthermore, the obtained results of the questionnaire survey show that women were more active during the state of emergency. they participated in “random activities” more often (54.34%) and acquired higher scores (with average score in random activities of 10.4 points) in comparison with men (over 30% with average scores at level of 5.6 points). this result was statistically significant (pearson chi-square=5.59, p=0.018, cramér’s v=0.200). even if the subjects were not compulsory, up to 85 percent of women would recommend to study this subject to their younger peers, in comparison with 68 percent of men. exact 25 percent of men would not recommend this 94 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 79-98) course to others. this result shows that there is a significant difference between genders in willingness to recommend the study of the subject to the others (pearson chi-square=8.455, p=0.046, cramér’s v=0.246). table 4: willingness to recommend the course by genders recommendation willingness female male definitely yes 29.35 % 16.16 % probably yes 56.52 % 52.08 % probably no 6.52 % 20.83 % definitely no 4.35 % 4.17 % i do not know 3.26 % 6.25 % source: own also, female respondents seemed to be more satisfied with the content of the course, when up to 59 percent of women rated the content of the subject excellent or very well, while men did the same in only in 45 percent of the answers. however, this result was not detected as statistically significant (p=0.133). the satisfaction of women in online education was similar to men's, what is illustrated the following table. table 5: satisfaction rate with the course content by gender satisfaction rate female male at 100 % 11.96 % 8.33 % at 75 – 99 % 60.87 % 58.33 % at 50 – 74 % 22.83 % 25.00 % for less than 50 % 4.35 % 6.25 % the subject did not meet expectations 0.00 % 2.08 % source: own the year 2020, when considering the informatics ii course was specific, when students had to switch to the online studying of it, what intensified demands on their study discipline and skills. however, the transition into online studying form did not cause serious problems in the study process for both genders. female students did not prefer a specific part of the course, unlike the male students, who preferred the part dedicated to ms excel. women were more eager to use messaging in ms teams to contact lecturers and also recommend the course to other students. both genders were similarly dana palová, miroslava nyulasziova, martin vejacka 95 satisfied with the course content, but women’s overall scores were on average higher than men’s. these results suggest that women approached the study in our informatics course more actively and seriously and had better results overall. this is in line with multiple studies conducted in various age groups abroad (e.g. hatlevik et al., 2017; siddiqa & schererb, 2019) investigating digital literacy by gender. on the contrary, other studies (e.g. henry et al., 2018; martínez-cantos, 2017; bannier et al., 2019) recorded different results indicating the digital gender gap in favor of men. conclusion during the state of emergency due to the covid-19 pandemic, it was necessary to transform the educational process of the informatics ii course to the online form and adapt our education accordingly. the main goal of the article was to find out how the students (especially female) reacted to this fact. therefore, during the pandemic quarantine, the activity of our students was monitored, and their opinions and activity compared between genders. the data collected for the investigation were obtained from the lms moodle educational system. the data were processed into the required form using data processing packages in r software. other data were collected from electronic survey and feedback to the course and the scores of students during the semester. the obtained results were verified on statistical significance using statistical tests. the difference in the number of the course log-ins between men and women showed a statistically significant difference in favour of women. also, the overall average score of female students was higher than males’. furthermore, female students would more likely recommend the informatics ii course than male students would. the results of analysis of the collected and processed data suggest that women were more active during the state of emergency, more often engaged in voluntary (random) activities, more often visited the lms moodle, communicated and achieved better scores than men. and as the results of our research show, even at the time of quarantine, they were just more active group of students, who became more involved not only in the discussion but also more actively helped the team, e.g. creating video tutorials, supporting lectures, instructions. this suggests that if women overcome possible 96 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 79-98) aversion to studying it, they outmatch their male peers and are more active and successful students. the results of our research insinuate that it is necessary to take into account the difference in the approach of men and women to education when choosing the form and tools used during the educational process. one of these might be the usage of a tool like above described “random activities“, which offers wide range of tasks, that can strengthen natural characteristics of 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[25] weiss, n. a. 2008. “elementary statistics,” 7th edition. pearson education, inc. boston usa. article history: received: 28 october, 2020 accepted: 5 december, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2019.03.007 20_jwee_12 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.12.pp1-21 jel: l26, j16 original scientific paper networks, aspirations, and outcomes of mom entrepreneurs kylie goodell king1 champlain college, center of innovation & entrepreneurship, burlington, united states of america a b s t r a c t this paper explores the networks, aspirations, and outcomes of “mom entrepreneurs”, defined in this study as female entrepreneurs actively caring for children (from birth to age 18). although men and women found businesses at similar rates, the outcomes of businesses started by men and women tend to be dramatically different. this is influenced by many factors, one of which is the role that many women play in child rearing. this study explores the networks of mom entrepreneurs, how mom entrepreneurs define success for themselves and their businesses, and self-reported ratings of success on these measures. more specifically, this paper evaluates the impact of one identifying as a mom entrepreneur, the relation between the size of one’s network and business characteristics and outcomes, and the impact of a spouse’s employment on women’s motivations and aspirations. key words: female entrepreneur, mom entrepreneur, parent entrepreneur, gender in entrepreneurism 1 assistant professor, business & entrepreneurship and academic director, 163 south willard street, burlington, vt 05401, e-mail: kking@champlain.edu, tel. 802-865-5478 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) introduction female entrepreneurs are nearly as frequent in number as male entrepreneurs (korsgaard, 2007; langowitz & minniti, 2007; nel et al., 2010); however, the social and financial impact of enterprises founded by female entrepreneurs has not reached the scale of those founded by their male counterparts (change the story vt, 2016; robb & watson, 2012). research has indicated that this may be due to a number of factors, including but not limited to: size of firms, risk aversion of founders, the industries in which women primarily found businesses, the aspirations that women have for their businesses, and responsibilities for caring for family and managing the household (clark-muntean & ozkazanc-pan, 2015; korsgaard; robb & watson). beyond gender serving as a limiting factor in business growth, marriage and children also have a negative association with the earnings of self-employed women (marshall & flaig, 2013). although caregiving and household management are considered to be factors behind the reduced impact of female-run businesses, little scholarly attention has been given to the businesses founded or managed by mom entrepreneurs (clark-muntean & ozkazanc-pan, 2015). motherhood, which may be viewed as a “metaphor representing the home and family contexts of female entrepreneurs” (brush, de bruin, & welter, 2009, p. 9), needs to be evaluated in the context of business ownership. one method that might be highly applicable to the analysis of momowned business ventures is social network analysis, or sna. sna is growing in popularity in the study of organizations of all sizes (katz, lazer, arrow, & contractor, 2005). in sna, individuals are represented as nodes and their relationships to other individuals are represented as ties. a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between individuals and these ties between individuals are the variables of interest (wasserman & faust, 1994). one reason why sna lends itself so well to the study of entrepreneurial networks is that networks, themselves, are critically important to the success of many new businesses (uzzi, 1996). what it is it about networks that may encourage entrepreneurial success? past research has shown that a number of network attributes, including centrality, density, and strength of ties, may influence the success of new ventures. social capital is closely tied to many of these network attributes. according to burt (1997), social capital predicts that individual returns king, k.g., mom entrepreneurs, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) 3 depend on a person’s location in the social structure of a network, market, or hierarchy. social capital encompasses family members, social networks, connections, and other related resources that may be helpful to an individual and their business (marshall & flaig, 2013). in order to measure the quality and performance of entrepreneurial ventures and support the acceleration of their impact, it is first necessary to identify the patterns or systems that support or hinder the success of new businesses (fazio et al., 2016). this study explores the relation between the self-reported networks and social capital of mom entrepreneurs, demographic and organizational factors of these women’s enterprises (e.g. longevity of business, age of entrepreneur, etc.), and how these women define and evaluate the success of their business. this paper will first provide an overview of the theory and prior research that motivates the present analysis and then discuss the hypotheses that are tested. next, the methodological approach is described, including participants and procedures. following this description, data are described, results are presented, and hypotheses are evaluated. finally, theoretical and practical implications are discussed and directions for future research are provided. theory and hypothesis development this work relies on a feminist methodology in that it begins with the standpoints and experiences of women and seeks to motivate changes to the support structure for entrepreneurs (reinharz & davidman, 1992). building upon prior work that has evaluated the role that gender plays in entrepreneurism (e.g. fischer, reuben, & dyke, 1993; foss, 2010) and the role of gender in business more broadly (e.g. radovic, salamzadeh & kawamorita, 2016; radovic, salamzadeh & razavi, 2013), this study delves into a subsection of that analysis by focusing specifically on the experiences of women actively involved in parenting children. network analysis access to information and an accessible network of peers and advisors is important for entrepreneurs regardless of gender (nel et al., 2010). women, in particular, believe their businesses to be part of a networked set of connections or relationships (bird & brush, 2002). based on this network 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) perception and the role of networks in facilitating business transitions and predicting business outcomes, a number of network attributes are evaluated in this work. these attributes, discussed below, include social capital, centrality, density, and tie strength. social capital social capital is a quality created between people (burt, 1997). in the context of entrepreneurship, social capital encompasses the family members, social networks, and connections that may be helpful to a woman and her business (marshall & flaig, 2013). when considering social capital, the opportunities available to an individual depend on the individual’s position in a network or hierarchy (burt, 1997). social capital may also be viewed as a function of brokerage opportunities in a network (burt, 1997). those who have large number of ties (strong or weak) may be viewed to have greater levels of social capital than those who do not. centrality centrality is regularly used to describe individuals and networks. there are many forms of centrality including: degree centrality (the total number of direct ties held by an individual), indegree centrality (the number of incoming ties held by an individual), outdegree centrality (the number of outgoing ties indicated by an individual), and betweenness centrality (a measure of how an individual in a network links otherwise unconnected others) (prell, 2012). individuals with high centrality are connected to many others in the network. when these highly connected individuals connect others who would otherwise be unconnected, they are referred to as brokers (cross, parise, and weiss, 2007). individuals who function as brokers often achieve greater success based on their importance to their networks (cross et al., 2007). density network density measures the total present ties in a network relative to the total possible ties. mathematically, density is the sum of all entries in a dataset of network ties divided by the possible number of entries in that king, k.g., mom entrepreneurs, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) 5 dataset: , where i is an individual in a network indicating ties to others, j is an individual in a network receiving ties from others, represents the presence or absence of a tie from individual i to individual j, and g is the number of individuals in the network of interest (wasserman & faust, 1994). dense networks contain relatively large numbers of ties among their members. network density can encourage open sharing of information but may also lead to an inefficient use of resources (lee, bachrach, & lewis, 2014). strong and weak ties not all ties in a network are created equal. some times are much stronger than others, based on the frequency or depth of exchange. the strength of a tie is a linear combination of the amount of time, emotional intensity, intimacy, and reciprocal services which characterize the tie. (granovetter, 1973) ties may be strong, weak, or absent. in a network of friendship, for example, a “friend” may be considered to be a strong tie and an “acquaintance” a weak tie. in addition to the characterization of strong ties as indicative of friendship, the strong ties that are evaluated in this analysis are marked by high levels of trust. affective trust (mutual interpersonal care or emotional bonds) is important in early entrepreneurial ventures (smith & lohrke, 2008). many entrepreneurs develop ties with close family and friends as they socialize business plans, gaining feedback as well as emotional and financial support. as business plans become better developed, cognitive trust (beliefs about reliability, dependability, and confidence) become more important and ties between other entrepreneurs, funders, or technical experts become more critical (smith & lohrke). be it friendship or trust, the stronger the tie between two individuals, the larger the proportion of individuals to whom they are both tied in that network. in many networks, the removal of a weak tie would do more damage to the sharing of information than the removal of a strong tie (granovetter, 1973). this is because weak ties often serve to connect disparate subgroups. from individual point of view, weak ties are an important resource. from a systems perspective, weak ties play role in encouraging network cohesion (granovetter, 1973). 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) women and entrepreneurship there is a lack of quality research related to the role of parenthood in entrepreneurship (clark-muntean & ozkazanc-pan, 2015). the work that does focus on mother entrepreneurs often paints a misogynistic portrait of these women as insecure, unambitious, risk-averse, unknowledgeable. for example, prior studies on this topic have stated the value of entrepreneurism to be enabling a woman to rid herself of the guilt that comes from working outside the home (koorsgaard), allowing women to resolve conflict between earning money and caring for a family (du rietz & henrekson, 2000; nel et al., 2010), and providing more stimulation than motherhood alone (nel et al.). the reasons why women enter into entrepreneurship are likely more nuanced than prior work has illustrated. furthermore, the goals or outcomes that women hope to achieve through their business ventures and their definitions of success are likely to be related to their motivations. much of the prior work on outcomes of entrepreneurism focuses on business growth and profitability. there are, however, many other outcomes that might important to consider, for both individual entrepreneurs and also for society at large (nel et al., 2010). by considering financial outcomes alone, we will likely find that male-owned firms outperform those owned by women (robb & watson, 2012). an inclusive model of entrepreneurship must include strengths of women and feminine approaches to business and entrepreneurism (clark-muntean & ozkazanc-pan, 2015). furthermore, truly inclusive models must also consider family structure as this has a significant impact on entrepreneurs and their business goals and outcomes (aldrich & cliff, 2003). beyond the difficulties that arise with integrating female-centric considerations into the outcomes by which business ventures are measured, one must also consider the joint implications of motherhood and entrepreneurship. for example, prior research has found marriage and children to be a profit constraint to self-employed women (marshall & flaig, 2013). others, however, have found motherhood to be an enabling factor in female entrepreneurship, allowing women to leverage their identity to create organizations with products and services as well as structures that are values-driven (leung, 2011). king, k.g., mom entrepreneurs, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) 7 hypotheses the general model that is evaluated by this work is summarized below in figure 1. essentially, this study seeks to evaluate the relation between a number of demographic variables, social networks, and business outcomes. figure 1: theoretical model more specifically, based on a review of prior work surrounding women and entrepreneurship, this study aims to explore the following hypotheses: h1: the network size of mom entrepreneurs is positively correlated with self-identifying as a mom entrepreneur. h2: women who self-identify as “mom entrepreneurs” hold different definitions of business success than those who do not. h3: business longevity is related to the composition of ties in mom entrepreneurs’ networks; ventures at earlier stages have a larger proportion of strong ties, mature ventures have a larger proportion of weak ties. h4: women who have a spouse or partner who is also involved in an entrepreneurial venture will hold different definitions of business success than those who do not. h5: women who have a spouse or partner with a full-time job will hold different definitions of business success than those who do not. 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) methods this study used open-ended interviews to obtain information about the demographics and experiences of mother entrepreneurs. it followed standard guidelines for qualitative research, including using clear, open-ended questions, carefully selecting the question order, maintaining neutrality, quickly transcribing data, comparing findings to other research on the topic, and analyzing negative cases, or cases that were not line with emerging data patterns (caudle, 2004; schuh & upcraft, 2001). additionally, the validity of the qualitative findings was enhanced by involving participants in the verification of data and keeping explicit records of all aspects of data gathering and analysis (marshall & rossman). the interview protocol also followed recommended guidelines of informing participants of the purpose of the study, explaining that their participation would be voluntary and that results would be confidential (simone, campbell & newhard, 2012). this study also relied on prior qualitative network studies to inform its method and structure. for example, this work relies almost exclusively on self-reported demographic and network information. self-reports have been shown to be a valid source of network data (marsden, 2005). participants participants for this study were recruited using a snowball technique (bellotti, 2008). some were identified through their participation in organizations that support female entrepreneurs, others were colleagues of friends or friends of friends. no one was personally known by the researcher. the criteria for participation were identifying as female and being actively involved in caring for children, biological or otherwise, from birth through age 18. all in all, 31 women participated in this study. they came from 12 states and two countries. their median age was 38 years old. the youngest participant was 31 years old, the oldest 60. the mean number of children being cared for by participants of this study was two. the maximum number was five. the mean age of all children being cared for by participants of this study was seven years. two participants had another job outside of their entrepreneurial venture. 28 participants were married, two were partnered, and one was single. of those married or partnered participants, four had king, k.g., mom entrepreneurs, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) 9 spouses or partners involved as business partners and nine spouses or partners who were also entrepreneurs. the median duration of participant’s business ventures was four years, with a mean duration of six years. of these 31 participants, eight had previously been involved with starting or running a business venture. procedures in-depth interviews were held by phone, videoconference, or in person. a semi-structured interview protocol was followed where participants were allowed to expand on responses to topics as they deemed appropriate. interviews were recorded using a word processing system as they were carried out. immediately following interviews, transcripts were sent to participants to ensure that all information collected was accurate. the interview began with an introduction and overview of the project. informed consent was gained verbally. next, demographic information was gathered and women were asked if they held the self-identity of “mom entrepreneur”. questions were asked to gather information about different types of networks held by participants. according to krackhardt and hanson (1993), it is important to evaluate different types of networks, including those built on trust and those that are more transactional. participants were also asked if they believed themselves to have formed friendships with any other mom entrepreneurs. next, participants were provided with possible indicators of success (buttner & moore, 1997) and asked how they defined success for themselves and their businesses. participants were then asked to evaluate their professional and or personal success on those self-determined measures using a likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all successful) to 5 (extremely successful). finally, participants were asked if they had any questions or closing thoughts. interview duration ranged from approximately 12 minutes to approximately 40 minutes. the median interview time was approximately 18 minutes. analysis and results a list of all variables is provided below in table 1. as illustrated in this table, variables were collected to provide demographic information about 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) participants, information about participants networks (with other mom entrepreneurs and with non-mom entrepreneurs), and information about how participants defined and evaluated their business success. table 1: variables included in analysis demographic variables network variables success variables mom entrepreneur identity strong ties (moms) success definition age strong ties (non-moms) mean success rating number of children weak ties (moms) age of children weak ties (non-moms) state centrality of ties job outside venture friendships ties business longevity number business venture marital status partner employment nearly three quarters (72%) of the participants in this study identified personally, professionally, or socially as a mom entrepreneur. some really leaned into this identity, with statements such as “being a mom is part of my personal brand” and “being a mom is in every inch and fiber of my being.” others actively or inadvertently distanced themselves from this identity. one participant stated “i happen to be a mom and an entrepreneur, but i don’t consider myself to be a ‘mompreneur’ because my work isn’t based around my role as a mom.” another noted “i don’t identify as ‘mom’ unless i am doing something specifically related to children. i am ‘mom’ at the pediatrician’s office, a kid’s birthday party, and a parent-teacher conference, but i don’t prefix any other identity in that way.” another group of participants identified with this descriptor internally, but were resistant to use this as part of their business or social identity. one participant stated “i hide it until i feel safe to say i'm a mom” another “my friends would laugh at that handle because i am actually not a very maternal person by nature!” some study participants questioned the value of using the label of mom entrepreneur or mompreneur, stating “it is a really interesting world plugging in to ‘mompreneurs’ or ‘women entrepreneurs’ and segmenting yourself off in this way. what are the benefits and pitfalls of seeking these avenues versus a general networking group?” king, k.g., mom entrepreneurs, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) 11 when considering the networks of these women, i believed that it was important to evaluate networks of mom entrepreneurs as distinct from general support networks due to the unique challenges and opportunities that women with children encounter when starting or running a business. some participants strongly believed that the benefits of mom entrepreneur networks were distinct from what might be found in other groups. according to one participant “every community or network is different. you have to be very mindful of your role in the network. with mompreneurs, people develop trust more quickly and easily if you are transparent and honest.” another noted “you feel that other mom entrepreneurs are the only people that truly understand you as a mom and a business owner. you get judged sometimes because you work so much and it almost appears as if you’re putting the business first. they provide support during those harder times.” another commented that “it is so powerful to do business with a network of women who also believe in you.” others found greater benefit connecting with other women, regardless of parental status, stating things like “i connect with a lot of women entrepreneurs, parent status doesn’t really come into play.” these statements stand in contrast with the beliefs of some other participants, who did not believe networks of mom entrepreneurs to be separate from more general business networks. according to one participant, “i don’t need to connect with women, i need to connect with any person who can help. the mom entrepreneur network isn’t a strong driver, even when you helped me examine it.” another stated, “i was involved with a mom business owner group a few years ago and it was very frustrating. it became clear that this was not a professional group of people, that this was not my group. people talked about their kids all the time, i was there for business.” table 2, provided below, summarizes the self-reported networks of the women who participated in my study. as evidenced by the information presented in this table, participants report having fewer numbers of strong ties (characterized by trust and frequent interactions) with mom entrepreneurs than with others (men, non-moms, or non-entrepreneurs). they report generally similar numbers of weak ties with mom entrepreneurs and with others and about the same numbers of strong and weak ties among mom entrepreneurs. 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) table 2: strong and weak network ties of mom entrepreneurs strong ties with mom entrepreneurs strong ties with others weak ties with mom entrepreneurs weak ties with others mean 3.7 4.9 4.9 4.2 median 2 4 2 2 minimum 0 0 0 0 maximum 12 30 30 25 in terms of network position, in their network of other mom entrepreneurs, participants did not believe those to whom they had strong ties to be connected with one another. the average number of strong ties who are connected with other strong ties is less than one with a median of 0. that is to say, many women may serve as brokers between other mom entrepreneurs, having the ability to connect those who are otherwise unconnected. considering ties beyond business relationships, those related to friendship, just over three quarters of all participants (77%) indicated that they had developed friendships with other mom entrepreneurs. when asked to define with they meant by “friendship” in this capacity, some women reported that, as an entrepreneur, they didn’t believe there to be separation among the elements of their lives, that everything, including friendships were integrated. many spoke about trust, a level of comfort, and someone you could depend on during difficult times. a few participants mentioned friendship as being characterized by deeper levels of connection and similar energy. one defined friendship as “when coffee turns into wine.” about one third of this study’s participants defined friendship in terms of their children, mentioning such things as “our kids know each other” or “we have an overlap in activities based on our children.” another third defined friendship as doing things socially outside of a business context. the most frequent methods of interaction among all network ties were face to face, email, phone, and texting. social media was also regularly reported as a method of interaction. evaluation of hypotheses analysis of information gathered from these qualitative interviews enabled for the evaluation of the five hypotheses presented earlier. all king, k.g., mom entrepreneurs, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) 13 analysis was conducted using the r platform (r core team, 2017). first, the relation between mom entrepreneur network size and mom entrepreneur identity was evaluated by calculating the point biserial correlation between these variables [h1]. results of this analysis indicate that there is no relation between mom entrepreneur self-identity and network size of strong and weak mom entrepreneur ties (r = 0.04 and r = -0.03, respectively). that is to say, there is no relationship between calling oneself a “mompreneur” and having a large network of other mom entrepreneurs. next, the relation between mom entrepreneur self-identity and holding a definition of success that includes financial viability or profitability was examined by calculating the phi coefficient between these variables [h2]. results of this analysis indicate that there is no relation between mom entrepreneur self-identity and having a definition of success that includes finances or profitability (r = 0.14). this finding might be considered in light of previous work (e.g. buttner & moore, 1997; danes et al., 2007; du rietz & henrekson, 2000) which reported that mother entrepreneurs hold different definitions of business success. the relation between business longevity and composition of ties was also explored as the pearson correlation between the number of years of business operation and the proportion of strong ties held by a business owner [h3]. results show that there is no relation between these two variables (r = 0.03). a related inquiry was also made to evaluate the relation between business longevity and number of strong ties. this analysis showed a significant relation between these variables (r = 0.46, p = 0.01), indicating that business owners with longer running businesses have more strong ties. this should be compared with previous work on the nature of ties in business networks (smith & lohrke, 2008). next, the relation between a spouse or partner’s involved in an entrepreneurial venture and defining success in terms of profitability or financial viability was explored by calculating the phi coefficient between these variables [h4]. results of this analysis showed no relation to be present (r = -0.22). finally, in evaluation of the previously presented hypotheses, the relation between a spouse or partner’s work status (holding a full-time job) and defining success in terms of financial viability or profitability was explored by calculating the phi coefficient between these variables [h5]. results show no relation between spouse or partner work status and definitions of success (r = 0.11). 14 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) in addition to evaluating these a priori, data were explored more generally to evaluate the bivariate correlations between all variables in this analysis. illustrated below in table 3, several interesting significant relations are present. one such relation is between participant age and numbers of strong ties. older mom entrepreneurs have greater numbers of strong ties with other mom entrepreneurs and greater numbers of strong ties, in general. another interesting relation is that between age of children and ratings of success. women with older children are more likely to rate themselves as successful, using their self-provided definitions of what business success is. finally, those who are running their first business have greater numbers of weak ties than experienced mom entrepreneurs (women on their second or greater business venture). these findings will be discussed in greater detail in the discussion section. table 3: bivariate correlations variable 1 variable 2 correlation coefficient p-value age of participant total strong ties 0.47 0.01 age of participant strong mom ties 0.36 0.05 age of children rating of success 0.40 0.03 first business venture weak ties other -0.38 0.04 first business venture total weak ties -0.49 0.01 first business venture weak mom ties -0.46 0.01 i also compared the definitions of success held by participants in this study to those identified by buttner & moore (1997). as illustrated in table 4 below, the findings of buttner & moore indicate that, in order, the most important measures of success were self-fulfillment, achievement of goals, profits, business growth, balancing family and work, and social contribution. according to the women who participated in this study, the order of importance of these measures was profits, balance, social contribution, business growth and self-fulfillment (tied), and achievement of goals. as illustrated below, these two rank-ordered lists are quite different. king, k.g., mom entrepreneurs, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) 15 table 4: rank-ordered measures of success buttner & moore (1997) present study profits 3 1 business growth 4 4 self-fulfillment 1 4 achievement of goals 2 6 social contribution 6 3 balancing family and work 5 2 qualitatively, there were several other noteworthy findings regarding how participants defined the success of their businesses. the first is related to the status of profits or financial aspects as the most frequently mentioned measure of success. according to one participant, “entrepreneurial success is tied with financial success. in my entrepreneurial history, if the business wasn’t providing enough money to make it worth it, i’d be looking for a full-time job. there’s a functional component that can’t be ignored. sometimes i hate admitting that because it doesn’t sound very ‘follow your passion-esque’.” similarly, the relatively greater importance of contributing to social good is also interesting. one participant mentioned the ability to do probono work that is afforded by running her own business, indicating that “there’s no way i’d have been able to do this before becoming a full-time entrepreneur.” another spoke to founding a charter school, noting “it is 100% volunteer. this informs my entrepreneurial venture and also my whole life! this absolutely wouldn’t have happened had i not had previous experience of starting a venture or the support network that it provided me.” participants in this study also defined success using measures beyond those included above in table 4. one woman spoke to the importance of having options, another to the objective of exercising creativity and encountering new challenges. multiple participants addressed the importance of meeting a personal calling or finding their true selves and several others mentioned the value of serving as a role model and inspiring or developing others. one participant defined success as failing with enthusiasm, another as having fun. interestingly, several women spoke to how their definitions of success have changed over time. for example, one stated that “in the beginning, it was about reaching my goals and being better than the next person. now 16 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) success is based on providing a good quality of life for my family and those who work for me and my community.” discussion theoretical and practical implications this work, although exploratory in nature, carries a number of implications for both theory and practice. one important finding is that many women serve as brokers in their networks of mom entrepreneurs, having the ability to connect those who are otherwise unconnected. there were very few instances of women indicating that those to whom they were closely connected were also connected to each other. in the network literature, this would be characterized as having low transitivity and high brokerage (wasserman & faust, 1994). this means that the ties between mom entrepreneurs that exist are critical in connecting not only those directly involved, but perhaps serving as future conduits as women connect with friends of friends. it also means that, echoing one participant, “the world of female entrepreneurships needs more options to develop social networks.” comparing the results of this work to previous studies of women or moms in entrepreneurism, my findings are aligned with korsgaard (2007) in that women do not demonstrate a high desire for growth. i did, however, find women to be highly motivated by financial reasons. this could mean that, although women are interested in generating income to achieve a certain level of financial stability or lifestyle, they have less desire to create a high-growth, scalable company. related to the findings presented in table 4, previous work found women’s most important entrepreneurial motivations to be a desire for challenge and self-determination (buttner & moore, 1997). the findings of this study, however, suggest that generating profits, balancing family and work, and contributing to social good are of greatest importance to mom entrepreneurs. perhaps these differences are reflective of the nearly two decades that have passed since the original study was conducted, including a more general shift to social awareness and integrating family and work. again, it is noteworthy that profits, often dismissed as insignificant, were an important measure of success for participants of my study. king, k.g., mom entrepreneurs, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) 17 this work may also serve to test some of the assumptions that were used in prior studies on women in entrepreneurship. for example, marshall & flaig (2013) used having a self-employed spouse as a proxy for social capital. results of this analysis indicate that there was no relation between having a spouse or partner who was also an entrepreneur and any of the evaluated networks. this means that future work on this topic should consider metrics beyond spousal employment as measures of social capital. expanding on the results of the hypothesis testing that was previous described, i reject the hypotheses that owners of longer-running businesses have greater proportions of strong ties. i did find, however, that this group had greater numbers of strong ties. it is interesting to consider this finding in conjunction with that of smith and lohrke (2008), who noted that cognitive trust (characterized here as weak ties) rather than affective trust (characterized here as strong ties), is more important over time. although this finding was not confirmed, it is noteworthy that ties seem to be maintained by women over time, resulting in owners of longer-running businesses having greater numbers of ties in general. perhaps rather than abandoning those strong ties characterized by affective trust for weaker ties related to cognitive trust, women instead maintain their strong ties and add to them. another finding of this work that warrants further exploration is the relation between participant age and strong ties. older women indicated greater numbers of strong ties with other mom entrepreneurs and greater numbers of strong ties in general. perhaps this is due to the fact that, with age, comes the tendency to rely more heavily on close relationships than more the more transactional business relationships that are frequently found among younger mom entrepreneurs. this is speculative and needs to be further evaluated. similarly, the finding that women running their first business had greater numbers of weak ties than experienced mom entrepreneurs warrants additional consideration. this might be due to a strategy of developing large numbers of ties and before deciding which to cultivate when a woman is embarking on her first entrepreneurial venture. women who have already started a business may already have a network of ties and do not need to “test the waters” with large numbers of transactional relationships. also worthy of further consideration is the relation between age of children and ratings of success. women with older children are more likely to rate themselves as successful, using their self-provided definitions of 18 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) what business success is. perhaps this is due to the fact that women with younger children feel more pressure to contribute at home, therefore believing themselves to be less effective with their businesses. for example, one participant noted “the daycare situation is a nightmare. we haven’t found care in two years.” it may be that women who are compelled to care for children young in addition to running businesses do not believe themselves to be as successful in their work. limitations and future research it should be noted that a qualitative study like this does not allow for generalizable findings. as participants came from only two western countries and were generally of middleor upper-middle class, results should be considered in that context. future research might explore similar questions in other contextual settings. furthermore, the results presented here might serve as suggestions for possible fields of exploration moving forward. one example of an area that might be explored in the future is that of father entrepreneurs. this study provides a detailed portrait of the state of entrepreneurship among women actively caring for children. it neglects, however, information about how men manage the dual roles of parent and business owner. after all, men entrepreneurs are equally likely to be parents as women entrepreneurs (clark-muntean & ozkazanc-pan, 2015). future work should expand the present analysis to evaluate the networks and definitions of success of father entrepreneurs. based on the experiences of some of the participants of this work, other areas for further exploration can be identified. the isolating nature of entrepreneurship was one theme that was mentioned on multiple occasions. according to one participant, “there’s something there that could be captured, highlighted, or reflected on. that’s something to think about.” indeed, future research should explore networks among mom entrepreneurs with a focus on different types of networks and how positions in those networks might contribute to feelings of isolation. conclusions the importance of work is perhaps best captured by feedback from interview participants. many women indicated that thinking about their king, k.g., mom entrepreneurs, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 1-21) 19 networks motivated them to do more work in developing new or furthering existing relationships. according to one participant, “when you started asking questions about mom entrepreneur connections i was like ‘i want to have that.’” another stated “i love questions and these 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[33] smith, d.a. and lohrke, f.t. 2008. “entrepreneurial network development: trusting in the process.” journal of business research, 61, 315-322. article history: received: 6 april, 2020 accepted: 3 may, 2020 microsoft word 12 jwe 1-2.docx udc: 005.335.41 jel: l26;j82 original scientific paper gender differences and attitudes in entrepreneurial intentions: the role of career choice polne razlike i stavovi u pogledu preduzetničkih namera: njihova uloga u izboru zanimanja sánchez jose c.,* university of salamanca, spain licciardello orazio, university of catania, italy a b s t r a c t gender differences in entrepreneurial intentions and agentic traits frequently linked to entrepreneurship (locus of control, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, risk-taking propensity, and proactiveness) were examined using a sample of spanish university students, 535 women and 283 men. self-reported data were collected through a questionnaire consisting of several scales. manova results showed gender differences in entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial self-efficacy, in the sense that men felt themselves more efficient and oriented to create a new venture than women. nevertheless, major area and age explained differences in the variables studied better than gender. key words: entrepreneurship, career choice, gender-role stereotypes, agentic traits * university of salamanca, jsanchez@usal.es journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 8 introduction although the traditional labor division between genders has now dissipated in many western societies, and women are increasingly occupying job positions typically dominated by men, a gap still remains in the working life of men and women. gender differences are especially evident in entrepreneurial careers. in spite of the fact that in the last few years there has been a significant increase in the number of new ventures created by women, the proportion of these in comparison to the whole is still small. in this sense, several research studies carried out in north america and europe have systematically found a greater trend towards entrepreneurship in men than in women (e.g., brockhaus, & horwitz, 1986; zhao, seibert, &hills, 2005). these differences are quite pronounced in certain european countries like spain (sánchez, & odoardi, 2008). according to the first global entrepreneurship monitor (gem) report on female entrepreneurs published in 2006 (allen, langowitz, & minniti, 2006), only 30% of spanish entrepreneurs were women. this proportion is one of the smallest registered in the 34 countries covered in this report, ranking in position 28, only ahead of poland, italy, hong kong, norway, greece, and croatia. authors from different countries around the world, including spain, agree that explaining the scarce involvement of women in business initiatives should consider the obstacles that women typically face in comparison to men (e.g., bruni, gherardi, & poggio, 2004; catley & hamilton, 1998; jome, donahue, & siegel, 2006), the existence of different motivations between men and women to create a new venture (e.g., bruni, gherardi, & poggio, 2004), or certain psychological characteristics that would appear in different levels in men and women, thus creating different attitudes towards self-employment (e.g., gatewood, shaver, & gartner, 1995; sexton & bowman-upton, 1990). however, these explanations to account for the scarce entrepreneurial behavior observed in women come mainly from studies focusing only on samples of established and experienced entrepreneurs. but the new venture creation process takes place over the long term and involves multiple successive stages, which go from the formation of an entrepreneurial intention as a result of a meditated decision of career choice, to the development of real entrepreneurial behavior with the implementation of a new business idea. from this point of view the analysis of gender sanchez, j., et al., gender differences, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 9 differences in initial entrepreneurial career choices could suggest new insights for understanding the low rates of female entrepreneurs in different regions of the world. in this sense, some studies carried out in north america and europe with samples of undergraduate students have found that young men are more interested in entrepreneurial careers than young women (kourilsky & walstad, 1998; wilson, marlino, & kickkul, 2004; zhao, seibert, & hills, 2005). following this argument, this study is the first attempt in spain to explain gender differences in the development of entrepreneurial intentions as useful predictors of future entrepreneurial behavior (shapero, & sokol, 1982). specifically our aim is to answer two fundamental questions: do spanish men have a higher intention to start a business than spanish women?, and is it possible to extend such gender differences to other entrepreneurial traits, such as locus of control, entrepreneurial selfefficacy, risk-taking propensity, and proactiveness? taking as a basis the scientific literature about gender differences in career-related processes (e.g., abele, 2000) and person-organization fit (e.g., cable & judge, 1996), we propose that gender roles and stereotypes cause differences between genders in certain psychological traits strongly associated with entrepreneurial intentions and choices. to analyze this premise we conducted a self-report-based study from a sample of spanish university students involved in career choice processes, in order to analyze gender differences in entrepreneurial intentions and traits. theoretical background to explain gender differences in occupational interests and status, researchers (e.g., eccles-parsons, adler, futterman, goff, kaczala, meece et al., 1983; fassinger, 1990) generally have posited that being a man or a woman does not directly affect career motivation, career choice, or career commitment, but rather that gender is a background variable indirectly influencing career-related processes via other connected variables, such as gender-role stereotypes. one example of this research perspective is the dual-impact model by abele (2000). it was developed to explain gender differences in career-related processes, and predicts that being a man or woman involves a gendered self-conceptualization, derived to a great extent from taking on gender roles. this self-conceptualization influences other career-related psychological variables, for instance, self-efficacy journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 10 expectations or goals, which have a direct impact on career-related behaviors and outcomes. in addition, this model poses that being a woman or a man elicits different expectations and stereotypes regarding women and men, which have a direct influence on the structure of opportunity, that is, the different treatment of men and women in the context of career. this model can predict that individuals’ accommodation to their respective gender roles and the existence of shared stereotypes regarding how men and women must be and behave could explain the observed gender differences in certain psychological traits involved in career choice processes. from this perspective we expect that the greater involvement of spanish men in entrepreneurial careers can be explained, at least in part, by certain psychological traits acquired through the socialization process, which distinguish men from women. researchers have affirmed that certain personal traits can be used to predict entrepreneurial behaviors, such as internal locus of control (e.g., brockhaus, 1982; brockhaus & horwitz, 1986; perry, 1990), entrepreneurial self-efficacy (e.g., chen, greene, & crick, 1998; de noble, jung, & ehrlich, 1999; markman, balkin, & baron, 2002; markman, baron, & balkin, 2005), risk-taking propensity (e.g., thomas, & boyd, 1987; mccelland, 1961; stewart, & roth, 2001, 2004), and proactiveness (e.g., becherer, & mauer, 1999; jennings, cox, & cooper, 1994). most of the cited studies were carried out in the united states and northern europe. there is scarce empirical evidence about the relationship between these four dimensions and entrepreneurship in spanish studies (sánchez, 2009). nevertheless, since the sociocultural aspects of entrepreneurship are quite similar in western societies, we assume that the results previously given can be generalized to spain. as we have just mentioned, the intention to start a new business represents the first step in the entrepreneurial sequence (krueger, 1993). intentions capture the motivational factors affecting specific behaviors, and show the individual’s predisposition for undertaking such behaviors (ajzen, 1991); in psychological literature, intentions are good predictors of planned behavior (ajzen, 1991). the creation of a new company demands time and involves considerable planning. it is difficult to imagine the creation of a business merely as a response to a stimulus and not as a planned decision involving some degree of cognitive processing. thus, entrepreneurial behavior is precisely the type of planned behavior (bird, sanchez, j., et al., gender differences, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 11 1988) for which intention models are ideally suited (krueger, reilly, & carsrud, 2000). although many gender differences in entrepreneurship have been established based on actual entrepreneurs, some north-american and european studies have also tried to verify these discrepancies at the entrepreneurial intentions level (e.g., crant, 1996; zhao, seibert, & hills, 2005), systematically finding a greater entrepreneurial propensity in men than in women. considering this fact, we propose that gender represents one of the determining variables of entrepreneurial intentions in spain as well. nevertheless, according to career models, gender is only a background variable indirectly influencing career-related processes via other connected variables (e.g., abele, 2000). according to the dual-impact model by abele (2000) and the personorganization fit perspective (e.g., cable, & judge, 1996), we propose that gender affects entrepreneurial intentions and traits, and that the differences between the sexes in entrepreneurial career choice are associated with the fit level of men’s and women’s personal characteristics with the entrepreneurial requirements. specifically, after controlling for major area and age, we hypothesize that: (h1) men will have a higher level of entrepreneurial intention than women; (h2) men will have higher level of entrepreneurial self-efficacy than women; (h3) men will have higher level of internal locus of control than women; (h4) men will have higher level of risk-taking propensity than women; and (h5) men will have higher level of proactiveness than women. method sample data were collected from 818 participants (34.6% men and 65.4% women), aged between 18 and 26 years old, and with a mean age of 21.67 (sd = 2.18). forty-eight percent of the participants were aged between 18 and 21, and the remaining 52% was aged between 22 and 26 years old. the sample was comprised of spanish university students from different areas journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 12 of knowledge, with a predominance of social sciences (31.4%), business and economic sciences (25.3%), technical sciences (15.3%), humanities (9.2%), educational sciences (9.1%), experimental sciences (4.6%), health sciences (3.2%), and legal sciences (1.9%). using a sample of students allowed us to work with people actually involved in processes of occupational career choice (krueger, 1993; krueger, reilly, & carsrud, 2000) and, in accordance with our research aims, makes it possible to study gender differences in the antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions. the sample of women comprised 535 participants with a mean age of 21.58 (sd = 2.06), 50.8% of them aged between 18 and 21, and the remaining 49.2% aged between 22 and 26 years old. the distribution of the sample of women by major areas was: 42.6% social sciences, 22.2% business and economic sciences, 9.1% technical sciences, 8.7% educational sciences, 8.2% humanities, 3.8% health sciences, 3% experimental sciences, and 2.3% legal sciences. the sample of men was comprised of 283 participants with a mean age of 21.85 (sd = 2.38), 42.8% of them aged between 18 and 21, and 57.2% aged between 22 and 26 years old. the distribution of the sample of men by major areas was: 31% business and economic sciences, 27.1% technical sciences, 11.2% humanities, 10.1% social sciences, 9.7% educational sciences, 7.6% experimental sciences, 2.2% health sciences, and 1.1% legal sciences. materials data were collected by administering questionnaires to the total sample. all the subjects voluntarily answered the questionnaire (coe, sánchez, 2010), which consisted of different sections and scales. reliabilities of scales assessed by cronbach’s alpha are shown in table 1. entrepreneurial intention. in line with krueger, reilly, & carsrud, (2000), we used a single item measure of the intention to start a business, asking the participants to indicate their intention to start their own business in the next five years on a likert type scale from 0 (low intention) to 10 (high intention). the higher the score in this item, the greater the intention to start a company, and vice versa. locus of control. we used 20 items adapted from previous research (hoffman, novak, & schlosser, 2003; levenson, 1974; rotter, 1966) referring to individuals’ expectancies for internal versus external locus of sanchez, j., et al., gender differences, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 13 control. participants answered on a likert type scale from 0 (totally in disagreement) to 5 (totally in agreement). the items were averaged to form an overall measure. high scores in the scale are indicative of internal locus of control, whereas low scores denote external locus of control. entrepreneurial self-efficacy. we used the entrepreneurial selfefficacy scale by de noble, jung, & ehrlich (1999), which measures the belief of a person in his/her own abilities to carry out the tasks required for creating a business, and was highly correlated with entrepreneurial intentions. the scale was devised according to bandura’s (bandura, 1986) suggestions regarding the development of domain-specific self-efficacy measures. items from the original scale were translated into spanish using a translation / back-translation procedure (behling & law, 2000). the scale is composed of 23 items. scores range from 1 to 10, from “completely incapable” to “perfectly able”. an overall score is obtained by averaging the 23 items. the higher the score in the scale, the more the perceived entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and vice versa. risk-taking propensity. a reduced version of the risk orientation questionnaire (roq) was used (rohrmann, 1997), which evaluates the general tendency of a person to take on risks. this scale is based on a series of items about the propensity to and avoidance of risky situations, and is highly correlated with other scales of risk attitudes and propensity, such as farley’s scale (farley, 1987). selected items from the original scale were translated into spanish using a translation / back-translation procedure (behling & law, 2000). participants answered eight items in all referring to risk-facing and attitudes towards risk decisions. answers were categorized on a likert type scale ranging from 0 (totally in disagreement) to 5 (totally in agreement). the eight items were averaged to form an overall measure. high scores in the scale indicate risk-taking propensity, whereas low scores point to cautiousness. proactiveness. we used a reduced version of the proactive personality scale by bateman & crant (bateman, & crant, 1993; crant, & bateman, 2000). the original scale is made up of 17 items which assess an individual’s propensity towards proactive behavior. in our study we used the 10-item version of the scale, developed by seibert, crant & kraimer (1999), and seibert, kraimer & crant (2001), based on the selection of the most significant items of the original 17-item version by bateman & crant. selected items from the original scale were translated into spanish using a translation / back-translation procedure (behling, & law, 2000). the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 14 adapted 10 items assessed the participants’ agreement or disagreement with a series of statements referring to typical actions of proactive people such as opportunity identification, using a 5-point likert scale from 0 (totally in disagreement) to 5 (totally in agreement). an overall score was obtained by averaging the 10 items, and the higher the score in the scale, the more proactive the individual, and vice-versa. results first of all, we ran two chi-square analyses to determine whether major area and age group were confounded with gender. these results suggest that major area and age group are mingled with gender in this study and it is necessary to include them as control variables in the analyses. table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, alpha coefficients, and correlations. regardless of gender, mean scores in entrepreneurial intentions and traits were relatively low in the total sample. table 1: means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and correlations of study variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. entrepreneurial intention - 2. locus of control .12 b (.76) 3. entrepreneurial self-efficacy .19 b .30 b (.88) 4. risk-taking propensity .13 b .29 b .31 b (.71) 5. proactiveness .22 b .33 b .50 b .45 b (.78) 6. gender -.09 a -.01 -.04 -.02 -.06 - 7. major area .04 .04 -.08 a .06 .03 -.03 - 8. age group -.01 -.01 .07 a .02 .01 -.14 b -.14 b m 2.61 3.30 4.99 2.73 3.31 -- sd 2.37 .59 1.64 .61 .58 -- note. cronbach’s alphas are in parentheses. a p < .05; b p < .01. scores of entrepreneurial intention, locus of control, risk-taking propensity, and proactiveness range from 0 to 5; scores of entrepreneurial self-efficacy range from 0 to 1 in accordance with our hypotheses, we carried out a three-way between-subjects manova to assess the existence of significant differences in entrepreneurial intentions and traits between genders, after sanchez, j., et al., gender differences, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 15 controlling for major area and age group. gender, major area, age group, and the interactions between them served as independent variables, and the dependent variables were entrepreneurial intention, locus of control, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, risk-taking propensity, and proactiveness. table 2 contains the means and standard deviations table 2: means of individual variables by gender, major area, and age group samples dimensions entrepreneurial intention a b locus of control entrepreneurial self-efficacy a risk-taking propensity proactiveness gender men (n = 249) 3.09 (2.56) 3.31 (.60) 5.15 (1.61) 2.76 (.65) 3.39 (.58) women (n = 483) 2.62 (2.36) 3.30 (.60) 4.95 (1.62) 2.73 (.59) 3.30 (.58) major area business and sciences (n = 189) 2.87 (2.39) 3.25 (.55) 5.20 (1.54) 2.73 (.65) 3.38 (.57) humanities (n = 61) 2.08 (2.68) 3.15 (.67) 4.96 (1.85) 2.73 (.64) 3.29 (.73) social sciences (n = 242) 2.78 (2.33) 3.40 (.61) 5.04 (1.59) 2.73 (.57) 3.25 (.56) experimental sciences (n = 31) 1.45 (2.19) 3.35 (.47) 4.74 (1.71) 2.70 (.62) 3.24 (.73) technical sciences (n = 106) 3.02 (2.59) 3.22 (.67) 5.17 (1.76) 2.77 (.66) 3.48 (.53) legal sciences (n = 14) 4.00 (3.37) 3.53 (.62) 4.22 (1.49) 2.54 (.64) 3.26 (.73) health sciences (n = 22) 3.27 (1.93) 3.23 (.47) 4.28 (1.15) 2.54 (.43) 3.23 (.53) educational sciences (n = 67) 2.47 (2.31) 3.31 (.51) 4.78 (1.52) 2.89 (.62) 3.33 (.53) age group 18-21 (n = 356) 2.81 (2.35) 3.30 (.55) 4.93 (1.53) 2.73 (.60) 3.31 (.56) 22-26 (n = 376) 2.75 (2.53) 3.31 (.64) 5.11 (1.69) 2.75 (.62) 3.34 (.60) note. scores of entrepreneurial intention, locus of control, risk-taking propensity, and proactiveness range from 0 to 5; scores of entrepreneurial self-efficacy range from 0 to 10. standard deviations are shown in parentheses. a denotes differences between men and women. b denotes differences between experimental sciences and business and economic sciences, technical sciences, and legal sciences journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 16 in the first place, the multivariate effect of gender was significant, indicating significant differences in entrepreneurial intentions and traits between men and women, f (5, 700) = 2.81, p < .05, η2 = .98, by wilk’s lambda criterion. analyses of variance (anova) were conducted on each dependent variable as a follow-up test to the manova. the univariate main effect of gender was significant for entrepreneurial intention, f (27, 704) = 11.44, p < .001, with men scoring higher than women (men, m = 3.09, dt = 2.56; women, m = 2.62, dt = 2.36), as shown in table 2. this result confirms our hypothesis 1. there was also a univariate effect of gender on entrepreneurial self-efficacy, f (27, 704) = 3.90, p < .05, in the sense that men scored higher than women (men, m = 5.15, dt = 1.61; women, m = 4.95, dt = 1.62). these results support our hypothesis 2 in that men showed greater levels of entrepreneurial self-efficacy than women. otherwise, contrary to our hypotheses 3, 4, and 5, there were no gender differences in locus of control, risk-taking propensity, and proactiveness. secondly, the multivariate effect of major area was also significant, indicating that participants in different major areas differed in regard to the set of entrepreneurial variables analyzed, f (35, 2947) = 1.63, p < .05, η2 = .92, by wilk’s lambda criterion. anovas on each dependent variable were conducted as follow-up tests to the manova. the univariate effect of major area was significant only for entrepreneurial intention, f (27, 704) = 3.36, p < .01. tukey post hoc analyses showed that students of experimental sciences scored significantly lower in the entrepreneurial intention item than students of business and economic sciences, technical sciences, and legal sciences (experimental sciences, m = 1.45, sd = 2.19; business and economic sciences, m = 2.87, sd = 2.39; technical sciences, m = 3.02, sd = 2.59; and legal sciences, m = 4.00, sd = 3.37). these results are shown in table 2. finally, the multivariate effect of major area × age group interaction was significant, indicating significant differences in entrepreneurial intentions and traits between participants of different major areas in each age group, f (30, 2802) = 1.97, p < .001, η2 = .92, by wilk’s lambda criterion. anovas on each dependent variable were conducted as followup tests to the manova. the univariate effect of the interaction was significant for locus of control, f (27, 704) = 3.60, p < .01, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, f (27, 704) = 2.27, p < .05, risk-taking propensity, f (27, 704) = 2.78, p < .05, and proactiveness, f (27, 704) = 2.45, p < .05. tukey sanchez, j., et al., gender differences, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 17 post hoc analyses showed a differential effect of major area on the four psychological variables between older and younger groups (18-21 vs. 2226). the younger group students of business and economic sciences scored significantly higher in entrepreneurial self-efficacy than students of social sciences (business and economic sciences, m = 5.25, sd = 1.50; social sciences, m = 4.84, sd = 1.53). also, there were significant differences in risk-taking propensity between students of educational sciences and social sciences (educational sciences, m = 2.95, sd = .62; social sciences, m = 2.63, sd = .57). and finally, students of social sciences showed lower levels of proactiveness than their counterparts from technical sciences and business and economic sciences (social sciences, m = 3.19, sd = .59; technical sciences, m = 3.58, sd = .52; business and economic sciences, m = 3.41, sd = .51). in the group of older students, tukey post hoc analyses showed that students of social sciences showed higher levels of internal locus of control than their counterparts from business and economic sciences, technical sciences, and humanities (social sciences, m = 3.51, sd = .62; business and economic sciences, m = 3.20, sd = .61; technical sciences, m = 3.14, sd = .70; humanities, m = 3.13, sd = .66). these results are shown in table 3. table 3: means of individual variables by major area × age group samples dimensions entrepreneurial intention locus of control a entrepreneurial self-efficacy b risk-taking propensity c proactivenessd younger group (18-21) business and sciences (n=108) 2.82 (2.47) 3.31 (.51) 5.25 (1.50) 2.77 (.61) 3.41 (.51) social sciences (n=122) 2.77 (2.36) 3.29 (.58) 4.84 (1.53) 2.63 (.57) 3.19 (.59) experimental sciences (n =9) 1.22 (1.64) 3.13 (.56) 5.64 (1.76) 2.47 (.73) 3.40 (.72) technical sciences (n=37) 3.11 (2.54) 3.40 (.60) 5.14 (1.58) 2.88 (.59) 3.58 (.52) legal sciences (n =6) 2.83 (2.14) 3.30 (.60) 3.89 (1.37) 2.31 (.74) 3.07 (.83) health sciences (n=22) 3.27 (1.93) 3.23 (.47) 4.28 (1.15) 2.57 (.43) 3.23 (.53) journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 18 educational sciences (n =52) 2.73 (2.17) 3.31 (.54) 4.59 (1.54) 2.95 (.62) 3.28 (.52) older group (22-26) business and sciences (n =82) 2.99 (2.34) 3.20 (.61) 5.17 (1.61) 2.69 (.70) 3.35 (.67) humanities (n =60) 1.98 (2.59) 3.13 (.66) 4.91 (1.82) 2.72 (.63) 3.26 (.71) social sciences (n=120) 2.78 (2.31) 3.51 (.62) 5.25 (1.62) 2.84 (.55) 3.32 (.53) experimental sciences (n =22 ) 1.55 (2.40) 3.44 (.41) 4.37 (1.59) 2.79 (.57) 3.18 (.74) technical sciences (n=69 ) 2.97 (2.64) 3.14 (.70) 5.19 (1.86) 2.72 (.69) 3.43 (.54) legal sciences (n =8) 4.88 (3.98) 3.71 (.61) 4.47 (1.62) 2.72 (.53) 3.40 (.66) educational sciences (n =15 ) 3.80 (2.65) 3.32 (.36) 5.44 (1.28) 2.72 (.60) 3.53 (.50) younger group (18-21) business and sciences (n=108) 2.82 (2.47) 3.31 (.51) 5.25 (1.50) 2.77 (.61) 3.41 (.51) social sciences (n=122) 2.77 (2.36) 3.29 (.58) 4.84 (1.53) 2.63 (.57) 3.19 (.59) experimental sciences (n =9) 1.22 (1.64) 3.13 (.56) 5.64 (1.76) 2.47 (.73) 3.40 (.72) note. scores of entrepreneurial intention, locus of control, risk-taking propensity, and proactiveness range from 0 to 5; scores of entrepreneurial self-efficacy range from 0 to 10. standard deviations are shown in parentheses. a denotes differences between social sciences and business and economic sciences, technical sciences, and humanities in the older group (22-26). b denotes differences between business and economic sciences and social sciences in the younger group (1821). c denotes differences between educational sciences and social sciences in the younger group (18-21).d denotes differences between social sciences and business and economic sciences and technical sciences in the younger group (18-21). sanchez, j., et al., gender differences, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 19 discussion the principal aim of this study was to account for the scarce involvement of women in entrepreneurial initiatives in spain from a perspective of career choice. our argument was that by explaining why men develop entrepreneurial intentions and choose entrepreneurial careers to a greater extent than women, we could offer new insights to help understand the low rates of female entrepreneurship and suggest ways to foster new venture creation in women. we expected that men actually involved in career decisions would have a higher entrepreneurial intention than their female counterparts, and that such gender differences would also extend to other entrepreneurial traits, specifically, locus of control, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, risk-taking propensity, and proactiveness. as expected, men reported a higher intention to start a business than women. such differences are consistent with the results of previous studies carried out in different countries, which have suggested a greater initiative towards self-employment in men compared to women (e.g., crant, 1996; kourilsky, & walstad, 1998; wilson, marlino, & kickkul, 2004; zhao, seibert, & hills, 2005). in the second place, our results showed parallel gender differences in entrepreneurial self-efficacy, in line with previous studies performed outside spain (e.g., chen, greene, & crick, 1998). this finding is congruent with previous studies (e.g., costa, terraciano, & mccrae 2001; de miguel negredo, 2005; feingold, 1994) supporting the idea that women show predominantly communal/expressive traits, whereas men are higher in agentic/instrumental traits. furthermore, this result suggests the relevance of gender stereotypes in spanish culture, in the sense that the socialization process linked to gender stereotype can foster the development of certain agentic traits, such as entrepreneurial self-efficacy, to a greater extent in men than in women. in short, these findings are in line with the prediction of the dualimpact model by abele (2000). we found that gender affects the intention to start a business and the agentic trait of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (men feel themselves more efficient and prone to create a venture than women). these results can also be explained in terms of the person-organization fit perspective (e.g., cable, & judge, 1996), in the sense that we can explain the development of entrepreneurial intentions as the result of an accommodation between the personal characteristics of the individual and journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 20 the requirements of new venture creation. thus, people showing certain entrepreneurial traits such as entrepreneurial self-efficacy will be the most able to choose entrepreneurial careers. since our results suggest that men are higher in this trait than women, we can explain the scarce involvement of the latter in entrepreneurial initiatives in terms of a poor fit between their personal traits and the qualities required to create a new business. contrary to what was expected, our results have failed to demonstrate the existence of gender differences in other agentic entrepreneurial traits, specifically locus of control, risk-taking propensity, and proactiveness. this result can be linked to other previous failures in the identification of explanatory personal indicators of gender differences in entrepreneurship. for example, cromie (1987) did not find notable differences between men and women in dimensions strongly related to the entrepreneurial process, such as the need for achievement, locus of control, primacy of businesses, trust, independence, and planning. the present study thus joins the previous literature that offers only partial support for the suggestion that gender differences in certain psychological dimensions can be at the basis of additional gender differences in entrepreneurial intentions. in fact, in our sample, major area and age explained entrepreneurial intentions and traits much better than gender. implications for education our findings suggest a possible way of promoting self-employment in women, through entrepreneurship training programs addressed to future working women. these programs should incorporate components and activities for improving agentic characteristics such as entrepreneurial selfefficacy in women, in order to fight gender stereotypes and allow women to overcome the possible existing differences with respect to men. this, in turn, would allow them to place themselves on the same level of personal and psychological predisposition towards the creation of a new enterprise. following bandura’s (bandura, 1986) recommendations for raising selfefficacy, which is influenced by the characteristics of university courses (licciardello, marletta, maucer & castiglione, 2010), we think that it is possible to propose some basic activities regarding this matter, including opportunities for executive mastery, modeling, verbal persuasion, and the positive interpretation of emotional and physical states. in fact, some studies suggest that mentoring is a useful initiative when starting up a new sanchez, j., et al., gender differences, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 21 business, in the sense that psychological support can be considered as formal support (sánchez, 2011; waters, mccabe, kellerup, & kellerup, 2002). in addition, we think that the empowerment of entrepreneurial self efficacy in women could positively affect the change of gender stereotypes and the cognitive-behavioral rigidity linked to the stereotyped representation of sex roles. as to the relevance of educational processes, which are mainly significant in the developmental age, empirical evidence has shown that gender stereotype flexibility in children correlated with high levels of creativity (de caroli, & sagone, 2009). this psychological dimension, “widely acknowledged as vital to society” (hoffmann, cropley, cropley, nguyen, & swatman. 2005, p.1), can be influenced by educational climate (licciardello, de caroli, castiglione, & sagone. 2010) and could affect current and future self-representation in the sense of providing the personal freedom to choose a course of the study and type of the job. limitations and future researches our results underscore the need to investigate more deeply the specific role played by people’s personal characteristics and their relation to gender in our understanding of the complex entrepreneurial phenomenon. additionally, some authors pose the need to test other alternative hypotheses that consider the influence of certain contextual variables (fundamentally, socio-demographic, motivating, and hindering aspects of the context) and their combination with personal variables. this line of investigation is quite promising in explaining gender differences in entrepreneurship (e.g., catley, & hamilton, 1998; mccelland, swail, bell, & ibbotson, 2005). in this sense, it is expected that the application of this line of study to the context of the formation of intentions towards selfemployment could be more fruitful than the isolated analysis of certain personality dimensions. as regards the possibility of generalizing our results, it is necessary to point out some limitations of this study. the main concern is related to the use of a sample of students, but this type of sample is very useful, and, as has been argued by some authors (krueger, 1993; krueger, reilly, & carsrud, 2000), samples composed of students are the most appropriate for studying entrepreneurial intentions. nevertheless, great caution should be exercised when generalizing the present results to other groups of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 22 entrepreneurs or non-students (robinson, stimpson, huefner, & hunt, 1991) because of the homogeneity of certain important dimensions such as age and educational level, and the scarce degree of students’ initiation in the entrepreneurial process. although they are people actually beginning to face career decisions, students are certainly not the same as entrepreneurs, and we cannot be certain whether their intentions are clear and durable or whether the observed gender differences can be extended to other groups of experienced entrepreneurs. secondly, we based this research on the assumption that gender roles and stereotypes lead to distinctive psychological traits in men and women, but we did not include measures of gender roles or stereotypes in our study. future studies should seek to fill this gap and empirically prove this premise and its implications in career choice. another problem is the use of a single item to measure the intention to start a business. although research about intentions has often used single-item measures, multiple items could reduce measurement error and increase the reliability and validity of the measure, and thus of the research (krueger, reilly, & carsrud, 2000). furthermore, the present findings are based on self-reports (questionnaires) that are susceptible to errors and biases. finally, the sample was also drawn only from spain, and thus caution should be taken in generalizing the results to other countries. clearly, more research could be helpful in order to verify these results in other countries. given these limitations, future research is needed to analyze gender differences in entrepreneurial intentions using more appropriate methodologies, including entrepreneurial samples and experimental designs based on simulations and laboratory experiments. moreover, there is a general need for longitudinal studies in entrepreneurship in order to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial intentions and behavior over time and the evolution of gender differences throughout the whole entrepreneurial sequence. finally, cross-cultural studies will be helpful in order to replicate our findings in other countries and suggest the role of culture and its relationship with individual traits in explaining gender differences in entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors. sanchez, j., et al., gender differences, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 7-27) 23 references [1] abele, andrea, e. 2000. “a dual-impact model of gender and career-related processes”. in the developmental social psychology of gender, eds t. eckes and h. m. trautner, 361-388. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates [2] ajzen, icek. 1991.”the theory of planned behavior.” organizational behavior & human decision processes, 50: 179-211 [3] allen, elaine, i. e., nan, langowitz, and maria minniti. 2006. global entrepreneurship monitor. 2006 report on women and entrepreneurship. babson park, ma and london, uk: babson college and london business school [4] bandura, albert. 1986. the social foundations of thought and action. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice hall [5] bandura, albert. 1997. self-efficacy: the exercise of control. new york, ma: w.h. freeman & co [6] bateman, thomas, s., and michael j.crant. 1993. “the proactive component of organizational behavior.” journal of organizational behavior, 14(2): 103-118 [7] becherer, richard, c., and john g. mauer. 1999. “the proactive personality disposition and entrepreneurial behavior among small business presidents.” journal of small business management, 37(1): 28-36 [8] begley, thomas, m., and david p. boyd. 1987. “psychological characteristics associated with performance in entrepreneurial firms and smaller businesses.” journal of business venturing, 2(1): 79-93 [9] behling, o., and k. s. law. 2000. translating questionnaires and other research instruments: problems and solutions. london, uk: sage publications. 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efikasnosti. shodno tome, muškarci su efikasniji i spremniji da uđu u novi poslovni poduhvat pre nego žene. ipak, preduzetnuičko polje delovanja i godine starosti bolje objašnjavaju razlike u varijablama nego polna pripadnost ključne reči: preduzetništvo, izbor karijere, polni stereotipi article history: received: 15 june 2011 revised: 2 october, 2011 accepted: 15 february 2012 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.34.pp146-164 original scientific paper relevance of innovation on survival of women-owned business in nigeria olushola joshua omolekan1 busayo alli2 university of ilorin, faculty of management sciences, department of business administration, ilorin, nigeria a b s t r a c t women’s involvement in entrepreneurial activities in developing countrieshas been a source of concern to organizational psychologies and researchers. womenowned businesses form a larger percentage of small businesses in nigeria in recent times but the continuity and survival of such enterprises posed serious challenges. most women-owned businesses hardly survive beyond a few years of incorporation. thus, this paper evaluated the relevance of innovation on the survival of womenowned businesses. specifically, the study seeks to: determine the effect of product/service innovation on the market share; and examine the influence of process innovation on business reputation. the study adopted a survey design. multistage sampling was employed in deriving the sample size. a structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from the women business owners in ilorin, kwara state, nigeria. ordinary least square regression was used to analyze the data and it was found that; products/services innovation affects the market share with r2-value of 0.541 and process innovation influences business reputation with r2-value of 0.517. hence, the study concluded that innovative behaviours are statistically significant on the survival of women-owned businesses since all the variables used in the study are statistically significant. it was therefore recommended among others 1 corresponding author, e-mail: o.omolekan@gmail.com 2 email: sayitnow0416@gmail.com olushola joshua omolekan, busayo alli 147 that innovative behaviour is required by women entrepreneurs to adapt, grow, and survive in their dynamic business environment. key words: women-owned businesses, survival, innovation, business reputation, competition introduction the growing importance of entrepreneurial activities as a growthseeking, poverty reduction, job creation and livelihood strategies in addressing the issues of unemployment in a developing economy like nigeria where white-collar job are limited cannot be overemphasized. in nigeria, 40% of the women population is involved in entrepreneurial activities (oluseyi, 2017) which shows that women are important forces in the development of any country. women business enterprise council (wbenc) (2018) report shows a significant increase in women-owned businesses by 58% compared to the overall business performance of 12%, hence, womenowned businesses contribute massively to enterprises worldwide. today, women are largely concentrated in the informal, micro, low profit and growth areas where competition is intense such as the fashion design, textile, and agricultural businesses among others. however, since most of these businesses owned by women contribute substantially to the economic growth and industrial development of most nations, it becomes expedient to develop strategies to facilitate their business growth, success, and enhance their performance as well as the survival chances of these businesses. one of the major objectives of small business in twenty first century is survival (oluseyi, 2017). business survival is concerned with the continuance, endurance, or longevity of the business. however, according to wbenc (2018), 20% of small-sized businesses owned by women fail in their first five years and 50% of them do not survive the past five years. survival and success of a business depend on the attempts made by the business to be distinctive in their mode of operations to compete favourably through strategic products launch, value added, integrated marketing strategies and cost reduction measures to increase profitability as a result of innovation in the business (kithaka, 2016). innovation requires translating ideas into goods/services that creates value that customers will pay for (mwangi & namunsong, 2014). innovation is of paramount importance to the survival of not only women-owned 148 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 146-164) businesses, new businesses, introducing new and/or improved products or services, or creating new markets but also for already existing businesses that are likely to face the threat of disruption from new technologies. the competitive nature of business enterprise in gaining competitive edge over other business firms in the same industry are evident through firms’ innovative abilities in terms of product design, process design, marketing activities and customer satisfaction. with a new perception of economic opportunities, an improved method of thinking by managers, and changes in customers’ needs revealed the significance of innovative thinking by market leaders. women are traditionally seen as caregivers in the african context meant to be indoor, take care of their children and elderly ones. women that are involved in entrepreneurship are mostly over-represented in the smallest, informal and low growth businesses characterized by stiff competition and rivalry coupled with issues such as lack of family support, insufficient finance, lack/insufficient entrepreneurial skills, inadequate government support, and the likes hinders their survival chances in their chosen businesses. therefore, this study examines the relevance of innovation on the survival of women-owned businesses. specifically, the study seeks to: determine the effect of product/service innovation on market share; and examine the influence of process innovation on business reputation. literature review and hypotheses development concept of innovation the primary concept of innovation as related to entrepreneurship and economic development was advocated by a german economist joseph schumpeter. he is of the opinion that innovation is synonymous with creativity, advances in technologies, new processes and products/services, research and development, and quality improvement (rosli & sidek, 2013). innovation is summarily described as the creation of wealth or improvement of current resources for value addition or creation of new wealth (kuratko & hodgetts, 2004). it is a process of invention, development of a new ideas, new products/services development, a new way of doing things, and process of meeting dynamic needs of the market. innovation is the process of introducing minor or major changes that result in new invention in an organization that add value to the organizational outputs and knowledge. for olushola joshua omolekan, busayo alli 149 this study, innovation is seen as the means of introduction and improvement of products/services through innovative abilities in design, process, products/services and integrated marketing services to meet the needs and expectation of customers in a dynamic and competitive market. drivers of innovation i. emerging technologies: according to manuylenko et al. (2015) the presence of new technologies always encourage businesses to be innovative, as technologies help to make work faster and easier. ii. competitors’ action: actions of competitors do encourage businesses to make moves or provide products that will better satisfy customers than those provided by competitors (tsvetkov, 2011). iii. new ideas: modern businesses engages a lot of stakeholders in the innovation process. this helps to reveal opportunities that otherwise might have gone undiscovered (rosli & sidek, 2013). iv. external environment: the political, social, and technological environment changes that occur require that businesses should innovate to be able to realign with their new business environment (rosli & sidek, 2013). types of innovation a. product/service innovation: this is simply the creation new products/services or re-modification of current line of products/services to meet and satisfy the need of the customer. the improvement in existing products/services can create a new demand or market for the products/services (wang & wang, 2012). products/services innovation is one of the means to gain a competitive advantage over other competitors in the same industry through improved product quality and performance which gives the organization a competitive edge. camison and lopez (2010) confirmed that corporations must be able to adapt and evolve if they wish to survive. this is because competitors always introduce new products that will change the basis of competition, the ability to change and adapt therefore is very key to the survival of any business. summarily, products/service innovation refers to the new products/services introduction and continuous improvements of an existing products/services to satisfy 150 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 146-164) customers’ need. for this study, product/service innovation were measured using the introduction of new products/services; and improving existing products/services as proxies. introducing new products/services: this means introduction of a new product. it is referred to the presentation of new goods or services; one in which the consumers are not yet familiar with in the market (walobwa, ngugi & chepkulei, 2013). an innovative business must be willing and capable of introducing new products to meet the frequent changes in consumers’ preferences, increase in competition, and advances in technology. improving existing products/services: practically, every product in the market today has been improved; these semi-new products can act as replacements to existing products of the business and earn the name new products (chong et al., 2011). they however provide enhanced performance or a greater perceived value over the old products. once a business knows that its product/service has a weakness or competitors product/service has a feature that makes it preferable by customers then enhancing those areas of lapses is needed. process innovation process innovation is simply the transformational means of invention. it comprises of skills, equipment, technologies used in production process and delivery of products/services, research and development, technical design, and all other manufacturing and commercial activities (gokhberg, 2011). process innovation involves the means of carried out innovative abilities with little or no stress. it improves the innovation efficiency, speed, prompt delivery and process development (oke, burke & myers, 2007). in a manufacturing context, process innovation implies a new methods or improved techniques used in the production of goods while in the service sector, it refers to the techniques of service delivery targeted towards efficiency and meeting customers’ expectation. process innovation includes modification or adopting a new means entirely in achieving the stated goals and objectives with minimal cost while ensuring environmental sustainability (kamau & munandi, 2009). for this study, process innovation is seen as an improvement in the techniques, skills, and equipment used to produce and deliver products or services. here, process innovation is in form of the use of modern equipment and improvement in techniques. use of modern equipment: businesses of today simply cannot function without the help of technology/equipment. outdated equipment can spell olushola joshua omolekan, busayo alli 151 disaster for efficiency and productivity in the workplace (mwangi & namusonge, 2014). modern equipment should be seen as an investment in the total productivity of a business rather than plain expenses. in this study, modern equipment is seen as tools or appliances of the present time that makes work faster and easier. improvement in techniques: techniques are methods of doing an activity, usually a method that involves practical skills. it is the skills and ability that are developed through training and practice (collins, 2019). in the context of this study, improvement in techniques which has to do with the proper and continuous training offered to employees to enhance their performance concept of women-owned business a woman-owned business is defined as one that is at least 51% owned, operated, and controlled daily by one or more females (nawaz, 2010). the definition used by weconnect international cited in arjan (2016) is comprehensive and captured the key conceptual issues in terms of ownership structure, mode of operation, management and control of women-owned businesses. a women-owned business must be owned by women (with at least 51% ownership by women), operate and control by one or more women, capital formation or expertise by women and operate without any external interference from non-certified firms. for this study, woman-owned business is defined as a business solely owned by a woman that has been in operation for not lesser than a year, with at most twenty (20) employees and/or apprentices and operating under a group association in the informal sector. business survival in the contemporary business world, one of the major objectives of small business enterprises is survival (oluseyi, 2017). survival in this context does not mean a rivalry with the market leaders in the industry but in catching a niche of the market that are ignore by the global corporation for profitability and survival. business survival is concerned with the continuance, endurance, or longevity of the business. varying statistics say that only five percent of start-ups businesses make it to the first five years and ninety percent of businesses do not even last three years (gartenstein, 2019). research has made it clear that the survival and success of a business depend on the attempts made by businesses to be distinctive and competitive through 152 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 146-164) innovative abilities of launching new product, process design, value addition, integrated marketing activities, cost saving measures and meeting customers’ need profitably. these are the result of innovation in the business (kithaka, 2016). here, business survival is seen as the continued existence of the business. therefore, factors that can help determine the continuance or otherwise of business include but are not limited to market share and business reputation. market share: this is the ratio of firms’ total sales to the proportion of the market where it operates. it is the quota of customer-based control by a particular firm or product in the industry (will, 2018). market share represents the aggregate turnover that a particular business enterprise or product earned over a particular period of time. it shows the strength of customers’ loyalty, patronage, and preference for a particular product over and above close substitutes’ products. an increased market share implies increase in sales, low marketing efforts, strong market control and barriers for competitors and new entrance (kithaka, 2016). an improved market share implies the market leaders gains more as the market expands. in this study, market share implies the total number of customers earned by a business in relation to the market it operates. business reputation: this is the general opinion that people have about the business. it described the perception, perceived opinion, informed judgment and feeling of others about a particular business based on their past experience with the business enterprise or product. consumer experience varied and differ based on the word of mouth and personal observations. it may be good or bad. a business reputation could make or mar the business. creating a good reputation takes time but can be lost in an instant. a business reputation can be looked upon from the angle of ethics, the talent of employees, leadership, social responsibility, and quality of the product, or services delivered by the company (barcey, 2012). however, business reputation depicts business perception from all stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers, creditors and other interested parties. influence of innovation on business survival innovation is known for providing new and improved products/services that help to maintain and attract customers to the business. the availability of modern equipment that makes work faster, easier, reduces wastage and cost, as well as the presence of well-trained personnel with the necessary skill to olushola joshua omolekan, busayo alli 153 offer the needed products or services, helps to increase market share and build a good reputation for the business enterprise (will, 2018). theoretical review the theories that are relevant to this study were discussed below: schumpeter’s innovation theory schumpeter innovation theory has described by kithaka (2016) view innovation as the creative destruction. it is a means of wealth creation by disruption of the existing product to create a new market structure. this theory focuses more on re-modification of existing product by improving the quality, usability and efficiency of product. in doing this, resources were channel from the old product to new product. the innovation will allow the growth of the new firm. this theory assumes that entrepreneurs always seek, maximize and utilize change and opportunity for a purposeful innovative behavior needed for the survival and success of a business. resource-based theory according to walobwa, ngugi, and chepkulei (2013), resource-based theory emphasize that the valuable, rare, inimitable capabilities of the firm are the determinants of its performance (this relates to innovation). the theory views the ability of a firm to develop distinct capabilities (innovation) which enhances its ability to adapt to the changing competitive environment and improves its survival prospects. social feminist theory according to kithaka (2016), the social feminist theory propagated by kalleberg and leicht suggests that, due to differences in early and on-going socialization, women and men do differ inherently, these affect value formation, intentions, and characters (ability to take the risk, start something new and the likes) these are obvious from the way men and women perceived reality differently (i.e. application of the formed characteristics) which causes a difference in their achievement. this study adopts the social feminist theory because it cuts across all the variables of the study. it refers to the early life socialization of a woman characterized by patriarchy (seeing men as being the head or meant for the 154 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 146-164) top) which influences their behavior, attitude and character (i.e. it makes them to be undermined in certain characteristics as an entrepreneur) which in turn affects the way they respond to a real-life situation and therefore produces a result that is different from men. empirical review ojo et al. (2017) measured the effect of innovation on entrepreneurial success. questionnaire and interview were used to elicit information from the 216 sampled respondents. data were analyzed using correlation and regression analysis and the result shows that positive significant relationship exist between innovation and business financial performance. their study concluded that firm competitiveness is a function of owners’ creativeness and innovative abilities. thus, the study only focused on competitiveness while the present study focuses on the survival of women-owned businesses through market share and business reputation. mwangi and namusonge (2014) examined the influence of innovation on smes growth in kenya. the study adopted a descriptive survey. a combination of purposive and stratified sampling techniques was used. structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from the sampled respondents. data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. the study found a significant influence between innovation and business growth. it was recommended that kenyan’s government should create strong link with the identified smes to boost innovative strategies targeted towards business expansion. this study was carried out in a foreign country with different regulatory systems from nigeria and it focused on mainly the garment industry without trying to know the influence of innovation on other types of businesses. rosli and sidek (2013) examined the effect of innovation on small and medium manufacturing enterprises performance in malaysia. a survey design was adopted for the study. questionnaires were administered to 284 sampled smes in malaysia. hierarchical regression was used to analyzed the data and the findings revealed that product and process innovation significantly influence firms’ performance. though, product innovation effect was stronger in their findings than process innovation. it was concluded that innovation is a serious factor that must be put into consideration in today’s entrepreneurial activity and suggested that further study should put into consideration the cost-benefit effect of innovation on the business enterprise. the study focused on small and medium enterprises in general without olushola joshua omolekan, busayo alli 155 distinction as to whether it is owned by men or women, and when a general reference is made to business much concern is on men-owned businesses, which provides the basis for this study focusing on women-owned businesses. lai et al. (2010) evaluated the influence of innovation on the success of female entrepreneurs in malaysia. the study adopted a survey research design and questionnaires were administered to the sampled respondents. descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyzed the collated data. the findings revealed that innovation mindset, innovation creed and innovation conviction were correlated with female entrepreneurs’ need for achievement in the study area. it was concluded that entrepreneurs should be innovative for the success of their businesses. ashford (2008) in his work, evaluated the factors that influence the survival of women-owned small business start-ups in the city of tema, ghana. interview and open-ended questionnaire were used to solicit information from the 40 sampled respondents. the findings revealed that innovation was the most influential factor to the survival of women-owned businesses in the study area; other factors include the business plan, family support, and social network. it was concluded among others that women need to be innovative to ensure the survival of their businesses. development of hypotheses ojo et al. (2017) were of the opinion that creativity and innovation create competitive advantage for business enterprise which improve their financial performance while rosli and sidek (2013) are also of the view that innovation enhance business performance. business survival depend largely on enterprise performance which is also a function of products/services patronage. firm market share determines products/services patronage which in turn affect performance. thus, the study hypothesized: h01: product/service innovation does not have a significant influence on a business market share mwangi and namusonge (2014) concluded in their study that innovation influence business growth while lai et al. (2010) attributed entrepreneurial success to innovative abilities. ashford (2008) opined that innovation is the most influential factor especially for infant businesses which has to do with the products/services transformation process, ease of use, equipment used in meeting the customers’ expectation, building trust, image and loyalty. therefore, the study hypothesized: 156 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 146-164) h02: process innovation does not significantly influence the reputation of the business methodology this study adopted a survey design through administration of questionnaire to examine the relevance of innovation on the survival of women-owned businesses in kwara state, nigeria. the emphasis is on ilorin – the state capital with the perceived highest numbers of women-owned businesses in the state. the target population was all the 1,096 businesses owned by women in ilorin metropolis providing one or more product or service that have been in existence for more than a year, having not more than twenty (20) employees and/or apprentices, and operating under a group association in the informal sector. the figure gotten from the identified groups is as follows: table 1: target population s/n local government areas association business figures ilorin-east (7 zones out of 12 with at least 22) sugar bender of kwara baking 163 ilorin-south (10 zones out of 19 with at least 38 members) nigeria association of hairdressers, cosmetologist, and barber (nashcob) hairdressing 403 ilorin-west (12 zones out 21 with at least 43 members) association of kwara women tailoring tailoring 530 total 1096 source: registrar of businesses (2019) krejcie and morgan’s (1970) sample size determination formula was used which gives an approxiamted two hundred and eighty-five (285) sample size. multi-stage sampling techniques which comprise of stratified sampling, judgmental, purposive, and simple random techniques were used to group the target population into three strata based on the numbers of businesses understudy to ensure a sample representation in terms of numbers and attributes. the respondents are the business owners (women) in ilorin metropolis. the justification for this location is that ilorin is the commercial olushola joshua omolekan, busayo alli 157 hub of kwara state and is seen as the main city which is highly populated and houses a vast number of women-owned businesses in the state. data were collected using a structured questionnaire with 5-point likert scale from strongly agree to disagree. the questionnaire was self-administered and the collated data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics using ordinary least square regression to show the relationship between the latent variables. data presentation and analysis the findings from table 2 on respondents’ age revealed that the most dominant age of the respondents was between age 20 to 40years. going by the life expectancy in the study area put at 50years as at 2018, it implies that majority of the women entrepreneurs are still young, in their productive years, agile and energetic to embrace innovative ideas. respondents’ education revealed that, 3.06% had no formal education, 29.59% had primary school certificates, 33.16% were secondary school certificate holders, 19.89% had a first degree and 14.30% had post-graduate qualifications. this implies that a reasonable number of the women entrepreneurs sampled in the study were averagely educated who can read and write to express their views on the concept of the study. in the case of no formal education, the researchers interpret and explained to the women entrepreneurs in a local language. though, this is just in a very rare case of 6 respondents of about 3.06% of the total sampled. in terms of marital status, 44.43% are married, 33.16% are single ladies in the business world, 4.08% are divorced or separated and 16.33% are widows. it was observed that a large proportion of women that own businesses in the study area are married women. the implication of this is that the businesses are owned by family women that feel they have responsibilities and are willing to own and grow in their domain. in terms of the age of the business, 22.45% of the businesses have been in operation for 1-5 years, 27.04% for more than 15 years, businesses with 11-15 years of existence made up 14.29% and 36.22% for 6-10 years. it was observed that most businesses had been in operation for quite some time, this means information obtained from these set of people are reliable about the issue of discussion on their businesses. in terms of the number of employees/apprentices, 22.96% have 1-5 employees/apprentices, 26.02% have 6-10 employees/apprentices, 36.22% have 11-15 employees/apprentices 158 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 146-164) and 14.8% have 16-20 employees/apprentices. this implies that most of the businesses as indicated by 36.22% have enough employees/apprentices of 1115 to operate their business efficiently and effectively. however, in terms of participating businesses, 36.73% are into hairdressing, 40.31% are into tailoring and 22.96% are bakers. the implication of this is that women are fairly distributed in lines of businesses. table 2: some characteristics of the sample items frequency percent respondents’ age less than 20years 20-30 years 31-40 years 41-50 years above 50 years 196 32 92 51 21 100 16.3 47 26 10.7 respondents’ education no formal education primary school secondary school first degree post graduate 196 6 58 65 39 28 100 3.06 29.59 33.16 19.89 14.30 marital status single married divorced/separated widow 196 65 91 8 32 100 33.16 46.43 4.08 16.33 age of the business 1-5 years 6-10 years 11-15 years above 15 years 196 44 71 28 53 100 22.45 36.22 14.29 27.04 number of employees/apprentices 1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 196 45 51 71 29 100 22.96 26.02 36.22 14.80 classification of business hairdressing tailoring baking 196 72 79 45 100 36.73 40.31 22.96 source: based on sample survey (2019) olushola joshua omolekan, busayo alli 159 test of research hypotheses i h01: product/service innovation does not have a significant influence on a business market share table 3 shows r-value of 0.736 which implies a positive and significant relationship between products/services innovation (which is proxies by introducing new products/services; and improving existing products/services) and market share. r2-value of 0.541 implies that the new products/services innovation and continuous improvement on existing products/services contributes about 54.1% to market share, while the remaining 45.9% is due to other variables other than the variables in the model. the implication of this is the fact that the ability of women to introduce new products/services in their line of business or improve on existing ones has a profound influence on the number of customers base in their business enterprise. the analysis revealed that the probability value (i.e. p-value) of 0.000 which is less than 0.05 level of significant which indicated that, the relationship between the identified variables were highly significant in predicting market share through introduction of new products/services and continuous improvement on the existing products/services. importantly, the f-ratio value of 0.000 < 0.05 shows that the identified model is fit for use. the coefficients values show the individual exogeneous variables contribution to the endogenous variable. market share would increase by 44.1% when there is a unit increase in the introduction of new products and it would also increase by 27.6% when there is a unit increase in product differentiation having the other independent variables held constant for both situations respectively. the implication of this is that, to retain and attract new customers, emphasis should be placed on the new products/services introduction and continuous improvement on the existing ones. table 3: coefficients a unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig model b std. error beta 1 (constant) introducing new products/serv. improving existing products/ser. .893 .441 .276 .180 .055 .046 .499 .326 4.543 4.231 3.511 .009 .000 .000 160 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 146-164) r = .736a r square = .541 adjusted r square = .533 durbin-watson = .148 f ratio = 12.696 sig. = .009 a. dependent variable: market share b. predictors: (constant), introducing new products/services; and continuous improvement of existing products/services source: printout from spss, 2019 test of research hypotheses ii h02: process innovation does not significantly influence the reputation of the business the correlation coefficient (r) of 0.719 in table 4 shows a positive and strong relationship between variables used to measure process innovation and business reputation. the r2-value of 0.517 implies that the use of modern equipment, as well as improvements of techniques, contributes about 51.7% to the reputation of business while the remaining 48.3% is due to other variables other than the variables in the model. the implication of this is that the availability of modern equipment that ensures speed, ease, as well as the presence of well-trained employees with necessary skills influences the reputation built by a business to a very large extent. however, the fdistribution with the p-value of 0.000 which is less than 0.05 significant level shows the model goodness of fit i.e. the identified variables are significant in predicting how the use of modern equipment and improvement in techniques influences business reputation. the information on the latent variables as affect the endogenous variable are represented by the coefficient values. business reputation would increase by 0.241 when there is a unit increase in the use of modern equipment while the other independent variables are held constant, and a unit increase in improvement in techniques would lead to a 0.196 increase in business reputation with both having a p-value of 0.000 which is less than 0.05. the implication of this is that, for businesses to be able to build a good reputation then, the use of modern equipment, as well as the availability of well-trained employees with the necessary skills, are needed. olushola joshua omolekan, busayo alli 161 table 4: coefficients a unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig model b std. error beta 1 (constant) improvement in techniques use of modern equipment .766 .241 . 196 .172 .058 .055 .281 .242 4.441 4.192 3.601 .001 .000 .000 r = 0.719a r2 = 0.517 adjusted r2 = 0.510 durbin-watson = 0.155 f ratio = 18.953 sig. = .001 a. dependent variable: business reputation b. predictors: (constant), improvement in techniques, use of modern equipment source: printout from spss, 2019 discussion of findings the findings of the study show the effect of product/service innovation on the market share. it was revealed that new products/services introduction and continuous improvement on the existing products/services are crucial to increase the market share of a business enterprise. the study found out that businesses that are known for providing new or improved products/services are usually competitive and always gained customers loyalty which usually enhanced customers’ retention and continuous patronage by existing and prospective customers. this result is in tandem with the work of rosli and sidek (2013) which affirm that the competitiveness of a firm depends on its innovative abilities to design, produce and market its products/services effectively to gain competitive edge. also, the findings revealed that the use of modern equipment to ensures speed, ease of work, reduction of waste and cost, as well as the availability of well-trained employees with the appropriate skills to perform effectively is necessary to build a good reputation for the business. this finding was in agreement with the study of mwangi and namusonge (2014) whose study affirm that process innovation is crucial in quality designs of products to meet and satisfy customers’ needs and wants. 162 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 146-164) conclusion and recommendations based on the findings, it was concluded that products/services innovation has a significant effect on the market share of a business. for women-owned businesses to be able to maintain and attract new customers, then, the introduction of new products/services as at when due must be embraced to meet the market trend. also, continuous improvement of products/services must be given priority. businesses with products/services innovative abilities of introduction and continuous improvement of existing products/services are always gain customers patronage and increase their market share which is necessary for survival. besides, the study also concluded that process innovation significantly influences business reputation. the availability of new equipment that makes work faster, easier, and the availability of welltrained employees with the necessary skills help to create a good image for the business. thus, the study concluded that innovative behaviour has a significant effect on the survival of women-owned businesses. therefore, the study made the following recommendations: i. it is expedient for women-owned businesses to increase their market share for survival. therefore, to maintain and increase customer size (market share), introduction and continuous improvement of existing products/services should be embraced by women-owned businesses. ii. to build a good business reputation, women entrepreneurs should ensure the availability of modern equipment that makes work faster, easier, reduce cost and wastes, and ensure the availability of well-trained employees to build, maintain and sustain the enterprise reputation. iii. women entrepreneurs should embrace innovative 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(2018). market share. retrieved from htpp://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketshare.asp article history: received: 25 august, 2020 accepted: 5 october, 2020 untitled-1 udc: 37.035.3(437) jel: i20 original scientific research paper slovak women wage structure: does education matter? struktura zarada obrazovanje á viera*, á ivana, a b s t r a c t the aim of the article is to analyze changes in the returns to education for women between 2005 and 2009 in the slovak republic. a mincer equation is estimated along the entire wage distribution using quantile and ols regressions. data used for the analysis are individual data from harmonized eu silc statistical survey. the results indicate tree points. firstly, education affects women's earnings positively. the return to an additional year of schooling is close to 5 %. secondly, returns to education for women did not change significantly from 2005 to 2009. thirdly, the influence of education on the women´s earnings is more significant than of work experience. kew words: mincer equation, returns to education, slovak republic introduction the wage rewards of schooling are a central concern to both labor economics and econometrics. there are numbers of empirical studies documenting the rise in returns to education in transitional economies of central and eastern european countries, * journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 46 especially among men. the literature on early-transition returns to education for men includes krueger and pischke (1995) and bird, schwarze and wagner (1994) for east germany; rutkowski (1996, 1997) for poland; halpern and körosi (1997) for hungary; orazem and vodopivec (1997) for slovenia; lubyová and sabirianova (2001) for slovakia and russia; jones and ilayperuma (1994) for bulgaria; flanagan (1995) and chase (1997) for the czech republic. however, there is a dearth of descriptive evidence on returns to education for women. this paper fills the gap for the slovak republic by estimating private wage returns to education for women using an eu silc data in 2005-2009. two studies have investigated changes in returns to education for women in slovak republic. they dealt with changes in the benefits of education between the final years of communism system and the early years of market economies. chase (1997) find an increase in annual returns to schooling for women during period of 1984-1993 in the slovak republic. he reports that returns to a year of education increased from 4.4 percent for women in 1984 to 5.4 percent in 1993 in the slovak republic. filer, jurajda and planovsky (1999) have estimated the development of returns to education for women in slovakia, using the enterprise survey data (information system on the cost of labour). there was the finding that returns to education in slovakia increased substantially between 1995 and 1997, when they reached a level two times higher than in 1984. the rate of increase was approximately equal both for men and women. table 1 presents the increase in women's earnings for each additional year of education in the slovak republic for 1984, 1993, 1995, 1996 and 1997. table 1: trends in coefficients on education for women over time in slovakia 1984 1993 1995 1996 1997 years of schooling ols 0.044 0.054 0.063 0.074 0.081 number of observations 2 131 1 776 23 849 53 717 49 984 source: chase, 1997; filer, jurajda and planovsky, 1999 slovak women, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 47 in this paper, we extend the existing evidence by covering the situation for women after the end of the first transition decade. we provide an estimation of the basic earnings equations for calculating private rates of returns to education and returns to labor market experience for women. the paper is organized as follows. section 2 is devoted to the conceptual framework and the methodology used in the paper. section 3 describes the data set and shows descriptive statistics and changes in wage structure between 2005 and 2009. estimation results are presented in section 4. section 5 gives concluding remarks. methodology in this study the conceptual framework used is the human capital model of earnings determination. this framework is developed by mincer (1958 and 1974) and becker (1975). according to this model wage differences among individuals are the result of the differences in their schooling, training and work experience. accordingly, log hourly wages are postulated to depend on schooling, experience and other exogenous socio-economic factors. (tansel, 2008). traditionally the rates of return to education are measured on the base of standard mincer earnings function of the log-linear form. mincer (1958, 1974) was one of the firsts who applied human capital concepts directly to the personal distribution of earnings and used the standards earnings function for estimation of rates of return to education and experience. we use earnings equation in the form (heckman, lochner, and todd, 2003): (1) where is log of wage at schooling level and work experience ; is coefficient on education variable, which is schooling levels) and is a mean zero residual with . the estimation of mincer earnings function enables us to find the returns to schooling and experience. it is realized using ordinary least squares method and quantile regression based on the following authors: journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 48 koenker (2006), koenker a bassett (1978), koenker a hallock (2001), koenker a hallock (2008) and yu, lu, sander (2003). data and descriptive statistics the results of the official statistical survey on income and living conditions (eu silc) provided by the slovak statistical office is used to estimate the benefits of education in 2005-2009. eu silc data clearly provide the basis for detailed analysis of the standard human capital model developed by mincer (see section methodology). the principal variable in this model is earnings of log form. for eu silc data, the earnings are measured on annual basis. the following figure (figure 1) and table (table 2) and figure present the descriptive statistics8 of the annual wages within the analyzed period and box-plot of the wage distribution. figure 1: box-plot of the wage (eur) distribution in the period 2005-2009 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 source: authors 8 for more descriptive statistics, see appendix a. slovak women, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 49 table 2: mean, median and probability distribution of women wages (eur) in the period of 2005-2009 mean median year 2005 4 953.14 (149 218.4 skk) 4 461.28 (134 400.5 skk) year 2006 5 443.96 (164 004.7 skk) 4 902.08 (147 680.0 skk) year 2007 5 605.71 (168 877.5 skk) 5 121.52 (154 291.0 skk) year 2008 6 054.40 (182 395.0 skk) 5 642.97 (170 000.0 skk) year 2009 6 660.22 (200 645.8 skk) 6 306.85 (190 000.0 skk) source: authors the positive skewness typical for the distribution of income is visible. moreover, the values of mean and median of wages, although constantly rising over the years and thus corresponding to the economic growth, are not equal. in each case, mean has exceeded median relatively significantly. this evokes the conclusion, that more than 50 % of the sample participants earn less than mean. therefore, some authors emphasise the importance of the median as more appropriate measure of the average income. the other main variables in the standard mincer model include years of schooling and labor market experience. the variable years of schooling accounts for years of schooling adjusted for actual level of education. based on the information on the highest level of education attained, we impute years of schooling9. this allows us to estimate returns to education in terms of the increase in income per additional year of schooling. the variable labo experience. estimation results in this section, mincerian log-wage regressions were estimated. earnings equation was applied in the conditions of the slovak republic within the period of 2005 2009. as mentioned earlier, we modeled the variability of the population wages using both the quantile regression (qr) and the ordinary least squares method (ols). concerning the former one, 9 see appendix a for details journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 50 we examined the returns to education and experience at different quantiles of the wage distribution. the analysis has been realized for 5th, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th and 95th quantiles, thus provides complex view of the wages of female employees in the slovak republic. table 3 reports parameter estimations from log-wage regression equations. the results imply that wages of female employees in the slovak republic increase by about 5 percent with each additional year of schooling. table 3 compares the results of the classical (ols) and the median (mr) regression10. the differences are not substantial. however, further analysis will be based on the quantile regression, as the linear model requires several conditions which are in case of mincer equation not fulfilled.11 firstly, non-normality of residuals is caused also by the right skewed distribution of an income. secondly, expected multicollinearity (cor>0.9) between covariables exp and exp2 is present, as one variable is expressed as squared value of another one. thirdly, in 2005, 2006 and 2008 the assumption of homoscedasticity (constant variance of residuals) of residuals is violated. table 3: estimated mincerian returns to education, 2005-2009 intercept education (educ) work experience (exp) work experience squared (exp2) year 2005 ols 10.8400 *** 0.0523 *** 0.0179 *** -0.00020 ** mr 10.8832 *** 0.0521 *** 0.0193 *** -0.00030 *** year 2006 ols 10.8300 *** 0.0551 *** 0.0186 *** -0.00023 * mr 10.8982 *** 0.0555 *** 0.0176 *** -0.00023 *** year 2007 ols 10.8800 *** 0.0613 *** 0.0170 *** -0.00024 ** mr 11.0622 *** 0.0567 *** 0.0128 *** -0.00022 ** year 2008 ols 11.0100 *** 0.0566 *** 0.0209 *** -0.00035 *** mr 11.1724 *** 0.0557 *** 0.0110 *** -0.00017 * year 2009 ols 7.7841 *** 0.0533 *** 0.0141 *** -0.00019 ** mr 7.8002 *** 0.0548 *** 0.0123 *** -0.00013 ** significant at: *** <0.1%, ** 0.1%, * 1% source: authors 10 for more detailed results of the quantile regression, see appendix d. 11 the results of tested ols model are in appendix c. slovak women, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 51 table 4 provides the graphical analysis of the quantile regression results for the years 2005-2009. we can observe the effects of the length of schooling period and working period on the income value of an individual woman. the first important conclusion is the positive relationship between each covariable and the independent variable. the longer the period of education (work experience) is, the higher the wage is. in most cases, the education influences the level of the salary more significantly than the work experience does. moreover, the differences between the effects of these two covariables rise with the increasing earnings. considering the education more detailed, no eminent rising tendency of the effect of the covariable is visible, except for the year 2005. the regression coefficients for the lowest quantiles (5th, 10th) reach relatively high levels and afterwards they are slightly decreasing to be returned back to bigger values for the last quantiles. there are several explanations for this development: higher effect of the education on the low wages can be due to the young graduated people with the tertiary education having their first job, who are often willing to work for the minimum wage for a certain time merely to gain some experience. moreover, considerably high unemployment in the slovak republic forces the unemployed tertiary educated women to look for the irregular temporary jobs, often for the period of several weeks or months. no constant increasing of the education effect on the wages can also be connected with the large number of the female students in the study programmes, such as pedagogics, philosophy or administration. these are in the slovak republic insufficiently paid. observing the second variable, the length of the work experience of a woman, its effect on the wages is gradually decreasing. in certain cases, the length of the work experience has appeared as an insignificant factor with even no influence on the wages (95th quantile in 2007, 2008, 90th and 95th quantile in 2009). one possible explanation of the falling trend is lower wages in the low qualified jobs. in these cases, the work experience plays more important role than the university education. analogically, the best paid professions are highly qualified (it sphere, banking, finance, ...), thus require tertiary education. obviously, secondary and tertiary school graduates usually gain less work experience, as they prefer to spend several years studying to working. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 52 table 4: coefficients on education an experience for woman in the period 2005-2009 effect of the number of years of education on wages effect of the number of years of work experience on wages y ea r 20 05 y ea r 20 06 y ea r 20 07 y ea r 20 08 slovak women, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 53 y ea r 20 09 source: authors conclusion in this paper returns of the education for women estimated in slovakia are provided for the years 2005-2009. these estimates are provided by using both the ols and the regression methods. there are three main conclusions. firstly, the results indicate that education has significant and positive influence on the women's earnings. education are higher for lowest quantiles (5th, 10th) and the last quantiles (95th) than for other quantiles. possible reasons are young graduates looking for their first job or insufficiently paid study programmes, which are popular among women. secondly, the results indicate that the returns estimates for women did not change dramatically during the period 2005-2009. the third conclusion emphasises more significant effect of education on women´s earnings than of work experience. consequently, the investment into education as the human capital is convenient investment. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 54 references [1] bird, e., schwarze, j., and wagner, g. 1994. industrial and labor relations review, 47 (3), 390-400. [2] labour economics 6 (4), 581593. [3] imf working paper 95/36. [4] cer iza discussion paper no. 775. [5] (econometrics analysis of hungarian firms, 1986the william davidson institute working paper no. 41. [6] chase, r.s. education and experience in postindustrial and labor relations review, 51 (3), 401-423. [7] nd department of economics, hamilton college. [8] koenker, r. 2006. quantile regression in r: a vignette. [online]. 20. may 2006. [cit. 2011-04-13]. accessible from: <http://www.econ.uiuc.edu/~roger/research/rq/vig.pdf>. [9] econometrica, 1978, 46 (1), 33-50. [10] koenker, r., and hallock, k. f. 2001. journal of economic perspectives, 2001, 15(4), 143-156. [11] krueger, a. b., and j. s. pischke 1995. west german labor markets: before and after unification. in freeman, r.b., and f. katz, eds., diferences and changes in wage structures, chicago: the university of chicago press. [12] lubyová, m., sabiri returns to human capital under ekonomický . 49 (4), 630-662. [13] journal of political economy, 66(4):281-302. [14] press [15] orazem, p. f., vodopivec, m. 1997. and proceedings of the eleventh annual congress of the european economic association, european economic review, 41, 893-903. slovak women, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 55 [16] economics of transition, 4 (1), 89-112. [17] -130. [18] -2005. paper presented at the espe 2008 conference, june 18-21, 2008, in london, uk and at the ecomod 2008 conference, july 2-4, 2008, in berlin, germany. [19] and a crossczech journal of economics and finance (finance a uver) 51 (9), 450-471. [20] yu, k., lu, z., sander, j. 2003. quantile regression: applications and current , the statistician, 2003, 52(3), 331 350. a p s t r a k t cilj ovog rada je da analizira promene . nom menjalo u periodu od 2005. do 2009. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 56 appendix a: summary statistics table a1: 2005 variable annual wage (skk) years of education years of work experience number of observations 2 742 2 742 2 742 mean 149 218.4 13.384019 19.68162 median 134 400.5 12.140000 12 standard deviation 116 995.5 2.919788 10.53392 variance 136 879.5e+5 8.525163 110.96354 minimum 1 875 8.5 1 maximum 3 568 502 21.64 24 table a2: 2006 variable annual wage (skk) years of education years of work experience number of observations 2 599 2 599 2 599 mean 164 004.7 13.454205 20.10812 median 147 680 12.140000 21 standard deviation 476 495.8 2.875321 10.69927 variance 227 048.2e+6 8.267470 114.47445 minimum 1 000 8.500000 1 maximum 24 000 010 21.640000 47 table a3: 2007 variable annual wage (skk) years of education years of work experience number of observations 2 700 2 700 2 700 mean 168 877.5 13.464393 20.57481 median 154 291.0 12.14 22 standard deviation 82 743.7 2.904774 10.79359 variance 684 651.9e+04 8.437709 116.50163 minimum 300 4 1 maximum 1 369 005 21.64 49 slovak women, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 57 table a4: 2008 variable annual wage (skk) years of education years of work experience number of observations 3 042 3 042 3 042 mean 182 395.0 13.479014 19.68540 median 170 000 12.14 21 standard deviation 83 061.55 2.844124 10.93297 variance 689 922.0e+04 8.089044 119.52974 minimum 2 000 8.5 1 maximum 1 012 000 21.64 49 table a5: 2009 variable annual wage (eur) years of education years of work experience number of observations 2 965 2 965 2 965 mean 6 660.221 13.705470 20.33929 median 6 306.845 12.14 22 standard deviation 3 512.574 2.922420 10.96219 variance 123 381.8e+02 8.540538 120.16959 minimum 6.638784 8.5 1 maximum 79 200.03 21.64 47 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 58 appendix b: imputation of years of schooling table b: classification isced 97 and years of schooling isced 1997 years of schooling code name 0 isced 0 0 1 isced 1 4 2 isced 2 8.5 3 isced 3 12.5 4 isced 4 14 5 isced 5 18 6 isced 6 21 appendix c: ols tests table c1: results of the jarque-bera normality test for the ols method year 2005 year 2006 year 2007 year 2008 year 2009 p value < 2.2e-16 < 2.2e-16 < 2.2e-16 < 2.2e-16 < 2.2e-16 table c2: results of durbin-watson autocorrelation test year 2005 year 2006 year 2007 year 2008 year 2009 dw statistics 1.9808 1.9423 1.9517 1.9665 1.8853 table c3: results of breusch-pagan heteroscedasticity test year 2005 year 2006 year 2007 year 2008 year 2009 p value 0.0001846 0.000591 0.08392 0.006211 0.2296 table c4: correlation between independent variables multicollinearity test cor. coeff. year 2005 year 2006 year 2007 year 2008 year 2009 educ/exp -0.1397742 -0.1825382 -0.1549748 -0.1861927 -0.1798790 educ/exp2 -0.1429126 -0.1780933 -0.1501855 -0.1887246 -0.1729618 exp/exp2 0.9663851 0.9648797 0.9651804 0.9638727 0.9656287 slovak women, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 59 appendix d: regression coefficients and p values for ols and qr table d1: ols and quantile regressions (women 2005) quantiles 5th 10th 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th intercept 9.95094 10.25555 10.54630 10.88321 11.11603 11.22325 11.32620 p value 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 years of education (educ) 0.04395 0.04838 0.05804 0.05217 0.05550 0.06839 0.07182 p value 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 years of work experience (exp) 0.04429 0.03557 0.02364 0.01933 0.00839 0.00597 0.00680 p value 0.00067 0.00017 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00018 years of work experience squared (exp2) 0.00064 -0.00059 -0.00043 -0.00030 p value 0.00067 0.00343 0,00000 0.00006 table d2: ols and quantile regressions (women 2006) quantiles 5th 10th 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th intercept 9.38776 10.01424 10.67198 10.89823 11.21520 11.32808 11.44963 p value 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 years of education (educ) 0.06370 0.05039 0.05695 0.05554 0.05450 0.06217 0.06523 p value 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 years of work experience (exp) 0.05974 0.04944 0.01546 0.01760 0.00724 0.01110 0.00536 p value 0.00035 0.00002 0.00049 0.00000 0.00000 0.00047 0.00882 years of work experience squared (exp2) 0.00080 -0.00077 -0.00024 -0.00023 -0.00016 p value 0.03050 0.00142 0.02138 0.00023 0.01421 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 60 table d3: ols and quantile regressions (women 2007) quantiles 5th 10th 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th intercept 9.38892 10.13396 10.65692 11.06222 11.26624 11.42448 11.70814 p value 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 years of education (educ) 0.07982 0.06561 0.06428 0.05675 0.05852 0.06674 0.06263 p value 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 years of work experience (exp) 0.05719 0.03766 0.01506 0.01287 0.00627 0.00313 p value 0.00000 0.00001 0.00003 0.00004 0.00000 0.00248 years of work experience squared (exp2) 0.00081 -0.00061 -0.00020 -0.00022 p value 0.00072 0.00013 0.02402 0.00222 table d4: ols and quantile regressions (women 2008) quantiles 5th 10th 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th intercept 9.68350 10.13497 10.70025 11.17242 11.42279 11.61445 11.76372 p value 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 years of education (educ) 0.06589 0.06802 0.06290 0.05577 0.05097 0.05761 0.06297 p value 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 years of work experience (exp) 0.05829 0.04213 0.02579 0.01101 0.01304 0.00356 p value 0.00011 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00002 0.00203 years of work experience squared (exp2) 0.00084 -0.00073 -0.00044 -0.00017 -0.00020 p value 0.00562 0.00019 0,00000 0.01370 0.00422 slovak women, jwe (2011, no. 3-4, 45-61) 61 table d5: ols and quantile regressions (women 2009) quantiles 5th 10th 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th intercept 6.80588 7.22748 7.53422 7.80024 8.21925 8.53262 8.55386 p value 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 years of education (educ) 0.05272 0.04988 0.05351 0.05483 0.04691 0.04680 0.05373 p value 0.00007 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 years of work experience (exp) 0.04612 0.02766 0.02415 0.01233 0.00358 p value 0.00024 0.00020 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 years of work experience squared (exp2) 0.00080 0.00043 0.00044 0.00013 p value 0.00270 0.01712 0.00000 0.00600 article history: received: 15 may 2011 accepted: 5 september 2011 << /ascii85encodepages true /allowtransparency false /autopositionepsfiles true /autorotatepages /none /binding /left /calgrayprofile (gray gamma 1.8) /calrgbprofile (apple rgb) /calcmykprofile (photoshop 4 default cmyk) /srgbprofile (srgb iec61966-2.1) /cannotembedfontpolicy /error /compatibilitylevel 1.3 /compressobjects /off /compresspages true 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true /pdfxtrimboxtomediaboxoffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /pdfxsetbleedboxtomediabox true /pdfxbleedboxtotrimboxoffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /pdfxoutputintentprofile () /pdfxoutputconditionidentifier () /pdfxoutputcondition () /pdfxregistryname () /pdfxtrapped /false /description << /enu () >> >> setdistillerparams << /hwresolution [2400 2400] /pagesize [2069.185 1927.460] >> setpagedevice doi: 10.28934/jwee19.34.pp33-52 jel: g23, g24, l26 original scientific paper analysis of the role of vcfs as nonbanking financial institutions in financing women’s entrepreneurship nevena jolović1 university of novi sad, faculty of economics subotica, study program economics, subotica, republic of serbia sonja đuričin2 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, republic of serbia a b s t r a c t investment funds are one of the main players in the capital market. in the current conditions, especially popular is their form alternative investment funds (aifs) and the modality thereof venture capital funds (vcfs). vcfs are nonbanking financial institutions that collect the capital of many investors and directly invest it in a portfolio of perspective businesses, often gaining ownership in them. the main goal of these funds is to increase profits realized by the sale of shares in the mentioned businesses in the later period, i.e. when the companies, thanks to their innovations and potentials, become recognized on the market, and when the value of their shares rises. as vcfs can contribute to the expansion of investment in young, innovative, high-risk businesses, especially those run by women, the research aims to analyze the role which these non-banking financial institutions have in financing women's entrepreneurship. it is expected that research will encourage women to get into the entrepreneurial market and business entities in whose managerial positions they are to turn to non-banking financial institutions of this type 1 segedinski put 9-11, subotica, republic of serbia, e-mail: nevenajolovic@uns.ac.rs, tel. +381 66 5008558 2 zmaj jovina 12, belgrade, republic of serbia, e-mail: sonja.djuricin@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel.+381 63 8438896 34 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) for capital support. descriptive and comparative methods, analysis and synthesis, and a detailed analysis of available domestic and foreign literature were used for the preparation of this paper. the result of the research is the confirmed belief that in current market conditions vcfs, as non-banking financial institutions, play a prominent role in financing women's entrepreneurship. key words: venture capital funds, financing, women's entrepreneurship introduction an enthusiastic entrepreneur by the very first "market step" he takes, becomes part of a complex and cruel "market machinery" that does not forgive failure. it is an environment that does not express an understanding for the weaknesses of market participants, and many young and innovative enterprises are often forced to, very quickly upon acquisition, give up the title of "entrepreneurs". special vulnerability is noted in the field of women's entrepreneurship, and it is confirmed by the fact that decisions of women entrepreneurs to leave the market are less frequent, and decisions to withdraw from the same are more often than decisions of other business entities. therefore, the "market walk" of women entrepreneurs is usually short and accompanied by numerous pressures, and survival in the entrepreneurial world is further complicated if their businesses are characterized by a lack of financial resources. vcfs are a form of investment funds that can financially assist vulnerable women entrepreneurs, i.e. enable the undisturbed development of their businesses. the subject of the research is the role that vcfs play in the process of financing the women's entrepreneurial sector. the starting point of the study is the women's entrepreneurship sector and perceived challenges that characterize women-led businesses at a global and european level. the importance of the research is reflected in the examination of the financial support which, thanks to vcfs, may become available to young women-led entrepreneurial entities. the relevance of the research is supported by the fact that women's entrepreneurship sectors are one of the most dynamic and fastgrowing in recent years. that growth is the result of numerous policies, subsidies, and incentives addressed at global and european level to women who want to get involved in "entrepreneurial waters". the primary hypothesis of the research is defined as follows: jolović, n., et al., role of vcfs, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) 35 − h0: vcfs play a significant and multifunctional role in financing women's entrepreneurship. specific hypotheses are: − h1: financing women entrepreneurship through vcfs increases the chances of women entrepreneurs to survive in the market, and raises the probability that women entrepreneurs will develop their businesses and show the potential they possess; − h2: by cooperating with vcfs, women entrepreneurs receive management support, i.e. persons who, with their experience and practical knowledge, direct the growth of women's enterprise and positively affect development and market success of the same. vcfs investment funds are collective investment institutions within which money gets raised, and in accordance with the investment goals stated in the fund's prospectus becomes invested in different types of assets to generate income and reduce investment risk (government of the republic of serbia, 2014). investment funds are a type of non-bank financial institution that collects money from numerous investors and invests it in stocks, bonds, money market instruments, other securities, or even cash (u.s. securities and exchange commission, 2010). investment funds were created as a result of the very rapid development of the securities market in developed countries, but also as a result of the "inability" of the conventional banking sector to respond to the needs of investors and users (đekić, gavrilović, roganović & gojković, 2017). aifs are an especially interesting form of investment funds. alternative financing models refer to the financing of business entities through equity, i.e. represent the process of raising capital through the sale of shares of a company to investors in order to secure positions for the further growth and development of a business, whereby investors acquire management interests and rights in that company (serbian venture network, 2015). aifs are characterized by the intersection of investor supply and the demand of business entities investors have the capital they are willing to invest in order to gain profit, while entrepreneurs seek capital to finance their development projects and ideas (ministry of finance of the republic of serbia, 2019). this alternative form of financing is particularly important for early-stage companies whose business is usually characterized by a lack of revenue, 36 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) negative cash flow and lack of assets that could be collateral (serbian venture network, 2015). one of the forms of aifs are vcfs. venture capital is a type of financing that gives entrepreneurs or other small businesses the opportunity to collect money. vcfs are funds that manage investors' money, which is then directed towards buying a stake in a startup or high-growth company. these investments are generally characterized as high risk but also as highly profitable (investopedia, 2019). thus, vcfs are financial intermediaries that raise the capital of a large number of investors and invest it directly in the portfolio of a prospective company. their main goal is to make a profit by selling shares or stakes in the mentioned company in a later period, more precisely when the company is recognized on the market based on its innovation and potential. vcfs hope to achieve profitability higher than the original initial investment to offset the risk they were exposed to while investing in young ventures and start-up businesses (tomer & bhatt, 2017). more specifically, vcfs are equity financiers who make their money available only to selected start-ups or fastgrowing companies, which show the potential to provide extraordinary returns for investors within 5 to 7 years (nelson, maxfield & kolb, 2009). ramadani (mentioned in hisrich, petković, ramadani & dana, 2015) defines vcfs as monetary funds whose investment involves capital or knowhow management in businesses, preceded by investments in the fund by individuals and institutions. these investments are further directed towards the unlisted small and medium-sized enterprises, which have high growth potential. vcfs only invest in private companies taking an active role in overseeing and assisting managing portfolios of mentioned businesses. vcfs direct money towards the formation of the internal growth of the companies. their main goal is to maximize financial return by exiting a given investment by selling or buying shares. thus, the flow of vcf activity in an enterprise involves investing, monitoring, and exiting (tomer & bhatt, 2017). in other words, vcfs are defined as private equity funds whose assets are predominantly invested in start-ups or the initial stages of business, and in the view of aif management companies, show the potential for business growth and expansion. investments of vcfs in the listed entities must be in the form of equity securities or instruments similar to them (ministry of finance of the republic of serbia, 2019). vcfs strive to invest in businesses that have high-risk/high-income profiles. they make their financing decisions based on the size of the business, the assets and the stage of development of com jolović, n., et al., role of vcfs, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) 37 pany products (investopedia, 2019). vcf investments are usually medium or long term (hisrich, petković, ramadani & dana, 2015). vcfs support businesses that are in seed, startup or later-stage financing phase of development (invest europe, 2019). all companies which receive investment in this kind of capital are characterized by high growth potential, long investment horizon, and high-risk rate. after investing in them, vcf take an active role in their business, guide their operations and often take up positions in their boards of directors. vcfs often gamble by investing in a lot of young startups, believing that at least one of them will achieve high growth and ultimately reward the fund with a large payout. vcfs invest in all types of businesses, and today they are raising more money than ever before (investopedia, 2019). functioning of vcfs at global and european level total annual venture investments, whose carriers are vcfs, globally reached a record of usd 254 billion in 2018. the importance and unusual nature of the growth of these investments are illustrated by the fact that during 2017 the number of investments of this kind globally was only usd 174 billion (kpmg international cooperative, 2019). by looking at the european market statistics of the business of vcfs and the venture capital investments they place (chart 1), it is noticeable that these investments in 2018 recorded their historical maximum of eur 8.2 billion and surpassed the 2017 record by 13% (eur 7.2 billion). even 4,437 companies were supported by investments of 1,506 vcfs, which represents a 12% increase over 2017 (invest europe, 2019). chart 1: the amount of venture capital investments in europe from 2014 to 2018 (in billion euros) source: authors, according to invest europe, 2019. 0 2 4 6 8 10 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 3.8 4.7 5 7.2 8.2 t he a m o un t in b il io n eu ro s year 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) the fact that vcf investments in the european market are mostly used by highly developed countries is proof of the actuality, potential, and importance that these funds have for their economies. this claim is supported by the data from 2018 in the following graph (picture 1), which shows how much of the gdp of european countries is made by venture capital investments. it is noticeable that in this "competition", finland and denmark, whose venture capital investments account for 0.096% and 0.095% of gdp, are ahead, while ukraine (0.001%) and romania, where these investments are negligible, recorded the lowest values for this type of investment. the "other cee" column shows the average amount of venture capital investment as a percentage of gdp in the following countries: republic of serbia, bosnia and herzegovina, croatia, northern macedonia, montenegro, slovakia, and slovenia. this percentage is also negligible (0.004%), which means that the mentioned countries are not characterized by significant venture capital investments. picture 1: venture capital investment as a % of gdp in europe during 2018 source: invest europe, 2019. the following illustration (picture 2) gives an insight into how much entrepreneurial, venture capital is being invested in european businesses at different stages of development. startups, for example, in 2018 raised eur 4.9 billion with these funds, while seed and later-stage ventures with this form of financing provided eur 0.7 billion and eur 2.6 billion respectively. it is essential to point out that before the global economic crisis, laterstage ventures were the most significant bearers of venture capital investments, but that since 2009, investments in start-ups have taken primacy, i.e. on average, they record more value than them (european investment fund, 2019). jolović, n., et al., role of vcfs, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) 39 picture 2: the amount of venture capital investments in europe by stages of development of economic entities (in billion euros) source: european investment fund, 2019. the following presentation (picture 3) shows the areas, i.e. sectors where venture capital investments in europe were mostly located in the period 2007-2018. the ict (communications, computer, and electronics) and the biotech and healthcare sector are from 2007 to the present the industries which are attracting the most venture capital investments in europe. the share of ict in total venture capital investment activity has noted an almost constant growth (from 34% in 2009 to 47% in 2018). in contrast, the share of investments directed to the energy and environment sector has decreased (from 14% in 2008 to an average of 3% in the last two years) (european investment fund, 2019). picture 3: venture capital investments in europe by sector from 2007 to 2018 (in %) source: european investment fund, 2019. 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) bulgaria is one of the most prominent european countries that has achieved fantastic economic results thanks to the vcfs. specifically, this country through the jeremie initiative has made impressive results providing 9,500 of its businesses with the financial support of eur 875 million through vcfs, which resulted in hiring 25,500 new, highly skilled workers (wm equity partners, 2017). women's entrepreneurship the space for the advancement and further development of entrepreneurship in most modern economies lies in the inclusion of the female workforce in the "market game" of entrepreneurship. it is about stimulating economic growth through the development of women's entrepreneurship. sarfaraz and co-workers claim that (mentioned in todorović, komazec, jevtić & obradović, 2016) women's entrepreneurship has a strong influence on achieving gender equality, democratization, and development of society, peacekeeping and poverty reduction. additionally, yunus claims that (mentioned in minniti, 2010) various worldwide initiatives provide evidence about the great importance that women entrepreneurship has in poverty reduction. entrepreneurship is an idea or vision that women need to explore and optimize in order to create new jobs and gain economic empowerment (rathakrishnan & padma, 2013). women's entrepreneurship is today one of the major contributing factors to the prosperity of the country and the global market (achakpa & radović-marković, 2018). the women's entrepreneurship sector is a potential generator of entrepreneurial ideas and innovations, and a significant driving force behind the economic development of every developed country. there are numerous ways in which women entrepreneurs create value for their society. innovative women entrepreneurs bring new solutions and benefits that go beyond competing options to the market, and at the same time, introduce a modern workforce. also, in situations where they make investments outside national borders, i.e. becoming entrepreneurs whose business is characterized by internationalization, they contribute to the global competitiveness of the national economy (kelley, baumer, brush, greene, mahdavi, cole, dean, heavlow, babson college, smith college & gera, 2017). according to minniti and naude (mentioned in vossenberg, 2013) women entrepreneurs are the new drivers of growth and are characterized as "rising stars" in developing countries because they bring prosperity and prosperity to their economies. numerous jolović, n., et al., role of vcfs, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) 41 interest groups see women entrepreneurs as a significant untapped source of economic growth and development. iyiola and azuh define (mentioned in nhuta & mukumba, 2012) women entrepreneur as a woman who plays a fascinating business role, through constant interaction and dynamic adaptation to the financial and socio-economic spheres. the term "women entrepreneur" refers to a woman who owns at least 1% of the capital of a business entity, a woman who performs at least one managerial function in the enterprise sector, or a woman who is employed in the same (popović-pantić, 2014). the term "women entrepreneur" refers to a woman or group of women who initiate, organize and run a business enterprise. fairlie and co-workers (mentioned in hwang, desai & baird, 2019) have historically looked at the entrepreneurial sector by gender and have realized that women are far less daring to start an entrepreneurial business than men. for example, in 1996 the rate of new market entrants showed that there were 260 women entrepreneurs per 100,000 people, compared with 380 male entrepreneurs per 100,000 people. in 2017, the same indicator showed that there were 270 women entrepreneurs per 100,000 people, compared to 400 male entrepreneurs per 100,000 people. these data indicate that women's entrepreneurship despite social development, reduce of prejudices about women's ability to participate in business activities, and an increase of the number of educated women has not developed sufficiently and concludes that data constancy related to the number of women engaging in the entrepreneurial world should be seen as alarming. the representatives of the national women's business council (mentioned in hwang, desai & baird, 2019) in their reports noted that women tend to start businesses with less capital than men, as well as that these initial differences do not decrease over the years, i.e. the disparities in the level of capital that women entrepreneurs have in relation to entrepreneurs do not diminish. also, women entrepreneurs during the business more rely on personal and internal resources, as opposed to male entrepreneurs who seek financial support more often in an external environment (hwang, desai & baird, 2019). despite the limited resources available to them, the number of women entrepreneurs in the world steadily increases over the last few years, as a result of the enlarged attention that policymakers pay to women entrepreneurship and to solving the problems that women face. thus, women around the world are taking a step forward to change their lives and positively influence their existence (nhuta & mukumba, 2012). according to data from the latest available global entrepreneurship monitor report on 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) women entrepreneurship for 2016/2017, the main characteristics of women entrepreneurs concerning the following parameters are (kelley, baumer, brush, greene, mahdavi, cole, dean, heavlow, babson college, smith college & gera, 2017): − age the highest participation of women in entrepreneurship was noted at women aged 25-34 and 35-44. such an age framework characterizes, on average, women entrepreneurs in all world economies, regardless of the level of development of the state; − education the involvement of women entrepreneurs with college and higher levels of education is steadily increasing. for example, europe has an average of 22% more highly educated women than male entrepreneurs; − self-employment according to the sample surveyed in the report mentioned above, 10% of women entrepreneurs in the world did business independently, with no intention of hiring workers for the next five years. in more than 3/4 of the country's economies surveyed, women were ahead of men in terms of self-employment. for example, europe has shown the highest frequency of women's business activities, while north america, characterized by two advanced economies, has the lowest incidence of women's business; − expecting business growth there is a wide gender gap in the expectations that women and men have regarding business growth. namely, women entrepreneurs barely reach 60% of the level of expectations expressed by male entrepreneurs. this means that women are more pessimistic (and perhaps more realistic) about their business in the future and the possibility of hiring new workers and expanding their business; − innovation innovations of women entrepreneurs are growing along with economic development. in all observed economies, women entrepreneurs are 5% more likely to pursue innovation than men. the highest level of innovation occurs in north america, where 38% of women produce goods and provide innovative services. in europe and the rest of the world there is a gender balance on this issue; − internationalization in economies based on innovation, more than 1/5 of women entrepreneurs have stated that 25% or more of the jolović, n., et al., role of vcfs, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) 43 sales that their businesses have made have been directed towards customers outside the national economies in which they operate. the aforementioned study also examined the attitudes of women entrepreneurs and their perceptions, and the following data were generated as a result of those activities (kelley, baumer, brush, greene, mahdavi, cole, dean, heavlow, babson college, smith college & gera, 2017): − opportunity perception according to the report, 57% of women in low-income economies find good opportunities to develop ideas in their environment, while in innovation-oriented societies, only 39% see such opportunities. the gender difference in this indicator is relatively small. specifically, women population perceptions of opportunity make up 90% of the perceptions of the male population; and − capability perceptions in the economies treated in the report, 67% of women believe they have opportunities to start a business based on existing technological knowledge, while this percentage falls below 35% when it comes to women's attitude towards opening an innovation-based enterprise. in 2016 it is estimated that 163 million women initiated or began to manage new businesses in 74 economies around the world. it is estimated that of that number, 111 million of them ran a stable, well-established business. this not only demonstrates the impact that women entrepreneurs around the globe are making but also highlights their contribution to the growth and well-being of the societies in which they operate (kelley, baumer, brush, greene, mahdavi, cole, dean, heavlow, babson college, smith college & gera, 2017). the role of vcfs in the financing of women's entrepreneurship young, women-led business entities are often faced with the inability to secure the financial resources which are necessary for the further development of their businesses. in the initial stages of development, most womenled businesses rely only on their sources of funding. women entrepreneurs are forced to finance all activities related to the establishment of a company, the development of new products and investments in facilities, equipment, and human resources from these sources. over time, quite expectedly, the needs for capital outweigh internal capabilities of women entrepreneurs, so they must begin to consider the use of external financing in order to provide 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) the money for their market survival and business development. external financing is mainly related to the options offered by the banking sector. however, a brief history of the business and high risk often puts women entrepreneurs on the lists of rejected loan seekers. banks, worrying about their own interests, often refrain from financing these entrepreneurial entities. notwithstanding the shortcomings mentioned above, women entrepreneurs have the potential for growth, and the banking rejection many of them practically leads to disappearing from the market. closure of women-led businesses results in rising rates of women's unemployment, declining economic activity, and at worst, discouraging young women entrepreneurs from (re)trying to find their place in the market. further commenting on the consequences of such market trends would probably end with conclusions about gender inequality, discrimination, the social vulnerability of women, etc. however, it should be emphasized that the possible "threat" of this kind applies not only to women but also to all other members of the entrepreneurial sector, who as such can be considered as disenfranchised. there are differing views on the ability of the banking sector to provide enough loans for the needs of business entities. the european investment bank estimates that the total supply of loans to companies (through eufunded programs only) is approximately 7.4 billion euros. this indicates that there is no significant shortage of money, as a large supply of loans is available at banks. however, banks are not sufficiently "disposed" to lend these credit lines to their clients, entities in the entrepreneurial sector, thereby limiting credit utilization and causing an apparent shortage of funds in the market (ey, 2018). financing from external sources is particularly problematic for start-ups, seed and later-stage ventures (erić, beraha, đuričin, kecman & jakšić, 2012). also, in terms of finding capital, enterprises in the field of technological innovation are in a particularly unfavorable position. based on all the above, it can be concluded that turning to alternative sources of financing is one of the inevitable moves that women entrepreneurs need to make. by working with vcfs, women entrepreneurs will be able to sell a minority stake in their company and thus raise the necessary capital. in this way, corporate capital, the private equity capital of individuals and others will be able to mobilize into vcfs, i.e. consequently into the women's entrepreneurship sector small and medium-sized businesses, entrepreneurial startups and women-led innovations. financing provided by the vcfs is particularly suitable for women entrepreneurs that have a strong potential to expand into the international market, which is most commonly jolović, n., et al., role of vcfs, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) 45 applicable to entities in the it industry. in practice, vcfs have repeatedly shown that they are the primary drivers of the development of startups, youth and high growth businesses that often create value through innovation. for example, previous vcfs investments across europe were predominantly oriented towards the ict and the biotechnology and health sectors, which have maintained the epitome of industries with the highest venture capital investments since 2007. a similar situation is characteristic of the us market. silicon valley, as the center of the it industry for decades, has been a central point of activity for vcfs, where is annually channeled 30% of total us venture capital (tomer & bhatt, 2017). when it comes to the trends in venture capital financing, there are vast differences between women's and men's entrepreneurship. specifically, zarya's research (mentioned in hwang, desai & baird, 2019), which included a historical analysis of the period from 1953 to 1998, found that less than 5% of total venture capital financing was directed at women-owned enterprises. while as much as 79% of investments of this kind were directed towards male-led business entities. the same survey also revealed that mixed "teams", made up of both women and men, accounted for about 12% of total venture capital investments. however, although there has been noted an expansion of women's entrepreneurship in the last two decades, raising investor awareness of women's ability to successfully run entrepreneurial businesses, and raising women entrepreneurs' awareness of these and other alternative financing opportunities, it is noticeable that male entrepreneurs continue to attract the most of vcfs funding. so, for example, in 2018, only 2.2% of venture capital investments went to women's entrepreneurialoriented us businesses, while about 20% of this capital was passed to mixed teams (which include women and men). the remaining 77.8% of the funds went to male entrepreneurs (pitchbook & national venture capital association, 2018). according to the presented facts, it is indisputable that there are high chances for financing entrepreneurship worldwide, but that women entrepreneurs have not yet been able to use them. the reasons for this are reflected in the unequal evaluation of women's and men's entrepreneurial potential, negative attitudes of investors and members of the community about women as safe and quality executors of business activities. if the conditions for eliminating these prejudices are created and the conditions for raising the awareness of investors about the potential of women-led entrepreneurs, i.e. if the overall investment atmosphere gets improved, and a system of equal 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) evaluation of the results of women's and men's business gets established, women's entrepreneurs will be given the opportunity to compete not only for their survival in the market, but also for the penetration to the world market. the market success of women entrepreneurs should not depend solely on financiers and other external factors. women entrepreneurs need to take matters into their own hands when it comes to securing conditions for selffinancing. they must show to vcfs that they are promising and quality entities that have the potential for market growth and high returns, and literally "win" their resources. such a scenario can undoubtedly be a positive example that will help raise awareness among other women entrepreneurs of the benefits that vcfs offer as financiers, but also motivate them to turn to funds of this type for financial support. such positive examples will, therefore, affect the change in the behavior and activities of women entrepreneurs, and as well result with the positive change in the perception of investors, who will invest more in business entities led by women. based on all the above, it is expected that the women entrepreneurship entities with whom vcfs collaborates will be able to count on: − verified financial support by working with vcfs, young women entrepreneurs will receive the necessary funding from vcfs whose credibility they won't have to worry about thanks to publicly available business data. also, women entrepreneurs will be quite sure about the origin of the received investments, informed how the vcfs will manage their shares which they acquire through investing, informed about possible conditioning by the representatives of the vcfs, protected from imposition of a management policy not stipulated in the contract, etc; − support for market survival when business entities with women's management get into an investment-dependent relationship with vcfs, they will acquire enough resources to overcome challenges and problems of a financial nature at times when their survival in the business world is called into question. this type of support is especially important in the first years of business which are characterized by high risks, losses and the epitome of "the most difficult years to survive" in the business world. it is important to emphasize that in such situations, vcfs decide to invest in entities with pronounced financial problems only if they believe in the entrepreneurial idea or have confidence in the creator of the same; jolović, n., et al., role of vcfs, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) 47 − development and management support during the process of cooperation with vcfs, women entrepreneurs receive funding which is enough for direct research and development of the current or new product/service and the management support of the fund, i.e. the support of individuals who are often delegated to entities by vcfs through the acquisition of shares in their ownership. most often, these are experts who have decades of experience and outstanding management skills. they experientially assist the entities by directing their practical knowledge towards growth, so the entities progress and develop faster. also, the availability of vcfs to representatives of the entrepreneurial sector affects: − increasing the number of women employees due to the available support from vcfs and the stimulating market environment, more female members will suppress the fear of failure, divest themselves, and venture into entrepreneurial waters. in most cases, such activity on the market will be treated as self-employment, and if these women entrepreneurs hire female workforce in process of developing their businesses, that will directly affect the employment and development of women's entrepreneurship. the previous statement assumes that women entrepreneurs are engaged in innovative activities and that they believe that the female workforce they hire can better understand customer needs and are more committed to the realization of a specific entrepreneurial idea; − increasing production with greater availability of funds, women will have the opportunity to turn their innovative ideas into reality and launch production processes in different sectors of the economy. thus, women entrepreneurship will enrich the market with its innovation and more diverse product offering, which will lead to increased production in the countries where these entities operate; − market development financing through vcfs, as a form of business support aimed at women entrepreneurs, will empower a large number of them to become stronger and more significant market participants, which will cumulatively be reflected in the development of the markets they are part of; − technology innovation business activities based on modern knowledge and technologies will be mainly supported by this type of financing. thanks to vcfs, women entrepreneurs who create 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) innovative technological solutions that often need substantial financial resources will receive the necessary financial support and turn their ideas into concrete products of a technological nature. also, they will be empowered for further research in the field of technological innovations, and in the future, they will be able to expect proactive, for the economy important, technological solutions. conclusion globally, women's entrepreneurship businesses face enormous financial and development challenges. they usually do not have access to bank financial support because of the bank's rigorous requirements, and it is not an exaggeration to say that bank loans only receive "persistent fortunes". aifs are the form of financing which these businesses can use to ensure market survival and meet development goals. vcfs, as one of the most appropriate and advantageous forms of aifs, are investing in innovative businesses and startups, intending to secure profits based on the shares they originally acquired in the entrepreneurial business. from an entrepreneurial point of view, this source of funds is one of the few that, because of the unenviable situation they are in, allows them to reach the necessary capital. this path for women's entrepreneurial sector entities to obtain capital through vcfs is especially suitable. namely, it is less demanding and much more comfortable than the one that must be traversed in order to obtain bank funding. even when the demands placed on the women entrepreneur are strict, there is still an opportunity for successful agreement with managing companies of the funds. more specifically, the decision to invest at that point depends on the management's assessment of the particular vcf, which needs to be clarified whether or not it recognizes a prospective market member in a women's entrepreneurial business. however, the survey showed that women entrepreneurs globally do not sufficiently use the benefits that vcfs offer, partly because of their passivity and lack of information, and partly because of the prejudices investors have about their skills and business potential. these are problems that, in the future, the global sector of women's entrepreneurship should face. by all the detailed data and relations in the paper, it is possible to, regarding the hypotheses set in the research, reach the following conclusions: jolović, n., et al., role of vcfs, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) 49 − hypothesis h1 is fully accepted. this hypothesis relates to the problems faced by women entrepreneurs in the entrepreneurship sector regarding insufficient funding. the lack of resources often carries enormous pressures with it related to the survival in the market that women entrepreneurs endure. vcfs by addressing these financial-type pressures enable entrepreneurs to deal with it, not only for their survival but also for the better market position due to the development of their business; − hypothesis h2 is fully accepted. the reason for reaching such a conclusion is in the very nature of the business of vcfs acquiring a share in the ownership of a company based on previously invested own resources. namely, after acquiring ownership rights, vcfs send their managers to the company with their competencies to support the emergence of market success, on which only women entrepreneurs have been working until that moment. − the basic hypothesis h0, which states: "vcfs play a significant and multifunctional role in financing women's entrepreneurship", is fully accepted, thanks to the full validation of the previous two specific hypotheses that more closely define it. the recommendations that can be made are related to improving the opportunities for connecting women entrepreneurs with providers of alternative financial sources; organizing public forums, round tables and conferences in order to raise awareness of women entrepreneurs and the public about alternative models of financing; empowering personality, leadership and management skills of women entrepreneurs through educational programs, workshops and practices to fully exploit the opportunities offered by alternative forms of financing. only in this way, women entrepreneurs will be able to recognize the potential of alternative financing in a timely manner and harness it to encourage the growth and development of their businesses. if they do so, the cumulative effects on society and the economy will be reflected in increased employment and production of women, reduction of gender and social inequality, the development of markets, technological innovations, etc. based on all the facts, relationships and implications mentioned in the paper, it can be stated that the involvement of vcfs in financing women's entrepreneurship is highly desirable and significant. funds of this type are expected to become holders of women's entrepreneurship over time, both in highly developed countries and in emerging economies that climb on the 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 33-52) development ladder as they approach the aforementioned dominant economies. acknowledgments this paper is a result of research projects under the code 47009 (european integrations and social and economic changes in the serbian economy on the way to the eu) financed by the ministry of education, science and technological 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[27] wm equity partners. 2017. zaključci sa javnog dijaloga o finansiranju malih i srednjih preduzeća (msp) u srbiji putem dodatnog vlasničkog kapitala. http://usaidbep.wmep.rs/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/post-eventbrosura-srp-compressed.pdf (accessed september 10, 2019). article history: received: 10 september, 2019 accepted: 19 october, 2019 12_jwe_3-4 review book review the nature of entrepreneurship: entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial activities the nature of entrepreneurship is highly recommended to both academicians who want to get familiar to the entrepreneurship field and also young entrepreneurs who want to run an entrepreneurial business by themselves. the simple and comprehensive language and vision of this book helps eager readers to read this book not regarding to their past experiences or education. the general but also comprehensive chapters of this book prevent from boring the readers and it can be considered as one of the main advantages of this book mirjana radovic-markovic & aidin salamzadeh. here, we present a holistic view of the book in framework below to show that this book has a comprehensive look on entrepreneurship. we can analyze any issue in three dimensions including: structure, context and content. in which “structure” refers to the nature of issue, processes, manners, techniques and systems; “context” refers to values, ideologies, attributes and principles; and finally “content” refers to behavioral charachteristics, activities, the way of internal decision making and quality. it should be mentioned that this book covers the mentioned framework in a very good manner, and then we can be sure that we will have a great view on entrepreneurship after reading the book. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 137-140) 138 structure in the “structure” dimension, chapters one, four and nine are presented. in chapter one authors discussed the history of entrepreneurship and its development and also some structural elements of entrepreneurship such as entrepreneurial theories, types of entrepreneurship, choise of entrepreneurship types and its determinants. the graphical model at the end of this chapter (presented by morris and luis (1995)) can be a helping guide for readers to achieve a better view of entrepreneurship determinants. in chapter four, authors present main entrepreneurial process starting from the idea and its sources and its generation, to problem solving methods and decision making. then financial issues like risk levels, returns and level of needed expertise are disscussed. at the end of this chapter some great ideas about buying a business or starting a new one are presented which can guide readers to analyze their final decision on involving in a business. in chapter nine, another structural issue about entrepreneurship is disscussed. leadeship versus management is the title of this chapter and it describes leaders’ creative functions and types of leadership which can guide young entrepreneurs to decide about their leadership style in their own business. content in the “content” dimension, chapters two and ten are presented. chapter two is a short chapter about the importance of the innovation in entrepreneurship. it starts with tendency to innovation and continues with innovation in small businesses and ends with market implementation of the innovations. figure 1 in this chapter shows the tendency for innovation at individual, organizational and trans-organizational levels which can be a good guide for readers if they can expand it and find some executive examples and ideas for each level. chapter ten which is almost the most usefull chapter of this book for executives is about choice of business. here, we can achieve good highlights for starting an entrepreneurial business. in this chapter, authors start with personal goals in starting a business which somehow plays the most important role in starting an entrepreneurial business. then, they book review, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 137-140) 139 discuss about knowledge, experience of the entrepreneur, his/her specific needs, vocational education and entrepreneurship education. expanding these factors to some sub-factors will help executives in achieving a good map of their abilities and powers in order to start a new business. in this chapter authors presented some common mistakes and test of affinity in order to start a business. at this point, entrepreneurs can decide on making the choice of the right business according to professional and ethical issues. context in the “context” dimension which emphsizes on behavioral dimension, chapters three, five, six, seven and eight are presented which makes this dimension the most complete and comprehensive dimension in this book. in chapter three, after presenting the theories of entrepreneurship, basic attributes of entrepreneurial behaviors are mentioned. personal qualities and attributes are also included in this chapter. after reading this chapter we can get a good view from individual behavior dimension of an entrepreneur. chapter five is about intrapreneurship including its concepts, implementation, requirements, and understanding the environment and change process. after running a new entrepreneurial business, the importance of this chapter becomes bold for leaders and managers of the business. chapter six is one of the most important chapters in the book in behavioral dimension of our framework, discuses women entrepreneurship. this chapter includes theoretical background of female entrepreneurship, its modern trends, role of women in societies and businesses, different lifestyles, women in managerial and entrepreneurial roles, womens’ leadership capabilities and profile of typical female leaders. the importance of this chapter is due to the capabilities and importance of women in today’s business enviornment which should be considered in initiating new businesses. in chapter seven, the difference between entrepreneurs and managers is disscussed. authors first explained the activities, charachteristics, responsibilities and personal qualities of managers. then, some important journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 137-140) 140 skills of an entrepreneur such as communication skills, high motivation level, practical motivation, listening ability, business abilities, and culture of change are presented. we have to mention that despite the importance of these factors, some other abilities could be added to this chapter as well. chapter eight named essential attributes of managers, is also among the most important chapters of this book because some most common failure causes of entrepreneurial businesses are mentioned in this chapter. here, authors presented some lines about intellectual capital, knowledge, elearning, combination of different abilities and management styles. indeed, we have to mention that these factors can act as a competitive advantage for any businessif they could be managed. finally, we have to point out that this book can be used as an introduction to entrepreneurship for students and business executives, because of its generality and comprehensiveness. moreover, we think that this book can be used as a general map for readers which all key words mentioned in it needed to be expanded and extended according to individual needs of readers. but readers can be sure that having this book will help them to enter the entrepreneurship world with strong steps. salamzadeh yashar, phd student in management lecturer in business and management payam noor university, tehran, iran yasharsalamzadeh@gmail.com list of reviewers for the year 2022 1. aida hanić, research associate, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia 2. aidin salamzadeh, assistant professor, university of tehran, faculty of management, tehran, iran 3. aleksandra bradić martinović, senior research associate, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia 4. alexander loziak, research associate, centre of social and psychological sciences sas institute of social sciences, bratislava, slovakia 5. beatrice avolio, full professor and researcher at centrum pucp, lima, peru 6. boufeldja ghiat, full professor, university of oran 2 mohamed ben ahmed, faculty of social sciences, oran, algeria 7. daniela palaščáková, assistant professor, technical university of kosice, faculty of economics, kosice, slovakia 8. daniela petríkova, assistant professor, technical university of kosice, faculty of economics, kosice, slovakia 9. darko vuković, full professor, union university, belgrade banking academy, belgrade, serbia 10. hiroko kawamorita kesim, ondokuz mayis university, turkey 11. imani silver kyaruzi, senior lecturer, ulster university, great britain 12. isidora beraha, research associate, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia 13. maja ćirić, full professor, university business academy in novi sad, faculty of economics and engineering management in novi sad, novi sad, serbia 14. marianna siničáková, associate professor, technical university of kosice, faculty of economics, kosice, slovakia 15. mihajlo rabrenović, associate professor, faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship (pep), belgrade, serbia 16. milena lazić, research associate, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia 17. muhammad shoaib farooq, full professor, university of management and technology, school of systems and technology, lahore, pakistan 18. nebojša macanović, associate professor, university of banja luka, faculty of political sciences, banja luka, bosnia and herzegovina 19. neven vidaković, former professor, zagreb school of economics and management, croatia 20. olivera jovanović, research associate, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia 21. peter kusý, lecturer, university of trnava, faculty of education, trnava, slovakia 22. priscilla achakpa, founder and global president of the women environment programme, nigeria 23. radka čopková, assistant professor, technical university of kosice, faculty of economics, kosice, slovakia 24. radmila grozdanić, full professor, faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship (pep), belgrade, serbia 25. radmilo nikolić, full professor, technical university in bor, university of belgrade, bor, serbia 26. shajahan kabir, full professor, bangladesh agricultural university, faculty of agricultural economics & rural sociology, mymensingh, bangladesh 27. slađana neogradi, assistant professor, faculty of business studies and law, belgrade, serbia 28. slađana vujičić, associate professor, faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship (pep), belgrade, serbia 29. snezhana ilieva, full professor, sofia university "st. kliment ohridski", faculty of philosophy, sofia, bulgaria 30. sonja đuričin, senior research associate, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia 31. valentina vukmirović, research associate, institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia 32. vera karadjova, full professor, university "st. kliment ohridski", bitola, north macedonia 33. vesna baltezarević, full professor, megatrend university, faculty of culture and media, belgrade, serbia 34. yashar salamzadeh, lecturer, university of sunderland, great britain 35. zhanna mingaleva, full professor, perm national research polytechnic university, humanitarian faculty, perm, russia 36. zorana nikitović, associate professor, faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship (pep), belgrade, serbia 37. zorica bogdanović, full professor, university of belgrade, faculty of organizational sciences, belgrade, serbia 20_jwee_12 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.12.pp87-102 jel: l53, l26, j16 original scientific paper entrepreneurial learning and the success of welsh businesswomen andre clark1 floricatomos2 business school, university of south wales, treforest, south wales, united kingdom a b s t r a c t this paper reports on a study of women entrepreneurs running msmes in south wales, a region characterised as having a weak entrepreneurial culture compared to other parts of the uk (fotopoulos and storey, 2017). one reason for this weakness is perceived to be a lack of entrepreneurship education and in this paper we investigate the hypothesis behind this that more entrepreneurship education has a positive effect on business success. the investigation consisted of three parts; a set of 59 questions (n=150), followed by a series of face-to-face interviews (n=37), and finally some detailed discussions (n=5). the main finding is that the hypothesis that entrepreneurship education makes a positive contribution to the success of women entrepreneurs needs to be modified to reflect the fact that it is entrepreneurial learning through technologically enabled networks that has such an effect, as it no longer makes sense in the age of social media to separate education from asynchronous networked learning, or to separate the technology from the networking within that learning. the practical implication of this research is that enterprise education courses and programmes designed to support female entrepreneurs need to take better account of the way such women learn. the 1 corresponding author, e-mail: andre.clark@southwales.ac.uk 2 e-mail: florica.tomos@southwales.ac.uk 88 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 87-102) limitation of the research is that the sample is from a relatively technologically enabled population. key words: women entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial education introduction entrepreneurs are an important group to study in connection with learning since the knowledge they acquire and apply makes a major contribution to economic growth and employment (brush 2000; minniti 2010; klapper and parker 2010). in addition, entrepreneurs are an interesting group to study in this respect as they tend to be highly motivated learners (sarri 2011; boeren 2011; fayolle 2013; czerkawski 2016; dixon 2017). one of the things entrepreneurs learn is something that can be described as ‘entrepreneurship education’ because it is tailored to their needs as entrepreneurs. what exactly this includes will differ by sector and location to some degree, but in today’s technologically connected world few would doubt that information and communication technology (ict), will play some significant part in it. in this paper we show that -in wales at leastwe have now entered a phase in which ict is effectively used by entrepreneurs to pick and choose what is learnt, where, and how, to such a degree that (with the guidance of networks of their peers) they are most accurately depicted as engineering their own entrepreneurship education. the existing literature on entrepreneurship education is -as with most aspects of enterprise researchtypically non-gendered, which means that in practice it mostly concerns what men do, since most entrepreneurs in most parts of the world are men. things are changing, however, and there is an increasing interest in female entrepreneurs as their numbers and significance grows in many parts of the world (brush and cooper 2012). this is, of course, part of a broader trend towards greater gender equality that has the side effect (in this connection), of making women look like a reservoir of enterprise that needs to be tapped, in order to (amongst many other things) increase a country’s prosperity, (albeit in part because much of the work women traditionally do only gets measured when it is no longer done for free). it seems an opportune moment, therefore, to help redress this academic imbalance and possibly make some small contribution to the further liberation of this relatively untapped resource by removing any barriers to increased participation by women that may be revealed by this clark, a., et al., success of welsh businesswomen, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 87-102) 89 research, particularly with regard to a country like wales that has a history of growing more slowly and showing less ‘enterprise’ than its neighbours. methodology although bodies such as the oecd compile data on the provision of entrepreneurship education for women in different countries partly motivated by the belief that improved provision will increase the output of those countries, in truth the scale of any such effect is unclear. the problem is that there are two main transmission mechanisms through which this effect could happen. first, it could happen through the success of the businesses being run by the entrepreneurship educated women. second, it could work via the choice a woman makes to become an entrepreneur in the first place. we assume that the combined effect of both mechanisms is enough to make this a profitable investment for any country to make; ‘social rates of return’ studies certainly suggest that investments in education usually are (psacharopoulos and patrinos 2018), and if we couple this with the aforementioned idea that women entrepreneurs are an untapped resource it would be a surprise if this wasn’t the case. but the fact is, we just don’t know for sure. one reason for this lack of clarity is that there is little research in connection with the first transmission mechanism –the impact of entrepreneurship education on the success of women entrepreneursas although there are plenty of studies showing how best to create and deliver entrepreneurship education (bhardwaj 2014; ogidi 2014), and on how well specific courses -or other interventionsare perceived to have worked by those who took them (rideout and gray 2013), there is little on the likely scale of its effect, and what there is focuses on whether it works to encourage specific measurable traits, such as the ability to innovate (maryam et al. 2017). there is, by way of contrast, considerable research into how it encourages women to make the choice to become entrepreneurs in the first place (coduras-martínez et al. 2010; fatoki 2014; mohamad et al. 2015), and although we would need to look at the opportunity cost of such choices to be sure, few alternatives are likely to have as much impact on output and employment as becoming an entrepreneur even if the resulting firms are short-lived, and there is supporting evidence that they tend not to be as entrepreneurship education seems to provide some protection against early attrition for businesses owned by women (douglas 2014). there is even some work on how such motivations are affected by 90 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 87-102) networking (sharafizad and coetzer 2017), although what ultimately it does to the success of those who manage to stay in business is rather overlooked. we conclude from this that in a number of respects it is still true to say that there is, “remarkably little empirical or academic research that pertains to effective entrepreneurship education and training for women,” (bullough et al. 2015, 42). part of the problem is the tendency to equate entrepreneurship education only with the supply of specific programmes of study, which means both that what is being evaluated tends to be something very narrow and also that the proving of any definitive link between the course and the ultimate success of the entrepreneur can involve a significant wait, by which time looking for the effect of the specific entrepreneurship education intervention becomes akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. in fact, even if we shift our focus away from what is supplied onto what women entrepreneurs are currently doing to learn about and improve their enterprise and count that as entrepreneurship education too, testing the scale of the bivariate correlation between this and their success is still problematic as it ignores the fact that the outcome –entrepreneurial successis a complex one. for one thing this means that any policy advice arising out of any such singular approach would be subject to the problem of the second best (lipsey and lancaster 1956). in what follows, therefore, we adopt a multivariate approach to assess what women do to learn about enterprise regardless of what it is, or where it comes from, or how it is accessed, followed by some multiple regression work in order to assess the influence of different factors involved in it and to determine the scale of their impact -both in combination and separatelyon the success of our sample of entrepreneurs. this is still a partial approach in the sense that we are not building a general model of the success of women entrepreneurs, but we believe nonetheless that it is an improvement on the current state of the art in this field. the limited scope and extent of research in this area may simply reflect the fact that research on female entrepreneurship even more so than entrepreneurship research in general is relatively new and understandably, therefore, somewhat lagging behind in the kinds of complex methodologies that are likely to be most revealing of a complex compound process like enterprise (scherrer et al. 1989). in the broader field of entrepreneurship studies in general, an appreciation of a similar deficiency in the past led to calls -by the likes of plaschka and welsch (1990) for a shift towards more complex research designs. such calls have since been heeded by many, with clark, a., et al., success of welsh businesswomen, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 87-102) 91 researchers across the globe collecting and using larger samples and more complex conceptual research frameworks than ever before, a trend which is now spreading into the relatively young subdomain of female entrepreneurship. not that this development pleases everyone, as authors like herron, sapienza, and smith-cook (1992) pointed out some time ago, qualitative methods such as interviews with rich data but small samples may offer the best way of understanding creative aspects of human behaviour like enterprise, and it is possible that the authors of this paper – who both come from an economics backgroundmight tend to overlook this in favour of complex quantitative research. consequently, in recognition of our potential for bias and of the fact that quantification is unlikely to be the best way to get at the richness of meanings and individual experience in this field, we have made a conscious effort to make room for listening and discussions in the design of this research, and generally not to turn a blind eye to the insights of the interpretivist paradigm (berglund 2015). another thing we have tried to do is to avoid falling into the trap (that much microeconomic theorising falls into), of forgetting that our subjects cannot be divorced from the context in which they operate, by constantly reminding ourselves of the need for a holistic approach (bygrave and hofer 1991), in which we see our entrepreneurs as embedded within a political, economic, social, and -with particular reference to this studytechnological, context. with all this in mind we adopted a mixed method approach with both quantifiable and qualitative data being explored in an iterative manner across three connected parts; first a set of 59 questions, which was answered by 150 women, followed by a second part covering 37 face-to-face interviews, and finally a focus group study of 5 respondents, which was used to enhance and broaden our understanding of specific issues. in terms of research practice we managed to secure relatively high response rates from the start by taking a proactive approach to sample selection, including the taking of great care to make sure that we were sampling the right people, (for example to ensure that we were capturing only those running micro, small, and medium sized enterprises rather than middle managers in larger organisations). this was facilitated by a three-pronged approach to data collection covering emails, telephone follow-ups, and face-to-face interviews. the second and third parts of the study were designed to spark discussion, while the first part includes some open-ended questions but mostly employs likert type scales -with good reliability as measured by cronbach’s alpha. 92 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 87-102) women entrepreneurs’ approach to learning it is acknowledged that gender matters in entrepreneurship education (ettl and welter 2010), but what there is on this is firmly focused on ways to improve it (davis 2012), rather than on proving why, on the assumption that more of a good thing is an even better thing. often the suggestions boil down to calls for more, or different, formal entrepreneurship education (valerio et al. 2014), based either on providing instructions on the mechanics of setting up a business, or by supplying instruction on the acquisition of entrepreneurial skills, (bridge et al. 2009). by way of contrast, our survey results show that the kind of provision in which someone designs a structured programme of learning to be delivered through technology (clark and mayer 2008), is now largely irrelevant to women entrepreneurs in wales, having been replaced by a range of informal approaches to learning that entail a -more or lessad hoc learning strategy facilitated by everyday technology, including social media. this seems to suit our respondents as it enables self-directed exploratory and flexible learning for these women who are -in the main (60%)juggling work with family responsibilities. in light of this finding we should perhaps describe what we are looking at as less to do with the supply of formal education and more to do with how knowledge spills over (acs et al. 2013), to encourage the demand for all kinds of entrepreneurship related learning. in what follows we therefore adapt our definition of entrepreneurship education to include the informal learning mediated by a host of (evolving and expanding), technologies that are primarily orientated towards facilitation of social interaction and networking, but which nonetheless enable women to understand the activities that they are engaged in as entrepreneurs. we can look at this social e-learning process in terms of both supply, which is to say the content, techniques, and technologies used to transmit the knowledge, and in terms of demand, which depends on preferred learning styles, motivations, and needs. as with all supply and demand approaches looking at it in this way draws our attention not towards the division between the two –important though that isbut rather towards consideration of how the supply and demand come together. in looking at this our survey reflects what others have found, for example, our survey confirms the importance of the immediacy of the learning that technology facilitates, which is widely recognised as a great advantage (martin and ertzberger 2013), as well as confirming what others have found about its role in enabling collaboration, (northey et al. 2018), and how successful an clark, a., et al., success of welsh businesswomen, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 87-102) 93 approach such collaborative learning can be (johnson and johnson 2009). likewise, our results confirm what others have found about how different technologies permit slightly different interactions and modes of engagement with different implications, in turn, for how and what is learned (cerrattopargman et al. 2018). on the main issue of how education and enterprise come together, it has to be borne in mind that although 40% of our respondents had engaged in some formal entrepreneurship education in the past, because we only sampled established entrepreneurs (with only 6% of our sample being aged 25 or younger), what we are looking at on the education side is andragogy, which knowles (1980) defines as “the art and science of helping adults to learn,” (p.43) rather than pedagogy which is synonymous with teaching. this is reflected in the fact that nearly all our respondents were no longer dependent on any educational establishment to direct the trajectories of their enterprise related learning. this means our respondents have a relatively large degree of choice over what is leant and where (which is likely to vary depending on the exact nature of the task in hand), but on the other hand suggests –as their responses confirmthat they may actively seek out and network with other learners in similar situations to themselves given the uncertainty regarding the nature and scope of the learning requirements. the fact that social media provides both the flexibility and the networking opportunities that would enable this may explain why it emerged so strongly from this particular piece of research. it is also worth noting that although such networks have a locational bias there are definite non-localised elements too, suggesting that the associational capacity (cooke and morgan 1998) of the firms our entrepreneurs are running are becoming more detached from the constraints of geography, which as time moves on is only going to increase as survey samples -like oursthat contain mostly non ‘digital natives’ become a thing of the past. this is not to say that our respondents could be classed as inexperienced in the use of information and communication technology, as not only is the use of smartphones now ubiquitous in wales, ict is now such an inescapable feature of business that no women entrepreneur can afford to ignore it, regardless of their scale of operation, or age. indeed, it seems somewhat inevitable that networking and its associated e-learning will become ever more ubiquitous and embedded in all aspects of female entrepreneurship over time as technology marches on (fee 2009). quite what that technology is will change of course and any list will age quickly, although for the sake of completeness it is worth noting here that e-learning in wales currently involves digital devices such as 94 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 87-102) mobile phones, smartwatches, laptops and tablets, and a range of digital networking facilitators such as facebook, linkedin, twitter, whatsapp, and instagram, as well as a growing number of ‘cloud’ storage apps to better hold all the information that is being generated, (alshamaila et al. 2013). defining success having defined the scope of what we mean by ‘entrepreneurship education,’ we now turn to exactly what we mean by ‘success:’ as mentioned previously, the benefit of improving the education of women entrepreneurs is often stated in terms of the potential to increase economic measures of value, such as gdp (rose 2019). the measurement and interpretation of this is not without its problems, however. firstly, there is an artificial lift given to financially based measures of value when women switch from traditionally unpaid roles to paid ones (which we briefly alluded to in the introduction), and which we need to keep in mind when we measure success as it suggest that women may more accurately evaluate the real costs and benefits of becoming an entrepreneur than the officials compiling the gdp statistics. this is reflected in our surveys in the feedback around the issue of the work-life balance, which came out strongly as a bonus of being in business, since although being an entrepreneur does not – according to most responsesmean working less, it does mean more choice over when and where the work is done which, unsurprisingly, suits those with family and other responsibilities. the importance of this is confirmed when we look back at the reasons given for starting a businesses in the first place within our survey, as this includes factors such as providing for children and being a role model to them, which supports the comments made by authors such as andringa et al., (2015) about the importance of social context in influencing female entrepreneurship. that these choices are context specific (forson 2013), means that to get the complete picture on our results we need to understand the background in south wales, which in summary is an environment that traditionally featured a strong division between the sexes; with the men departing the home for full time work, while the women juggled child-rearing with more flexible forms of paid work -which often meant doing more hours of labour in total (beddoe 2000). this pattern is changing, however, as women in the region strive for equality with men, although it is still the case that the caring responsibilities remain relatively high for women, while wages remain relatively low clark, a., et al., success of welsh businesswomen, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 87-102) 95 (ehrc 2018). as a result of such differences in context and the costs and benefits that these give rise to (and possibly innate differences too), women may have different ways of evaluating what constitutes success to men (dalborg et al. 2012), with factors like having a good reputation, and having good customer relationships being repeatedly mentioned by our respondents, even though they may not have immediate financial benefits (mitchelmore et al. 2013). this is something we have made allowance for in our methodology, both by following bartlett’s (1988) advice in looking at multiple quantitative measures based around both revenue and profit, and by offering respondents a list of such factors to tick as indicators of success which we then took into account in making a determination as to how to score different degrees of success. main findings in terms of learning, nearly three quarters of our sample affirmed that they used networking for learning, and within this 89% confirmed that it is done by using digital platforms; with 47% using youtube, 75% using facebook, and 74% using mobile phones. in a related vein, 67% confirmed that they felt that they belonged to a community of practice; with 32% being in formal business associations, 23% belong to professional associations, and 51% being part of recognised networking groups. in terms of the link to technology, 69% stated that digital platforms and ict helps them participate within these communities of practice, with the same proportion indicating that this is achieved using laptops, while 65% mentioned mobile phones, and 55% ipads and tablets. on the issue of success, while respondents were roughly equally split on financial measures between sales and profit, 91% selected multiple answers on the non-financial side. given these results it makes sense to modify our earlier stated hypothesis to a more appropriate one to the effect that entrepreneurship learning has a positive effect on a broadly defined measure of the success of women entrepreneurs in south wales. to determine the scale of this association we conducted some standard multiple regression tests using various parameters from within the survey, from which we concluded that entrepreneurship learning accounts for around a quarter of the variation in our measure of women entrepreneurs’ success. there is a caveat to this finding, however, as although we can defend it and even add weight to it by pointing out that 80% of our first sample felt that entrepreneurship learning 96 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 87-102) enhanced their chances of success in business (which was supported in the other two parts of our survey), what we are not so sure about is what contribution the various facets of what we have looked at make: as already discussed, there are a number of constituent parts that go to make up entrepreneurship learning and we feel that we have identified the key ones in terms or what we might typically record as enterprise education, plus use of ict for entrepreneurship learning, and networking for entrepreneurship learning. however, when we come to use these in multiple regression we find that this produces an identification (separation) problem. in particular, we found that ‘networking’ acts as a confounding factor by exerting an influence on both the other independent variables as well as on the dependent variable of women entrepreneurs’ success. rather than seeing this as a statistical problem to be overcome by –for exampleremoving the variable we think it is best to keep it in and simply model networking as acting in a supporting role as depicted in figure 1, in the same way that technology (more obviously) does. figure 1: model of entrepreneurial learning in a social media rich environment we feel that this is the correct interpretation, particularly as there is no generally accepted cut off point for collinearity with tests such as the ‘variance inflation factor,’ being described in terms of cut off points that clark, a., et al., success of welsh businesswomen, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 87-102) 97 vary widely; with hair et al., (1995) putting it at a figure of 10, while ringle et al., (2015) put it at half that. as a result of this lack of agreement, we were forced to make a judgement based on a range of factors, such as the bivariate correlations, the effect of introducing the variable on the other variables, and in our case sign-switching on the networking variable. our judgement on this is, of course, consistent with feedback from all three parts of our survey which all suggest that nowadays entrepreneurship learning cannot be isolated from technology and networking. this finding, while invalidating any inferences we might have liked to have made on their separate effects (which is why we have not included them here), does not invalidate our assertion that entrepreneurship education accounts for a quarter of the variation in women entrepreneurs success, however, as the predictive power of the model, and therefore the figures shown below, are not affected by multicollinearity in the constituent parts. table 1. summary results of the effect of entrepreneurship education on women entrepreneurs’ success. adjusted r2 see f sig .245 .868 24.863 .000 conclusions and recommendations our survey suggests that -in south wales at leastwe need to see entrepreneurship education as a product of flexible and social e-learning that works via networks to produce a statistically significant positive effect on the success of women entrepreneurs when measured in broad terms. the implication of this for policy is twofold. firstly, for educators it underlines the importance of designing courses that take into account the way women entrepreneurs approach learning, so that their participative, interactive, networked, and flexible way of utilizing modern communications technology is exploited. secondly, for those designing broader entrepreneurial support systems the fact that part of the reason women use technology in the way they do is that they are often fulfilling multiple roles needs to be acknowledged, otherwise we may inadvertently discriminate against women entrepreneurs as we may have done (and may still be doing) in wales as atkinson (2001) first suggested. that there still exists something of a mismatch between tech savvy women entrepreneurs and a system that insists on person to person non-technologically intermediated 98 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 87-102) interactions in an -often lengthybureaucratic process was confirmed by one of the authors of this report in seeking assistance to commercially develop a patent (clark, 2015), when for their very first meeting they were expected to make a four hour round trip for a face-to-face chat that could have far more easily have been done using ict. that the outcomes of the support provided for entrepreneurs in wales do not favour women is not disputed, but that this is anything to do with the way the support is provided by the authorities is, and it is in light of this dispute that we hope research such as we have undertaken here will help further tailoring of the welsh government’s approach to make it better suited to the way women entrepreneurs learn. reflection and suggestions for further research a survey of women entrepreneurs shows that entrepreneurship education is now predominantly self-directed social e-learning that -given the nature of modern ict technologyis only going to grow in importance over time and is already a statistically significant factor in explaining their success. one consequences of this finding is that in wales we need to review the way our enterprise support system works as there may be compatibility issues. the limitations of this study are, first, scale -as although we were pleased with the response rate this is always something that can be improved uponand second the fact that we only looked at women entrepreneurs. it is important, however, to underline the fact that this is a limitation rather than a flaw in our methodology, since it reflects a conscious decision that we made to resist the temptation to frame everything about women entrepreneurship in terms of comparisons to men (henry et al. 2015). that said, extending this work to cover men is an obvious suggestion 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[54] valerio, a., b. parton, and a. robb. 2014. entrepreneurship education and training programs around the world: dimensions for success. washington, dc: world bank article history: received: 11 february, 2020 accepted: 10 may, 2020 microsoft word 12 jwe 1-2.docx udc: 005.96 (7) jel: b54;j24 original scientific paper unlocking innovation in women-owned firms: strategies for educating the next generation of women entrepreneurs podsticanje inovacija u firmama koje su u vlasništvu žena: strategije za obrazovanje namenjene novim generacijama žena preduzetnica coleman susan*, university of hartford, west hartford, united states robb alicia, kauffman foundation, kansas city, missouri, united states a b s t r a c t in this article we report on the results of a survey of innovative practices in a sample of u.s. firms. survey results reveal gender differences in the areas of both human and social capital. in the area of human capital, women were less likely to have advanced degrees or senior management experience. in the area of social capital, although a high percentage of women engaged in networking activities, there is some evidence that their networking strategies were less targeted than those of men. consistent with prior research, women entrepreneurs had lower levels of “selfefficacy” or confidence in their ability to identify and develop innovative ideas. the implications of these findings for the education and training of women entrepreneurs are discussed. kew words: women, gender differences, human capital, education * corresponding author, address: 200 bloomfield avenue, west hartford, ct 06117, tel: 860-768-4690, email: scoleman@hartford.edu journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 100 introduction one of the most exciting aspects of entrepreneurial research in recent years has dealt with the rapid growth and increasing economic influence of women-owned firms. census data from the 2007 survey of business owners reveals that in 2007 there were 7.8 million women-owned firms in the united states generating revenues of $1.2 billion (table 1). these numbers represent a 44 percent growth rate in number of firms and a 46 percent growth rate in revenues from 1997-2007. thus, the number of women-owned firms in the united states has grown more rapidly than the number of firms overall. from the standpoint of industry distribution, women-owned firms are increasingly represented in all sectors of the economy, including traditionally male-dominated fields such as manufacturing, construction, transportation, and the professional, scientific, and technical fields (table 2). researchers point to the growing number of women who are launching growth-oriented firms with the potential to provide substantial gains in employment and wealth (brush et al., 2001). firms (number) receipts (millions of dollars) firms (number) receipts (millions of dollars) employees (number) annual payroll (millions of dollars) 2007 1 7,793,425 1,192,781 911,285 1,010,470 7,587,020 218,136 2002 1 6,489,483 940,775 916,768 804,097 7,146,229 173,709 1997 2 5,417,034 818,669 846,780 717,764 7,076,081 149,116 growth 2002-2007 20.1% 26.8% -0.6% 25.7% 6.2% 25.6% growth 1997-2002 19.8% 14.9% 8.3% 12.0% 1.0% 16.5% growth 1997-2007 43.9% 45.7% 7.6% 40.8% 7.2% 46.3% 2007 1 27,110,362 30,181,461 5,752,975 29,208,766 118,668,699 4,886,977 2002 1 22,974,685 22,627,167 5,524,813 21,859,758 110,786,416 3,813,488 1997 2 20,821,934 18,553,243 5,295,151 17,907,940 103,359,815 2,936,493 growth 2002-2007 18.0% 33.4% 4.1% 33.6% 7.1% 28.1% growth 1997-2002 10.3% 22.0% 4.3% 22.1% 7.2% 29.9% growth 1997-2007 30.2% 62.7% 8.6% 63.1% 14.8% 66.4% women-owned (2007) 28.7% 4.0% 15.8% 3.5% 6.4% 4.5% women-owned (2002) 28.2% 4.2% 16.6% 3.7% 6.5% 4.6% 1 2007 and 2002 survey of business owners, women-owned firms. 2 1997 survey of women-owned business enterprises. table 1 all firms firms with paid employees as published u.s. nonfarm firms by gender and ownership, 1997-2007 all u.s. firms percent of total u.s. firms women-owned firms coleman, s., et al., unlocking innovation, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 101 a number of factors have played a role in the increasing numbers of women launching innovative and growth-oriented firms. first, educational initiatives have contributed to the increasing number of women seeking careers and entrepreneurial opportunities in non-traditional and technology-based fields. traditionally, girls and young women have shied away from math and quantitative types of subjects, preferring instead to focus on the liberal arts, education, or “helping professions” such as nursing and social work (correll, 2001; staniec, 2004; zafar, 2009). in recent years, however, we have seen increased efforts to engage girls and young women more fully in the stem fields (science, technology, engineering, and math). programs to achieve this purpose have proliferated at the local, state, and federal levels with impressive results. a second reason for this change is the growing number of women entrepreneurs who can serve as role models and mentors for those who follow. a simple prescription might be “if you want more women, get more women!” many academic and professional groups are establishing women’s special interest groups which provide women with the opportunity to network, share information, and learn from their peers. groups such as springboard enterprises indus try num ber of firm s % of firm s receipts (in thousands) em ployer firm s employer receipts (in thousands) em ployees payroll (in thousands) other s ervices (except public adm inistration) 1,251,887 16.1% 44,776,978 77,099 20,938,687 367,061 7,194,960 health care and social as sistance 1,231,818 15.8% 92,333,985 127,288 69,213,619 1,129,941 28,887,188 professional, scientific, and technical services 1,096,581 14.1% 107,075,468 142,547 77,435,625 632,383 28,216,630 retail trade 918,701 11.8% 190,161,925 126,445 171,031,385 836,423 17,835,446 adm inistrative and support and was te managem ent and rem ediation services 785,909 10.1% 65,608,979 63,776 53,874,916 1,150,811 26,691,160 real estate and rental and leasing 657,584 8.4% 58,622,207 56,523 29,127,294 183,147 5,734,316 arts , entertainm ent, and recreation 376,196 4.8% 16,452,268 18,705 9,716,544 114,425 3,045,367 educational services 276,059 3.5% 9,797,590 16,439 6,794,998 127,217 2,556,407 cons truction 268,668 3.4% 96,889,179 54,067 87,883,713 492,327 21,126,808 finance and insurance 200,443 2.6% 32,062,328 35,019 24,682,660 160,114 6,910,973 accom m odation and food s ervices 191,798 2.5% 47,183,720 85,771 43,907,019 956,836 12,222,971 trans portation and warehousing 142,562 1.8% 32,848,960 19,474 27,867,264 215,983 7,049,792 wholes ale trade 133,353 1.7% 245,268,823 38,748 240,320,377 378,118 15,680,349 manufacturing 113,400 1.5% 113,527,429 33,694 111,281,456 567,776 20,481,347 inform ation 97,172 1.2% 25,838,659 9,273 23,772,089 118,477 6,153,076 agriculture, fores try, fishing and hunting 26,778 0.3% 2,033,212 1,773 1,308,563 9,626 263,563 mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction 18,331 0.2% 11,544,745 1,704 10,694,301 22,961 1,012,270 utilities 3,761 0.0% 1,772,759 205 1,707,047 1,769 79,957 indus tries not clas sified 2,756 0.0% 178,780 2,756 178,780 3,828 49,695 managem ent of companies and enterprises 1,752 0.0% 2,630,011 1,752 2,630,011 50,897 3,481,125 total for all s ectors 7,792,115 100.0% 1,196,608,004 909,661 1,014,366,348 7,520,121 214,673,400 source: 2007 survey of bus iness owners table 2 statistics for u.s. firm s by gender and indus try sector journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 102 (http://www.springboardenterprises.org) and astia (http://www.astia.org) bring growth-oriented women entrepreneurs together and provide both training and access to networks and key contacts. similarly, the society of women engineers (swe) targets women in the fields of engineering, engineering technology, and computer science. its mission is to empower women to succeed and advance in the field of engineering through training and development programs, networking opportunities, scholarships, outreach, and advocacy activities (http://www.swe.org). finally, funding sources are beginning to open up more, albeit slowly, to women entrepreneurs in growth-oriented sectors such as bioscience and technology. there are a growing number of venture capital firms such as golden seeds (http://www.goldenseeds.com) and angel investor groups that specifically target women-owned firms. recent research suggests that women entrepreneurs who seek out angel investor financing have an equal chance of getting it (becker-blease & sohl, 2007). nevertheless, researchers have found that only 5 percent of venture capital funding goes to women-owned firms, although women-owned firms actually represent a much higher percentage of total firms (brush et al., 2001). yet, even with the progress that has been made, women entrepreneurs continue to lag men in the launch and development of innovative and growth-oriented firms, leading us to hypothesize that resource differences and needs in the areas of financial, human, and social capital persist. census data reveals that, although the number of womenowned firms has increased rapidly in the last decade, those firms have remained very small on average. further, as table 1 illustrates, revenues generated by women-owned firms represent only 4 percent of the revenues generated by all firms. in terms of industry concentration, although women have made inroads into growth-oriented sectors such as bioscience and technology, they continue to be heavily represented in lower growth service and retail sectors (table 2). these size and industry gaps between women-and men-owned firms represent opportunities for women entrepreneurs going forward. in light of that, our question becomes “how can we address and exploit those opportunities?” within the framework of this article, we will focus on issues of human and social capital by exploring the educational, training, and support needs of women seeking to launch innovative firms. in doing so, coleman, s., et al., unlocking innovation, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 103 we will utilize data on innovative practices from a sample of male and female entrepreneurs in the united states. prior research the role of education, experience, and attitudes human capital refers to the education and experience that individuals accumulate, and it is an essential ingredient for entrepreneurial success (coleman, 2005; ibid., 2007; schiller & crewson, 1997; watson et al., 1998). prior research indicates, however, that women entrepreneurs often have different types of human capital than men (boden & nucci, 2000; fairlie & robb, 2009). in terms of educational background, although more women than men actually attend college (national center for education statistics fast facts, 2009), women tend to choose different majors. specifically, women are less likely to major in business, engineering, or computer science, all fields that tend to supply a steady stream of aspiring entrepreneurs (bobbitt-zeher, 2007; menzies et al., 2004; zafar, 2009). census data also reveals that women are significantly less likely than men to have advanced degrees which could lead to specialized knowledge in highly skilled growth-oriented fields. previous studies suggest that prior employment as well as managerial and entrepreneurial experience are just as important, if not more so, than education in predicting the success of new ventures (boden & nucci, 2000; carter et al., 1997). prior experience gives entrepreneurs confidence and provides them with a “tool kit” for dealing with a broad range of challenges. although a high percentage of women are in the workforce today, few rise beyond the ranks of middle managers (cross & linehan, 2006; daniel, 2004; tai & sims, 2005). thus, few women have the opportunity to acquire experience at the most senior ranks of organizations. in light of these factors, it is probably not surprising that there is a significantly smaller percentage of women entrepreneurs than men (minniti, 2010; reynolds, 2002). further, the majority of highly innovative and growth-oriented entrepreneurial ventures that eventually become household names such as facebook, amazon.com, apple computer, microsoft, and google, are launched by men. some researchers have found that when women do join innovative firms, particularly those in maledominated fields, they often feel isolated and describe an environment that journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 104 is hostile and unwelcoming (crump et al., 2007; treanor et al., 2010). the upshot is that many leave not only the firm, but the industry as well (becker-blease et al., 2010). another area where differences have been noted between women and men is the area of self confidence or “self-efficacy”. self-efficacy refers to the belief that one has the necessary skills to launch and successfully manage a business (boyd & vozikis, 1994). prior research suggests that women entrepreneurs may not have the same level of self confidence as men (allen et al., 2008; wilson et al., 2007; wilson et al., 2009). this perception may, in turn, hamper them from believing in their own abilities to develop innovative opportunities. interestingly enough, women are also less likely to even characterize themselves as entrepreneurs than men. thus, women may be less likely to view themselves as being innovative or creative. previous studies also attest to the fact that many women entrepreneurs continue to have an ambivalent attitude toward the rapid growth that one often associates with highly successful innovative companies (cliff, 1998; morris et al. 2006; orser & hogarth-scott, 2002; watson & newby, 2005). unlike men, women are less likely to define success in terms of firm size and earnings (carter et al., 2003; kepler & shane, 2007). alternatively, they are more concerned with the risks associated with rapid growth and a loss of control, and they prefer a more moderate and manageable rate of growth for their firms. prior research also suggests that a number of women start their firms with the specific objective of balancing the demands of work and family (walker & webster, 2004; walker et al., 2008). in light of that goal, women may be less likely to embrace the demands of rapid growth which could interfere with family priorities (cliff, 1998; morris et al., 2006). an assessment of education and training programs for women entrepreneurs there is a general agreement by researchers that entrepreneurship can be taught (henry et al., 2005; vesper, 1982). at the same time, there is little consistency in terms of opinions on how it should be taught (sexton et al., 1997) leading to a broad array of educational programs. a number of researchers have pointed out that efforts to evaluate education and training programs and to identify best practices have been weak or lacking in many instances (henry et al., 2007; mcmullan et al., 2001; storey, 2000). in coleman, s., et al., unlocking innovation, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 105 spite of these shortcomings, certain themes regarding educational and training needs and priorities for women entrepreneurs have emerged. for starters, a review of empirical studies addressing the impact of education on entrepreneurial selection and performance found that higher levels of education raise enterprise income (van der sluis et al., 2005). further, this effect was particularly pronounced for women. in terms of specific skills and competencies, one study of women entrepreneurs in ireland identified the importance of building self-confidence and greater self-esteem (tynan et al., 2009). this same study noted the importance of developing networking skills and involving female advisors and mentors in training. in their “lessons learned” these researchers concluded that training programs for women entrepreneurs need to develop both “soft skills” such as confidence building, work/life balance, and networking, as well as “hard skills” directed to content areas such as strategy, finance, sales, and marketing. a second study of middle, high school, and mba students also focused on the issue of self confidence, and found that entrepreneurship education played a key role in raising levels of selfefficacy in girls and young women (wilson et al., 2007). this, in turn, encouraged more young women to pursue entrepreneurship. several studies have specifically examined the educational and training needs of women growth-oriented and technology-based firms. a literature review on women in the information technology field noted that women lack access to networks that would help them advance their careers and gain valuable experience (ahuja, 2002). this same article noted a lack of role models and mentors as well as guidance on strategies for balancing work and family. a study of the needs and preferences for training among growth-oriented women entrepreneurs in england found a high level of demand for programs focusing on innovation and opportunity recognition (roomi & harrison, 2008). respondents also expressed a desire for training that would help them develop networking and negotiating skills. in a subsequent study, these same authors found that a high percentage of women felt that appropriate business training was an important contributor to firm growth (roomi et al., 2009). nevertheless, only 41 percent of the participants in the study had actually received such training, leading the authors to call for the development of specific business and technical training programs for growth-oriented women entrepreneurs. a study of gender differences in patenting found that the gap between female and male faculty in the life sciences is narrowing (ding et journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 106 al., 2006). nevertheless, women faculty secure patents at only 40 percent of the rate of men. the authors of this study found that women are disadvantaged by lack of exposure to the commercial sector and contacts in industry. similarly, a later study of irish entrepreneurs found that women were under-represented in campus incubator programs which could provide access to training and key contacts as well as services (treanor & henry, 2010). our review of prior research seems to point to differences between women and men entrepreneurs in the areas of human and social capital that lend themselves to opportunities for education and training. in particular, women appear to benefit from programs that increase self confidence or “self-efficacy”. further, they express a desire for programs that will help them build their skills in the areas of networking, negotiations, and managing the work/life balance. finally, there is some evidence that women benefit from education and training in specific business skills as well as skills that will help them to recognize, develop, and commercialize innovative opportunities. in this article we will explore the extent to which women entrepreneurs engage in innovation as well as the ways in which they innovate. further, through our findings, we will expand upon the collective understanding of the educational and training needs of women entrepreneurs as they relate to recognizing and developing innovative ideas. data and characteristics data for this research were drawn from a study on innovation in women-owned firms sponsored by the united nations commission on trade and development (unctad). the u.s. survey was administered electronically using survey monkey in november of 2010. participants were drawn from a variety of groups targeting entrepreneurs, small firms, and women business owners. these included the national association of women business owners, the women’s business enterprise national council, the women presidents’ organization, and xconomy.com. firms were also drawn from the u.s. small business administration’s dynamic small business search listing and through social networking sites such as facebook, linkedin, and twitter. a total of 196 usable surveys were returned; 69 from men and 127 from women. coleman, s., et al., unlocking innovation, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 107 several of the questions in the survey targeted demographic and firm information. women business owners were somewhat older than men business owners. this finding suggests that women may postpone launching their firms until they no longer have young children in the home. what is your current age? female male percent 25-34 3.2% 11.6% 35-44 26.2% 20.3% 45-54 30.2% 24.6% 55-64 31.7% 33.3% 65 or older 8.7% 10.1% answered question 126 69 skipped question 1 0 both women and men entrepreneurs in our survey were well educated overall; over 80 percent completed a college or post-graduate degree program. thus, both women and men possessed relatively high levels of human capital in the form of education. men were more likely to have completed a master’s, doctorate, or other graduate degree than women, however (58% vs. 49.6%). what is the highest level of education you have achieved? female male percent secondary school or less 0.8% 0.0% some college or similar 16.5% 14.5% bachelor’s degree 33.1% 27.5% post-graduate degree (master’s, doctorate, other graduate degree) 49.6% 58.0% answered question 127 69 skipped question 0 0 the owners in our survey are more highly educated than business owners overall, but these patterns are similar to those from the 2007 survey of business owners. as shown in table 3, about a quarter of business owners had a college degree, regardless of gender. however, men were more likely to have a graduate degree than women (19.9% vs. 16.2%). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 108 table 3: education by gender female male highest level of school completed prior to acquiring business firms (number) firms (%) firms (number) firms (%) less than high school graduate 324,706 4.3 721,696 5.8 high school graduate – diploma or ged 1,573,922 21.0 2,542,513 20.3 technical, trade, or vocational school 524,562 7.0 740,802 5.9 some college, but no degree 1,375,383 18.3 2,026,840 16.2 associate degree 559,521 7.5 625,763 5.0 bachelor’s degree 1,921,495 25.6 3,356,255 26.9 master’s, doctorate, or professional degree 1,216,974 16.2 2,481,564 19.9 total reporting 7,496,563 100.0 12,495,433 100.0 all owners of respondent firms 7,650,490 12,772,930 source: 2007 survey of business owners yet, in spite of their relatively high levels of educational attainment, women entrepreneurs were less likely to have human capital in the form of prior senior management experience (31.7% vs. 41.2%). this finding is consistent with prior research indicating that, in spite of gains in the workplace, women have still not fully penetrated the senior ranks of management (becker-blease et al., 2010). which one of the following best describes the position you held immediately prior to starting this business? female male percent executive or senior management in another business/organization 31.7% 41.2% middle management 25.2% 22.1% professional (doctor, attorney, etc 17.1% 13.2% technical/clerical/service position 6.5% 8.8% student or teacher 7.3% 8.8% out of the workforce 3.3% 1.5% owner of another business 8.9% 4.4% other (please specify) 4.1% 2.9% answered question 123 68 skipped question 4 1 our findings revealed that women were much more likely to be the sole owners of their firms than men (68.8% vs. 33.8%). this has coleman, s., et al., unlocking innovation, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 109 implications for the level of resources available to the firm in the form of human, social, and financial capital. it stands to reason that multiple owners would provide a broader, and possibly deeper, range of both education and experience. further, sole owners might have a more difficult time participating in activities that would help to develop human or social capital.   how many other people or organizations currently have an ownership share in your business, excluding you? female male percent 0 68.8% 33.8% 1 16.8% 22.1% 2 8.8% 10.3% 3 or more 5.6% 33.8% answered question 125 68 skipped question 2 1 from the standpoint of firm characteristics, and consistent with prior research, our survey results revealed noteworthy gender differences in industry concentration, as well as size, in terms of both sales and number of employees. women-owned firms were less likely to be in the fields of manufacturing, information and communication, and professional/scientific/technical activities and more likely to be in retail and service industries and finance and insurance. in what industry is your business? female male percent manufacturing 5.5% 11.1% water supply; sewage, waste management and remediation activities 1.8% 0.0% construction 2.7% 4.8% wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles 4.5% 1.6% transportation and storage 2.7% 0.0% accommodation and food service activities 1.8% 4.8% information and communication 8.2% 25.4% finance and insurance 6.4% 1.6% real estate activities 3.6% 1.6% journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 110 professional, scientific and technical activities 25.5% 31.7% administrative support service activities 6.4% 0.0% education 3.6% 0.0% human health and social work activities 5.5% 4.8% arts, entertainment, recreation 3.6% 4.8% other service activities 18.2% 7.9% answered question 110 63 skipped question 17 6 nearly 40 percent of women-owned firms had revenues of less than $50,000 per year, compared with just over 30 percent of businesses owned by men. also, a substantially higher percentage of men-owned firms had revenues in excess of $1 million (27.9% vs. 15.6%). what were the approximate sales of your business in 2009? female male percent under $50,000 39.1% 30.9% $50,000 $99,999 14.8% 8.8% $100,000 $249,999 13.0% 14.7% $250,000 $499,999 6.1% 4.4% $500,000 $999,999 11.3% 13.2% $1,000,000 $4,999,999 11.3% 17.6% $5,000,000 or more 4.3% 10.3% answered question 115 68 skipped question 12 1 the pattern of employment was similar. women entrepreneurs were more likely to have no employees aside from themselves (36.2% vs. 23.2%) and a much higher percentage of men-owned firms had more than 50 employees (11.6% vs. 1.6%). coleman, s., et al., unlocking innovation, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 111 how many full-time equivalent employees (including part-time and contract workers) does your primary business currently employ, not including yourself? female male percent none in addition to myself 36.2% 23.2% 1-4 employees 37.0% 31.9% 5-9 employees 11.8% 15.9% 10-49 employees 13.4% 17.4% 50+ employees 1.6% 11.6% answered question 127 69 skipped question 0 0 there were also substantial gender differences in the growth intentions of survey respondents. women were significantly more likely to say that they wanted steady growth over the next five years than men (63.9% vs. 49.3%). conversely, a much higher percentage of male business owners sought to grow their businesses into large enterprises that would eventually be sold or taken public (33.3% vs. 16.4%). which one of the following comes closest to describing your business growth strategy over the next five years? female male percent to maintain your business at its current size, mainly to provide income for your family and your employees 9.0% 10.1% to grow your business at a steady rate to provide increasing opportunities for your employees and the community. 63.9% 49.3% to grow your business into a large enterprise that may someday be sold or go public 16.4% 33.3% to prepare to sell or close 9.0% 5.8% to pass on your business to your children 1.6% 1.4% answered question 122 69 skipped question 5 0 motivations for starting the business were also quite different by gender. male business owners were more likely to state that their motivation was the need they saw in the market for an entirely new product or service compared to women (23.9% vs. 5.8%). nearly 20 percent of journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 112 women said their main motivation was to fulfill a dream or realize a passion, compared with just 12 percent of male business owners. consistent with earlier studies, women were also almost twice as likely as men to cite greater flexibility or control over time as their motivation (14% vs. 7.5%). which of the following comes closest to describing why you started your female male percent to fill a need i saw in the market for an entirely new 5.8% 23.9% to fill a need i saw in the market for an improvement in an existing product/service 17.4% 14.9% because i identified a very profitable area for business (low wages, cheap inputs, new fashion) 5.0% 1.5% to make more money 3.3% 9.0% to gain greater flexibility, control of my time 14.0% 7.5% to become more independent/ to do for myself what i had been doing for others 24.0% 22.4% to fulfill a dream, realize a passion 19.8% 11.9% to supplement the family income 0.0% 1.5% to be example for my children or in society 4.1% 0.0% because i did not have any other choice/ lost job, laid off/ to 5.0% 6.0% i inherited the business from another person 1.7% 1.5% answered question 121 67 skipped question 6 2 educational and training needs and priorities several of the questions in our survey provide valuable insights into the educational and training needs of women entrepreneurs. one question, in particular, targeted their views on innovation and creativity as it applied to themselves. we found that women had similar views to men in terms of the importance of innovation and creativity in the operation of their businesses. nevertheless, they had very different views on their own abilities to be innovative or creative. women were more likely to agree or strongly agree with the statement that they had some innovative ideas, but didn’t know how to coleman, s., et al., unlocking innovation, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 113 implement them (40.5% vs. 25.7%). this finding may suggest that women have less confidence in their ability to innovate than men. alternatively, it may suggest that women have less knowledge and experience in terms of transforming innovative ideas into business opportunities. women were also more likely to agree or strongly agree with the statement that they could be more innovative if they had more examples or role models, or if they could take part in some type of educational program (38.7% vs. 30.9%). these responses highlight the importance of role models and mentors for women entrepreneurs, a finding that is consistent with prior research. they also reflect the value that women place on education as a means for achieving their goals as well as their willingness to participate in educational programs and activities. here are some statements that business owners have made concerning their views on innovation and creativity. for each one, please tell us if you strongly agree, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, or strongly disagree. females 4. strongly agree 3. agree somewhat 2. disagree somewhat 1. strongly disagree i don’t know innovation and creativity are important tenets of my business operation 73.2% 23.6% 3.1% 0.0% 0.0% being innovative takes too much time and money, and is not very important to my business at this time. 0.0% 4.0% 17.6% 76.8% 1.6% it’s much easier for larger businesses to be innovative than for smaller firms. 6.3% 15.7% 24.4% 53.5% 0.8% i have some innovative ideas, but i don’t know how to implement them 4.8% 35.7% 27.8% 32.5% 0.8% i could be more innovative in my business if i had more examples or role models from other businesses, or by participating in an educational program. 8.1% 30.6% 29.0% 29.8% 4.8% answered question 127 skipped question 0 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 114 males 4. strongly agree 3. agree somewhat 2. disagree somewhat 1. strongly disagree i don’t know innovation and creativity are important tenets of my business operation 73.5% 25.0% 1.5% 0.0% 0.0% being innovative takes too much time and money, and is not very important to my business at this time. 0.0% 2.9% 14.7% 82.4% 0.0% it’s much easier for larger businesses to be innovative than for smaller firms. 1.5% 11.8% 22.1% 64.7% 0.0% i have some innovative ideas, but i don’t know how to implement them 4.5% 21.2% 24.2% 48.5% 1.5% i could be more innovative in my business if i had more examples or role models from other businesses, or by participating in an educational program. 4.4% 26.5% 22.1% 41.2% 5.9% answered question 68 skipped question 1 consistent with the responses for the previous question, our findings also revealed that women were more likely to attend different types of training sessions than men. as suggested by prior research, education and training provide a way for women to gain the types of human capital that will help them succeed as entrepreneurs. further, education and training can help women gain confidence in their skills and abilities as they simultaneously acquire new ones. women were also more likely to join a business chamber, association, or cooperative than men (85.7% vs. 67.2%). this finding highlights the fact that women recognize the value of social capital and are willing to invest the time and energy required to build and sustain key networks and contacts. men were much more likely to participate in a trade fair in the u.s. (57.4% vs. 31%) or in a trade mission to another country (16.4% vs. 4%). men were also more likely than women to take part in a government sponsored business development or assistance program (23% vs. 11.9%). coleman, s., et al., unlocking innovation, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 115 these discrepancies suggest areas of opportunity for women entrepreneurs. trade fairs can open up new markets leading to firm growth and profits, while government programs often provide a mix of resources in the form of financial, human, and social capital. many involve training and educational activities, the development of networks and contacts, and access to business opportunities and markets. have you ever done any of the following since you started your business? if yes, please check those that were really effective for your business. female male percent joined a business chamber, association or cooperative 85.7% 67.2% attended a training session or class focused on entrepreneurial skills 67.5% 44.3% attended a training session or class focused on general business management skills 47.6% 32.8% attended a training session or class focused on marketing and sales skills 64.3% 34.4% attended a training session or class focused on financial management skills 38.1% 19.7% attended a training session or class focused on technology or innovative topics 47.6% 36.1% participated in a trade fair within your own country 31.0% 57.4% participated in a trade mission to another country 4.0% 16.4% organized internal training courses for your employees or encouraged them to follow external training courses 35.7% 31.1% been accepted into any sort of government sponsored business development/assistance program 11.9% 23.0% answered question 126 61 skipped question 1 8 in terms of networking and information sharing, women were much more likely to meet weekly or monthly with other business owners to share ideas and experiences (78.6% vs. 46.3%). a much higher percentage of women also attended conferences or business meetings with other business owners either weekly or monthly than men (61.6% vs. 39.7%). conversely, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 116 men met with business advisors, senior managers, and company employees to discuss business planning and strategies more frequently than women. these findings may suggest that women engage in more “general” networking strategies, while men focus on more “targeted” networking strategies. a possible implication of this is that there may be opportunities for women to learn to use their networking time and efforts more effectively by focusing on the specific areas that would improve the performance of their firms. few business owners, of either gender, met with any frequency with local or regional government officials about their business challenges or needs. this suggests a largely untapped area of opportunity for women entrepreneurs in the form of learning how to influence and shape public policy. how frequently do you … females 5. at least weekly 4. once or twice a month 3. a few times a year 2. never 1. i don’t know meet with other business owners to share ideas and experiences 27.0% 51.6% 19.0% 2.4% 0.0% talk to local or regional government officials about your business challenges or needs 0.8% 4.9% 39.8% 52.8% 1.6% attend business meetings or conferences with other business owners 11.2% 50.4% 36.0% 2.4% 0.0% travel outside your own community to either market your business or to learn new business skills 4.0% 19.2% 52.0% 22.4% 2.4% meet with your business advisors (such as an attorney, accountant, advisory board, or mentor) to discuss business plans and challenges 6.5% 22.6% 54.8% 16.1% 0.0% meet with employees or senior managers in your company to discuss issues beyond day-to-day challenges – like growth strategies or business planning 27.9% 26.2% 16.4% 22.1% 7.4% answered question 126 skipped question 1 coleman, s., et al., unlocking innovation, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 117 males 5. at least weekly 4. once or twice a month 3. a few times a year 2. never 1. i don’t know meet with other business owners to share ideas and experiences 18.8% 27.5% 37.7% 15.9% 0.0% talk to local or regional government officials about your business challenges or needs 1.4% 7.2% 36.2% 55.1% 0.0% attend business meetings or conferences with other business owners 8.8% 30.9% 41.2% 19.1% 0.0% travel outside your own community to either market your business or to learn new business skills 4.3% 26.1% 46.4% 23.2% 0.0% meet with your business advisors (such as an attorney, accountant, advisory board, or mentor) to discuss business plans and challenges 13.0% 17.4% 58.0% 11.6% 0.0% meet with employees or senior managers in your company to discuss issues beyond day-to-day challenges – like growth strategies or business planning 34.8% 26.1% 15.9% 20.3% 2.9% answered question 69 skipped question 0 our results provide insights into marked gender differences in terms of the issues that are most important to our sample of entrepreneurs. not surprisingly, many of these have implications for education and training. women felt that gaining access to training and technical assistance was more important than men (3.2 vs. 2.6). similarly, women were more concerned about keeping up with the latest technology (4.1 vs. 3.7) and learning more about gaining access to new markets (3.8 vs. 3.3). one of the widest gaps between women and men came in the area of dealing with social and cultural issues and being taken seriously as a business owner (3.3 vs. 2.7). this response, in particular, may reflect lower levels of selfefficacy or self confidence on the part of women entrepreneurs. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 118 using a five-point scale, where 5 means extremely important, 3 moderately important, and 1 not important at all, how important are each of the following issues for you in your business at the present time? female male female/male average response difference access to capital for current business needs 3.6 3.6 0.0 access to capital for longer-term capital investment and growth 3.4 3.5 -0.1 finding and keeping qualified employees 4.0 3.9 0.1 access to training and technical assistance to learn business and financial management skills 3.2 2.6 0.6 keeping up with the latest technology (gaining access to technology for my business) 4.1 3.7 0.4 access to specialized suppliers for staying ahead of the competition 3.2 2.9 0.3 reforming laws and regulations that hamper business growth 3.4 2.9 0.5 eliminating corruption among government officials/ need for payoffs, bribes 3.1 2.2 0.9 diminishing high cost of public services (water, electricity, telecommunications) 2.8 2.3 0.5 access to property, land, business premises 2.5 2.3 0.2 learning more about gaining access to new markets for business expansion 3.8 3.3 0.5 dealing with social and cultural issues/being taken seriously as a business owner 3.3 2.7 0.6 answered question 127 69 skipped question 0 0 discussion and conclusion this article describes the results of a survey on the innovative practices of a sample of u.s. firms. survey responses reveal marked differences between women and men in attitudes toward innovation and the extent to which they innovate in their own firms. these differences have implications for the education and training of women entrepreneurs who are growing in terms of both numbers and economic impact. coleman, s., et al., unlocking innovation, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 119 from the standpoint of human capital, our survey results point to opportunities in the areas of both education and experience. although survey respondents were well educated on average, men were more likely to have advanced degrees that typically provide specialized types of knowledge and skills. further, although a high percentage of women were employed, women were much less likely to have prior experience at the executive or senior management levels, consistent with prior research. in terms of industry distribution, women business owners were more heavily clustered in the highly competitive service and retail fields, while men were more heavily represented in more growth-oriented fields including manufacturing, information/communication and professional/scientific and technical activities. our survey results also reveal that women-owned firms were small and were less likely to have growth intentions, also consistent with prior research. these discrepancies highlight the continued need to provide girls and young women with a full range of educational and leadership opportunities to help them become aware of their options at an early age. as an example, the nsf advance program seeks to increase the number of female faculty in the stem disciplines, thereby indirectly benefiting college-age students. there is also a need for programs that target young women at an even earlier age; junior high or high school. by making girls aware of the types of careers that are available to them, and by providing role models and mentors, an increasing number of young women will be encouraged to develop the skills in science, math, and technology. these skills and the positive attitudes that accompany them will equip a new generation of young women for careers and entrepreneurial opportunities in innovative firms. from the perspective of leadership development, innovative firms also have a role to play in hiring women and creating an environment that is both female-friendly and family-friendly. as an added measure, firms can design programs to identify women employees with leadership potential and provide them with the experiences and training that will help them advance their careers. within our survey, several questions specifically targeted the attitudes of women entrepreneurs and their perceptions regarding educational needs and priorities. our findings reveal that women are very open to a variety of types of training opportunities and see the value of continuing education. this willingness to engage in ongoing educational activities provides an opportunity to develop and deliver programs journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 120 targeting specific needs such as developing innovative ideas, securing a patent, steps in the commercialization process, raising capital, exporting, or influencing public policy, to name just a few. these programs can be short term in nature and highly focused to minimize time spent away from the firm. our results also reveal that women are aware of the importance of building social capital in the form of networks and key contacts. our results demonstrate that a very high percentage of women engaged in networking activities by joining a business chamber or organization. there is some indication, however, that women would benefit from learning how to engage in more “targeted” networking strategies, those that would provide them access to specific resources or help them to improve their firms’ performance. an entrepreneur’s time is one of her most scarce resources, so learning to link social capital and performance would allow her to reap high returns on her networking activities. responses to several of our survey questions suggest that women may have less confidence in their ability to identify and develop innovative ideas. this pattern of responses may fall into the area of “self-efficacy” or the belief that one has the necessary skills to start and operate a business. prior research attests to the importance of education and training in building self confidence in women entrepreneurs, and our survey results confirm those findings. women were more likely to agree with the statement that they have some innovative ideas but don’t know how to implement them. women also expressed a higher level of concern with being taken seriously as a business owner. in light of these findings, we see opportunities for educational programs that link new and aspiring entrepreneurs with successful entrepreneurs who can serve as role models and mentors, a need that our women entrepreneurs also stressed. women who have already developed innovative firms “know the ropes”, and they can provide guidance and encouragement to women who are just getting started. as the diana project researchers have pointed out, there is an increasing supply of women who have launched successful and growthoriented innovative firms (brush et al., 2001). these seasoned entrepreneurs can provide both knowledge and support to those who follow. one limitation of this study is that it focuses on the experience of a relatively small number of women and men entrepreneurs in the united states. further research could explore the extent to which our findings can coleman, s., et al., unlocking innovation, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 99-125) 121 be generalized to a larger sample of u.s. firms or firms located in other countries. similarly, our sample of business owners is largely a convenience sample composed of entrepreneurs who chose to respond to an on-line survey. it is not a stratified, random sample. finally, this sample of firms represents a broad range of industries. it would also be worthwhile to explore the experience of women and men entrepreneurs in industries that are typically characterized as being highly innovative. these might include technology-based industries and those in the field of bio-science. this would allow us to determine if women and men employ different innovative strategies and perceive different types of educational and training needs in a narrower range of highly innovative industries. references [1] ahuja, m.k. 2002. “women in the information technology profession: a literature review, synthesis and research agenda.” european journal of information systems 11: 20-34 [2] allen, i. elaine, amanda elam, nan langowitz, and monica dean. 2008. global entrepreneurship monitor 2007 report on women and 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334.722-055.2(65) jel: b54, l26, j16 id: 207721740 original scientific research social change and women entrepreneurship in algeria ghiat boufeldja1 department of sociology and psychology moi university, kenya a b s t r a c t algerian women had a culture of staying at home, but with the beginning of this century, the algerian women are holding positions of responsibility. many of them chose to be entrepreneurs, which demonstrate that the country is living profound social and cultural changes. the current environment in algeria promotes access to education and training for girls, but the socio-cultural environment remains a difficult obstacle to overcome for women. few years ago, to see women as entrepreneurs was inconceivable in a male and conservative society. despite the improving economy, algeria is experiencing a high rate of unemployment, including the young graduates. this motivated the state to adopt a policy of youth employment, by granting them financial facilities, in order to create their own businesses. these factors have encouraged women who graduated to venture into entrepreneurship businesses. 22 female entrepreneurs were interviewed and the impact of social, cultural changes and attitudes in algerian society were explored. the results from this study showed that the algerian society is undergoing big socio-cultural changes and women entrepreneurs became a usual matter in algeria. in spite of this facts, the majority of them complain of socio-cultural constraints. the purpose of this paper is to study the socio-cultural changes and constraints of women entrepreneurs in algeria. it also highlights the support received by them from their families, to confront the constraints of a male society. 1 e-mail: ghiat_boufelja@yahoo.fr 120 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 119-131) key words: women entrepreneurship, socio-cultural change, gender and work introduction after its independence, algeria inherited a devastated economy, low structures of education and training, as well as the spread of illiteracy and poverty. this led to a backward socio-cultural situation, including the position and role of women in society. algeria experienced during the sixties of the 20th century, major changes in political, economic and in the socio-cultural environments. it went through a period of socialism (1962-1988), and then the opening of the market economy as a result of globalization. the changes have affected methods of work and working culture, especially the work of the women who went from working at home, to doing agriculture on farms, to craftsmanship, to working in managerial positions, to entrepreneurship and holding political responsibilities. after a period of economic expansion which lasted until the 70s of the 20th century, algeria has experienced a period of crisis, following the drop in oil prices the only important resource revenues in foreign currency and the state was forced to borrow from the world bank which asked unpopular conditions. this has led to the privatization and closure of several state companies, as well as the dismissal of thousands of workers. driven by the huge deficit in job in algeria and influenced by the success of entrepreneurship strategy in europe and the united states, algeria embarked on a strategy to encourage young people to start their own businesses, and participate in the creation of jobs and wealth. a strategy of entrepreneurship started in late '80s, thanks to liberal economic reforms, entrepreneurship emerged and grew, i.e. 91 % of existing enterprises in 2005 were created after 1990 (hammouda & lassassi, 2007) and since, the number of companies continues to increase. "at the end of 2008, the number of private smes amounted to 392,013 and more than 126,887 artisans. indeed, the entrepreneurship became the cornerstone of economic development" (berreziga & meziane, 2012, p. 1). entrepreneurship has become a strategy for youth employment and socio -economic development. "small business is poised to acquire a dual legitimacy. social firstly, it is related to the factors of self-realization and social integration. and economic, as tpe / pme have been in recent years ghiat, b., women entrepreneurship in algeria, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 119-131) 121 spearheaded producing innovations, development of new services and creating jobs" (tunes, 2003, p. 13). enterprises managed by young women are generally micro or small, with simple means of production in general, so we registered the absence of pressure for technological change. but the fact that these companies are active in an underdeveloped environment puts them under strong sociocultural pressures. the objectives of this study are to illuminate the economic and societal changes and their impacts on the socio-cultural environment, which led to female entrepreneurship activities in algeria. education and social change: in algeria, as a developing country, the woman remained in the background in the social and economic life. salman al-abboudi has reported that "in morocco, women have long been a back plant by traditions and customs value of man in relation to the position of woman and confirmed their superiority over them" (salman al-abboudi, 2012, p.1) . this applies to the algerian woman since the two countries share the same socio-cultural values, and belong to the muslim civilization. figure 1: social change and development of entrepreneurial culture socio-economic environment socio-cultural environment cultural status of working women socio-cultural constraints of women at educative development socio-economic development socio-cultural changes 122 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 119-131) with social, economic and educational development, the status of women has clearly improved, which has allowed the girls to engage in higher education, and move more towards professional activities. as a result of the economic crisis, the deficit of work places and the failure of the government to create more jobs. state structures for youth employment have been created to encourage them to create their own businesses. women entrepreneurship in algeria: algerian society has undergone major social changes, which have accelerated since the eighties of the twentieth century. algerian legislation regarding education and work, does not discriminate the sexes. as mentioned by nouara ja'far, former associate minister for the family: "on the one hand, there is the law that puts men and women on an equal footing. but on the other hand, the disparity between the sexes is still raging on the ground. in fact, it's a problem of mentality" (belkhiri, 2012). the fact that the majority of the algerian university students are female gender, we find that women tend strongly to professional activities. despite their entry to entrepreneurial activities, the algerian women remain attached to their families and socio-cultural values, that often hinder the success and growth of their businesses (tounés & assala, 2007). figure 2: change and development of entrepreneurial behaviour socio-economic environment political changes educational changes economical changes value changes attitudes changes behaviour changes comportements socio-cultural women entrepreneurship ghiat, b., women entrepreneurship in algeria, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 119-131) 123 the choice of algerian women of entrepreneurship as a job is the result of several changes, political, educational and economic. 1. political changes: algeria has opted for socialism after its independence, and after the events of october 1988, it opened to multiparty system, which gave more democracy, and to liberal economy which has affected the political, social and economic life environment. the important companies were public and state owned, and private initiatives to create enterprises were not allowed. after that event, and with the political changes, the private initiatives became encouraged. 2. educational change: algeria has invested heavily in education, vocational training and higher education. the educational factors had a significant impact on the societal level of instruction, including girls graduating from algerian universities. this is due to the education policy which has become a requirement and compulsory for all algerian children without discrimination between genders. this had an impact on the development of training and training needed for the algerian economy. the girls were found keener on the study, and nowadays most university students are girls, in most fields of study, even those traditionally known as male technical specialties. 3. economic changes: the availability of financial resources from the hydrocarbon export revenues, and the openness to the market economy encouraged the investments in social and economic infrastructures. algeria invested heavily in different industrial sectors, such as the petrochemical, mechanical and food industries, in order to meet their consumption needs and to reduce imports. these changes had an impact on the socio-cultural life, attitudes and behaviours of the young from the two genres, as workers, managers and entrepreneurs, as well as their attitudes towards the work of women in algeria. female entrepreneurship has become obvious, and the engagement in dynamic socio-cultural changes. that is used as a means for gaining more power in their battle for empowerment, in seeking equality between genders in algerian society. the economic, educative development of algeria, as well as the development of the communication technology led to major social changes in culture and attitudes towards the work of women in algerian society. in spite of accepting the work of women in different rectors and economic, social and political activities, women are still facing cultural 124 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 119-131) constraints while carrying out their occupational duties even as managers and entrepreneurs. problematic: although entrepreneurship is an economic activity open to both sexes, the majority of entrepreneurs are male. entrepreneurship was related to public works and building, that requires physical force. consequently, women were not attracted by entrepreneurship professions. the democratization of education and its orientation of women towards scientific and technological fields of study have pushed them to be more and more interested in jobs related to their trainings and scientific backgrounds. as a result of encouraging youth by the state towards entrepreneurship, women became interested in this profession, traditionally reserved for men. if men in a society of males culture, meet insurmountable difficulties during the process of creating and managing businesses, the case is more complex for women in a traditional and hostile environment. the social changes, cultures and attitudes towards women creating their enterprises and managing them, and supervising men in a male society, are aspects that need to be highlighted. hypotheses: from the stated problematic, the following hypotheses were put in order to guide our practical research. 1. algerian society is going through major cultural changes. 2. the educational level of women entrepreneurs is higher than male entrepreneurs. 3. the desire of women to have more power and freedom, are behind the choice of entrepreneurship professions. 4. women entrepreneurs feel their status improved because of being entrepreneurs. 5. the success of women entrepreneurs in algeria requires changing attitudes methodology: in order to get data about the impact changes on women entrepreneurship in algeria, qualitative methods trough interviews and quantitative methods through questionnaires were used to collect data about social and cultural changes, and their impacts on managerial practices of women entrepreneurs in algeria. ghiat, b., women entrepreneurship in algeria, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 119-131) 125 data collection: a questionnaire was developed and filed in by 22 women entrepreneurs, in order to answer questions about their profiles, their enterprises and their socio-cultural constraints. the following points were explored: − the educational level of women entrepreneurs. − economic activity of parents. − the motive behind the choice of entrepreneurial business. − the social perception of the woman entrepreneur. − the societal acceptability of women as owner and managers of enterprises. − the feeling of autonomy and independence of women entrepreneurs. results: the data from a sample of 22 women entrepreneurs was analysed, and helped to draw the following conclusions: population: 22 questionnaires were filled by women entrepreneurs in the region of oran. 12 of them are married with children, and 14 of them have a university degree. personal information: table 1: level of instruction med. school secondary university total level of instruction 01 07 14 22 % 4.54 % 31.81 % 63.00 % 100 % following table 1, the majority of women entrepreneurs (63%) have a university degree. table 2: marital status and ages of the sample: age marital status single married total 20 30 04 18.18% 02 09.09% 06 3140 04 18.18% 05 22.72% 09 4150 01 04.54% 03 13.64% 04 51 and more 00 00 % 03 13.64% 03 total 09 40.90 % 13 59.09% 22 126 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 119-131) the majority members of the sample, as indicated in table 2, are between 20 and 40 years; and 54.54% of them are married. information about the enterprise: table 3: main motivation behind the choice of professional activity: 1 reason for choice of the activity h.craft services indust pub.eng total 2 the activity of a family member 02 04 02 00 08 3 personal tendencies 01 03 01 01 06 4 the field of study 00 04 00 01 05 5 activity of husband 00 00 01 01 02 6 field for profit 00 00 01 00 01 total 03 11 05 03 22 the majority of enterprises in the sample (table 3) are in services, followed by industry. table 4: lifetime of the enterprise: number of workers years in business 2-9 10-19 20 – 29 more/30 total less than 5 years 05 05 01 00 11 5 -10 03 01 00 01 05 11-15 01 00 01 00 02 more than 15 years 03 00 00 01 04 total 12 06 02 02 22 the majority of businesses concerned by the study are small, newly created (under 5 years) and with a number of workers between (2 and 9) workers. ghiat, b., women entrepreneurship in algeria, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 119-131) 127 table 5: the socio-cultural constraints of women entrepreneurs in algeria. oui % non % parfois % 1 my employees are receptive to my instructions. 16 72.72 02 09.09 04 18.18 2 i have no difficulty communicating with men subordinates. 15 68.18 01 04.54 06 27.27 3 my status has improved with respect to the society after creating my business. 15 68.18 04 18.18 03 13.63 4 my success is not due to the fact that i am a woman. 14 63.63 06 27.27 02 09.09 5 to have successful women entrepreneurship requires radical change of attitudes. 12 54.54 07 31.81 03 13.63 6 men workers accept easily to be managed by a woman. 12 54.54 04 18.18 06 27.27 7 there is a competition between women entrepreneurs. 11 50.00 03 13.63 08 36.36 8 harassment of men does not bother me. 11 50.00 05 22.72 07 31.81 9 there is a jealousy between women entrepreneurs. 11 50.00 03 13.63 08 36.36 10 my competitors are jealous of me, because i am a successful woman. 11 50.00 07 31.81 04 18.18 11 the fact that i am a woman does not pose any problems for my business. 10 45.45 04 18.18 08 36.36 12 i have difficulties in communicating with my women subordinates. 10 45.45 10 45.45 02 09.09 13 the perception of male entrepreneurs about women entrepreneurs is significantly negative. 09 40.90 06 27.27 07 31.81 14 there is a cooperation between women entrepreneurs. 09 40.90 07 31.81 06 27.27 15 the algerian society perceives positively the position of women as entrepreneurs. 08 36.36 07 31.81 07 31.81 16 i prefer to deal with women entrepreneurs. 07 31.81 08 36.36 07 31.81 128 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 119-131) the results in table 6, showed the impacts of traditional culture on the managerial behavour of women entrepreneurs. discussions despite the growing number of women entrepreneurs in algeria, there is a lack of field researches in this aspect. the following discussion presents the results in relation to the observations of everyday life, and responses from interviews with women entrepreneurs. these results are compared with other research in the maghreb and the arab-muslim countries in general (rachdi, 2006; kilani, 1998). the majority of women entrepreneurs have a college degree. their instruction levels are higher than that of their parents. this explains why changes experienced by the algerian society. to a question about the motivation behind the choice of entrepreneurship business, the majority of women responded that they tend to have more power and freedom, and more consideration in society. they feel their status improved socially because they became entrepreneurs. despite the socio-cultural development of algerian society, much of the algerians resist, and do not accept to see women as entrepreneurs, which makes it more difficult to manage men. despite their success in managing their enterprises, most women entrepreneurs expressed the need for a change in mentality for the success of female entrepreneurship. despite the social change that took place during the last few decades, the majority of women entrepreneurs face socio-cultural constraints from their environments. the major problems of women entrepreneurs come from the attitudes of employees within their own enterprises and the socio-cultural environment. these cultural issues are related to many aspects of day to day life, as well as the human relations and managerial practices, as shown in table 5. regarding the perception of the women entrepreneurs by the society, 15 women stated that their status was improved after the creation of their own businesses, but only 8 responses found that the society regarded positively the position of the women entrepreneurs. among the socio-cultural issues, there is a high level of communication between genders. 15 responses indicated that they found no ghiat, b., women entrepreneurship in algeria, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 119-131) 129 difficulty in communicating with their men subordinates. to another question, 10 women entrepreneurs responded that they had problems in communicating with their women subordinates. regarding the fact of being managed by a woman, 12 responses (54.54%), have shown that employees accept to be supervised by women, and the majority of women entrepreneurs (16), responded that employees were receptive to their directives. it is obvious that subordinates in enterprises managed by women to accept this fact, because those who do not accept refuse to work in these enterprises, and choose to work with men entrepreneurs. among the cultural factors that influence the behaviour of women entrepreneurs, we find competition, cooperation and jealousy. half of the women entrepreneurs (50.00%) found that there was a competition between women entrepreneurs. on another question, 50% found that their competitors were jealous of them. the same number of entrepreneurs (11) found that there was jealousy between women entrepreneurs. in response to the question concerning the cooperation between women entrepreneurs (49.90 %) responded that there was cooperation, and (31.81% answered no to this question. asked "if they prefer to deal with women entrepreneurs' 07 of them, that was (31.81%) answered yes, and (36.36%) prefer not to deal with women entrepreneurs. regarding cooperation between men and women entrepreneurs, 9 responses (40.90%) found that the perception of men towards women entrepreneurs was significantly negative, and (50.00%) found that they were not disturbed by men’s harassment. to a question, whether their success is due to being women, the majority of women entrepreneurs (63.63%) responded that they did not think, that being a woman has an impact on their professional accomplishments; and (45.45%) responded that they did not see their problems at work, were due to the facts that they are women. finally, 11 women (50.00%) consider that the success of women entrepreneurs requires a radical change in the attitudes of people in algerian society. different responses show that women entrepreneurs face sociocultural constraints, as a result to attitudes, behaviors and practices of people in a male society. women entrepreneurs in algeria and in the maghreb in general, are related to their culture, and cannot be dissociated from their arab-muslim identity. if the working conditions of algerian women have changed 130 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 119-131) dramatically, "the attitudes and perceptions of society have not sufficiently evolved" (salman et al., 2012, p. 3). female entrepreneurship is not just an economic activity, employment or a way out of unemployment crisis, but a means of emancipation of women, expanding their power and freedom. female entrepreneurship is helping to change men/women relationships and the revolt of the latter against the traditional culture of submission in a male society. but that does not happen without social resistance, especially from men, defending their advantages, relying on moral and traditional values of the society. conclusions despite the efforts of the state in the field of training and media areas, and despite the changes and socio-cultural developments experienced by algerian society, changes in attitudes require more time and effort to raise awareness about a new culture of genres. few field studies were conducted in algeria to study the socio-cultural change and its impact on the attitudes and behaviors of women entrepreneurs in a traditional arab-muslim male 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(2003) l’entrepreneur : l’odyssée d’un concept. cahier de recherche n°03-73 du réseau de chercheurs « entrepreneuriat ». društvene promene i žensko preduzetništvo u alžiru a p s t r a k t žene u alžiru su bile deo kulture gde su one ostajale kući i nisu radile, ali sa početkom ovog veka, žene u alžiru se nalaze na odgovornim položajima. mnoge od njih su izabrale da budu preduzetnice, što pokazuje da zemlja prolazi kroz duboke društvene i kulturne promene. trenutno okruženje u alžiru promoviše pristup obrazovanju devojčica, ali ipak društveno kulturološko okruženje ostaje jedna teška prepreka preko koje žene alžira moraju preći. pre par godina, bilo je nezamislivo videti ženu preduzetnicu u muškom i konzervativnom društvu. uprkos ekonomiji koja je u razvoju, alžir se suočava sa visokim stopama nezaposlenosti, uključujući i mlade koji su visoko obrazovani. ovo je bila motivacija za državu da usvoji propise za zaposlenje mladih, odobravajući im finansijske olakšice da bi pokrenuli svoj biznis. ovi faktori su ohrabrili žene koje su visoko obrazovane da se upuste u preduzetništvo. intervijuisali smo 22 žene preduzetnice i istražili uticaj društvenih i kulturoloških promena i stavova na alžirsko društvo. rezultati istraživanja su pokazali da alžirsko društvo prolazi kroz velike društvene i kulturološke promene i da žene preduzetnice postaju uobičajena pojava u alžiru. uprkos ovim činjenicama, većina njih se žali na društveno kulturološka ograničenja. cilj ovog rada jeste da prouči društveno kulturološke promene i ograničenja za žene preduzetnice u alžiru. on takođe naglašava podršku koju žene dobijaju od svojih porodica u suočavanju sa preprekama muškog društva. ključne reči: žensko preduzetništvo, društveno kulturološke promene, pol i rad article history: received: 11 february, 2014 accepted: 29 april, 2014 book review dejan m. radulović’s book women in athens and sparta legal, economic and social position of women an introductory analysis of the historical, sociological, legal and economic aspects of social life in athens and sparta, the two largest ancient greek polises, serves the author to reflect all aspects of women's subordination, inequality and marginalization in the ancient world through social and class conflicts. the socio-economic position of women the author rightly points out was in the function of preserving the entire social system. to reflect all the social class, economic and legal contradictions in these policies, there was no better way than to describe all the manifestations of inequality between women and men in these policies. this kind of inequality is paradigmatic for all other class and social inequalities in the ancient world. the inequality and subordination of women is reflected in all aspects of social life; economically and legally she was dependent on men. she had a legal representative and did not even have property that represented a dowry. although formally a citizen polis in public life did not appear. her "sovereign" area was a family household where she performed numerous jobs that were not much more valued than slave labor. its basic social "functions" were reproductive and the transmission of private property "for the benefit" of men. her participation in religious and social ceremonies was ultimately a continuation of the patterns of patriarchal life and meant cementing her inferior position. although in certain aspects and in certain historical periods the social position of women in sparta was more favorable than in athens, women were essentially instrumentalized in sparta as well, ultimately in the function of reproducing a military-authoritarian system of government, at least until the peloponnesian wars. borislav đukanović, mirjana radović-marković 203 at one point, dr. radulović very lucidly observes that looking at it from a legal, economic, and even sociological point of view is not enough to understand the position of women in ancient society. although they do not appear in the title of this book, without his socio-anthropological and cultural observations we would not have such a complete picture of the social position of women in terms of cognition. that is why these observations are the most original parts of the book. regarding this topic, it can be concluded that the treatment of women in the past has left a legacy that has not been completely overcome in the 21st century. consequently, the question only arises: "what has changed? "since ancient times and how much women have managed to fight for a better status in all spheres of life and work over time. namely, although the book focuses only on ancient times by placing this topic in the legal, economic and social frameworks of that time, it is a good basis to make a connection with modern times. this gives it a special quality, because there was a gap in our understanding of the role that women played, and because the author's research revealed interesting stories and historical facts. the research also showed that despite difficulties, prejudices and adversities, women significantly contributed to the economic and social development of ancient greece through the various roles they played. despite this, their contributions were often lost, or buried under a wealth of new knowledge. the claims, opinions and judgments of the authors are substantiated and supported by arguments and examples from which follows the correct way of connecting and concluding. from the above, it can be concluded that this publication is very clearly and interestingly written and that it can be useful in educating students and researchers, at all levels, but also others who are interested in this issue. borislav đukanović mirjana radović-marković publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade associate editors aidin salamzadeh, faculty of entrepreneurship, university of teheran, iran hiroko kawamorita kesim, ondokuz mayis university, turkey editorial office journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by donat graf, beograd denisa rovenská0f introduction justice and injustice perceptions methods objectives sample and data collection procedures measurements statistical analysis results acknowledgements references sanja popović-pantić1f dušica semenčenko2f nikola vasilić3f introduction how the covid-19 pandemic could affect women entrepreneurship? methodology findings business vs. non-business related activities prior and during the covid-19 pandemic problems faced by women-owned enterprises during the covid-19 pandemic measures adopted by women-owned enterprises to tackle the current situation conclusion acknowledgement references appendix i: exposure of sectors of women entrepreneurs to covid-19 pandemic silvia barnová4f slávka krásna5f gabriela gabrhelová6f introduction distance learning solutions during school closures school closures in slovakia covid-19 pandemics from the point of view of a private educational institution teacher, student and parent satisfaction survey students’ satisfaction with online education references alexander loziak7f denisa fedáková8f radka čopková9f introduction methods results discussion references dana palová10f miroslava.nyulasziova11f martin vejacka12f introduction research background and motivation changes in the educational process induced by covid-19 research methodology research sample results and discussion aleksandra bradić-martinović13f aleksandar zdravković14f tatjana mišić15f introduction literature review methodology and data results and discussion references boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay16f introduction background institutions and institutional arrangements entrepreneurship and defining a solar energy entrepreneur methodology findings and analysis partnerships to facilitate training and development programmes engaging unemployed youth/women who are potential solar engineers partnerships across regions on potential incubation develop self-sufficiency in youth/women to run energy-based businesses discussions and implications a ‘participatory approach’ in training, learning and simulation opportunities provision of a holistic and long-run entrepreneurial skill-building support situational factors of business identifying the right business and region, accessing start-up capital implications and conclusion references olushola joshua omolekan17f busayo alli18f introduction literature review and hypotheses development concept of innovation drivers of innovation types of innovation process innovation concept of women-owned business business survival influence of innovation on business survival theoretical review schumpeter’s innovation theory resource-based theory social feminist theory empirical review development of hypotheses methodology data presentation and analysis test of research hypotheses i test of research hypotheses ii discussion of findings conclusion and recommendations references bolawale abayomi odunaike19f olarenwaju emmanuel ajiboye20f introduction objectives of the study brief literature review theoretical orientation methods findings and discussion hypothesis testing conclusion and recommendations references teodora slavinski21f marija todorović22f valentina vukmirović23f alessandra maria montenegro24f introduction sample and methodology results characteristics of scientific area, according to evolution and its dynamic characteristics of scientific productivity, according to authorship and publications’ source characteristics of scientific productivity, according to publications’ sources and affiliations characteristics of scientific productivity, according to publications’ content characteristics of scientific productivity, according to publications’ content discussion and limitation conclusion references handling injustice are women too sensitive? women entrepreneurship in the time of covid-19 pandemic: the case of serbia the impact of covid-19 pandemics on schools – challenges and new opportunities for a woman-owned organization work-related stressors of female teachers during covid-19 school closure analysis of students' approach to the study of informatics during pandemic quarantine ehealth skills of female entrepreneurs in serbia ‘women power’ in renewable energy: the role of nested institutions in vocational training of solar energy entrepreneurs in india relevance of innovation on survival of women-owned business in nigeria low-income women entrepreneurs and household sustainability in badagry; a border community in lagos, nigeria women, entrepreneurship and education: descriptive bibliometric analysis based on scopus database dejan m. radulović’s book women in athens and sparta legal, economic and social position of women microsoft word 09_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 331.522.4, 331.556 jel: j7, j82, m14 original scientific paper entrenched patterns of hot cognition may explain stubborn attributes of the economic landscape simandan dragos*, brock university, geography department, st. catharines, on, canada a b s t r a c t some of the most stubborn attributes of the economic landscape, especially those that pertain to gender inequality in the workplace, in the labour market, and in entrepreneurial ventures, may be traced back to a fundamental cause that underpins a large part of the variance of everyday microeconomic behavior: because of genetic and developmental processes, people become entrapped into stable patterns of affective reasoning (or hot cognition), which generate profound consequences for their behavioral styles as economic agents. in this paper i upgrade earlier ideas from psychoanalysis, by bringing them into dialogue with recent findings from affective neuroscience and neuroeconomics, to propose a typology of patterns of affective reasoning and to suggest ways in which they may begin to explain widely recognized inequalities in economic performance. kew words: hot cognition, neuroeconomics, gendered economic geography introduction: hot cognition and the production of economic space we need to enlarge our understanding of the reasoning processes of economic agents if we are to have a fair chance at explaining inequality in the economic landscape. more specifically, we need to grasp the fact that much of economic cognition is hot cognition, or, in other words, reasoning * address: st. catharines, on, l2s 3a1, e-mail: simandan@brocku.ca journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 2 underwritten by emotion (bernheim, 2009). as early as 2004, geographer allen scott insisted that “a new cognitive map of capitalist society as a whole is urgently needed” (scott, 2004: 479). he targeted his message at both economists and geographers, because he sensed that both of these groups operate with a baggage of outdated concepts and theories. this paper builds on his work, while at the same time criticising it with the help of recent evidence from neuroscience and neuroeconomics, and of older insights from psychoanalysis. specifically, i take aim at the use of the phrase “cognitive map”, because it may mislead us into (a) thinking cognition as separate from affectivity, and (b) thinking pure cognitive processes as the only stuff from psychology that economists and geographers really need to know. the recent advances in neuroscience and neuroeconomics make it clear that the neat separation of cognition from affect is false and that the economists’ assumption that cognition is more important that affect is equally false. as camerer et al (2005:13) put it, “cognition by itself cannot produce action; to influence behavior, the cognitive system must operate via the affective system” and it just so happens that “the principles that guide the affective system… [are] so much at variance with the standard economic account of behavior” (2005: 22). the main challenge for the contemporary theoretical models in economics and geography comes from the recent empirical data that converge on the idea that “most affect probably operates below the threshold of conscious awareness” (camerer et al, 2005: 13). this observation attacks the very core of economic and geographical research, because, firstly, “learning processes are likely to be a splice of cognitive and affective processes” (camerer et al, 2005: 58; see also bernheim, 2009), and secondly, the unconscious operation of the affective system may be the primary factor that explains the limited predictive ability of economic models. it is useful at this point to remember that, as recently as 2003, bathelt and glückler undertook a conceptual investigation of the foundations of economic geography to conclude that there are “four ions as the basis for analysis in economic geography: organization, evolution, innovation, and interaction” (2003: 117). the latter ion – interaction – is the very direct expression of the public life of unconscious affect (kaës, 2000) and constitutes the key explanatory variable for understanding “the tensions between personal interests, project goals, and the firm's aims that are induced by…personal knowledge networks” (grabher & ibert, 2006: 251; emphasis in original). the most simandan, d., entrenched patterns of hot cognition, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 3 pressing problem for economic geography and economics emerges from their theoretical and methodological impotence on the matter of affect, and more specifically, on the matter of seizing the role played by affect in making economic agents so different from one another. in camerer et al’s words (2005: 62): economic models do not provide a satisfying theory of how individuals differ. as laymen, we characterise other people as impulsive or deliberate, stable or neurotic, decisive or indecisive, mature or immature, foolish or wise, depressed or optimistic, scatterbrained or compulsively organised…comparative economic development, entrepreneurial initiative and innovation, business cycle sensitivity, and other important macroeconomic behaviors are probably sensitive to the distribution of these and other psychological ‘assets’. to be sure, i do not pretend to be the first who notices this fundamental weakness. other geographers have been keenly aware of our failure to pay attention to affect and to individual differences. to give just one example, linda mcdowell raised the same problem with respect to the main dimension on which people differ, namely gender. she concluded her reflection on this area by noticing that “…the rapid growth of a literature about gender and organizations, largely ignored by geographers, might profitably be brought into juxtaposition with geographical analyses of economic restructuring” (mcdowell, 2001: 227). more recently, following her own suggestion, she undertook extensive empirical research on the gender variable in economic activity and found that “…economic rationality is challenged by research that documents parents' (especially mothers') moral commitments to their care for their dependants personally or through other forms of family-based provision” (mcdowell, 2005: 365). yet, this paper will show that the gross separation of humans into males and females blinds us to more significant individual differences that cross-cut gender divisions and that speak volumes to those with an interest in economic life. by combining the psychoanalytical theories of karen horney (1935/2000, 1945, 1950, 1967, 1952a/2000, 1952b/2000) and fritz riemann (2005), i will offer a five-fold affective map of human natures that has the potential to enlighten our understanding of labour relations, human performance, consumer behaviour, and economic space. the use of psychoanalytical theory is necessary at this point in the evolution of economic geography and economics, not only because it is the field of human endeavor with the deepest knowledge of the logic of the unconscious affective system (kandel, 2006; cf. suhler & churchland, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 4 2009), but also because very recently “…research has begun to demonstrate neurophysiological correlates of several psychoanalytic concepts, including the defenses, transference, resistance, object relations and drives” (luborski & barrett, 2006: 15). of the many possible roads into psychoanalytical research, i chose karen horney’s, not only because i read everything she wrote and attempted a self-analysis using her guidelines (horney, 1942), but also because her typology of human natures strikes me as explicitly geographical. to eliminate confusions, it is not the kind of rudimentary geography that sees space as a container and struggles to map its content, but the more subtle kind of geography that has been proposed by cultural economic geographers (e.g. thrift, 2006). their focus on how economic agents produce space perfectly matches horney’s typology. thus, she separates individuals who move against people (obsessed with the appeal of mastery), individuals who move towards people (obsessed with the appeal of love), and individuals who move away from people (obsessed with the appeal of freedom). each type produces distinct spatial and economic effects, and, in a profound sense, becomes the victim of those very effects. however, i found horney’s typology incomplete and turned to the work of fritz riemann (2005) to add two additional types of particular significance in these times of rapid economic change (friedman, 2006, toffler & toffler, 2006, thrift, 2006): one of them is “moving against and/or away from change” (individuals obsessed with the appeal of stagnation), the other is “moving towards change” (individuals obsessed with the appeal of novelty). the complementary criteria of horneyian (against, towards, and away from people) and riemannian (towards and against/away from change) typologies thus yield five broad patterns of affective reasoning that underwrite the economic landscape of capitalist society. to unpack in more detail their relevance for our understanding of affect and individual differences in economic geography, i allot a distinct section for each of them, and then use the concluding part of the paper to briefly reflect on the broader implications of my work for economic and geographical scholarship. the assertive pattern psychoanalysts (hendrik, 1943), conventional psychologists (white, 1959), evolutionary theorists (cosmides & tooby, 2006), and philosophers simandan, d., entrenched patterns of hot cognition, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 5 of neuroscience (suhler & churchland, 2009) converge in their observation that all humans have been endowed with the capacity to derive pleasure from mastering their environments, i.e. from striving in order to achieve goals. but people differ in the amount of joy they experience from controlling their environments, lives, or peers. karen horney learned through many years of clinical experience with disturbed individuals that some of them deal with their inner conflicts by organising their affective life primarily around the appeal of mastery. in her own words, (horney, 1950: 214): mastery with regard to others entails the need to excel and be superior in some way. he tends to manipulate or dominate others and to make them dependent upon him…whether he is out for adoration, respect, or recognition, he is concerned with their subordinating themselves to him and looking up to him. he abhors the idea of being compliant, appeasing, or dependent. the important point for economic geographers comes from the fact that these private attitudes shape economic space, even though the individual who espouses them might be totally unaware of being enslaved by them. horney goes on to explain that (horney, 1950: 191-192): …th[is] individual prevailingly identifies himself with his glorified self…as one patient put it, ‘i exist only as a superior being’. the feeling of superiority that goes with this solution is not necessarily conscious but –whether conscious or not – largely determines behavior, strivings, and attitudes towards life in general. the appeal of life lies in its mastery. it chiefly entails his determination, conscious or unconscious, to overcome every obstacle – in or outside himself – and the belief that he should be able and in fact is able, to do so. he should be able to master the adversities of fate, the difficulties of a situation, the intricacies of intellectual problems, the resistances of other people, conflicts in himself. the reverse side of the necessity for mastery is his dread of anything connoting helplessness; this is the most poignant dread he has. it becomes apparent by now that the appeal of mastery is closely linked with the typical social expectations placed on men. they have to be independent, tough, self-sufficient, ambitious, bold, straightforward, and masters of their fate and of their families. the very name of this category of people – moving against people – unravels the close dependency between one’s level of aggressive and antisocial tendencies and one’s likelihood of choosing this affective attitude towards one’s surroundings. in turn, one’s level of aggression and antisociality depends on genetic journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 6 factors (archer & côté, 2005; pérusse & gendreau, 2005) and on hormonal factors (van goozen, 2005), but both gene expression and hormonal expression emerge as a function of the interaction between one’s biology and one’s socialisation. men tend to have higher levels of testosterone and lower levels of cortisol than women and this twin tendency explains their increased aggression and antisociality (van goozen, 2005). in the terminology of personality theorists, men tend to score lower on agreeableness and higher on the “thinking” dimension of the myers-brigg type indicator. these scores indicate the very same things described by horney under the heading “moving against people”. individuals belonging to this category have a pessimistic view of human nature and, because of this negativistic worldview, they tend to be uncooperative, selfish, suspicious, uninterested in others’ well-being, unfriendly, unwilling to be totally honest, incompliant, arrogant, overconfident, and merciless. from an economic point of view this negativistic configuration of affect helps men get ahead and achieve status and might well explain the persistent wage differentials between the sexes (kanazawa, 2005). the deeper reason why men would be more prone to ruthless self-promotion and weaker on generosity and caring for others is to be found in evolutionary biology (cosmides & tooby, 2006). the ultimate unconscious goal of men is to spread their genes as widely as possible. the achievement of higher status is crucial for succeeding at this task, because higher status men are much more likely to find women available for mating. from the women’s point of view, a man of higher status is preferable as a mate because he is likely to have better genes and more resources to provide for child-rearing. it is the fact that “humans did not evolve to be happy, but to survive and reproduce” (camerer et al, 2005: 24) that explains the wide spread among males of the “moving against people” solution (horney, 1950), and the attendant favouring of career over family life, of ruthlessness over empathy, and of competition over cooperation. the women’s social liberation in the last decades has challenged the deeply held assumptions about gender roles (mcdowell, 2001, 2005), but the underlying biological differences between the sexes need to be considered in the explanation of uneven performance and pay in the workplace (kanazawa, 2005). of equal significance for economic geographers is the fact that the gap between the rich and the poor might be the result of different affective types. it might well be the case that the poor simandan, d., entrenched patterns of hot cognition, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 7 are people who bear the economic penalty of being too nice and too concerned for the lives of others, while the rich reap the economic rewards of entering the workplace with a ruthless, hypercompetitive, and selfish mindset. mickey kaus (in frank & cook, 1995: 229-230; emphasis added) notes that: …the rich and the semi-rich increasingly seem to want to live a life apart [from the poor], in part because they are increasingly terrified of the poor, in part because they increasingly seem to feel that they deserve such a life, that they are in some sense superior to those with less. an especially precious type of equality – equality not of money but in the way we treat each other and our lives – seems to be disappearing. his highlighting of the implicit belief of the rich of being superior to the poor sends us back at the major diagnostic criterion used by karen horney to identify the “moving against people” types: their need to be above their surroundings, to stand out no matter what. in the next section, i will build upon this observation to render more salient the ways in which differences in one’s type of unconscious affective systems can explain the logic of economic inequality. the ssubmissive pattern the second affective type identified by horney (1950, 1967) is the diametrical opposite of the “moving against people” type. it is only by studying them together that we become able to seize their profound implications on the structure of the economic landscape. if the “moving against people” attitude emerges through the overvaluation of mastery, “moving towards people” results from the overvaluation of love. it is the unique merit of karen horney to have gone against the grain of both the lay and the academic wisdom of the time, to show how the overvaluation of the emotion of love has a negative side as well. in particular, she produced penetrating analyses of the tendency of women to overvalue love, and to devalue professional ambition, while at the same time warned against an all too convenient biological explanation of these tendencies. thus, she aptly observed that “if a tree, because of storms, too little sun, or too poor soil becomes warped and crooked, you would not call this its essential nature” (horney, 1952a/2000: 297) and insisted that (horney, 1935/2000: 123): journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 8 once and for all, we should stop bothering about what is feminine and what is not…standards of masculinity and feminity are artificial standards…differences between the two sexes certainly exist, but we shall never be able to discover what they are until we have first developed our potentialities as human beings. paradoxically as it may sound, we shall find out about these differences only if we forget about them. ours is an age in which the progress of biology has emboldened even the president of harvard to escape the moral task of creating gender equality, by recourse to deterministic explanations. seven decades after horney wrote these lines, we can recognize, in hindsight, the wisdom of her approach to the question of gender differences, as well as the ongoing relevance of her admonitions. with these caveats in mind, we can now move on to a consideration of the economic implications of the appeal of love. people who overvalue this domain of life tend to score high on agreeableness and on the “feeling” dimension of the myers-brigg type indicator. women tend to score higher on these dimensions, a fact which allows us to think of the “moving towards people” type as traditionally “feminine”. these individuals endorse a positive view of human nature and believe that people are trustworthy, honest, and decent. they are more concerned with fitting in than with standing out, with getting along with others than with getting ahead of them, with cooperation than with competition, and with being helpful to others than with helping themselves. they are modest, empathic, friendly, compassionate, and tender-minded. these qualities help them gain popularity, but prevent them from self-assertion and from effective competing against people driven by the appeal of mastery. in horney’s perceptive words (1950: 215-216; emphasis in original), the moving towards people type: …must not feel consciously superior to others or display any such feelings in his behavior. on the contrary, he tends to subordinate himself to others, to be dependent upon them, to appease them…far from abhorring [helplessness and suffering], he rather cultivates and unwittingly exaggerates them…what he longs for is help, protection, and surrendering love…he lives with a diffuse sense of failure…and hence tends to feel guilty, inferior, or contemptible…pride, no matter what it concerns, is put under a strict and extensive taboo…he is his subdued self; he is the stowaway without any rights. in accordance with this attitude he also tends to suppress in himself anything that connotes ambition, vindictiveness, triumph, seeking his own advantage. in short simandan, d., entrenched patterns of hot cognition, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 9 he has solved his inner conflict by suppressing all expansive attitudes and drives and making self-abnegating trends predominant. when one contrasts the individuals driven by the appeal of mastery with those driven by the appeal of love, one is reminded of nietzsche’s (1887/1967) on the genealogy of morals, and of his separation between the morality of masters and slave morality. his despise of the latter is at odds with the contemporary discourses in feminist and economic geography, which generally take the side of the underdog (harvey, 2003, mcdowell, 2005). it might be human nature to admire those who win, but to truly sympathise with the losers. the question that begs an urgent answer is whether people driven by the appeal of love will always be the losers of the economic game. at first glance, their self-effacing and self-sabotaging tendencies can tempt us to infer that indeed they seem perfectly made to lose. but times are changing, and so do the economic practices that go with them (thrift, 2006). the decades ahead will put a premium on team spirit and the ability to cooperate, on emotional intelligence and empathy, as well as on the quality of face-to-face contact. as storper & venables (2004: 351) observed, “face-to-face contact has four main features: it is an efficient communication technology; it can help solve incentive problems; it can facilitate socialization and learning; and it provides psychological motivation”. what they did not observe is that some people (those who “move towards people”) are much more motivated by face-to-face contact and have the natural ability to create high quality face-to-face contact (horney, 1967). this fact will have profound implications for the gendering of economic activity, because women and gay men are more likely to have the qualities required for the new kinds of leadership and management practices discussed in the business literature (toffler & toffler, 2006). to give just an example, snyder (2006) undertook a fiveyear research project involving two thousand organisations and more than three thousand professionals, to find that gay male executives and managers have a style of leadership that increases workplace morale and job satisfaction with 25-30%. the seven qualities he identifies as responsible for this “g quotient” in leadership –adaptability, creativity, collaboration, communication, connectivity, intuition, and inclusion – clearly support my optimism about the changing economic fate of those who move towards people. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 10 the pattern of disengagement the third major type of affective organisation – moving away from people – is the most radical, because it challenges our fundamental assumption that people are social animals. if we think of the previous two types, we readily notice that both involve active participation in the social life, albeit by different strategies. the darwinian struggle to spread our genes involves a careful balancing of the need to fit in (to be accepted by the others) with the need to stand out (to be more attractive to others). if the masculine solution of moving against people emphasizes the need to stand out, and the feminine solution of moving towards people insists on the need to fit in, the third existential solution – moving away from people – refuses to play the social game and thus becomes maladaptive from the perspective of evolutionary biology (cosmides & tooby, 2006). the individuals who embrace this solution (or rather are embraced by it) want neither to master their peers, nor to be loved by them. they simply want to be left alone. their two neurotic claims are that they shouldn’t be bothered and that life should be easy. they value freedom above anything else, but upon closer investigation it becomes clear that it is not the kind of constructive, life-affirming freedom, that allows one to flourish. instead (horney, 1950: 274): we learn from them that freedom means to him doing what he likes. the analyst observes here an obvious flaw. since the patient has done his best to freeze his wishes, he simply does not know what he wants. and as a result he often does nothing, or nothing that amounts to anything. this, however, does not disturb him because he seems to see freedom primarily in terms of no interference by others –whether people or institutions…granted that his idea of freedom seems again to be a negative one –freedom from and not freedom for – it does have an appeal for him which (to this degree) is absent in the other solutions. horney goes on to describe with piercing insight the constellation of beliefs and habits that constitutes this peculiar type of affective organisation, and from her observations we can easily infer how this type of individuals affect the economic landscape. we found that “he is proud of his detachment, his ‘stoicism’, his self-sufficiency, his independence, his dislike of coercion, his being above competition” (horney, 1950: 271) and that “he feels entitled having others not intrude upon his privacy, to having them not expect anything of him nor bother him, to be exempt from having to make a living and from responsibilities” (horney, 1950: 271). simandan, d., entrenched patterns of hot cognition, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 11 even more significant for the labour geography of capitalist society appears the fact that “…intimately connected with [his] nonparticipation, is the absence of any serious striving for achievement and the aversion to effort” (horney, 1950: 261; emphasis in original). from an economic perspective, this type of individuals is the nightmare of any capitalist business, because they yield little, either as employees (they resent working hard) or as customers (they curtail their desires to avoid becoming dependent on things beyond their control). at work, they survive through passive aggressive strategies. they know that they have to make a living, but they vindicate their enslavement to the ruthless logic of economic necessity by subtly sabotaging their own and others’ work performance. they aim to get by with the minimum amount of effort and invest all their creativity towards the achievement of this secretly cherished goal. more often, as dramatically shown in the case studies included in the hamlet syndrome. overthinkers who underachieve (miller & goldblatt, 1989), they settle for jobs below their potential if those jobs promise to provide a greater amount of freedom. to the extent that in the capitalist system higher pay normally entails higher responsibility, and higher responsibility normally entails more social obligations (i.e. less freedom), people who overvalue negative freedom (freedom from social ties) will be encountered primarily in jobs below their level of ability. in terms of consequentialist ethics, the greatest good for the greatest number would be achieved if society and the economic system placed people in jobs commensurate with their level of ability. the failure of the economic system to achieve this end in the case of people who overvalue freedom raises questions about our unjustified pride in the efficiency of economic rationality. why is it that these people withdraw from social life? i detected in the literature on the subject three types of explanations, one biological (laplanche, 1997), the second existential (horney, 1952b/2000), and the third political (miller & goldblatt, 1989). the biological explanation builds on freud’s idea that human nature is the outcome of the ongoing struggle between eros (the life drive) and thanatos (the death drive). in some individuals, the death drive prevails and this unfortunate fact accounts for their masochistic tendencies and for their relentless bias towards the dark side of life. individuals who move away from people actually move away from living. their overvaluation of serenity and peace of mind has a distinctively morbid element to it, to the extent that life involves ups and downs, struggles, and turmoil. the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 12 biological explanation launched by freud (1940) remains powerful in light of both contemporary french psychoanalysis (laplanche, 1997, kaës, 2000) and affective neuroscience (davidson, 2004). the latter field of enquiry has recently introduced the distinction between the bas (i.e. behavioral activation system; positive affect) and the bis (i.e. behavioral inhibition system; negative affect) and the observation that people happy above average have an overactive bas (freud’s life drive), while unhappy individuals have an overactive bis (freud’s death drive). the existential explanation resides in the clinical observation that “blind destructiveness may ensue when a person becomes aware of the futility of life” (horney, 1952b/2000: 286). we live in disenchanted times, when god is known to be dead, and morality is known to be relative, and this disenchantment might take away the fuel that the “moving away from people” type would have needed to strive and feel that life is worth living. finally, the political explanation (miller & goldblatt, 1989) suggests that this type of people gave up on active social and economic participation because they have become embittered and disgusted by the viciousness of the capitalist hydra and by the mindless subscription of the masses to the imperatives of the american dream. the conservative pattern if karen horney focused on the affective geography generated by moving against, towards, or away from people, fritz riemann (2005) noticed that people differ markedly on the kind of affective geography produced in response to change. at one end of the spectrum are those who fear change and engage in habits that move them against or away from change (the obsessional personalities or the anal characters), while at the other end of the spectrum one meets the “hystericals”, people who love novelty and move towards change. the economic geography created by those who move against or away from change is striking in three respects. first of all, these individuals dominate the state apparatuses so dreaded by dynamic businesses because of their inefficiency and conservatism and they use their legal power to “terrorise” (consciously or not) the rest of us: we find obsessionals in the jobs which confer power, and which offer, at the very same time, the opportunity to live legally their own aggression, in the name of order, discipline, law, authority, etc. simandan, d., entrenched patterns of hot cognition, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 13 therefore we are not surprised that many politicians belong, more or less, to this structural type, as well as the military, policemen, judges, priests, teachers, and state bureaucrats. (riemann, 2005: 145-146) secondly, people who dislike change embrace the work virtues that are the very opposite of those associated with entrepreneurship and creativity. they tend to become the experts that see all the trees, but not necessarily the forest. in riemann’s words (2005: 175): specific to their structure, people with obsessional components in their personality tend to choose professions that bring them power, as well as professions which require exactity, thoroughness, precision, attention to detail, responsibility, and foresight, and which favor perseverance, perfectionism, and patience over initiative, elasticity, and creative freedom. thirdly, these individuals are ill suited to cope with the rapid acceleration of the pace of scientific, technological, economic, and social change brought about by friedman’s (2006) “flat world” or toffler & toffler’s (2006) “third wave” of social progress. in a very significant way, globalisation appears to be a major risk factor for the mental health of those who dislike change, because, as riemann explains (2005: 173): obsessional personalities fall into crises especially when their so rigidly held principles, opinions, and theories are confronted with new developments, with new knowledge and progress, which threaten their previous orientations and force them to abandon their system. if we try to delineate more precisely which economic agents are at risk developing affective systems that react negatively to change, we encounter an array of hypotheses. in his landmark study character and anal erotism, freud (1908/1991) hypothesised that people with obsessional tendencies are the outcome of a too rigid toilet training in their second year of life (the anal stage). while his hypothesis does not find empirical support in contemporary research (see harris, 2006), his work remains important for having captured the essential fact that three characteristics – orderliness, parsimony (avarice), and stubbornness – always tend to cluster together in the same person to constitute the backbone of rigid, obsessional characters. stubbornness or the tendency to cling to one’s believes and one’s entrenched way of doing things is particularly relevant in the explanation of why these people reject change. a too stubborn individual has a very high level of adhesiveness of her libido (freud, 1940): once she invests “love” (i.e. libido, attention, interest) into some activity or theory, she finds it extremely difficult to withdraw that affective investment and journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 14 thus to change her way of being. she might stick with her mechanical typing machine, although there are computers around, she might tenaciously resist the idea of biological co-determinism, although there is now evidence for it (harris, 2006), and so on and so forth. from his clinical experience, freud observed that it is futile to attempt therapy with people past their middle age, because the adhesiveness of the libido increases with age (hence the saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”). this clinical evidence provides the theoretical background to suggest that age is a risk factor for the development of an affective system that moves against or away from change. if one corroborates psychoanalytical data with research on the decline of intelligence with age (noll &horn, 1998, salthouse, 2009), one cannot not notice that freud’s elusive notion of “adhesiveness of the libido” might be one and the same thing with fluid intelligence. the latter reaches its peak at around 16-26 years, and declines from one’s mid 20ies at a rate of about 4 iq points/decade. to put the pieces of the puzzle together, fluid intelligence is defined as the ability to deal with novelty (noll & horn, 1998, salthouse, 2009). it may be the case that older people’s increased fear and rejection of change is an adaptive solution to the fact that they lost some of their initial ability to deal with the novelty brought about by change. they hate change, because they cannot cope with its cognitive demands any more. this line of thinking allows us to infer that not only old people, but all those with lower intellectual abilities are more likely to fear change and stick rigidly to their routines and beliefs. indeed, this is precisely what moutafi et al (2004; cf. luciano et al, 2006) found in a sample with a mean age of 38: there was a moderate negative correlation of -0.26 between one’s level of fluid intelligence and one’s level of conscientiousness (and the “obsessionals” described by riemann always score very high on this dimension of personality). the fact that a significant part of the population, including older people and people of lesser intelligence, are likely to react negatively to the radical novelty induced by the economic logic of the “flat world” is fundamental for tracing the economic geography of winners and losers in the decades to come. this point will become much clearer in the next section, where we will look at those individuals who love and thrive on novelty and rapid change. simandan, d., entrenched patterns of hot cognition, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 15 the pattern of versatility in the august 2006 issue of neuron, neuroscientists bunzeck and düzel published the results of their research of the major "novelty center" of the brain, named the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area (sn/vta), and concluded that there is sufficient data to claim the existence of a functional hippocampal-sn/vta loop that is driven by novelty and that may enhance learning in the context of novelty. this finding corroborates fritz riemann’s observation that there is a type of individuals (“the hystericals”) who find particularly gratifying the idea of change and novelty. the economic geography of the individual who moves towards change is the diametrical opposite of that of the obsessional. in riemann’s words (2005: 228): her strength resides in her impulsive mobilisation and in the ability to make things happen, and less in persistence and the tenacious achievement of goals. but it is precisely her impatience, curiosity, and freedom from the past that make her spot and grab many opportunities which other types of people fail to see…thus, independent and bold, she can see life as an adventure full of colour. the unique competitive economic advantage resulting from the fact that “they can adapt, chameleonically, to each new situation” (riemann, 2005: 187) is reinforced by hystericals’ general propensity for creativity and experimentation, as well as by their delight in acting as social butterflies. as riemann explains (2005: 225-226): they are suitable for all jobs which require personality, on the spot, elastical reactions, versatility, pleasure of contact, and capacity for adaptation. they found convenient all jobs which…fulfill their need for human contact, their desire to ‘have an audience’. they are represented by prolific salesmen…they feel at home wherever it is about charm, physical impression, ability, spontaneity, improvisation, victories or sudden assaults. the hysterical is attracted by all jobs which make vague promises about life in the ‘high world’ or that put him in contact with this world; he likes jobs such as photomodelling, management, as well as the jewelry, beauty and hotel industries…their performance depends a lot on the people for whom they work. if talented, they can artistically sublimate their gifts, their strong capacity to desire and to imagine, their expressive capacity and pleasure of expression, especially into acting and dancing. ours are volatile times, and the hystericals – volatile people – thrive in this kind of economic medium. if the elderly and the less intelligent tend journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 16 to move against or away from change, the young and the bright are likely to seek it. but there is a deeper fundamental that underwrites these propensities. boniwell & zimbardo (2004) found that different people have different time perspectives and that one’s time perspective changes over the lifespan. the distinctive characteristic of people who move towards change resides in the fact that their perspective is focused and biased towards the future. they care less about memories, traditions, and history, and more about future milestones they aim to reach, future improvements, and future adventures. as people age and realize that they have more years behind, than years ahead, their time perspective slowly shifts from dreaming the future to remembering the good old days. it is important to understand at this point that one’s temporal focus or “…attention…is largely controlled by automatic processes, and attention in turn determines what information we absorb” (camerer et al, 2005: 39). the very fact that, unconsciously, one focuses on the past undermines one’s ability to welcome and prepare for the future. we know from freud that individuals have a limited amount of libido to invest. we cannot love everything at once. if we invest our libido into our past and spend time recollecting pleasurable memories, we cannot invest it into our future. to learn something requires that you love that thing, that your libido/interest is in it. intelligence without affect is sterile. to learn, one needs both cognitive ability and the right affective disposition. this piece of freudian wisdom has been corroborated empirically by educational psychologists (snow & farr, 1987) who found that those who are passionately interested in the topic they study learn 30 times faster and better than those who have no interest in the topic. in other words, people who move towards the future gain an economic advantage because they love the future. they invest time and energy (i.e. libido) in dreaming that future, anticipating it, and making it happen. and that investment pays dividends in mental health (happiness is positively correlated with a future-orientation; haidt, 2006) and economic wealth. the tragedy of people who fear change and love the past more than the future is a very good example of relational economic geography (bathelt & glückler, 2003). virginia postrel’s (1999) penetrating analysis of the social dialectic between the “stasists” (people who try to move away or against change) and the “dynamists” (people who move towards change) within the us at the turn of the millennium captures with hegelian simandan, d., entrenched patterns of hot cognition, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 17 elegance the underlying causes of this tragedy. as she explains (1999: 204): a city, an economy, or a culture is, despite the best efforts of stasists, fundamentally a ‘natural’ system. as a whole, it is beyond anyone’s control. any individual effort at improvement changes not just its particular target but the broader system. in that process, there may be progress, but there will also be disruptions, adjustments, and losers. the ballet between social change and social stagnation is a scalar phenomenon that encompasses each of us (our inner conflicts) and all of us. just as in tolstoy’s novels, the contours of circumstances escape in the background of our everyday awareness, but once reconciled with this elusiveness of the zeitgeist, we might start to bring a much needed sense of history to our economic geographies. conclusion both economists and economic geographers tend to think too abstractly and their inability to understand some of the stubborn attributes of the economic landscape may be an indirect consequence of their remoteness from their own inner lives. as karen horney’s the paucity of inner experiences (1952b/2000: 286) reminds us, “the more remote a person is from his inner life, the more abstract his thinking”. the trick is that one cannot read this paper without wondering which of the five entrenched patterns of hot cognition drive one. in other words, the very reading of this article has the therapeutic effect of bringing the readers closer to their inner selves. furthermore, we might recognize in the description of the various types our neighbours, friends, relatives, and colleagues. we might begin to learn to pay attention to the affective dimensions of economic activity, and thus enrich our theoretical sensitivity and our grasp of how the economic world really works. economies are made of diverse people (gertler, 2003). people laugh, cry, yell, belch, and fart. some want to stand out, some want to be loved, some want to be left alone, some want for things to remain the way they are, and some want the excitations brought about by novelty. capitalism flourishes because it plays to these wants and these irrational affects. economists and economic geographers will keep wasting precious paper and ink by trying to explain capitalism without themselves understanding the affective things understood by capitalism. as nigel thrift put it (2006: 302): journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 18 capitalism is carpeting expectation and capturing potential. simple condemnation of this tendency…will not do. rather, it seems to me to call for radically new imaginings of exactly how things are, but under a new aspect that we can currently only glimpse, ‘a tune beyond us, yet ourselves’, as wallace stevens put it. this paper was an attempt to help its readers glimpse the kind of tune nigel thrift was alluding to in his argument. i have written it while reflecting on sternberg’s theory of foolishness (sternberg, 2005). sternberg conceives foolishness as a “way of being” driven by five bad habits of the mind: insouciance (not caring about the consequences of one’s actions), omnipotence (believing that one can control everything), invulnerability (believing that one is too smart to get caught), egocentrism (not caring about how what one does affects others), and omniscience (believing that one knows all the important things). one troubling variant of omniscience in academe today results from our fooling ourselves with the inference that if we keep up-to-date with the latest research, we will know all the relevant things. the problem with this inference comes from assuming that older research that is not massively referenced is not worth consulting. in reality, as philosopher daniel dennett (2006) has shown, the way science works allows for some very good research to slip into oblivion despite its high quality. this paper brought to the surface the forgotten work of karen horney and fritz riemann to show that their theories can fertilise economics and economic geography in unexpected ways. in daring to undertake this kind of scholarship, dennett’s words have given me confidence that i was wasting neither my time, nor yours (2006: 80): we could start projects…to elevate the forgotten gems, rendering them accessible to the next generation of researchers…we should try… [to] help people recognize the importance of providing for each other this sort of pathfinding through the forest of information. on the academic front, the task ahead remains to operationalise the hypotheses proposed in this paper and subject them to detailed empirical investigation, ideally in a cross-cultural research design. on the political and social front, the task for social activists and educators is to tailor their interventions with an eye to the importance of hot cognition and to the difficulty of resetting its entrenched patterns. simandan, d., entrenched patterns of hot cognition, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 1-21) 19 references archer, j., côté, s. 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(1959), motivation reconsidered: the concept of competence, psychological review, 66: 297-333. received: my 2009 article history: accepted: 1 august 2009 microsoft word 09_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 305-055.2 (437.6) jel: b54 original scientific paper position of women in public administration in slovak republic the case of municipal offices horváthová lenka*, technical university of košice, economic faculty, slovak republic a b s t r a c t women present half of population in slovak republic. their position in society is still changing. historical evidence shows, that despite of the same abilities of men and women, the position of women in society is often linked with taking care of children and household. following the questionnaire survey results, this paper shows some similar trends of women position in private and public sector, especially the case of municipal offices as a part of public administration in slovak republic. kew words: women, education, private and public sector, slovak republic, eu introduction social role of women predetermined their position in everyday occurrence. women are often linked with taking care of children and household. it is still rare to be a female top manager, head of department or politician. nowadays, equality between women and men is one of important european union’s (eu) objectives. according to eu research there is still a 15% pay gap between women and men which arises from structural inequalities such as segregation in work sectors. on average, 30% of entrepreneurs in the eu are women. in accessing finance and training, women often face greater difficulties than men. (council * address: b.němcovej 32, košice, slovak republic journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 35-41) 36 directive 2004/113/ec, 2004) and what is the situation in public sector? to obtain a broad view at this question we realized a questionnaire survey. the questionnaire was anonymous and was submitted to municipalities’ representatives. the questionnaire survey the questionnaire was divided in four parts. the first one identified the structure of respondents – if the respondent is a village or a city, what are the location, the size and the altitude of the municipality in the question. the second part was focused on finding out the total number of employees of the municipal office and the proportion of women employed. the third part contained questions about the age and position structure of its women employees. the last part of the questionnaire detected some characteristics of women performance quality and performance approach. the structure of respondents is following (figure1). up to 90% of respondents are villages. in general, 98% of municipalities in slovak republic are villages. figure 1 shows the most current size of respondents. we can observe that the majority of respondents (up to 73%) are municipalities with less than 2 000 inhabitants. it is also similar to slovak structure of municipality size categories. a lot of small municipalities with small number of inhabitants are characteristic for slovak republic. this fact is known as disintegrated residential structure. therefore, this questionnaire survey can be considered as relevant. figure 1: structure and size of respondent municipalities horváthová, l., position of women in sr., jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 35-41) 37 the respondents were asked to state the total number of their employees and the number of women employed in the municipal office. the results are not surprising. as the figure 2 shows, women represent more than a half of the employees´ count. this tendency is the same both in villages and cities. figure 2: women’s proportion in municipal office employee count in the next part of the questionnaire we found out the age structure of women employed at municipal offices. the interval was determined from 18 to 62 years, because in slovak republic people can work from the age of 18 and the retirement age is 62 years. figure 3 shows that the most frequent age class distribution is the class between 36 and 45 years, but also the classes of 26 – 35 and 46 – 55 are very frequent. right in the two most frequent classes, women with family and small children are included. few men take parental leave or work part-time. measures should be taken to encourage them to take up family responsibilities. [2] in the part where the position structure of women employed at the municipal offices was examined, respondents could choose from the following possibilities; mayor of the municipal office, secretary, department chief, officer and cleaning woman. from figure 4 we can see that the least frequent position is mayor – head of the municipal office. we can suppose that men are more often in the head position not only in public sector but also in private sector. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 35-41) 38 figure 3: age structure figure 4: position structure women's persistent under-representation in civil society, politics and senior management in public administration is a democratic deficit. a balanced participation can contribute to a more productive and innovative work culture. transparency in promotion processes is essential. reaching horváthová, l., position of women in sr., jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 35-41) 39 the target, set by the member states, women’s increase of proportion by 25% in leading positions in public sector research can contribute to increasing the innovation, quality and competitiveness of research. 0, (council decision 2001/51/ec, 2000) but according to results of our questionnaire, women are frequently employed as secretaries and officers. furthermore, cleaning is exclusively woman’s work also in other sectors. globally, only three eu states have more than 40% of women municipality councillors in local governments. eleven member states have less than 20% women municipality councillors. whether mayors and municipality councillors are elected by citizens or appointed appears to have no impact on the percentage of women in local governments. only four eu member states have more than 20% of women mayors in local government. none of the member states has reached the required minimum of each sex. three member states have no women mayors at all. in eu member states, 90% of mayors at local government level and 75% of councillors in municipal council are men. [5] figure 5: performance quality in the last part of the questionnaire we were investigating the women work valuation. it should be noticed that according to results in part presenting the position structure of women employed at municipal offices; the men evaluated the performance quality (figure 5) and performance journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 35-41) 40 approach (figure 6) of women. the results are clear. performance quality of women is considered as high or sufficient and comparable to men work. the characteristics of performance approach of women employed at municipal offices are thoroughness, keeping the deadlines, overwork willingness and education willingness. figure 6: performance approach summary according to children care, women are devoted to look after other people, to communicate and to solve everyday’s problems patiently. they are more emotive and apprehensive. men and women have different life experience and also their position in real life is different. men are more often in a position of leader, chief or head although women abilities are the same. this finding is supported by several researches. our questionnaire offers similar results. at municipal offices work over 60% of women with the most frequent age between 26 and 46 years. the most frequent positions of women employed at municipal offices are secretary, officer and cleaning lady. their work is considered as very good, women are consistent, they keep the deadlines, they are willing to educate themselves and overwork. their performance quality is at least sufficient and comparable to men work. horváthová, l., position of women in sr., jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 35-41) 41 achieved results correspond with our expectations, that there is a large number of women employees in public administration at municipal level, but they are rarely at the head position despite of the fact, that their work is considered as good and comparable to men’s. moreover, our results are supported by results of other researches in this field:”... balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision-making is a matter of human rights and democracy. decisions made by political and public bodies have long–term consequences and it is important that the views and interests of women are fully represented in these spheres. despite progress achieved in council of eu member states, women are still seriously under–represented in political and public decision–making and continue to face difficulties in becoming involved in equitable numbers in the political process. ... ” [5] references debrecéniová, j. – očenášová, z.: rovnosť príležitostí žien a mužov na slovensku. bratislava: nadácia otvorenej spoločnosti, 2005, isbn 8096927116 a roadmap for equality between women and men communication from the commission to the council, the european parliament, the european economic and social committee and the committee of the regions – (2006-2010) council decision 2001/51/ec of 20 december 2000 fifth community action programme on equal opportunities (2001-2006), online http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/cha/c10904.htm online http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/cha/c10404.htm council directive 2004/113/ec, 2004, equality between men and women, online http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/s02310.htm directorate general of human rights, sexdisaggregated statistics on the participation of women and men in political and public decisionmaking in council of europe member states, 2006, online http://www.coe.int/t/e/human_rights/equality/pdf_cdeg(2006)15_e.pdf received: 1 august 2009 article history: accepted: 9 september 2009 doi: 10.28934/jwee21.12.pp147-163 jel: l26, j160 original scientific paper 8bthe city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 mutiat titilope oladejo21 f1 university of ibadan, faculty of arts, department of history, ibadan, nigeria a b s t r a c t in general accounts of black soap production, it is traced to west africa. and prominent across, ghana, benin republic, cote de ivoire and nigeria. however, this paper examines the nature of entrepreneurship associated with black soap production and trade in ibadan of the twentieth century. the work analyses how women dominated the industry and its interface between the village and ibadan city markets. the work locates the characteristics of innovation and market development imaged by women to earn livelihoods in black soap trade in ibadan city and village. the paper uses the asuwada sociation theory to explain the entrepreneurial resilience of women in olode village. the work uses the historical approach to examine the city-village interface. oral interviews were conducted with women involved in production and trade since the early twentieth century. key words: city-village interface, women, black soap, entrepreneurship introduction almost a century after the formation of ibadan from 1829, a village became prominent for the production of black soap. olode village, one of the settlements dominated by hunters (men) in ibadan is typical of the areas 1 e-mail: oladejomutiat@yahoo.com, tel. +234 80338 72796 148 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 147-163) classified as oko egan (distant forest farmlands). historical accounts of settlers in olode village vividly articulated the patrilineal formations that led to the formation of the village from the late nineteenth century. in the accounts, several men from other forest farmlands formed friendly alliances and created a new lineage and kinship structure in olode village. however, there is the usual tendency to neglect women’s lives in the history of african societies. the early women settlers in olode village were wives of the hunters and male settlers. in 1918, migration and settlement in olode village became relatively stable, hence women in the new settings used their indigenous knowledge innovations to produce black soap. in this regard this work analysed the roles of women in the production of black soap. the research questions in this paper are hinged on cummings (1995) pattern that debates the universal acceptability of entrepreneurship from european perspective. the debates entail dynamics of economic patterns and entrepreneurial practices across geographical locations. with this, what variants are featured in africa in spite of the western constructs of entrepreneurship, hence central to this paper, this work is based on the following questions: − how did women in olode village evolve black soap production? − how did black soap production in olode village interface with ibadan city markets? − what strategies sustained women’s entrepreneurship in black soap production? scholars on ibadan history such as awe (1973), and falola (1984, 1987) (2012) established the power dynamics featured in the political economy of the nineteenth century, this mattered in understanding the production and exchange system. the event of the nineteenth century provided a background to understand the nature and factors that aided entrepreneurship in the twentieth century. the realities of entrepreneurship in africa globally, schumpeter’s definition of entrepreneurship in his book the theory of economic development explained that it is a process of creating new combinations of factors to produce economic growth. (schumpeter 1934). the definition of entrepreneurship was articulated based on twentieth century realities. there are several scholarly expositions debating schumpeter’s perspective. but it is most feasible in all entrepreneurial mutiat titilope oladejo 149 context. this work affirms this view because the realities of entrepreneurship highlighted by schumpeter. in the african sense, entrepreneurship is created by the necessity around the entrepreneur. the economic system is created for necessity. this is in line with chileshe’s assertion that entrepreneurs are innovators that create new products or processes, with materials, markets and distribution channels (chileshe 1992:101). furthermore, the reality of entrepreneurship in the words of clemence and doody (1950:9) puts the innovator has on individual with the ability to visualized profit and possibilities in untapped opportunities, commodities and markets, as well as getting things done. according to spring and mcdade (1998:2), the peculiarities of entrepreneurship in africa is hinged on the dilemma of determining the label entrepreneur. this results from the inability of theorists to reach a consensus on a universal measure and specifications. invariably, the features of entrepreneur in individualized sense vary and it is dependent on the environment. and what features has entrepreneurship is not casted as it is rarely captured in generic terms by varies with peculiarities and specificities. spring and mcdade’s methodological submission from empirical studies observations and field work, articulated: the merit of this approach lies in the fact that the resultant themes and theoretical explanations derive from concrete examples and never stray too far from the realities of the circumstances upon which they are based (1998:2). in this sense the african realities in the theory of schumpeter gives out the entrepreneurs as coordinators that reconfigure ideas based on the context and milieus. roschenthaler and schulz (2016) on entrepreneurship in africa provides a multifaceted perspective to understand the patterns of entrepreneurship in africa. the patterns manifest in the book affirms that entrepreneurship is peculiar to each society. the africa peculiarities reflect how politics, tourism, music, education and religion intertwine as determinants. furthermore, ochonu (2020) emphasized the humanization of entrepreneurship in global south as significant, because the means to capitalism in africa especially is critical. in two forms ochonu categorized entrepreneurship: the pre-capitalist and anti-poverty entrepreneurship. the former is typical of indigenous entrepreneurship that subsists from the 150 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 147-163) colonial era, while the latter is induced by neoliberal reforms of the 1980s to combat poverty in africa. within these two frameworks, black soap entrepreneurship feature in between as there are two categories of women, these stuck to the indigenous modes and those that are modernization savvy. ochonu posits how difficult it is to precisely describe entrepreneurship from an africanist perspective thus: the proliferation of entrepreneurial projects in africa in the neoliberal moment inspired unprecedented africanist scholarly interest in entrepreneurship, enterprise, innovation, african capitalism (or africapitalism) and the culture of self-help. as new groups of entrepreneurs emerged on the continent and engaged in a variety of capitalist, wealth-creating activities, africanist scholars from a variety of fields began to develop new vocabularies and concepts to explain this entrepreneurial wave. this scholarly corpus has been illuminating. but it has also been plagued by conceptual imprecision and confusion. (ochonu 2020) while it is understandable that neoliberal reforms are shaping the perspective of entrepreneurship in contemporary times, this work uses the historical method to manifest how the modes of indigenous capitalism subsists. this is justified as ochonu puts further that: in trying to understand african entrepreneurs in all their diversity, we have hamstrung our own conceptual liberty and boxed ourselves into an analytical corner. the effort to comprehend african entrepreneurial modalities has suffered as a result. our love of neat, hard categories and vocational identifiers have stifled our ability to appreciate the full range of african entrepreneurship. as a historian, my frame of reference is the african past and that is where i’d like to go to develop this contention. (ochonu 2020) this exposition is a pathway to understand the features of entrepreneurship in africa especially when traditional scholarship in african economic history rarely focuses on theorizing the models of entrepreneurship in africa. mutiat titilope oladejo 151 methodology the primary source material depicts the social relations of production and trade. from the oral interviews on women producing black soap, a new concept attached to entrepreneurship is its interplay with communalism. the natural endowment from the forest, creates a perspective to understand how black soap production was typical in the forest zones. austin (2005:10) applied the principles of ‘forest rent’ to explain the environmental dimension to understand the nexus between land and labour. the pattern of cocoa and palm oil boom in forest areas shows how profitable it was to rely on environmental resources derived from forest rent. while forest rent is recognized as fundamental in highlighting the factors of production. the accounts of life histories of producers of black soap in the village highlights how culture, ethnicity and kinship-based networks are interwoven. in the african context, this work agrees with chileshe (1992) that ethnicity is fundamental in defining entrepreneurship with crosscutting examples from the bamileke in cameroon chagga in tanzania and the gurage in ethiopia. with this, this work considers the nexus between trading spaces and production sites of black soap production in ibadan nigeria. the historicity of lifetime experiences of women in black soap production. in the history of ibadan, trade in market spaces was fundamental to everyday life. falola (2012) explained how markets were formed in ibadan of the nineteenth century. the formation of the trading spaces was affirmed in hodder and ukwu (1969) work on markets in west africa, where the formula of trade networks featured geographical links along communities affiliated by culture and language. clarke (1972) in the travels and explorations in yorubaland observed how trade was prominent among communities he visited. these descriptions give insight to question the perspectives of entrepreneurship from the nineteenth century. the mode of entrepreneurship is narrated by christopher fyfe (1965) where emphasis was placed on production and exchange system. the chapter ‘west africa trade’ explicates how trade connections and commodities interlinked. the human characters involved shaped the paradigms of trade. historicizing the patterns of entrepreneurship considers economic development through experiences of their entrepreneurs. in theory and practice, entrepreneurship in africa is not fixated but situational. his work explores the paradigms of entrepreneurship in black soap production. 152 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 147-163) the city-village interface in ibadan ibadan by its formation in 1829 emerged as a settlement of warriors and peoples dispersed from all parts of yoruba land. the new ibadan had differing geographical locations and identities as settlers were drawn from all yoruba societies. the followers of warriors settled around oja iba, oje, beere, isale ijebu among others (awe, lloyd & mabogunje, 1968). the settlers around these areas took advantage of the hills to serve as a space of refuge and security from the nineteenth century yoruba wars (oladejo, 2019). the new lives formed around these areas expanded into a city status in the colonial era. hence, colonialism featured how ibadan city areas evolved and ultimately, it created a dichotomy between city spaces and villages. falola (1984) described how ibadan economic system subsists on account of militarism, by which warriors that led the wars capitlaised on emerging trade opportunities with other yoruba kingdoms. then, the major markets from these areas started in the front of chiefs and king’s residences. the commercial networks that evolved from those spaces produced the idea of a city in the colonial era. yet, the boundaries and demarcation of ibadan was very expansive, as the nineteenth century warriors acquired farmlands. falola’s geographical exposition of ibadan farmlands as oko etile (farms nearby) and oko egan (distant farmlands) thus featured in how the warriors acquired oko egan to cater for the economic and kinship territorial expansion of the warriors. through friendly alliances with settlers, village settlements were formed around the oko egan in the nineteenth century. (oral interview with baale akinkumi village 2018) gradually, new forms of kinship networks emerged as there were links between warriors that settled in oje, oja-iba among other and the new settlers in the villages. invariably, the warriors depended on the farming economy in the villages to foster their power status in the city. the city networks revolved around the oko etile and it was pre-conceived as a city in the traditional african model, even before british colonization. hence, in this work, the conception of ibadan city was already evident in the colonial era, it was only reinforced by colonial economic interests and infrastructures. the first impression given by p.c. lloyd (1967:3) in the ‘introduction’ of the book the city of ibadan stated that: “ibadan is a city-village”. this statement affirms the vastness of ibadan even in its traditional forms. the villages are sites of production and source of raw materials desirable for trading in the city. from the nineteenth century, villages and settlements in mutiat titilope oladejo 153 ibadan were inundated with urbanization pressires, thus, transforming into city spaces, due to colonial influences. contemporary city spaces were enhanced by the growth of colonial infrastructures such as roads, rails and central business districts. hence, the old settlement patterns became occupied and transformed to city spaces. in the geographical set up of ibadan, the places featured as oko egan (distant farm areas) became permanently of a village status. thus, the separate entities of city and village in ibadan is distinct and gives way to understand the livelihood strategies that suffices. from the 1850s, ibadan’s city status was transformed by its central role in serving as a clearing space for palm-oil export to lagos during the era of legitimate trade (awe, 1967:22). the palm-oil from ibadan and neighboring districts enriched the local economy such that the warrior contended to maintain supremacy. palm-oil as a commodity of trade became a key ingredient in black soap production. the construct of city and village in this work is based on the fact that there is nexus and an interface. each remains an extension of the other. the extension and dependence on each other mattered in the entrepreneurial dimensions that manifested in black soap production. the dependency between the city and the village fundamentally defines the perspective of entrepreneurial cultures that evolved in ibadan. black soap production is in the category of traditional craft that evolved since the nineteenth century. manifestation of city-village interface commonly explain the directions of indigenous entrepreneurship as described by ochonu. the modes of entrepreneurship in black soap from the precolonial era was evidenced with locally devised technologies of production. (oral interview at olode village december 20, 2020 80+). women’s work is based on production of black soap in olode village and a second phase is the trade connections in the city. manifestation of city-village interface commonly explain the directions of indigenous entrepreneurship as described by ochonu. the modes of entrepreneurship in black soap from the precolonial era was evidenced with locally devised technologies of production. (oral interview at olode village december 20, 2020 80+). women’s work is based on production of black soap in olode village and a second phase is the trade connections in the city. 154 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 147-163) olode village as a market ring for black soap domiciled in the west africa, black soap is an indigenous innovation and for the yoruba people it features in the accounts of civilization that constitute everyday life in the past. it also serves curative therapy as a herbal remedy in skincare. in the context of cultural entrepreneurship in black soap, there exist a form of ‘factor market’ where labour is sought from the family for production and distribution of black soap. the scale of production at olode village is aided by extra familial labour which was always gender based. the labour system was a product of nineteenth century occupational features used in african societies. the demand for labour was influenced by communalism which also influenced marketing. while men controlled the farming and trade in palm and cocoa, the residual material (by-products) were used by women to produce black soap. the economic implication for women reflected the livelihood, which was entrepreneurial as they took advantage of the by-products in the processing of palm and cocoa to earn income through black soap. the idea of market rings was brought up by hodder and ukwu (1969) in the explanations about markets in west africa. each ring had a commodity specialization that supplied a particular trading space in the city markets. in this, olode village in akinyele local government is a ring for production of black soap. the existence of olode village, the formation of several villages that constitute was typical of the ibadan since 1829. (oral interview with mr. s.b. ibirogba december 13, 2020 at olode village) the village as the name imply by yoruba meaning is a village of hunters. ibadan by its foundation in 1829 was a newly discovered area highly forested. while the dispersals due to nineteenth century yoruba wars flinged people in different directions several displaced peoples found refuge in the bushes, where the environment was a source of livelihood. exploring the forests for hunting sustained the men who found the new settlements and the histories of migration to olode village entailed several groups of men who maintained friendly alliances through hunting expeditions. the present olode village historically locates between iware and iroko in akinyele area of ibadan (handbook history of olode village). being hunters, there were tendencies to locate several spots for settlements where huts were built. this laid the foundation of olode village in the late nineteenth century. however, there are lopsidedness that focused on men in historical accounts of the past mutiat titilope oladejo 155 necessitated studies in women’s history (oladejo 2018). in this context, primary sources in the history of olode village left out the lives of women in the modes of migration, settlement and livelihood. yet, olode village is renowned for black soap production in ibadan. (oral interview with madam b.o. on december 1, 2020) the idea of relying on environmental resources to produce soap was imported to the village by madam ogundeji, a wife to one of the descendants of the founder of the village in the early twentieth century. in yoruba societies wives played formidable powerful roles in the lineage. in the sudarkasa’s work (1974) of yoruba women in the home and market place, she analysed how wives had economic power to earn income in the markets and on market days. in this, the status of wives mattered as elderly wives in a lineage had the power to earn more income because they had passed child bearing and rearing stage. younger wives had little opportunity to earn much because they had younger children. the wifely relationships in olode village manifested as a wife of one of the early settlers, madam ogundeji imported the skill of black soap production in the 1910s. (oral interview with pa elero on december 20, 2020) for men and women, the environment mattered in the choice of occupation. men were basically hunters drawn from different villages, while their wives worked in cooperatives in the production of black soap making mapped olode village in the map of commercial activities in ibadan. by this olode village emerged as a market ring where the women in the wifely status organized production of blacksoap as self-help groups. invariably cultural entrepreneurship evolved from women in olode village as kinship networks of women in the community transformed to a market ting and a commercial hub to seek for supply of black soap in ibadan. suffice to note that in the colonial era, ijebu women settlers in ibadan traded with women in olode village from the 1950s. (oral interview with mrs. oludunke akintunde on december 13, 2020 at olode village) ijebu women settlers clustered around oke ado area, ekotedo among others relied on supplies from olode village to sell at dugbe and old gbagi market. in the sales of black soap, the nuances of power to control trading spaces influenced the dimensions of trade. as women producers in olode village were less acquainted with the growing spheres of trade in the city in the colonial era, ijebu women took advantage of this and repackaged black soaps to sell around the central business districts in ibadan. the market ring in olode village became prominent as black soap was a needed commodity that connected to the city. 156 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 147-163) beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan as ibadan warrior created new settlements from 1829, the areas around oja iba, oje, beere evolved as city model from inception. in definition of african city, the areas aforementioned evolved simultaneously as a new settlement and a city. in the early twentieth century the city neighbourhoods were commercial centres that aided the trading networks between the city and the village. it should be recalled that the neighbourhoods were prominent for trade because it increased the revenues accrued to the warriors and chiefs. the quantum of commerce in these areas is a framework to discern the entrepreneurial process in the production and marketing of black soap. the demand for black soap was connected to the nodes of commerce in the marketing of aso-oke (yoruba woven cloth) as oje market was a space of convergence for cloth merchants from ilorin, osogbo, iseyin, oyo, ijebu among others. the convergence created markets for other commodities, hence black soap was a necessity desired for everyday consumption. in the words of hodder and ukwu (1967) oje market as at the 1930s was described thus: up to the middle 1930s, oje was rather like ibuko in being dominantly a collecting and distributing centre for food crops and the products of craft industries from the surrounding farm districts. from the late 1930s, however people from iseyin, osogbo, and oyo came to settle nearby and introduced into oje market the products of traditional weaving industry. in the 1940s a wide tarred road leading in from north-east of the town was constructed and passed within a few yards of oje market and this road improved the contact by motor lorry between oje and the wearing centres of northern and north-eastern yorubaland. (hodder and ukwu, 1967:175). the description of the trade that evolved in the 1930s and 1940s in the market segment of the city pulled and pushed the demand for other commodities. initially the black soap producers work within the market days typical for sales in yoruba societies. the market days varied from three to seventeen days. commodity availability and specialization of traders determined the particular days to sell. early women from olode village of the 1950s sold black soap on wholesale on ninth day markets at oje. (oral mutiat titilope oladejo 157 interview with madam alice at olode village. november 30, 2020) the women put forth that the presence itinerant traders from other yoruba towns informed the decisions to focus on oje market. before the 1930s, the traffic of trade was initially high at the markets of other yoruba towns. for example, the women producers of black soap from olode village traded in the markets of fiditi and oyo. (oral interview with madam alice at olode village. november 30, 2020) the expanding nature of colonial commerce and its effect on ibadan city areas increased the influx of new settlers, and merchants. while it was also a period of inter-war years, rural-urban migration to the cities of lagos and ibadan was rampant. black soap trade at village to village markets as at the 1930s, reflected the models of marketing peculiar from the pre-colonial era. therefore, the population explosion in the city increased the demand and supply dynamics. life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village scholars of women and gender studies in southwest nigeria (mcintosh 2010), (sudarkasa 1974) identified the kind of relationship that sustained the modes of production and trade among yoruba women. kinship-based networks aided the production of black soap, where girls adopted and younger women married into new families. from the new familial terrains, apprenticeship and socialization mattered among women in the family. this is affirmed in alanamu’s (2012) description of female socialization in nineteenth century yoruba land where girls learnt and schooled from their mother. this is tied to the non-formal learning system highlighted by fafunwa (1973) where the work of girls was attached to learning from older women in lineages. even in the twentieth century, the indigenous form of capitalism related to kinship and familial networks mattered in the production and trade in black soap. mrs. oludunke akintunde she attended primary and modern school and worked as a teacher from 1979-1983, during bola ige’s regime as an auxiliary teacher. (oral interview with mrs. oludunke akintunde 55+ december 14, 2020) she got married on december 19, 1982 and moved with her husband to kaduna (northern nigeria). but i moved to ibadan in 1995 around agbadagbudu. we left agbadagbudu because of accommodation crisis. i traded, my family said i should work at ibadan north local government, i could not because of my children because of the distance. i had twins around that time, i learnt aso-oke weaving, but there 158 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 147-163) was no demand and so the trade was not lucrative. i moved to aleshinloye to sell plastic household needs, while we lived in my husband’s family house in the city. my mother-in-law died around 1998, we had to relocate to olode village and due to demands for black soap produced by my motherin-law, my husband that taught me how to produce and i started production in 1998. to make sales we move in groups the city markets in ibadan, where we hang around the filling station at beere trading area, and once in a while we sell at oyo town markets. depending on production capacity, i can have supplies to sell at the markets thrice a week. we used to go to oyo villages to buy production materials such as cocoa ashes and dye. i buy on credit at times and pay after making sales from soap produced. with other producers in the village, we contribute to buy production materials in bulk. the suppliers come from ondo state to deliver cocoa ashes. we store the ashes in drums and use gradually. to improve sales, we shifted from beere trading area to oje market. the shift was driven by competition as women from other yoruba towns such as ikire, iwo, ife odan compete with us and this affected sales. we are permanent at oje market where we do direct sales. there is a generational shift in the nature of sellers at beere trading area as most of them are deceased. and by the growing nature of ibadan city, sales are not static to a location, it depends on the ability to network around the city. in fact, we target village market days in contemporary times. about ten years ago, a woman comes from lagos to buy bulk. being an educated woman, i know vary price to customers depending on the situation to cover for production and transport cost. i work within my resources and my husband does not allow me take microfinance loans because of the risks of repayment. as a form of self-help, we have black soap producers’ commodity group, we use weekly collections to facilitate friendliness and welfare among members. oluwabanke fadeji: i started this work when i got married into olode village. (oral interview with madam oluwabanke fadeji, 70+ december 18, 2020) once we bore children they started telling us to start learning. i started after bearing children around fifty years ago. i started learning from my mother-in-law. we burn cocoa, we buy and roast palm nut, grind and fry. after that i started learning production from each other. the production skills are tough. we used to follow mother-in-law to learn trading skills on market days. we trade at oje and beere trading spaces. ijebu women sought supplies in olode village about fifty years ago, they buy from us to resell in lagos. most of the women are dead. some use to buy on credit to sell. through intra-gender conversations among women of the same lineage, we mutiat titilope oladejo 159 started explaining production and trade skills to younger wives, some women do not produce but they sell. when old women in the production circle die, we prepare ekuru (bean pudding) and pepper sauce to celebrate life. based on yoruba culture, we chant poems eulogizing the traditional goddess of iyamapo. the iyamapo is believed to be a spiritual force for women’s empowerment and we chant the praise poems as part of work ethics to give us relief and hope for prosperity in blacksoap production and trade. moji abioye: i use to be omoiyawo (girl child placed under guardianship of female family members). (oral interview with madam moji abioye 75+ on december 18, 2020) there was less civilization, and there was authority in yoruba culture, but now, girls are well civilized. wherever they tell you to go, you go there. the family system was closely knit; they gave me out to marriage. in our marital lineage, we were mentored by our elderly wives in production and sale of black soap. the elderly wives do the work and i offer labour under their authority and guidance older women in the family. i do as instruct. i work on the okiti (mound) we process the dye through the mound. i work on the process, we fetch for sticks and work for the whole production process. the processing is labourious. we move to beere to sell. we have our prices. prices depend on production costs people come from places, especially ijebu women from lagos bring vans to olode to buy in bulk. we had commodity groups, but they were not sustainable. alice oyedeji: i started learning as a new bride, i learnt from my mother-in-law. (oral interview madam alice oyedeji 80+ december 20, 2020) i followed her to sell at the village markets such as in fiditi. i have been into production and sale of black soap for sixty years. as sales dwindled in fiditi, i focused on selling in ibadan city markets. i sell at beere and oje trading areas about forty years ago. like other women, i sell to herbal medicine practitioners. men are rarely involved in the production and sales. women’s resilience in this work, is aided by marriage, as younger wives do what other older wives do. oluremiakande: i married into this village from ojerinde village. i started learning before i clocked 20 years. (oral interview with oluremi akande 75+ december, 14, 2020). i offer support in production process. the old women teach the younger ones, they were not self-centred. the old women mentored well and let out the trade secrets. proceeds from the sales of black soap are used to take care of our children, if our husbands do not have anything to give and my husband offers labour support in the 160 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 147-163) production process. from the church, people give out title, when you give. men give support with understanding, for instance not being able to prepare meals, while i was a younger wife, because it is time consuming. about thirty years ago, from my marital family, we can have a huge volume of black soap as much as five pots to sell on a market day. we used to hawk around to iware, onidundu on market days. on ninth day markets, women from ijebu come to olode village to buy and repackage. features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories from the above, life history narratives of women producers and traders of black soap affirms the nature of entrepreneurship and innovation propounded by schumpeter and in the african case, it explicates the notions ochonu explained. the african realities as seen in the life histories of the women shows how gendered understandings and the yoruba culture are major determinants of women’s work and survival. while it is very fundamental to note that the materials for production of black soap are conditioned by environmental resources, this, to the women producers was an economy of scale and the ability to add the materials for soaps was an innovation. the prominence of cocoa and palm tree in the forest zones of west africa was a factor in the relations of production. the social construct of gender among the yoruba also manifest as girls were fostered among the extended lineage family structure, hence the nature of socialization was primarily aimed at traditional domestic education for girls. invariably, domestic socialization for girls transformed to craft learning and earning power as they grew into older women in their marital family. this kind of socialization an empowerment was aptly expresses in sudarkasa’s (1974) analysis of yoruba women in the market place and the home. in the process of production of blacksoap, the home is an appendage for the market. the narratives portray the notions and dynamics of partriarchy and power in yoruba culture, while this could be argued to be a source of constraints to women’s entrepreneurship, rather, time, space, age mattered in the changing status of women, hence, wifely status was a medium of empowerment. a very key factor in qualifying women for ability to produce and trade black soap is motherhood. within the family structure ability to conceive children stimulated lovely family bonds with elderly women. hence, being compatible with other women within the family was an economic advantage that advanced entrepreneurial practices. according to mutiat titilope oladejo 161 sheldon (2017;15-17), this culture was profound from the pre-colonial era and it is a manifestation of asuwada sociation theory that internalizes how social values of common good manifests among the yoruba in africa. in olode village the entrepreneurship in blacksoap largely is a function of the bond among women in the village and their interface with other women outside the village and in the city. as the asuwada theory implies, it becomes strongly embedded in the culture of production and trade as it mattered in the survival of each woman in the olode market ring. invariably, the culture of communalism is fundamental to business survival among yoruba women as atanda (1980;62) noted that togetherness through the extended family system was typical even after the colonial era. conclusion black soap is a globalized indigenous commodity that featured in a long duree as an african heritage. women as major players in the trade networks defined the entrepreneurial dimensions. as discussed earlier in the conceptual framework, entrepreneurship in the process of black soap production is situational and it is dependent of city-village spatial networks, kinship-based networks. the traditional business systems have also defined the market of cosmetics trade as modern business methods are used to repackage black soaps for global consumption. the emphasis on women showed how occupational mainstreaming is reinforced by sex-role differentiation. mcintosh (2009) explained how yoruba women’s work was distinct in the colonial era. while there was different work across societies, the environmental resources influenced the concentration of women on black soap production of course, the desire to have soaps for bodily care for young and adults led to the innovation of black soaps. as evident in horn’s analysis, women’s entrepreneurship in black soap production is applicable in africa. in this work, it is discovered that: black soap production showed how women take risks to produce black soap in spite of technical and resource uncertainties, learn entrepreneurial skills form each other, create market niches as situation demands and they depend on informal capital systems such as from family, money lenders and business partners. the lack of adaptation to modern technologies evidently remains the same as callaway (1967) made a case from his findings on traditional crafts in ibadan of the 1960s. he posits concerns for the lack of modernization of 162 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 147-163) crafts, which are due to sentiments and respect for tradition, yet they constitute economic progress. in spite of neoliberal reforms that emanated from the 1980s, the village social and economic structure still suffices in certain endeavours. in the case of black soap, culture of entrepreneurship in the indigenous forms co-exist with the ideas of neoliberalism which strove to eradicate poverty, by importing the western values of entrepreneurship. with the asuwada sociation theory, it is apt to understand that in spite of modern technologies, the social forms of fellowship and cooperation is an innovation that recurs even in the context of globalization and modernization. references [1] alanamu, t. 2012. female childhood socialisation in nineteenth-century yorubaland ex historia humanities.exeter.ac.uk [2] atanda, j.a. 1980. an introduction to yoruba history. ibadan: ibadan university press. [3] austin g. 2005. labour, land and capital in ghana: from slavery to free labour in asante, 1807-1956. rochester: university of rochester press. [4] awe, b. 1977.“the iyalode in the traditional yoruba political system”, in schlgel, a. (ed) sexual stratification: a cross cultural view (new haven: yale university press) 144-160. [5] awe, b. 1973. “militarism and economic development in nineteenth century yoruba country: the ibadan example”. the journal of african history 14(1), 65-77. [6] awe, b., mabogunje, a., & lloyd, p.c. (eds.) 1967. the city of ibadan (cambridge: cambridge university press) [7] callaway, h. 1967. from traditional crafts and modern industries in awe, b., mabogunje, a., & lloyd, p.c. (eds.) the city of ibadan (cambridge: cambridge university press)153-172. [8] chileshe j. (ed.) 1992. nothing wrong with africa, except… (new delhi: vikas publishing house). [9] clarke, w.h. 1972. travels and explorations in yorubaland, 1854-1858 and with an introduction by j.a. atanda, (ibadan: ibadan university press). [10] clemence, r.v. and doody, f.s. 1950. the schumpeterian system cambridge: addison-wesley press. [11] cummings, r. 1995. african entrepreneurship: past, present, and future, paper presented at the carter lecture series symposium gainesville, florida. [12] fafunwa, a.b. 1973. history of education in nigeria. lagos: nps educational mutiat titilope oladejo 163 [13] falola, t. 1984. the political economy of a pre-colonial african state: ibadan, 1830-1900. ife: university of ife press. [14] falola, t. 1989. politics and economy in ibadan, 1893-1945. ibadan: modelor publishers [15] falola, t. 2012. ibadan: foundation, growth and change, 1830-1960. ibadan: bookcraft [16] fyfe, c. 1965. “west african trade” in ajayi, j.f and espie, i. (eds.) a thousand years of west african history, (ibadan: ibadan university press) [17] hodder, b.w. and ukwu, u.i. 1969. markets in west africa. ibadan: ibadan university press. [18] mabogunje, a. 1968. urbanisation in nigeria. london: university of london press. [19] mcintosh, m.k. 2009. yoruba women, work and social change. indiana: indiana university press. [20] ochonu, m. 2020. ‘african entrepreneurship: the fetish of personal responsibility’ http://roape.net/2020/05/26/african-entrepreneurship-thefetish-of-personal-responsibility/ [21] oladejo m.t. 2019. “settlement patterns and security institutions in ibadan in the nineteenth century” in ayodejiolukoju, olutayo adesina, abimbola adesoji, saheed amusa (eds.) security challenges and management in modern nigeria (uk: cambridge scholars publishing). [22] oladejo, m.t. 2018. female historians and knowledge production for women’s studies in africa: the nigerian example since 1974 international journal of gender and women studies, vol.6, no.1, 30-37. [23] omobowale, a.o. & akanle, o. 2017. asuwada epistemology and globalised sociology: challenges of the south sociology 51(1), 43-59. [24] roschenthaler u. and schulz d. 2016. cultural entrepreneurship in africa routledge african studies [25] sheldon, k. 2017. african women: early history to the 21st century. indiana: indiana university press. [26] spring a. and mcdade b.e. (ed.) 1998. african entrepreneurship: theory and reality. gainesville: university press of florida. [27] sudarkasa, n. 1974. where women work: a study of yoruba women in the market place and in the home anthropological papers, museum of anthropology, no. 53, ann arbor: the university of michigan. article history: received: february 22nd, 2021 accepted: may 10th, 2021 "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references 13_jwe_3-4 ne ovaj foreword of editor-in-chief i would like to express my great pleasure because we are ending this calendar year with a better categorization of the journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (jwee), in relation to the last year. from 2009, when this journal was created, it was promoted twice by the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic of serbia. it is currently in the category m52 because of the great number of quality papers, whose authors were the scientists from more than thirty countries, from all the continents. what gives the special quality to these papers is the fact that most of them are original scientific empirical research papers, and as such they give a special contribution to the issues addressed in the journal. also, the contribution to the quality of the journal is given by all the members of the editorial staff, who create each issue with great love all these years. this issue is financially supported by the faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship. i have to specially point out the fact that this scientific journal has extended its themes and has always focused on those themes which are prioritized because of their actuality. i expect for this trend to continue and for the issues of female entrepreneurship and education to continue to fascinate scientific and professional public, which will result in larger number of authors and papers. the invitation is open to everyone to send in their papers for 2014, for the special issue of the journal with the topic women leadership, gender balance and entrepreneurship (submission deadline: march 1, 2014). editor-in-chief professor dr. mirjana radović-marković, academician world academy of arts and sciences, united states academia europaea, london, united kingdom royal society of arts, london, united kingdom euro mediterranean academy of arts and sciences, athens, greece bulgarian academy of sciences and arts, sofia, bulgaria serbian royal academy of science and arts, belgrade, serbia (vice-president) doi: 10.28934/jwee21.12.pp190-206 jel: i240 original scientific paper 11bfeature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 konstantin antipyev2 8f1 valeriy levchenko29 f2 gennady razinsky3 0f3 perm national research polytechnic university, faculty of humanities, department of sociology and political science, perm, perm krai, russia a b s t r a c t 2020 has become an important challenge for all countries of the world. even though pandemics have occurred periodically in the past, the current pandemic is taking place in the context of the information society and globalization development information on the spread of infection was rapidly disseminated through all channels of communication: television, social networks, messengers. most of the countries have made and are making efforts to reduce the possibility of simultaneously contracting with large numbers of people. educational institutions have begun to switch to distance learning. both teachers and students at all levels of education found themselves in the new conditions. vocational education has also turned into distance learning mode. universities did not stop education but faced considerable difficulties in its organization while being in the conditions of distance learning. based on the conducted research, the authors have studied the attitude of full-time students and female students to distance learning and adaptation to it. 1 corresponding author: e-mail: konstant77@mail.ru, tel. +79024735091 2 e-mail: levv66@mail.ru, tel. +79024716881 3 e-mail: labsoc@pstu.ru, tel. +79027989013 konstantin antipyev, valeriy levchenko, gennady razinsky 191 key words: covid19, education and gender, distance learning, higher education, students, boys, girls, forms of education, benchmarking, self-isolation, social distancing, attitudes towards distance learning introduction the high rate of spread of the new covid19 infection has put the world in a difficult position both in medical, economic and in legal and social aspects. despite repeated warnings from doctors that such a situation was possible, neither the population nor the national governments were prepared for it. most decisions were made quite chaotically, based on their own ideas about the possibility of restricting the rights and freedoms of citizens (goodman, seigel & sobel, 2020). the consequences of covid19 will be subjected to a comprehensive analysis for a long time by specialists from different fields of scientific knowledge, politicians, and public figures. currently, the accumulation of data continues, however it is already clear that the changes we will observe in the post-like period will be significant and they will manifest themselves in many areas. covid19 has hit hard the national economy, socially disadvantaged populations, areas where poverty is widespread, where social distancing cannot be sustained (chen, waterman & krieger, 2020). to minimize the spread of covid19 the governments of most countries, as well as medical professionals have either recommended or prescribed social distancing to reduce direct contact. educational institutions switched to distance learning so that the educational process was not interrupted. unfortunately, several related problems associated with the transition to distance learning have not been resolved for a long time. this is the problem of the movement of foreign students with closed borders, support for students with technical capabilities, psychosocial well-being of students and teachers (sahu, 2020; el masri & sabzalieva, 2020). however, this has further emphasized the level of inequality both between and within countries. opportunities for switching to distance learning were different for everyone, since they assumed at least the presence of a stable internet and devices (computers, smartphones). in russia institutions of higher education began to move to a distance form in april 2020, when it became clear that a new infection had begun to spread in the country, and it was impossible to contain it. both schools and professional educational institutions were switching to the distance learning 192 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 190-206) mode. separately, it is worth highlighting institutions of higher education, which were ordered to organize distance learning on their own. as a result, both students and teachers quickly adapted to the new conditions. a similar process was going on in other countries and universities (de boer, 2021; poláková & klímová, 2021; gonçalves, sousa & pereira, 2020; almomani, et al., 2021). the process did not go without problems and therefore became a test for many subjects. both men and women are studying together in russian universities, and the number of women studying, including in engineering specialties, is increasing. covid19 has put all students in a position of forced adaptation to sufficiently intensive educational programs (fallatah, 2020; giovannella, 2021). in order to optimize the process of their adaptation, it is important and necessary to take into account the subjective side of this process, a component of which is the gender aspect of distance learning perception during the first covid19 wave. at the same time, it is interesting to reveal how much the process of perception of new educational conditions has been accepted by students of different genders, to find similarities and differences in the perception of new conditions. it seems important to us to build and test several research hypotheses: hypothesis 1. among female students there are more of those who are skeptical about distance learning, since for them personal contact in the process of education is more important. hypothesis 2. the degree of discipline and responsibility in relation to distance learning among female students is higher than among male students, which is reproduced from full-time education. hypothesis 3. the main common obstacles to distance learning for female and male students are problems with the internet and the lack of an even algorithm of actions and study schedules. background one of the significant measures that was supposed to reduce the spread of the new infection was social distancing, that is reducing the number of personal contacts between people, avoiding public places. previously, social distancing was considered mainly in relation to certain social groups perceived contradictory by society or in a special situation: elderly people, homeless people, drug addicts, released prisoners (cacioppo & hawkley, 2009). distancing was viewed by other members of society as a limitation to konstantin antipyev, valeriy levchenko, gennady razinsky 193 contacts with them due to stereotypes and prejudices. distancing in 2020 has come to be seen more broadly as a protective mechanism necessary for all groups of society (mintrom & o'connor, 2020). not only negative characteristics were considered in social distancing, but also positive ones were identified. thus, distancing from strangers, random people has led to the fact it is possible to spend more time with family or to avoid being in a workplace where there are many stressors due to forced communication. even before the covid19 pandemic, researchers highlighted the benefits of distance learning and viewed it as a promising learning environment for students (radović marković, 2009). it is quite popular to consider distancing from the standpoint of cultural theory, when the same requirements for social distancing can be perceived by people in different ways: from acceptance to protest and resistance to restrictions (davy, 2020). the negative side of social distancing was a decrease in the possibilities of socialization, exacerbation of mental illness, the accumulation of fatigue and anxiety, which requires further study (grubic, badovinac & johri, 2020). during social isolation a person feels lonely. even before the pandemic, researchers noted that this loneliness causes persistent fear, hypersensitivity, and increased aggressiveness (rodriguez-romaguera & stuber, 2018). during a pandemic and self-isolation, social support becomes important (xiao&yao, 2020). social distancing has swept the education system in 2020, which has become a significant problem. training in many specialties involves not only the transfer of knowledge, but also systematic communication, exchange of information, emotions (gendron, 2017). this is extremely important when teaching most specialties, which has already been established in the experience of many universities (mingaleva & vukovic, 2020). the impact of covid19 on the education system began to be actively considered by researchers, especially since the situation did not unfold in labouratory conditions, but in natural conditions (barnová, krásna, & gabrhelová, 2020; loziak, fedáková & čopková, 2020). it has led to a high demand for distance and mixed technologies (garcía, 2020). also, a number of researchers note that the fears of switching to distance learning were significant, but real practice has become favorable (lee et al., 2021). the influence of gender factors on higher education continues to attract researchers, since the problem of equality in education, stereotypes in https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?origin=resultslist&authorid=36968163000&zone= https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?origin=resultslist&authorid=57110136500&zone= https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?origin=resultslist&authorid=57110136500&zone= 194 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 190-206) the choice of educational programs for women is quite relevant both in the past and in the present (jonsson, 1999; correll, 2001; huyer & carr, 2002; thomas, 1990). during a pandemic, gender issues in education can be exacerbated. sociological data have begun to appear from surveys related to distance learning and its perception by students, which makes it possible to take this experience into account when implementing our own research on this topic (pan, 2020; baloran, 2020). distance learning in the period of covid19 also leads to an additional impact on the behavior of the main subjects of the educational process, on the psyche of students, can increase stress by worrying about passing exams, the success and timeliness of assignments and their assessment (karalis, 2020). methods to study the peculiarities of the perception of distance learning in institutions of higher professional education the sociology labouratory of the perm national research polytechnic university organized a sociological survey among full-time students. the survey was carried out remotely using google forms, by filling out an electronic questionnaire and was conducted in may 2020, when students had been on distance learning for almost two months. accordingly, only those students who had access to the internet took part in the study. the questionnaire survey was conducted in two weeks. the sample consisted of 633 students, of which 389 were women and, accordingly, 244 were men. while the respondents of technical faculties are mostly male, among the humanities 83.6% of the respondents are female. the bulk of students in the sample are bachelors 552 people (87.2% of all surveyed students). 2/3 of them are women, 1/3 are men. basically this is the younger age group (under 20) 82.9%. thus, for further analysis, their social portrait is important: the predominantly female group, the lowest youth age, almost all under 24 years old, the average age is 19.5 years. the sample included two technical faculties and a humanitarian faculty, in the specialties of which more women study. during data analysis, a comparative analysis method was applied considering the gender characteristics of students. the comparative method made it possible to highlight the similarities and differences in attitudes towards distance learning. the snowball method was used in the selection of respondents. konstantin antipyev, valeriy levchenko, gennady razinsky 195 the questionnaire consisted of several blocks. the first block included the characteristics of the behavioral, cognitive, emotional and value components of attitudes towards distance learning. the questions of the block make it possible to reveal the meaningful features of the structure of the attitude of gender groups to distance learning, to concretize the advantages and disadvantages of such training from the point of view of students. the second block contained the factors that determine this attitude. this block made it possible to analyze the attitude considering socially significant parameters that affect the opinion of the respondents. results considering that the transition to distance learning took place rapidly, without any preparation, we assumed that students would face significant difficulties, since they had to quickly rebuild, joining in a new form of educational process. we found it significant to reveal how similar or different was the adaptation to distance learning of boys and girls studying in mixed groups. there is a persistent stereotype that for girls, personal interaction in the learning process is more important than for boys, and boys are more inclined to adopt new technologies than girls. in general, the issue of students' perception of various educational technologies is very important for modern universities, including from the point of view of establishing modes and consequences of failures within the life cycle of various university educational services (mingaleva, et al., 2019; gunes, 2019). the respondents were asked about the experience of using forms of distance learning earlier, in the pre-dock period. such experience had 40.2% of female students and 32.6% of male students. another thing is that this experience was situational, students could enroll in online courses, which were very umerous, but this was mainly done outside the curriculum. the most popular online language courses were used by more girls than boys (stoytcheva, 2018; cacheiro-gonzalez, et al., 2019). thus, the girls' respondents had a somewhat greater experience of distance learning. when asked about the attitude towards distance learning, the following distributions were obtained (see table 1). 196 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 190-206) table 1: attitude towards distance learning (in%) attitude women men positive 18,4 21,1 neutral, as well as to other forms of education 36,4 34,7 negative 32,8 38,9 i am at a loss to answer 12,3 5,9 source: compiled by the authors there was quite a fairly large number of female students who were undecided with the answer (12.3%). this is more likely due to the uncertainty of the forms in the subjects, somewhere the teachers themselves quickly switched to the remote model, somewhere there was an overload of tasks, and somewhere in general the load has dropped significantly. a negative attitude was more expressed by young men (38.9%), although the gap in assessment with girls was only 6.1%. positive and neutral assessments of female and male students are quite close. it is known that the modern world gives us many learning opportunities if we have access to the internet. these opportunities are most actively used by young people, for whom the assimilation of these technologies does not require much effort, because they already use them in one form or another. the bigger problem was the readiness of the teachers themselves for the means that they did not use. what means of distance learning did the boys and girls use? (see table 2). table 2: distance learning tools used (in %) facilities women men universal platforms (zoom, etc.) 86,4 80,2 university platforms 51,0 62,8 faculty platforms 22,4 13,5 social networks 68,4 68,8 messengers 43,5 38,5 email 72,6 72,4 telephone 23,2 19,8 electronic teaching materials 30,5 29,5 electronic libraries 13,8 10,4 virtual labouratories 1,5 2,1 other 0,0 0,0 source: compiled by the authors konstantin antipyev, valeriy levchenko, gennady razinsky 197 we can see that social networks, e-mail, e-learning materials are being used evenly, and electronic platforms of faculties are used more by girls (22.4%) than boys (13.5%). on the contrary, university platforms are used more by men (62.8%). universal platforms are unambiguously highly popular, slightly higher among women (86.4%) than among men (80.2%). accordingly, there are universal leaders in distance learning that unite men and women: universal platforms (1), email (2) and social networks (3). this is because students had hands-on experience with them prior to covid19. it can also be noted that female students are more diverse in terms of the use of distance learning tools compared to male students. a significant problem of distance learning has become a changed perception of the sense of time, schedule of classes. it is very difficult to adapt to new requirements. when you have to learn a significant part of the material on your own, complete the tasks on time. although in general the respondents indicate timeliness of their implementation, only a third give an unconditionally positive answer and almost half answer more evasively, specifying that this is not always the case. women show greater discipline in delivering assignments on time (42.3%) than male students (24.0%) (see table 3). table 3: assessment of the timeliness of assignments (in%) timeliness of execution women men rented on time 42,3 24,0 not always on time 45,0 53,5 usually they don't give up on time 10,7 18,8 other 2,0 3,7 source: compiled by the authors distance learning was considered even before covid19, being perceived as, on the one hand, a progressive form of education. in particular, over the past two decades, various methods of distance learning have been associated by researchers with the formation of an innovative economy, knowledge economy, and information economy (connelly, 2016; mingaleva & mirskikh, 2010; van der wende, 2010; djuricic, et al., 2008). on the other hand, concerns were expressed about the negative impact of distance learning on the personality. during our study respondents were asked about the benefits of distance learning. several inaccuracies were found. thus, female students more appreciate the development of new technologies in the 198 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 190-206) process (28.9%), in comparison with male students (16.3%). the independence of the educational process from the place, freedom and flexibility of the schedule are more appreciated by female students (46.4% and 65.1%, respectively) than male students (35.8% and 59.4%) (see table 4). boys noted a higher proportion of independence (38.5%), compared with girls (27.6%). at the same time, many other positions of the sexes are quite close. table 4: assessing the benefits of distance learning benefits floor women men freedom and flexibility of the schedule 65,1 59,4 high degree of independence 27,6 38,5 more effective feedback 12,3 16,7 independence of the educational process from the location of trainers and students 46,4 35,8 mastering new technologies and means of communication 28,9 16,3 development of self-discipline and selfeducation 28,7 26,0 application of new teaching methods, new forms of material presentation, etc. 10,5 11,8 online access to lectures, libraries and other electronic resources 5,4 5,9 not found any particular advantages 17,6 20,1 source: compiled by the authors with the next question, we identified the shortcomings of distance learning, which the respondents could already feel in practice, having studied for about a month in the new conditions. the data obtained showed that even in the three most significant positions, the fluctuations were not significant between the sexes, most opinions coincided or were close to each other. a significant discrepancy was found regarding the lack of programs, platforms and teaching methodologies. men were more critical (14.2%), women were less critical (7.5%). also, female students indicated less difficulties with the control of the educational process (9.0%) than men (14.2%) (see table 5). konstantin antipyev, valeriy levchenko, gennady razinsky 199 table 5: assessing of problems and gaps in distance learning problems and disadvantages women men % rank % rank lack of your own computer 5,0 13-14 8,7 11 internet problems 49,8 1 44,4 2 lack of a clear algorithm 48,1 3 50,3 1 low degree of interactivity (communication) 33,1 5 35,8 5 inconvenient (unstable) training schedule 25,3 6 22,9 6 the surface of the knowledge gained 41,0 4 41,7 4 lack of personal contac 49,4 2 42,4 3 insufficient computer literacy of teachers 18,6 7 14,6 7 insufficient computer literacy of students 4,2 15 5,6 14,15,16 lack of computer programs, platforms, methods 7,5 11 14,2 8-9 the development of some courses and programs for online learning leaves much to be desired 7,3 12 6,3 13 lack of well-developed curricula and courses 9,4 9 7,3 12 limitations of teaching by written teaching 5,0 13-14 5,6 14,15,16 inability to develop practical skills 10,5 8 11,5 10 difficulty with control 9,0 10 14,2 8-9 lack of open access online training materials 2,5 17 3,8 17 no problems 3,8 16 5,6 14,15,16 source: compiled by the authors the high degree of most rank matches is indicative, given the general situation in which the educational institution was located. also, the role was played by the fact that some of the students who did not need to attend face-to-face labouratory work on the equipment of the university, dispersed to their settlements, where there could be difficulties with internet access and the workload of household chores. many respondents, regardless of gender, indicated similar disadvantages. during the second wave of covid19 in september-december 2020, many of these shortcomings were partially eliminated by the efforts of university administrations, teachers and students themselves (education in a post-covid world, 2020). 200 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 190-206) the question regarding satisfaction was logical, since initially the students were guided by the format of full-time education. the following distributions were obtained (see table 6) table 6: assessing of satisfaction with distance learning satisfaction women men satisfied completely 5,6 9,2 rather satisfied than not 44,8 38,2 rather dissatisfied than yes 40,4 38,9 not at all satisfied 9,2 13,7 overall satisfied 50,4% 47,4% generally not satisfied 49,6% 52,6% source: compiled by the authors from table 6, we see that although, in general, the assessment of satisfaction with distance learning is slightly higher among female students than among male students, but, at the same time, the complete satisfaction of female students is, on the contrary, lower (5.6%). however, if we group the answers, then we will not see a significant difference, which indicates a more obvious solidarity in the assessments of students, girls and boys. discussion the results of the study showed that for the majority of respondents, the transition to distance learning did not become a deep problem, given the high involvement of young people in online communication systems, the presence of most modern devices from which to study (albertivan, et al., 2019; sansone & bortolotti, 2021). of the technological component, the most problematic was not the development of learning platforms, but the stability of internet connections, because the internet speed varies from one territory to another. the freedom and flexibility of the distance learning schedule has shown its significant attractiveness for students and female students. the necessity to visit non-distant classes, the need to follow their clear schedule and not to be late, were all smoothed out by distance learning. it became possible to skip certain classes, referring to problems with the internet, which was problematic during traditional studies. the lack of communication at university was often compensated for by the same communication outside the university, except for certain months when konstantin antipyev, valeriy levchenko, gennady razinsky 201 cafes, cinemas, entertainment centers were closed and access to public spaces was restricted. it can be argued that, on the one hand, distance learning for a short period has even brought variety to student life, but the further the distance process was postponed, the more its criticism grew. there is a steady understanding that distance learning is a forced measure, therefore the degree of criticality is lower than it would be if the process was delayed. all these problems, in addition, also have their own specific gender characteristics that must be taken into account in the educational process. the directions for improving the quality of distance learning are also clear. first, the presence of a stable schedule and clear procedures will make the educational process of this form more organized. secondly, the combination of the distance form with the traditional one in the future can overcome the superficiality of knowledge and return personal contacts. thirdly, increasing the availability and variety of online technologies should not exclude the existence of a clear action algorithm in teaching both for all students and teachers. conclusion a new and unexpected threat from covid19 has launched many processes at an accelerated rate. in principle, the education system has already used many distance technologies, but they rather accompanied the traditional form. students still spent most of their time within the walls of universities. the transition to a distance form changed the educational process, reduced personal social ties, and demanded the rapid assimilation of new forms by both students and teachers. the problem of information inequality, different levels of information competencies among students has become more acute. further analysis should be made of the consequences of distance learning, its impact on students of both of genders, as well as on those in different courses of study and different programs. the study showed greater similarity in the assessments of distance learning than differences, respectively, understandable priority problems that need to be addressed in the case of further practice of this form of education. hypothesis 1 that female students are more skeptical about distance learning, since personal interaction is important for them, was not confirmed. the study did not reveal a significant difference in attitudes towards distance learning among boys and girls. 202 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 190-206) hypothesis 2 about greater discipline in performing tasks on the remote form was confirmed and showed that female students evaluate their attitude to learning, sending assignments, as more responsible. hypothesis 3 about the main problems of distance learning was generally confirmed. there is no significant difference between the assessment of problems within the framework of gender. both male and female students agreed that they experienced problems with the internet and the lack of a clear algorithm of actions during their studies. a promising area for future research could be measurement of the impact of forced distance learning on the subsequent traditional educational process or social ties. perhaps, students will remember distance learning with nostalgia, or conversely, as a wasted time. in general, it is the postcovid 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[41] van der wende, marijk. 2010 “internationalization of higher education”. international encyclopedia of education, 4: 540-545. doi:10.1016/b978-008-044894-7.00836-8 [42] zhou, xiao, and benxian yao. 2020. “social support and acute stress symptoms (asss) during the covid19 outbreak: deciphering the roles of https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11020081 206 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 190-206) psychological needs and sense of control.” european journal of psychotraumatology, 11 (1): 1779494. article history: received: april 14th, 2021 accepted: june 10th, 2021 "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references doi: 10.28934/jwee22.34.pp273-290 jel: original scientific paper 11bentrepreneurial intention of indian women university students: the role of entrepreneurial self-assessment and entrepreneurial passion neenet baby manjaly3 8f1 adi shankara institute of engineering and technology, dept of business administration, india nimmi p. m school of management studies, cochin university of science and technology, kochi, india george joseph cochin university of science and technology, kochi, india kailash nadh k s a b s t r a c t it is critical to have an understanding of the societal, economic, cultural, technological, and mental hurdles that are placed on women graduates in emerging markets and to devise strategies to overcome these obstacles. individuals who engage in entrepreneurial self-assessment not only find it easier to stay on the right track, but it also enables them to determine the ideal size and scope of their venture prior to even getting started. the instrument and model that were utilized in this research could be a first step in identifying women who have entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intent. according to the findings, an entrepreneurial self-assessment has a favourable correlation with an entrepreneurial purpose. in order for any endeavor to be successful, the first step should be to engage in some form of self-cognition or self-understanding. a 1 corresponding author, e-mail: neenet.mba@adishankara.ac.in 274 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 3-4, 273-290) favorable evaluation of one's own capacity for self-employment tends to result in an individual's enhanced intention to engage in entrepreneurial behavior. according to the second hypothesis, entrepreneurial passion can be derived by doing an honest evaluation of one's own entrepreneurial abilities. the findings demonstrate that a positive self-assessment has a relationship with entrepreneurial passion. the mediating hypothesis contends that the connection between selfassessment and entrepreneurial intention is mediated by a person's level of entrepreneurial passion. a partial mediation validates the significance that passion plays in the relationship. this study makes a contribution to the existing body of research on factors that lead individuals to have entrepreneurial inclinations based on a self-assessment of their own capabilities. this study is in line with the growing interest in the field of research into the factors that motivate women to pursue business opportunities on their own. keywords: self-assessment, entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial passion, women entrepreneurs introduction the greater role that women have assumed in society over the past century has been the main factor driving economic growth (ghani and o'connell, 2012). according to peri, oberman peterka, and geto (2020), entrepreneurship is characterized as one of the essential lifelong abilities and denotes the capacity to transform concepts into workable ventures. women entrepreneurs are described as women or groups of women who start, organize, and run a business enterprise. this definition is based on their involvement in the commercial enterprise's equity and employment (ariffin et al, 2020). such businesses were defined by the indian government as being ones where women owned and controlled at least 51% of the financial stock and created at least 51% of the jobs (rao, 2002). many forms of prejudice and disadvantages are still experienced by women in developing economies like india (radović-marković & achakpa, 2018). the factors influencing female entrepreneurship are quite different from that of an entrepreneurial focus of male counterparts (m das,2000). family constraints and gender differences are the key factors that play a pivotal role in deciding the entrepreneurial path of the former (l de vita et al., 2014). in fact, the term ‘entrepreneur’ itself is portrayed as a masculine concept, and it’s not gender-neutral (ahl, 2006). in developing nations like india, the societal factors for females for enterprising are quite different. neenet baby manjaly, nimmi p. m, george joseph, kailash k s 275 according to wef’s 2022 global gender gap report, the rate of female founders grew 2.16 times between 2016 and 2021 compared to 1.76 times among men in india (world economic forum, 2022). it has been observed that the great majority of women in poor nations engage in entrepreneurial activity out of sheer necessity — rather than an opportunity — as there are no jobs or other possibilities for income generation (l de vita et al., 2014). the majority of them struggle with issues like lack of access to money, lack of entrepreneurial skills, weak marketing, poor bargaining power, and lack of inclusivity in many decisions, affecting the growth of entrepreneurship (ariffin et. al., 2021; antonijević et al., 2022). studies also point out that women lack experience and networks and have fewer credit ratings (carrington,2006). on the other hand, women are progressively becoming sensible of their rights and their work situations since female entrepreneurial activity in developing countries is much higher than in developed countries (l de vita et al, 2014). the hidden entrepreneurial potential of women is changing with the growing sensitivity to their roles and economic status in society. we also see that women are radiating the glow of leadership across various spheres, and it is time for women to break away from stereotyped mindsets as there is a gender stereotype that women are less entrepreneurial (brush et al., 2006). studies also show that the contributions to welfare from women entrepreneurs are much more than from their male counterparts (minniti,2010). women play a key role in the economic development of a nation (boserup et al., 2007). venturing into entrepreneurship help women to have an independent occupation and stay on their own feet. moreover, entrepreneurship is capable of creating new economic opportunities for women and helps in exiting from poverty (daymard, 2015). entrepreneurial motivation, especially in the case of women entrepreneurs, are related to various push and pull factors (godany et al., 2021). push factors could be the death of a family breadwinner, a sudden fall in family income, or permanent inadequacy in the family's income. these factors help them venture out to start their own business (ariffin, 2020). on the other hand, pull factors could be a deep desire in women to evaluate their dreams, or just to utilize their free time or education, to get financial freedom, or even to gain recognition, importance and social status. research shows that push factors are key driving forces that motivate entrepreneurship (okafur & amalu, 2010). research had well revealed that while men entrepreneurs start their businesses mainly due to pull factors, female entrepreneurs are more drawn to entrepreneurship due to push factors (buttner et al, 1997). 276 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 3-4, 273-290) study reports from the united nations industrial development organization say that even the evidence shows that loan repayment rates are higher for women than men (united nations, 2022). women face more difficulty getting credits from financial and non-financial institutions (afrin et al., 2008); hence it is inevitable to have strategic policies and institutional frameworks to support grassroots women entrepreneurs (ariffin, 2020; cukier et al., 2022). however, family obligations bar women from becoming successful entrepreneurs (ahl helene,2006). having concerns about childcare, care of elderly dependent family members, etc., women could not devote much of their time and energies to their business (afrin et al, 2008). however, due to stereotyped thinking, women have a family call to take care of kids and act as housewives (ahl helene,2006). there are also arguments that women entrepreneurs have a low level of managerial skills (afrin,2008), but when they acquire financial management knowledge, they become highly enthusiastic about starting business enterprises. even the achievement motivation of women is found to be much less when compared to men. hence, we understood that in a developing country like india, females face many hurdles (ariffin, 2021), not just in planning and launching the business but also in running the business successfully (ahl helene, 2006). the reason for such a condition may be the absence of pull factors that can carry them through the hurdles of undertaking business activities. it is important to engage in self-reflection, which can be accomplished through a process of self-assessment, in order to shape oneself into a successful entrepreneur and understand and overcome the societal, financial, cultural, technological, and attitudinal barriers that are placed on women graduates (garg and agarwal, 2017). entrepreneurial self-assessment helps them to better understand the ideal size and scope of what they are getting into and integrate their personal, financial, and personal goals. even in the face of obstacles along the way to entrepreneurship, it is necessary to have a very strong love for the endeavor (cardon et al., 2009). entrepreneurial passion is linked to favorable attitudes and feelings toward pursuits that are essential to a person's sense of self (huyghe et al., 2016). it encourages individuals to recognize novel opportunities and build fresh, original business intentions (cardon et.al. 2017). when someone has passion, they have a great desire to perform and are highly motivated to do so (vallerand et al., 2003). according to hubner et al., 2019 having a passion for starting a business is essential for success and is a significant neenet baby manjaly, nimmi p. m, george joseph, kailash k s 277 predictor of entrepreneurial intention. in order to aid in the formation of entrepreneurial intentions, karimi (2020) explored how entrepreneurial passion is supported by the theory of planned behavior (li et al.,2020). the role of women entrepreneurs in the global marketplace and global economy is aggressively growing (ariffin, 2021; rahman et al., 2022; de silva et al., 2021). even though passion is seen as the heart of entrepreneurship (karimi,2020), self-assessment and passion act as the key factors helping build entrepreneurial intention, especially in the case of women graduates. entrepreneurial self-assessment helps to understand and analyze the entrepreneurial abilities of an individual by assessing the affective, cognitive and behavioral variables associated with entrepreneurship (huang saad,2018). moreover, self-assessment, which is backed by a deep passion for becoming an entrepreneur, will be projected in their behavior by confirming whether an individual intends to become a passionate entrepreneur in the future (huyghe,2016). the study here tries to capture the role of self-assessment and passion in explaining entrepreneurial intention among women graduates from university. review of literature entrepreneurial passion increasing literature shows the role of entrepreneurial passion in the business creation process (cardon et al., 2005). passion refers to a “fire of desire” or hot feeling deep inside individuals, which helps them to overcome all the challenges and hindrances that they may face in their entrepreneurial journey and become successful entrepreneurs. three types of entrepreneurial passion exist. the first is a passion for becoming an entrepreneur and an interest in finding, developing, and exploring new opportunities. second, it exhibits enthusiasm for the processes involved in creating a company endeavor and its promotional efforts. third, a love for maintaining, advancing, forecasting, and growing the business after it is created (cardon and kirk,2015; campos,2017). entrepreneurial passion is defined by cardon et al. (2009, p. 515) as consciously accessible, intensely positive sentiments encountered while engaging in entrepreneurial activities connected to roles that are significant for the self-identity of the entrepreneur. according to hartmann and harb (2015), passion has been seen as a crucial element of both entrepreneurial motivation and success. 278 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 3-4, 273-290) entrepreneurial self-assessment entrepreneurial self-assessment helps the individual or a potential entrepreneur to evaluate themselves before beginning a business development process. this will help the individual to assess the priorities among personal stuff or family stressors, or entrepreneurial matters. this self-assessment will help him or her to analyze if there is any better alternative for them than molding up to be an entrepreneur. entrepreneurial self-assessment is quite important as it provides an accurate picture of the hidden entrepreneur inside an individual. if the assessment report turns out to be negative, he/she will be saving himself as well as others who will be assisting them in this venture. entrepreneurial self-assessment not just helps individuals in tracking the right path but also helps them to define the ideal scope and size of the venture before even beginning by integrating the mix of personal, family, social as well as financial interests. entrepreneurial intention entrepreneurial behavior is a carefully thought-out action. the most accurate predictor of planned behavior is intention (bagozzi et al.,1989). entrepreneurial intention displays a person's interest in starting and growing a business as well as in choosing a career path away from regular employment (fitzsimmons and douglas 2011). entrepreneurial intention is the "self-acknowledged conviction" of an individual that they are ready to start a new business and that they will continue to do so in the future (ridha and wahyu, 2017; thompson, 2009). additionally, the initial stage in starting a new business venture is thought to have entrepreneurial intentions (kautonen, van gelderen and tornikoski,2013). according to literature, personality traits and individual differences greatly influence whether someone has entrepreneurial goals (zhao and seibert, 2006). other elements that affect a person's ambition to become an entrepreneur, in addition to this mindset, include perceived societal norms and self-efficacy (krueger et.al.,2000). an intention model is shapiro's model of the entrepreneurial event (see). they show initiative, pool resources to achieve a certain goal, run the organization themselves, exercise relative autonomy, and take risks. neenet baby manjaly, nimmi p. m, george joseph, kailash k s 279 theoretical focus and hypothesis development: for entrepreneurial ventures to be a success, the need has to come from the strong self-motivation and assessment of the female entrepreneur. the inclination should only be brought up by strong self-assessment of the individuals. the personal factors contributing to successful conversion to entrepreneur include motivational factors, social capital, networking and self-assessment (lerner et al., 1997). while institutional theory explains the socioeconomic factors, the individual factors are explained by the theory of planned behaviour (ajzen, 1991). as per theory of planned behaviour entrepreneurial enterprising of an individual is associated with his/her intention to participate in the activity, which shall start from selfassessment. intentions capture motivational factors which channelize how far they are willing to try in order to get into the act of enterprising. selfassessment is an act by which students describe and assess their entrepreneurial abilities and work on them (harris and brown, 2018). the self-assessment, when channelized or backed by a strong passion towards entrepreneurship, leads to enhanced desirability to the outcome, which is an intention towards entrepreneurial activity. according to the theoretical explanation, a positive appraisal of entrepreneurial self-assessment triggers entrepreneurial intentions among graduates. this, when strongly supported by entrepreneurial passion, leads to more realization of the ambition. so, we hypothesize, h1: entrepreneurial self-assessment is associated with entrepreneurial intention. h2: entrepreneurial self-assessment is associated with entrepreneurial passion. h4: entrepreneurial passion is associated with entrepreneurial intention. h3: entrepreneurial passion mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial self-assessment and entrepreneurial intention. accordingly, a proposed model (fig.1) is provided hereby, which explains the association of constructs in this context. 280 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 3-4, 273-290) figure 1. proposed model source: author’s own source participants data was collected from female undergraduates who are doing their three-year graduation program in different colleges in kerala. the convenience sampling method was resorted to for data collection. the data was collected online using google forms. the confidentiality statement was given in the cover letter. the cover letter contained the purpose of the study. data collection was conducted during the month of may 2022. a total of 284 responses were received. all the respondents were female graduates, and 45% of students were from the rural area. all of them belong to the age category of 18-23. instruments the entrepreneurial intention was assessed by a scale developed by linen and chen (2009). sample item being – “i will make every effort to start and run my own firm.” entrepreneurial self-assessment was assessed by a scale developed by vican and luketic (2013). sample item being “i neenet baby manjaly, nimmi p. m, george joseph, kailash k s 281 trust my own instinct when solving problems.” entrepreneurial passion was assessed by four items adapted from feng and chen (2020). sample question being “i am obsessed with entrepreneurship.”. the questions were on a 5-point likert scale, with 1 being -strongly disagreeand 5 being strongly agree-. the demographic questions include their age, place of domicile and family type. data analysis initially, ibm spss 23 and the statistical program warp pls v.7.0 were used to screen the variables. the baron and kenny approach was used for the mediation analysis (1986). in this study, the mediation hypothesis is investigated using the three-step mediation model. reliability and validity the correlations table, mean, and standard deviation were used to initially screen the data points. it is clear from the results of the descriptive statistics (table 1) that the study's variables are rather correlated. by examining the kurtosis and skewness values of the variables that are presented, the normalcy of the data is determined (table 1). the dependability of the scales utilized is demonstrated by the cronbach alpha values, which for the variables under consideration vary from 0.72 to 0.85. statistical program warp pls v.7.0 was used to test the suggested model's ability to fit the data using variance-based structural equation modeling (partial least squares analysis) (kock, 2012). confirmatory factor analysis evaluated convergent validity (cfa). bivariate correlation among study variables shows that a correlation coefficient between the variables ranges from 0.28 to 0.76. table 1. descriptive statistics variable mean s. d kurtosis skewness entrepreneurial intention 3.91 0.86 -0.39 -0.65 entrepreneurial passion 3.85 0.95 -0.42 -0.69 self-assessment 3.08 1.01 -0.73 -0.16 source: author’s own source 282 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 3-4, 273-290) factor loadings and composite reliability (in table 2) were used to examine convergent validity in accordance with hair et al. (2010). the average variance's square root provides evidence of discriminant validity. the constructs for the current investigation show suitable discriminant validity and composite reliability (table.2). further, the measuring model in this study has strong convergent and discriminant validity. table 2. reliability and validity statistics variable ave cr vif self-assessment 0.70 0.91 2.40 entrepreneurial passion 0.74 0.92 2.12 entrepreneurial intention 0.81 0.95 1.11 source: author’s own source mediation analysis the method developed by baron and kenny (1986) is utilized in this study to investigate the possibility of a mediation effect being exerted by entrepreneurial passion on the relation between the degree of selfassessment and entrepreneurial intention. in their article from 1986, baron and kenny outlined four stages in the process of establishing a mediation relationship: when a number of conditions are satisfied, including those listed here, the variable m can be regarded as a mediator. x, the independent variable, predicts y, the dependent variable, significantly. x, the independent variable, predicts m, the mediator, significantly. m, controlling for x, predicts y significantly. when all three variables are considered simultaneously, the effect of x on y that was initially observed is significantly reduced. for the purpose of investigating the mediating influence of lifelong learning, a two-stage partial least square (pls) analysis (henseler and chin, 2010) was carried out (construct measured by reflective indicators). the participant's own sense of how entrepreneurial they are serves as the independent variable. within the framework of pls path modeling, entrepreneurial intention is considered to be the dependent variable. two models were constructed so that the mediation analysis could be carried out. another model was drawn with sa as the independent variable, ei as the dependent variable (y), and ep as a mediator variable being included in the model. the first model was drawn with two variables: x (sa) pointing at y (ei), and the second model was drawn with both of these variables being included in the model. neenet baby manjaly, nimmi p. m, george joseph, kailash k s 283 table (3) shows the path coefficients for the mediation analysis conducted using two separate model analyses. from the results in table 3, h1, h2, h3 and h4 are supported. to sum up, entrepreneurial passion satisfies the verification conditions provided by baron and kenny (1986) for the partially mediating role in the relationships between self-assessment and entrepreneurial intention. the results of the path analysis are provided in figure 2. figure 2. mediation model source: author’s own source table. 3. mediation analysis relationship path coeff r2 p-value sa ei 0.27 0.07 sig sa ep 0.76 0.58 sig ep ei 0.75 0.22 sig sa ei 0.19 0.13 sig (ep controlled) source: author’s own source from the table, it is clear that even with incorporating entrepreneurial passion into the model, the beta coefficient is still significant. even though the effect size is reduced, the regression coefficient is significant, which indicates partial mediation. 284 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 3-4, 273-290) discussion and implications the results indicate that entrepreneurial self-assessment is positively associated with entrepreneurial intention. for any activity to be successful, self-cognition or self-understanding should be the primary step. selfassessment includes those activities that understand the efficiency and ability of the individual. a positive appraisal of self-enterprising leads to enhancing the behavioral intention of the individual. hypothesis 2 states that entrepreneurial self-assessment leads to entrepreneurial passion. this is also supported in the analysis. the results showcase that self-assessment is strongly associated with entrepreneurial passion. mediating hypothesis proposes that passion mediates the relationship between self-assessment and intention. a partial mediation was reported, which authenticates the importance of passion in the relationship. popular accounts of entrepreneurship typically portray it in terms of a desire for power, independence, and autonomy, which are characteristics that are typically associated with men. this is in contrast to the societal expectation that women should focus on caregiving, empathy, and the formation of relationships. as a consequence of this, women’s entrepreneurial intention may face a greater number of challenges, and so they might adopt different strategies for locating opportunities and place varying importance on certain aspects of their operations. all of these things require an entrepreneurial passion, which, as explained by karimi (2020), is what inspires women to become aware of innovative prospects and establish a new business goal. to put it another way, women who are driven by their entrepreneurial passion are more likely to engage in the process of becoming entrepreneurs. our conclusions are reinforced by the investigations of other researchers who came before us (cardon, 2008; cardon et al., 2009, 2013; chen et al., 2009; fellnhofer, 2017; karimi, 2020; mueller et al., 2017; murnieks et al., 2014; thorgren & wincent, 2015). a strong and potent predictor of women’s entrepreneurial intentions is their level of interest in a subject, and here entrepreneurial passion may play a role. also, women students who are interested in business and have that over-the-threshold entrepreneurial passion could easily progress into further actions to set up a new firm in the marketplace. the role of ajzen's theory among these important indicators to better predict the difference between the entrepreneurial intention of male and female students (ajzen, 1991; neenet baby manjaly, nimmi p. m, george joseph, kailash k s 285 biraglia & kadile, 2017) can be explored. no studies have been conducted to investigate the relationship between self-assessment and entrepreneurial intention in the indian environment. our study offers several useful takeaways for academics, educators, and policymakers to consider as a result of its findings. first, doing a selfassessment is a necessary step in the process of developing entrepreneurial aspirations. this is true both directly and indirectly, as a result of the function that self-assessment plays in entrepreneurial passion; otherwise, the recognition of oneself doesn’t happen, and this can seriously affect their alternate career progress too. individuals who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs should be encouraged to engage in self-evaluation. students require early opportunities to evaluate themselves and cultivate their desire for entrepreneurship through the use of any educational program. in order to attain this goal, one way that may be utilized in entrepreneurship training programs is the incorporation of successful businesspeople whose stories students can relate to as role models. educators could arrange some programs that target individuals toward self-assessment to enhance their entrepreneurial intentions. our study was cross-sectional by nature. as a result, we propose that future researchers perform longitudinal studies in various study contexts to predict entrepreneurial intention. future studies can examine additional female entrepreneurship characteristics that assist universities in innovating and becoming globally competitive through incubators. an individual's plans to pursue a different career path that involves starting a new business rather than looking for work at an established one are also indirectly reflected by their entrepreneurial goals (biraglia & kadile, 2017). this study contributes to the current body of research on the factors that lead individuals to have entrepreneurial intentions on the basis of selfassessment. this study follows the trend of a growing interest in research into the reasons why women pursue an entrepreneurial venture (lüthje & franke, 2003; zhao et al., 2005). we can also look into disparities in connection to graduation progress; a probable distinction might emerge between the female married and unmarried students’ road to entrepreneurship. how women students in their first or second year of college, who recognize their own protentional, sustain the same in their third or fourth year can be another topic of study. it's possible that this has something to do with the fact that senior students typically have a higher level of maturity and comprehension than first-year students do when it 286 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 3-4, 273-290) comes to the difficult decision-making process (hirschi, 2013). in addition to that, the model can also incorporate a distinction between the students in terms of their willingness to take risks. this lends credence to the existing body of research, which demonstrates that the intention to engage in entrepreneurial activity can be influenced by individual-level factors such as the willingness to take risks (saeed, muffatto, & yousafzai, 2014). the relationship between passion and the intention to start a business may not be a straightforward one, and other variables, such as those that moderate or mediate the relationship, need to be taken into account. in conclusion, this research makes a contribution to the field of women entrepreneurship by demonstrating that the study of entrepreneurial intention benefits from taking into account the influence of emotional elements such as entrepreneurial passion (cardon et al., 2013). universities should encourage the interaction between women students and business owners in a way that makes it easier for students and business owners to share information, motivations, experiences, and strategies related to beginning an entrepreneurial venture. this could potentially increase women students' sense of self-efficacy, and this can fuel their passion for business ownership. in addition, certain classes, workshops, and lectures could be centered on the goal of elevating the students’ self-assessment as well as waking and motivating a passion for engaging in activities related to entrepreneurship. in conclusion, the instrument and model that were utilized in this research could be a first step in identifying women who have a specific degree of entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intent. the selection of potential employees for start-ups and incubators could benefit from this information. conclusion the study is a modest attempt to showcase the importance of selfassessment in developing an entrepreneurial mindset among female undergraduate students. the study, with strong theoretical support, proposes the mediating role of entrepreneurial passion in the relationship between self-assessment and entrepreneurial intention. the proposed model is empirically validated with data from 284 college students (women). theoretical and practical 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[50] world economic forum (2022). global gender gap report 2022. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/wef_gggr_2022.pdf [51] zhao, h., seibert, s. e., & hills, g. e. (2005). the mediating role of selfefficacy in the development of entrepreneurial intentions. journal of applied psychology, 90(6), 1265. article history: received: july 27th, 2022 accepted: december 26th, 2022 https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/progress-report/ https://www3.weforum.org/docs/wef_gggr_2022.pdf publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office journal secretaries elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade women’s economic empowerment through tourism: a case study of selected western balkans countries instagram as a means of empowering iranian women by focusing on home-based businesses entrepreneurial intention of indian women university students: the role of entrepreneurial self-assessment and entrepreneurial passion empowerment and improving the life status of rural women through agrofarming in bangladesh female medical tourists' enplanement intentions and airline cabin design in developing economies earnings quality and price informativeness: the moderator role of gender diversity women in nigeria: examining the motivations for engaging in social entrepreneurship pushed or pulled into entrepreneurship? motivations behind entrepreneurial entry for women with disabilities in bangladesh gender discrimination in higher education institutions of northeast india driving factors for women's switch to electric vehicles in conservative kuwait countries women in congress in 2021 new plug-in vehicles sold in 2021 norway 45% 86.20% iceland 48% 71.70% sweden 47% 43.30% denmark 40% 35.20% finland 46% 30.80% netherlands 39% 29.80% germany 35% 26.00% switzerland 43% 22.50% portugal 40% 20.00% united kingdom 34% 18.60% belgium 42% 18.40% france 40% 18.30% ireland 23% 15.70% romania 19% 15.53% china 25% 15.00% italy 36% 9.30% spain 43% 7.80% canada 30% 6.60% new zealand 49% 5.49% united states 28% 4.00% australia 31% 2.40% japan 10% 1.00% women mayors in slovakia: spatial insights entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial performance among female entrepreneurs: empirical evidence from kenya publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia kimeu muindi0f enno masurel1f introduction entrepreneurial orientation female entrepreneurship development2f entrepreneurial performance3f hypotheses risk-taking innovativeness pro-activeness competitive aggressiveness autonomy study setting4f results5f discussion conclusion funding acknowledgements references lenka malická6f introduction state of the art data and methods results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references appendix andri ottesen7f sumayya banna8f basil alzougool9f vladimir simović10f introduction literature review method findings discussion limitations and future studies conclusion and implications acknowledgements references tapan kumar basantia11f yengkhom rameshwari devi12f introduction operational definitions delimitations of the study area of the study and participants design of the study tools used procedure for collection of data procedure for analysis of data analysis of data and interpretation of results discussion of the results conclusions and implications of the study references saptarshi dhar13f tahira farzana14f sabiha saju ibne abedin15f theoretical background: push and pull theory of entrepreneurship defining entrepreneurship defining disability prior research on disability and entrepreneurship prior research on entrepreneurial motivation for people with disabilities methods research context research design data collection and analysis case description case snippet 1: nazneen case snippet 2: rumana case snippet 3: kaberi case snippet 4: mala findings and discussion implications for policymaking and future research conclusion acknowledgment references grace chinonye ihejiamaizu16f juliet john inyang17f introduction literature review social entrepreneurship problems facing women social entrepreneurs in nigeria factors leading women into entrepreneurship methodology analysis and discussions gender motives social motives economic motives health motives conclusion limitations theoretical contributions implications and directions for future research acknowledgements references appendix 1 dejana pavlović18f dragan bjelica19f duško bodroža20f elena jovičić21f renata pindžo22f introduction review of the scientific literature research methodology sample and setting procedure independent variables dependent variables data analysis research results general aspects family business and financial independence perceived investment opportunities by women in tourism major problems achieving women’s empowerment through tourism respondents’ opinion on how women’s empowerment may be better achieved through tourism discussion conclusion acknowledgments references ebrahim mansoori26f introduction gender diversity, corporate governance, and informative content of stock price research methodology data collection and sample research variables pre-estimation analysis results and discussion conclusions references juliet john inyang27f felix john eze john okiri inyang29f bright olufesobi30f tiwalade mary ighomuaye31f victory udoh-king32f ekele sunday francis33f okuniyi zakariyah titilola34f introduction motivation, objective and novelty of the study literature review airline cabin design and enplanement intentions variable measures data analysis exploring the data set multicollinearity defining the mediating effect of cabin comfort discussion of findings conclusion recommendations for airline design and marketing limitations of the study and suggestions for future research data availability conflicts of interest references fatemeh mahdipour35f introduction literature summary women’s empowerment social media and women's empowerment social media and entrepreneurship home-based businesses and women empowerment theory methodology data collection data analysis ethical considerations results the general perception of empowerment disablingffactors for women's empowerment lack of proper support structures different roles of women banning of some social media in iran enabling features for women's empowerment by using instagram reducing expenses for running hbbs income and economic independence control and decision making general effects special features of instagram for hbbs analysis and discussion women’s empowerment concept the impact of using instagram on resources the impact of using instagram on agency the impact of using instagram on achievements conclusion acknowledgements references md. shajahan kabir36f md. mubarack hossain37f rahima akther maliha khanom introduction theoretical framework and methodology lower-scale agricultural farming changes the status of the rural women women empowerment index (wei) qualitative analysis of rural women taking part in small-scale agricultural farming economic advancement factors affecting involvement in participation in agriculture farming to increase income to become self-dependent use of income control over land under ownership rural women and small-scale agricultural farming findings of case studies respondent involved with livestock rearing changes in annual income of the household after the involvement of the respondent in small-scale agricultural farming women's status in public speaking changes in reproductive health status problem confrontation index (pci) computation of problem confrontation index concluding remarks obstacles faced by rural women regarding participation in small-scale agricultural farming barriers to rural women's participation in small-scale agriculture farming techniques for overcoming challenges conclusions and recommendations for policy implications references neenet baby manjaly38f nimmi p. m george joseph kailash nadh k s introduction review of literature entrepreneurial passion entrepreneurial self-assessment entrepreneurial intention theoretical focus and hypothesis development: participants instruments data analysis reliability and validity mediation analysis discussion and implications conclusion references 13_jwe_3-4 final udc: 005.961:005.914.3 ; 005.32:159.923.3.07-055.2 ; 005.411:334.722(73) jel: l26; b54 id: 203433996 professional paper a phenomenological exploration of the mentoring experiences of women business owners in central florida bishop patricia, deason chris full sail university, winter park, florida, united states a b s t r a c t women have been starting businesses at twice the rate of men in the united states, yet women-owned businesses have had lower sales, profits, and survival rates. although entrepreneurship centers and other institutions have developed training and developmental programs to support nascent entrepreneurs, there is a need for more resources to help established businesses survive and grow, especially women-owned businesses. therefore, a qualitative phenomenological study was conducted using a purposive sample of 10 women business owners in central florida who were protégés in an entrepreneurial mentoring program. the purpose was to understand the aspects of mentoring that were perceived to foster successful business and personal experiences and outcomes. the study used moustakas’ phenomenological approach that included in-depth, open-ended interviews. according to study participants, the aspects of mentoring that were perceived to foster successful business and personal experiences and outcomes were: (a) access to an ad hoc mentoring team of subject matter experts, (b) opportunities to learn essential business skills, (c) psychosocial support from mentors, and (d) networking and relationship-building opportunities. the study contributes to the developmental networks knowledge base by describing how group mentoring provides career and psychosocial support to established women business owners. future research should explore the mentoring experiences of earlystage women entrepreneurs, investigate gender differences within the entrepreneurial mentoring context, and examine how the developmental networks of women business owners grow and change over time. key words: poverty reduction, gender empowerment, institutions, policy dialogue, informal sector bishop, p., et al., a phenomenological exploration, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) 29 introduction the focus of this research study was to explore the perceptions of women business owners who participated in an entrepreneurial mentoring program. the purpose was to understand the aspects of mentoring that were perceived by participants to foster successful business and personal experiences and outcomes. an entrepreneurial mentoring program brings together one or more business mentors and an entrepreneur for the purpose of helping the entrepreneur develop the skills, competencies, and relationships that are needed to become a successful business owner (leonard bisk, 2002; etienne st-jean & josee audet, 2009). although organizational mentoring has been researched widely, there have been few studies on entrepreneurial mentoring and even fewer studies have provided a female perspective (barbara baderman, 2009; jill kickul et al., 2010). entrepreneurial mentoring is one of the newest forms of mentoring; however, it has received little scholarly attention (baderman, 2009; john cull, 2006; st-jean and audet, 2009; siri terjesen and sherry sullivan, 2011). this is not surprising, considering that scholars have been unable to agree on a unifying definition of entrepreneurship, which has led to conflicting research agendas and interests (scott shane, 2007). government and private organizations have been developing and funding entrepreneurial mentoring programs without the benefit of empirical research to guide development, so scholars have called for more exploratory studies on entrepreneurial mentoring to move theoretical development forward (eren ozgen and robert baron, 2007; st-jean & audet, 2009; terjesen & sullivan, 2011; lea waters, et al., 2002). the study of women business owners who have been protégés in an entrepreneurial mentoring program could lay the groundwork for additional theoretical development and give practitioners usable information to guide program development. purpose the purpose of the qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions of mentored women business owners to understand the aspects of mentoring that were perceived to foster successful business and personal experiences and outcomes. the study consisted of in-depth interviews with 10 women business owners in central florida who were protégés in an entrepreneurial mentoring program. although studies exist on 30 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) entrepreneurial mentoring, only a few have focused on mentoring programs designed to help women business owners grow their businesses (center for women’s business research, 2009). therefore, information from the study provides new insights on entrepreneurial mentoring from individuals who have experienced the phenomenon, contributes to theoretical and practical applications, and includes recommendations for future research on the phenomenon of entrepreneurial mentoring. the central research question that guided the study and fulfilled the research purpose included the following: what aspects of mentoring were perceived by women business owners in an entrepreneurial mentoring program to foster successful business and personal experiences and outcomes? theoretical framework kathy kram (1985) published the seminal study on career mentoring, which provided empirical evidence that mentoring relationships facilitate a protégé’s psychosocial development and career advancement. mentoring was defined as a relationship between an older, more experienced individual who provides advice, sponsorship, protection, and friendship to a younger, less experienced protégé for the purpose of helping the protégé advance through the organizational hierarchy (kram, 1985). however, today’s changing business environment, which includes less job security, more career mobility, and a rise in self-employment, requires a new perspective on mentoring (dawn chandler, 2011; jonathan higgins & kram, 2001; terri scandura & ekin pelligrini, 2007). the study’s theoretical framework included mentoring and social network theories and extended the mentoring construct beyond its current scope by applying the developmental network perspective that was conceptualized by higgins and kram (2001). a developmental network is defined as “a group of people who take an interest in and action to advance a focal individual’s career” (higgins & kram, 2001, p. 268). the developmental network typology includes four central concepts: 1. developmental network. a developmental network is defined as the individuals that a protégé has identified as taking an active interest in the protégé’s career development by providing career support and psychosocial support (higgins & kram, 2001). 2. developmental relationships. a protégé’s developmental relationships include anyone in the protégé’s network who bishop, p., et al., a phenomenological exploration, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) 31 provides developmental assistance and may include mentors, coaches, peers, advisors, and sponsors (higgins & kram, 2001). 3. developmental network diversity. the concept of network diversity is drawn from social network theory and refers to the range of relationships in the protégé’s network and the density of those relationships (higgins & kram, 2001). 4. relationship strength. the concept of relationship strength refers to the types of interpersonal bonds and ties within the developmental network. strong ties refer to relationships with family, friends, and trusted acquaintances that are highly motivated to provide assistance (mark granovetter, 1973). weak ties refer to relationships with less known individuals who may be able to offer access to essential information and resources (granovetter, 1973). since many entrepreneurial mentoring programs offer traditional mentoring dyads as well as non-traditional schemes such as group mentoring, the developmental network construct was a useful framework for examining the variety of developmental experiences that the women business owners described during the study. research methods and design a phenomenological research design encompasses three main steps: (a) identifying what and who will be studied, (b) collecting the data through interviews or observations, and (c) analyzing the data by identifying major themes that surface during the study (patricia sanders, 1982). as suggested by clark moustakas (1994), open-ended interviews were used to engage participants in a wide-ranging discussion and encouraged participants to provide an exhaustive description of their experience. phenomenological interviews should be audio-recorded and transcribed using the exact spoken words (sanders, 1982). therefore, each interview was audio-recorded, with the participant’s permission, and typed verbatim. the typed interview transcripts were entered into hyperresearch qualitative research software, which facilitated data analysis by allowing the researcher to organize interview data and capture common themes that emerged during the study (thomas groenewald, 2004). 32 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) participants the study participants included 10 women business owners who had participated in a mentoring program for business owners. participants were drawn from referrals and program alumni lists from the two mentoring programs in central florida that provide formal mentoring for business owners: the advisory board council, which is located at the small business development center (sbdc) at the university of central florida (sbdc, 2012), and the athena powerlink program located at the center for advanced entrepreneurship at rollins college (athena powerlink, 2012). both programs utilize a group approach to mentoring by providing a diverse mix of volunteer subject matter experts to serve as mentors and advisors to the business owner for a minimum of one year (athena powerlink, 2012; sbdc, 2012). participants reported average length of business ownership was 16.9 years. the businesses averaged 11 employees and seven industry sectors were represented. all participants possessed a bachelor’s degree or higher. half of the participants said their undergraduate degree was in business. of the two participants that earned a master’s degree, one was a business degree. materials/instruments in qualitative studies, the researcher is the key instrument for collecting information (catherine marshall & gretchen rossman, 2011). unlike quantitative researchers, who may use a questionnaire or instrument that has been developed by other researchers, qualitative researchers typically gather information using a protocol that may include several interview formats, ranging from unstructured interviews that follow no particular format to highly structured interviews that follow a specific list of questions (turner, 2010). for a phenomenological study, clark moustakas (1994) suggested researchers conduct face-to-face interviews using an interview guide that includes open-ended questions designed to capture full, rich descriptions of each participant’s experience. the interview guide in appendix a was used to make sure all study participants were asked the same questions during the interviews. as suggested by moustakas (1994), less structured follow-up questions were used to probe for additional insights. a sony mp3 digital audio recorder bishop, p., et al., a phenomenological exploration, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) 33 was used to capture participants’ answers to the interview questions, with their permission. as suggested by daniel turner (2010), the participants in the pilot study were mentored female business owners who had similar interests and demographics as the individuals who participated in the main study. the pilot study was used to determine if there were any weaknesses with the interview guide (steinar kvale, 2007). pilot study participants expressed confusion with the wording of some questions, so their feedback was used to modify the interview guide before the main study commenced. data collection, processing, and analysis the study used the transcendental approach to phenomenology described by moustakas (1994), which focused on collecting rich, thick descriptions of the study participants’ experiences with the phenomenon under investigation. during the study, data were collected during one-onone interviews that explored what the participants experienced and the situations that influenced their experiences of entrepreneurial mentoring. participants were scheduled for a 90-minute interview with the researcher. interviews were audio-recorded, with the participant’s permission, and transcribed verbatim into microsoft word. research participants in a phenomenological study are considered co-researchers and should have an opportunity to review the interview data to add further insights (moustakas, 1994). therefore, study participants were given an opportunity to review the textural and structural statements. a modified stevick-colaizzi-keen method of data analysis presented by moustakas (1994) was used and included the following steps: 1. the primary researcher’s personal experiences, past associations, and biases related to the phenomenon were set aside using epoché. the researcher engaged in quiet reflection before each interview and set aside her own experiences as a mentee and mentor so she could listen attentively, without judgment, as study participants described their experiences. 2. after reviewing each interview transcript, a list of significant statements was developed that described how the participant experienced the phenomenon. each statement was given equal worth, resulting in a list of non-repetitive statements that were categorized and coded. 34 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) 3. the significant statements were grouped into larger units, or themes. 4. textural descriptions that include specific examples of what the participants experienced were written. structural descriptions that focused on how participants experienced the phenomenon and the context within which the experience occurred were also written. 5. a final composite description was written that described the essence of what the participants experienced and how they experienced it. to aid in data analysis, the interview transcripts were entered into hyperresearch qualitative research software, which facilitated the coding, organizing, and analysis of the large volume of data collected during the study results the central research question that guided the study and fulfilled the research purpose included the following: what aspects of mentoring were perceived by women business owners in an entrepreneurial mentoring program to foster successful business and personal experiences and outcomes? textural analysis of the interview data revealed 58 significant, nonredundant statements from participants related to the research question. examples of significant statements included in table 1 below: table 1: selected significant statements • i would say the very best thing for me that happened in the mentor program was walking through the process and learning how to pitch investors. • with the hr person mentor i worked with, i definitely learned a lot more about the interviewing process for employees. • my mentors helped me turn some of those things around and refocus on product lines that were going to be profitable. • women are so focused on taking care of business and family that they don’t spend time with each other to learn. • if i didn’t have the mentoring, i don’t know if i’d still be here, to be honest with you. bishop, p., et al., a phenomenological exploration, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) 35 • with the mentor program, everyone at the table was smarter than you were and at the top of their game. • i would say the way i walk into a room now in terms of personal confidence is very different because of being lifted up to that level by these other people. • i think it’s like i’m getting my ph.d. in being a ceo. • trusting my own judgment. the mentor program has allowed me to be much more confident in my decision-making. • being in the program forced me into some networking situations, so i got some business out of it from people i met and from others through that network. • well, definitely sales have grown. we’ve gotten a few nice referrals and projects from the mentors. the next step in data analysis involved combining textural and structural statements to develop overarching themes that addressed the research question. as shown in table 2 below, the study’s findings revealed four major themes related to the participants’ perceptions of entrepreneurial mentoring that resulted in successful business and personal experiences and outcomes: (a) team approach to mentoring, (b) learning opportunities, (c) psychosocial support, and (d) networking and relationship-building opportunities. examples of significant statements related to each theme are also provided. table 2: themes and evidence themes evidence in participants’ statements team approach to mentoring i was really blessed to have this core group of people around me that looked at my business in a totally different way than i did. i would say it’s lonely running a business and it’s lonely looking through your own eyes all the time. seeing my business through the eyes of these professionals, men and women, when they would speak it back to me, it was amazing. i had people to engage with and think with, people who cared about me, cared about me being profitable. learning opportunities the accounting piece was a surprise because it was an area in which i didn’t know what i didn’t know. they helped me with some of my time management, 36 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) which helped me not only in business but helped me at home. you learn so much from each other on issues that come up and how to handle them. psychosocial support my mentors helped me get my confidence back because i had felt so beaten down and so scared. many of the people who served on my panel are now my friends. not only as a friend, she really responded and she really motivated me and boosted my confidence. networking and relationshipbuilding opportunities just building the relationships was incredible. i wouldn’t have met these people on the street. the networking and the business referrals i got were definitely a great benefit that carried over. most people don’t know how to do relationships well, and mentoring is all about relationships. discussion of findings with the rise in self-employment and greater job mobility, mentoring scholars have argued that the mentoring construct needs to be expanded to explain how individuals learn and grow through relationships with multiple mentors and developers throughout their careers, including their entrepreneurial careers (higgins & kram, 2001; terjesen & sullivan, 2011). the study was framed using a developmental network perspective, which draws from mentoring and social network theories and expands the mentoring construct to include other forms of mentoring such as group mentoring (higgins & kram, 2001). the developmental networks typology includes four central concepts: (a) the developmental network, which is a subset of a person’s social network and is comprised of individuals that provide career and psychosocial support, (b) developmental relationships, which include anyone who provides developmental assistance and may include mentors, coaches, advisors, and peers; (c) developmental network diversity, which refers to the range of relationships in the network, the density of those relationships, and the non-redundant information provided by developers; and (d) relationship strength, which refers to the strong and weak interpersonal bonds within the developmental network (higgins & kram, 2001). the findings will be discussed below in light of theories related to mentoring, social networks, and entrepreneurship. bishop, p., et al., a phenomenological exploration, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) 37 team approach to mentoring when describing successful business experiences and outcomes, study participants referred to their mentoring experience as a team effort. according to study participants, the group mentoring approach provided access to a diverse team of mentors with a wide array of business expertise and viewpoints. one participant described the mentoring group as a brain trust comprised of people who were experts in their field and provide beneficial support and ideas for business growth. another participant said her mentoring group provided another set of eyes that looked at her business in a totally different way and challenged her to think more strategically about her business growth. the idea that protégés need to be able to obtain advice and knowledge from a diverse group of mentors is consistent with the concept of developmental network diversity, which describes how a wide network of developers provide a protégé with non-redundant information (higgins & kram, 2001). several of the participants also reported that they met with their mentors one-on-one outside of group meetings, giving them the benefit of individual, focused attention. according to vanessa, “it was about zeroing in on the people that had the expertise that i was looking for or those that just had a caring attitude. those one-on-ones were tremendously important.” susan added, “there were others who were absolutely excited about what we do and so committed that they met with me individually outside of our formal monthly meetings.” the findings lend support to richard cotton, yan shen, and reut livne-tarandach (2011), who found that larger developmental networks are able to provide “timely support on demand” (p. 35), which may help individuals exhibit higher levels of achievement. while most study participants described many positive experiences with mentoring, there were mixed feelings regarding the process of selecting mentors for the team. during the interviews, participants were asked if they had input into the matching process. four participants said they did not have any input. two participants described their frustration with mentors who did not have the qualifications or expertise the participants had asked for when applying for the program. ava said, “they put an insurance person on my panel, but she didn’t have the background that i needed.” donna said, “you need to make sure you get mentors on your panel with expertise that can help you because my panel didn’t understand my business.” a related study found that entrepreneurs who were paired with a mentor that understood the entrepreneur’s business tended to be more satisfied with the mentoring 38 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) experience (st-jean & audet, 2009). the findings are also consistent with georgia chao (2009), which found that the matching process is critical to the success of a facilitated mentoring program. in a qualitative study that explored a structured approach to entrepreneurial mentoring, cull (2006) found that an entrepreneur’s involvement in a formal mentoring program could reduce business failure, but poor matches were found to be detrimental if the mentor and protégé were incompatible. it has also been suggested that program managers can increase the likelihood of successful matches by collecting information on protégé needs, recruiting a large and diverse pool of mentors to accommodate the different needs of protégés, and allowing the protégé to have input into the matching process (chao, 2009). considering the number of inactive or absentee mentors reported by study participants, the findings lend support to previous studies that suggest administrators of group mentoring programs need to recruit a large and diverse pool of mentors. learning opportunities the study’s findings revealed what participants learned from their mentors and how they used what they learned to improve sales, profitability, and business survival. three participants said they learned how to read and understand profit and loss (p & l) statements and conduct profit margin analyses, which resulted in higher profit margins. tara said, “my mentors helped me turn things around and refocus on product lines that were going to be profitable.” tara also credited her mentoring experience with saving her business: “if i didn’t have the mentoring, i don’t know if i’d still be here, to be honest with you.” vanessa described having the worst year in 15 years and being close to insolvency, but with the help of the cpa in her group she was able to return to profitability. serena credited the help she received from the attorney in her group to a significant increase in sales: “the attorney was able to help and assist in terms of understanding the legal issues. because of this project, sales have gone up significantly. the sales piece, and my decision-making related to the project, was huge.” the findings lend support to previous studies that found that training, advisory, and mentoring programs can improve the performance and experiences of women business owners (sara carter, 2000; rolanda pollard, 2006; margaret tynan et al., 2009). women business owners have been starting businesses with less business education and experience than their male counterparts, which may bishop, p., et al., a phenomenological exploration, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) 39 explain why women-owned businesses have had lower sales, profits, employment, and survival rates than male-owned businesses (robert fairlie, 2009). previous studies have suggested that this education gap is a function of social and environmental factors. the construct of motherhood, which represents family and household contexts, and the construct of the macromeso environment, which includes societal expectations and cultural norms, may explain why women business owners enter entrepreneurship with less education and resources than men (candida brush, anne de bruin, and friederike welter, 2009). the unequal division of labor at home, which puts the onus of childcare and household management on the female, has been shown to constrain a woman business owner’s choices (brush, de bruin, and welter, 2009; jennifer jennings and megan mcdougal, 2007; nan langowitz and maria minniti, 2007). several participants described their time-strapped, busy lives and how difficult it was for them to find the time to learn. donna said, “women are so focused on taking care of business and family that they don’t spend time with each other to learn.” tara described how her mentors helped her with time management and how it affected her business and home life: “just as far as taking more time for myself so i could be more effective in the workplace, that ultimately helped me in my home life, if that makes sense.” ava said that becoming a mother made her appreciate how difficult motherhood can be for women business owners: many times when you say you’re a mom and business owner, those two words don’t go together. because i’m an older mom, i perceived working moms as not being that into work compared to women who don’t have kids. it’s because women with kids have to leave work early or call in sick because their child is sick. now going through it, obviously i have much more appreciation of it. ashley described the challenges of being a business owner, wife, and mother: i was stepping outside of the box, after having my head in the grindstone, guiding a business, building a family, building a home, and not venturing out from these four corners of my office space and the clients i deal with, to really meet and share and exchange information. coaching is an aspect of mentoring that involves goal-setting and holding protégés accountable for results (kram, 1985). for the study participants, the benefits of personal coaching became apparent during 40 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) individual and group coaching sessions with their mentors. three participants described how their mentors held them accountable, which helped the participants learn how to manage their time, follow through on commitments, and complete tasks. serena said, “they really helped me get focused on the tasks at hand.” tara added, “they provided support on things i needed to do, holding me accountable, helping me plan for upcoming meetings, etc.” as a business owner, vanessa found that being accountable to her mentors helped her get things done: “i left those meetings with a todo list, things i needed to do and then come back and report what i did to the group. this is a problem with being a business owner. who is holding you accountable?” when individuals leave organizations and start their own businesses, they also leave behind an organizational structure that provides access to suitable mentors and coaches (terjesen & sullivan, 2011). therefore, the structured group mentoring programs described by study participants provided a ready-made developmental network of mentors who held them accountable and coached them to higher levels of performance. negative outcomes from mentoring were also reported during the study. ava described a situation where one of her mentors gave her advice that cost the company several thousands of dollars and did not produce any results. ava said she went along with the advice but wished she had trusted her initial instincts and not invested in the project. bisk (2002) found that if the entrepreneur did not trust the advice given by the mentor, or found the advice to be ineffective, the mentee saw no point in continuing the relationship. a related study suggested that individuals who rely on multiple mentors for learning and advice are less likely to be impacted by an absentee or inexperienced mentor (suzanne de janasz, sherry sullivan, and vicki whiting, 2003). this may explain why there were so few complaints about ineffective mentoring from the study participants. psychosocial support psychosocial support is a function of mentoring that includes behaviors that enhance a protégé’s professional and personal growth, selfconfidence, and self-worth (kram, 1985). mentors provide psychosocial support through friendship, counseling, and role modeling (kram, 1985). three participants described overcoming self-esteem issues during their mentoring experiences. karen said she had a low self-image when she started the mentoring program, but that her mentors’ support and belief in her helped lift her self-esteem. malia described how her mentors’ bishop, p., et al., a phenomenological exploration, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) 41 confidence in her made her feel empowered and confident. susan said that it is “lonely running a business,” but added that she grew as a person because of the support she received from her mentors: “i would say the best personal growth was seeing the kind of people that had confidence in me, that were excited about what we were doing, and that empowered me even more.” in the seminal study on entrepreneurial mentoring, lea waters et al. (2002) found that the psychosocial aspects of mentoring made a significant contribution to the self-esteem of entrepreneurs. when asked to describe situations or experiences in the mentoring program that contributed to personal growth and development, serena and vanessa described experiences with their mentors that boosted their selfconfidence. serena said she became much more confident in her ability to make decisions and added, “i think that’s very important in terms of running my company because i have to believe in myself.” vanessa said she lost her self-confidence when she almost lost her business, however she regained her confidence with the help of her mentors: “my mentors helped me get my confidence back because i had felt so beaten down and so scared.” support for the study’s findings that mentoring can enhance a woman business owner’s self-confidence was found in two related studies on women business owners. barbara baderman’s (2009) examination of selfefficacy and mentoring among women business owners found a strong correlation between high self-efficacy and the use of a business mentor. efficacious behavior includes a strong belief in one’s abilities to accomplish tasks and achieve goals (albert bandura, 1997). since efficacious behavior can be learned, women business owners can increase self-efficacy through activities that involve friendship, counseling, coaching, and mentoring (baderman, 2009). a qualitative study of 50 entrepreneurs (25 men and 25 women) in new zealand revealed a lack of self-confidence among many of the women participants, however female entrepreneurs reported that their confidence levels increased over time (jodyanne kirkwood, 2009). despite the limited number of studies on mentoring for entrepreneurs, previous research found that mentoring helped build an entrepreneur’s selfconfidence (carter, 2000; cull, 2006; tynan et al., 2009). another aspect of psychosocial support is friendship (kram, 1985). ava said she developed a close friendship with one of her mentors, who “really motivated me and boosted my confidence.” tara described a friendship with one of her mentors that continued after the program ended, and that “ongoing mentoring continues to this day.” when asked to describe 42 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) the aspects of mentoring that were most meaningful to her, emily said, “the aspects that included forming friendships. many of the people who served on my team are now my friends, so it’s definitely the relationships that have carried on after the program.” a longitudinal study on developmental networks found that a person’s developmental network may change over time, however an inner core of developers who provided high levels of psychosocial support were found in each time period (cummings & higgins, 2006). networking and relationship building opportunities during the study, participants described how their participation in a mentoring program provided opportunities to build new relationships and expand their networks. susan said, “both our attorneys and accountants came out of those relationships.” ashley added that networking was a valuable component of her experiences with mentoring: “i realized how valuable the networking was and i want to get back into it.” social network theory has been used by entrepreneurship scholars to explain how new and established business owners have used networking to gain access to knowledge, advice, and essential resources for business growth and survival (tina bratkovic, bostjan antoncic, and mitja ruzzier, 2009). entrepreneurs who have strong social networks have more diverse sources of information and therefore more access to resources that build social capital (michael fortunato and theodore alter, 2011). the networking and relationship-building opportunities described by study participants started with their mentoring team, which was comprised of individuals with diverse business expertise, social networks, and social capital. malia expressed appreciation for the opportunities she had to build relationships and network with her mentors: “i wouldn’t have met these people on the street.” emily described her mentoring group as a source of business referrals: “one of my mentors referred a couple of people to me. the networking and business referrals i got were definitely a great benefit that carried over.” the experiences described by study participants are consistent with john watson (2007), which found that business owners who were involved in diverse networks comprised of accountants, lawyers, business advisors, and informal acquaintances were able to build stronger social capital than owners who relied on informal networks comprised of close friends and family. bishop, p., et al., a phenomenological exploration, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) 43 participants also described opportunities to meet and build relationships with other business owners in the program as well as individuals within their mentors’ networks. donna said she attended networking events that included her mentors and other business owners who had participated in the program. she emphasized that as a woman business owner, networking “is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.” ashley described how networking with her mentors opened doors to new relationships that led to business referrals: “being in the program forced me into some networking situations, so i got some business out of it from people i met and from others through that network.” another participant described how her mentors introduced her to investors and helped her raise venture capital. the findings are consistent with bisk’s (2002) redefinition of the career support function of mentoring conceptualized by kram (1985). within the entrepreneurial mentoring context, bisk (2002) characterized the career function of mentoring as a protégé’s access to the mentor’s network. four participants said they stayed in touch with their mentors and received ongoing developmental support after the formal mentoring ended. susan said she invited one of her mentors to join her board of directors. tara said, “as i’m refining my business, i still have support from my mentors. the program is really ongoing. it doesn’t stop when the program ends.” emily added that she continued to maintain contact with some of her mentors: “many of the people who served on my panel are now my friends, so it’s just definitely the relationships that have carried on after the program.” serena concurred: “i’m still in contact with my mentors. if i have any questions related to the business i can still call them.” the findings lend support to the developmental networks perspective of mentoring, which describes how the changing business environment, which includes greater job mobility and a rise in self-employment, requires individuals to draw career support from multiple mentors and developers throughout their careers (higgins & kram, 2001). essence of participants’ experiences with mentoring the essence of the participants’ experience was the personal and professional growth and development that occurred as a result of mentoring. the team approach to mentoring provided opportunities for the women to interact with a diverse group of experts and learn new skills and competencies, which facilitated positive business experiences and outcomes 44 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) that included increased revenue, profitability, and business survival. participants described how their mentors’ friendship, encouragement, and emotional support boosted their self-confidence and created a sense of connectedness and belonging. the networking and relationship-building aspects of the group mentoring context provided opportunities for participants to network with their mentors, gain access to new business and personal relationships, and build social capital. the mentoring program provided the women with developmental support at a time when many of them were concerned about their company’s revenue, profitability, or survival. the study of 10 women business owners who participated in an entrepreneurial mentoring program found that group mentoring contributed to successful business and personal experiences and outcomes by providing access to (a) a diverse team of subject matter experts, (b) learning and skilldevelopment opportunities, (c), emotional support and friendship, and (d) new business relationships and networks. the team approach to mentoring gave the participants access to a custom-made developmental network comprised of subject matter experts in accounting, finance, law, human resources, marketing, and other disciplines. by drawing from the knowledge and experience of these experts, the participants learned new skills and competencies that helped them improve business performance and enhance their personal and professional development. in addition to the learning that occurred as the result of mentoring, participants described how their mentors’ emotional support contributed to greater self-esteem and self-confidence. for some participants, the mentoring was ongoing and extended past the end of the program. the findings also revealed that the networking aspects of the participants’ mentoring experiences led to business referrals, investor introductions, and new social bonds that expanded their networks and increased their social capital. limitations of current findings and need for further research the limitations associated with the study were (a) a small and purposeful sample, which was inherent in the phenomenological design; (b) participants were limited to women business owners who volunteered for the study; (c) participants were limited to women business owners in central florida; (d) men were excluded since the study was designed to explore the experiences of women business owners; and (e) the participants’ data is bishop, p., et al., a phenomenological exploration, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) 45 based on their personal reflections and experiences and may not be generalizable to all mentored women business owners in central florida or to mentored women business owners in general. the limitations were mitigated through the use of epoché, participant validation of the study’s findings, and a peer researcher skilled in qualitative research that reviewed the study’s methods and interpretations. finally, more research is needed in the area of women entrepreneurial mentoring impacts from an international perspective. can entrepreneurial mentoring programs have positive impacts on the unequal treatment of women in india and africa as described by meenaskhi bharatnoor (2013) and chiloane-tsoka g. e. (2013)? can entrepreneurial mentoring programs impact women’s recognition of their entrepreneurial self as discussed by rebecca gill and shiv ganesh (2007)? can entrepreneurial mentoring programs impact women’s financial literacy which glenrose jiyane and britta zawada (2013) explains is vital to women entrepreneurship? references [1] athena powerlink. about athena powerlink. http://www.athenaorlando.com/about-us/about-athena-powerlink/ (accessed march 19, 2012). [2] baderman, barbara. “the female entrepreneur: an exploration of mentoring and perceived general self-efficacy.” phd diss., capella university. [3] bandura, albert. 1997. self-efficacy: the exercise of control. new york, [4] ny: freeman. [5] bharatnoor, meenaskhi. 2012. "the future of women and careers in education: an evaluation of women's work." golden research thoughts, 1(7): 1-7. 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[44] tynan, margaret, dennis thomas, margare durand, bill o’gorman, and nerys fuller-love. 2009. “training female entrepreneurs: lessons learned from feiw.” international journal of gender and entrepreneurship, 1(3): 253-260. [45] waters, lea, marita mccabe, dennis kiellerup, and steven kiellerup. 2002. “the role of formal mentoring on business success and self-esteem in 48 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) participants of a new business start-up program.” journal of business and psychology, 17(1): 107-121. [46] watson, john. 2007. “modeling the relationship between networking and firm performance.” journal of business venturing, 22(6): 852-874. appendix a interview guide before we begin today, i would like to review the purpose of the study and your rights as a participant. once i have received your consent, i will turn on the digital recording device so we can get started. is that all right with you? [read the informed consent form, which includes the purpose of the study.] do you consent to participate in the study? [if yes, obtain the participant’s signature and proceed with the interview. if no, thank the person for her time and end the conversation.] the interview questions are intended to fully explore your perspective and experiences pertaining to mentoring. i would like to begin by asking you a few questions about your business. 1. what type of business do you own? 2. how long have you owned the business? 3. please describe your previous business experience. 4. describe any degrees you earned and field(s) of study. 5. how many employees do you have, including yourself? 6. what services does your business provide? 7. what types of clients or customers do you serve? 8. where are your clients or customers located geographically? the next group of questions will address your mentoring experiences: 9. how and why did you become involved in the mentoring program? 10. how many mentors did you have and what was their expertise? 11. how were your mentors selected? what kind of input did you have in the selection process? 12. describe any situations or experiences you had in the mentoring program that contributed to your business expertise. bishop, p., et al., a phenomenological exploration, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) 49 13. describe any situations or experiences you had in the mentoring program that contributed to your personal growth and development. 14. describe any business partnerships or relationships that have resulted from your participation in the program. 15. describe how these new social bonds may have contributed to your sales, profits, or business survival. 16. what aspects of the mentoring experiences were most meaningful to you? 17. what aspects of the mentoring experiences had little or no meaning for you? 18. what advice would you give a woman business owner who may be considering a mentoring program? 19. outside of the individuals you met and worked with during the mentoring program, please describe any other individuals in your life that you’ve come to rely on for business support, advice, or mentoring. 20. is there any other information you would like to share that would help me understand your experiences pertaining to mentoring? the next step in my research process is to transcribe this interview. when that is done, i would like to have you review a summary of our conversation that will include the key themes from our conversation and your viewpoints. would you be willing to review the summary of our conversation? thank you for your time. i will follow up with you in a few weeks. fenomenološko istraživanje mentorskih iskustava žena preduzetnica u centralnoj floridi a p s t r a k t žene osnivaju firme dva puta više nego muškarci u sjedinjenim američkim državama, ali firme koje poseduju žene imaju nižu prodaju, profit i procenat opstanka na tržištu. iako su centri za preduzetništvo i druge institucije razvile treninge i razvojne programe u cilju podrške novim preduzetnicima, postoji potreba za više sredstava da bi se pomoglo postojećim preduzećima da opstanu i 50 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 28-50) da se razvijaju, pogotovu preduzećima koje poseduju žene. stoga smo sproveli kvalitativno fenomenološko istraživanje koristeći uzorak od 10 preduzetnica u centralnoj floridi koje su bile štićenice u preduzetničkom mentorskom programu. cilj je da se razumeju aspekti mentorstva za koje se primetilo da pospešuju uspešna preduzeća i lično iskustvo kao i ishode. u istraživanju smo koristili moustakasov fenomenološki pristup koji uključuje detaljne i otvorene intervijue. prema učesnicima istraživanja, aspekti mentorstva za koje se primetilo da pospešuju uspešna preduzeća, lična iskustva i ishode su: (a) pristup ad hoc mentorskom timu eksperata iz odredjenih oblasti, (b) prilika da se nauče osnovne poslovne veštine, (c) psihološka podrška od strane mentora, i (d) umrežavanje i prilike gradjenja odnosa. ova studija doprinosi razvojnim mrežama baza podataka kroz opisivanje načina na koji grupno mentorstvo pruža karijernu i psihološku podršku već postojećim preduzetnicama. buduća istraživanja bi trebalo da ispitaju kakva su iskustva vezana za mentorstvo preduzetnica koje se nalaze u ranoj fazi biznisa, da ispita rodne razlike u okviru preduzetničkog mentorstva, i kako se razvojne mreže preduzetnica razvijaju i menjaju tokom vremena. ključne reči: preduzetnice, preduzetništvo, preduzetnici u nastajanju article history: received: 3 august, 2013 accepted: 13 august, 2013 doi: 10.28934/jwee21.12.pp37-55 jel: j160 original scientific paper 2bvalues of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension guzel seletkova3f1 eugeniia lazukova4f2 vasilij stegnii5f3 perm national research polytechnic university, faculty of humanities, department of sociology and political science, perm krai, russia karina tulieva6 f4 perm national research polytechnic university, faculty of humanities, department of foreign languages, linguistics and translation, perm krai, russia a b s t r a c t the article contains the results of the research, the aim of which is to study the value system of businesswomen and women-supervisors and also to identify the connection between socio-professional and gender identities. the questions about top-priority values, the connection of values with the socio-professional identity and self-estimation of the global success as well as the success of the professional experience were discovered on the basis of the research among the entrepreneurs and supervisors. comparative analysis has shown the gender specificities of the entrepreneurs’ value system, the perception of life and the business success and also the peculiarities of gender and socio-professional identities. on the basis of a 1 e-mail: guzal.ka@mail.ru, tel. 89523365827 2 corresponding author, e-mail: e.las@mail.ru, tel. 89679008207 3 e-mail: socio@pstu.ru, tel. +7(342)2198045 4 e-mail: shunya200583@mail.ru, +7(912)8854263 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 37-55) large amount of entrepreneurs and supervisors’ data, the matrix of values was created, including innovative-cultural, family-conservative, educationalauthoritative, hedonistic-prestigious and professional components. besides, there were five clusters of values identified, among them were multivaluable (with the dominance of innovative-cultural component), monovaluable (family), professional-balanced, conservative-instrumental, conservative-ambitious. the values of the favorite work, the harmony with yourself and the communication are the most common values for the entrepreneurs. as for the supervisors well-being, authority in the community are the common values. gender has a small influence on the dominant value clusters among the entrepreneurs, while among the supervisors there is no such influence at all. females’ values have some particularities in the circumstances of the pandemic. socio-professional identity slightly depends on the dominant value cluster of the individual, and the considered cluster itself is usually connected with the professional work experience. high estimation of life and professional success of the entrepreneurs, depends on the dominant values and is different among the representatives of the genders. key words: gender, entrepreneurs, supervisors, values, social value system, socio-professional identity, survey, cluster analysis introduction there is no value-based consensus in the social conscience of the entrepreneurs and the supervisors, so the issues of the family and entrepreneurship balance in the systems of the modern businesswomen values, issues of gender and socio-professional identities are increasing. there are contradictions between the increasing significance of the entrepreneurship values, social success and family values. also, there are contradictions between the commitment to the professional and private family females’ success, which is expressed in the public expectations and the contradictive ideas about the success achievement strategies. it is reflected in the value-based systems and the social identity of the businesswomen, influenced the perception and the development of a life success and the success of the business. realization of personal potential in labour, especially in the sphere of management and entrepreneurship is becoming harder for women in the circumstances of the full females’ responsibility for the balance between family and work. however, there are such kind of women. it is important to find out where the job and the family are among their values. what is the structure of their values in general? guzel seletkova, eugeniia lazukova, vasilij stegnii, karina tulieva 39 what role does their socio-professional and gender identities play? scientists have noted the significant influence of the covid19 virus on the economy (international trade centre, 2020), including russian business (influence of the covid19 virus on business and the necessity of the state aid, 2020), on women (business after pandemic, 2020) and on businesswomen (international trade centre, 2020; vasilić, popović-pantić & semenčenko dušica, 2020; manolova, brush, edelman & elam, 2020). meanwhile some people say that those enterprises which have been closed during the pandemic, did it not because of the covid19 virus (matikonis, 2020). the normal performance of the system depends on the following factors as standards and values (mingaleva, deputatova & starkov, 2016). so it is important to find out how have the values among businesswomen and supervisors influenced the spread of the covid19 virus? has the meaning of the family, health and work become more significant? can the pandemic lead to the increasing of the gender gap in the system of values? can this situation have an impact on the self-estimation of the entrepreneurs and supervisors’ business and life success. initial studies on the entrepreneurship mainly consider men and women entrepreneurs being the same (yadav & unni, 2016). there is a discourse about certain differences, that women are different. entrepreneurship is conceptualized in relation to males’ behavior (mirchandani, 1999; welch, welch & hewerdine, 2008). at the same time there are calls for reconsidering current vision of the entrepreneurship value for women and the use of feminine theory for analyzing gender criticism of the women’s entrepreneurship (marlow, 2020; ahl, 2020; ahl & marlow, 2019), to study the questions of designing gender differences (ahl, 2020), questions of stereotypization (harrison, botelho & mason, 2020; swail & marlow, 2017). it is emphasized that amateur investors who have general gender prejudices, enhance females’ image as more reliable, consequently increasing preparation to invest in the enterprises, headed by women in the early stages (johnson, stevenson & letwin, 2018). the primary focus has been on the questions of gender entrepreneurship in the scientific community. there are some surveys those businesswomen’s characteristics who run their businesses from home (thompson, jones-evans & kwong, 2009.). it is studied how institutional differences and culture can influence men and women’s entrepreneurship (estrin & mickiewicz, 2011), (shinnar, giacomin & janssen, 2012). also 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 37-55) there are some studies of the gender differences in the entrepreneurs’ nets (klyver & terjesen, 2007). the problem of the value system specificity investigation and socioprofessional identity of the entrepreneurs and supervisors is in the fact, that the modern entrepreneurs and supervisors’ values are complex and diverse, as well as the socio-professional identity (seletkova & lazukova, 2020), the selective communities are mixed according to the gender, age and other social characteristics. that is why the goal is to understand what are the exact priority values for the entrepreneurs and supervisors? what social characteristics are coming with it? how are the values connected with the socio-professional identity of respondents and the self-esteem of a life success, success of the activity? answering these questions, the following hypothesis were formulated: hypothesis 1. women value system among the entrepreneurs and supervisors in comparison with men is controversial, including the value of the strong family relations and the intention of high income. hypothesis 2. socio-professional identity is common among the businesswomen mostly for those who have valuable cluster, including favorite work, harmony with yourself, interesting social circle. hypothesis 3. businesswomen despite the types of systems esteem their professional success (its success in business) and the success in life less than businessmen. literature review of special interest are the surveys, where businesswomen’s identities are studied. businesswomen tend to harmonize maternal feminine identity and business leader activities. peculiarities of creating professional identity of the entrepreneur were studied using the example of chinese businesswoman immigrant in sweden (boers & boers, 2018). this study showed the influence of gender and cultural factors on the formation and transferring of professional identity. the importance of studying the formation of identity for daughters in terms of family business is noted, because gender norms enter this context to a great extent (byrne, janice & fattoum, 2014). by studying the models of identity formation, using by chinese daughters while discussing the role of a recipient-leader in a family business, the researchers identified three models of identity formation, based on the compliance to the traditional guzel seletkova, eugeniia lazukova, vasilij stegnii, karina tulieva 41 gender roles and the confucian family values: like a temporary leader, the second leader and an independent leader (xian, jiang & mcadam, 2020). there are identities of businesswomen such as the company’s founder, the coauthor of the project, the responsible wife and the representative of the second generation (gherardi, 2015). the formation of the identity (identification) is the process based on the iterations with the others and interpretation of the former identity. individuals often try to make sense of their identity through the confirmation of others in a certain sociocultural context. while studying how interaction between business and family identity is performed and showed during running a family business, researchers found out that not only family identity but also company identity can influence the processes of identity on different levels and it is not always profitable for the family (wielsma & brunninge, 2019). the term “social identification” is used and based on the theories of social identity and theories of self-categorization. for better understanding social identity of entrepreneurs and supervisors it is necessary to notice broader context, in the particular system of values. another authors have noted the influence of the context on the formation of entrepreneurs’ identity (kimbu, de jong, adam, ribeiro, afenyo-agbe, adeola & figueroa-domecq, 2021). studying of the entrepreneurship as the profession choice in communities, where the entrepreneurship is not acceptable, where the entrepreneurs act as the “purposeful cultural agents and use the strategies of motivation”, is considered to be interesting. (värlander, sölvell & klyver, 2020). the influence of social identity is studied through how the individuals estimate their own results and the results of other people (aksoy, 2020). ways of influencing cultural values on the entrepreneurship (calza, cannavale & nadali, 2020), and possibility of innovations (xia & liu, 2021) are studied. researches try to understand how cultural values influence the explanation of the entrepreneurs’ intentions and entrepreneurship’s activity on the basis of intentions and behavior theory (calza, cannavale & nadali, 2020). some authors note the connection between cultural values and the abilities to learn entrepreneurship, and therefore innovative activity (xia & liu, 2021). others say that they find the connection between cultural intelligence and creativity of the entrepreneurs (altinay, madanoglu, kromidha, nurmagambetova & madanoglu, 2020). 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 37-55) materials and methods in study the results were carried out in 2019-2020 in perm, russia. 120 entrepreneurs and 120 supervisors were interviewed during the study. each group had the same number of men and women. socio-professional and gender structures were the control parameters during the sample design. interviewed men run their business in the spheres of trade and mass catering (23%), production sector (16%), construction industry (16%), public transport (16%). interviewed women run their business mainly in trade and mass catering (40%) and in public service and service offering (25%). businessmen were mainly engaged in the production sector (44%), construction industry (21%), trade and mass catering (10%), and women in trade and mass catering (27%), production sector (23%), construction industry (10%), education and science (10%). men and women entrepreneurs were mainly self-employed (63% and 73%), also there were founders of limited liability companies (27% men and 13% women). men and women supervisors mainly had jobs in the limited liability organizations (56% and 40% accordingly) and in public limited companies (22% and 21%). interviewed entrepreneurs primarily had their own business in microlevel (78% men and 87% women) and small business enterprises (20% men and 13% women). surveyed men and women supervisors mainly had jobs in the small enterprises (51% men and 45% women), mediumsized enterprise (30% men and 26% women), and in microlevel enterprises (18% men and 28% women). the description of the sample showed that interviewed entrepreneurs were from the most suffered sectors from the covid19 virus as the service sector, residential and catering sector, nonfood production; retail and wholesale trade; travelling and transport. these branches mainly had micro enterprises, small and medium-sized businesses. “companies headed by women had informed that they had suffered more from the covid19 virus, than the companies headed by men” (international trade centre, 2020). taking into consideration a lot of methods of measuring social valuebased orientations (aksoy & jeroen, 2012; murphy, ackermann & handgraaf, 2011) the question “what is the most important for you in life?” was suggested to the respondents. they were given 19 possible answers with the alternative to choose several options. factor and cluster analysis were made for studying entrepreneurs and supervisors’ values. males’ values were studied as well as females. correlation matrixes for all variables were calculated, for providing the procedure of factor analysis, measuring guzel seletkova, eugeniia lazukova, vasilij stegnii, karina tulieva 43 values according to dichotomic scale. there was factors’ extraction, choosing of factors and rotation of the factors for creating a simplified structure and also factors’ interpretation. principle component analysis was used in the process of factors identifying. the method was based on the identifying of minimum number of factors which had the greatest impact into the data dispersion. factor rotation was made on the basis of “varimaks” method. for studying the level of application of the factor analysis to the sample given, kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy was used for entrepreneurs and supervisors. it was 0,66 (that refers to the satisfying adequacy). factor analysis was made with the help of spss 16 program. the results of the factor analysis (factor’s ratings) were used as the criteria for the cluster data analysis. five clusters were identified as a result of the cluster analysis. these were the groups of interviewed who had different models of the value system. then it was analyzed how respondents with the different socio-demographical and socio-professional characteristics and also with the different socio-professional identity, according to the clusters, were divided. the study had showed how selfesteem of socio-professional qualities of the respondents was changing according to the belonging to a certain cluster. at first semantic-groups of entrepreneurs and managers’ values were identified with the help of factor analysis. then types (clusters) of the entrepreneurs and supervisors’ values were formulated with the help of the cluster analysis. it helped to understand who had certain values among the respondents, whether any gender differences between entrepreneurs and supervisor with the different types of values or not. were there any differences between men and women in socio-professional identity? the procedure of using factor and then cluster analysis allowed us to apply polysemy of the values meaning to the non-uniform structure of the investigated groups in social meaning. the received classification of entrepreneurs and supervisors’ value system allowed to have a full information about sub-group differentiation inside the community studied according to value-based orientations despite some convention, specific for any typology which did not allow showing the diversity of the peculiarities of the studied social subject to the full extent. 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 37-55) results factor analysis was used for revealing close value-based orientations. as a result, there was a set of 19 variables, which provided the basis for the factor analysis. conceived explained combined dispersion for entrepreneurs and supervisors was used for the value analysis. seven first own factors had an amount of ss intensity extractions more than 1. as a result, only seven factors, explaining 59,2% of a total dispersion were chosen. first component – 15,8%, second –11,5%, third – 8,5%, forth – 6,4%, fifth – 6,2%, sixth – 5,5%, seventh – 5,4%. after “varimaks” rotation the first component explained 10,7% of dispersion, second – 10,0%, third – 8,5%, forth – 8,2%, fifth – 7,8%, sixth – 7,0%, seventh – 6,8%. several variables were combined during the factor analysis, having a close correlation with each other and weak correlation with the variables, combined with the other factors. as a result, after “varimaks” rotation there was a following component matrix obtained. speaking about entrepreneurs and supervisors’ innovative-cultural component firstly had the following values: possibility to be creative, to create something new (0,755), development of the potential (0,663), satisfying of basic cultural necessities (0,652). family-conservative component included such values as the strong family relations, well-being of children (0,666), stable position, confidence about the future (0,648), material wealth, providing good standards of living (0,533), high incomes (-0,403). it is important to note that high incomes are in feedback with this component unlike the strong family values; stability in life and material wealth. therefore, high incomes were opposed with the strong family relations and material wealth. third educationally-imperative component included firstly the values of good education (0,770), senior position, power (0,591). component of independence and comfort consisted of own profitable business (0,709) and solid life comfort (0,694). hedonistically-prestigious component included respect, authority in a surrounding community (0,834), a good rest, entertainments, travelling (0,621); professional component included favorite work (0,805), success, achievements in professional activity (0,587), friendly component included interesting social circle, loyal friends (0,776). further there was a clustering of the empiric data according to the components performed. there were 5 clusters (see table 1). guzel seletkova, eugeniia lazukova, vasilij stegnii, karina tulieva 45 table 1: dominant values, in different clusters (significant for 60-100%) cluster of multivaluable orientation with the dominating of innovativecultural component development of the potential (94%); satisfying of basic cultural necessities (89%); possibility to be creative, to create something new (89%); good education (83%); strong family relations, well-being of children (83%); material wealth, providing good standards of living (83%); interesting social circle, loyal friends (83%); good health (83%); favorite work (78%); a good rest, entertainments, travelling (78%); respect, authority in a surrounding community (72%); success, achievements in professional activity (72%); solid life comfort (72%); agreement, harmony with yourself (72%); stable position, confidence about the future (67%); high incomes (61%) conservative-instrumental cluster strong family, well-being of children (76%); respect, authority in a surrounding community (74%); good health (71%); material wealth, providing good standards of living (63%) professional-balanced cluster strong family relations, well-being of children (90%); good health (80%); favorite work (66%); agreement, harmony with yourself (59%); interesting social circle, loyal friends (59%) conservative-ambitious cluster good health (97%); high incomes (97%); strong family relations, well-being of children (91%); stable position, confidence about the future (86%); interesting social circle, loyal friends (83%); favorite work (66%); a good rest, entertainments, travelling (66%); good education (63%); respect, authority in a surrounding community (63%); own profitable business (63%) monovaluable cluster (family) strong family, well-being of children (82%) most of them had the strong family relations value, according to russian sociologists’ data, stating a family inclusion into the value system core of the country (zdravomyslov & yadov, 2003). four of the five clusters had the value of a good health, which has been especially actual in the last year in terms of pandemic. representatives of the first cluster with the multivaluable orientation and the dominance of innovative-cultural component were characterized by the diversity of the values. the large majority of this cluster representatives firstly admitted the importance of creative-cultural component (development of the potential (94%), satisfying of basic cultural necessities (89%), possibility to be creative, to create 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 37-55) something new (89%), good education (83%), strong family relations, wellbeing of children (83%), material wealth, providing good standards of living (83%), interesting social circle, loyal friends (83%), good health (83%). more than a half of them admitted favorite work (78%), a good rest, entertainments, travelling (78%), respect, authority in a surrounding community (72%), success, achievements in professional activity (72%), solid life comfort (72%), agreement, harmony with yourself (72%), stable position, confidence about the future (67%), high incomes (61%). the last were characterized by the high significance almost all of the suggested values despite some values of the educational-imperative component (acceptance from the community side, prestige, honor; senior position, power). respondents of the second “conservative-instrumental” cluster except strong family relations (76%) and good health (71%) had such values as respect, authority in a surrounding community (74%), material wealth, providing good standards of living (63%). creative-cultural component (development of the potential, possibility to be creative, to create something new; satisfying of basic cultural necessities) and the component of an autonomy and comfort (own profitable business; solid life comfort), and also “senior position, power” were not significant for the representatives of this cluster. entrepreneurs and supervisor from the third “professional-balanced” cluster except strong family relations (90%) and good health (80%) valued favorite work (66%), agreement, harmony with yourself (59%), interesting social circle, loyal friends (59%) above all. own profitable business; respect, authority in a surrounding community; respect, authority in a surrounding community; satisfying of basic cultural necessities; senior position, power, were insignificant for them. fourth “conservative-ambitious” cluster’s representatives valued family (91%), good health (97%), high incomes (97%), also stable position, confidence about the future (88%), interesting social circle, loyal friends (83%). they valued creative-cultural component: development of the potential; possibility to be creative, to create something new; satisfying of basic cultural necessities. representatives of the “family” cluster were combined mainly with the strong family relations’ values (82%). for the half of the respondents of this cluster good education (56%); high incomes (52%); solid live comfort (52%); stable position, confidence about the future (50%); favorite work guzel seletkova, eugeniia lazukova, vasilij stegnii, karina tulieva 47 (50%) are important. creative-cultural component (development of the potential; satisfying of basic cultural necessities; possibility to be creative, to create something new); agreement, harmony with yourself, respect; authority in a surrounding community; senior position, power; interesting social circle, loyal friends were insignificant for them. professional-balanced (32%) type of value-based orientations was presented among the entrepreneurs to a great extent. there was a conservative-instrumental type among the supervisors (42%). the least represented was multivaluable orientations cluster as among the entrepreneurs (8%) so the supervisors (7%) (see table 2). table 2: value clusters of entrepreneurs and supervisors of different gender (in %) value cluster entrepreneurs supervisors men women total men women total cluster of multivaluable orientation with the innovative-cultural component’s dominance 2 15 8 10 3 7 conservativeinstrumental 15 22 19 41 43 42 professional-balanced 30 33 32 15 24 19 conservative-ambitious 16 15 15 14 12 13 monovaluable (family) 37 15 26 20 18 19 total 100 100 100 100 100 100 businessmen had family and professional-balanced types of valuebased orientations (approximately one third – 37 and 30% accordingly) to a large extent. women of this socio-professional group were alike men, because among dominating groups of values professional-balanced type (33%) was saved, and the difference was the lack of family orientation among dominating groups of values. that could be a consequence of the idea’s discourse about women who was running a business, and a lot of efforts and time were needed and her family life is threatened. entrepreneurship and the family were the contradictive spheres of activities and particularly women who had to save work and life balance. however, among the businesswomen the proportion of the first value cluster’s 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 37-55) representatives was 9 times larger because of the significantly less proportion of the fifth cluster followers. there were respondents with the multivaluable orientations and the dominance of innovative-cultural component (15 to 2%) among the businesswomen to a large extent. it showed us that among businesswomen there were a lot of those who valued the family and education as well as spiritual values, values of selfrealization and well-being at the same time. it was possible to make an assumption about mutual interaction of the value system and the roles’ choice. on the one hand, combination of creativity, family, importance of friends, respected values and so on led to the wife, mother and entrepreneur roles’ choice. on the other hand, entrepreneur, wife, mother, friend roles’ combination reflected in the value perceptions. it was confirmed by the fact that among businesswomen, who were employed, respondents with the multivaluable orientation and dominance of innovative-cultural component were the least represented (3%). dominant value cluster coincided both for men and for women among the entrepreneurs. this was a conservativeinstrumental type of the value-based orientations (41 and 43% accordingly). it was characterized with the respect, authority in a close surrounding and good health values. women-supervisors had professional-balanced type of values more often than men-supervisors and the first type was less common. in other words, cultural-innovative and family values together with the guarantees of the sustainable livelihoods were less important for women of this socio-professional group than for men. the more important was the value’s triangle “family-health-work”, it meant values that had become extremely important in terms of the covid19 virus. with the increasing entrepreneurs’ years in business, the part of the entrepreneurs with the multivaluable orientation (from 12 to 0%) and conservative-ambitious orientation (from 21 to 0%) is falling down. on the contrary the amount of the followers of professional-balanced values’ cluster has being increased with the years (from 24 to 50%) businesswomen who worked not so long ago (up to 3 years) usually had conservativeinstrumental values, including “family”, “good standard of living”; it was the most popular situation, it was common for one third of this group (32%). increasing years in business showed the change to the side of professionalbalanced value cluster (40% with the middle periods in business and 71% who were many years in business), connected with the significance of favorite work and harmony with yourself. as the result professionalbalanced type of the value-based system dominated among men and women who were many years in entrepreneurship. it could be explained on the one guzel seletkova, eugeniia lazukova, vasilij stegnii, karina tulieva 49 hand that more experienced entrepreneurs were interested not only in the family and high incomes (which they had already had up to the moment), but also in the harmony with yourself, favorite professional activity and so on. the necessity having all these things appeared after the traditional intentions to start a family and to earn good money. therefore, sooner or later it was not enough for them to live in the normal conditions such as family and material. the intention having interesting and harmonious life appeared. on the other hand, specifically commitment to favorite occupation, professional self-realization promoted business maintaining and its development, which allowed to run entrepreneurship successfully for longer-term. it is important to bear in mind that monovaluable cluster (family) (nearly 40% in groups with low and middle periods in business, thus up to 10 years) has being changed to conservative-instrumental cluster (60% in group with many years in business – more than 10 years) among businessmen with the increasing number of years in business. the value of the “strong family relation, well-being of children”, has being added with the significance of the authority in a close surrounding, health and good standards of living among men over the years, that contradicts the idea that men were oriented as a rule on high incomes, profitable business no matter how many years they were in business. (i.e. values, which were controlled in the conservative-ambitious cluster). according to the study, women (except women with multivaluable orientation) use categories of gender identity, more often, than men, answering the question “how do i identify myself?” socio-professional identity among men was admitted more often by the respondents with professional-balanced orientation. the representatives of conservativeambitious and also professional-balanced orientations spoke about such identity among women to a greater extent. on the one hand, businesswomen with conservative-ambitious orientation could have contradictions between female’s identities, such as “wife” and “mother” and entrepreneur’s identities, that demands additional efforts focused on the gap between “femininity” and entrepreneurship overcoming and could influence the perspectives of the company development and life success estimation, success in own business. let consider the professional and life success. businessmen value the successfulness of their own business higher than businesswomen: men admit more often that their business was successful or basically successful 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 37-55) (83% in comparison with 60% of women) and less often that it is half successful (10% compared with 38% of women). the entrepreneurs with multivaluable orientation among men highly value the successfulness of their business (100% of men admit the successfulness of their business). respondents with multivaluable orientation among businesswomen, as well as men, also highly value the successfulness of their business. among businesswomen the respondents with multivaluable orientation value the successfulness of their own business higher, as well as among men. the difference of females’ group was that higher estimates of the successfulness were given also by the followers of the conservative-ambitious values, whose representatives among men, valued the success of their own business as the lowest. the success in life among the supervisors (so men, as women) was valued the highest by the respondents with multivaluable orientation. it was often noted that among women-supervisors the desired was achieved by the respondents with the conservative-ambitious orientation (43%), among men there was a professional-balanced orientation (22%). businesswomen slightly less than men valued their success in life: women noticed less that had achieved everything desired (16% to 27%), more often the realizing of the life’s projects (73% compared to 68%) and a little percent of what have been planned (11% to 5%). the success in life among businessmen was basically achieved by the followers of the monovaluable (family) cluster (46%). the quantity among women was also higher in the same group of the family cluster (25%), as well as in the group of conservative-ambitious cluster (22%). the last fact gave hope because it showed how businesswomen achieved their goals, valued also the family and high incomes. discussion and сonclusions according to the research some conclusions were made: hypothesis 1. the hypothesis that there is a predominance of the strong family relations and high incomes at the same time among businesswomen and supervisors, has not been confirmed. such controversial cluster among the entrepreneurs has only third status; the first status has a cluster combing family, favorite work and harmony. the value-based cluster has only fourth status among womensupervisors; the most common is the cluster, which integrated family, guzel seletkova, eugeniia lazukova, vasilij stegnii, karina tulieva 51 health, authority and wealth values. in general male and female’s values sphere of a certain socio-professional group is rather unlike, and is different more between groups according to the professional activities (between entrepreneurs and supervisors) than according to the gender. hypothesis 2. among businesswomen socio-professional identity to a great extent is typical for those who have professional-balanced value cluster. the hypothesis has been partly confirmed. in fact, it is typical also for those with conservative-ambitious orientation, that does not contradict the ideas that mentioned identity is connected with the values in the labour's area (meanwhile the attention is not paid to the value of the strong family relations, as being typical practically for all respondents). hypothesis 3. according to this hypothesis businesswomen regardless of the value-based orientation type esteem their professional and life success less than men-entrepreneurs. the hypothesis has been confirmed. generally speaking, gender differences are in the predominant entrepreneurs’ values (but not the supervisors), while estimating by the entrepreneurs and supervisors the professional and life success, partly in correlation between socio-professional identification and predominant values of the entrepreneurs. in terms of pandemic, connected with the spread of the covid19 virus, such values as strong family relations, good health and favorite work are important among women in the spheres of entrepreneurship and management. references [1] ahl, helene, and susan marlow. 2019. 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office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references doi: 10.28934/jwee20.34.pp101-122 original scientific paper ehealth skills of female entrepreneurs in serbia aleksandra bradić-martinović1 aleksandar zdravković2 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia tatjana mišić3 aviation medical institute zemun, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t this paper's main objective is to assess the current level of ehealth skills of female entrepreneurs in serbia and their respective associations with selected sociodemographic characteristics. to this end, we use a dataset from the 2018 survey on ict usage in serbia. in particular, the analysis covers three ehealth skills: seeking health-related information online, scheduling medical appointments online or via applications, and online purchase of pharmaceutical products. the analysis shows that female entrepreneurs in serbia, on average utilized ehealth opportunities more frequently than other women or male entrepreneurs. level of education and average monthly income appears as the socio-demographic characteristics associated with ehealth skills related to familiarity with online services. key words: digital skills, ehealth literacy, female entrepreneurs, covid-19, serbia 1 corresponding author, e-mail: abmartinovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 2 e-mail: aleksandar.zdravkovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 3 e-mail: tanja.misic@yahoo.com 102 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 101-122) introduction the covid-19 pandemic has a global impact on the planet. lifestyle, work and communication transform significantly. physical contact is minimized, and people have turned to online communication. business meetings, school and university classes, conferences, theatre performances, concerts and private communication have all derive into virtual form. the pandemic crisis also put on challenges health systems globally. many countries have not been able to handle the pressure of requests for treatment of covid-19 and individuals with other pathological conditions. people are in a constant state of uncertainty and fear and search for support. these circumstances caused the internet has become a valuable source of information about covid-19 and other diseases, and the concept of ehealth spread much faster and broader than before. however, information about covid-19 has also been labeled as “infodemic”, which means “an excessive amount of information about the problem that is typically unreliable, spreads rapidly, and makes a solution more difficult to achieve” (oxford dictionary). unreliable information can endanger the health and lives of those who rely on it. furthermore, they may lead them to actions such as public demonstrations, misuse of drugs, remedies, or induce fear from conspiracy theories, inducing both panic and xenophobia, in some cases (huand and liu, 2020; mamun and griffiths, 2020). as a result of the circumstances mentioned above, locating trustworthy online health resources and using available information effectively is extremely important. in this process, health and ehealth literature have one of the critical roles. in line with the trend, the european economic and social committee (eesc) supports the european commission’s attempts to put digital health literacy as a high-priority in the ehealth agenda (eesc, 2019). the eesc also emphasizes that various generations need different approaches to improve e-health literacy, depending on their utilization of digital tools in everyday life. it also points out the advantages that e-services provide in correlation with fully understanding the provided information. the who european region office also published a comprehensive overview of ongoing projects and their outcome in its who-hen-report-57 (rowlands et al., 2018). the document's conclusion states that health literacy's main factor is the growth of skills through formal educational systems and life-long learning. aleksandra bradić-martinović, aleksandar zdravković, tatjana mišić 103 the republic of serbia also started introducing ehealth in the serbian medical system in line with strategy for development of information society in serbia until 2020 (official gazette, no. 51/2010) with the concept of integrated health information system (ihis). the ihis is a central electronic system which contains all medical and health data of patients, data of health workers and associates, data of health institutions, health interventions and services performed in health institutions, data of electronic instructions and electronic prescriptions, appointment information for specialist examinations, diagnostic procedures, and surgical interventions (ministry for health rs, 2020). with the top-down approach, serbia has opted for a modern approach to health and healing. on the other hand, serbia citizens developed the need and habits of internet support in practically every aspect of their lives, including healthcare. their ability to find useful information, schedule doctor appointments and similar activities were beneficial during the covid-19 lockdown. the entire population was exposed to health risks on various grounds. in addition to the direct infection with the coronavirus, there was an increased risk of difficult access to the healthcare system due to the focus on covid-19 patients, clinics' closure, and free circulation restrictions. lockdown and social distancing affect all sectors of the serbian economy, but not equally the sector of small and micro enterprises is the most vulnerable. at the same time, women entrepreneurs' position is particularly complexed. in serbia, in a society that respects traditional values, women continue to be a pillar of the household and still have the principal responsibility for doing everyday household chores. secons (2020) published a survey that shows that one or more women cook in 73% of households; wash dishes in 67% of households; wash clothes in 79% of households, and control children's school homework in 55.6% of households. as a result, female entrepreneurs are recognized as an extremely vulnerable group. therefore, we believe that appropriate behavior and the level of ehealth literacy can greatly facilitate health and family care. it is particularly important and in line with the fact that women should have equal opportunities to gain skills and abilities like men through lifelong learning. the development of technology has only emphasized this need, bearing in mind that “many female entrepreneurs are still keeping their head in the sand” (achakpa and radović-marković, 2018) for knowledge about informationcommunication technology. 104 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 101-122) following the rationale that ehealth refers to a broad range of health care services and health information delivered through or enhanced by information and communication technologies (eng, 2002; eysenbach, 2001), in this paper, we analyze the level and determinants of the ehealth skills of female entrepreneurs in serbia, in particular: − current utilization of the ehealth opportunities by the female entrepreneurs in serbia and comparison with other women and male entrepreneurs and; − association of the socio-demographic factors with ehealth skills of the female entrepreneurs in serbia. literature review in the last few decades, the increasing popularity of using the internet to find health-related content has spurred the development of the ehealth concept. one of the fundamental assumptions of this concept is skills that enable users to find on the internet and accurately interpret available health information – ehealth literacy (duplaga, 2020). in that sense, ehealth literacy is defined as “the ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health information from electronic sources and apply the knowledge gained to addressing or solving a health problem” (norman & skinner, 2006). eysenbach (2001) argues that the accumulation of ehealth literacy is essential for ehealth behavior. it determines whether and to what extent individuals can benefit from ehealth participation, which refers to a person’s engagement with various health services and information delivered or enhanced through digital technologies. the first dilemmas about the reliability of medical information available on the internet emerged at the end of the last century when these services became increasingly in demand. eysenbach (1998) even uses the expression “anarchic nature” in the sense of available information quality. impicciatore et al. (1997) point out that unrestricted retrieval of data on diseases, treatments, and medicines requires taking responsibility for healthcare decisions. the users need to have in mind that this information lacks validity and consistency in many cases. even at that time, it was a very sensitive issue since “more than 60 million individuals in the us searched for health, and medical information on the internet in 1998” (louis harris & associates, 1999) and the need for appropriate knowledge and literacy become to emerge. aleksandra bradić-martinović, aleksandar zdravković, tatjana mišić 105 the level of ehealth literacy directly impacts ehealth behavior, including the use of information technology to search the internet for health information, make appointments with physicians, purchase medicines online, or participate in support groups (chen and lee, 2013). figure 1: the lily model of ehealth literacy source: norman & scinner (2006b) the first ehealth literacy conceptual model is proposed by norman & skinner (2006b). it comprises six core skills or literacies: traditional, health, information, scientific, media, and computer literacy and it is represented by “the lily model” (figure 1). each literacy type can be measured separately or combined into two dimensions: analytical skills and context-specific skills. the analytical skills combine traditional literacy and numeracy, media and information literacy, while context-specific literacy includes health, computer and science literacy. table 1 presents a brief explanation of literacies. based on the model, norman & skinner (2006a) develop a measurement scale – eheals (the ehealth literacy scale). as a methodological instrument, they use a self-assessment questionary with a five-point likert scale of agreement (from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”) and factor analysis. the research covers 664 participants aged between 13 and 21 and found that the tool can identify the level of internet health information usefulness among different categories of respondents. 106 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 101-122) due to the technological development and change in human behavior, van deursen & van dijk (2011) expand the model with internet literacy. the new type of literacy includes operational, formal, informational and strategic literacy, including medium-related internet skills and content-related internet skills. medium related skills contain operational skills for using browsers, search engines, operating with internet forms, navigation and sense for location on the world wide web. content-related internet skills cover information skills for the location of information and strategic skills to benefit available content. internet skills are closely related to digital skills, which is a broader concept than computer skills (van deursen et al., 2014). certain elements overlap in van deursen and the lily model information literacy and computer literacy. table 1: traditional, health, information, scientific, media, and computer literacy – basic concepts source: adapted from norman & skinner (2006b) aleksandra bradić-martinović, aleksandar zdravković, tatjana mišić 107 hsu, chiang & yang (2014) propose the integrative ehealth model (imehu) to study taiwan students' ehealth literacy. the model tests hypothesis on the correlation between individual factors (health status, degree of health concern, major and frequency of discussions about health-related issues), ehealth literacy (functional, interactive and critical) and health behavior (eating, exercise and sleep). they introduce a twelve-item questionnaire with a five-point likert scale of agreement, conduct research and collect 525 answers. the results show that ehealth proficiency has an intermediate role in the relationship between demographic and individual factors and health behavior. also, the literacy level was higher among respondents with better health status, who studied clinical fields or had a particular concern for their well-being. in the same year, koopman et al. (2014) develop the pre-hit instrument to assess ehealth literacy. first, they use focus groups to test the questionary, then conduct a survey and collect 195 responses from the patients with chronic conditions, ages between 20 and 86. finally, based on factor analysis, authors extract eight strong factors the need for health information, experience in using computer and internet, fear of computers, relationship with a physician, experience in using cell-phone, concerns about privacy on the internet and a need to avoid undesirable information. we also need to mention dual instruments for the assessment of ehealth literacy. based on the meta-analysis by karnoe & kaysen (2015), lin et al. (2014) study of computer and health literacy and skills with chinese patients. the authors use chew, bradley, and boyko (2004) questions regarding health literacy and generated computer literacy questions. the results show that 43.6% of respondents have a low level of health literacy, and even 96.7% have a low level of computer literacy. taha, sharit & czaja (2014) explore correlation between numeracy ability / technology skills and health literacy. they generate questions regarding habits in using cell phones, computers and atms and test of functional health literacy in adults (tohfla) (parker, et al., 1995) together with questionary for analysis of specific portals use. also, the authors use self-assessment for web-use skills. they found an inconsistency between numeracy skills and health literacy, while numeracy and internet skills impact task performance. without going into details reininger et al. (2013), and van der vaart, drossaert, taal, & van de laar (2011) also gave their contribution on the topic (see details in karnoe & kaysen, 2015). 108 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 101-122) gazibara et al. (2018) conduct a research study among adolescents (aged 14-19) using eheals literacy scale for the first time in serbia. based on the sample of 702 respondents, the authors conclude that adolescents have an above-average self-confidence level in searching and using information from the internet. they can assess the quality of available health information but struggle to find the source of information, although female students show more confidence in this area. multiply regression found that the female gender also has a higher level of ehealth literacy. methodology and data in the previous section we discussed the full-scope methodological approach to appraise ehealth literacy. however, such approach requires collection of primary data through specially designed survey, which goes beyond the scope of our research resources. therefore, we rely on the existing sets of secondary data on digital skills and subsequently reduced scope of ehealth literacy examination to several ehealth skills covered in available datasets. this paper's methodology is based on the eurostat comprehensive survey on digital skills “usage of information and communication technologies in households and by individuals” (eurostat, 2020), which is annually conducted by the national statistical institutes of eu member and candidate countries. the eurostat survey covers a broad list of ict subjects, including ict competence and skills, and the use of the internet and other electronic networks for different purposes by individuals and/or households. following the acceleration, diffusion, and expansion of the ict usage, the questionnaire's list of questions has varied over time, so that questions related to the ehealth skills only recently were added. therefore, our methodology consists of two building blocks: 1. identification of ehealth skills and women entrepreneurs. we use the 2018 survey conducted by the serbian statistical office, wherein we identified three questions related to the ehealth skills (statistical office of the republic of serbia, 2018): − which of the following activities have you performed over the internet in the last 3 months? (optional answer: seeking healthrelated information); aleksandra bradić-martinović, aleksandar zdravković, tatjana mišić 109 − which of the following goods or services have you ordered on the internet in the last 12 months? (optional answer: pharmaceutical products); − which of the following activities have you performed over the internet for private purposes in the last 3 months? (optional answer: making an appointment with a practitioner via a website or application, like scheduling an appointment in a hospital or medical center). in the second step, we use socio-demographic characteristics of the survey participants to render the subsample of female entrepreneurs. in particular, we combine the criterion of self-employment with the female gender to select proper cases. 2. statistical analysis of the data. it covers the following set of analytical issues: − comparison of ehealth skills vis-à-vis comparable digital skills of the female entrepreneurs; − inference on differences in the level of ehealth skills between male and female entrepreneurs, as well as between female entrepreneurs and other women; − inference on associations between ehealth skills and sociodemographic characteristics of the women entrepreneurs. the full 2018 sample from the survey on ict usage in households and serbia individuals includes 2,652 participants. among them, we identified 48 participants that jointly match both gender and self-employment criteria to render a subsample of the women entrepreneurs. we consider the following socio-demographic characteristics: age, education, number of kids (aged under 18), size of the average monthly income and settlement type (urban or suburban/rural). choice of socio-demographic characteristics, illustrated in table 1, is aligned with motives to examine their associations with ehealth skills. the socio-demographic characteristics distribution reveals that the “average” woman entrepreneur in serbia is aged between 46-55 years, secondary educated, have no infant or adolescent children, earns less than 600 eur and lives in an urban area. 110 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 101-122) table 1: distribution of subjects by socio-demographic variables (age, education, number of kids aged 18 or less, average monthly income per household and type of settlement) characteristic n (%) age 25-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 4 (8.3%) 14 (29.2%) 20 (41.7%) 10 (20.8%) education primary education secondary education vocational studies academic studies 3 (6.2%) 29 (60.4%) 1 (2.1%) 15 (31.3%) number of kids aged 18 or less 0 1 2 4 30 (62.5%) 11 (22.9%) 5 (10.4%) 2 (4.2%) average net monthly income per household less than 300 eur 300 – 600 eur over 600 eur missing 17 (35.4%) 12 (25.0%) 13 (27.1%) 6 (12.5%) settlement type urban suburban/rural 31 (47.9%) 17 (22.9%) source: author’s calculations results and discussion in 2015, the dg connect and the eurostat information society working group developed a comprehensive digital skills indicator to measure the extent of digital competence in europe, based on the set of individual indicators derived from the survey on ict usage (ec, 2016). those aleksandra bradić-martinović, aleksandar zdravković, tatjana mišić 111 indicators basically cover the following area of digital skills: information, communication, problem solving and familiarity with online services. regarding the nature of three identified questions related to ehealth, seeking health information can be considered an information skill, whereas buying pharmaceutical products and scheduling appointments online or using applications belongs to a group of familiarity with online services skills. for the purpose of research, we picked several peer skills from the respective groups to provide a comparative analysis. subsequently, we rendered the variables that indicate the participant's ability to perform some of those skills. the cross-tabulated distribution of digital skills (including ehealth-related skills) across female and male entrepreneurs and other women is presented in table 2. table 2: comparisons of ehealth and peer digital skills between women entrepreneurs and other population groups in serbia skills female entrep. other females diff z test male entrep. diff z test % % % information skills (performance) seek health-related information 58.3 47.1 11.6 1.59* 45.8 12.5 1.41* save files on internet storage space 29.2 15.6 14.1 -2.64*** 22.9 6.3 -0.82 obtain information from public auth/services' websites 52.1 29.0 23.8 -3.58*** 43.8 8.3 -0.95 find information about goods or services 70.8 58.8 12.4 1.73** 75.0 -4.2 0.53 watc internet video content (youtube, vimeo…) 66.7 50.1 17.1 -2.33* 67.7 -1.0 0.13 familiarity with online services (performance) schedule medical appointment 12.5 8.1 4.4 -1.15 12.5 0.0 0.00 sell online 25.0 12.8 12.6 -2.57*** 18.8 6.2 -0.87 book accommodation online 16.7 13.3 3.4 -0.68 16.7 0.0 0.00 use internet banking 25.0 17.1 8.2 -1.48* 27.1 -2.1 0.27 purchase pharmaceutical products 20.8 11.2 10.2 -2.16** 12.5 8.3 -1.31* source: author’s calculations 112 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 101-122) comparative analysis of digital skills reveals that abilities to perform information skills exceed familiarity with online services, regardless of the population group. when only ehealth skills of female entrepreneurs are considered, seeking health-related information is the most frequently exhibited skill, whereas scheduling medical appointments appears as the least commonly practiced skill, not only among ehealth but also among all digital skills considered. it is a quite expected result, since the scheduling of the medical appointments online or using web applications is the relatively new e-service in serbia relative to internet banking or online purchasing, and therefore still underdeveloped. a comparison of digital skills between female entrepreneurs and other women reveals several important insights. female entrepreneurs are more digitally skilled than other women, regardless of the type of skill considered. this is especially the case in a group of informational skills, where all differences in proportions are two-digit numbers, and the z-test of proportions confirms the significance of those differences. however, the difference between the share of women entrepreneurs vis-à-vis other women seeking health information online is the smallest one among information skills. the opposite case is on the side of familiarity with online services, whereby the difference in purchasing of pharmaceutical products online between female entrepreneurs and other women is the second-highest; the only difference that is higher is recorded for the online selling, in line with expectations that such activity is not typically performed by the women who are not self-employed. when differences in digital skills between female and male entrepreneurs are compared, ehealth skills, particularly seeking health-related information and purchasing the pharmaceutical products online, appear to be the only which are statistically significant. the equality of digital skills between female and male entrepreneurs is an interesting finding that opposed evidence from previous research, which shows that serbia's digital skills (based on an ict usage survey in 2017) are gender-sensitive (bradić-martinović and banović, 2018). the second part of the empirical analysis covers association between socio-demographic variables and ehealth skills. to this end, we computed the cross-tabulations of socio-demographic variables (table 1) and ehealth indicators and ran the pearson chi-squared test of association. the selection of the socio-demographic characteristics is based on the prior expectation about possible associations with ehealth variables, which are grounded on the following rationales: aleksandra bradić-martinović, aleksandar zdravković, tatjana mišić 113 − age and education: the previous research on digital skills and the digital divide figured robust empirical evidence that age and education are associated with digital skills. in particular, mastering digital skills is inversely related to age and proportional to education level (van deursen and van dijk, 2010; van deursen, van dijk and peters, 2011). − the number of kids: while this characteristic is not typically encompassed in the research on digital skills, it is reasonable to assume that care about infants or adolescents is time-consuming and therefore, may motivate self-employed women to increase involvement in online activities. − average monthly income: the existing literature profoundly documents evidence that stronger skills provide workers with better opportunities for jobs and higher income (ec, 2020). therefore, income level and level of digital (or any other) skills should co-vary in the same direction; − settlement type: despite coverage of broadband connections in the last couple of years has considerably improved in suburban and rural areas in serbia, the population living in the urban areas still has better access to ict means, and therefore it is arguably to assume that the urban population is more digitally skilled. regarding the frequency distribution of the socio-demographic characteristics of participants in the sample (table 1), we did several modifications to make this distribution more even by merging modalities with an insufficient number of observations: i) age categories 25-35 and 35-45, ii) 2 or more children, iii) primary and secondary education (into non-tertiary, and iv) vocational and academic education (into tertiary). analysis of the association between socio-demographic characteristics and ehealth skill seeking health-related information of female entrepreneurs is shown in table 3a. the results of the chi-squared tests do not confirm expectations about the existence of those associations. indeed, proportions between female entrepreneurs who search health-related information online and those who are not quite evenly distributed across modalities of sociodemographic characteristics, without sizable deviations, may indicate associations' existence. 114 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 101-122) table 3a: association between socio-demographic characteristics and ehealth skill seeking health-related information online socio-demographic characteristic no yes ratio yes/no chi-squared test age 25-45 14.58 22.92 1.57 0.16 46-55 18.75 22.92 1.22 56-65 8.33 12.50 1.50 education no tertiary 29.17 37.50 1.29 0.1714 tertiary 12.50 20.83 1.67 number of kids aged 18 or less 0 27.08 35.42 1.31 0.1656 1 8.33 14.58 1.75 2 + 6.25 8.33 1.33 average net monthly income per household less than 300 eur 14.58 20.83 1.43 0.2274 300 – 600 eur 12.50 12.50 1.00 over 600 eur 12.50 14.58 1.17 missing 2.08 10.42 5.01 settlement type urban 27.08 37.50 1.38 0.0026 suburban/rural 14.58 20.83 1.43 source: author’s calculations note: null hypothesis of chi-squared test: cross-tabulated variables are independent; * for 10% statistical significance, ** for 5 % statistical significance, *** for 1 % statistical significance; chi-squared test excludes missing values. on the other side, analysis of the association between socio-demographic characteristics and ehealth skill scheduling medical appointments online or via applications reveals the existence of such associations for two variables: education and average monthly income (table 3b). values of the ratios that read in table 3b confirm expected positive associations: the proportion of tertiary educated female entrepreneurs who made online scheduling of aleksandra bradić-martinović, aleksandar zdravković, tatjana mišić 115 appointments considerably exceeds the proportion of non-tertiary educated, and the same holds for earnings over 600 eur. table 3b: association between socio-demographic characteristics and ehealth skill scheduling medical appointments online or via applications socio-demographic characteristic no yes ratio yes/no chi-squared test age 25-45 31.25 6.25 0.20 1.8286 46-55 39.58 2.08 0.05 56-65 16.67 4.17 0.25 education no tertiary 64.58 2.08 0.03 7.7143*** tertiary 22.92 10.42 0.45 number of kids aged 18 or less 0 52.08 10.42 0.20 2.068 1 22.92 0.00 0.00 2 + 12.50 2.08 0.17 average net monthly income per household less than 300 eur 33.33 2.08 0.06 6.6208** 300 – 600 eur 25.00 0.00 0.00 over 600 eur 18.75 8.33 0.44 missing 10.42 2.08 0.20 settlement type urban 54.17 10.42 0.19 1.0539 suburban/rural 33.33 2.08 0.06 source: author’s calculations note: null hypothesis of chi-squared test: cross-tabulated variables are independent; * for 10% statistical significance, ** for 5 % statistical significance, *** for 1 % statistical significance; chi-squared test excludes missing values. the previous finding is also confirmed in the case of ehealth skill online purchase of pharmaceutical products. as reads in table 3c, this skill is associated both with education and the average monthly income of female entrepreneurs. association is also found in case of settlement type; the 116 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 101-122) proportion of female entrepreneurs that purchase pharmaceutical products in urban areas exceed those in suburban or rural areas. this is not a surprising result, bearing in mind that online purchasing also requires delivery services which are better developed and infrastructurally supported in urban areas. table 3c: association between socio-demographic characteristics and ehealth skill online purchase of pharmaceutical products socio-demographic characteristic no yes ratio yes/no chi-squared test age 25-45 25.00 12.50 0.50 3.1326 46-55 37.50 4.17 0.11 56-65 16.67 4.17 0.25 education no tertiary 58.33 8.33 0.14 4.0421** tertiary 20.83 12.50 0.60 number of kids aged 18 or less 0 47.92 14.58 0.30 1.2874 1 20.83 2.08 0.10 2 + 10.42 4.17 0.40 average net monthly income per household less than 300 eur 31.25 4.17 0.13 4.6558* 300 – 600 eur 22.92 2.08 0.09 over 600 eur 16.67 10.42 0.63 missing 8.33 4.17 0.50 settlement type urban 45.83 18.75 0.41 3.5675* suburban/rural 33.33 2.08 0.06 source: author’s calculations note: null hypothesis of chi-squared test: cross-tabulated variables are independent; * for 10% statistical significance, ** for 5 % statistical significance, *** for 1 % statistical significance; chi-squared test excludes missing values. aleksandra bradić-martinović, aleksandar zdravković, tatjana mišić 117 conclusion the covid-19 pandemic becomes a great challenge for citizens, but also health systems and health authorities globally. in many countries, the systems cannot meet all patients' needs, or people do not want to visit medical facilities out of fear. digital health care, in the broadest sense, is one way to alleviate these problems. however, in order for such a system to be effective, it is necessary for users to have a certain level of knowledge about health and treatment, as well as digital skills. users with a higher level of knowledge and skills have a better opportunity to use information from the world wide web, online and offline communication with medical staff or ordering drugs and similar preparations via the internet. in this paper, we analyze to what extent female entrepreneurs in serbia utilize ehealth opportunities and whether this utilization is associated with selected socio-demographic variables. we focus on the three particular ehealth skills covered by the survey on serbia's ict usage for 2018: seeking health-related information online, scheduling medical appointments online or via applications, and online purchase of pharmaceutical products. the first one considered ehealth skills are regarded as an information skill, whereas the second and third are regarded as familiarity with online services (subgroup of problem-solving skills). besides ehealth skills, we also include peer information skills and familiarity with online services in analysis for the purpose of comparison. the analysis results confirm the presumption that female entrepreneurs have mastered digital skills better than other women, including ehealth skills. when female and male entrepreneurs are compared, seeking health-related information and purchasing pharmaceutical products appears as the ehealth skills more frequently utilized by female entrepreneurs. bearing in mind how skills are assessed, such result does not necessary means that women entrepreneurs are more capable of seeking health-related information and purchasing pharmaceutical products; there is also a chance that women, in general, are more concerned about health than men. apart from those two ehealth skills, other digital skills are evenly utilized by both female and male entrepreneurs, opposite to the previous research findings that digital literacy in serbia is gender-sensitive. the association between female entrepreneurs' socio-demographic characteristics and utilization of ehealth skills is not confirmed in most cases. the notable exceptions are statistically confirmed associations of education 118 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 101-122) level and average monthly income with ehealth skills related to familiarity with online services. we did not consider the direction of causality of those associations. nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that the education level increases the level of digital skills, while a higher level of digital skills increases the prospective for higher earnings. the research has several shortcomings. besides the already mentioned limitation that ehealth indicators basically reflect actual performances rather than skill capabilities, other important concern is the insufficient representativeness of the female entrepreneurs in the sample. additionally, an item from the survey on ict usage related to scheduling appointments with practitioners online is used as a proxy for scheduling medical appointments. similarly, eurostat's definition of self-employment predominantly covers entrepreneurs but not exclusively. therefore, further research on this topic should secure a larger and more representative sample of the female entrepreneurs and increase ehealth skills coverage up to the full-scope measurement of ehealth literacy. acknowledgments this 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[39] van deursen, alexander, elen helsper and rebecca eynon. 2014. measuring digital skills. from digital skills to tangible outcomes project report. available at: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=112. article history: received: 15 november, 2020 accepted: 9 december, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2011.02.001 http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=112 doi: 10.28934/jwee21.34.pp76-95 original scientific review 4bwomen’s beauty parlor entrepreneurship as a social change activity for ethnic workers amid covid-19 gulfam tasnim11 f1 graduate, centre for informal sector and labour studies, jawaharlal nehru university a b s t r a c t this study entails in-depth interviews with women entrepreneurs who own beauty parlors in dhaka, to understand whether they perceive their entrepreneurship as a social change activity entailing empowerment and social inclusion for ethnic women workers. in other words, this study tries to understand why a large proportion of ethnic women are employed in beauty parlors of dhaka by examining the perspective of women beauty parlor owners who employ them. only dhaka is considered in this study as most high-end beauty parlors are located in dhaka. the interviews indicate that the owners perceive their entrepreneurship as a social change activity entailing empowerment that positively impacts the lives of their women workers regardless of ethnicity. according to the respondents, the motivation for creating employment for ethnic women workers is driven by the need to empower them; social inclusion plays no role in generating employment for ethnic women workers. the findings also show that women beauty parlor owners are countering patriarchal structuring by employing ethnic women workers. the study was conducted post covid-19 so it takes into account the impact of the pandemic. key words: women’s entrepreneurship; ethnic workers; beauty parlor; dhaka; feminist theorizing. 1 address: new mehrauli road, new delhi 110067, e-mail: gulfamtasnim@gmail.com, tel. +8801816656414 gulfam tasnim 77 introduction in this study the term ethnic women refers to women coming from ethnic minority groups stationed in chittagong hill tracts, sylhet division, rajshahi division and mymensingh district; these ethnic minorities migrated to bangladesh from burma and central india before british rule and are minorities as bangladesh was created as a bengali nation-state. it was initially believed that the preference for employing ethnic workers in beauty parlors of bangladesh was due to their appearance being similar to chinese appearance; the demand for chinese appearance is believed to be derived from the fact that the first parlor in bangladesh-‘may fair,’ was established by a woman named carmel hsieh of chinese descent and run by chinese workers. however, with time the take on this has changed and creation of parlor jobs for ethnic people is viewed as a step towards advancing a community that in the past had few job opportunities. the workers in beauty parlors are mostly from the garo ethnic community in mymensingh, tangail, netrokona, sherpur and sylhet. in recent times the beauty industry had thrived due to social media. now almost all the beauty parlors in bangladesh have facebook pages which they use to promote their business. social media has been successful in promoting beauty products and services as the number of social media users has increased drastically in bangladesh. between 2020 and 2021 more than 9 million users joined social media in bangladesh. we are social (a socially-led creative agency) reported in the ‘digital report’ that the number of social media users in february 2021 was 45 million; which is 27.2% of the total population of bangladesh. beauty influencers have also played an important role in promoting demand for beauty products and services in bangladesh since 2014, via facebook communities. the beauty sector in bangladesh received recognition from the government as an industrial sector on 8 june 2020 due to its growing importance. in 2020 number of registered salons stood at 350,000 and 18% of the working women were employed in beauty services; the turnover of the sector stood at bdt 5 billion. the president of beauty service owners association of bangladesh (bsoab) expressed her satisfaction with this decision and put forward that the sector is contributing to the advancement of garo women by providing employment; she also stated: ‘it is notable that 99% of the management of the sector is run by women.’ employment at beauty parlors has indeed made a positive impact on the lives of ethnic women. ethnic women start their careers at beauty parlors as trainees with 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 76-95) no pay (in some cases with pocket money amounting to bdt 500) but with food and accommodation facilities; they have the potential to get bdt 15,000 per month as they gain skills and expertise. mess houses are arranged by the employers for their workers; the most important point that makes the ethnic workers at home at beauty parlors is the strong community feeling; kavita snal an ethnic worker from amlitala, madhupur quoted, ‘i can share joy and sorrow with the people from my community, often from my own village. i also feel secure amidst my people.’ an empirical study (akhter, ahmed & hossain, 2011) entailing a sample of 240 female tribal workers from six divisional towns of bangladesh also confirms that these workers have a competitively higher salary compared to other ethnic people and they also have access to a comparatively healthy physical environment provided by their owners. therefore, the rise in demand for beauty parlor services has resulted in employment for a large number of ethnic women. ethnic women employed in beauty parlors are in a better position economically than ethnic women who live in ethnic communities; a study (amin et al., 2016) conducted for the international labor organization (ilo) identifies the push and pull factors determining the employment of beauty parlor workers in the urban economy. the study finds economic problems, environmental hazards, land lost from new settlers in hilly areas or from river erosion, political and social pressure, poverty, intragroup conflict and lack of modern educational as well as health facilities as push factors; pull factors identified are better living opportunity, improved communication, access to jobs, better career options, high wage rate, good education and health facilities along with chain migration through relatives and friends. this growing beauty industry suffered badly due to the outbreak of covid-19, health and safety protocols necessitated limited customers in parlors leading to huge loss in revenues. an owner seeking anonymity quoted the following in a recent media report: ‘because of two consecutive lockdowns we have lost 90% of our revenue. some tk35 lakhs. i have had to pay my workers less than half their salary, and could not give them their eid bonus last year, which i paid out of pocket this time around.’ the government recognized the beauty industry on 8th june 2020, enabling beauty entrepreneurs to apply for loans under the sme stimulus package, but bank officials have not eased the process by which women entrepreneurs can access loans thereby discouraging women to apply for loans. the pandemic has therefore led to unemployment for ethnic women who were employed in parlors; they have returned to their homelands to become gulfam tasnim 79 farmhands for landowners; an ethnic woman who recently lost her job as a beauty parlor worker where she earned bdt 8000 per month, quoted the following in a media report: ‘i began working at a beauty parlor in bogra at the beginning of this year. however, as the parlor shut down due to countrywide lockdown, i became unemployed and had to come back home three months ago. now, i work as a farmhand and support my family side by side with father, who pulls his van for a living.’ she added that she now earns bdt 200-300 on a daily basis after she toils from dawn to dusk, she put forward other ethnic women like her have also lost parlor jobs and have become farmhands exposed to uncertainties and precarious work. the demand for the beauty industry and its impact on the lives of ethnic women in bangladesh highlights the importance of research in this area. shane and venkataraman posit that researchers should focus on individuals and opportunities and think of them as the first order forces to explain entrepreneurship, their definition of the field of entrepreneurship encompasses the examination of opportunities; and the set of individuals who take on these opportunities (shane & venkataraman, 2000). this paper also adopts a similar framework by delving into the perspective of individual beauty parlor owners and the study of their utilization of opportunities. the study is also aligned with the approach of calás, smircich and bourne, who position entrepreneurship as a social change activity, rather than solely as an economic engine with social impact (calás, smircich & bourne, 2009). the study finds that women beauty parlor owners in dhaka are countering patriarchal norms and structures by creating opportunities for ethnic women workers and eliminating the barriers that ethnic women workers face in terms of language and social security thereby generating social change. this study uses qualitative research method to gather in-depth information about what motivates beauty parlor owners to employ ethnic women and sheds light on how they view their entrepreneurship. the use of both inductive as well as deductive approach and in-depth interviews in this study facilitated creation of categories from the data, and analysis of relationship between categories. the primary areas of interest in this study are: (1) individual perceptions of entrepreneurship, social change, empowerment and social inclusion; (2) ethnicity details of workers (3) increase or decrease in employment of ethnic women workers with time as well as (4) impact of covid-19 on ethnic women workers. 80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 76-95) literature review women’s entrepreneurship and empowerment in the sri lankan beauty salon sector (silva et al., 2021) has been examined in line with sen’s (1999) notion on freedom and its intersection with gender and economy; the study discusses women’s entrepreneurship as a significant notion for women empowerment. the opportunities provided by women’s cooperatives in offering self-employment contributing to women’s social inclusion and empowerment in india has been examined (datta & gailey, 2012). this paper adopts an aim which is similar to the aforementioned studies to examine social inclusion and empowerment created by women for women in the beauty industry of bangladesh; as there is no research in this area in the context of bangladesh. most studies on women beauty parlor entrepreneurs in bangladesh deal with the development or potentiality of this type of entrepreneurship in bangladesh; more specifically the existing studies examine the socio-economic conditions of women beauty parlor entrepreneurs and determine way forward (al-hossienie, 2011; chowdhury & rahman, 2014; nasima & alam, 2014; alam & kabir, 2015; afroze et al., 2014) examined the socio-economic context of women beauty parlor entrepreneurs to identify challenges faced by them and factors leading to their success; to arrive at policy recommendations. studies on women beauty workers have examined: rural-urban migration of garo beauty workers (marwa, 2018); socio-economic conditions of tribal women workers (akhter, ahmed & hossain, 2011); job satisfaction of beauty workers (afroz, 2017; zabir et al., 2018), job satisfaction of indigenous workers (ahmed et al., 2013); rights, working conditions of ethnic workers as well as perception on ethnicity (amin et al., 2016). customer satisfaction at beauty parlors has also been a common theme of study; the following studies have been implemented in this regard: dimensions of services provided in beauty salons which foster relationships with customers have been identified (shahbazi & akrami, 2013); relationship between salespersons’ interpersonal skills and their sales performance in parlors and salons has been examined (islam et al., 2016); measurement of service quality and customer satisfaction (khan & tabassum, 2010), measurement of customer satisfaction (sultana, islam & das, 2016; huq, aktar &sarker, 2015). gulfam tasnim 81 among the aforementioned studies some have relied on purely quantitative methods(zabir et al., 2018; akhter, ahmed & hossain, 2011; ahmed et al., 2013; islam et al., 2016; alam &kabir, 2015; nasima & alam, 2014; afroz, 2017; ahmed et al., 2013; shahbazi & akrami, 2013; khan & tabassum, 2010; sultana, islam & das, 2016; huq, aktar &sarker, 2015). these quantitative studies have used statistical methods and tools entailing factor analysis. qualitative studies to gain perceptions of beauty parlor entrepreneurs and beauty parlor workers on issues such as challenges faced, migration and ethnic identity have been conducted (amin et al., 2016; marwa, 2018; afroze et al., 2014; al-hossienie, 2011). purely qualitative studies to examine the perspective of beauty parlor owners regarding their entrepreneurship and their perception regarding social inclusion and empowerment for ethnic women workers have not been used; and this paper aims to do so by delving into the entrepreneurship efforts of select beauty parlor entrepreneurs in dhaka. this study utilizes both inductive and deductive approach to understand the entrepreneurship of women beauty parlor owners and their perspective regarding social inclusion, social change and empowerment for ethnic women workers. scope of the study the study seeks to answer the underlying question: what do women beauty parlor owners think about their entrepreneurship and its impact on employment generation for ethnic women workers in terms of social inclusion, social change and empowerment? the paper addresses the following sub-questions: 1. do women beauty parlor owners think of their entrepreneurship primarily as an economic engine, or do they also think of it as a social change activity? 2. what views do women beauty parlor owners have regarding social inclusion and empowerment for ethnic women workers? 3. how has the supply of ethnic women workers changed in the beauty parlor industry with time according to women beauty parlor owners? 4. what is the impact of covid-19 on ethnic women workers according to women beauty parlor owners? 5. what are the ethnicity details (ethnicity type, religion and region) of the ethnic women workers according to beauty parlor owners? 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 76-95) 6. what is the proportion of ethnic women workers working in beauty parlors according to women beauty parlor owners? methods data collection the first stage of data collection entailed desk research. academic papers and media articles were consulted for this research. search terms such as ‘women’s entrepreneurship,’ ‘female-driven entrepreneurship,’ ‘entrepreneurship as a social change activity,’ ‘women beauty parlor owners,’ ‘women beauty parlor entrepreneurs,’ ‘beauty parlors in bangladesh,’ ‘beauty parlor business in dhaka,’ ‘beauty parlor business in bangladesh’ as well as ‘beauty parlors and ethnic women in bangladesh’ were used to find relevant academic papers and media articles. the data collected from secondary sources was used to develop the research questions and the semi-structured questionnaire; the research questions determined the questions of the semi-structured questionnaire. the primary source of data for the study comprised of semi-structured in-depth interviews with eight women beauty parlor owners in dhaka. snowball sampling approach was utilized to gain access to these owners; this method depended solely on personal connections and referrals. the use of semi-structured questionnaire that was prepared based on research questions and study of existing literature is a deductive approach. although a semi-structured questionnaire was used, the questions in the questionnaire were mostly open-ended, the interviews were mainly driven by the respondents and their perceptions; an inductive approach. data analysis the data analysis phase involved three rounds of coding. the data collected was coded at first based on the respondents’ phrases and expression. the second round of coding entailed the authors’ understanding of the data collected; this round refined the data analyzed in the first round with the author/researcher’s informed knowledge about the subject matter based on research questions and study of literature. the final round of coding involved the identification of common themes or patterns. gulfam tasnim 83 limitations the interviews for the study were conducted during march 2021, therefore the respondents could only put forward their thoughts regarding the first lockdown which the government of bangladesh declared from 23rd march to 30th may 2020. bangladesh is currently experiencing a second lockdown but this study does not take this into account. the study involved eight interviews as it was difficult to reach more respondents due to the pandemic. most parlors have health and safety protocols that allow only a certain amount of people in their parlors for a certain slot of time. some interviews were conducted over phone, however the author had to connect with these respondents’ multiple times over phone to complete each interview as the respondents have busy schedules. although the sample size is small, the respondents put forward same points; data saturation was obtained. here the definition of data saturation is the one put forward by dworkin, according to dworkin saturation is reached when no new or relevant data can be obtained through the data collection process (dworkin, 2012). dworkin also puts forward that a number of books and articles recommend 5-50 respondents as adequate in qualitative research. the study also suffers from a certain degree of bias as only the views of beauty parlor owners or employers have been taken into account; the views of workers have not been incorporated. this has been intentional; the aim is to study the perspective of women beauty parlor owners in dhaka. thematic analysis first-round of coding the broad themes found after the first round of coding entailing respondents’ phrases and expression have been provided below. garo women and their characteristics garo women coming from matrilineal societies dominate the beauty parlor industry as workers in dhaka. beauty parlor owners stipulated that the characteristics of garo women make them ideal candidates as beauty parlor workers. the following characteristics of garo women were highlighted by the owners: i. sincerity 84 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 76-95) ii. professionalism iii. physical strength iv. honesty v. independence one beauty parlor owner quoted the following: ‘from a business perspective, i would say that i need garo women as they are the very best. when i think about the long term, they have the potential to grow.’ also, about the popularity among customers she stated: ‘majority of my customers are foreigners, and they love the service provided by garo women. i admire the confidence that garo women show while they deal with customers.’ all of the owners interviewed praised the physical strength and sincerity of garo women, one of them stipulated the following: ‘garo women can work for hours and are honest and sincere, they barely waste time on other activities when they are assigned tasks.’ when the respondents were asked about the ethnicity details of workers, they could only specify that mostly garo women from mymensingh dominate the beauty parlor industry; most of the respondents could not specify ethnicity details of other ethnic women workers, only two out of the eight parlor owners could specify the names of the other ethnic minorities; they mentioned that they have women workers from chakma, murong and marma communities. the respondents also highlighted that the matrilineal societies from which the garo women come from, make them independent; in fact, most of these women are the sole bread earners for their family and most of them have children living with them in dhaka. one respondent quoted the following: ‘one of my garo worker has a son who is studying in canada, and the children of most of my garo workers are studying in private schools.’ four out of the eight respondents put forward that their ethnic workers come from garo communities solely. all of the workers of one of these respondents are garo (meaning that she has no bengali workers); among the other three, two have 83% garo women workers and one has 60% garo women workers, the rest are bengali. the other four respondents interviewed specified that their workforce consists of 37.5%, 50%, 80% and 95% ethnic women respectively. most of the respondents put forward that ethnic women mainly provide beauty services to customers whereas bengalis are responsible for management and cleaning. gulfam tasnim 85 salary and benefits for women workers one respondent stated ‘i have highly skilled garo workers who receive 50 thousand bdt as salary per month.’ she stated that she increases the salary of her workers when they can do eyebrows. this same respondent provides accommodation for her single women workers near her parlor. she said that she is content about the fact that she can provide a safe working place and a safe living place for her workers. another respondent stated that her garo workers are financially stable and are slightly above the social strata that women beauty parlor workers in dhaka usually belong to. she put forward that most of the children of her garo workers study in private schools. all of the respondents stipulated that they tried to ensure that their workers received at least subsistence wages during the pandemic. when the pandemic started and the bangladesh government announced lockdown, the beauty parlor entrepreneurs had no option but to close down their parlors. five out of the eight respondents stated that they had to lay off workers and one respondent stated that she had to shut down one branch permanently. three respondents informed that they ensured that all their workers received 50% of their monthly wages during the pandemic. three out of the eight respondents said that most of their workers went back to their home towns and engaged themselves in agricultural activities during the lockdown period. one respondent stated that after her parlor was reopened after the lockdown, she ensured safety of her workers by providing them health and safety training so that they could stay safe during the pandemic. change in supply of ethnic women workers with time all the beauty parlor owners stated that the supply of ethnic women workers remained the same with time; they still dominate the beauty parlor industry like before. according to the respondents’ ethnic women prefer jobs in beauty parlors due to three main factors, firstly the provision of services in beauty parlors does not require the ethnic women workers to be fluent in bengali, they just need to understand the requirements of the customers and answer questions put forward by customers in few syllables. management staff in beauty parlors are responsible for handling customers and they are mainly bengali. secondly respondents stated that ethnic women feel insecure as they come from minority communities, and this security issue is a major issue which causes them to take on beauty parlor 86 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 76-95) jobs, as they deem beauty parlors as safe spaces which are run and managed by women. thirdly beauty parlors have always been dominated by ethnic women due to the facts discussed above, this means that ethnic women have passed on their beauty service skills to the next generations and have also developed a network among themselves (usually ethnic women workers obtain job referrals or news of parlor jobs from their relatives or friends who work in beauty parlors, they also learn to provide beauty services from these relatives or friends) and this is another significant reason that has caused the supply of ethnic women to be the same with time. covid-19 has also not changed the supply of ethnic women workers in beauty parlors. in fact, a respondent who started her parlor business post covid-19 stated that among the 18 workers that she hired, 15 are ethnic women workers. the owner started her business in october 2020 and stated the following: ‘we started organizing our interior in september 2020 and initiated business from october 2020. we got a lot of applications from ethnic women, as a large proportion of women who worked in beauty parlors became jobless at that time.’ passion all the respondents started their business out of passion, a respondent quoted: ‘my passion is beauty and well-being.’ another respondent stated the following: ‘my interest was and is in the beauty business, i used to stay updated about the beauty industry; the new techniques, hair colors and hair styles.’ one respondent put forward that she knew what she wanted to do right from her school days; she went abroad and received hairdressing training and immediately after coming to dhaka opened her beauty parlor business. some of the respondents highlighted that being beauty parlor entrepreneurs allowed them the flexibility to manage time between care work and their business. the respondents in fact did not analyze the risks and opportunities associated with the beauty business before starting their business. they started their business out of passion, some of the respondents started their business on a small-scale and then gradually expanded. all of the respondents have tried to overcome challenges that they faced and are still trying to overcome challenges amid the pandemic to run their beauty parlors. empowerment gulfam tasnim 87 all respondents interviewed stated that they view their entrepreneurship as a social change activity which generates employment for women and empowers them. one respondent stated the following: ‘at the start of my career i was a formal job holder; later i became an entrepreneur. i started veteran business then i thought why not start my own beauty parlor business as i love to work with and for women. when i started hiring workers for my beauty parlor, i felt happy knowing that they will be able to take home salaries with which they will be able to feed their family members. i talk with my women workers sometimes and tell them to love themselves and build themselves. i do not think of my beauty parlor business as a money-making machine.’ another woman beauty parlor owner stated: ‘i view my whole entrepreneurship as a social change activity. i am making the lives of my ethnic workers easier and i am making them independent; this is a lovely feeling.’ all of the respondents stated that they do not run their businesses for the sole purpose of extracting profit, rather they enjoy the fact that they can work with and for women and bring about positive changes in the lives of women. second-round of coding the broad themes found after the second round of coding which entails the researcher’s understanding of the data collected have been presented below: supply of and demand for garo women workers the respondents highlighted that garo women have dominated the beauty parlor industry in the past and are still dominating the beauty parlor industry, they are readily available and their supply has not changed with time. in fact, the supply of bengali women has increased with time in the beauty parlor business but the supply of garo women remains the same. the demand for garo women is driven by the fact that their characteristics match the requirements for beauty parlor worker jobs. opportunities the women entrepreneurs interviewed do not think of their entrepreneurship opportunities in purely economic terms, as maximization of profits and mitigation of risks; rather they were and are willing to take on risks involved with the beauty parlor business to pursue their passion. the 88 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 76-95) pandemic caused some of them to close down branches and lay off workers but they still continued their business overcoming the challenges. the owners think of their entrepreneurship as providing opportunities for women and especially ethnic women as ethnic women have cultural and language barriers which makes it difficult for them to secure jobs elsewhere, and they also have a disadvantage in terms of social security as they feel threatened by the bengali community. social change activity, social inclusion and empowerment all of the respondents interviewed highlighted that they view their entrepreneurship as a social change activity which affects the lives of other women positively regardless of ethnicity. the respondents responded quickly when asked about empowerment; they stated that they think that their entrepreneurship empowers ethnic women. they stated that ethnic women are different from bengali women as they belong to matrilineal communities, this means that they have to be in charge of their family, in most cases they are the sole earners in their families and their children and husband are dependent on them. respondents stated that the matrilineal communities play a strong role in developing strength and independence among ethnic women as they have to be in charge of their families and their own lives. the respondents admired the strength and independence of ethnic women, and they said that they feel great when they can economically empower ethnic women by paying them salaries as these ethnic women are usually the sole earners in their families. when asked about social inclusion, the respondents answered that social inclusion is not something that comes to their mind when they hire ethnic women, they think that the employment of ethnic women is driven by demand for and supply of ethnic women in the beauty parlor industry. the fact that the respondents viewed their entrepreneurship as a social change activity is clear when we look at efforts of the women beauty parlor entrepreneurs during the pandemic. all of them ensured at least subsistence wages for their workers, during the lockdown so that the workers could survive the pandemic. effect of covid-19 on women workers the pandemic and especially the lockdown has been a critical time for women beauty parlor workers. most of them had to travel to their home towns; the ethnic women workers who are from hilly areas had to go back to their hometowns and engage in agricultural activities. when the beauty gulfam tasnim 89 parlors were reopened, the workers had to travel back to dhaka. although employers tried to ensure that the workers could survive the lockdown period, lots of workers lost their jobs, and although the compensation they received was enough for them during the lockdown, they had to search for jobs after beauty parlors were reopened. workers working at the beauty parlors during the pandemic are putting their lives as well as the lives of their family members at risk. employers are trying their best to ensure health and safety measures by taking in a limited number of customers for allocated time slots and ensuring that health and safety protocols are maintained, but the nature of the job of beauty parlor workers involves a great amount of risk as it entails physical contact with customers. final-round of coding the common themes found after the final round of coding have been discussed below. entrepreneurship as social change activity women beauty parlor owners view their entrepreneurship as a social change activity. they do not think of their entrepreneurship solely as an economic engine; economic factors are not the only driving force for beauty parlor owners rather the desire to impact the lives of other women is one of the main factors. ethnic women workers and empowerment respondents perceive their entrepreneurship as an activity that leads to empowerment of their ethnic workers. one of the main reasons cited by the respondents in terms of empowerment for ethnic women workers is that these women are usually the sole bread earners of their family; and as their employers, beauty parlor entrepreneurs feel good that they can contribute to the financial independence and empowerment of ethnic women workers. even amid the pandemic, beauty parlor entrepreneurs have tried to ensure subsistence wages or fifty percent salaries for their ethnic workers. one owner has also rented rooms for her ethnic workers so that they can stay together and near their workplace. ethnic women and social inclusion beauty parlor owners do not think of social inclusion when they hire ethnic women, purely economic factors drive the demand for and supply of 90 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 76-95) ethnic minorities in the beauty parlor business. ethnic women and particularly garo women have worked in beauty parlors in bangladesh from the very start of the industry; they prefer the beauty parlor industry as it requires manual service from them and their language does not become a barrier. demand for ethnic women especially garo women is driven by the characteristics that garo women have; these characteristics are ideal for satisfying customers. employers appreciate the hardworking nature and sincerity of garo women; they put forward that garo women can work for hours at a stretch which bengali women cannot; an owner quoted the following: ‘ethnic women can do so many tasks in a day without any complaints, whereas bengalis get tired easily.’ all of these factors make ethnic women and especially garo women ideal candidates for beauty parlor jobs. impact of covid-19 on the lives of ethnic women workers covid-19 impacted the lives of all beauty parlor workers adversely, but ethnic women workers were more severely hit by the blow of the pandemic. ethnic women workers who do not have permanent settlements and family members in dhaka, had to go back to their hometowns. they had to travel to their hometowns during the lockdown period when public transportation was halted. most of the ethnic women workers are from the remote hilly regions of mymensingh and chittagong in bangladesh, which meant that they had to face many hurdles during their journey back to their hometowns. although employers tried to ensure that all their workers could survive the lockdown period by providing subsistence wages, ethnic workers not having permanent settlements in dhaka had to bear the brunt due to their hometown locations. a lot of ethnic workers also lost their jobs during the pandemic, which meant that they had to search for new jobs. ethnic workers who were laid off during the pandemic face a greater degree of disadvantage compared to bengali women in terms of finding new jobs due to the language barrier and also because they are especially skilled in parlor jobs but unfortunately all the parlors were and are still downsizing during the pandemic which means that the chances of finding employment have become narrower for them. parlor owners have tried to protect their ethnic workers from the effect of the pandemic by trying to ensure at least subsistence wage; but the huge loss in revenues in the beauty industry has led to job loss for ethnic workers. gulfam tasnim 91 findings and discussion the study confirms that women beauty parlor owners offer opportunities that contribute to empowerment for ethnic women workers. their entrepreneurship empowers ethnic women by providing social security and economic security. the study is in line with calás, smircich and bourne, it suggests that entrepreneurship may bring about social change (calás, smircich & bourne, 2009). calás, smircich and bourne posit entrepreneurship as social change and use feminist theorizing to view entrepreneurship as social change. this study can also be interpreted using feminist theorizing. according to calás, smircich and bourne, the radical, liberal and psychoanalytic feminist theorizing positions entrepreneurship as an aspect of social structure. these theories show that the male dominated structure of society puts women at a social disadvantage. women beauty parlor owners are bringing about social change in society by eliminating barriers that ethnic women face i terms of access to jobs. women beauty parlor owners are empowering ethnic women by providing them with jobs and safe spaces to work, countering patriarchal structuring. the male dominated structure of society creates barriers for ethnic minorities based on their language and social security (especially in the case of ethnic women) in terms of access to jobs and other facilities, but women beauty parlor owners are removing these barriers by providing safe work spaces and in some cases accommodation to ethnic women and fostering a strong community feeling. conclusion it can be concluded that women beauty parlor entrepreneurs are playing a significant role as change makers and bringing about positive change in the lives of their ethnic workers. the parlor owners themselves put forward that they are perceiving their entrepreneurship as a social change activity that empowers ethnic workers; however, the owners put forward that social inclusion is not a factor which influences their decision to hire ethnic workers. the motivation for hiring ethnic workers is driven by the characteristics of ethnic workers which perfectly match job requirements. furthermore, parlor owners are trying to mitigate the effect of the pandemic on their workers by ensuring subsistence wage but the huge loss in revenues is causing parlor workers to lose jobs. women beauty parlor entrepreneurs are countering patriarchal norms and barriers when they are creating jobs for 92 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 76-95) ethnic women, as the barriers that ethnic women face in terms of language and social security are narrowed down or eliminated when they work in the beauty parlors of dhaka. the government therefore should step forward and address the needs of the beauty industry amid the pandemic by ensuring easy access to loans. references [1] afroz, nushrat nahida. 2016. ‘job satisfaction of beauty parlor worker of bangladesh.’ management studies and economic systems, 54(4258): 1-9. 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[23] rahman, sheikh s.2020. ‘government acknowledges beauty sector as industry.’prothomalo, june 18. https://www.dhakatribune.com/business/economy/2021/06/09/how-the-beauty-industry-is-adapting-to-the-new-normal https://www.dhakatribune.com/business/economy/2021/06/09/how-the-beauty-industry-is-adapting-to-the-new-normal https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/nation/2020/06/18/beauticians-become-farmhands-trying-to-survive-this-pandemic https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/nation/2020/06/18/beauticians-become-farmhands-trying-to-survive-this-pandemic https://www.thedailystar.net/news-detail-58445 94 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 76-95) https://en.prothomalo.com/business/local/government-acknowledges-beautysector-as-industry. [24] shahbazi, syeda shaharbanu, and husain salilul akareem. 2013. ‘identifying the decision criterion for choosing beauty parlor and salon: a marketing communication perspective.’ international journal of business management invention, 2 (10): 18-26. [25] shane, scott, and sankaran venkataraman. 2000. ‘the promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research.’ academy of management review, 25(1): 217-226. [26] sultana, sharmin, tasnim islam and shimul das. 2016. ‘measuring customer satisfaction through servqual model: a study on beauty parlors in chittagong.’ european journal of business and management 8 (35): 97-108. [27] unb.2021. ‘bangladesh charts 9m social media users.’ april 26. https://www.unb.com.bd/category/bangladesh/bangladesh-charts-9m-newsocial-media-users/68129. [28] zaman, tasnim f.2017. ‘beauty influencers, a new career option worth trying.’the financial express, december 27. https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/education/beauty-influencers-a-newcareer-option-worth-trying-1514386544. article history: received: маy 24th, 2021 accepted: august 9th, 2021 https://en.prothomalo.com/business/local/government-acknowledges-beauty-sector-as-industry https://en.prothomalo.com/business/local/government-acknowledges-beauty-sector-as-industry https://www.unb.com.bd/category/bangladesh/bangladesh-charts-9m-new-social-media-users/68129 https://www.unb.com.bd/category/bangladesh/bangladesh-charts-9m-new-social-media-users/68129 https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/education/beauty-influencers-a-new-career-option-worth-trying-1514386544 https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/education/beauty-influencers-a-new-career-option-worth-trying-1514386544 gulfam tasnim 95 appendix semi-structured questionnaire 1. when did you start your business? 2. why did you choose the beauty parlor business? 3. how many workers do you have? 4. how many of your workers come from ethnic minority communities? (please mention name of ethnic groups)? 5. specify reasons for hiring ethnic women workers? 6. what do you think about entrepreneurship? do you think of it primarily as an economic engine or do you think of entrepreneurship as a social change activity? does your entrepreneurship lead to social inclusion and empowerment for ethnic women? 7. has the supply of ethnic women workers in your parlor changed with time? 8. how has covid-19 impacted ethnic women workers at your parlor? doi: 10.28934/jwee21.12.pp84-107 jel: j160, k38 original scientific paper 5bimportance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan aygun alasgarova agasalim1 3f1 azerbaijan state university of economics (unec), faculty of business administration, departament of mamagement, baku, absheron, azerbaijan a b s t r a c t gender equality in azerbaijani society and strengthening women’s participation in governance, promoting women as entrepreneurial entities and developing their socio-economic activities are some of the issues covered. when these issues are resolved in combination democratic values and transparency, women will be able to participate in governance. within the framework of the study, the opportunity to find a place to suit women's abilities, as equal members of the society, was explored. moreover, the role of women's entrepreneurial activities in society has also been analyzed as well as the relationship between women in postindustrial society, azerbaijan state policy towards women, what spherical factors prevent the development of women entrepreneurship and the causes of gender-based issue. propositions concerning gender equality in business activity and women entrepreneurs in the country have been put forward as the scientific novelty of research. key words: women, entrepreneurial activity, women entrepreneurship, business activity 1 e-mail: elxan_salayev@mail.ru, tel. +994 70 330 40 63 aygun alasgarova agasalim 85 introduction management relations in the modern azerbaijan today are reflected in its legal state building. after gaining independence, public-political institutions began to take on a new form by changing the governance system, the liberalization of society and the establishment of democracy. the integration of azerbaijan into the world, the building of a democratic society and the rule of law create conditions for the involvement of women in various fields of governance. one of the tasks the country and the society have been facing is to increase women’s social status, to ensure gender equality. for this purpose, certain measures are being taken to implement female-oriented policies, to take care of women at the national level, and to involve them in their political, social, scientific, cultural, legal and military management. gender research for azerbaijan is relatively new. it should be noted that in the commonwealth of independent state (cis azerbaijan, armenia, belarus, georgia, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, moldova, russia, tajikistan, turkmenistan, uzbekistan and ukraine) it has only been an area of research since the end of the previous century. the analytical review method of competent literature sources in this study revealed gender features of the labour potential in azerbaijan. the study adopted a means of comparison and synthesis that created a gender portrait for the country and created practical recommendations on how gender equality can ensure the stable economic growth of azerbaijan. the main objective of the study is to analyse the socio-demographic situation and the socio-economic status of azerbaijani women, using the method of akbulaev and aliyeva (2020) in their study revealing gender features of the labour potential in the kyrgyz republic (kr). after the azerbaijan republic gained its independence in 1991, it has decided to regulate its legislative framework. one of the laws regulated is the labour law (labour council). within the framework of the principle of equality in the constitution of azerbaijan, important rights have been given in the azerbaijan labour law to women workers (hanahmedov, 2018). only 12% of the entire sample, i.e. owners of small businesses and managers of medium and large companies are represented by women, while they constitute the majority of the country's inhabitants and, accordingly, the labour force due to the outflow of a significant part of the male population to earn money. at the same time, in terms of education, azerbaijan’s 86 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 84-107) women are in no way inferior to their male counterparts according to statistics, women account for almost half of all persons with higher education in the country. even in traditionally female spheres of employment in azerbaijan, women do not make up more than a third of all respondents. most women are in business leadership positions in public and personal services and ngos and health care, as well as in the social services sector. the likelihood of a woman holding a leading position decrease significantly with the increase in the size of the enterprise. literature review common norms in society affect social features, such as gender equality, child care, the environment itself as well as other intellectual values and traditions (sen, 1999). women and men in some societies have legal equality. however, women, in some aspects, are still second class citizens compared to men. women tend to bring up their children more than men (fuch, 1989). in order to provide a theoretical convergence of gender equality in a number of european countries, equal rights must be provided (robins, 2002). goncharuk (2010) has proposed a number of explanations of the phenomenon. firstly, women are diffrent then men according to their intellectual abilities. this is due to biological factors. secondly, expectations for women are tougher, as they need to balance work, careers, family and domestic chores. 1. life and physical health; 2. mental welfare; 3. safety; 4. social relations; 5. participation in political management; 6. education and knowledge; 7. social concerns; 8. paid labour activity and other projects; 9. shelter and environment; 10. mobility; 11. leisure time arrangement; aygun alasgarova agasalim 87 12. time division; 13. respect for personality; 14. emotional and religious freedom freedoms. the individual and the organization where one is employed cannot be considered separately from the social and cultural factors that are part of the individual, since the individual, organization, or system in which this organization exists changes, other factors also change with it (akpinarsposito, 2013). although there is a significant increase in the specific weight of women in the workforce, there is a small number of women in senior positions in higher education institutions. only in exceptional cases are women able to break the “glass ceiling” syndrome and to be appointed executive directors (wentling and thomas. 2007). in the 1970s and 80s of the last century, there was a change in the sociological approaches to the labor market. the spread of economic activity was one major aspect of this change. some of these assumptions were related to women neglected in the labor market by linking efforts to explain the labor markets and income-generating of the third world countries (allen & truman. 1993). according to andrew clark (2001), british women are more likely to be more satisfied with their wages than men. women who are treated worse than men are still equally satisfied with the job. studying a number of possible explanations of clark’s gender differentiation has concluded that women have a higher level of consensus on work than lower expectations for men (robins, 2003). the existence of gender-based cultural values today is even slightly slower in the decision-making process for women, even in countries like china and india, which is relatively similar to the united states in terms of gdp. sexual inequality can easily be overcome by conducting serious policies in this area. the problem of gender inequality is also a selfresolving issue with the country’s economic growth. a form of progressive gender-driven policy is the provision of women’s vast rights (jayachandran, 2014). women and men have equal rights, equal and equal participation and representation in community life. gender equality theory is aimed at creating equal opportunities or ensuring equal treatment perspectives. sexual equality aims to create equal opportunities for women and men to compete at the labour market and in the workplace by eliminating structural obstacles facing women’s success (calás & smircich, 2006). 88 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 84-107) some researchers, such as broughton and miller (2009), have suggested that there are barriers to the advancement of women in leadership positions, such as difficulties in adapting to the male-based organization, general biased attitudes as well as their non-linear career, family difficulties and challenges (miller, 2009). a nobel prize laureate, amartya sen, who played a leading role in promoting the theory of human development, has repeatedly highlighted the damage caused by gender inequality in society (miletzki & brote, 2017). while data on labour rights are important as a decisive factor in gender inequality and reflect differences in men’s and women’s assessments in society, there is a great deal of lack of available data on different countries, including the human development reports, that do not give a full picture of this (stephanie et al., 2013). ahmadov, jafarov and mammadova (2016), exploring youth unemployment, underemployment and the attitude of young people in the labor market in azerbaijan, offer the first comprehensive study of the relationship between labor market policy and youth employment in azerbaijan. the second goal of their research was to study the activities of young leaders and leadership in azerbaijan. according to a report published by the world economic forum on global gender inequality in 2017, the rate of rapprochement of azerbaijan is estimated at 100% to 67% in the world rankings (world economic forum, 2017). socio-cultural norms created in society constitute factors that hinder women’s rights. gender stereotypes are one of the key factors affecting the career growth of women in management. women still have a biased attitude in terms of gender. these socio-cultural factors condition the diversity of women’s roles and responsibilities in organizations (amani moazzam baig & jabeen, 2011). gardiner and tiggemann (2007) found that, although men and women were not distinguished from the positions of men in predominantly maledominated positions, women are more likely to be more inclined to interpersonal leadership than men in enterprises dominated by women. additionally, it was found out that women’s mental health status was lower in men’s predominantly female-oriented leadership (cuadrado at al, 2012). the perspectives of women’s managerial style were regarded as “enlightening” adjustments to liberal-oriented research, but were criticized as part of the activities of women’s organizations (clegg at al, 2006). aygun alasgarova agasalim 89 hanahmedov (2017) noted that the country's economic situation delimits the border with the answer to the question "how flexible". his research examined the current state and future of flexible work in the economic life of azerbaijan. hanahmedov (2018) mentioned in the study the importance given to women workers in line with the azerbaijan labour law rules. at the same time, the rights of women workers included in different country legislations and the importance given to women workers were evaluated. women in the country as a part of the population women represent 50.1 percent of the population of the republic of azerbaijan as of january 1, 2018, or 4,960.1 thousand women, respectively (www.apa.az, 15.05.2021). figure 1: percentage of women by age distribution source: state statistical committee of the republic of azerbaijan, https://www.stat.gov.az/source/gender/az/qk/001_8.xls, 2019. as may be seen from figure 1, women in azerbaijan make up the majority of the workforce, with approximately 3,247,000 working women in the country. one of the main principles of democracy development is the provision of gender equality and the ability of each citizen to take an active role in the society in accordance with his abilities (“three points” newspaper, 22 january 2013). gender culture is one of the priorities in azerbaijan, which 90 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 84-107) is the majority of its population. but the existing patriarchal social norms in the society do not allow women to actively participate in the socio-political life of the country together with men. women have difficulty realizing their social roles and opportunities in the development of democracy. comparative analysis of azerbaijan with developed countries shows that one of the important factors that hinder the development of democracy is the low level of gender equality. this, in turn, hampers the dynamic development of the country and prevents the full utilization of human potential in the legal state-building process. figure 2: healthy lifetime, age composition source: state statistical committee of the republic of azerbaijan, https://www.stat.gov.az/source/gender/az/qk/001_8.xls, 2019 figure 2 shows that women in azerbaijan are relatively long-lasting. women’s average life expectancy is 5 years more than that of men. these statistics give rise to less women’s violence in the country. the role of women in a business-active society in order to strengthen the role of a woman in azerbaijan’s economy, it is currently important to focus on areas where domestic labour is required, such as horticulture, tobacco, cotton, and carpet weaving. aygun alasgarova agasalim 91 according to the data from january 2018, the percentage of employed women on the types of economic activity is shown as follows: figure 3: women’s employment ratio on various fields of national economics by january 1, 2018 source: prepared by the author on the basis of information obtained from the website of the state statistical committee of the republic of azerbaijan, https://www.stat.gov.az/source/gender/az/qk/004_21.xls, 2019. the picture above shows that more women work in the field of education. the fact that women are in the middle and lower educational structures have been widely represented, perhaps, in some cases, their number also exceeds the number of men. however, at higher levels of control, their number declines too much. it seems that the main reason is the traditional mechanism of recruitment and recruitment of cadres. of course, there are also subjective factors, namely personal qualities, professionalism, and management experience. however, the key role in these processes is the 92 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 84-107) personnel policy based on the characteristics of the public system and on the basis of tradition. in modern times, the azerbaijani women work in any field and demonstrate their abilities, but their family support and understanding can be illustrated in the chaotic form of having jobs in the afore-mentioned areas at different levels in different regions of our republic. given these factors, men have been able to contribute to the well-being of their family and the contribution they make to the community, creating more opportunities for women and believing in women’s power and their potential. azerbaijan’s education system was based on historically humanistic principles, adhering to traditions of enlightenment and human values. women have an essential role in the development of education. figure 4. number of female professor-teacher staff employed at state and non-state higher education institutions at the beginning of 2017/2018 academic year source: prepared by the author on the basis of information obtained from the website of the state statistical committee of the republic of azerbaijan, https://www.stat.gov.az/source/gender/az/qk/004_21.xls, 2019. aygun alasgarova agasalim 93 the role of women in entrepreneurial activity women’s participation in economic activities is one of the areas of gender research in entrepreneurship. the features of adapting the concept of “business owning” in different periods of business structures, the characteristics of the career building for women, the causes of stress, and the socio-psychological aspects of women’s entrepreneurial activity should be studied. turetskaya’s (2001) “women’s business activity and family” and “social-psychological typology of women’s business activity” have identified these types of activity. as the author points out, none of these types conform to femoral stereotypes, which give women more flexibility in the field of innovation that is inherent in the business environment. at the same time, personal qualities, characteristic for two groups of entrepreneurs, including women and men, were formed at the following fields: − relationships with business partners; − conditions of this partnership at the stage of increasing the share of the partnership in the economy; − relationships between the business representatives and gender; − relationships with respect to unwritten ethical norms, the reliability of women and men in business. until the early 60s of the last century, gender aspect in entrepreneurship was virtually ignored. this was reflected as a result of following points: a) generally speaking, it is important for women to engage in family responsibilities and to play the traditional role of a woman in the society, and the ideology of “the designation of the woman from nature” has been strengthened. b) presence of women at the world’s public life was considered as a secondary one. c) public sphere was interpreted as the area of employment of men. d) market values dictated men’s participation. gender contradictions attracted the attention of economist researchers only in the 1960s, which gave a strong impetus to the widespread introduction of women into the labour market in developing countries. in the neo-classical trend in the economy, modeling of economic behavior of 94 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 84-107) individuals without gender differences has been proposed. here, the main motives of economic activity do not differ according to gender traits. in the late 1980s there was a tendency for transition to the study of specific gender problems in entrepreneurship within the framework of neoclassical and institutional approaches. starting in the mid-90s, the situation in the economy was stabilized thanks to the privatization of state property, development of entrepreneurial activity and land reform, and positive changes in the employment of the population took place. the number of women entrepreneurs has grown steadily as a result of the protection of women’s rights, the improvement of women’s activities both in the state and in the private sector. d. nesbitt, an american researcher who analyzed the mechanism of changing the role of the market economy in the market, called this event “explosion of opened opportunities” (abbasov & mirzazade, 2004). the market economy, along with creating opportunities in azerbaijan, strengthened competition, and ultimately, human capital was in dire need of improvement. nonetheless the market economy creates the same conditions for all classes of the society, the statistics allow to make a conclusion concerning the lack of women’s interests in the business environment. considering that individual entrepreneurship has developed more in azerbaijan, let’s focus on the gender composition as follows: figure 5: share of women among private entrepreneurs source: https://www.stat.gov.az/source/gender/az/qk/004_21.xls, 2019. aygun alasgarova agasalim 95 as you can see from the picture above, the number of female entrepreneurs is not enough. the state has created the necessary conditions for the development of this sphere, but the existence of certain problems creates difficulties for women’s entrepreneurial activity. in order to eliminate these difficulties, the national action program on raising the effectiveness of human rights and freedoms in the republic of azerbaijan is aimed at strengthening the rights of entrepreneurs and consumers, increasing competitiveness of women in the labour market, developing entrepreneurship among women, and acquiring new professions by women. characteristics of women entrepreneurship the following table describes the characteristics of women’s entrepreneurship that differentiate women’s management from men by summarizing the results of various observations in azerbaijan. women’s management style men’s management style preference for semiautonomous and branch offices in the organization preference for parent companies, holdings and independent structures targeted to personality and process oriented to technology and outcome based on mutual relations targeted to career development based on reliability oriented to reglamentation based on direct participation in both formal and informal relationships formal relations are based on indirect participation in direct, informal relationships it takes advantage of communication to maintain relationships it takes advantage of communication to seize power extensive collegiate discussion and adoption of management decisions adoption of management decisions by a small number of people, even by one person oriented on emotions in relationships oriented on emotions in nonproduction relationships expectation of results from activity obtaining absolute result from activity positive approach to the distribution of power among employees positive approach to concentration of power in one person cooperation in circumstances with low-level contradiction cooperation in circumstances with high-level contradiction (collision and antagonism) advocating against objections and dissatisfaction on the ground of conflict relations on the ground of a conflict are of fundamental nature 96 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 84-107) representative office of the united nations population fund (unfpa) in azerbaijan, the state committee for family, women and children affairs of the republic of azerbaijan, promundo international organization and the international center for social research (stbm) has conducted a survey on gender equality of men and women. according to the results of the survey, a number of important points in the context of existing opportunities in the development of women’s entrepreneurship have been identified as following: − relatively low professionalism habits; − preference-level discrimination; − distinction by the consumer; − discrimination by the employee; − investment in human capital. − professional habits. based on our observations and current statistical employment, we can note that the average professional skills are lower in women than in men. this event is partly explained by the fact that the choice of girls (and their parents) within the existing education system is derived from the traditional role of women in society and its permanent impact. it is also difficult for women to work in the workplace because they are also unable to pay due attention to increasing their professional level as they work in the family and in the home. it must be admitted that a number of social and psychological factors are also affected. while parenting and home responsibilities are evenly distributed among partners, in both cases the weight of the load falls on women and there is not enough time and energy to climb higher incomes through the staircase. − preference-level discrimination. bekker (2003), who strives to analyze the discrimination approach, has substantiated appearance of this discrimination while a competent authority refers to certain misconceptions by influencing entrepreneurs from some demographics or ethnic groups. the more authorized person is prone to discrimination, the more will vary legal fees of men and women at entities with discrimination. discrimination is based on two distinctive conclusions: aygun alasgarova agasalim 97 1. a person who discriminates at the level of personal preference shall be obliged to grant a part of his income to his or her choice as the competent person who chooses a candidate of the relevant sex denies the other competitors who are actually there and who do not want to be contacted; 2. a competent person who discriminates against women in the field of activity causes a difference in income of women entrepreneurs. if firms in the market were based on segregation (if only women or men of the same race or ethnicity were employed), discrimination would be neutralized, in other words, these firms would have a longerterm and very profitable status. − distinction by consumer. this discrimination usually occurs in those areas of employment where the frequency and intensity of relationships with consumers is very high (e.g. when the consumer explicitly advises women to serve them), this type of discrimination sometimes causes sexual intercourse are considered as a leading cause of occupational segments. for example, if the majority of consumers share gender stereotypes in male and female occupations and occupations, firms will try to capture the same group to attract more customers (including those who have discrimination among them) that consumers prefer business relationships with them. if women are trying to find a job or career that can be subjected to discrimination by consumers, then they must agree to lower wages or be more professional than their male counterparts. compatible with the discriminatory advantages of its hiring practices, the firm will have to pay higher wages to its employees and, thus, increase the prices of its products. it is possible to imagine that they are gradually exposed to bankruptcy, because they must undoubtedly lose in competition. − discrimination by employee. this type of discrimination occurs when workers of a certain social-democratic or ethnic group are afraid to enter into labour relations with representatives of other groups. so, if men are directly involved in men’s entrepreneurial activity, they may refuse to take office. apparently, discrimination by the employee causes additional costs for the firm that hampers the development of women’s entrepreneurship. 98 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 84-107) at the present day, many obstacles to women’s participation in entrepreneurship are found, as following: − lack of knowledge and skills and experience in managing business; − the fact that women’s co-operation is forced to combine with child-rearing and home-based activities, the lack of opportunity to devote all their time to business can have an impact on the success of the woman; − gender stereotypes that have hindered women from being treated as business partners; − religious stereotypes in society. these stereotypes have a negative impact on women’s business activities; − low status of women in public and political life of the country, state bodies and limited opportunities. considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society the transition to the market economy has had an impact on the standards that exist in the daily lives of women. reforms have radically changed the traditional rules. the high income of the family also changed her family life. in all these changes, quality education also had a small role. increased cash income has reduced interest in family farming. by the year 2000, the structure of the housing remained largely unchanged, with the increase in family income, and expanded into another form (aghayeva, 2017). the number of housekeeping housings increased as well. growth of residential areas resulted in changes in family relationships. during this period, the families begin to increase their expenses by the end of their secondary school. these costs come from objective factors. the use of the latest advances in technology advances young women inflates the traditional expense budget. in addition, they are required to spend enough money to study in large cities and then work in the appropriate field. as a result, working activity in families becomes an urgent issue. factors affecting business activity include nominal lifestyles in the context of average wages and market relations. naturally, the rise in market prices affects family budgets, which, in turn, contributes to the effective use of family abusive ability. the current situation affects in all sectors of the competitive aygun alasgarova agasalim 99 community. in the information age, female labour force strives to engage actively with intelligent labour. government policy towards women empowerment government policy towards women empowerment is part of a common social policy that addresses the interests of women, a great socialdemographic group, which shapes their legal and social status, and regulates their interaction with society. government policy towards women empowerment has a certain historical nature. its content and effectiveness depend on the following: first, the concept of “women’s issue” that holds the dominant position in the society and the political elite; the second is the type of economic relations and the socio-economic development of the state; third, from political motives, the level of democracy in the state and society, and the position and initiative of public movements in the latter community (introduction to gender, lecture course, baku). we support the concept of human development, which presents the azerbaijani state as a key factor in the development of human potential and promotes economic growth. however, effective implementation of this perspective depends on gender equality, in other words, the successful implementation of a balanced gender policy and gender-sensitive society by transforming gender equality into social reality (azerbaijan human development report, 2007). the state committee for family, women and children affairs continues to organize the following measures to address the problem of unemployment for young and teenage women (permanent mission of the republic of azerbaijan to the united nations, 2015): − providing permanent training by professionally trained youth with methodological and practical assistance in the organization of business activities and special trainings; − retraining of young people on occupations and professions required in the labour market; − opening jobs based on quotas established by law for young people and strengthening the compliance of employees with the requirements; − creating favorable conditions for young and adolescents to engage in seasonal and social work. 100 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 84-107) it is worth noting that the ever-growing influence of women in the society and the current high public position are a remarkable part of the contemporary life of azerbaijan. in the globalizing world today, where the system of values is rapidly changing, our mothers are the real guarantor of the preservation of our national cultural riches, our moral and spiritual wealth. the younger generation comes again with dignity, as always, as they pay attention to the old traditions, the national ideology, and the fertility of our statehood ideals. the first vice president of azerbaijan, besides being an ideal, exemplary woman for all women across the country, works hard on ensuring equality of men and women, as well as involving women in the decision-making area. women’s leadership women’s leadership is the participation of women in the preparation and adoption of decisions at various levels of government and public administration. in order to achieve gender equality in decision-making, the government, political parties and civil society organizations are required to be specifically defined. government determines its gender policy by means of laws or other mandatory instructions. it is important to emphasize the importance of women’s leadership here. the forms of women’s leadership appear as political, economic, and public: − in the political form, women are represented in higher and local legislative and executive bodies of state power, including women’s representation at state authorities, political parties, international organizations such as un, etc. − the economic form comprises holding leading or senior positions by women in national government agencies, managerial, business, organizations, international and regional financial institutions dealing with economic issues. − the social form of women’s leadership includes representation of women in the field of civil society, local self-governing bodies, ngos and mass media. as in all over the world, barriers to socialization have a serious impact on women’s leadership position. in particular, most representatives of the opposite sex do not see the existence of social injustice in the fact that women have a low political status or are inadequate to do so. despite the aygun alasgarova agasalim 101 fact that women’s leaders are different from their male counterparts, they are still experiencing constant insights about their futility for leadership. the socialization of women in different countries all over the world occurs in such a way that it does not interfere with the development of their particular ambitions, which enhances their career and political attitudes. the expansion of economic-social relations across the globe on the international scale has a bearing effect on gender and similar issues. in the last year, because of the share of women in senior government officials working in public administration (particularly parliament), the following is the case. figure 6: representation indicators of women in parliaments of azerbaijan and several world countries source: women in national parliaments 2018. http://archive.ipu.org/wmne/classif.htm?month=6&year=2018, the reasons of gender problem as all social problems of the times, the issues of gender in the country should be monitored taking into account the existence and growth of social stratification. the problems of wealthy, moderate and inaccessible segments and the manifestation of these problems as well as ways to solve them are different. these problems can be summarized as follows: 102 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 84-107) − formation of poverty. the reasons for this are: the inability to realize their work force in the market economy, in other words, the failure of the proposal; the supply of labour force in the regions is fewer than the demand level; military conflict and some of the population’s refugee, displaced persons; weakness of the social protection system for women with disabilities. − protection of rights. if a person has reached a perfect age, he must first defend his rights. in the legal context, involvement of business-active women in these types of trainings, especially in color, has had a bearing effect. women’s network program (wnp) is the first donor organization to launch a long-term and multifaceted project on gender education in azerbaijan. despite the fact that many international organizations work in the area of gender equality and women’s development in azerbaijan, the activities of the wnp over the past period have focused on the elaboration and implementation of curricula on gender issues and the application of gender approaches to research, gender mainstreaming, has done a lot of work aimed at stimulating young researchers. − family relationships. in some families, non-support or demotivating environment of women’s activities adversely affects the activity of women in business. since such a situation reflects on the productive career of talented women, efforts to solve the problem are often ineffective. − religious attitude. the issue is not about belonging to the same belief, rather it concerns the diversity, arising from probability of emerging of conflicts, brought about by marriage of a woman and a man with difference confessions (mirzazade, 2013). recommendations for businesses to be viable, they must be able to invest successfully. globalization requires businesses track new innovations and remain open to the idea of change. in addition, businesses need to stay informed of new technological trends, retain their shareholders and be ready to invest in innovative technologies when they are introduced. through these strategies, businesses can be competitive in the marketplace (ahmadov & salmanova, 2013). aygun alasgarova agasalim 103 the expansion of the impact of gender on entrepreneurial activity may lead to the change in theoretical and practical aspects of economic life. in order to support and further develop women’s entrepreneurship in azerbaijan, it is necessary to take the following measures: inclusion of women entrepreneurship, youth entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship as a part of the legal framework; − creation of a half-chapter freely and efficiently for all three types of entrepreneurship in the ministry of economy; − development of a draft law on the support of women entrepreneurship in the country or the relevant section of the existing law; − development of a comprehensive program for the development of women entrepreneurship based on public, public and commercial organizations; − establishment of the women entrepreneurship fund to support country’s socially significant projects; − ensuring a broad range of distance education and employment opportunities for women entrepreneurship and other types of entrepreneurship. women’s employment should be encouraged for non-governmental organizations in order to combat women’s unemployment, and women’s employers should apply tax incentives based on their interest rates. conclusion in order to ensure gender equality and the development of families in azerbaijan, appropriate measures will be taken to address the gender problem, which will remain in the spotlight. the main directions of state policy in this area will be the implementation of measures to prevent cases of gender-based violence, the creation of equal opportunities for women and men in the labour market, the expansion of career opportunities for women, and their appointment to leadership positions. it also supports the efforts of social protection and protection of mothers and children, simplification of childcare for working parents in accordance with the ratified ilo convention "on workers with family responsibilities", an increase in the number of kindergartens, as well as the development of family planning services. 104 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 84-107) a number of targeted documents are being adopted in order to implement the indicated areas. in this regard, it is planned to prepare the strategy of the azerbaijani family, the national action plan for gender equality, the children's code and national children's strategy. along with this, the institute of "family psychologist", centers of assistance and shelters for women who have experienced domestic violence, as well as a system for monitoring violence in the country, evasion of education and cases of early marriage will be created. the current provisions of the research are as follows: 1. one of the problems facing women’s employment as a result of entrepreneurial activity is economic discrimination. thus, the use of financial and other resources for women is restricted to personal control. 2. national mentality factor. women’s passivity in the entrepreneurial activity is more frequent. compared to men, this gives women one in the form of an intrinsic conflict. 3. trends in the post-soviet era. the stereotypes that create these trends are indifferent to processes, everything is ready to accept, planned movement from a single center, and so on. 4. the principle of "the place of man is the first place" formed in the community by the majority of the masses. 5. restrictions on the realization of women’s employment within the framework of their personal will on the basis of family. compliance with ethical standards: author aygun alesgerova has not received any research grant. ethical approval: the applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals haven’t been specified within the framework of the paper, since they are not compatible with its subject. ethical approval: all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee. ethical approval: this article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors. consent on information: the information applied within the framework of the study has been derived from the statistics available on aygun alasgarova agasalim 105 official web-sites of government bodies to public access, being of common consent. references [1] “introduction to gender”, 2017. lecture course, baku. 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(p.18). article history: received: april 25th, 2021 accepted: may 17th, 2021 "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references 13_jwe_1-2 udc: 005.961:005.914.3(549.1) ; 005.32:331.101.3 jel: l26, n31 id: 198562828 original scientific paper improving entrepreneural marketing learning: a study of business graduates, pakistan usman yousaf1, quaid-i-azam school of management sciences, quaid-i-azam university, islamabad mohsin altaf, university of sargodha, pakistan, zunaira rani, university of sargodha misbah alam, university of sargodha madiha aslam a b s t r a c t this research aims to investigate the desire of students to be an entrepreneur with respect to the two dimensions of entrepreneurial mindset & satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues i.e. variables using model in department of business administration of university of sargodha. investigation was executed on 130 suitable responses. reliability of scale was tested by means of cronbach’s alpha statistic. correlation investigation was done to study the association among entrepreneurial mindset & satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues (independent variables) and desire to be an entrepreneur. additionally regression investigation was done to examine hypothesis. the statistical examination of the study discovered that there is a significant & positive relation among entrepreneurial mindset & desire to be an entrepreneur. further this research reveals that satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues has greater impact on student’s desire to be an entrepreneur. the study has payed attention on the students of business department. extra investigation is 1 lecturer, department of commerce, e-mail: usman.world@gmail.com usman y., et al., a study of business graduates, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 74-89) 75 desired at different department’s level with an increased sample size that will help in increasing its generalizability. this research shows that by giving greater focus on satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues, will ultimately lead to the student’s desire to be an entrepreneur. training & knowledge of entrepreneurial marketing would make students competent for new startups. this investigation is the pioneer that studies the desire to be an entrepreneur from student’s perspective in pakistan. keywords: entrepreneur, marketing learning, mindsets, pakistan introduction entrepreneurship learning is important for financial development in all the countries around the world (milman & maatlay, 2008; maatlay, 2009). a study tells that 56% of latest businesses be unsuccessful to go on afar by 1st 3 years of life & 69% not pass even when 6th year ends (us small baoa, 2009). this elevated chance of collapse have initiated universities around world to build skills in their graduates so that they can cope with the risks (bampus and barton, 2008; taan & ngg, 2006). general perception for the entrepreneur is a person who is always ready for change, have more self confidence and uses innovative decision making. eep’s offer a proposal for economic enlargement and should be of greatest concern in set of courses (dicksun et al., 2008; shinar et al., 2009). entrepreneurship learning is currently top rising part of study in colleges & universities (mars & garison, 2009; milman & maatlay, 2008). in pakistan 128 hec recognized universities are providing no less than 1 course in entrepreneurship. programs differ in nature as a few pay attention on coaching students on entrepreneurship through long-established format that is lectures, papers, exams and some take active approach that facilitate students to be more known with practical work (nabi et al., 2006). it is observed that many investigate oriented organizations support the usual method whereas professionally oriented organizations support practical work approach (annderseck, 2004; wie, 2004). along with foundation form, the reason that explains the difference in teaching approaches is also because of the question that whether entrepreneurs are natural or developed? (matlay, 2006). entrepreneurial education program (eep) literature is huge & rising but there is less practical evidence that would describe its special impact on 76 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 74-89) entrepreneurial action and new startups (coox et al., 2002; maatlay, 2008). reason behind this could be that it gets a long time for a graduate to set up a new business enterprise. bllock and stumph (1992) provide evidence that eep’s efficiency should be calculated after a while not when a student is still concerned with a program. there is less investigation on the connection among eep’s & entrepreneurial manners, but still it is assumed that enhancing entrepreneurial learning methods & function improve skills and experiences of youthful, non-entrepreneurs (peeterman & kenedy, 2003; saepherd, 2004; taan & ngg, 2006). the relation among the entrepreneurial teaching is not completely understood and the discussions carry on, but it is recommended that usual classroom system is not enough to train students to manage risks of establishing latest business activity (honnig, 2004). that is because usual education way must be go together by creative ways, varied education (gibs, 2002) these provide opportunities for students to prepare themselves for practical life (gormaan et al., 1997; peltir et al., 2008; schle et al., 2007). experiential learning is very important. empirical education actions assist students to put together information & practical knowledge. the traditional method should be supplemented with practical assignments to the students through which they prepare themselves for entrepreneurship. admired assignments comprise formation of new-fangled products (watkinns et al., 2008), fresh start-ups (vincet & faarlow, 2008), example of particular idea or situation (bampus & barton, 2008), written future plans of the companies (delmaar and shanne, 2003), using newspaper articles for solving current business, video clips and corporation monetary information (taan & ngg, 2006). at the university entrepreneurial education has been accommodated in the managing department (us news & wr, 2009). however, marketing educators are more and more concerned in the entrepreneurial learning and a demand of entrepreneurial marketing has been created (lodish et al., 2001). reason is that there is a belief that marketing strategies are most important for the flourishing business commence and development and deficiency in of marking orientation is a main reason of collapse for startups (loodish et al., 2007; shaaw, 2004). in spite of all of this, entrepreneurial marketing has gained less investigate awareness. theoretical and experiential investigation is required to make improved understanding of the entrepreneurial interests of marketing students (andersun et al., 2008; peltir et al., 2008). usman y., et al., a study of business graduates, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 74-89) 77 literature review relationship between entrepreneurial mindset & desire to be an entrepreneur there is a positive relationship between entrepreneurial mindset & desire to be entrepreneur. it is said that the mindset of individuals affect their desires to start up (kooh, 1996; mueler and thomus, 2001; robinsun et al., 1991). together with the entrepreneurial education programs (eeps), desire to be an entrepreneur is differentiated by the personal behaviour inside every person (rapooso et al., 2008). the entrepreneurial attitude is as well affected by gender. entrepreneurship monitor (gem) consortium (boosma et al., 2008) point out that men are two times have more desire to be entrepreneurs than women. entrepreneurship is opening latest business but also the mind makeup of students who have qualities related to entrepreneurial direction (vaan eden et al., 2005). that’s why, the issues disturbing the attaining of entrepreneurial awareness and skills are not only found in the course but it is also found inside the students himself/herself (fooster & li, 2003; mitchel, 2007). one more research examines the entrepreneurial attributes among university student and found that entrepreneurial education create positive response among entrepreneurship students by offering certain courses (mubarka. k, yousaf. u and altaf. m, 2012). one way to assess such attitude is entrepreneurial self-efficacy, which is a measure of person’s confidence in his skill to productively start an entrepreneurial business enterprise (mcge et al., 2009). there are also some extra ways for assessing the entrepreneurial attitude. personal behavior can differ among future & non-entrepreneurs. an influential sociable personality involves having the aptitude to persuade others to go in a particular way. flourishing entrepreneurs have an inclination to be happy, supportive, and thoughtful (fraank et al., 2007; hoolt et al., 2007). self-confidence is the trust of the person in his skills that the goals that he will make will be achieved by him. the confident entrepreneur has a high need for independence (fraank et al., 2007; kiirby, 2004). accepting risk is a trait in which a person accepts calculated risks that he thinks will provide him with success (miclea, 2004). the knowledge-seeking quality is displayed through the craving to continuously expand talent, familiarity in a given area (chenn et al., 1998; kroeger and caarsrud, 1993). 78 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 74-89) it is anticipated that a number of mixture of these behavior will affect the desire to become entrepreneur. relationship between satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues and desire to be an entrepreneur it is said that more satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues brings more desire to be an entrepreneur. by increasing the learning capabilities of individuals, formal education increases entrepreneurial efficiency and successful firm growth. universities can build up entrepreneurs only after an essential transform in their academic and learning priorities. entrepreneurial marketing is a wide concept than the simple use of marketing approach and procedure and it shows range to which corporations accepts these strategies when beginning and running fresh startups, and specifically it describes how startups maintain their customers (kocaak and abimboola, 2009). academics provide evidence that students who want to be entrepreneur must be open to the elements of marketing stratagem and procedures suitable for beginning and rising small as contrasting to hug corporations (moris et al., 2002; schle et al., 2007; shaaw, 2004). on the basis of literature review, following hypothesis have been drawn: h1: there is significant, positive correlation between entrepreneurial mindset and desire to be an entrepreneur. h2: there is significant, positive correlation between satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues and desire to be an entrepreneur. h3: entrepreneurial mindset and satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues significantly explain the variance in desire to be an entrepreneur. methodology this research has been conducted in order to find out the effect of entrepreneurial mindset & satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues on the desire of students of pakistan to be an entrepreneur. for this purpose a sample of 130 questionnaires was filled from the university of sargodha, sargodha which is one of the well renowned universities of pakistan. the usman y., et al., a study of business graduates, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 74-89) 79 questionnaire for this research was adopted from the study (james w. peltir and carol scovotti, 2010). the questionnaires were filled from the students of department of business administration & department of commerce of the university who were having the entrepreneurial education programmers. from a total of 130 questionnaires, 128 completely filled questionnaires were returned and the remaining 2 were wrongly filled. for conducting this study the data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. the questionnaires were filled in the month of march, 2011. the questionnaire consisted of the total 20 questions which were classified according to the variables of this study, the first 5 questions were related to the entrepreneurial mindset, next 9 were related to the satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues and the last 6 were related to student’s desire to be an entrepreneur. two additional questions were used, from which 1 was about the gender of respondents and 1 was about the age of the respondents. the questionnaires were filled from 64 male and 66 female respondents. the five-point likert-type scale was used ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree & highly dissatisfied to highly satisfied. descriptive statistics have been used to study the response of the sample. the cronbach's alpha revealed the result for the overall homogeneity between the variables of this research and the items of scale used in this research to measure the variables. correlation analysis were used to study the relationship between the variables such that these analysis studied the positive relation of all the independent variables (entrepreneurial mindset, satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues) with the dependent variable (desire to be an entrepreneur).regression analysis was used in order to test the hypothesis for this research. data analyses frequency analysis frequency tables provide information about the gender, age of the respondents with respect frequencies of response, their percentage and cumulative percentage. table 1: gender of the respondents: male 64 female 66 80 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 74-89) the above table shows that 64 respondents were male which were 49.2% of statistical investigation and 66 respondents were female which were 50.8% of statistical investigation. table 1.1: age of the respondents frequency 17-19 years 3 20-22years 122 23 & above 5 total 130 (**supported charts are given in appendix.) source: according to the author findings the above table shows that the 3 respondents lies b/w 17-19 that is the 2.3% of the observations, 122 b/w 20-22 that is the 93.8% of the observations, 5 were of 23 years or above that is the 3.8% of the observations. means analysis table 2: one-sample test test value = 0 t df sig. (2tailed) mean difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper em 61.834 128 .000 3.64462 3.5280 3.7612 swemi 54.707 129 .000 3.35043 3.2293 3.4716 dibe 53.659 129 .000 3.65128 3.5164 3.7862 (*em=entrepreneurial mindset, swemi=satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues, dtbe=desire to be entrepreneur). observing the mean in the above table indicates that the satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues has a low mean i.e. 3.35043 as compared to the other two variables and it shows that students thinks that it is not a very much important factor for their desire to be an entrepreneur & means of entrepreneurial mindset & desire to be an entrepreneur are 3.64462 & 3.65128 respectively which are quite high. usman y., et al., a study of business graduates, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 74-89) 81 table 2.1: gander wise gender mean of desire to be an entrepreneur std. deviation male 3.6458 .82696 female 3.6566 .73256 total 3.6513 .77744 source: according to the author findings the above table indicates that the desire to be an entrepreneur is equal in both male & female as they have mean of 3.6458 and 3.6566 respectively. so, the desire is not affected by the gender. table 2.2: age wise age mean of desire to be an entrepreneur std. deviation 17-19 years 4.0556 .78764 20-22 years 3.6557 .78430 23 & above years 3.2917 .62915 total 3.6513 .77744 source: according to the author findings this table indicates that the students in the age group 17-19 years has more desire to be an entrepreneur (mean: 4.0556), age group 20-22 years has less desire (mean: 3.6557), students who are of 23 years or above has the least desire (mean: 3.2917). this overall indicates that with the increase in age the desire to be an entrepreneur decreases. table 3: cronbach’s alpha reliability variables number of items alpha reliability entrepreneurial mindset 5 .627 satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues 9 .806 desire to be an entrepreneur 6 .804 combined scale 20 .846 82 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 74-89) the values for the cronbach’s alpha for the combined scale (0.846) as well as for all the variables individually is good except for entrepreneurial mindset which shows a low reliability (0.627) with respect to other variables. table 4: correlation matrix dtbe em swemi dtbe 1 em .331** 1 swemi .400** .382** 1 n 130 130 130 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). (*em=entrepreneurial mindset, swemi=satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues, dtbe=desire to be entrepreneur) there is a positive and highly significant relationship between desire to be an entrepreneur and entrepreneurial mindset (r=.331**, sig = .000). therefore we accept h1. there is positive and highly significant relationship between desire to be an entrepreneur and satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues (r=.400**, sig = 000). therefore we accept h2. regression analysis table 5: model summary r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate durbinwatson f sig. .444a .197 .184 .70226 1.729 15.550 .000a a. predictors: (constant), satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues, entrepreneurial mindset b. dependent variable: desire to be entrepreneur regression analysis shows that the r value (correlation) is 0.444 which shows a strong association between the independent variables (entrepreneurial mindset and satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues) and the dependent variable i.e. desire to be an entrepreneur. the value of durbin-watson statistic (1.729) also falls within the acceptance usman y., et al., a study of business graduates, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 74-89) 83 range therefore indicating that there is no autocorrelation among the variables being studied. the f value (15.550) is significant at 0.000 levels. therefore we accept h3. table 5.1: coefficients unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig. b std. error beta (constant) entrepreneurial mindset satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues 1.579 .241 .356 .387 .100 .096 .208 .320 4.085 2.422 3.716 .000 .017 .000 a. dependent variable: desire to be an entrepreneur source: according to the author findings in the table 5.1 the value of adjusted r square (0.184) shows that the independent variables (entrepreneurial mindset and satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues) explain 18.4% of variance in desire of students to be an entrepreneur. similarly the beta values for both entrepreneurial mindset (0.208) and satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues (0.320) are significant at 0.017 and 0.000 levels respectively. it can also be observed that among the two independent variables being studied the variable satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues has a greater influence on desire to be an entrepreneur as it has the highest standardized beta coefficient (β=0.320) which is also significant at 0.000 level. discussion the findings show that there is significant & positive relationship between desire to be an entrepreneur & entrepreneurial mindset. desire to be entrepreneur is not affected by gender; both male & female have the 84 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 74-89) same level of desire. further it has come to knowledge that students value entrepreneurial mindset as an important factor that ultimately increases their desire. student’s mindset or attitude should be polished by providing them proper knowledge about entrepreneurship. the findings show that there is also a significant & positive relationship between desire to be an entrepreneur & satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues. in the division of gender it is seen that students in the age group 17-19 years have more desire while students of 23 years or above have least desire to be an entrepreneur. as students of 23 years or above mostly choose their field in this age, so decreasing desire with the age means that students are not or less satisfied with the entrepreneurial marketing issues. satisfaction should be increase by providing competent courses, along with the class room lecture providing some practical exposure to entrepreneurs. limitations this study carries some limitations with it. first is that this research is conducted in just one department of university of sargodha i.e. business department. further a comprehensive study can be conducted at different department’s level. second is that study could expand its area to different colleges in sargodha with a greater sample size that will increase its generalizability. in this research desire to be an entrepreneur is measured with only two variables i.e. entrepreneurial mindset & satisfaction with entrepreneurial marketing issues. other variables can also be considered to measure the students desire to be an entrepreneur. references [1] andersun, a.r., gordon, r. and jack, s.l. 2008. “role typologies for enterprising education: the professional artisan?.” journal of small business and enterprise development, 15(2): 259-73. 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[48] wie, k.h.l. 2004. “a problem-based learning approach in entrepreneurship education: promoting authentic entrepreneurial training.” international journal of technology management, 28(7/8): 685-701. 88 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 1-2, 74-89) appendix bar chart: usman y., et al., a study of business graduates, jwe (2013, no. 1-2, 74-89) 89 unapređenje programa preduzetničkog marketinga: istraživanje na primeru diplomiranih studenata poslovnih studija a p s t r a k t ovo istraživanje ima za cilj da analizira želju studenata da postanu preduzetnici sa fokusom na dve dimenzije preduzetničkog načina razmišljanja i satisfakcije, koje se dovode u vezu sa preduzetničkim tržišnim mogućnostima. ove dve varijable, nalaze se u osnovi modela koji je formulisalo odeljenje za poslovnu administraciju, univerziteta u sargodi (pakistan). ispitivanje je sprovedeno na 130 odgovarajućih uzoraka ispitanika. pouzdanost skale za rangiranje odgovora ispitanika, testirana je pomoću cronbach alpha koeficijenta. korelaciona analiza je bila urađena sa ciljem da se ispita povezanost između preduzetničkog načina razmišljanja i satisfakcije preduzetničkim tržišnim mogućnostima. između ostalog, urađena je i regresijska analiza sa ciljem da se ispitaju hipoteze. rezultati istraživanja pokazuju da postoji velika zavisnost između preduzetničkog načina razmišljanja i želje za bavljenjem preduzetničkim poslovima. dalja ispitivanja pokazuju da oni studenti koji su bili zadovoljni preduzetničkim tržišnim mogućnostima, bili su najzainteresovaniji da postanu preduzetnici. istraživanje se posebno fokusiralo na studente odeljenja za poslovne studije. poželjno je da se sprovede dodatno istraživanje na različitim nivoima odeljenja i sa većim brojem uzoraka, kako bi se doprinelo donošenju opštih zaključaka. obuka i poznavanje preduzetničkog marketinga će pomoći studentima u povećanju kompetentnosti za pokretanje novih biznisa. ovo istraživanje je pionirskog karaktera, koje se bavi proučavanjem želje studenata da postanu preduzetnici u pakistanu. ključne reči: preduzetnik, usavršavanje marketinga, način razmišljanja, pakistan article history: received: 2 october, 2012 accepted: 15 march, 2013 doi: 10.28934/jwee21.12.pp121-146 jel: m13 original scientific paper 7bempowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka thilini de silva17 f1 sirkku männikkö barbutiu1 8f2 stockholm university, department of computer and systems sciences, (dsv), kista, sweden kutoma wakunuma1 9f3 de montfort university, centre for computing and social responsibility, leceister, united kingdom gehan s. dhameeth2 0f4 wells college, aurora, ny, usa a b s t r a c t the purpose of the current study was to explore the conditions of empowerment among women entrepreneurs in the beauty salon sector in sri lanka by shedding light on the specific challenges faced by women when initiating and developing an enterprise. focus group discussions were used to create a collabourative platform for businesswomen to meet and exchange experiences on being entrepreneurial women. twelve women entrepreneurs who own beauty salons in the outskirts of the capital city of sri lanka participated in the workshop. sen's capability approach and kabeer's empowerment framework was used to interpret the findings. the women in the study face many challenges such as difficulties in maintaining a healthy work-life balance, double burden and tiresome 1 corresponding author, e-mail: thilini@nsbm.lk 2 e-mail: sirkku@dsv.su.se 3 e-mail: kutoma@dmu.ac.uk 4 e-mail: gdhameeth@wells.edu 122 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 121-146) multi-tasking. research suggests that women’s choice to become an entrepreneur enables them to achieve their practical and strategic gender needs. nevertheless, too much focus on fulfilling practical gender needs limits the ability of women to fulfil their strategic gender needs. however, entrepreneurial agency has changed their status through improving the wellbeing of women, increasing the actual economic contribution, strengthening the economic security, through the ability to exercise purchasing power to invest on children, sense of self-worth, value within their families and family welfare. the study will increase our understanding of women and their family ties and the challenges women face in multiple roles they play in a developing context like sri lanka. key words: women entrepreneurship, identity roles, self-perception, agency, resources, achievements, empowerment introduction over half of the world’s population are women, with approximately 252 million women heading entrepreneurial projects, at present (elam et al., 2019, p. 2). in countries like the united states, new zealand, canada and israel, the enterprises owned by women have grown faster than the economy of the country (rusdianti et al., 2018). however, women entrepreneurship has a long way to exploit its full potential, particularly in the global south. as such, in a developing country like sri lanka where the economy is growing at 5.8% (2019a), discussion of women entrepreneurship in terms of a contributing economic indicator and as a medium to empower women is timely. according to the national human resource and employment policy of sri lanka (2018), there is a sizeable unexploited segment in the women population that could contribute to the development of the country. this extensive underutilisation among the potential women workforce is despite the equal opportunities given in education for women as men and also in a circumstance where the achievements of women in education are equal or sometimes more than men (kailasapathy & metz, 2012). even according to sen (1999), freedom of choice and opportunities for women to obtain employee or employer status are significant drivers that are increasing women labour force participation which may empower the women and benefit society as a whole. during the last decade, women across the globe have been obtaining employment opportunities more than ever before, thereby breaking many rules and changing the limitations imposed on them (drolet, 2011). women thilini de silva, sirkku männikkö barbutiu, kutoma wakunuma, gehan s. dhameeth123 receiving more employability opportunities is a structural change, and it has also improved the freedom of choice of women in families (madsen et al. 2008). fostering the economic status of women through enterprise promotion has a positive impact on several areas such as unemployment, equality for women, eradication of poverty and improving quality of life (carter & jones evans, 2000). according to shastri and rao (2014), women entrepreneurship enhances economic growth and provides employment opportunities. in addition, it improves the social, educational and health status of women and their families as women invest more in education, health and wellbeing of the family. small and medium-size enterprises (smes) generate many enterprising opportunities for women entrepreneurs allowing various benefits to the economy and the society as a consequence. however, according to tori and martinez (2014), gender biases against women are common even in the sme sector. entrepreneurship is considered challenging for women due to structural barriers and gender-specific constraints (madsen et al., 2008). some of the main limitations a woman entrepreneur may face are lack of finances, business skills, mobility and networks to be able to run a successful business (drolet, 2011). the concepts of production (business) and reproduction (family) are connected and co-dependent, hence, self-employment and family relationships become fundamental premises of the societal perspective of gender and gender ascribed roles (al-dajani et al., 2014). many women struggle to balance their roles as a mother and a home-maker while participating in economic activities , though some women believe that entrepreneurship can offer them flexibility, independence and time for family (moore & buttner, 1997). a woman entrepreneur may face limitations imposed by individual preferences, institutional and structural barriers, yet self-perception, agency of women and structural changes in the society can unlock such barriers. further, identity construction can be crucial in fostering women entrepreneurship (haque, 2013). the emergence of women entrepreneurs in a society depends to a great extent on the economic, social, religious, cultural, and psychological factors prevailing in the society (carter & jones – evans, 2000). the family plays an essential role in women entrepreneurship. a family can provide the resources required to start a business, and help develop the entrepreneurial spirit in a woman (pérez-pérez & avilés-hernández, 2016). sen and drolet (2011;1999) have found that involvement in economic activity may empower women. according to drolet (2011), women's empowerment is a 124 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 121-146) process which enhances self-determination, the decision making and agency to meet their practical and strategic needs. the examples of practical gender needs are childcare, family health, food provision and earning income through productive work and examples for strategic gender needs are financial security, individual dignity, respect, decision making power and recognition (drolet, 2011). this process, therefore, enables women to achieve equal rights, power and resources on par with men in the society (kabeer, 1999). the current study is an exploration of the challenges of women entrepreneurship pertaining to the growing beauty salon sector, in order to assess how entrepreneurial activities may contribute to the empowerment of women. similar studies have been conducted in western countries, yet it is important to investigate the challenges women entrepreneurs face in the global south. hence, the study was conducted in sri lanka. the women entrepreneurs in the beauty salon sector were selected for the investigation as this is one of the most popular and fast-growing industries in sri lanka (2019b). in the modern context, where women understand their significance within families and the society, it is of great interest to understand the new dynamics that emerge in the intersections of entrepreneurship and empowerment of everyday life of women in developing countries. through the examples extracted from interviews and observations of women entrepreneurs in the beauty salon sector, the researchers attempt to understand the phenomenon of empowerment by addressing the following research questions: i) what are the challenges of women entrepreneurship? and ii) how do entrepreneurial activities empower women? notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment this section provides a theoretical understanding of the notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment. also, the dimensions of kabeer's empowerment framework resources, agency and achievements are elabourated. the essence of entrepreneurship is the exploitation of opportunities (carter & jones evans, 2000). there can be gender biases in the process of becoming an entrepreneur and continuing with the business successfully (de carolis & saparito, 2006). the identification of business opportunities is influenced by self-perceptions and the entrepreneurial intention of an individual. the personal perception and intention can be supported and shaped by the society, business environment and one's own thilini de silva, sirkku männikkö barbutiu, kutoma wakunuma, gehan s. dhameeth125 ability (bird, 1989). in addition to the external barriers, a woman may not recognise business opportunities due to self-imposed barriers such as lack of confidence (de bruin et al., 2007). self-perceptions are closely related to the social environment. traditionally, women are defined by the roles they play within the family and in terms of household responsibilities. in such societies, the normative support required for a woman to become an entrepreneur is not extended, as entrepreneurship is considered inappropriate for women (bird, 1989). however, if the women are socialized in an unconventional environment, the women will look at the opportunities which control a woman's life and her experiences in a different way (brush, 1992). nevertheless, when a woman is trying to achieve an entrepreneurial identity, self-perception, institutional and structural barriers can jointly influence the process (madsen et al., 2008). according to pérezpérez and avilés-hernández (2016), when a woman identifies a business opportunity in order to start a business, personal characters, subjective perceptions and certain demographic factors influence the entire process. such personal factors desire progress, autonomy and achievement. subjective perceptions are self-confidence, and risk tolerance, whereas the demographic factors are age, education and qualifications. antony (2012), highlights how social attribution of gender roles and gender differences create barriers specifically for women when they are approaching entrepreneurial opportunities in terms of access to resources, differences in educational opportunities and inequalities in household responsibilities. many women are demotivated in every phase of developing entrepreneurship, and they have lower expectations related to entrepreneurial activities due to such barriers (muntean & ozkazanc-pan, 2015). entrepreneurship is highly masculinized and to decrease the masculine stereotype, barriers for women, and to initiate and develop entrepreneurship, the self-efficacy of women requires improvement (sweida & reichard, 2013). women's entrepreneurship can foster women's economic growth, their wellbeing and social inclusion (de bruin et al., 2007). it is vital that women try to break through the cultural and structural barriers they face in order to change the conditions of their life by making their own life choices through agency (sen, 1999; kabeer, 2001). sen (1999) sees the potential of entrepreneurship as empowering women. in this study, the definition of empowerment follows the ideas of kabeer (1999) , who draws on sen's idea of expanding the freedom and capabilities of people. kabeer (1999) defines empowerment as the expansion in people's ability to make strategic life 126 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 121-146) choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them "(p.10)”. the prominence here is the process of change or the process of agency, where agency is the capacity of an individual to make choices (1999). this perspective of empowerment highlights the expanding the capabilities of humans echoing sen's (1999) capability approach, that views development as expanding the freedom of people to live the lives they value to the fullest. according to kabeer's (2001) conceptualisation, empowerment is a process made up of three dimensions; resources, agency and achievements (see figure 1 for details). resources are the preconditions where choices are made, agency is the main process where the choice is made, and achievements are the outcomes of the choice made. sen (1999) describes the development as a process of removing the ‘unfreedoms’, which are the barriers and limitations to exercise agency and therefore, the choices of an individual. women may use agency as the ability to make the strategic choices of life by controlling the resources and decisions which influence important outcomes of life. the agency is the core of empowerment (sen 1999). further, sen (1999) discusses development, stating that freedom is considered central to the development process, and therefore, the achievement of development is thoroughly dependent on the free agency of people. furthermore, according to drolet (2011), women empowerment improves the ability to make choices and decisions regarding oneself (agency) and thus, improves self-determination to fulfil needs, allowing them to achieve equal rights, power and resources on par with men and in an economy. the empowerment and agency of women can be interpreted as women getting the power to control their own lives over families, communities, societies or markets, in the business context (jejeebhoy, 1998). multiple demands placed on women align with the triple role framework, where women play three main roles in life; production, reproduction and community management (moser, 1989). as described by moser (moser 1989), women working in their agency in order to achieve their strategic and practical gender needs. the strategic gender needs are the needs of women in subordination to men like the abolition of the sexual division of labour, the lessening of the burden of the domestic chores and childcare, removal of institutional discriminations such as women’s right to own property or access to credit, political equality, freedom of choice over childbearing, measures for domestic violence and measures for men's control over women thilini de silva, sirkku männikkö barbutiu, kutoma wakunuma, gehan s. dhameeth127 (moser, 1993). the practical gender needs are conditions women experience on a daily basis, while fulfilling their triple roles of production, reproduction and community managing. however, most women have to sacrifice and compromise on fulfilling their strategic gender needs when they have to allocate more of their time and effort to achieving practical gender needs (drolet, 2011). empowerment cannot be measured without the existence of women's agency. women should not only be the recipients of change but also, agents of change. the environment or the society women belong to shape their agency in terms of the choices they make, their awareness and the strategies they use (drolet, 2011). the agency of women is influenced by their cultural, geographical and familial contexts (narayan, 2005). the context can support them, and also the same context can limit the options available to them. the women themselves need to make their life choices and decisions to change conditions for them, without waiting for the context or the conditions to change. a woman may face many structural and institutional limitations in the journey of empowerment. the primary demand of feminist movements was the freedom for women to make decisions and choices about their life, the power to exercise their agency (sen, 1999). a woman plays different roles in life. entrepreneurship or participating in economic activity is a productive role a woman would play (moser, 1989). the financial independence such activity provides to a woman is a significant variable of women empowerment (sen, 1999). also, providing an opportunity for an economic role for a woman can have a significant impact on her status and can empower her (bagathi, 2003). however, for a woman to decide to start and continue a business, is constrained by self -perception, institutional barriers and structural barriers. figure 1 illustrates the empowerment framework adapted from kabeer (1999) as the conceptual framing for the current study. resources are understood as the social, cultural and economic conditions prevailing as institutional and structural barriers for women; their self-perception; opportunities; and the support women have when initiating a business. women are making choices within the barriers and limitations set in such conditions. agency is defined as the process of making choices or decisions by women themselves. achievements are understood as outcomes of the choices made; outcomes which are significant in terms of fulfilment of different needs such as practical gender needs and strategic gender needs of 128 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 121-146) a woman and her family. empowerment can thus be reflected as the increased ability of a woman to make strategic life choices. figure 1: empowerment framework source: adapted from kabeer (kabeer 1999) this study aims to explore the conditions of empowerment among women entrepreneurs in the beauty salon sector in sri lanka via shedding light on the specific challenges women face when initiating and developing an enterprise. methodology strategy as the researchers found it important to engage women entrepreneurs in open and reliable conversations which eventually could function as catalysts for a longer-term research and development collabouration facilitating support for women entrepreneurs, focus group discussion (denscombe, 2017) within a workshop frame was considered as the most thilini de silva, sirkku männikkö barbutiu, kutoma wakunuma, gehan s. dhameeth129 suitable methodological choice. summoning a group of women with a similar background and with the beauty salon business as the common denominator into a workshop would give them an opportunity to meet other women with similar experiences as they were also provided new information and knowledge. the researchers found it imperative to apply the principles of reciprocity in research and in addition to designing data collection methods, the researchers invited the women to participate in activities that would be beneficial to their businesses. the workshop activities were designed to shed light on women's self-perception, initiation of business, and challenges of entrepreneurship. participants twelve female beauty salon owners were invited to participate in the initial workshop. they were between the age of 21 and 42 and held a basic diploma in beauty culture. the participants were selected through convenient sampling method. the first participant researcher contacted, introduced other participants to the focus group discussion. all of them are located in the outskirts of the capital city (colombo-sri jayewardenepura, kotte) of sri lanka. the researchers selected the beauty salon sector as it is a highly productive service industry in sri lanka which is dominated by women entrepreneurs (2019b). beauty salons are mushrooming at a fast pace in the outskirts of colombo. there are nearly seven to ten beauty salons in a radius of one kilometer. hence, the researchers assumed it is best to select beauty salons located in the outskirts of colombo. a group of twelve women entrepreneurs were chosen from the same locality to facilitate the convenience of transportation and thus securing the participation of these women. among the participants, some had commenced business operations recently, more specifically, within the last year, while others had been in business for over ten years. data collection method the focus group discussions were organized in a room, harbouring an informal setup, with the ability to facilitate group work, thereby, ensuring that the participants are comfortable to express their true feelings. further, the seating arrangements facilitated group discussions. the participants were divided into groups of four. the three-hour discussion followed the 130 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 121-146) setup described in table 1. an introduction on the research, the researchers involved, the workshop and future workshops, were provided. informed consent and basic personal data were collected via forms in sinhala and english. once signed consent was received, the researchers placed an audio recorder on each table. segment one was based on "myself". the discussion was conducted to identify how these women perceived themselves. the second segment was based on "being an entrepreneur". the objective of the second discussion was to identify why the participants wanted to be entrepreneurs, in addition to the challenges they face, as a result. table 1: design of the focus group discussion time duration activity first 15 minutes settling down wear a name tag distribution of multi-coloured hand bands for grouping 25 minutes introduction 1.introduction to the research project 2. ethical permissions from participants 3. information sheet filled by participants (name, age, civil status, no. of kids, location) 60 minutes discussion one: my self  describe yourself as an entrepreneur (on a sticky note)  then discuss about it within the group and develop  summarise it to one sheet  present to the other groups what each group had been discussing (how do you see yourself as an entrepreneur, how do you see yourself, how you feel about being a woman entrepreneur) 60 minutes discussion two: being an entrepreneur  list the challenges they have as entrepreneurs  then discuss within the group and list challenges from the most to the least.  summarise to one sheet  present to other groups source: authors thilini de silva, sirkku männikkö barbutiu, kutoma wakunuma, gehan s. dhameeth131 data analysis method the analysis is based on the recordings, materials produced by the participants during the workshop activities and the field notes taken by the principal researcher. all data in the sinhala language were later translated and transcribed to english. the twelve participants are addressed with a single alphabetical letter, (the chosen letters are a to l), to ensure anonymity. all the collected data were transferred into an excel sheet and then analysed into phrases, sub-categories, categories and themes using colour codes. the researchers used an affinity diagram to derive codes, categories and then themes. affinity diagrams reveal common issues and themes across all users and narrate a story which discusses all key elements of the respondents (holtzblatt & beyer 2017). the authors used the colour labels suggested in the affinity diagram in an excel sheet as it was less time consuming than preparing handmade colour labels. the workshop data consisted of two main segments covering the main research questions; i) what are the challenges of women entrepreneurship? and ii) how do entrepreneurial activities empower women? the main two activities of each group were analysed separately. the analysis was derived into three main themes, namely, barriers and opportunities when setting up a business, multiple roles of women, and changing status of women entrepreneurs. results the analysis resulted in three overall themes, namely, barriers and opportunities when setting up a business, multiple roles of women and the changing status of a woman entrepreneur. these three themes are interpreted according to kabeer's empowerment model (fig. 1) and elabourated below. barriers and opportunities when setting up a business according to the participants, setting up their business was not an easy task. they faced many barriers, however, the participants admitted to the existence of favourable conditions and support from numerous parities, as well. most of the participants revealed that they doubted their capabilities, at the point of conceptualising their business plan. however, drawing from the success stories of women who had started businesses from their own 132 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 121-146) communities, they realised the extent to which a business can help improve the welfare of their respective children and families. thus, this factor of improving their family’s quality of life, became a significant motivator in the eventual establishment of their businesses. j: i never thought i can set up my own business ever. i said to myself, no one will help me, and i am not capable to run a business. further, the interviews at the workshop indicated that society was not very supportive of the idea of women founding a business. it became evident that the negative feedback received from the public, had indirect implications on the entrepreneur, as it created repugnance and doubt among the entrepreneur’s families, towards the potential business. thus, the women faced difficulties in acquiring consent and approval from their immediate families in order to set up the business. a: my neighbour told to my mother-in-law to find another bride to my husband as i will leave the family soon as i set up a business-like beauty salon." furthermore, many participants revealed that they did not have any prior knowledge on the process of setting up a business. according to them, they were unaware of the proceedings with regard to obtaining a business registration, developing rent agreements, obtaining loans, purchasing of agreements, dealing with suppliers or the technicalities of marketing and advertising. this lack of knowledge led to the rejection of their initial loan applications by numerous banks, which questioned their credit worthiness. the participants found that the banks were very discriminative. d: the official at the bank humiliated me. he said this is not a place for donations." the participants were requested to brainstorm and conduct a mini research on the types of businesses which are most convenient to setup, for women entrepreneurs. beauty salons was a common answer. according to the participants, beauty culture courses are easily accessible, and could be completed at a relatively low cost. in addition, well-established salons offered numerous internship and trainee opportunities for amateur beauticians, in order to learn the tricks of the trade prior to starting their own salon. furthermore, the participants disclosed that their innate love for thilini de silva, sirkku männikkö barbutiu, kutoma wakunuma, gehan s. dhameeth133 working with cosmetics and beauty products was another motivating factor to select the beauty salon sector. a: i could complete my beauty salon course with a discount at a reputed institution. they allowed me to pay my fees in instalments; it was very helpful." moreover, the study found that many of the participants were supported by their husbands, parents, siblings and friends, to find the capital to start their businesses. some husbands even sold their assets to provide finances to set up the business. c: my husband sold a small rubber land inherited to him to set up my business". in summation, the study revealed that the main barriers the participants faced when initiating the business, were societal constraints towards a woman founding a beauty salon, financial difficulties, initial dislike of husband and in-laws of the idea of a business, unawareness of the process of setting up a business, difficulties in obtaining a loan and lack of selfconfidence. nevertheless, once the women realised the benefits of such an economic activity, they became determined to initiate the business, and many husbands and families supported the women to set up their business. further, it was evident that he beauty salon industry provides ample opportunity as it is an industry where many courses, diplomas and training programmes are easily accessible, in order for any novice to learn the ropes of the industry, and eventually set up a business. multiple roles of women though participants play different roles in their lives, the main roles they have identified are the roles of wife, mother and businesswoman. initially, when starting the business, most women have thought that being a businesswoman will provide them with the freedom to play the role of mother comparatively better than working under someone else. in the role of a mother and wife, they act as the caretakers of children and husband. their main goal in life is the wellbeing of the family. a: as a wife, mother and a businesswoman, i support my family's needs and contribute to the betterment of my family." 134 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 121-146) for them, the most significant asset is their children. many participants believe that their central role in life is to play the role of a mother; their responses do not highlight their role as a wife, daughter, sister or a daughterin-law. according to them, the role of a mother requires much dedication. the study revealed that a few of the participants who had established salons early in their lives, married and had children while also developing their business. the participants claimed that they try to allocate ample time for their children, hence, wake up early and sleep late in order to complete other tasks. one participant who manages the home by herself keeps her children at the salon after school, and makes sure the children eat, complete their school homework and spend time with her, while she continues to work. k: after school, the two kids come to the salon. i keep them there. they do homework in the salon." the participants have identified a beauty salon as a profitable business which will support them to earn a decent income and balance their family and life as a woman. the majority of them are satisfied with their business. they love the fact that they make other women beautiful through their business. f: it is my pleasure to make someone beautiful." the participants emphasised that they are responsible citizens of the country. the reasons were the fact that they contribute to the economy of the country, they take care of their families well, and they are good examples to society. i: i am a useful person to this country; i earn money and take care of my family. i think i act as a very responsible person in the society." further, the study revealed that the majority of the participants have support in playing her dual role, as a caregiver and an entrepreneur. the support is extended from the husbands, mothers, mothers-in-law and sistersin-law. the understanding husbands who support them in domestic tasks and childcare are considered as a blessing to them. b: the support of my husband is a blessing." moreover, it is interesting to see that older women extend help to participants in household activities and in raising children. the participants believe that the support extended from their families is the main reason for thilini de silva, sirkku männikkö barbutiu, kutoma wakunuma, gehan s. dhameeth135 the success of their business. the fact that there is somebody responsible to take care of the children when they are away gives them the freedom and mental strength to focus more on their business activities. e: i have a very good husband and a mother-in-law. i have two children. my mother-in-law does all the cooking and prepare children for school. actually, i don't have to think anything about the home front. i think i am very lucky there. and that support is the main reason for my success." however, participants encounter specific challenges as entrepreneurial women. one of the main challenges all the participants agreed on, is the difficulty in balancing work and life. they revealed that they do not have sufficient time to spend with their children. this issue arises, especially due to the fact that these women have to be away from home, when they oversee the work at the salon, in addition to being engaged in time consuming shifts, such as, bridal dressings which sometimes take the full day. thus, inevitably leaving less quality time with their children. furthermore, the participants have identified multi-tasking as a strength of women in general, and specifically a strength they harbour too, however, at the same time, they believe that multi-tasking is a challenge, as it consumes their energy, time and mental strength. they think their different roles as a mother, wife and a businesswoman led to exhaustion. according to them, their life is all about switching from one role to another and accomplishing tasks pertaining to that role. they do not have time for themselves at all. they do not get enough time to sleep or a time to eat peacefully or to have time for their personal pleasures. this makes them worried and unhappy at times. this is despite the support they receive from husbands or elderly females in their families. g: my life is all about work, switching from one to another. i wonder sometimes when i will ever relax." subsequently, the study found a few participants who do not have any support from their husbands, family or any external party. their life is more challenging as they have to do everything by themselves. though they are very tired of how life treats them, they are still dedicated and do all the hard work because they love their children. 136 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 121-146) k: i have no one to help me like that. because my kids are little big now, i can manage everything. but i need to sacrifice my sleep a lot. i get up very early in the morning and finish all cooking and domestic work. then only i go to the salon. in the night we mainly eat from outside. after school my two kids come to the salon. i keep them there. they do homework in the salon." another challenge they face is the double burden of having to fulfil all household duties while looking after the business. when home and family demand them to fulfil domestic duties, they lack time to focus on business operations, to the extent that they may have to cancel client appointments or neglect work. this can negatively affect their business. therefore, the study displayed that the participants mainly play the roles of a mother, housewife, a businesswoman and a responsible citizen of the society. they perceive themselves as strong, independent women who serve their families and society through a dignified business. one of the main challenges participants face, is managing time between the different roles they play as a mother, wife and a businesswoman. the support they receive from family help them to manage the time and priorities the important tasks in a day. it is therefore apparent, that the choice they made to become an entrepreneur while playing other roles is not easy. there are many role conflicts which lead to challenges such as work and family life balance, exhaustion of playing multiple roles and double burden. changing the status of a woman entrepreneur the choice of the participants to become an entrepreneur has influenced them in many ways. they are very proud of their decision to become a businesswoman. the participants concede that their present entrepreneurial status has improved their lives economically and socially. however, their thoughts about their husbands and men in general vary. some women think that their husbands are supportive. however, contradictorily, the women think they are too busy and tired of their lives, despite supportive husbands. all the participants think that they have gained a new status, a position and dignity in the family and society because they are entrepreneurs. further, their views are considered very important in family decision making, and they make many decisions about family and kids. according to them the decisions about the education of children are taken by them. thilini de silva, sirkku männikkö barbutiu, kutoma wakunuma, gehan s. dhameeth137 g: even my mother-in-law or anyone in the family cannot point me for anything, because i am doing better. and i think that is because of the business. i have got this position because of my business." the business provides a reasonable and adequate income, making the women, economically independent. they have compared their earnings with others and are satisfied with their decision to start a business of their own. the entrepreneurial status has given the participants a purpose for life and the ability to meet many goals. most of the participants believe that they can expand their business, and they can be more successful. hence, they believe that they need to improve themselves continuously. in order to ensure continuous professional development, all of them attend workshops and training programmes to improve and update their beauty culture skills. some of them possess postgraduate qualifications, in order to develop their managerial skills as business owners. all the participants use digital platforms, such as youtube to keep updated on the latest trends in beauty culture, on a daily basis. they believe that learning and education can make them successful. f: i think we actually try to learn about the profession at the same time we work. we go to one day, two days workshops to learn new things. because this industry has new trends all the time." the participants believe that they are contributing to the economy in the country by generating an income and subsequently, providing employment opportunities and paying tax. the study revealed that three participants, are the primary income providers of their families. the income of the business covers domestic expenses, and expenses pertaining to their children, including their education, and investments for the betterment of the family. on the hand, the study found that a few participants, are equal contributors to their family income, while another group of participants are secondary income providers of the family. the participants use the money they earn from the business, mainly on family affairs, and they are very proud of it. therefore, via their independently generated income, it is evident that the participants strive to improve the living condition of their families, provide education to their children, save for the future and also, make lucrative investments. j: i am a very satisfied businesswoman who contributes largely to my home, family and children activities through my income." 138 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 121-146) the women believe in themselves, and they have a positive attitude about their capabilities. they believe that they are stronger due to the business. according to them, the business has improved their capacity as individuals. they believe that they are strong enough to take care of the family and children, even without the support of their husbands. the women think that they have the capability of multi-tasking and capable of handling tasks on an equal footing to a man. they participants claim that men are able to only handle one task at a time, but that females have the ability to successfully manage many activities, simultaneously. thereby, leading the participants to believe that they are sometimes more capable and therefore, ahead of their husbands. further, they believe that women are mentally stronger and can do anything if determined and focused. f: when it comes to the males, they can do only one thing. but if you take me, i do all the work at home, i do my business, and i study for a postgraduate diploma as well." thus, it can be assumed that the participants have achieved status, economic independence, decision-making power, and self-esteem, which leads to social and economic empowerment because of the choice they made to be a businesswoman. discussion the following research questions: i) what are the challenges of women entrepreneurship? and ii) how do entrepreneurial activities empower women? were answered using the data collected through the focus group discussions organised for women entrepreneurs in the beauty salon sector. the analysis provides insights into how the self-perception and sociocultural factors influence women when starting a business and how a business empowers them and their families. figure 2 presents the key findings of the current study through the lens of the empowerment framework of kabeer. it shows the critical role of resources in defining the agency of women and their ability to make those critical choices that can lead to the fulfilment of practical and strategic gender needs. thilini de silva, sirkku männikkö barbutiu, kutoma wakunuma, gehan s. dhameeth139 figure 2: findings of the current study source: authors resources the women play different roles mainly as a mother, wife and a businesswoman. their self-perception is that the role they play as a mother and a wife is vital to them. they have decided to play the role of a businesswoman facing all the societal and cultural barriers. the financial limitations and the negative stereotypes of being a woman entrepreneur and a beauty salon owner were the main institutional and structural barriers the women faced. however, later on, the immediate families extended support, financially and morally, at the point of establishing the business. the beauty salon industry provided opportunities for business through the availability of professional courses and training programmes. further, the results indicated that even self-perception about their capabilities to start a business was negative. in addition, the participants described the struggles of facing negative feedback and restrictions imposed by society and culture towards a woman founding a business, especially in the beauty industry, to the extent 140 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 121-146) that even the immediate family shared the same adverse sentiments (kailasapathy & metz, 2012). moreover, when the participants were determined to start the business, subsequent to gaining the support of their families, they lacked the required business knowledge to set up the business. furthermore, they did not have the necessary finances to cover the initial costs. however, at the point of conceptualising a plan to earn an income to provide for the family via a business enterprise, the beauty salon industry was a great opportunity due to the availability of courses and training programmes at an affordable price. subsequently, the participants pursued qualifications, and training programmes, and founded their own beauty salon businesses. fortunately, many of their families supported them financially, so that the participants were able to realise their objective of establishing a business. agency kabeer (2001) defines women’s agency as a process of decision making and negotiation to fulfil strategic life goals. the women have executed their agency by deciding to start a business, especially targeting the wellbeing of their families. the fact that they are a secondary income provider or a main income provider on par with the males at home, has not taken away their household or nurturing duties. the women in the study, have mainly chosen to assume the role of businesswoman to fulfil the duties of the role of a mother and wife. the women prioritise their gender ascribed role of reproductive work where they accept their childbearing and rearing responsibilities (kabeer 1999). the women in the study are very cautious of the time they must allocate for their children, to the extent that some entrepreneurs restrict the working hours of the salon, sacrificing extra profits and customers, for the wellbeing of their children. further, they sacrifice their sleep, leisure and personal time, to fulfil all household duties once they are home from work. the main challenges the women face are work and family life balance, double burden (adikaram, 2018) and compromises they have to make when fulfilling practical gender needs and strategic gender needs. however, when women become significant contributors to the family income, husbands/partners are willing to provide more support in household activities and child care activities (jayatilleke & gunawardena, 2016). thilini de silva, sirkku männikkö barbutiu, kutoma wakunuma, gehan s. dhameeth141 achievements the women in the study seem to exercise their agency in order to achieve their practical and strategic gender needs (moser, 1993). the women have decided to start a business in order to fulfil their practical gender needs. these practical gender needs are the gender-ascribed roles such as taking care of the family and economically contributing to the family assigned to women by society (moser, 1989; drolet, 2011). one of the main reasons for them to start a business was to create a better living condition for their family. at the same time, their decision to start the business has supported them to fulfil their strategic gender needs such as financial security, individual dignity, respect and decision-making power in the household. therefore, it can be assumed that entrepreneurship helps women to meet their strategic gender needs. nevertheless, it is interesting to note that extensive engagement in practical gender needs, may deny the opportunity for women to fulfil their strategic gender needs. for instance, similar to the findings in drolet’s (2011) study on women on microcredit programme, some participants in the present study, strive to allocate more time for children than the business, as they are primarily concerned about the wellbeing of their children while they are at work. this negatively impacts the success of their business. moreover, according to sen (1999), the economic participation of women is rewarding and also wields greater agency, which has the potential to provide significant influence towards societal change. the results of the study revealed that the beauty salon business had provided these women a defined status in addition to sustaining decision-making power within their families, due to the income they earn, and consequently, earning more respect as businesswomen from society. the respect of the society was reflected by their shared experiences of being invited to occupy authoritative positions in local communities and of instances where they were invited as guests in small-scale events organised by the village temple. however, it must be noted that all these rewards and achievements seem to come at a very high cost of their time, commitment and hard work. the entrepreneurial agency has changed their status within the society in countless ways, the women have been able to improve their own wellbeing, increase their economic contribution, gain economic security, strengthen their ability to increase purchasing power to invest on their children, understand one’s self-worth, establish value and recognition within their families and local community, and sustain family welfare. 142 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 121-146) empowerment in line with the ideas of the capability approach of sen (1999) and kabeer (2001), which confirms economic activity as a strategy for women empowerment, the participants believe that they are empowered through entrepreneurship. empowerment is defined via the related dimensions of resources, agency, and achievement, and has subsequently, changed the status of a woman entrepreneur and also improved the lives of their families and society. the decision made by the participants to start a business, how decisions are made when managing their business, how they make decisions on home affairs, how well they execute these decisions are important reflections of how they exercise agency on their potential to achieve valuable outcomes. this study finds that the women entrepreneurs are empowered, as their wellbeing, economic contribution, economic security, the purchasing power to invest on children, sense of self-worth, value and recognition within their families and local community and family welfare, have vastly improved. these findings confirm the views of kabeer (1999), which claims that involvement in economic activities is related to various measures of women’s agency and achievements. the business can be considered as the basis of their empowerment. their decision to start a business has changed, to some extent, their families’ and their own perception on gender roles. nevertheless, these women are still struggling to fulfil their domestic and business demands. the fact that the women are providing an additional income to the family has not released them from their domestic duties. yet, entrepreneurship as a means of achieving economic independence and social emancipation can be considered as an agent to empower women (sen, 1999). the resources and agency in terms of the capabilities (sen, 1999) the women possessed in order to start the business, provided them the opportunity and the ability to achieve the wellbeing of their family and of themselves. it becomes evident thus, that the way in which the women in the present study perceive themselves, has changed over the years, and the participants currently see themselves as agents who can transform their own lives and the lives of their entire family through their capabilities. this specific perception is identified and substantiated by sen (1999), claiming that women increasingly act as agents of change who transform and alter the lives of both women and men. thilini de silva, sirkku männikkö barbutiu, kutoma wakunuma, gehan s. dhameeth143 conclusion in the current study, the researchers discuss the challenges of women entrepreneurship through the examples from the growing beauty salon sector, whilst exploring how entrepreneurial activities contribute to the empowerment of women. women empowerment is defined in this study as a process which enhances the agency of women to meet their practical and strategic needs, while achieving individual dignity and respect on par with men, using the economic independence and status that women receive from entrepreneurship (sen, 1999). the phenomena of women empowerment is analysed in three folds, resources, agency and achievements (kabeer, 1999). women entrepreneurship is discussed as a significant notion for women empowerment, and hence the challenges of women entrepreneurs are explored. the study has examined three aspects of women entrepreneurship: barriers and opportunities when setting up a business, multiple roles of women and the changing status of women entrepreneurs. the results of the study confirm that the participants perceived themselves mainly as mothers, homemakers and businesswomen (moser, 1989). the women entrepreneurs seem to consider themselves as a valuable asset, and therefore are particularly proud of the contribution they make towards their families and the society. however, they are mindful of the challenges they face as women entrepreneurs, such as double burden, workfamily life balance and compromises between fulfilling practical gender needs and strategic gender needs. further, the views of the participants reveal that their need to raise their children in a responsible manner, is stronger than their passion for being an entrepreneur with economic and social independence. the findings, therefore, specifies how the selected women entrepreneurs would compromise and sacrifice their strategic gender needs in order to fulfil their practical gender needs. even in terms of agency, the life choices the women make are to ensure the wellbeing of their family, which consequently takes them back to square one. this becomes evident in one of the main contradictory views of the women entrepreneurs, which describes the participant’s fear of negligence of duties as a mother and wife, due to their engagement in the business, which emphasises the conflict between their traditional and modern role as women. one of the main contributions of the study, thus, is that too much engagement in the practical 144 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 121-146) gender needs take away the opportunity of women to fulfil their strategic gender needs. according to the analysis, many women in the study are able to make life choices and are supported by their husbands and extended family members to implement the decisions they make. their ability to make decisions by themselves can be due to their self-perception, individual power and the environment or context where women are empowered to fulfil their needs. the women in the study have achieved an ameliorative status in the family and society while gaining decision-making power in the family due to the success of their business. the newfound respect for these women, is mainly due to their economic independence. thus, it can be stated that entrepreneurship has changed their status. as per the findings of the study, the agency of women can be defined as the power they have gained from the economic independence as a result of becoming an entrepreneur which provides expansive freedom of choice, in order too live the life they value the most. according to the analysis of the study, the participants value the wellbeing of herself and her family, higher than any other factor discussed in the present research. thus, sen’s (1999) thoughts on freedom and its intersections with gender and economy, become relevant here-the freedom provided for a woman to be a part of an economic activity fosters the freedom of all. in conclusion, this study encompassed a focus group discussion comprising of a small group of twelve women entrepreneurs. the study was an effort to understand women who are entrepreneurs, the challenges they face and the impact of entrepreneurship towards empowerment. this study sets the foundation for future researchers to explore how women entrepreneurs can use information communication and technology (ict) in their efforts to manage various demands within the multiple roles they play. it would also be of interest to conduct similar research in different industries and countries to ascertain if the challenges differ for women entrepreneurs across industries and destinations, and also to investigate the empowerment potential of entrepreneurship in these different contexts. references [1] adikaram, as. 2018. being sensitive to the culture: challenges in researching sensitive topics in an asian culture. qual res j 18:287–299. https://doi.org/10.1108/qrj-d-17-00044 thilini de silva, sirkku männikkö barbutiu, kutoma wakunuma, gehan s. dhameeth145 [2] al-dajani, h., bika, z, collins, l., swail, j. 2014. gender and family business: new theoretical directions. international journal of gender and entrepreneurship 6:1. 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conflict in sri lanka: negotiations of exchange relationships in family and at work. j soc issues 68:790–813 [26] pérez-pérez, c., avilés-hernández, m. 2016. explanatory factors of female entrepreneurship and limiting elements. suma negocios 7:25–31 [27] rusdianti, e., purwantini, s., wahdi, n. 2018 poverty allevation studies through woman empowerment. econ bus solut j 2:59–71 [28] sen, a. 1999. development as freedom. oxford university press, great britain [29] sweida, gl., reichard, rj. 2013. gender stereotype effects on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and high-growth entrepreneurial intention. j small bus enterp dev 20:296–313 [30] torri, mc., martinez, a. 2014. women’s empowerment and microentrepreneurship in india: constructing a new development paradigm? prog dev stud 14:31–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464993413504347 [31] (2019a) annual report 2019. central bank of sri lanka, colombo [32] (2019b) the department of census and statistical annual report of 2019. the department of census and statistical, colombo, sri lanka article history: received: january 22nd, 2021 accepted: may 10th, 2021 "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references 12_jwe_3-4 udc: 005(549) jel: l26; m1 original scientific paper entrepreneurial attributes among postgraduate students of a pakistani university khadija mubarka∗, university of sargodha, sargodha, department of business administration, pakistan usman yousaf, quaid-e-azam university, islamabad, pakistan mohsin altaf, university of sargodha, pakistan a b s t r a c t this research examines the entrepreneurial characteristics among the student of university of sargodha. the main task was to explore the entrepreneurial characteristics of the graduate students. two hundred students from different departments returned complete questionnaires.to increase the representation, random sampling was selected. findings revealed that self-efficacy, efficiency and commitment and entrepreneurial inclinations were the most important factors. the research showed that majority of the students have characteristics to become an entrepreneur and they showed positive response. however demographic factors have a minor impact on entrepreneurial attributes. the entrepreneurial attributes can be increased by offering certain courses which helps in increasing entrepreneurial attributes. kew words: entrepreneurship attributes, students introduction in these times of economic crisis, we are taken by the surprise by the fact that more and more people are inclined toward setting up their own ventures in the world of entrepreneurship. this is also crucial for the ∗ e-mail: khadijamubarka@yahoo.com khadija, m., et al., entrepreneurial attributes, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 87 economy and has positive impacts over individual and economy as well. people decides to become an entrepreneur due to many reasons like need for financial independence and security, having frustration with their current workplace and career, strong desire for achievement and willingness to invest their resources and having ability to take risk. entrepreneurship is a key driver of economic growth and job creation. it provides many people with career opportunities that better fit their preferences than waged employment. one of the most important is entrepreneurship skills. motivated people need the right skills to identify entrepreneurial opportunities and to turn their entrepreneurial projects into successful ventures. there are certain personality characteristic that leads to successful entrepreneurs and these attributes are need for independence and achievement, internal locus of control, to involve in certain risks, selfconfidence, to complete tasks with commitment, team building and to work under team and pressure (martinez & vila, 2007; ramayah & harun, 2004). a researcher can distinguish entrepreneur from non-entrepreneur through many personality characteristics. when researchers investigate the matters that increase the entrepreneurial attitude, they saw that achievement, motivation and self-image play a great role (pillis & reardon, 2007). entrepreneurial characteristics among students are significantly contributed by educational programs. it is also being investigated by the research that certain university students are attracted towards entrepreneurship due to various educational programs. significant improvement was seen in students entrepreneurial attributes when they were asked to participate in entrepreneurial educational (schroder and rodermund, 2006; soutaris, zerbinati and al-laham, 2007; zhao, seibert and hills, 2005). there is a lot of contribution made by these educational programs in developing entrepreneurial attributes among students (wilson, brown, anderson & galloway, 2003). it is also being acknowledged by the government that enterprise and innovation are driving force behind innovative change and job creation. governments are encouraging the introduction of enterprise into the curriculum because it has much influence upon higher education. for developing and testing their entrepreneurial skills, students are calling for journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 88 opportunities. industry is looking for an element of entrepreneurial creativity in its top class graduate recruits (gibb, 2008). this paper explores three factors self-efficacy, efficiency and entrepreneurial inclinations as entrepreneurial attributes among post graduate students of university. based upon the literature the study set to examine the entrepreneurial attributes toward adopting entrepreneurship as a career choice among postgraduate’s students of university of sargodha, pakistan.. the strength of the entrepreneurial class is usually visible in the entrepreneurial attitudes of university students. however, no considerable research work on the entrepreneurial attitudes of the university students has so far been published from pakistan. this article will investigate entrepreneurial attributes among post graduate’s students of university of sargodha, pakistan. literature review the development of entrepreneurship has become a vital function of universities. personality characteristics, demographic factors and situational factors do not play a significant role in predicting that whether an individual is attracted towards entrepreneurial activities. intention plays a major role in determining that whether someone has entrepreneurial inclinations or not (krueger et al 2000). self-efficacy is the belief that one is capable of performing in a certain manner to attain certain goals. self-efficacy is an individual’s internal belief on his ability that whether he can perform a certain task. self-efficacy is based on individual’s internal confidence that his abilities can convert his skills into outcome (bandura, 1989, 1997). many researches have been conducted to explain the relationship between self-efficacy and career preferences. these researches shows that those individuals who have self-confidence and internal belief on their abilities can more easily convert their ideas into actions. an internal belief of one’s abilities leads an individual to become a successful entrepreneur. these researches have also shown that individuals who have higher entrepreneurial self-efficacy have a high desire to become a future entrepreneur. (chen et al., 1998; de noble et al., 1999; krueger, reilly, & carsrud, 2000; scott & twomey, 1988; segal, borgia, & schoenfeld, 2002; wang, wong, & lu, 2002). khadija, m., et al., entrepreneurial attributes, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 89 a research was conducted by bird (1988) and vozikis (1994) and they clearly argued that self-efficacy has a major impact in selection of entrepreneurial career. they also concluded that when a person has high level of self-efficacy and has ability to set goals, than his chances of entrepreneurial actions will increase. (boyd and vozikis, 1994). many researches have been conducted to explain the relationship between entrepreneurial inclination and demographic factors (for example koh, 1995; koh, 1996; reitan, 1997; breen, 1998; lin, picot et al., 2000; dunn, 2004; smith, 2005; veciana, aponte et al., 2005 kirkwood, 2007). it has been investigated that an individual would be highly inclined towards entrepreneurship if he has a good influence by family and personal experiences (koh 1996; mazzarol, volery et al., 1999; kirkwood, 2007). a theory was presented by mcclelland (1975) to explain the entrepreneurial effectiveness. the major basis of this theory was the role of motivation and achievement. the major purpose of presenting this theory was to explain the relationship between effectiveness and leader’s behavior. in entrepreneurial inclinations major contributory factors are achievement motivation and self-image (pillis & reardon, 2007). it is proved by research that entrepreneurial attitudes of university students significantly affected by educational programs. it is being concluded that hidden entrepreneurial potential of students stimulated by educational programs (wilson, brown, anderson & galloway, 2003). there are certain personality characteristic that leads to successful entrepreneurs and these attributes are need for independence and achievement, internal locus of control, to involve in certain risks, selfconfidence, to complete tasks with commitment, team building and to work under team and pressure(martinez, mora & vila, 2007; ramayah & harun, 2005; rodermund, 2004). hypothesis of study h1: there is a significant positive correlation between ‘efficiency and commitment’ and entrepreneurial inclination. h2: there is a significant positive correlation between self-efficacy and entrepreneurial inclination. h3: ‘self efficacy’ and ‘efficiency and commitment’ significantly explain the variance in entrepreneurial inclination. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 90 methodology this research has been conducted in order to explore entrepreneurial attributes among the students of university of sargodha, sargodha. for this purpose a sample of 220 questionnaires was filled from the university of sargodha, sargodha which is one of the well renowned universities of pakistan. as frequencies of demographics factors of sample are shown in frequency table (table 1). the questionnaire for this research was adopted from the study (ramayah and harren, 2005). in which 7-point agreedisagree likert-type scale was used for assessing entrepreneurial intention among the students of university sains malaysia. this scale was largely concerned with need for achievement, locus of control, self-efficacy, instrumental readiness, subjective norms and entrepreneurial intentions. for this scale the reported reliability value was 0.85. the language and content of the items were adapted by keeping local requirements in consideration. the questionnaires were filled from the students of different departments of the university. from total of 220 questionnaires, 200 completely filled questionnaires were returned, 8 questionnaires were lost during the process and the remaining 2 were wrongly filled. for conducting this study the data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. the questionnaires were filled in the month of april, 2010. the questionnaire consisted of the total 35 questions which were classified according to the variables of this study, the first 5 questions were related to demographic variables from which 1 question was about the class of respondent, 1 was about the gender of respondent, 1 was related to respondent father’s education level, 1 was about respondent father’s occupation and 1 was related to residence of respondent. the questionnaires were filled from 62 male and 128 female respondents. the five-point likert-type scale was used ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. descriptive statistics and the comparison of mean have been used to study the response of the sample. the cronbach's alpha revealed the result for the overall homogeneity between the variables of this research and the items of scale used in this research to measure the variables. a correlation analysis was used to study the relationship between the variables such that this analysis studied the positive relation of all the independent variables (efficiency and commitment and self-efficacy) with the dependent variable khadija, m., et al., entrepreneurial attributes, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 91 (entrepreneurial inclination). regression analysis was used in order to test the hypothesis for this research. frequencies table 1: student class frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid masters 89 46.8 46.8 46.8 bachelors 101 53.2 53.2 100.0 total 190 100.0 100.0 table 1 shows that in whole sample, 46.8% respondents were master’s students while 53.2% were bachelor’s students. in other words out of 190 students 89 were doing masters and 101 were bachelor’s students. table 2: student gender frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid male 62 32.6 32.6 32.6 female 128 67.4 67.4 100.0 total 190 100.0 100.0 above table 2 shows that in whole sample, 32.6% respondents were male and 67.4% were female. in other words out of 190 respondents 62 were male and 128 were female. in our research, the proportion of female respondents was greater than male. table 3: student's father education frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid no education 8 4.2 4.2 4.2 primary 27 14.2 14.2 18.4 secondary 48 25.3 25.3 43.7 higher secondary 53 27.9 27.9 71.6 other 54 28.4 28.4 100.0 total 190 100.0 100.0 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 92 table 3 shows that in our research study, fathers of 4.2% respondents have no education, 14.2% have primary level education, 25.3% have secondary, 27.9% have higher secondary and 28.4%were included in other category. in other words out of 190 respondents fathers of 8 respondents have no education, 27 have primary, 48 have secondary, 53 have higher secondary and 54 are in other category. table 4: student's father occupation frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid private sector employee 31 16.3 16.3 16.3 public sector employee 56 29.5 29.5 45.8 self-employed entrepreneur 50 26.3 26.3 72.1 table 4 shows that in our sample of research, fathers of 16.3% respondents are private sector employee, 29.5% are in public sector, 26.3% are self-employed, 15.8% are retired, 3.2% are unemployed and 8.9% are in other category. table 5: student's residence frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid |urban 109 57.4 57.4 57.4 rural 81 42.6 42.6 100.0 total 190 100.0 100.0 table 5 shows that in whole sample, 57.4% respondents are residents of urban areas and 42.6% are of rural areas. in other words out of 190 respondents 109 are living in urban areas and 81 are in rural areas. khadija, m., et al., entrepreneurial attributes, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 93 data analysis and interpretation descriptive statistics descriptive analysis table 6: descriptive analysis n mean std. deviation efficiency and commitment 190 3.4638 .55330 self-efficacy 190 3.5649 .50906 entrepreneurial inclination 190 3.5842 .61949 valid n (leastwise) 190 above table 6 shows that the mean of efficiency and commitment is 3.4638, mean of self-efficacy is 3.5649 and entrepreneurial inclination mean’s is 3.5842. comparison of mean table 7: entrepreneurial inclination * student class student class mean n std. deviation minimum maximum masters 3.4708 89 .65108 1.70 4.80 bachelors 3.6842 101 .57511 2.00 4.80 total 3.5842 190 .61949 1.70 4.80 it is evident from the above table 7 that there is no significant influence of student class upon dependent variable entrepreneurial inclination because both masters and bachelors have same mean 3.4708 and 3.6842 respectively. table 8: entrepreneurial inclination * student gender student gender mean n std. deviation minimum maximum male 3.5839 62 .67755 1.70 4.80 female 3.5844 128 .59213 1.90 4.80 total 3.5842 190 .61949 1.70 4.80 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 94 it is evident from above table 8 that both male and female are equally inclined toward entrepreneurship. because the mean of male 3.5839 is almost similar to female mean 3.5844. table 9: entrepreneurial inclination * student's father education student's father occupation mean n std. deviation minimum maximum no education 3.7500 8 .83495 2.30 4.70 primary 3.2556 27 .64411 1.90 4.60 secondary 3.6146 48 .61298 1.90 4.60 higher secondary 3.5358 53 .68052 1.70 4.70 other 3.7444 54 .44368 2.80 4.80 total 3.5842 190 .61949 1.70 4.80 it is evident from the above table 9 that students whose fathers have no education and those whose education is in other category are more inclined towards entrepreneurship and those respondents whose fathers have secondary and higher secondary are equally inclined. respondents whose fathers have primary education are least inclined as compared to others. table 10: entrepreneurial inclination * student's father occupation student's father occupation mean n std. deviation minimum maximum private sector employee 3.5968 31 .47643 2.80 4.40 public sector employee 3.4839 56 .65886 1.70 4.60 self-employed entrepreneur 3.7280 50 .59420 2.20 4.80 retired 3.4233 30 .60611 1.90 4.30 unemployed 3.4167 6 .82805 2.30 4.50 other 3.8118 17 .66321 1.90 4.60 total 3.5842 190 .61949 1.70 4.80 khadija, m., et al., entrepreneurial attributes, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 95 it is evident from the above table 10 that respondents whose fathers’ occupation is in other category are more inclined towards entrepreneurship because its mean is highest as compared to others. students whose fathers are public sector employee, private sector employee and are retired are equally inclined towards entrepreneurship because their mean is nearly the same. table 11: entrepreneurial inclination * student's residence student's residence mean n std. deviation minimum maximum urban 3.6413 109 .64982 1.90 4.80 rural 3.5074 81 .57113 1.70 4.80 total 3.5842 190 .61949 1.70 4.80 it is evident from the above table 11 that the categories of both respondents living in rural and urban areas are equally inclined towards entrepreneurship because the mean of both categories is nearly same inferential statistics reliability analysis table 12: reliability statistics cronbach's alpha n of items .797 29 table 4 data tells us that 190 respondents were used in the calculation of cronbach’s alpha. the obtained alpha score is 0.797 which indicates that the scale has good internal consistency (reliability). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 96 correlation table 13: correlations efficiency and commitment selfefficacy entrepreneurial inclination efficiency and commitment pearson correlation 1 .503** .500** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 n 190 190 190 self-efficacy pearson correlation .503** 1 .479** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 n 190 190 190 entrepreneuria l inclination pearson correlation .500** .479** 1 sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 n 190 190 190 * correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). h1: there is a significant positive correlation between ‘efficiency and commitment’ and entrepreneurial inclination. table 13 indicates that there is positive correlation (r: 0.500) between ‘efficiency and commitment’ and entrepreneurial inclination which is also significant at 0.000 level. therefore we accept the h1. h2: there is a significant positive correlation between selfefficacy and entrepreneurial inclination. table 13 indicates that there is positive correlation (r: 0.479) between self-efficacy and entrepreneurial inclination which is also significant at 0.000 level. therefore we accept the h2. regression h3: ‘self-efficacy’ and ‘efficiency and commitment’ significantly explain the variance in entrepreneurial inclination. khadija, m., et al., entrepreneurial attributes, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 97 table 14: model summaryb model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate durbinwatson 1 .565a .319 .312 .51378 1.829 a predictors: (constant), self-efficacy, efficiency and commitment b dependent variable: entrepreneurial inclination table 15: anovab model sum of squares df mean square f sig. 1 regression 23.170 2 11.585 43.888 .000a residual 49.363 187 .264 total 72.533 189 a predictors: (constant), self-efficacy, efficiency and commitment b dependent variable: entrepreneurial inclination the results in table 14 indicate that there is a positive correlation (r: 0.565) between the independent variables (‘self-efficacy’ and ‘efficiency and commitment’) and the dependent variable i.e. entrepreneurial inclination. the value of durbin-watson statistic (1.829) also falls within the acceptance range therefore indicating that there is no autocorrelation among the variables being studied. similarly the anova table 15 shows that the f-statistic value of 43.888 is significant at 0.000 level. therefore we accept h3. table 16: coefficientsa model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients b std. error beta t sig. i (constant) .917 .290 3.166 .002 efficiency and commitment .389 .078 .347 4.975 .000 self-efficacy .370 .085 .304 4.362 .000 a) dependent variable: entrepreneurial inclination journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 98 table 16 indicates the value for adjusted r square (0.319) which shows that the independent variables (‘self-efficacy’ and ‘efficiency and commitment’) explain 31.9% of variance in entrepreneurial inclination. similarly the beta values for both efficiency and commitment (0.347) and self-efficacy (0.304) are significant at 0.000 and 0.000 levels. it can also be observed that among the two independent variables being studied the variable efficiency and commitment has a greater influence on entrepreneurial inclination as it has the highest standardized beta coefficient (β=0.347) which is also significant at 0.000 level. discussion and conclusion our research reveals that positive entrepreneurial attributes are present among majority of university students. the characteristics of selfefficacy has more influenced on entrepreneurial inclinations than efficiency and commitment. there was a partial effect of students’ father education on his/her entrepreneurial attributes. the demographic variables such as gender, class and father occupation, residence has no significant effect on students’ entrepreneurial attributes. action implications entrepreneurship has been found to be vital part of economy and it is main driver of economy in the whole world. entrepreneurship provides self-sufficiency and in this changing environment of the world the knowledge of entrepreneurship has a great importance. in pakistan, there is strong need of increasing entrepreneurial activities. in pakistan, entrepreneurial development is not yet fully developed. in this university the authorities should pay strong attention for the development of entrepreneurial activities. the entrepreneurial attributes can be increased by offering certain courses which helps in increasing entrepreneurial attributes. so, such courses should be introduced which encourage entrepreneurship. government of pakistan has indicated that very less percentage of students get an appropriate job after their graduation. now-a-days a majority of unemployed people are either master or bachelor degree holders. entrepreneurship creates wealth for the nations and boosts up the economy. so, the entrepreneurial education should be made compulsory. khadija, m., et al., entrepreneurial attributes, jwe (2012, no. 3-4, 86-101) 99 this research will be helpful for the future researchers and it will increase the research works. other countries have developed their economy through entrepreneurial education. so, it should also be developed in our country with the support and help of government. references [1] bandura, a. 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(2005). the mediating role of selfefficacy in the development of entrepreneurial intentions. journal of applied psychology, 90(6), 1265-1272. preduzetnički atributi postdiplomaca sa univerziteta u pakistanu a p s t r a k t ovo istraživanje ispituje preduzetničke osobine studenata univerziteta u sargodhi. glavni zadatak je bio da se istraže preduzetničke osobine diplomiranih studenata. dve stotine studenata iz različitih fakulteta su vratili popunjene upitnike. da bi se povećala reprezentativnost, bio je izabran slučajni uzorak. rezultat istraživanja je pokazao da su samoefikasnost, posvećenost i preduzetničke sklonosti bili najvažniji faktori i da večina studenata poseduje osobine za preduzetništvo. međutim, demografski faktori imaju slabi uticaj na preduzetničke atribute. preduzetnički atributi mogu biti unapređeni kroz određene kurseve koji pomažu u usavršavanju preduzetničkih osobina. ključne reći: preduzetnički atributi, studenti, postdiplomci, pakistan article history: received: 23 june, 2011 revised: 27 august, 2012 accepted: 30 september, 2012 microsoft word 09_jwe_1-2.doc the universal basic education (ube) programme and women entrepreneurship in science and technology: a catalyst for enhancing female participation in national development j.b. bilesanmi-awoderu*, o.o. kalesanwo** * department of curriculum studies and instructional technology, faculty of education, olabisi onabanjo university, ago-iwoye, ogun state, nigeria, e-mail: bukkybille@yahoo.com ** department of sports sciences and health education, facultz of education, olabisi onabanjo university, ago-iwoye, ogun state, nigeria, e-mail: kalepay@yahoo.com a r t i c l e i n f o article history: received 18 december 2008 accepted 10 april 2009 jel: i2, l26, 01 k e y w o r d s: entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurship, women scientists, socio-cultural perspectives, nigeria a b s t r a c t this paper discussed how ube programme could be used to promote women entrepreneurship in science and technology with the resultant effect of enhance female scientists’ participation in national development in nigeria. relevant literature on – ube programme, entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurship and women scientists were thoroughly reviewed. militating factors against women scientists’ entrepreneurship in nigeria were established. based on these factors, suggestions for encouraging and promoting women scientists’ entrepreneurship were suggested. amongst are: encouragement of female education in science and technology, socio-cultural perspectives, proper networking of successful women in science and technology in order to serve as mentor to others. j.b. bilesanmi-awoderu, o.o. kalesanwo / jwe 1-2 (2009) 72-87 73 introduction the idea of ube started from the world conference on education for all (efa) which was held in jomtian, thailand from 5th-9th march, 1990. the conference was organized by the world bank, undp, unesco and unicef; came up with a document entitled “world declaration on education for all and framework for action to meet basic learning needs”. since this placement became a sort of blueprint for all countries of the world, nigeria cannot afford to be an on-looker. hence, in nigeria, the universal basic education (ube) programme was launched formally by the president, chief olusegun obasanjo on 30th september, 1999. the programme is expected to be universal, free and compulsory in public primary and junior secondary schools. ube (2004) documented that ube programme is a-nine year basic educational programme which has the intention of eradicating illiteracy, ignorance and poverty as well as stimulating and accelerating national development, political consciousness and national integration. tahir (2002) opines that the overall aim of ube is to make basic education accessible to all target groups. oyewobi (2000) viewed the ube programme as a double-edgedsword which in the first instance is directed towards producing qualified boys and girls who are capable of going to higher schools and colleges to be trained for various services that the country needs for development. in another token, he also submitted that it could be seen as a programme designed to help those who could not go to higher schools and colleges to become good and intelligent citizens who would assist in developing the communities. according to okiy (2004) the introduction to ube programme is seen as a catalyst which will result in greater female participation in national development. she went further to opine that the scheme sets out specifically to redress the gender imbalance which has been evident in the nigerian educational landscape. the objectives of the ube programme are as presented: 1. developing in the entire citizenry a strong consciousness for education and strong commitment to the vigorous promotion. 2. the provision of free universal basic education for every nigerian child of school going age. 3. reducing drastically the incidence of dropout from the formal school system (through improved relevance, quality, and efficiency). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 72-87 74 4. catering for the learning needs of young persons who, for one reason or another, have had to interrupt their schooling through appropriate forms of complementary approaches to the provision and promotion for life-long learning. the factors for ensuring the achievement of the objectives are as follows: a) public enlightenment and social mobilization, for full community involvement. b) data collection and analysis. c) planning, monitoring, evaluation. d) teachers: their recruitment, education, training, retraining, motivation. e) infrastructural facilities. f) enriched curricular g) textbooks and instructional materials. h) improved funding and, i) management of the entire process. justifying the need for basic education, denga (2000) opines that basic education goes beyond literacy and numeracy. he further states that it embraces all kinds of basic knowledge and skills necessary for an individual to live a useful and contended life. hence, he suggested that children must be encouraged to develop a scientific outlook and rudimentary understanding of the natural and social environment. the role of women in national development cannot be overemphasized. also, the place of science and technology is central to national advancement. no doubt, a country’s level of scientific and technological advancement dictates the life style and future of her citizenry. this assertion made wambusu (2005) to opine that science-led development is one of the major strategies in the war against what seems to be the african region’s endless hunger, poverty and ill-health. in addition, increased focus on formal and informal education, new technology, empowerment of women, gender and sustainable development will undoubtedly bring the developing world closer to the developed world and reduce the huge economic gap (naugah 2003). the role of science in the advancement of human beings in issues relating to public health, water, infrastructure, energy, food, security, environment and development is a prominent one. it stands to reason j.b. bilesanmi-awoderu, o.o. kalesanwo / jwe 1-2 (2009) 72-87 75 therefore that as the world’s development becomes increasingly driven by and the pace also dictated by science and technology, no country can afford to be passive, nigeria inclusive, standing on the premise that the national policy on education (fgn 2004:30) which is the major education policy in nigeria provides for every citizen irrespective of sex, age, race, religion and location to have an intellectual understanding of the increasing complexity of science and technology, coupled with the fact that women constitute more than half of the world population (unicef 1998). it is therefore imperative that such a formidable group be fully integrated in the moving wheel of high technology (bilesanmi-awoderu 2005). the focus of the society then should involve development that would take into consideration all segments of the population, women inclusive. women as a person and also as an agent of development has as much right to science and technology as the man. in line with this, unesco (1995) has documented the paramount and urgent need for education girls/women in african countries. it is in this context that promoting women’s role in science and technology with a view to empowering them and promoting entrepreneurial development for women scientists, engineers and technologists becomes a big issue. the unido’s regional typology studies on the role of women in manufacturing have revealed empirical evidence that women’s paid employment and, in particular, their participation in industrial department, improves their quality of life, literacy and life expectancy, while decreasing their fertility rate. remunerative employment opportunities as well as entrepreneurship also enable women to fight poverty. (unido, 2001). the concept of entrepreneurship entrepreneurship is the practice of starting new organizations, particularly new businesses. entrepreneurship is often a difficult undertaking, as a majority of new business fail. entrepreneurial activities are substantially different depending on the type of organization that is being started (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/entrepreneurship). entrepreneurship can also be shortly defined as the willingness to take the risks involved in starting and managing a business. www.turnerlearning.com/efts/bball/econglos.htm. in the same vein, an except from the web page: http://bus.colorado.edu/faculty/meyer/6700syl.htm, documents that the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 72-87 76 entrepreneurship center at miami university of ohio defines entrepreneurship as the process of identifying, developing, and bringing a vision to life. the vision in this context may be an innovative idea, an opportunity or simply a better way to do something. the end result of this process is therefore the creation of a new venture, formed under conditions of risk and considerable uncertainty. according to di-masi (2002), considerable effort has gone into trying to understand the psychological and sociological wellsprings of entrepreneurship. these studies noted some common characteristics among entrepreneurs with respect to need for achievement, perceived locus of control, orientation toward intuitive rather than sensate thinking, and risktaking propensity. in addition, many have commented upon the common, but not universal, thread of childhood deprivation, minority group membership and early adolescent economic experiences as ty-pifying the entrepreneur. still on the uniqueness/qualities of entrepreneurs, di-mass (2002) listed the following as characteristics of the entrepreneurs: ─ self-confident and multi-skilled. the person who can ‘make the product, market it and count the money, but above all they have the confidence that lets them move comfortably through unchartered water’. ─ confident in the face of difficulties and discouraging circumstances. ─ innovative skills. not an “inventor” in the traditional sense but one who is able to carve out a new niche in the market place, often invisible to others. ─ result-oriented. to be successful requires the drive that only comes from setting goals and targets and getting pleasure from achieving them. ─ a risk-taker. to succeed means taking measured risks. often the successful entrepreneur exhibits and increment approach to risk taking, at each stage exposing him/herself to only a limited, measured amount of personal risk and moving from one stage to another as each decision is proved. ─ total commitment. hard work, energy and single-mindedness are essential elements in the entrepreneurial profile. classification of enterprises is based on the kind or scale of activity and income: j.b. bilesanmi-awoderu, o.o. kalesanwo / jwe 1-2 (2009) 72-87 77 a) survival enterprise (mostly for poor and low income women) generally involved in traditional business activity at the survival level: these could include handcrafts, food-processing, tailoring, vending, etc. for this reason some people do not consider these women to be “entrepreneurial”. b) micro enterprise (mostly for poor, low and middle income women). c) small enterprise (mostly for middle and higher-middle income women) (ilo 2002). women entrepreneurship women entrepreneurship is a contemporary issue of international concern. this is borne out of the fact that women empowerment is central to human development and national advancement. ensuring or enhancing women empowerment is the business of everybody in the society. empowerment of women entails a process of building their resource capability and skills for leadership-rights and meaningful participation in all spheres of the society (erinosho 2005). women entrepreneurs represent a group of women who have broken away from the beaten track and are exploring new avenues of economic participation. (dhameja, 2002). he further advanced reasoning for women to run organized enterprises as their skill and knowledge, their talents and abilities in business and compelling desire of wanting to do something positive. hence, if women are not marginalized and as much are actively involved in the mainstream of the national economy, it is likely that the economy becomes more stable and buoyant and consequently reduces much witnessed current economic problems. the need to develop women’s entrepreneurship was emphasized in beijing (1995) at the fourth world conference on women. the objectives are to: ─ increase the participation of women in industry and all other sectors, particularly in the non-traditional areas, through access to advanced technologies. ─ promote, support and strengthen female entrepreneurship development. ─ encourage investments in environmentally safe products and in environmentally sound and productive agricultural, fisheries commercial and industrial activities and technologies; and journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 72-87 78 ─ strengthen training opportunities for women. however, united nations economic commission for europe (2003) reported that women entrepreneurs are less numerous than men. that is, only 9% of employed women are entrepreneur, in the czech republic as compared to 8.8% of men. the situation is similar in hungary (women 9.6% and men 18%) as well as romania ,through the proportion of selfemployed women is higher due to the larger share of self-employed in agriculture (women – 17.4% and men – 32.6%). the gender gap in entrepreneurship is even higher in shovakia and slovenia where women’s share is respectively 4.1% (men – 10.9%) and 6.5% (men – 15.3%). most scientists during their formal training. (http://westorg/aboutwest/) women entrepreneurs in science and technology (west) organization, an organization for women in science and technology documents the following as its vision: ─ women in science and technology should become influential role models and learn to improve the worldwide problems of poverty, health and economic growth. ─ women have demonstrated their competence in science and technology but lack recognition and influence proportional to their talents and achievements. ─ west provides women and men an opportunity to leave a legacy by connecting others who are invested in sharing their expertise to improve the status of women create a more egalitarian world. the mission of women entrepreneurs in science and technology is to advance women in science and technology to achieve successful recognition as contributors and leaders through entrepreneurial thinking. this is clearly stated as: ─ women who develop entrepreneurial skills are better suited to positions of leadership and impact. ─ women in science and technology who develop entrepreneurial thinking will be to better align their talents with business requirements to improve business performance. ─ women can apply entrepreneurial thinking to the company environment to become intrapreneurial leader (who increase business, profits, revenue and the creation of products). ─ women who think entrepreneurially can become better scientists and engineers. j.b. bilesanmi-awoderu, o.o. kalesanwo / jwe 1-2 (2009) 72-87 79 every nation has her teething problems in the implementation of ube. some of these problems have almost defied solutions in our educational system. denga (2003) acknowledged that the following problems bedeviled the 9 year ube programme in nigeria: inappropriate funding. irregular payment of teachers’ salaries, provision and maintenance of infrastructural facilities like buildings, equipment and instructional materials, poor supervision and monitoring of the programme, no clear-cut of investment on the part of the parents, private schools and dearth of statistics on children’s enrolment, number of teachers etc. he then proffered the following as solutions to the problems: ─ provision of appropriate data banks for effective planning. ─ provision of guidance services to both the students and their parents for behavioural change of attitudes towards government/public schools. ─ government to encourage healthy partnership between them and other educational agencies in order to tackle educational funding. ─ ube should adopt a two-fold approach i.e one for school-age children and street children and the other phase for adult literacy and continuing education to acquire and develop basic skills in family management, civic participation and citizenship education. ─ educational experts, government educational institutions and non-government educational agencies should sensitize and encourage government and private sectors to demand commitment and sincerity of purpose in the implementation of the ube so that old educational problems will not appear as new problems again. ube and women entrepreneurship in science and technology the ube is a scheme which is expected to keep girls in school compulsorily for nine years with an attendant prosecution for parents and or guardians who flouts the law. the girls would then have an equal opportunity for access and participation as the boys in principle and practice. the ube is also expected to be free; hence, girls who would have hitherto been denied access for financial incapabilities would have the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 72-87 80 opportunity of schooling. with the ube programme in full swing and properly implemented, it is expected that nigeria’s literacy rate estimated to be 52 percents by babalola (2000) in eya (2000) would increase. this expectation informed the submission of eva (2000) where he posited that since the ube programme is an expression of the strong desire of government to reinforce participatory democracy in nigeria by raising the level of awareness and general education of the entire citizenry female exclusive, everything necessary should be done for the successful implementation of the programme. the focus on universal basic education therefore, as a potent factor for encouraging women entrepreneurship especially in science and technology with a view to making it a catalyst for enhancing female participation in national development can be said to be worthwhile. this is borne out of the fact that females could better be encouraged right from the primary through junior secondary school so that proper monitoring, mentoring and mainstreaming could be done with a resultant effect of more females being involved in schooling and even more so, opting for the sciences and consequently being involved in women entrepreneurship in science and technology. this is our thesis. factors discouraging women scientist’ entrepreneurship these factors are discussed in this paper as they relate to societal norms, funding, lack of information, low skill acquisition, lack of mentors, lack of supporting networks and low level of encouragement from spouses and families. these factors include: a) socio-cultural factor: a major point to note here is the fact that in nigeria, many women during the socialization process were not given enough opportunity, freedom and wherewithal to develop adequate and appropriate skills that can enable them have entrepreneurial competency. this is essentially inherent in the much created gender-related limitations which has the tendency to relegate women/females to the background. b) finance: poor finances and lack of adequate funds for starting enterprises are a serious problem to women entrepreneurs. women generally are poor for lack of funds and as such do not have enough financial backing to start a good business or sustain an existing one. in this context, carter (2000) in the web page: j.b. bilesanmi-awoderu, o.o. kalesanwo / jwe 1-2 (2009) 72-87 81 http://curopa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/entrepreneurship/craft/craf t-studies/documents/womenentrepreneurs.pdf identified four areas of financing that previous researches have noted can pose particular problem for women to be that women are disadvantaged in their ability to raise start-up finance: guarantees required for external finance may be beyond the scope of most women’s personal assets and credit track record, once a business is established, finance may be more difficult for female entrepreneurs to raise than for their male counterparts, because of the greater difficulties that women face in penetrating informal financial networks and the relationship between female entrepreneurs and bankers may suffer from sexual stereotyping and discrimination. as such, majority of women business owners rely to a significant extent on selfgenerated finance during the start up period of their business. c) lack/poor access to market information: usually educated women are not many in nigeria. literacy level is still at the low rate in the country. as such, many market information that could have been beneficial and in essence enhance better productivity elude the women. most are ignorant of market trends concerning costing, pricing etc and consequently could not benefit maximally from readings of price movements and fluctuations. d) lack/poor technological know-how: low educational status of most women does not allow very many of them to have the opportunity of being technologically sound. many technical skills that could hitherto have assisted to ensure successful enterprise and appropriate production techniques and product diversification are not possessed by many women. for this reason, it is almost impossible for them to be relevant in the current technological changes and the globalization of production. e) poor networking/linkage: women are not properly connected. many as noted earlier are poor, uneducated and unconnected. as such, good networking or linkage for support services even when available may be beyond the reach of the women. f) mainstreaming into arts-related courses/paucity of women scientists entrepreneurs: during schooling, many girls were journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 72-87 82 not encouraged into the sciences for reasons ranging from perception of sciences as male’s domain, teachers attitude, societal belief and students’ lack of interest. as such, not many of women scientists’ could be produced. this consequently would in turn decrease the number of women scientists engaging in establishing business/enterprises as entrepreneurs. g) fear of losing out: in nigeria, women are largely responsible for household keeps such as food, water, clothing and often times their children’s education. as such they are usually afraid to invest their hard earned and much needed income into businesses or enterprises for fear of failure. h) unfavourable conditions/policies: it is obvious that many of the conditions for obtaining loans do not necessarily favour women. the conditions are usually stricter for women than for men. this indicates gender discrimination in possession of capital for establishing enterprises/businesses. even when policies are formulated to disabuse this gender differences, the effect in practice is yet to be noticed. this view is documented by unido 2001 where it was recorded that even in mali, women entrepreneurs are faced with strong barriers to enterprise development in the prevailing laws and regulations. it further noted that obtaining licenses, registering the business in their own name, and applying for loans were nightmares they had to live with. i) lack of mentors: it is pertinent to note that women have not gotten many mentors that they could look up to in the area of entrepreneurship. as such, they have constraints venturing into areas that they do not know familiar females that have succeeded along that line. in the words of west, woman scientists lack business issues in their industries and also they do not have easy access to mentors and role models. j) lack/low level of encouragement from spouses: men, generally enjoy to be the breadwinner of the household. they most of the time would not want their wives to be economically buoyant and independent. as such, they are not likely to encourage their wives to start businesses/enterprises that may make them economically buoyant. j.b. bilesanmi-awoderu, o.o. kalesanwo / jwe 1-2 (2009) 72-87 83 suggestions for encouraging or promoting women scientists’ entrepreneurship against this backdrop, the paper offers suggestions for encouraging and promoting women scientists’ entrepreneurship with a view to enhancing female participation in national development. these are presented based on previous report, research findings, and suggestions of notable researchers. specifically, unido 2001 and ilo (2002) documented essential suggestions for encouraging women entrepreneurs. the investigators contend that all things being equal, the suggestions could be of great importance in the nigerian context. the suggestions are as presented a) social cultural prospects: with the universal basic education and other various intervention strategies being put in place by all the three tiers of government, to educate parents and the society at large, it is expected that enabling environment would be provided for both sexes so that during socialization process, there would be no gender gaps created. male and female alike would be given the opportunity to acquire needed skills for entrepreneurial competency. b) female awareness campaign and sensitization workshops/seminars: there is an urgent need for awareness and sensitization workshops to be organized by women organizations, associations, government gender agencies and units, non-governmental agencies and allied organizations to educate the women scientists’ entrepreneurs of the new opportunities/developments at hand that could enable them overcome constraints and enhance the starting business/enterprise. such examples could be got from organizations such as women entrepreneurs in science and technology (west) which is an organization for women in science and technology who want to become innovative leaders in their professions and enhance their career development. it promotes women with role models, programs and a community that provides opportunities for learning while fostering an entrepreneurial mindset. as a solution strategy, thinking take risks, learn how to solve problems in compelling new ways and led others to success. in specific terms, the federal government journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 72-87 84 of nigeria should adopt an entrepreneurial culture among potential women and entrepreneurs and among youth in general, as the future entrepreneurs. c) improvement in the policy/legal frame-work: there is the urgent need to improve on the existing policies and legal framework in a manner that would practically reach a satisfactory level so as to encourage the female entrepreneurs. for instance, the unido (2001) teams have observed that although most governments have been introducing new genderspecific laws of a general nature, gender issues were not considered in all the other laws of relevance to women’s entrepreneurship development. it has also been observed that many support institutions were not aware of the gender-specific constraints of women entrepreneurs and therefore unable to address them adequately when providing the necessary services. d) encouraging female education in science and technology: more females should be encouraged to study science and technology in schools and colleges. with this, they could gain access to know-how, technologies, appropriate and adequate skills, training to upgrade their technical capabilities and their entrepreneurial and business skills whether in artisan production or in high-tech industries. e) encouraging women scientists’ networking: women scientists have to be encouraged to be appropriately connected. networking is vital to the women’s ability to access information, technology, markets and raw materials relevant to the development, sustainability or expansion of their business. as such, women networking nationality and internationally should be adequately facilitated. successful women scientists’ entrepreneurs should be encouraged to share their experiences, counsel on problems and encourage on prospects with upcoming women scientists. f) fund/finance: the federal government of nigeria should provide adequate funds in form of soft loans for prospective women scientists’ entrepreneurs to start-up business/enterprises and or progress in their business. she can borrow a leaf from what obtains in sweden who created a regional resources centres for women finance by the swedish business, development, agency, which is a prowomen j.b. bilesanmi-awoderu, o.o. kalesanwo / jwe 1-2 (2009) 72-87 85 member. the centre aim to make women’s competence more visible in society, to help them set up business and in particular to increase their participation in the labour force in nontraditional, high-tech fields. http:90i.cordis.in/article.cfm?article=1039&lang=en. conclusion in this paper, an attempt has been made to highlight the need for women entrepreneurs in science and technology in nigeria with a view to providing this through effective implementation of the ube programme. it has been documented that if women are not marginalized and as such are actively involved in the mainstream of the national economy, it is likely that the economy becomes more stable and buoyant and consequently reduce much witnessed current problems. however, the factors discouraging women entrepreneurship in nigeria are discussed. these factors include socio-cultural factor, finance, lack/poor access to market information; lack/poor technological know how, poor networking/linkage. other are mainstreaming into arts related courses, fear of losing out, unfavourable conditions, lack of mentors and lack/how level of encouragement form spouses. against this backdrop, this paper offers suggestions for encouraging and promoting women scientists’ entrepreneurship. these include sociocultural prospect, female awareness campaign and sensitization workshops, improvement in the policy/legal framework, encouraging female education in science and technology and provision of adequate fund. in addition, networking should be encouraged where in successful women scientists’ entrepreneurs could share their experiences, counsel on problems and encourage on prospects. it can therefore be projected that if the ube programme is well implemented with all the solutions suggested taken and effected, it is possible for nigeria and indeed africa to achieve basic education for all as a reality and not a myth and even moreso, for women especially in the area of women entrepreneurship in science and technology and consequent higher participation in national development. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education 1-2 (2009) 72-87 86 references bilesanmi-awoderu, j. b. (2005). what do nigerian female professionals do with the computer? proceedings of the 13th international conference of women engineers and scientists (icwes) held in seoul, south korea from august 26th – 29th, 2005. carter c. (2000). young women, ethnic minority and co-entrepreneurs ceedr, middlesex university: final report. available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/entrepreneuship/craft/craftstudies/documents /womenentrepreneurs.pdf. definition of entrepreneurship (2002).available at: http://bus.colorado.edu/faculty/meyer/6700syl.htm. definition of entrepreneurship (2002). available at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/entrepreneurship. definition of entrepreneurship (2002). available at: www.turnerlearningcom/efts/bbill/econglos.htm. denga, d.i. (2003). evolving a new education culture: the universal basic education focus. international journal of research in basic & life-long education. 1(1&2): 1-6. dhameja, s. k. (2002) women entrepreneurs: opportunities, performance and problems. new delhi: vedams books from india. di-masi, p. (2002) defining entrepreneurship. available at: http:www.gdrc.org/icm/micro/define-micro.html. erionsho, s. y. (2005). women and science 36th inaugural lecture, olabisi onabanjo university, ago-iwoye. european innovation (2003) http:90i.cordis.lu/article.cfm?article=1039&lay=en. eya, p. (2000). basic education. international journal of research in basic & lifelong education. 1(1&2 dec.):350-356. federal government of nigeria (2004) national policy on education, lagos: nerdc press. international labour organisation (ilo) (2002): entrepreneurship development for women. available at: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/asro/bangkok/paper/manutia.htm. nauga, j, (2003). speech for the opening ceremony at the 11th international conference of gender and science and technology (gasat) held in mauritius from 6th – 11th , 2003. okiy, r.b. (2004). the universal basic education (ube) programme and the development of school libraries in nigeria: a catalyst for greater female participation in national development information development 20(1) &43-50. oyewobi, g. o. (2000). towards a realistic universal basic education in nigeria. being a paper presented at conference organized by national institute for educational planning and administration (niepa). held in ondo, nigeria between 30th and 31st may, 2000. j.b. bilesanmi-awoderu, o.o. kalesanwo / jwe 1-2 (2009) 72-87 87 tahir, g. (2002). the universal basic education proggramme and the nigeria universities. paper presented at the 30th anniversary of the department of education. bayero university, kano, 19th october, pp. 1-18. unicef, (1998) nigeria: gender and development and sensitization in nigeria afro-orbs publications ltd. usukka. united nations economic commission for europe (2003). bridging the gender gap in entrepreneurship in eastern europe and cls. http://www.unece.org/press/pr2003/03ireedd p/oe.htm. united nations industrial development organisation (unido) (2001). women entrepreneurship development in selected african countries: private sector development branch. investment promotion and institutional capacity-building division. universal basic education commission ubec (2004). basic information on universal basic education, abuja, nigeria. women entrepreneurs in science and technology (west) http://westorg.org/about west/. 20_jwee_12 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.12.pp125-141 jel: i21, i23 original scientific paper the dark triad in helping professions – comparison of teachers and pedagogy students radka čopková1 technical university of košice, department of engineering education, košice, slovak republic a b s t r a c t the presented research is the part of a broader pilot study within exploration of the dark side of helping professionals; in this case we are focusing on current teachers and future teachers (pedagogy students). the aim of the current research was the exploration and comparison of the aversive personality traits that are inappropriate for performing helping professions. it is the concept called dark triad that includes machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy at their subclinical level. the dark triad has been explored in the sample of 172 participants (mage=34,3 years; sd=10,7) including 72 teachers (42,9%) and 100 pedagogy students (57,1%). we have used slovak version of the short dark triad questionnaire (sd3; jones & paulhus, 2014) which includes machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy subscales. the data were processed in spss 21 via analysis of variance (anova). significant differences in machiavellianism were found among current teachers and future teachers, students were scoring higher. machiavellianism was identified as the most significant dark trait compared to narcissism and psychopathy in both samples. the results are not so surprising as teaching profession seems to provide opportunities to satisfy people´s needs for power, dominant status, authority and obtaining benefits from the others. for further intervention it is necessary to find a way how to deal with machiavellian 1 address: němcovej 32, košice, slovakia, e-mail: radka.copkova@tuke.sk 126 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 125-141) people in the educational system who could influence their student´s personal and professional development. key words: dark triad, machiavellianism, narcissism, pedagogy students, psychopathy, teachers introduction the work of a helping professional is based on the interaction of the professional and the client. the aim of this interaction is to promote growth; solve personal, physical, psychological or intellectual problems; and to improve or optimize clients´ condition in many ways (graf, sator & spranzforgasy, 2014). the helping professionals, whose main task is caring for other people, are doctors, nurses, educators, social workers, and psychologists. in general, these professions have one central core characteristic – to help others. as reported by kopřiva and šiklová (2000) the personality is the main tool of the worker in these kinds of professions. this fact makes it quite difficult to carry out such work on a psychological or physical level and the consequent psychological consequences. it is also well known how the personality of a helping professional should look like – empathetic, client oriented, credible, responsible, sociable, creative, tolerant, flexible. naturally, one expects that, only people whose personalities really meet listed traits will choose the work of helping professional. however, the practice shows the rule is not always applied. as helping professions are based on asymmetrical relationship among worker and client, there is a big opportunity for worker to misuse his or her position in this relationship. and that is the reason why even people with pathological personalities choose helping professions as their calling. teaching profession also offers some space for implementing even the aversive personal tendencies. a teacher has the power, is in the center of attention as an authority with dominant status who is admired by students, sets rules and the way of its following, punishes and rewards students. according to kasáčová (2004) there are 3 categories of personality traits required from a good teacher: − personal – self-esteem, creativity, self-worth, purposefulness, responsibility, emotional stability, patience, flexibility, tameness, optimism, conscientiousness, decisiveness, predictability; čopková, r., dark triad in helping professions, jwee (2020, no. 125-141) 127 − social – communicability, sociability, tolerance, acceptance of others, empathy, respect to others, friendliness, sense of humor, justice, pro-sociability, tactfulness; − ethical – altruism, congruency, honesty, self-sacrifice, consistency, straightness. the aim of the current research was the exploration and comparison of the aversive personality traits that are inappropriate for performing helping professions, teaching profession as well. the explored concept is called dark triad and includes machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy traits at their subclinical level. in presented research we have focused on those three aversive personality dimensions and their incidence in the population of teachers who currently perform their work at schools and pedagogy students as potential future teaching professionals and potential threat for school environment. the dark triad each of us has both good and bad qualities, each of them varies from the weakest to the strongest on the continuous spectrum. research has a long-standing tradition of exploring the personality structure, for example, through the big five concept, which reflects the desirable aspects of personality. many researchers have not dealt with the fact that to some extent each of us also has the darker aspects of personality. nevertheless, it has always been a challenge to draw a line between "normal and abnormal" personality (furnham et al., 2013). the difference between clinical and subclinical personality is that the clinical sample includes individuals who must be under clinical or forensic supervision because their personality structure affects their environment or themselves. on the other hand, the subclinical level of a personality traits points to its context in the wider population. the concept of paulhus and williams from 2002 caused a great interest in studying the subpathological features of personality. the dark triad is a concept involving three aversive features of a personality that share a tendency to be insensitive, selfish and malevolent in interpersonal relationships machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. these three features are also conceptualized as a socially malevolent character with behavioural tendencies to promote themselves, emotional coldness, insincerity and aggressiveness. it should be emphasized that these are 128 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 125-141) subclinical features, that is, the behaviour of individuals exhibiting these features is not extreme enough to attract the attention of clinical psychologists or psychiatrists. because of their ability to adapt and the slight degree of negative personality traits, they are part of a wider society and everyday life. it is therefore not deniable that they are our colleagues, friends or superiors. at first glance, these are three distinct concepts, but they share many common features (paulhus & williams, 2002). however, each of the constructs differs in some aspect from the other two aspects and has been explored separately long before the dark triad emerged. the common features of the three components of the dark triad are their desire to lift themselves and harm others (paulhus & williams, 2002). the dark triad represents a grouping of antisocial dimensions because it contains behaviours that often do not meet acceptance in society. as paulhus (2014) points out, their common feature is the lack of empathy, but in each of the three personalities it develops differently. the concepts of narcissism and psychopathy originate from clinical literature and still exist as a personality disorder in diagnostic systems. on the other hand, the machiavellian construct has a completely different story. machiavellianism has no origin in personality disorders and is named after renaissance politician niccolò machiavelli (furnham et al., 2013; wilson et al., 1996). in the case of etiological factors influencing the emergence and development of these dark personality traits, the prevailing opinion points to its connection with socio-economic conditions in early childhood. if there is no safe relationship between the mother and the child, the child develops the behavioural pattern that can affect a person's whole life. in the research by jonason, lyons, bethell and ross (2016), the influence of the mother seems to be related to the dark triad directly by manifestations of leadership, authoritarianism, grandiosity, exhibitions, but it also seems to be through attachment style, which is closely related to the development of machiavellianism. even according to a study of the effect of heredity, machiavellianism as the only one in the trio shows greater environmental influence, while narcissism and psychopathy exhibit a moderate hereditary component (vernon, villani, vickers & harris, 2007). according to morf and rhodenwalt (2001), narcissists also appear as individuals whose own needs in childhood were unfulfilled due to lack of maternal empathy or neglect. čopková, r., dark triad in helping professions, jwee (2020, no. 125-141) 129 machiavellianism machiavellists appear to be cold, little emotionally based manipulators. this statement is research-based because in research by jonason and kraus (2013) machiavellists have been shown to have low empathy scores, linked to alexithymia, a difficulty of identifying feelings and describing them. machiavellists have a good ability to improvise, be "chameleons" in interpersonal situations, reveal true or false information about themselves in order to create the illusion of false intimacy. they dispose with lack of selfcontrol and high level of self-licensing (čopková, 2016). outwardly, they act as introverts who have a negative view of the world and their priority is to take care of their well-being. in psychology, the term machiavellianism is used to describe a personality that is characterized by emotional separation and a tendency to manipulate in order to achieve its own goal regardless of others (al ain et al., 2013). machiavellists perceive others as very untrustworthy and negative. machiavellists plan forward, build alliances, and do their utmost to maintain a positive reputation what differs them from subclinical psychopaths (jones & paulhus, 2014). they are very good liars, but they cannot be considered completely evil because they do not violate the rules, but they have the exceptional ability to circumvent them. the opposite is also true, those whose machiavellianism is not high cannot be considered as a social model. even such people are lying and deceiving, but motivation is different in this case (wilson et al., 1996). narcissism subclinical narcissism reflects the affection for oneself, which fundamentally undermines individual's social life. very often, subclinical narcissists show signs of exaggerated self-love, inflated confidence, sense of importance, superiority over others and skewed normative beliefs (čopková & matyiová, 2016). as described by morf and rhodenwalt (2001), narcissists have an extremely positive but at the same time vulnerable selfimage. outwardly they are trying to conceive their irresponsibility to others, but the basic mechanism that drives them is their constantly lusty ego, whose basic survival motive is to constantly validate one's self-worth from the environment. their life, therefore, constantly revolves around their worth, which is unstable and dependant on the association of positive responses on the part of society. therefore, it is not surprising that life with them is very exhausting, although narcissists may act charmingly or even 130 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 125-141) pleasantly in the short term (spain, harms & lebreton, 2014). in the long term, they have difficulties in maintaining long-term friendships, trust, or they lack concern for others (morf & rhodenwalt, 2001). psychopathy subclinical psychopathy traits feature high impulsivity, excitement search, low empathy, low anxiety (paulhus & williams, 2002) and insufficiently motivated antisocial behaviour. subclinical psychopaths experience a lack of negative emotions, remorse, or regret for others, and are manifested by overall emotional coldness in affective situations (douglas, bore & munro, 2012). along with narcissists, they also have another common feature, their grandiose self-esteem. psychopaths see themselves as dominant persons who are open to experience but do not consider themselves as caring and showing very low interest in the welfare of others (rauthmann & kolar, 2012). others are most often perceived as rivals, enemies or threats (lebreton, binnig & adorno, 2006). according to o´boyl et al. (2012) psychopaths are accustomed to their lack of concern for others, lack of guilt when they hurt others and emotional shallowness. insufficient affective experience is manifested by the general tendencies of psychopaths not to feel anxious, to experience superficial emotions with which they can also work brilliantly they are able to emulate a wide range of emotions as needed. on the cognitive side, psychopaths seem to be intelligent, successful, and as financially well-valued as possible, that is, they may often envy their privileges and abilities in the short term, but in the long term they provide an image of arrogance, haughtiness and ignorance. the dark triad in teaching profession the helping professionals´ personality should include abilities and skills typical for helping and working with people, such as empathy, because the quality of the emotional climate seems to be one of the most important factors determining whether or not the relationship with the practitioner is really helping. in the sense of their work, helping professions are categorized by emotional involvement in working with people. but what if the "dark" personality traits penetrate the world of these professions? research shows that the incidence of dark triad in helping professions is not rare. the dark motivation for a professional practice might be the hidden selfish goals and an effort to expose own personality to the constant need for čopková, r., dark triad in helping professions, jwee (2020, no. 125-141) 131 admiration, the desire for power, or the need to help which is motivated by own selfish purpose. for the teacher it is important to know they personality but also the personality of others. the need to understand the students´ personality is an essential factor in the effectiveness of the educational process. a ruthless and impartial teacher creates a toxic environment filled with negativity and lack of performance. a machiavellian teacher represents so-called organizational machiavellianism, which means that the use of manipulation is not only justified but is also necessary to achieve the goals set in the context of the school environment (kessler et al. 2010). organizational machiavellists are satisfied with the exploitation of others and do so whenever it is profitable for them. the essence of organizational machiavellianism uses manipulation and fraud when the situation requires it. these types of people are not necessarily heartless, cool and calculating because in good situations they can be prowess and tactful. in a broader sense, a teacher with features of machiavellianism is an integral part of the teaching profession, since being a teacher, more or less, means manipulating others. after joining the school organization, the teacher's identity is consolidated by adapting to organizational ideology. the source of the teacher's expression is the attitude acquired during adaptation to the organizational culture of the educational environment and the school context. another source of teachers´ machiavellianism are survival strategies (bańka & orłowski, 2012), which are the basis for adapting to certain school situations and special teacher roles. the basis of many teacher activities is their own well-being. the teacher seeks to minimize stress, avoid situations that can lead to it, maximize mood, independence and autonomy. resilience as a personal feature that allows a teacher to survive in a school environment is a socially created category (qing & day, 2007) and machiavellianism is an integral part of this resilience. internal sources of effective measures, including unconscious feelings and teachers´ beliefs about human nature, the essence of power, and effective action against students, can be present at the source of machiavellian behaviour. they exist in the minds of individuals regardless of their conscious and accepted beliefs and plans of students (day 1999). in this case, machiavellianism is a function of the mental image of students as partners for interaction. another source of teachers´ machiavellianism is the ubiquitous machiavellianism of students as main partners of social interaction at school (barry et al., 2011). 132 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 125-141) machiavellianism is not limited by age and manifests itself at every age. the recipients of machiavellian behaviour among students are their peers (andreou, 2004) as well as teachers. teachers who, on the one hand, possess the characteristics of machiavellianism, can teach students this type of behaviour through social modelling, and on the other hand use these strategies as a form of defense against machiavellian students. the machiavellian students and behaviour they present are described by teachers as a risk factor in professional practice. the last potential source of machiavellianism in the teaching profession is education reforms introduced at the national level (kwiecinski, 1997; day, flores & viana, 2007; day & lindsey, 2009). these factors of educational change that occur in the school environment, even if they are aimed for improving teaching and learning standards, as well as increasing student success in a growing unstable and turbulent economic and social environment, can actually be perceived as counterproductive to those who are responsible for implementing these changes. when there are several reforms and changes in education policies at national level, machiavellian tendencies seem to increase as easily as teachers' adaptation responses to new challenges, duties and responsibilities. at a time of professional threat and ambiguity, the criteria of professional competence are down to bureaucracy and machiavellianism. method sample the research sample has consisted from 172 participants aged from 19 to 63 years (mage=34,3 years; sd=10,7 years). the sample was divided into teachers – 72 (42,9%) and pedagogy students – 100 (57,1%); 39 males (23%) and 133 females (77%). the sample of current teachers aged from 19 to 63 years (mage=37,3 years; sd=12,0 years) has consisted of 4 males (5,6%) and 68 females (94,4%); the sample of pedagogy students aged from 20 to 60 years (mage=32,12, sd=9,0 years) has consisted of 35 males (35%) and 65 females (65%). convenience and purposive sampling methods have been used. čopková, r., dark triad in helping professions, jwee (2020, no. 125-141) 133 procedure and tool the short dark triad questionnaire (sd3; jones & paulhus, 2014). we have used the slovak version of the questionnaire translated from the original one. the short dark triad consists of 27 items saturating 3 different aversive personality traits scales – machiavellianism (item 1-9; „i like to use clever manipulation to get my way.“), narcissism (item 10-18; „i know that i am special because everyone keeps telling me so.“) and psychopathy (item 19-27; „i’ll say anything to get what i want.“) at their subclinical level. each item is evaluated on the likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). there is a need to reverse code several items – 2, 6 and 8 in the narcissism scale and 2 and 7 in the psychopathy scale. the final score is summed separately for each scale, the minimum reached score in each scale is 9; maximum reached score is 45. since the questionnaire has been translated, we have tested internal consistency by cronbach´s alpha, it´s value for machiavellianism subscale was 0,736; narcissism subscale 0,586 and psychopathy subscale 0,744. the research tool was distributed in the electronic form via application google docs form and via paper-and-pencil method. data were processed in spss 21.0 (statistical package for the social sciences) via mixed anova. there were no missing values, normality of data distribution tested by kolmogorov-smirnov test proved that data are normally distributed according to the criterion (pα>0,05). mauchly´s test of sphericity showed that sphericity was not violated (according to criterion pα>0,05). the value of skewness ranged in necessary interval +-1. levene’s test of equality of error variances proved that the homogeneity of variances was not violated (pα>0,05; pallant, 2005). results in the terms of stated research goal mixed between-within subjects anova was used as statistical technique for data analysis, because it has allowed us to explore both; variability between subjects and within-subjects variability in one step. the results of mixed anova have shown that there is a significant statistical difference in the level of dark triad traits (machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy) across groups and within subjects according to main effect (χ² =0,723; pα≤0,0001). although we have found a statistically 134 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 125-141) significant difference, we also assessed the effect size of this result and we can conclude, it is a moderate effect size (cohen, 1988). of course, it was a robust result saying nothing about between and within subjects variability separately. testing of within-subject effect has proved the existence of significant differences in dark triad within groups consisted of teachers and pedagogy students (χ² =0,554; pα≤0,0001), again with moderate effect size. we have got the same results from analyzing between subjects effect (χ² =0,962; pα≤0,0001) with large effect size as they have shown that there are significant differences in dark triad traits between group of teachers and pedagogy students. in order to obtain detailed results, we submitted post hoc analysis by tukey’s honestly significant different test. at first, we focused on between-subjects variability. that means we have tested if there are any significant differences in dark triad traits – machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy between teachers and pedagogy students. according to table 1 the results have revealed that pedagogy students scored significantly higher in machiavellianism than teachers, while there were no significant differences in narcissism and psychopathy. but according to mean values, in both other cases, students scored higher than teachers, the differences were not significant. table 1: between-subjects variability in dark triad dark trait mean df t p student teacher machiavellianism 27,4 25,0 362 2.892 0.046* narcissism 23,3 22,7 362 0.686 0.983 psychopathy 17,4 17,0 362 0.579 0.992 source: author based on research results the next step was the exploration of within-subject differences in dark triad traits, separately for pedagogy students and teachers. the table 2 shows significant differences between the level of machiavellian, narcissistic and psychopathic traits in the sample of pedagogy students. in detail, pedagogy students scored significantly higher in machiavellianism compared to narcissism and psychopathy; and significantly higher in narcissism compared to psychopathy. čopková, r., dark triad in helping professions, jwee (2020, no. 125-141) 135 table 2: within-subject variability in dark triad in pedagogy students sample dark trait m dark trait m df t ptukey machiavellianism 27,4 narcissism 23,3 340 7,22 <0 .0001** psychopathy 17,4 340 17,38 < 0.0001** narcissism 23,3 psychopathy 17,4 340 10,16 < 0.0001** source: author based on research results the table 3 shows significant differences between the level of machiavellian, narcissistic and psychopathic traits in the sample of teachers. the results are the same as in the sample of pedagogy students. in detail, teachers scored significantly higher in machiavellianism compared to narcissism and psychopathy; and significantly higher in narcissism compared to psychopathy. table 3: within-subject variability in dark triad in teachers sample dark trait m dark trait m df t ptukey machiavellianism 25,0 narcissism 22,7 340 3,36 0.013* psychopathy 17,0 340 11,85 < 0.0001** narcissism 22,7 psychopathy 17,0 340 8,49 <0 .0001** source: author based on research results we can conclude that machiavellianism is dominant aversive trait from dark triad concept in teachers and pedagogy students. in order to provide the complex results, the last thing we have tested was the interaction effect of dark triad and level of teaching professionality (χ² =0,005; p=0,048). post hoc testing showed that there are significant differences between (significantly higher level bolded): student’s machiavellianism (27,44) and teacher’s narcissism (22,70); student’s machiavellianism (27,44) and teacher’s psychopathy (16,59); student’s narcissism (23,30) and teacher’s psychopathy (16,95); student’s psychopathy (17,45) and teacher’s machiavellianism (24,9); student’s psychopathy (17,45) and teacher’s narcissism (22,70). the short dark triad questionnaire doesn’t offer the guideline for sorting participants into groups of high/low level of each aversive trait. that´s why we have divided the range of potential score in each subscale to quartiles. it is important to note that only 7% of students scored in 4th 136 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 125-141) quartile (the value over 36 points) in machiavellianism and 2% in narcissism. in teachers´ sample the results were similar – only 4,2% of teachers have scored in 4th quartile in machiavellianism and 1,4% in narcissism. in psychopathy subscale no one scored in 4th quartile. conclusion in the world of increasing interpersonal problems we have found as interesting the issue of negative personality traits incidence in the area where one would not expect it – in the field of helping professions. since there are many kinds of helping professions – doctors, nurses, psychologists, teachers, social workers, etc., it was necessary to reduce the scope. we have focused on teachers and pedagogy students, in order to compare current professionals with future professionals. that’s the reason we were interested in the concept of dark triad (paulhus & williams, 2002) that involves aversive features of a personality that share a tendency to be insensitive, selfish and malevolent in interpersonal relationships machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. normally, narcissism and psychopathy are the part of diagnostic systems as clinical psychiatric diagnoses, so we are emphasizing that all three concepts in the dark triad are conceptualized on their subclinical level. narcissism reflects signs of exaggerated self-love, inflated confidence, sense of importance, and superiority over others (morf & rhodenwalt, 2001). machiavellianism represents the abilities of good improvisation, ability to become "a chameleon" in interpersonal situations, publishing true or false information about themselves in order to create the illusion of false intimacy (dahling et al., 2008). subclinical psychopathy traits are for instance high impulsivity, excitement search, low empathy, low anxiety and insufficiently motivated antisocial behavior (douglas, bore & munro, 2012). the results suggest that pedagogy students are higher in machiavellianism compared to current teachers. actually, they scored higher in all three aversive traits what reveals the tendency of acting out of behavior expected by society. on the other hand, teachers already have some experiences with dealing with everyday problems in the school environment. it might influence them on their personality level and decrease illusions of inviolability that is expected on the level of professional preparation. comparing the level of all aversive traits within subjects čopková, r., dark triad in helping professions, jwee (2020, no. 125-141) 137 revealed that machiavellianism was significantly dominant aversive feature in both groups, thus that is the personal orientation we should pay more attention to. as we mentioned before, teaching profession provides wide range of opportunities to implement non-desirable behavioral patterns. the option of manipulation, reaching own goals at all costs, breaking rules, disrespect to others, setting rules is very attractive for machiavellian personalities. personality requirements for teachers are focused on self-knowledge, student understanding, sensitivity to students' needs, charisma and organizational skills (géringová, 2011; kopřiva, 1997). teachers who are high in aversive personality traits are more likely to fail in complying those requirements. the reason is that teaching profession offers a lot of opportunities that can satisfy machiavellian, narcissistic and psychopathic ways of acting. machiavellian teacher who misuse his power and authority and manipulate students by unfair punishing and rewarding can influence the student in the way he or she would not trust teachers anymore or feel anxiety connected to school environment. on the other hand it is also possible the students would teach this negative ways of behavior and implement it in their own life. narcissistic teacher enjoys admiration from students and being the center of their attention. by the side of this type of teacher, students might feel insufficient and develop low self-confidence. psychopatic teachers use to be impulsive, cold and not interested in the needs of others. in this kind of environment students might not feel safe, important or being a human. we can see the possible way how to prevent the incidence of teachers who are high in aversive personality traits in the testing of novices for teaching profession, or as part of a recruitment interview for candidates for teaching. as a part of long-life development we suggest the implementation of personality development soft skills training for teachers at all levels of educational system. it could be the way how to teach teachers the principles of self-regulation what includes standards of desirable behavior, motivation to meet standards, monitoring of situations and thoughts and willpower (baumeister et al, 1994). teachers are an important part of the school education process and can influence student’s behavior in long-term perspective in both positive and negative terms. they can leave a lifelong footprint in their pupils and students, influence their opinion about the personality of the teacher as such, create a good or bad relationship with the school, the subject and the 138 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 125-141) education itself. all by their behavior, influence and access to pupils. one of the important characteristics of the teacher is their fair behavior to pupils, which is significantly involved in the development of students’ motivation (rovenská, 2017). machiavellian teacher can fail in this sphere by his or her lax approach to social norms and justice. our research has its limitations as well. we have not focused on whole personality, just on aversive traits. the results might be interpreted differently while considering them in the context of whole personality, for example with so called “bright traits” (big five, oluf & furnham, 2015). also, we were not interested in the length of teaching experiences. it might be the key variable, because there are empirical evidences suggesting that the level of aversive traits decreases over the time (bratek et al., 2015). the proportion of males and females was not equal what could influence the results, because males are likely to be higher in aversive traits than females (jonason & davis, 2018). in the future there is a need to examine psychometric properties of the slovak version of short dark triad questionnaire, what will help researchers to get more representative results about this very interesting problem. references [1] al aïn, syrina, arnaud carré, carole fantini-hauwel, jean-yves baudouin, and chrystel besche-richards. 2013. “what is the emotional core of the multidimensional machiavellian personality trait?.” frontiers in psychology, 4: 454. 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[34] vernon, philip, vanessa c. villani, leanne c. vickers, and julie aitken harris. 2008. “a behavioral genetic investigation of the dark triad and the big 5.” personality and individual differences, 44(2): 445-452. čopková, r., dark triad in helping professions, jwee (2020, no. 125-141) 141 [35] wilson, david s., david near, and ralph r. miller. 1996. “machiavellianism: a synthesis of the evolutionary and psychological literatures.” psychological bulletin, 119(2): 285. article history: received: 12 march, 2020 accepted: 29 april, 2020 microsoft word 12 jwe 1-2.docx entrepreneurship education: lessons learned hoelscher mark, illinois state university, united states prior research indicates that ethnic minorities are on the rise in many places (e.g., ndofor&priem, 2011), women and minorities already make up a significant percentage of the entrepreneurial workforce (e.g., mitchell, 2011), and entrepreneurship and new venture startups are critical to the survival and growth of our economies (lindsey, 2011). we know that women and minority entrepreneurs confront more and different obstacles than other entrepreneurs face (e.g., nelson, maxfield, & kolb, in press), and that gender differences are especially evident in entrepreneurial careers (e.g., gupta, turban, wasti, & sikdar, 2009). researchershave suggested a systematic greater tendency towards entrepreneurship in men than women. the aforementioned research raises several critical questions. are these differences the result of gender roles and stereotypes? will exposure to entrepreneurship education increase the propensity of women to become entrepreneurs? what are the differences and uniqueness among and between these different special populations of budding and actual entrepreneurs? research indicates that entrepreneurship education and training are important in encouraging high levels of new venture startups (e.g., chrisman, mcmullen, ring, & holt, in press) but we ask if it needs to be specific and focused towards the needs of the specific targeted groups? is there a specific type of entrepreneurial skill that needs to be targeted? are those populations most in need of government support aware of its presence? these five articles focus on many of these issues in an effort to shed light on these issues and better understand their mechanisms. the authors suggest that different types of entrepreneurial education might be needed hoelscher, m., entrepreneurship education, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 125-129) 127 for different groups, based on institutional and contextual constraints. skills specific training might be equally as important as formal education and perhaps more valuable under certain circumstances such as minorities and microcredit (karlan & valdivia, 2011). the type of skill specific training might also be heavily influenced by the specific needs of a particular gender or ethnicity of the potential or actual entrepreneur such as in the case of women entrepreneurs. we also see the provocative suggestion that many of the women/minority group of entrepreneurs see little or no impact resulting from government policies and national strategies to improve on the women’s motivation to startup business or engage in entrepreneurial activity. we can either surmise that government policies have no impact or perhaps, as one of these papers surmise, assume that this particular group of affected entrepreneurs simply is unaware of the help that these government programs offer. obvious solutions differ quite dramatically depending on our interpretation. we either need to eliminate government intervention, helpful as its intentions might be, or we need to properly publicize it so that those most in need of the services might avail themselves of them. in this research we also see some positive effects of more traditional entrepreneurship education. we see the suggestion that entrepreneurial intentions among girls are significantly enhanced through traditional entrepreneurial education programs. prior to exposure to traditional entrepreneurship courses, girls showed significantly less entrepreneurial intention than boys. this research also shows that when studying nascent entrepreneurship among college students, male students perceived themselves to be significantly more capable than females to handle entrepreneurial activities in the control group, while the difference was not significant in the entrepreneurship education group. this suggests that entrepreneurship courses show promise in the area of increasing confidence among female nascent entrepreneurs. we see that women entrepreneurs, in particular, face very unique difficulties. they have family responsibilities, different social and cultural values, largely resulting from a different social orientation of being a mother, caregiver, and embracing society’s idea of being a woman. this is both a blessing and a curse in that women tend to be less endowed with formal business training, particularly in the area of upper management expertise. however, women also tend to be more focused on relationships journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2012, no. 1-2, 126-129) 128 while seeing the business environment as an enacted environment (e.g., hedberg, nystrom,& starbuck, 1976). they tend to gravitate more towards affective learning opportunities. they also tend to attach a deeper importance to social networks and as such work more diligently than men in their development in the form of networks and key contacts. as noted above, we see that both women and minority entrepreneurs face unique problems in that they tend to have little business preownership experience, lower education levels, and higher levels of unemployment. they also tend to be sole proprietors more often, all resulting in lower levels of both financial and human capital resources. some of this can be helped through very specific training programs which are targeted at specific needs of this particular class of entrepreneurs. thus, both properly focused training and aid from government are needed. however, if the government is to be effective, the involvement must be properly focused and communicated. finally, women and minority entrepreneurs lack the same access to resources (gatewood, brush, carter, greene, & hart, 2009), including financial, that other entrepreneurs have. this research suggests that a focused approach to training, the development of networks, and direct access to capital (i.e., micro-finance) would help alleviate these issues and result in higher incidences of women and minority entrepreneurs as well as increase their long term survival rate (e.g., gosenpud&vanevenhoven, 2011). in conclusion, these six research papers suggest that entrepreneurship education remains important. traditional programs help significantly in increasing entrepreneurial propensity, especially towards women. women entrepreneurs have unique issues that must be addressed in order to fully take advantage of their entrepreneurial power. those issues involve lower levels of human capital, confining cultural expectations, and stereotypes that hinder their progress. minority entrepreneurs also face some daunting challenges, mostly in the area of access to resources. for both of these disadvantaged groups, focused training becomes particularly important. within this research there is also evidence that as women and minorities slowly gain ground, momentum will propel them forward at an ever increasing pace. evidence shows that motivation for business startup is also influenced by the history of the responsible entrepreneur. as women and minorities as a class become more successful there will be more instances of entrepreneurial role hoelscher, m., entrepreneurship education, jwe (2012, no. 1-2, 125-129) 129 models, angel investors and additional resources made available as a result of general entrepreneurial success. a rising tide does indeed float all boats! references [1] chrisman, j.j., mcmullen, w.e., ring, k., & holt, d. in press. “counseling assistance, entrepreneurship education, and new venture performance.” journal of entrepreneurship and public policy [2] gatewood, e.j., brush, c.g., carter, n.m., greene, p.g., & hart, m.m. 2009. “diana: a symbol of women entrepreneurs’ hunt for knowledge, money, and the rewards of entrepreneurship.” small business economics, 32, 129-144 [3] gosenpud, j., &vanevenhoven, j. 2011. “using tools from strategic management to help micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries adapt to a dynamic and changing business environment.”journal of american business research, 27 [4] gupta, v.k., turban, d.b., wasti, s.a., & sikdar, a. 2009. “the role of gender stereotypes in perceptions of entrepreneurs and intentions to become an entrepreneur.” entrepreneurship theory & practice, 33, 397-417 [5] hedberg, b.l.t., nystrom, p.c., & starbuck, w.h. 1976. “camping on seesaws: prescriptions for a self-designing organization. administrative science quarterly, 21, 41-65 [6] karlan & valdivia, 2011. “teaching entrepreneurship: impact of business training on microfinance clients and institutions.” the review of economics and statistics, 93, 510-527 [7] lindsey, b. 2011. “frontier economics: why entrepreneurial capitalism is needed now more than ever.” ewing marion kauffman foundation. kansas city, mo [8] mitchell, l. 2011. “overcoming the gender gap: women entrepreneurs as economic drivers.” ewing marion kauffman foundation. kansas city, mo [9] nelson, t., maxfield, s., & kolb, d. in press. “women entrepreneurs and venture capital: managing the shadow negotiation.” international journal of gender and entrepreneurship [10] ndofor, h.a., &priem r.l. 2011."immigrant entrepreneurs, the ethnic enclave strategy, and ventureperformance."journal of management, 37: 790-818 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.pp76-91 jel: m1, m13 original scientific paper 4bgendered aspect of entrepreneurial orientation: the role of mindfulness deepti prakash1 4 f1 meenakshi bisla15 f2 twinkle arora1 6f3 guru gobind singh indraprastha university, university school of management studies, new delhi, india a b s t r a c t a developing country like india has realized the vital role of entrepreneurship in economic growth, and mindfulness is very crucial for becoming a successful entrepreneur. the paper examines the relationship of mindfulness with entrepreneurial orientation and all of its dimensions. the data was collected from 152 working professionals using a purposive sampling technique. manova is performed to measure the impact of independent variables (gender, thought of doing business and level of mindfulness) on dependent variables, i.e., entrepreneurial orientation, innovativeness, proactiveness and risk. firstly, the results conclude that interaction among the combination of mindfulness, thought of doing business and gender variables have an impact on combined entrepreneurial orientation. secondly, it is found that mindful females who have thought of doing their own business have a stronger entrepreneurial orientation. the presence of more women in leadership roles will contribute to business growth; thus, such 1 e-mail: deeptimprakash@gmail.com 2 corresponding author, e-mail: meenakshibisla@gmail.com 3 e-mail: arora.twinkle05@gmail.com deepti prakash, meenakshi bisla, twinkle arora 77 talent must be educated and trained for the benefit of the organization and the nation as a whole. keywords: entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurs and mindfulness, business introduction mindfulness is nowadays becoming a buzzword in organizations as well as in individual life settings. mindfulness practices have enabled individuals to strengthen their problem-solving abilities through careful examination of the present ongoing challenges (penman, 2015). mindfulness is a cognitive technique that helps in being aware of our surroundings (langer, 2016) and living in the present moment with careful scrutiny of all the positives and negatives. baer (2003) has described mindfulness as a process of paying attention to the present with purpose without being judgmental to unfold any experience. it has stimulated divergent thinking and built cognitive pathways for innovative solutions and competitive advantage. because of the complex and dynamic business environment, mindfulness offers a state of mental awareness and coping mechanisms. mindfulness is often used with interventions, but mindfulness as a trait is more stable over time (brown & ryan, 2003). organizations are ascertaining the role of mindful practices in creating a balanced and positive work culture. firms are using their strategies with mindfulness. one such strategy is an entrepreneurial orientation which includes risk-taking propensity, proactiveness and innovation. such integration not only helps in socioeconomic growth but also leads to the prosperity of the nation. langer and piper (1987) state that in order to achieve reliable performance in a dynamic environment, organizations and individuals are dependent on how they think, perceive the competition in their surroundings and respond to it. such ability to choose the best out of existing opportunities requires mindfulness-based approaches. moreover, mindfulness has been positively associated with employee well-being and performance in occupational settings (reb et al., 2015). the following study is an attempt to identify the relationship of mindfulness with entrepreneurial orientation and all of its dimensions as a company-level strategy to gain a competitive advantage. 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 76-91) literature review mindfulness is the concept of being attentive and aware of our actions in the present (vidal-melia et al., 2022). it is a psychological process that helps an individual to pay complete attention to ongoing life experiences. it is a learned skill to live in the present moment without the fear of being judged by other people. with meditation, yoga and mental exercises, one can excel in the art of mindfulness, which will help in giving equal attention to one’s internal and external body occurrences (prakash, 2021). it does not only reduce stress but increases empathy, compassion and awareness in an individual (murnieks et al., 2020). mindfulness has been studied from both individual and group perspectives (capel, 2014). mindfulness includes intention, attention and attitude. these are considered the building blocks of mindfulness developed by shapiro et al. (2006). intention plays a major role in an individual’s life, which answers the “why” of doing something, ‘intentions’ in mindfulness depict the willingness and reason to do a particular thing with attention. ‘attitude’ describes the “how” of mindfulness. with this understanding of the model, it gained relevance in an individual’s day-to-day life as it proved to be influencing individual, group and organizational relationships as well (christopher & maris, 2010). not only the individual aspect but mindfulness has been studied in organizational and entrepreneurial aspects too. in entrepreneurship, an entrepreneur recognizes a new set of opportunities and is aware of one’s strengths and weaknesses (baron & ensley, 2006). in this context, recognizing and utilizing new opportunities requires mindfulness to facilitate the pattern recognition process effectively. gordon and schaller (2014) reported a direct relationship between mindfulness with market analysis and opportunity recognition necessary for the entrepreneurial process and idea creation. an entrepreneur should be aware of his external conditions as well as his internal capabilities, entrepreneurship being a cognitive task (pryor et al., 2016). additionally, mindfulness also has an influence on individual decision-making processes and abilities. therefore, in order to understand the motivation behind any entrepreneurial venture, it is equally important to identify the mindfulness process behind each entrepreneurial activity (krueger, 2000). deciding whether the opportunity is going to reap benefits or add to liabilities is a decision that involves risk and demands mindful decision-making. an entrepreneur is likely to evaluate risk and be proactive with such decisions. moreover, in order to be a successful entrepreneur, it is important to identify the cultural, deepti prakash, meenakshi bisla, twinkle arora 79 technological, societal, financial, behavioral and other barriers through the self-assessment process (manjaly et al., 2022). there comes the pertinent role of mindfulness in regulating entrepreneurial thinking and actions. an individual with a high level of mindfulness seems to be having more proactive ability to differentiate relevant and irrelevant information. individuals, who have undergone mindfulness training, have developed the ability to be aware and self-observing (mukherjee, 2019). organizations nowadays are focusing more on having an entrepreneurial orientation. it is a strategy-making practice that helps organizations to launch their corporate ventures (muindi & masurel, 2022). for enhancing a firm’s performance miller (1983) has derived five dimensions of entrepreneurship: “risk-taking ability”, “proactiveness”, “autonomy”, “innovativeness” and “competitive aggressiveness”. these dimensions are positively correlated with entrepreneurial orientations and tend to impact the firm’s performance (dess & lumpkin, 2005). innovativeness is considered to be a major component of entrepreneurship strategy. yang (2014) investigated mindfulness in organizations with innovation from a cognitive perspective and reported a positive relationship between the two. moreover, managerial mindfulness has a positive impact on research and innovation (hu et. al., 2019). rerup (2005) argued that mindfulness enables entrepreneurs to be proactive and better anticipate and exploit threats and unexpected events. moreover, more mindful use of prior experience can be used to rebuild and sustain in ambiguous, ill-structured and complex situations. mindfulness also helps individuals to take risks and manage their investments well (dayton, 2014). entrepreneurs should have risk-taking abilities to work in a dynamic environment for sustainable growth, which can be enabled with the help of mindfulness as it helps make financial decisions, which involves high-risk tolerance (elma & baydas, 2020). an individual with high mindfulness has more potential to increase their earnings performance. it is pertinent to mention that the literature has highlighted the gender identity and differences between males and females while exploring entrepreneurial orientation (marlow & patton, 2005). females tend to experience more challenges in different cultural settings and contexts (muindi & masurel, 2022) than their male counterparts. moreover, entrepreneurial motivation is also influenced by push and pull factors. however, pull factors, i.e., intrinsic positive forces such as self-fulfillment, self-awareness and need-recognition, tend to have more impact on 80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 76-91) entrepreneurial intent among individuals (dhar et al., 2022). this gap and difference can be reduced by innovative socialization processes and mindfulness training. various organizations like google (kelly, 2012) and general mills have started offering mindfulness training and programs for their workforce (jackson, 2018). this will result in improving cognitive flexibility and attentiveness among individuals, especially females (good et al., 2015). moreover, acting under uncertainty and managing a wide span of external environment requires selective attention and proactive trait. therefore, with such training, individuals’ entrepreneurial actions and intention of starting their own ventures are accelerated among those who are high in mindfulness, as it plays a significant role in increasing engagement of entrepreneurial behavior and orientation (gelderen et al., 2019; penman, 2015). research methodology the study examines the relationship between mindfulness and entrepreneurial orientation. the research has been carried out using a structured questionnaire. the questionnaire has four items, namely entrepreneurial orientation, risk, innovativeness and proactiveness. the questionnaire has three parts. part a was primarily focused on collecting the demographic details. it included gender and whether they thought of doing business or not. part b mapped the level of mindfulness among people in terms of high/ low using the five facet mindfulness questionnaire (ffmq). the questionnaire was constructed on a five-point likert scale for measuring the variables. part c measured the entrepreneurial orientation by using the entrepreneurial orientation scale. a total of 231 questionnaires were circulated, and 159 responses were received, resulting in a response rate of 68.8%. after removing the incomplete questionnaire, a total sample of 152 working professionals from delhi ncr who have a minimum of one year of experience were taken for this study. the distribution and collection of data was from june to september 2022. the study used a purposive sampling technique to select samples that were from it, banking and retail. the following instruments were used for collecting the primary data. five facet mindfulness scale – it is a psychological measurement created by baer et al., (2006) to describe mindfulness. the questionnaire has 39 items divided into 5 dimensions: deepti prakash, meenakshi bisla, twinkle arora 81 − observing: it measures an individual’s inner experience and reaction to a particular stimulus. − describing: it describes an individual’s ability to express feelings and thoughts. − acting with awareness: these measures one’s ability to take conscious and rational actions without being influenced by thoughts or reflections. − non-judging: it measures the tendency of not judging our inner experience as good or bad and admitting our inner self as it is. − non-reactivity to inner experience: it assesses the tendency to allow the release of any provocative, emotional stimuli easily. entrepreneurial orientation scale: it was used to measure innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness. the scale was developed by covin & slevin (1989). − innovativeness depicts the tendency to support new ideas. it means creating something new in products or services. − proactiveness is the far-sightedness and strategy-making ability to anticipate future opportunities and use them to get a competitive advantage. − risk-taking is the risk of utilizing the available resources in uncertainty. reliability and validity the internal consistencies of ffmq coefficients were as follows: observing: .72, describing: .73, acting with awareness: .69, non-judging: .69 and non-reactivity: .84. cronbach alpha for entrepreneurial orientation was found to be 0.9. the five facet mindfulness scale and entrepreneurial orientation scale is a widely accepted research instrument, yet it was validated again by using the expert validity method. data analysis manova (multivariate analysis of variance) technique was used to explore the relationship among gender, thought of doing business (asking the respondents whether they have ever thought of starting their own 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 76-91) business/enterprise/startup) and the level of mindfulness with entrepreneurial orientation and its components (innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking). table 1: sample distribution of study subject factor value label n gender male 82 female 70 thought of doing business yes 113 mindfulness no 39 mindfulness low 70 high 82 table 1 shows the sample distribution of the study. out of 152 respondents, 82 were males and 70 were females, 113 responded yes and 39 responded no regarding the question if they had thought of doing business before, 70 respondents reported a low level of mindfulness and 82 respondents reported a high level of mindfulness. table 2: multivariate test results of significant impact factors multivariate tests effect value f hypothesis df error df sig. intercept wilks' lambda 0.00 17491.382 3.00 142.00 0.00 mindfulness wilks' lambda 0.37 81.265 3.00 142.00 0.00 thought of doing business * mindfulness wilks' lambda 0.94 3.027 3.00 142.00 0.03 gender * thought of doing business* mindfulness wilks' lambda 0.93 3.358 3.00 142.00 0.02 deepti prakash, meenakshi bisla, twinkle arora 83 a three-way manova test is undertaken to analyze the impact of independent variables (gender, thought of doing business and level of mindfulness) on dependent variables, i.e., entrepreneurial orientation, innovativeness, proactiveness and risk at a 95 percent level of significance. table 2 represents wilk’s lambda values for each independent variable and interactions among them. it is interpreted that mindfulness (wilk’s lambda = 0.37, f value (3, 142) = 81.26, p value = 0.00); thought of doing business*mindfulness (wilk’s lambda = 0.94, f value (3, 142) = 3.02, p value = 0.03); gender*thought of doing business*mindfulness (wilk’s lambda = 0.93, f value (3, 142) = 3.35, p value = 0.02) has impacted significantly on the combined dependent variable i.e., entrepreneurial orientation, innovativeness, proactiveness and risk. the remaining gender, thought of doing business, gender * thought of doing business, gender * mindfulness has not impacted significantly on the combined dependent variables. table 3: summary of analysis of variables of significant factors on entrepreneurial orientation (eo) tests of between-subjects effects source dependent variable type iii sum of squares df mean square f sig. mindfulness innovativeness 3.15 1 3.15 83.20 0.00 proactiveness 5.69 1 5.69 116.52 0.00 risk 4.30 1 4.30 173.52 0.00 entrepreneurial orientation 4.32 1 4.32 136.45 0.00 thought of doing business * mindfulness innovativeness 0.18 1 0.18 4.86 0.03 proactiveness 0.28 1 0.28 5.67 0.02 risk 0.20 1 0.20 8.03 0.01 entrepreneurial orientation 0.22 1 0.22 6.89 0.01 gender * thought of doing business * mindfulness proactiveness 0.24 1 0.24 4.98 0.03 entrepreneurial orientation 0.12 1 0.12 3.71 0.05 *represents intersection among two or more variables, this table contains only significant values 84 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 76-91) further scrutiny of the manova (table 3) inferred that mindfulness and thought of doing business*mindfulness were found to have statistically significant differences on dependent factors, i.e., innovativeness, proactiveness, risk and overall entrepreneurial orientation (p<0.05). further, it is inferred that gender * thought of doing business * mindfulness has a statistically significant difference on only proactiveness and entrepreneurial orientation. the post-doc analysis will provide an in-depth understanding of the difference in the impact of the independent variables on combined dependent variables. table 4a: results of significant mean difference of mindfulness on entrepreneurial orientation dependent variable mindfulness mean innovativeness low 2.80 high 3.15 proactiveness low 2.70 high 3.17 risk low 2.80 high 3.20 entrepreneurial orientation low 2.77 high 3.17 table 4b: results of significant mean difference of thought of doing business *mindfulness on entrepreneurial orientation dependent variable thought of doing business mindfulness mean innovativeness yes low 2.73 high 3.16 no low 2.87 high 3.13 proactiveness yes low 2.64 high 3.20 no low 2.77 high 3.13 risk yes low 2.73 high 3.22 no low 2.86 high 3.18 deepti prakash, meenakshi bisla, twinkle arora 85 dependent variable thought of doing business mindfulness mean entrepreneurial orientation yes low 2.70 high 3.19 no low 2.83 high 3.15 table 4c: results of significant mean difference of gender*thought of doing business *mindfulness on entrepreneurial orientation dependent variable gender thought of doing business mindfulness mean proactiveness male yes low 2.74 high 3.12 no low 2.69 high 3.06 female yes low 2.54 high 3.28 no low 2.85 high 3.20 entrepreneurial male yes high 3.24 orientation low 2.78 no high 3.12 low 2.79 female yes high 3.08 low 2.62 no high 3.26 low 2.88 table 4a shows that there exists a statistically significant difference of mean among dependent variables with respect to levels of mindfulness at a 95 percent confidence level. in other terms, it infers that a respondent who has a high level of mindfulness is found to possess greater innovativeness, proactiveness, risk factors and entrepreneurial orientation as compared to those who have a low level of mindfulness. in addition, it is found that individuals with a high level of mindfulness are highest in the risk-taking component of entrepreneurial orientation as the mean score of risk and high level of mindfulness is highest. table 4b represents that there exists a statistically significant mean difference among dependent variables with respect to the interaction of two 86 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 76-91) independent variables, i.e., levels of mindfulness and outcome of thought of doing business of each respondent at a 95 percent confidence level. it concludes that, given an individual has thought of doing business and is on a high level of mindfulness, this individual is found to be highest at all dependent factors, i.e., innovativeness (3.16), proactiveness (3.28), risk (3.22) and entrepreneurial orientation (3.19). table 4c represents that there exists a statistically significant mean difference among dependent variables with respect to the interaction of three independent variables i.e., gender, levels of mindfulness and outcome of thought of doing business of each respondent at a 95 percent confidence level. it shows that a female individual who has thought of doing business and is on a high level of mindfulness is found to be high on dependent factors, i.e., proactiveness (3.20) and entrepreneurial orientation (3.26) when compared to men who have thought of doing business and are high level of mindfulness. the manova results show the importance of mindfulness among entrepreneurs for possessing higher entrepreneurial orientation. numerous research examines the influence and relationship between mindfulness and entrepreneurship (mukherjee, 2019). the study concludes that when mindfulness is combined with the thought of opening one’s own business, the overall entrepreneurial orientation of females is found to be higher than males. hence, there is a much greater need for diverging the focus on female entrepreneurs as they possess greater entrepreneurial orientation than males, provided a high mindfulness level. the entrepreneurial market must explore opportunities through the lens of young female entrepreneurs by providing adequate facilities and knowledge for becoming successful, especially in developing countries where females are still struggling for equality. conclusion and implications results show that mindfulness; interaction of thought of doing business and mindfulness; and interaction among gender, thought of doing business and mindfulness independent variables have an impact on combined entrepreneurial orientation. it is found that a high level of mindfulness in females who have thought of doing their own business has a greater entrepreneurial orientation. also, females are found to be the highest in the proactiveness dimension of entrepreneurial orientation. women deepti prakash, meenakshi bisla, twinkle arora 87 professionals may have a stronger ability to trust their instincts and intuition in comparison to their male counterparts, and this makes them proactive in making decisions that are based on analysis and rationality. women professionals are perceived to be more supportive which may encourage the design and implementation of entrepreneurial initiatives in an organization. the results of the study are consistent with the few studies that stated there is a difference in gender identity and the difference between males and females while exploring entrepreneurial orientation (marlow & patton, 2005; gelderen et al., 2019; kundu & rani, 2004; martinez jimenez, 2009). thus, we suggest that women play a pivotal role in enhancing entrepreneurial activities in an organization. in the age of equal opportunity, this makes complete sense. in a country like india, female leadership still lacks the potential and mindfulness can help to fill this gap. the presence of more women in leadership roles will contribute to business growth, thus organizations need to recruit and train such talent for the benefit of the organization. researchers and professionals from across the world are considering a variety of measures to help build a more happy, healthy, productive and balanced work-life environment. physical and mental health are the most important problems faced by mncs and policymakers. in such a scenario, mindfulness practices have enabled individuals to strengthen their problemsolving abilities by careful examination of the present ongoing challenges. mindfulness will result in more self-acceptance, including one's strengths and weaknesses. in addition, numerous researchers have demonstrated that mindfulness helps people feel replenished, less stressed, and happier. the study adds to the current literature that the level of mindfulness has a significant impact on innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking, and entrepreneurial orientation. entrepreneurial orientation defines entrepreneurial activity in a number of aspects and is frequently referred to as a precursor to an organization's success. thus, mindfulness enables entrepreneurs to cope with the pressures of instigating something new. organizations should train their employees through mindfulness for necessary behavioral changes as a part of their daily operations to get the dual benefit, i.e., increased employee well-being and better performance of the company. a developing nation like india has great entrepreneurial opportunities, and policymakers are undertaking initiatives such as skill india to promote the startup india campaign. educational institutes are being set up, and 88 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, special issue, 76-91) entrepreneurial education has gained importance in recent times. these institutions can focus on developing training programs, especially for women and including mindfulness in their modules. higher mindfulness and entrepreneurial orientation will result in higher innovation and research opportunities. schemes and opportunities must be molded in a way that promotes female participation in the entrepreneurs’ market by providing an environment that contains prerequisites and adequate facilities for becoming an entrepreneur, such as knowledge, skills and financial assistance. women entrepreneurs can be involved in mentoring female trainees. a kind of handholding will keep up the morale of trainees and will manifold their efforts in the organization. future research the study further states the scope of analyzing the relationship of entrepreneurial orientation through the lens of government assistance, gender identity perspective and different categorial development status of the respective economies provided by the organization for economic cooperation and 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"organizational mindfulness and innovation". phd diss. hkust spd: the institutional repository. article history: received: february 8th, 2023 accepted: may 8th, 2023 publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office journal secretary marija antonijević, ma institute of economic sciences, belgrade confidence and character: the future of women’s entrepreneurship education? factors influencing the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market: a comprehensive analysis the sustainability analysis of women-owned businesses examined through the impact of selected variables on dimensionsof innovation capacity female entrepreneurship in the creative economy gender aspects of social intelligence management in the context of entrepreneurial and civic engagement gendered aspect of entrepreneurial orientation: the role of mindfulness the effects of digitalization and skills on women’s labor market inclusionserbian gap study improving business performance through entrepreneurship orientation and management capacity for women entrepreneurs the application of strategic foresight in women's entrepreneurship development publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia mark pruett0f discussion women’s lower self-efficacy affects intentions, but education can have an influence barriers, especially intrinsic ones, matter to women faculty may misperceive student interest and views implications and conclusions building psychological strengths addressing women’s views on intrinsic motives and barriers understanding students better an idea from military schools: focus on confidence and personal character references aidin salamzadeh1f haniye rezaei2f morteza hadizadeh3f naveed yasin4f golnoush ansari5f introduction literature review women's entrepreneurship women's networks sexism sustainable business educability strategic foresight methodology findings and data analysis conclusion and suggestions acknowledgments references fauziah umar6f abdul rahman kadir7f andi reni8f rianda ridho thaha9f romi setiawan10f introduction literature review business performance entrepreneual orientation management capacity participants and data collection result analysis of respondent characteristics descriptive analysis path analysis assessment of total, direct, and indirect effects discussion conclusion theoretical implications practical and policy makers implications limitations and suggestions for further research references boris jevtić11f milos vucekovic12f svetlana tasić13f introduction serbian gap analysis methods and materials research findings variable (ac) correlation analysis (a, b & c) variable multiple correlations conclusion references deepti prakash14f meenakshi bisla15f twinkle arora16f introduction literature review research methodology reliability and validity data analysis conclusion and implications future research references daniela palaščáková17f ihor liadskyi18f inna senko19f introduction literature review data and methods results and discussion conclusion acknowledgment references dunja babović20f milica kočović de santo21f introduction exploring entrepreneurship concepts based on selected types: female, social and creative female entrepreneurship – theory bases, streams and findings cultural and creative entrepreneurship theory bases, streams and findings conclusion references sanja popović-pantić22f snežana kirin23f ivana vučetić introduction methodology sample description conclusion references s soubhagya laxmi25f saikat gochhait26f introduction literature review women entrepreneurs and internalization internal factors and external factors and the success of women entrepreneurs in the international marketplace control factors and women entrepreneurs’ success in the international market theoretical framework hypotheses development need for achievement and the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market risk-taking and the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market new technology adaptation and successful women entrepreneurs in the international market international market success and economic factors for women entrepreneurs socio-cultural factors and the success of women entrepreneurs in the international market results from the measurement model correlation discussion and conclusion limitation and future direction acknowledgments references doi: 10.28934/jwee19.34.pp103-108 case report enhancing women's economic empowerment through g-win project: research report priscilla achakpa1 gaduwa housing estate, abuja nigeria mirjana radović-marković2 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t the lack of women empowerment calls for research by scholars and policy makers. this article explores the impact of g-win project on women economic empowerment in nigeria. we used questionnaire, interview, web surveys, and direct observation in data collection. key findings of the study showed that lack of skills and political and economic power affect the marginalization of women in nigeria. based on the research results, it was concluded that g-win project plays a critical role in the economic development of women. in line with this, the study recommends that implementation of this and similar programs can support women and girls and improve their position in society. key words: women, empowerment, education g-win project, nigeria 1 executive director of women environmental programme, block e flat 2 anambra court, gaduwa housing estate, after apo legislative quarters, p.o.box 10176 garki, abuja, nigeria, tel: +2348117295065 2 zmaj jovina 12, 11000 belgrade, serbia, e-mail: mirjana.radovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 104 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 103-108) introduction women empowerment has been considered differently among scholars. therefore, we can find a series of women empowerment programmes dedicated to women with the aim to reduce their poverty (awojobi, 2013). in spite of these difficulties and issues, it has turned out to be broadly acknowledged that advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment (gewe) is basic to accomplishing sustainable human development, poverty annihilation, and financial development on the african countries and nigeria specifically (unfpa, 2014). in this context, the federal government of nigeria approved the implementation of the girls and women initiative in nigeria (g–win) project. the goal of this project is to improve conditions of living for women and girls and reduce their poverty. it is, however, not documented as to what extent this project has achieved its deserved objectives. so, this research investigated enhancing women economic empowerment in nigeria with respect to the implementation of the g–win project. goals of the study i. explore the g–win project implementation with an aim to support women economic empowerment in nigeria. ii examine institutional framework to strengthen women. concept of empowerment the growing number of initiatives are linked to promoting women empowerment in developing countries (achakpa and radović-marković, 2018). measuring women economic empowerment is defined as economically enabling women/woman when she has both the capacity to succeed and progress monetarily (achakpa, 2015), the ability to settle on and follow up on economical choices; to succeed and progress monetarily. women require skills and resources to contend in business sectors, as well as fair and equal access to economic institutions; to have the power and organization to gain from engaging in economic activities (radović-marković, 2016; 2019). they need the capacity to settle on and act on choices, control resources and benefits (radović-marković, 2013). enemuo (2001:26) is of the view that "a successful and practical procedure of women empowerment must fundamentally incorporate the extension of women's entrance to education opportunities, skill acquisition and positions of authority". achakpa, p., et al., g-win project, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 103-108) 105 okemakinde (2014) considered women empowerment as a means to build women capacities and their control over the resources and choices influencing their lives. woman empowerment is consequently, viewed as a tool for breaking obstacles they are faced in traditional muslim society . the government of nigeria in 1998 planned a national policy on which was intended to secure women against all types of segregation, discrimination and empower them. this arrangement since appearing has accomplished close to nothing or nothing has been done (nwakaego, 2013). study area nigeria lies between latitudes 4o and 14on and longitudes 3o and 15oe in west africa, covering a land mass of 923,768 km2. picture: nigeria’s geopolitical zones nigeria's population is assessed to be 167 million in 2011, making it the most populated country and one of the biggest nations in africa. around 50 percent of the nigeria's population is female, and 50 percent male. the sex proportion (the quantity of men per 100 women) is 99. 106 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 103-108) in spite of phenomenal gender equality arrangements and aims, gender imbalance remains a test. around 56% of the uneducated population is women. regarding work, women’s cooperation in the work drive stays low, with just a single third of nigerians who secure an occupation in the formal part being women. participation of women in politics, civil society, leadership and the private sector is limited on local, national and global levels (castellani, 2014). research method the total population of the study area is 5521, that comprised of women and girls who benefited from the g-win programme directly in the six geo-political zones of nigeria. however, for an effective work, four local government areas were considered in the study. therefore, 120 participants were selected from each of the four local government areas, making a total of 2400 participants, who were randomly selected. for data analysis, simple percentages were used. we did research from 2016 to 2018. the questionnaire was prepared according to the goals of this research. one was administered on the pioneer ministries (health, water, women affairs and social development, works and communications) and the beneficiaries of g-win project in selected area. results the age distribution of respondents shows that the project favors people who are adults, as they are responsible, energetic and the capacity to plan for the funds and skills acquired given to them and thus able to use the fund profitably. the g-win project targets vulnerable women, who majorly work in agricultural sector apart from south west zone where the project favours more of civil servants. this is an indication that the project is geared towards support to poor families. on academic attainment, the study revealed that majority of the respondents is educated up to university level. the study favors the married women because for them they have a lot of responsibilities to carry out to support their families. the widows are also favored because of the sympathy the communities usually have for them as they are bread winners for their families. achakpa, p., et al., g-win project, jwee (2019, no. 3-4, 103-108) 107 on the achievement of project vision and mission, the study revealed that considerable success, especially in the areas of giving women a voice, ensuring parity in the society, stimulating the economy by initiating skills acquisition, access to loan, education. the participants acclaimed that these benefits have pulled them out of poverty, to positive economic growth, thus empowering them through skills acquisition, access to loan, small scale business and financial support. beneficiaries of the project got the information about the program via local government support, television and radio and through local association, and are the major sources of information dissemination for women empowerment in the local communities. the study revealed that the selection processes of the selection of beneficiaries were done democratically by the local government, thus eliminating elite capture. challenges of gwin project identified include insufficient fund, cultural belief, and low turnout. conclusion and recommendation this study examined women economic empowerment in nigeria with emphasis on the g-win program. nigerian women are considered as important contributors to the development of the nation. however, due to some constraints, their full potentials have not been used. the g-win project has significantly strengthened women who took a part in the area of gender equality, increased income and decreased poverty. at the same time, this project provided opportunities to nigeria’s economic growth, sustainable human development and social progress. the study therefore recommends that more women development programs should be formulated and implemented by the government and non-governmental organizations and such programs should enable to reach rural women and girls. references [1] achakpa, priscilla and radović-marković, mirjana. (2018). employment women through entrepreneurship development and education in developing countries. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, no. (1/2). pp. 17-30. 108 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2019, no. 3-4, 103-108) [2] achakpa, priscilla. (2015). the role of education in fostering female entrepreneurship in nigeria. the fourth international scientific conference employment, education and entrepreneurship. [3] awojobi, (2013) awojobi, n.o. (2013). microfinance as a strategy for poverty reduction: the nigerian experience. unpublished master thesis, berlin school of economics and law, berlin, germany. [4] castellani, c. (2014). literature review: women’s empowermenteconomic and social participation in africa. retrieved on 18th february, 2017 from www.worlded.org/weiinternet/inc/common/_download_pub.cfm?id=15182. ..3 [5] enemuo, f. c. (2001). political participation and the economic empowerment of nigerian women: imperatives and prospects. in obi c. i. (ed), women’s political participation through economic empowerment. lagos: o.v.c. nigeria limited. [6] national bureau for statistics (2012). report on poverty in nigeria. new york times magazine, [7] nwakaego, o. a. (2013). women empowerment and community development a study of bwari local government area, f.c.t, nigeria. an unpublished a research submitted to the department of sociology, faculty of management and social sciences caritas university amorji nike, enugu state. [8] okemakinde, t. (2014). women education: implications for national development in nigeria. european journal of globalization and development research, 9 (1), 553-564. [9] radović-marković, mirjana (2016). empowering employment. journal of women entrepreneurships and educations, no. 1-2, pp. 3-17 [10] radović-marković, mirjana (2013). female entrepreneurship: theoretical approaches, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, no. 1-2, 1-9 p. [11] radović-marković, mirjana and živanović, branko. (2019). fostering green entrepreneurship and women’s empowerment through education and banks’investments in tourism: evidence from serbia, sustainability, 11, 6826; doi:10.3390/su11236826 [12] unfpa. (2014). gender equality: empowering women. retrieved from http://www.unfpa.org/gender/empowerment.htm. article history: received: 12 september, 2019 accepted: 1 december, 2019 20_jwee_12 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.12.pp37-52 jel: i131, i32 original scientific paper perspectives on poverty by gender within the republic of serbia dejana pavlović1 kosovka ognjenović2 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t gender poverty is a serious factor needing further examination and monitoring as related to economics since it is a limiting factor to an economy’s potential. inequality is not only a sign of an unhealthy economy but of current and potential social discord. serbia has tried to actively better the economic position of women by implementing its national gender equality strategy 2009-2015. the paper deals with how gender affects poverty in serbia. using statistical data on indicators of gender poverty from 2016 to 2018, sourced from the statistical office of the republic of serbia, this paper presents an analysis of the economic position of women in the republic of serbia (rs). recommendations for the advancement of women in rs in terms of their economic status are also provided. key words: poverty, gender, serbia 1 corresponding author, zmaj jovina 12, belgrade, serbia, tel. +381 65 5555 930. e-mail: dejana.pavlovic@ien.bg.ac.rs, 2 e-mail: kosovka.ognjenovic@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381 11 2638 820 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 37-52) introduction social satisfaction from de facto economic apartheid also results in substantial social problems that cannot be easily resolved. wealth inequality itself leads to the richest controlling an unproportionate share of the economy and possessing greater political power, while the poorest are forced to eke out a mediocre existence. policy makers have grown increasingly concerned with monitoring poverty and social inclusion indicators in order to reduce inequality and dissatisfaction. two eurostat surveys, the household budget survey and the silc (the survey of income and living conditions), are used to monitor indicators of inequality and poverty within the eu. the latter of these two aims to collect timely and comparable, cross-sectional and longitudinal multidimensional microdata on income, poverty, social exclusion and living conditions (eurostat, 2014). in regard to the republic of serbia’s wealth inequality indicators, as well as their analysis and monitoring, it is crucial to utilize the european union statistics on income and living conditions (eu-silc) since it annually publishes data on income and living standards, as well as on poverty and social inclusion. silc was first conducted in serbia in 2013 (statistical office of republic of serbia, silc, 2017). one key area in examining economic inequality is that between men and women. by some estimates, women represent 70% of the world's poor and are often less paid for their work than men (world bank, 2018). in serbia, from the age of 35 years males earn higher salaries than females (statistical office of republic of serbia, 2018). the effects of economic inequality between genders are also felt elsewhere in society. according to mrsevic (2011), unemployment and poverty increase domestic violence against women, worsen sexual and related harassment of females in the workplace, as well as reduce political participation and exclude women from being able to fully participate in public life. albeit the monitoring of poverty and inequality indicators is an issue of interest to a large number of academic researchers, there are, as of yet, few academic studies addressing poverty and inequality in the balkans, particularly in serbia (ognjevovic, pavlovic, 2019; pantović, bradar, petovar 2017; dokmanovic, 2016). gender differences are starkly distinguished in poverty. men are at a lower risk of poverty than women. matkovic et al. (2015) noted that there are significant differences between the at-risk-of-poverty rates for women and men aged 55-64. the authors pavlović, d., et al., perspectives on poverty by gender, jwee (2020, no. 1, 37-52) 39 concluded that women within this age group are at a lower risk of poverty due to early retirement and inheriting benefits from family pensions. research conducted in slovenia shows that the risk of poverty is higher for women than for men in all age groups (leskosek, 2018). however, after the sixties there is a distinction. as a consequence of the pension system, women's work histories and their inclusion into paid work, the gender gap is higher after the age of 60. the poverty of older women is two to three times higher than the poverty of men since welfare systems worldwide insufficiently address the problem of neglecting the core issue of gender inequalities over the course of women’s lives (burkevica et al., 2015; gianni et al., 2015). data from the european commission and the european institute for gender equality show that women's pensions are lower than men's in all 28 eu states (burkevica et al., 2015). using recent statistical data on indicators of gender poverty sourced from the statistical office of the republic of serbia (sors), this paper presents an analysis of the position of women in the republic of serbia (rs). this paper also compares some basic statistics regarding the trends of poverty and possible sources of economic inequality by gender and provides some recommendations for the advancement of women in the rs. current state of women in the republic of serbia serbia has shown its good faith to advance the status of women by being signatories to the universal declaration of human rights and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw), the european convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the european social charter and the council of europe’s convention on the prevention and combat of violence against women and domestic violence. serbia also strives to meet the un millennial development goals on gender equality and equal opportunities (united nations, 2015). the republic of serbia has tried to actively better the position of women within its borders by adopting a national strategy for gender equality (2009). based on improvements made in the first strategy, a new national gender equality strategy for 2016-2020 (official gazette of rs, no 55/05, 71/05 – corrigendum, 101/07 and 65/08, 16/11, 68/12 ‒ constitutional court and 72/12, 7/14 – constitutional court and 44/14) was subsequently adopted to further promote gender equality. the strategy itself 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 37-52) recognizes that women are encumbered by domestic roles affected from patriarchal attitudes against women’s economic freedom and potential away from “traditional” roles” “the socio-economic causes of the gender gap in poverty are often cited as the retraditionalization and repatriarchalisation of society, as well as the conflict of roles of family-work which come as a burden chiefly to women” (national strategy for gender equality, 2016, p.50). the strategy states that economic equality is a key factor in achieving qualitative shifts in bettering inequality between women and men, noting specifically "traditionalism regarding gender roles leads to greater technical illiteracy among women, later additionally marginalizing them in the labor market" (national strategy for gender equality, 2016, p.20). according to the rs’ 2011 census (statistical office of republic of serbia, 2011), the share of women in the total population in the republic of serbia is about 51%. according to sors estimates for 2018, there were 3,570,953 women in serbia compared to 3,392,811 men (statistical office of republic of serbia, 2011). 44.5 was the average age for all women while it was 41.7 for men. figure 1: number of degree holders by education level attained, republic of serbia, 2017 source: statistical office of the republic of serbia, 2017. in serbia, the number of male and female students who graduated from high school in 2017/2018 was almost equal (figure 1.). while there are more female students who have completed the general secondary school pavlović, d., et al., perspectives on poverty by gender, jwee (2020, no. 1, 37-52) 41 than male students (8,676: 6,569, respectively), males are three times more likely than females to complete a 3-year vocational school. the 2017 sors data show that women are generally more educated than are men, as more women attained a higher education. in the same year, 420 women as opposed to 403 men completed their doctorates. however, at the serbian academy of sciences and arts, men occupy 90% of all memberships compared to women (statistical office of republic of serbia, 2019). in addition to the fiscal stabilization and implementing needed economic reforms, a decrease in unemployment in serbia over the last several years has been a key positive trend. significant progress in labor market indicators show the unemployment rate to have dropped and the employment rate to have increased by roughly 9 percentage points from 2013 to 2017 (table 1). table 1: the serbian labor market, participants aged 15 or over 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 unemployment rate 22.1 19.2 17.7 15.3 13.5 employment rate 37.7 42.0 42.5 45.2 46.7 source: statistical office of the republic of serbia, lfs, 2107. when deconstructed by gender, the ratio of men employed to that of women has been changing since 2016, in that women are gaining ground by having a higher presence in the labor market. however, men still maintain a stronger foothold in the labor market than do women. as derived from the 2017 lfs data, approximately 1,565,000 men and 1,229,000 women were employed. the employment rate among males is higher than that of females, by as much as 13%. the overall employment rate progressed from 2016 to 2018 by as much as 4% in both men and women. the unemployment rate in 2018 for women was approximately 14%, whereas for men it was roughly 12%. most disadvantaged are women between the ages of 15 and 24, whose unemployment rates were as high as 70%. the activity rate of women who possess a higher education is slightly higher than the activity rate of men of the same educational level, while the activity rate of women who have no educational credentials or have only attained a lower level of education is less than the activity rate of men of the same educational level. 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 37-52) table 2: labor market of serbia, 2016-2018 2016 2017 2018 age 15-24 age 15-64 age 15-24 age 15-64 age 15-24 age 15-64 activity rate total 30.3 65.6 30.6 66.7 30.0 67.8 male 36.8 73.1 36.8 73.8 36.3 75.1 female 23.4 58.1 24.1 59.6 23.3 60.6 employment rate total 19.7 55.2 20.9 57.3 21.1 58.8 male 24.9 61.9 26.1 63.9 26.0 65.6 female 14.2 48.4 15.3 50.8 15.9 52.0 inactivity rate total 69.7 34.4 69.4 33.3 70.0 32.2 male 63.2 26.9 63.2 26.2 63.7 24.9 female 76.6 41.9 75.9 40.4 76.7 39.4 unemployment rate total 34.9 15.9 31.9 14.1 29.7 13.3 male 32.2 15.3 29.2 13.5 28.3 12.5 female 39.5 16.7 36.3 14.8 32.0 14.2 source: statistical office of republic of serbia, lfs, 2018. the number of unemployed women with secondary education or higher decreased in 2018 in comparison with 2017. among all women who are unemployed, 50% of them possess a secondary education or higher; 30% of all unemployed persons are unskilled women. table 3: unemployed persons by educational attainment, 2017-2018 2017 2018 women, 2017 women, 2018 total 618 827 552 513 324 977 294 978 university, vocational higher, and secondary vocational education 270 584 244 274 162 638 148 207 highly skilled and skilled 143 535 123 621 58 253 51 296 semi-skilled and lower professional education 21 609 18 617 10 955 9 549 unskilled 183 099 166 001 93 131 85 926 source: statistical office of the republic of serbia, 2018. pavlović, d., et al., perspectives on poverty by gender, jwee (2020, no. 1, 37-52) 43 methods and data the analysis conducted in this paper primarily uses data from the sors. data of two nationally representative surveys are used: the lfs and silc, covering 2016 to 2018 (depending on data availability). other official registers, where pertinent, are also studied, such as those from the national employment service on the number of unemployed in the republic of serbia. a common indicator of poverty for all the countries included in eusilc (eurostat, 2014) and the main indicator of poverty used in this study is the at-risk-of-poverty rate. in statistical terms, the rate represents the percentage of the total population whose equivalent income lies below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold, defined as 60% of the equivalent income denominated in national currency. equivalent income is calculated by using the oecd modified equivalence scale: еdihi = ∑ wi * dihi, where dihi is equivalent income of a household’s members equalized by weighting each member by age, whereas wi = 1, 0.5 or 0.3 for each household head, every adult member of the household 14 years of age and over, and children, respectively. in this paper, the at-risk-of-poverty rates are observed by age, labor market status, occupational status and education. the comparative approach is used where the main findings for serbia are discussed from the perspective of other studies or data concerning the impact of implementing changes to social policies related to poverty. women in poverty from 2016 to 2018 in the republic of serbia according to data from silc (2018), the at-risk-of-poverty rate (the share of persons earning income below 60% of the median of the equivalent income of the total population) was 24.3% and, despite slight fluctuations (25.5% (2016), 25.7% (2017) and 24.3% (2018)), remained largely unchanged from silc 2013 when it was 24.5%. statistics show that the poverty rate in serbia is decreasing. the risk of being at poverty was measured by a rate of 25.5% in 2016, but it decreased to 24.3% in 2018. poverty rates for women are also noticeably lower, 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 37-52) where, in 2016, it was 24.6% but 23% in 2018. by age group, the most vulnerable are women between the 18 and 24 years of age, where their rate was around 30%. the biggest gap between men and women is between the ages of 55 and 64, where, according to 2018 data, the poverty rate for women was 6.6 percentage points lower than for men. for those over 65, there is a considerable difference between men and women, as men are at a lower risk of poverty than are women. for men over 65, the poverty rate is 16.9%, while for women of the same age it is 24.3% in 2018. table 4: the at-risk-of-poverty rate by gender and age, 2016-2018 at risk of poverty rate, %, 2016 gender total male female 25.8 25.2 25.5 18 – 64 27.4 24.6 26.0 18 – 24 33.3 32.0 32.7 25 – 54 25.8 24.5 25.1 55 – 64 28.4 21.5 24.8 65 + 15.2 22.0 19.1 at risk of poverty rate, %, 2017 male female total 25,4 26.0 25.7 18 – 64 26.0 25.3 25.7 18 – 24 27.3 32.3 29.7 25 – 54 24.6 25.1 24.9 55 – 64 29.3 22.5 25.8 65 + 16.9 24.7 21.3 at risk of poverty rate, %, 2018 male female total 24.6 24.0 24,3 18 – 64 25.1 23.0 24.0 18 – 24 29.9 28.2 29.1 25 – 54 23.4 22.8 23.1 55 – 64 27.4 20.8 23.9 65 + 16.9 24.3 21.1 source: statistical office of republic of serbia, silc, 2016-2018. in serbia, poverty in men and women remains relatively equal in scope up to 65 years of age, after which there is an extreme shift where those living in poverty dramatically increase among women. the origins of this pavlović, d., et al., perspectives on poverty by gender, jwee (2020, no. 1, 37-52) 45 sudden change are not entirely clear. however, babovic et al. (2017) noted that the most vulnerable among the elderly are women who are single mothers, retired, the disabled, outside the labor market or those who come from rural communities or socially marginalized (i.e., roma) communities. measured at the individual level, women are far more likely than men to be in privation for every indicator, from clothing and footwear to the availability of personal finance. the composition of the household can further explain certain differences in poverty between genders. for example, the tendency in poverty of the single-person households depicts reverse trends between genders. according to silc data, men (38.1%) were at a higher risk of poverty than women (31.8%) in 2016, while in 2017 with the rate of 34.4% women were more exposed to poverty than men (31.1%). this trend continues in 2018. in part, this can be explained by ageing of the population, a lifespan gap between men and women and lower survivors’ pensions due to a discrepancy in the gender employment rates. the gap in at-risk-ofpoverty rates is particularly deep when single-parent households with one and more children are observed by gender. in sociological studies, the risks are nowadays associated with the global increasing trend of nonmarital parenthood and rising births outside of marriage (schubert, deimel, 2016; harrington meyer, parker, 2011). serbian experience shows that it might be particularly troubling for single mothers to cope with the poverty due to inappropriate child support allowances, irregular alimony, etc. (government of the republic of serbia / social inclusion and poverty reduction unit, 2018; stanković, 2014). the at-risk-of-poverty rate shows a slow reduction in poverty among both the employed and non-employed which is a similar trend as in the total population (table 5). the risk of being at the poverty rate for the employed was reduced from 11.9% in 2016 to 10% in 2018, while at the same time poverty of those not in employment decreased by 0.6 percentage points and reached 31.5% in 2018. attachment to the labor market affects disproportionally the poverty of active participants. the poverty of employees is more pronounced among the self-employed in comparison with wage earners, while unemployed among those not in employment or inactive are at the higher risk of poverty. it is expected due to ineffective beneficiary support to the unemployed, significant portion of those searching for a job more than 12 months and lack of eligible training programs. all other non-employed/inactive persons have some other 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 37-52) possibly continuous sources of income, such as pensions, social assistance, etc. when the poverty of men and women in the labor market is compared, similar trends can be noticed. the poverty is slightly decreasing over the years; however, female employees are less exposed to poverty than their male counterparts, probably due to a better structure of household income. for example, women are more likely to live in households where both spouses are employed, have stable sources of income, etc. this is also why unemployed women and those who are beneficiaries of pensions are under the lower risk of poverty than unemployed men. however, dependent members of the household or unable to work are in a much more difficult position if they are women. table 5: the at-risk-of-poverty rate by gender and labor market status, 2016-2018 gender total male female at-risk-of-poverty rate, 2016, % employed 13.9 9.3 11.9 employees 8.9 6.7 7.8 self-employed 34.9 33.4 34.4 non-employed 33.3 31.2 32.1 unemployed 52.5 46.2 49.6 retired 14.7 18.0 16.6 other non-employed 30.0 37.4 35.3 at-risk-of-poverty rate, 2017, % employed 12.2 9.1 10.8 employees 6.5 7.1 6.8 self-employed 38.4 28.6 35.5 non-employed 32.3 32.4 32.3 unemployed 52.3 48.7 50.7 retired 14.3 19.9 17.5 other non-employed 26.1 36.4 33.4 at-risk-of-poverty rate, 2018, % employed 11.3 8.3 10.0 employees 6.9 6.6 6.8 self-employed 32.7 26.5 31.0 pavlović, d., et al., perspectives on poverty by gender, jwee (2020, no. 1, 37-52) 47 gender total male female non-employed 33.1 30.4 31.5 unemployed 54.1 43.7 49.0 retired 14.7 18.9 17.1 other non-employed 30.8 37.6 35.7 source: statistical office of republic of serbia, silc, 2016-2018. as it was already elaborated in the previous paragraph, the selfemployed are under a higher risk of poverty than those employed in the companies. but, who are those more deprived among the self-employed? as the data in table 6 shows there are certain differences among the employed depending on the main occupational status. men are more likely to run a business than women, because barely 30% of women are classified as selfemployed with employees. similar distribution is present among those selfemployed who do not employ other persons (sole traders, freelancers, artists, etc.); in this group of the self-employed women are represented by more than one third of the total. there is almost equal distribution of both genders among the employees, while women are more likely to be family workers than men, probably because this position in the household is very rarely paid and because there is an offended view that men are the breadwinners of the family. table 6: employment and at-risk-of-poverty rate by gender and occupational status, 2017 self-employed with employees self-employed without employees employees family workers employment indicator, % male 70.8 65.7 50.9 19.3 female 29.2 34.3 49.1 80.7 total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 at-risk-of-poverty rate, % male 22.5 41.6 18.5 43.7 female 27.4 34.6 15.6 46.2 total 23.9 39.2 17.1 45.8 source: statistical office of republic of serbia, silc, 2017. 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 37-52) the second panel of table 6 shows that although women are less likely to run their own businesses, they are more likely to be at a higher risk of poverty than men. however, when women decide to be self-employed without employing other workers, they are in a bit better position than men. the at-risk-of-poverty rate for women is 34.9% which is 7.1 percentage points less in comparison with the same indicator for men. the interesting finding is that the difference between the at-risk-of-poverty rate for male and female family workers is only 2.5 percentage points, showing that women might be only slightly deprived than men when holding this position in the household. they do not earn “monetary” income, but instead they help maintain stable sources of total household income (ognjenović, pavlović, 2019). figure 2: the at-risk-of-poverty by gender, 2017 source: statistical office of republic of serbia, silc, 2017. the level of education is a key factor in alleviating poverty, but the effect of education differs across regions and countries. in general, from a gender perspective additional educational achievements may help more to those women with no previous education or with low level of education. some relevant studies confirm a close connection between education and poverty from a global perspective by studying the achievements of the pavlović, d., et al., perspectives on poverty by gender, jwee (2020, no. 1, 37-52) 49 millennium development goals in low-income countries (unterhalter, 2012), or in transitional economies (matković, 2006). poverty and characteristics of tertiary educated women in the eu and how they are successful in the labor market are studied by aisa et al. (2019). their analysis confirms that higher educated european women cannot successfully materialize their achievements in the labor market due to occupational choices or types of employment because of the skewness towards fixed-term contracts. at-risk-of-poverty rates by gender and educational attainment for serbia, using the 2017 silc data, are given in figure 2. in general, almost a half of those with primary education or less are at a high risk of poverty. however, men (52.6%) with this level of education are more exposed to poverty than similarly educated women (47.6%). women in serbia have higher rates of higher education in comparison with men (343,410:308,824, respectively)3, but lower rates of risk of poverty (8.6%:9.6%, respectively). only women with secondary education have higher rates of risk of poverty than men. this finding is complementary with their status in the labor market, i.e. these women are disproportionally more represented among the unemployed than men of the same level of education. similar findings are confirmed by previous analyses using the 2013 silc data for serbia (matković et al., 2015). conclusions the results of this study indicate that women 55 years or older are at a greater risk of falling into poverty than do men at the same age. furthermore, a contributing factor to women being at higher risk of poverty is their being less likely to run their own businesses than men are, as demonstrated by the finding that when women do decide to be selfemployed (without employing other workers) they are in a slightly better position than men. women who are self-employed are under the highest risk of poverty than salaried employees, showing that a woman’s means of employment may be a determining factor in whether she is at the poverty rate or not. furthermore, since barely 30% of women are classified as self 3 the estimates are given for the population aged 15 years and over, according to 2011 census data. see the statistical yearbook for 2018, p. 42 (statistical office of the republic of serbia, 2018). 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 37-52) employed with employees, it is also found that men are more likely to run a business than women. poverty in women appears to stem from the wage gap between men and women accompanied by less convenient employment options, as well as domestic factors, such as the expectation that women should be primarily responsible for harmonizing work and home life (leskosek, 2018). while women in serbia are more educated than men, they still earn less. albeit the majority of employees in serbia, both men and women, earn insufficient salaries to keep them from poverty, women are by far more disadvantaged. whether it be in the public and private sector and at the same educational level, gender inequalities in earnings are seen in almost all sectors of activity for the same occupations. reducing gender equality chiefly stems from the synergy of multiple actors such as decision makers, civil society representatives and business representatives. even though women are more skilled and more educated than men, women are still more likely to be unemployed. it should therefore be necessary to align strategies such as the gender equality strategy and the employment strategy in serbia to more significantly contribute to reducing gender’s effect on poverty. as such, it is also within the public’s general interest to support the reconciliation of work and care responsibilities through the social services offered and gender equality policies in place, as it will assist in raising wages for women as well as having a net-positive effect on improving poverty overall. poverty among older women shows that such measures are currently falling short of meeting their aims. references [1] aisa, r., larramona, g., pueyo, f. 2019. “poverty in europe by gender: the role of education and labour”. economic analysis and policy, vol. 63 (1), 24-34. available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eap.2019.04.009 [2] babovic, m., cvejic, s., stefanovic, s. 2017. „oprez, siromaštvo! – praćenje siromaštva u okviru razvojne agende un do 2030. godine”. eapnpoverty-watch-serbia. available at https://www.eapn.eu/wpcontent/uploads/2017/12/eapn-poverty-watch-serbia-hr-2773.pdf [3] burkevica, i., humbert, a. l., oetke, n., & paats, m. 2015. “gender gap in pensions in the eu”. vilnius: eige. [4] dokmanović, m. 2016. „gender analysis for serbia“. ibf international consulting. available at http://europa.rs/ files/gender_equality/gender analysis-serbia-dec-2016.pdf. pavlović, d., et al., perspectives on poverty by gender, jwee (2020, no. 1, 37-52) 51 [5] eurostat. 2014. working paper with the description of the “income and living conditions dataset”. available at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/1012329/1012398/d5.1.3working_paper_final_20141204-qfycdr1i.pdf [6] gianni, b., bettio, f., georgiadis, t., & tinios, p. 2015. “unequal ageing in europe: women’s independence and pensions”. new york: palgrave macmillan. [7] government of the republic of serbia / social inclusion and poverty reduction unit. (2018). the third national report on social inclusion and poverty in the republic of serbia for the period 2014-2017, http://socijalnoukljucivanje.gov.rs/wpcontent/uploads/2019/02/treci_nacionalni_izvestaj_o_socijalnom_ukljuciva nju_i_smanjenju_siromastva_2014%e2%80%932017_eng.pdf [8] harrington meyer, m., parker, w. m. 2011. “gender, ageing, and social policy”. in: handbook of ageing and social policy, 7th edition, binstock, r. h., george, k. l. (eds.). amsterdam: academic press. available at https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-380880-6.00023-x [9] leskosek, v. 2018. “poverty of older women in slovenia“. revija za socijalnu politiku, vol. 26 (2), 27-240. available at doi: 10.3935/rsp.v26i2.1586 [10] matković, g. 2006. “overview of poverty and social exclusion in the western balkans”. stanovništvo, xliv (1), 7-46. available at https://doi.org/10.2298/stnv0601007m [11] matković, g., krstić, g., mijatović, b. 2015. “srbija: prihodi i uslovi života 2013”. statistical office of the republic of serbia. available at http://media.popispoljoprivrede.stat.rs/2014/12/prihodi_i_uslovi_zivota_201 3.pdf [12] national strategy for gender equality 2016-2020, serbia. available at https://data.stat.gov.rs/home/result/18010403?languagecode=en-latn [13] national strategy for gender equality of rs 2009-2015. available at http://www.atina.org.rs/sites/default/files/nacionalna_strategija%20za%20po boljsanje%20polozaja%20zena%20i%20unapredjivanje%20rodne%20ravno pravnosti.pdf [14] ognjenović, k., pavlović, d. 2019. “are the self-employed at a higher poverty risk? empirical evidence from serbian silc data.” paper presented at the international scientific conference “econometric modelling in economics and finance”. institute of economic sciences, belgrade, october 29-30, 2019. [15] pantović, j., bradaš, s., petovar, k. 2017. „položaj žena na tržištu rada“. beograd: friedrich ebert stiftung. [16] schubert, g., deimel, j. 2016. “women in the balkans / southeastern europe”. leipzig: biblion media gmbh. 52 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 37-52) [17] stanković, b. 2014. “lone mothers and their network support: sociodemographic research of nonmarital parenthood in serbia”. stanovništvo, lii (1), 55-76. available at https://doi.org/10.2298/stnv1401055s [18] statistical office of republic of serbia, labor force survey 2016-2018. available at https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/g2020/pdfe/g20205658.pdf [19] statistical office of republic of serbia, silc (2017), https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/g2018/pdf/g20181345.pdf [20] statistical office of republic of serbia. (2018). statistical yearbook of the republic of serbia 2018, https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/g2018/pdf/g20182051.pdf [21] united nations. 2015. „the millennium development goals report”. available at https://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_mdg_report/pdf/mdg%20201 5%20rev%20(july%201).pdf [22] unterhalter, e. 2012. “poverty, education, gender and the millennium development goals: reflections on boundaries and intersectionality”. theory and research in education, 10 (3), 253-274. available at https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878512459394 [23] world bank blog. 2018. available at https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/no-70-world-s-poor-aren-twomen-doesn-t-mean-poverty-isn-t-sexist article history: received: 1 may, 2020 accepted: 16 may, 2020 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.34.pp23-40 original scientific paper women entrepreneurship in the time of covid-19 pandemic: the case of serbia sanja popović-pantić1 dušica semenčenko2 nikola vasilić3 university of belgrade, institute mihajlo pupin, science and technology policy research center, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t the crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 had a great impact on the business activities of the women entrepreneurs. pandemic protection measures taken to reduce health risks as well as the introduction of restrictive measures have influenced the changes in the scope, manner and organization of business in most small and medium enterprises, including those (co) owned and managed by women. considering that the previous researches showed that women bore the greatest burden of this crisis, the aim of the study was to gain insight into the effects of the pandemic on women's businesses as well as balancing between business and family responsibilities of women entrepreneurs in the changed circumstances. the research was conducted through an online survey on a sample of 93 respondents (women entrepreneurs in serbia). the results showed that 76% of women-owned companies were negatively affected by the covid-19 pandemic and that women replaced the lack of hours spent at work with work at home and care of family members. key words: women entrepreneurship, covid-19, serbia 1 e-mail: sanjap.pantic@pupin.rs, tel.+381 11 6774 45 2 e-mail: dusica.semencenko@pupin.rs, tel. +381 11 6774 452 3 cooresponding author: e-mail: nikola.vasilic@pupin.rs, +381 11 6774 452 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 23-40) introduction the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic has strongly impacted the health of populations, economies and public services including social services, work patterns and everyday life practices of people all over the world. the challenge that decision makers faced in such a changed socioeconomic context could be formulated through the question: how to prevent most effectively the spread of the virus among populations while ensuring the smooth functioning of the economy? the numerous studies on the impact of covid-19 on the company's business have been conducted from the beginning of the pandemic until today. data related to the initial period and those we have generated now show slight differences in both expectations and outcomes. however, not enough time has passed yet to make adequate estimations of the damage caused by the pandemic. it is already evident that the consequences for companies and the economy as a whole depend on their functioning and economic strength before the crisis. the covid-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on society as a whole and categories that were in a vulnerable position even before the pandemic have been particularly affected. the covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the profoundness of gender inequalities in the region and the fragility of progress made up to date. researches that were conducted by the unwomen (unwomen, 2020) indicated that the burden of the covid-19 crisis has particularly affected women. while the women entrepreneurs have had to deal with the difficulties caused by the virus on both economic and family fronts, the employed women that are not the owners of the companies faced a different kind of challenges related to their work, such as the interference between work and family care and stress caused by difficulties to perform the work adequately under the pressure of family needs, and vice versa. pandemic has not affected equally all businesses which has been indicated in the research presented in this paper and also in other studies investigating the impact of covid 19 on the business operations (unija poslodavaca srbije, 2013; secons, 2020a; koltai & geambasu, 2020). also, the pandemic has had a significant impact on the women providing services whose micro businesses were closed for some period at the beginning of the crisis leaving them without any income. additionally, there were a great number of women providing household services, such as cleaning/household maintenance, sanja popović-pantić, dušica semenčenko, nikola vasilić 25 childcare and care for the elderly who were also left without any work or incomes (unwomen, 2020). some countries, including serbia, declared the state of emergency during the first wave of the pandemic, starting in march 2020. during that period, 56% of medium-sized enterprises reported that the pandemic affected their business activity, 22% stated that their business activity was not yet affected by the pandemic but that they expected negative impacts in the following 25 months, 11% stated that their business would probably not be affected, and the same percentage of respondents reported that their business was not yet affected but they expected the negative effects in the next 2 months (beraha & djuričin, 2020). women entrepreneurs often face numerous barriers in their development, which, as practice has shown so far, are a legacy of gender stereotypes. over the last seven years, there has been a steady rise, from 25 to 30%, of businesses owned and run by women in serbia. however, 99% of these businesses are single-employment or family-run businesses with less than 10 employees in the sectors of health, education, tourism, social and other services. these businesses are particularly vulnerable to interruption because without continuous operation the whole families could fall below the poverty line. various barriers imposed, naturally or artificially, on women in the sphere of business, make it impossible for the women's business to develop at the same dynamics as men's (popović-pantić, 2020). this leads to the assumption that women's entrepreneurship could suffer serious damage even in the conditions of the crisis caused by the covid-19 virus, precisely because of the gender-sensitive barriers they face in regular conditions which makes them quite vulnerable. the aim of this research is to gain insight into the effects of the pandemic on women's business as well as to balance the business and family obligations of women entrepreneurs in the changed circumstances. the paper is structured in three parts. the first part of the paper discusses the possible effects of the crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic, in general, and especially regarding women's entrepreneurship. in the second part of the paper, the research methodology is explained. the third part refers to the analysis of the results of the conducted research. 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 23-40) how the covid-19 pandemic could affect women entrepreneurship? in recent years, women's entrepreneurship has had a significant expansion across the world. companies founded and run by women play an important role in socio-economic development. the participation rate of women in entrepreneurship is still lower than the participation rate of their male colleagues (semenčenko et al., 2016). although there is an upward trend regarding the percentage of female entrepreneurs, there are still plenty of facts which put this economic group in a less favourable position comparing to men (popović-pantić et al., 2019). in general, women are facing more difficulties in running their businesses than men. therefore, it is expected that their position would be more vulnerable to the challenges and crisis. the latest covid-19 crisis affected mostly the female businesses in the area of providing services as they prevailed in this sector. the fact that 99% of women are the owners of micro companies and only 1% of them is the owner of the small companies in serbia (babović, 2012) indicates that the vulnerability of their position could be increased during the covid-19 outbreak. the accurate data on the number of the closed smes including those (co)owned and run by women, has not been available yet but it is known that almost 6% of the self-employed ones had to close their businesses due to the covid-19 crisis while, on the other hand, for 2.4% of them even has a positive impact on business (secons, 2020a). the data on the number of companies closed due to the global economic crisis in 2008 indicate that the women's entrepreneurship, compared to the men's, could be more exposed to the strong impact of the crisis caused by covid-19, the closing rate of women's businesses was 47%, comparing to 38% of the closed companies owned by men (babović, 2012). during the financial crisis in 2008, the gender equality and women’s entrepreneurship bore a great burden as a result of the economic slowdown. it is very likely that this impact could repeat in 2020 and further on since the sectors which have been directly affected by lockdowns and similar measures are those in which women have most of their smalland medium-size enterprises: tourism, education, child care, restaurants and other traditional “female professions”, such as beauty and hair salons. the probability that women entrepreneurs in serbia could be more affected by the covid 19 crisis than men, is raised by the fact that they are focusing their business operation toward the local market (78%) while 28% sanja popović-pantić, dušica semenčenko, nikola vasilić 27 of them have expanded their activities all over serbia (secons, 2020b). the significant decrease in demand characteristic for the first half of 2020 and purchasing only the basic products/services, certainly have derogated the position of women entrepreneurs concentrated mostly in the service sector. for the small percentage of women–exporters (10%) it was not easy to avoid negative effects of the covid-19 crisis caused by the closing of the borders between countries, especially non-eu countries, difficulties to organize manufacturing according to the new standards in the period of the pandemic, shortening the working hours, lack of the labour force and interruption of the supply chains. even before the crisis, women faced barriers in accessing supply chains and procurement. the women-owned enterprises are mostly micro and small, which often puts them in an outsider position when they compete in procurement tenders. in addition, a great number of these companies have less capacity to certify their technical competencies, financial resources, equipment, and other physical guarantees. practice in some countries has shown that for all these reasons, the women-owned enterprises lose out on their potential due to the procurement contracts: business expansion, volume building and innovation, and entry into new value chains (popović-pantić et al., 2020). it is expected that even a small group of women entrepreneurs which have managed to access the supply chains before the pandemic have also faced severe problems in interrupting the hardly established relation with the big buyers, due to the covid-19 pandemic and the reintegration. women in the tourism sector share the same challenge as their male peers during the covid-19 crisis. according to the data of the global report on women and tourism (world tourism organization, 2019) for the period 2012-2016, conducted in seven eu countries, about 38% of female companies operate in the sector of tourism. the touristic economy has been heavily hit by the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic and the introduced protection measures. the most affected players at the touristic market are the owners of the touristic agencies, hotels, motels, and other providers of accommodation and hospitality services but also those in related sectors, like handicrafts, food processing, wellness, and similar sectors where women also prevail. in general, it seems that the most affected by the covid-19 pandemic are the women entrepreneurs in the hospitality sector, services and similar (secons, 2020b). they were enforced to suspend temporarily their business operations due to the special regulation of the government of serbia. 28 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 23-40) according to the secons (2020b), there were 27.7% of them. almost the same is the share of those who had to interrupt or reduce the scope of their business due to the lack of resources to organize working process according to the respectable new rules and healthy procedures including physical distance and similar protection measures, which mostly refer to the entrepreneurs in retail and gross trade. methodology data for the purposes of this research were collected using an online questionnaire. the online questionnaire was sent to the e-mail addresses of 450 women entrepreneurs registered in the database of the association of business women of serbia. the research lasted from june 5 to july 5, 2020. during that period, 93 questionnaires were received, which means that the survey response rate is 21%. the largest number of female entrepreneurs are aged between 25 and 45, 67% of women entrepreneurs live in some kind of wedlock, while the remaining number is without a partner. the educational structure is mostly made up of women entrepreneurs with higher education. most companies have been operated in the period from 10 to 20 years and a slightly smaller number from 5 to 10 years. the majority of companies (76%) employ less than 10 workers. considering the sectors in which women entrepreneurs operate, the most represented are: industry, manufacturing, construction (33%), professional, scientific, and technical activities (16%), trade and repair services (15%), education, health and social care (10%). table 1: composition of sample % entrepreneurs age between 25 and 35 years old between 36 and 45 years old between 46 and 55 years old between 56 and 65 years old more than 65 years old missing values 28 33 20 14 1 4 marital status single, maiden married or lives in a cohabiting relationship divorced widowed 13 67 12 2 sanja popović-pantić, dušica semenčenko, nikola vasilić 29 % i don’t want to answer missing values education level vocational school vocational high school high school graduate higher vocational education undergraduate degree postgraduate degree missing values company age less than 1 year between 1 and 5 years between 5 and 10 years between 10 and 20 years between 20 and 30 years more than 30 years missing values 1 5 1 11 5 12 40 27 4 12 19 22 27 17 2 1 total number of employees less than 10 10-49 50-249 missing values 76 15 6 3 turnover under 3 thousand eur 6 3-8 thousand eur 9-28 thousand eur 29-143 thousand eur more than 143 thousand eur 16 11 20 26 i don’t want to answer 21 sector agriculture, hunting, forestry or fishing industry, manufacturing, construction professional, scientific, and technical activities trade and repair services accommodation services, hospitality sector transportation, warehousing, information and telecommunication economic, administrative and support services, fin. intermediation education, health and social care other community care, personal and social services arts, entertainment and recreation 2 33 16 15 7 5 5 10 5 2 source: authors. 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 23-40) data were processed using descriptive statistics methods. in addition, the non-parametric technique related-samples wilcoxon signed-rank was used to identify the statistical significance of differences in time spent in performing business-related, house-related, and children and family-related activities, as well as differences in the number of employees in the womenowned companies before and during the covid-19 pandemic. findings business vs. non-business related activities prior and during the covid-19 pandemic traditionally, women carry the greatest burden considering fulfilling family and household responsibilities, while men perceive themselves as the “financial pillar” of the family, someone who is obliged to provide a carefree daily life. in the last two decades, women's businesses have been expanded. women become almost equal to men in their financial contribution to the family. in our sample, women entrepreneurs earn higher or the same as their male partners. however, has this equality also affected the equality in the performance of family and household responsibilities? many women would likely answer such a question with no. the covid-19 pandemic could further worsen the position of women entrepreneurs. some of the first measures introduced by the government of the republic of serbia have been the closing of schools and mandatory quarantine for the elderly and people with endangered health. preschool children and people with deteriorating health require special, almost uninterrupted attention, starting with meal preparation, changing clothes, maintaining hygiene, learning assistance, emotional support, etc. these commitments further burden women entrepreneurs and reduce the focus on business turbulence caused by the covid-19 pandemic. during the pandemic, 43% of women entrepreneurs spent less time doing business-related activities than before the pandemic (figure 2a); 65% out of that number are women living in marital or extramarital relationships; 32% of women entrepreneurs devoted more time to business during the pandemic than in the time before the pandemic. sanja popović-pantić, dušica semenčenko, nikola vasilić 31 figure 2: time spent doing business-related activities (2a), house-related activities (2b), and children and family-related activities (2c) – prior and during pandemic source: authors. the majority (60%) of women entrepreneurs spent more hours in various house-related activities during the pandemic compared to the time they devoted to these activities before the pandemic (figure 2b);9% of them spent less time doing house-related activities during the pandemic. regarding children and family-related activities, 49% of women entrepreneurs devoted more and 15% less time during the pandemic compared to the period before the pandemic (figure 2c). the results of the wilcoxon signed rank test show that a significantly higher number of women entrepreneurs spent more hours doing housework 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 23-40) and activities related to children and families during the pandemic compared to the time before the pandemic (figures 2b, 2c). on the other hand, an insignificantly higher number of women spent fewer hours doing business during the pandemic compared to the period before the pandemic (figure 2a). problems faced by women-owned enterprises during the covid-19 pandemic the majority (76%) of women entrepreneurs pointed out that the covid-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on the company's operations. specifically, 24% of them felt that the pandemic slightly worsened the state of the enterprises, while33% believed that the pandemic significantly worsened the state of the enterprises. the pandemic has disrupted 19% of women's businesses (figure 6). concerning the total number of women-owned companies on which the covid-19 pandemic has had negative effects, 34% are companies in the industry, manufacturing, construction sector, 18% from the professional, scientific, and technical activities sector, 17% from the trade and repair services sector, 10% education, health and social care, 7% from accommodation services, hospitality sector etc. according to the share of affected women-owned companies in the total number of women-owned companies in each of the sectors, the most exposed sectors to the covid-19 pandemic are: other community care, personal and social services, professional, scientific, and technical activities, trade and repair services, accommodation services and hospitality sector, education, health and social care, industry, manufacturing and construction, respectively (appendix i). sixteen percent of women entrepreneurs pointed out that the pandemic did not affect the company's business while 8% believed that the covid-19 pandemic had a positive impact on business (figure 6). sanja popović-pantić, dušica semenčenko, nikola vasilić 33 figure 6: what kind of impact has the covid-19 pandemic had on your enterprise? (n=93) source: authors. the consequences that women-owned companies faced during the covid-19 pandemic are different. most of them encountered a decline in revenue with a reduction or absence of demand and a temporary cessation of activities, respectively (table 3). interestingly, only 16% of women entrepreneurs reported that the level of online sales increased during the pandemic, although 74 of them reported making online sales (53 intensively, 21 sporadically). also, only 7% of respondents pointed out that the pandemic enabled them to enter new markets, while 17% introduced new products/services. table 3: how did the covid-19 pandemic affect your company? (three effects that were most relevant to your enterprise) n=87 effect number of mentions % demand has decreased/ceased to exist 55 63 suppliers stuttered 19 22 revenues have decreased 61 70 the activity had to be terminated 30 35 online sales have expanded 14 16 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% the pandemic has improved the situation of the entreprise the pandemic has not affected the situation of the entreprise the pandemic has slightly worsened the situation of the entreprise the pandemic has significantly worsened the situation of the entreprise the pandemic has made the operation of the entreprise impossible 34 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 23-40) effect number of mentions % new equipment was purchased 6 7 new markets were identified 6 7 new products/services were introduced 15 17 my enterprise was affected in a different manner 10 12 source: authors. in 14% of women-owned companies, the number of employees decreased in june 2020 compared to the number of employees in february of the same year. 5% of companies increased the number of employees, while in 78% of companies the number of employees remained unchanged (figure 5). in june 2020, the number of employed persons was lower for 11, which was only 0.92% of the total number of persons employed by women entrepreneurs in february of the same year. the related-samples wilcoxon signed rank test shows that there are statistically significant differences in the number of employees before and during the covid-19 pandemic (p = 0.125). figure 5: differences in the number of employees during (june) and prior (february) the covid-19 pandemic note: z=-1.528; p=0.125. source: authors. 5% 14% 78% 3% positive differences negative differences number of ties missing values sanja popović-pantić, dušica semenčenko, nikola vasilić 35 it is estimated by 66% of women entrepreneurs that their turnover will decrease in 2020 compared to 2019, whereas 49% of women entrepreneurs expect that turnover will decrease by more than 50%, and 46% that there will be a drop in turnover in the range of 30 to 50%. some of them (13%) believe that the turnover in 2020 will be higher than in 2019. the remaining 21% do not expect significant changes in turnover compared to 2019. figure 7: estimate how the turnover of your enterprise will change in 2020 compared to 2019 n=93 source: authors. the expected average decline in turnover of women-owned companies affected by the crisis is 44%. the largest decline in turnover in 2020 is expected in trade and repair services, accommodation services and hospitality sector, other community care, personal and social services, and the smallest decline in economic, administrative and support services, financial intermediation, education, health and social care and professional, scientific, and technical activities, respectively (appendix i). measures adopted by women-owned enterprises to tackle the current situation the women-owned companies have used a variety of strategies to solve the problems caused by the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic. most women entrepreneurs have resorted to reduction in business activities, using 66% 21% 13% decrease no change increase 36 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 23-40) various forms of state aid and introducing new or modifying the existing activities (table 3). twenty-four entrepreneurs tried to strengthen online sales, seeing it as a chance for survival or even progress in crisis conditions. forty-seven women entrepreneurs used measures that directly affected their employees. only five of them mentioned the workforce reduction as one of the three most important measures, while four entrepreneurs mentioned the unpaid leave. most women entrepreneurs, however, chose measures that affected employees in a less painful way, such as: days off / paid leave, reduction of working hours, and seven of them organized staff training. table 3: what measures have been introduced in your enterprise to mitigate the effects of the crisis? (choose three measures that were most relevant to your enterprise) n=88 types of measures number of mentions % new/modified activities 35 40 reduced / suspended activity 41 47 workforce reduction 5 6 days off/paid leave 14 16 unpaid leave 4 5 reduction of working hours 17 19 staff training 7 8 maintenance and development activities 17 19 strengthening online sales 24 27 introduction of home delivery 4 5 use of (governmental) aid/support 37 42 other measures 17 19 no actions were taken 2 2 source: authors. besides the fact that the companies tried to react to the new conditions rationally and on their own initiative with certain measures, the entire private sector also had the support of the state. the government of the republic of serbia has proposed a package of measures in order to mitigate the economic consequences caused by the covid-19 pandemic. as can be seen in figure 8, regarding the state aid, the women-owned companies mostly used wage subsidies, support for part-time employment, support for r&d workers, tax/counting discount, subsequent payment of sanja popović-pantić, dušica semenčenko, nikola vasilić 37 taxes and contributions, suspensions of loan repayment, respectively. on the other hand, even 24 entrepreneurs did not use any kind of state aid. figure 8: have you had recourse to any business support instrument during the pandemic? (choose all instruments that were relevant to your enterprise) note: figure represents a number of mentions. source: authors. conclusion our research shows that women’s entrepreneurship has been severely affected by the covid-19 outbreak and lock-downs. about 43% of women entrepreneurs has reduced the time spent doing business in the pandemic period. more than half (60%) of women entrepreneurs has increased the number of hours spent performing houserelated activities, while 49% of them has devoted more time to children and family-related activities during the pandemic compared to the period before the pandemic. these are just some of the indicators that show that women have once again taken on a greater burden than men. even 76% of women entrepreneurs stated that the pandemic had a negative impact on their business, whereas 19% of the companies were 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 no, i have not suspension of loan repayment wage subsidies, support for part-time employment, support for r&i workers tax / contribution discount; subsequent payment of taxes and contributions suspension payment of small … taking reduced loan investment aid venture capital subvention 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 23-40) disabled to carry out their activities in a regular manner. the most significant problems faced by women entrepreneurs during the covid-19 pandemic were revenues decline and demand reduction. however, for not so few women entrepreneurs, the crisis created new opportunities such as: entering new markets, including new products in the assortment and increasing online sales. only 14% of the companies reduced the number of employees during the pandemic which is quite encouraging. however, such a good outcome was rather a result of a greater extent of the state aid, which was reflected in the payment of three minimum wages for employees in the period april-june 2020 and postponement of taxes and contributions, than the previously created capacity of women-owned companies to maintain an unchanged number of employees. one of the best indicators of the severity of the economic crisis caused by the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic is turnover expectations. 49% of women entrepreneurs out of the total number of women entrepreneurs (66%) who expect a drop in turnover in 2020 comparing to 2019, believe that the turnover will decrease by more than 50%, while 46% expect a drop in the range of 30-50%. the companies have adapted to the new crisis situation in various ways, and women entrepreneurs have resorted to reduction in business activity, using various types of state aid and introducing new or modifying the existing activities. in general, women entrepreneurs tried to avoid the application of measures that would mean a worsening of the position of employees. the conducted research reflects only the current state of women-owned companies. it is necessary to repeat the research in a few months in order to see the efficiency of the companies' reaction but also the effectiveness of state aid to minimize the economic consequences of the covid-19 pandemic in the long run. the research should be expanded to include men-owned companies to determine whether men are more successful in "handling" a crisis of this type than women entrepreneurs. acknowledgement this paper was funded by the serbian ministry of education, science and technological development. sanja popović-pantić, dušica semenčenko, nikola vasilić 39 references [1] babović, m. 2012. “initial study on women's entrepreneurship in serbia.” un women serbia, belgrade. [2] beraha, i., & djuričin, s. 2020. “the impact of covid-19 crisis on medium-sized enterprises.” economic analysis, 53(1): 14-27. [3] koltai l., & geambasu, r. 2020. covid-19 and female entrepreneurs throughout europe. budapest: hetfa research institute ltd. [4] popović-pantić s., semenčenko, d., & vasilić, n. 2019. “тhe influence of digital transformation on business performance: evidence of the womenowned companies.” ekonomika preduzeća, 67(7-8): 397-414. doi:10.5937/ekopre1908397p [5] popović-pantić, s., semenčenko, d., & vasilić n. 2020. “barriers that smes in the western balkan are facing in accessing the supply chains: a binary logistic regression approach.” ekonomika preduzeća, 68(5-6): 416426. doi: 10.5937/ekopre2006416p [6] popović-pantić, s. 2020. two decades of women's entrepreneurship in serbia. belgrade: institute mihajlo pupin. cobiss.sr-id 23241993 [7] secons. 2020a. consequences of covid -19 on women’s and men’s economic empowerment. unwomen, serbia. [8] secons. 2020b. impact of the covid-19 pandemic and measures for its prevention on women entrepreneurs in serbia. unwomen, serbia. [9] semenčenko, d., popović-pantić, s., & živković, l. 2016. “training as the indicator of female entrepreneurship development, and training needs analysis.” journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, 1-2: 18-36. [10] sors. 2020. labour force survey i quarter 2020. sors, belgrade. https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/g2020/xls/g20201135.xlsx [11] union of employers of serbia. 2013. environment assessment for women's entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia. union of employers of serbia. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/? 30.09.2020. [12] unwomen. 2020. survey impact of the covid-19 pandemic on specialist services for victims and survivors of violence in serbia. https://www2.unwomen.org//media/field%20office%20eca/attachments/publications/2020/05/unw_covid -vaw_report_final.pdf?la=en&vs=5317 30.09.2020. [13] world tourism organization. 2019. global report on women and tourism. https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/g2020/xls/g20201135.xlsx https://www2.unwomen.org/-/media/field%20office%20eca/attachments/publications/2020/05/unw_covid-vaw_report_final.pdf?la=en&vs=5317 https://www2.unwomen.org/-/media/field%20office%20eca/attachments/publications/2020/05/unw_covid-vaw_report_final.pdf?la=en&vs=5317 https://www2.unwomen.org/-/media/field%20office%20eca/attachments/publications/2020/05/unw_covid-vaw_report_final.pdf?la=en&vs=5317 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 23-40) appendix i: exposure of sectors of women entrepreneurs to covid-19 pandemic proportion of respondents by sector in the sample proportion of respondents negatively affected by the covid-19 expected average revenue loss in 2020 compared to 2019 industry, manufacturing, construction 33% 77% 39% professional, scientific, and technical activities 16% 87% 35% trade and repair services 15% 86% 52% education, health and social care 10% 78% 34% accommodation services, hospitality sector 7% 83% 46% other community care, personal and social services 5% 100% 46% transportation, warehousing, information and telecommunication 5% 40% 43% agriculture, hunting, forestry or fishing 2% 50% 80% economic, administrative and support services, fin. intermediation 5% 20% 20% arts, entertainment and recreation 2% 50% 0% source: authors. article history: received: 25 october, 2020 accepted: 5 december, 2020 20_jwee_12 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.12.pp22-36 jel: l26, d85, j16 original scientific paper gender differences in acquiring business support from online social networks tammi c. redd1 ramapo college of new jersey, anisfield school of business, united states of america sibin wu2 the university of texas – rio grande valley, college of business and entrepreneurship, united states of america a b s t r a c t social networks have always been an invaluable resource for entrepreneurs attempting to engage in venture creation and growth. while differences in gender and its effect on traditional social networks have been explored, it is worth examining the gender effect when using the internet to create online network connections that supply useful resources. this study investigates the difference between male and female entrepreneurs’ social networks, the resources obtained from those networks, and the evolution of the ever-valuable weak tie. hypotheses are tested using analysis of variance and analyses reveal women that female entrepreneurs and male entrepreneurs use the online network connections very differently in terms of the type of relationship and the type of resource acquired. the findings create implications for organizations that support female, minority or disadvantaged business development as these ventures increase in number and success. 1 corresponding author, address: 505 ramapo valley road mahwah, nj 07450, e-mail: tredd@ramapo.edu, tel. 201-684-7356 2 address: 1201 w. university drive edinburg, tx 78541, e-mail: sibin.wu@utrgv.edu redd, t.c., et al., gender differences in acquiring, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 22-36) 23 key words: female entrepreneurship, networking ability, social networks, the strength of ties introduction social networks and the process of creating network ties occur for men and women quite differently (e.g., manolova, carter, manev, & gyoshev, 2007). as revealed in the literature, men typically have larger social networks than women and thus, resulting in easier access to more resources. manolova and associates (2007) found men’s outside social networks can increase their business growth expectancies while that effect for women is minimal. smith, wilson, strough, parker, and bruin (2018) found that women of all ages have mostly same-gender networks. the concept of network homogeneity particularly poses challenges in the resource acquisition stage of the venture creation process. in the past, studies have shown that the number of female business typically lag in terms of success when compared to businesses owned by men (bruni, gherardi & poggio, 2004; greve & salaff, 2003; thelwall, 2008). while the literature speculates many reasons for this lag, it seems that many of the obstacles faced in the past by female entrepreneurs have been overcome. as the number and size of successful ventures created and run by female entrepreneurs are on a steady rise, it is worth re-examining the use of social networks during the venture creation process as this aspect of business support may have evolved as well. one aspect which has evolved is the easy availability of online social networking platforms to entrepreneurs as marketing and management tools (e.g., geho & dangelo, 2012). more and more entrepreneurs are now adopting social media such as facebook, instagram, and twitter to make their businesses more competitive because such platforms can provide entrepreneurs more means to extend social interactions and maintain those ties (e.g., fischer & reuber, 2012). while such ties and interactions may provide information and resources that are crucial to entrepreneurial success, it has been shown that women and men may have different networks and levels of networking abilities (semrau & werner, 2014). therefore, understanding how women and men develop and maintain social ties may help us explain why there is still a gap, in both number and success, between female and male entrepreneurs. 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 22-36) in this paper we explore the following research questions: (1) with the number of successful female-owned ventures on the rise, is there still a difference between the male and female entrepreneur’s social networks in terms of size and types of relationships? (2) do the number of resources obtained from the male and female entrepreneur’s online social networks differ? these questions will be explored to gain more insight into how resources are marshaled for the venture creation process but also to see if perhaps there is evidence of the scales of success coming into balance for male and female entrepreneurs in the near future. this research makes a few important contributions. first, while the majority of the network studies explore how network influences entrepreneurial performance, we answer the call for studying network as a dependent variable (hoang & antonic, 2003). second, traditional network research has focused on physical ties (granovetter, 1973). the current research examines a relatively underexplored area, online social network, and networking for entrepreneurs. the ever-rising use of social media platforms deems such research important. further, our paper examines the differences in social networking behavior as it relates to gender implications. the remainder of this paper is organized as follows. first, a review of the literature detailing the findings of past research on male and female social networks is presented. then an overview of the role of social networks in the venture creations process is given. the literature detailing entrepreneurial climate, social network dynamism, and resource acquisition is then used to build a foundation for the tested hypotheses. next, the hypotheses are presented followed by an explanation of the research design and methodology used to conduct the study as well as the results of the analysis. the results of the data analysis are presented followed by a discussion of the findings. literature review gender differences in network composition entrepreneurs use their social networks to gather resources. past literature reveals that the social networks of men and women are quite different (stoloff, glanville & bienestock, 1999; wellman, 1992; salaff & greve, 2004). social networks formed by women are considered to be redd, t.c., et al., gender differences in acquiring, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 22-36) 25 homogenous or consist of mostly family or kin (renzulli et. al, 2000). this is also referred to as strong ties. male social networks, on the other hand, are more heterogeneous, and therefore consist of more weak ties in addition to the established strong ties of family and kin possessed by female entrepreneurs (moore, 1990). the strength of these ties is determined by relationship characteristics such as intensity, time, and reciprocity according to decarolis and saparito (2006). this is important to note because the composition of the female entrepreneur’s social network has created challenges in gaining financial support, status, and credibility (bruni et. al, 2004). furthermore, young, chawla, and uzzi (2019) suggest that differences exist between male and female entrepreneurs in terms of fluctuating social support and commitment behaviors. however, redd (2014) finds that a female’s social network changes over time and that as females progress through the different stages of the venture creation process the number of weak ties contained in the network tends to increase (smith et al., 2018). this suggests that perhaps in the past, female entrepreneurs’ social networks were more homogenous, but at present female entrepreneurs have found ways to create additional weak ties that supply needed resources. it has been suggested in the literature that social networks leading to successful business outcomes are those that maintain a balanced level of strong ties and weak ties (greve & salaff, 2003). (redd, 2014) may suggest the internet has contributed to the introduction to additional weak ties for both male and female entrepreneurs. access to the internet has eliminated many barriers and obstacles to accessing people, skills, training, financial resources, etc. (sadowski, maitland & van ongen, 2002). to the best of our knowledge, no studies to date, have detailed the differences between male and female entrepreneurs in using online network ties for resources and business success. resource acquisition all entrepreneurs must create social networks to gain access to social capital, the resources supplied by social relationships (lin, 2001). social capital includes access to information, influence, credentials and reinforcement (lin, 2001; aldrich & martinez, 2001; shane & venkataraman, 2000; aldrich & zimmer, 1986). here is a very long list of resources needed by the entrepreneurs during and after the venture creation process, thus these sources of social capital are essential for progress, growth, and stability (redd, abebe & wu, 2016). often the contacts within 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 22-36) a social network not only supply resources but also act as filtering devices for legitimizing information pertinent to the launch and stability of the business venture (burt, 1992). without the creation of useful network ties, it is suggested that a business’s success will fall by the wayside. female entrepreneurs, as a minority group, have underperformed when compared to their male counterparts. access to social capital is just one of the many reasons this may be the case, as it seems certain that not having an optimal relationship in your social network leads to poor levels of social capital and in turn, no access to the needed resources for launching or maintaining a successful business. past studies (gartner et. al, 2004; ellison, vitak & gray, 2014; campbell, marsden & hulbert, 1986) have revealed the following resources supplied by the social network as most useful to the entrepreneur: information and advice, funding, introduction to other people, skills and training, emotional support, business services, and ideas in the form of creativity. all of these resources are imperative in the venture creation process and past literature seems to show that females have had difficulty accessing many of these resources due to the composition of their social networks (carter, brush & greene, 2003; aldrich, resse & dubini, 1989; lin, cook & burt, 2001). networking ability in examining the social networks of both male and female entrepreneurs, it is necessary to also consider the degree of connectedness with all the potential social network connections (wasserman & faust, 1994). this examination can lend insight into how relationships are created and used for the resource acquisition process. ritter, wilkinson, and johnston (2004) define networking ability as the “ability to develop and maintain effective relationships”. entrepreneurs create several relationships during the venture creation process as some relationships offer physical resources, information sources or otherwise (burt, kilduff & taselli, 2013). for the female entrepreneurs, this may have posed challenges in the past due to small network size and the absence of heterogeneity. rho and lee (2020) find that women have different networking behaviors than men. this notion further supports the relationship between network differences and business success. the ability of any entrepreneur to create additional useful connections or networking ability through current connections remains redd, t.c., et al., gender differences in acquiring, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 22-36) 27 critical to be exposed to new opportunities and information (tocher, oswald & shook, 2012; foley & o’connor, 2013; semrau & sigmund, 2012). hypotheses network resources there is no literature detailing the benefits of social network size for entrepreneurs, however, it is well established that more diverse network ties, specifically social networks that are heterogeneous are instrumental to entrepreneurial success (fairlie & robb, 2008; greve & salaff, 2003). specifically, the resources that entrepreneurs seek to acquire include introductions to others, information and advice, training and skills, funding, business services, emotional support, and creativity and ideas. implied in the heterogeneous network is the idea that having many connections, which supply different types of resources will allow venture creators to flourish (upson et al., 2016). past studies have revealed that in general, female social networks tend to be much smaller than a male’s social network and that men tend to have a more heterogeneous network than women (renzulli et. al, 2000). it has also been established in the literature that weak ties are important to gaining access to the resources which are integral to launching and maintaining a venture (granovetter, 1973; marsden & campbell, 2001). many past studies show that female entrepreneurs have fewer weak ties than male entrepreneurs, however, with the use of the internet, access to resources has become more readily available to both male and female entrepreneurs (semrau & werner, 2014). this has created opportunities for entrepreneurs from all walks of life to overcome barriers to entry, specifically in terms of resource acquisition and access to new product markets. access to the internet allows for access to similar resources, allowing women to have larger social networks and higher quantities and quality of weak ties in their social networks. siminova, popov, and komorova (2019) find that online social networks encourage market development and product differentiation. to explore this further we test the hypotheses in the following section. with the introduction of the internet, social networking for entrepreneurs has changed immensely, giving them access to many resources never available before and independent of time and space (semrau 28 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 22-36) & werner, 2014). with its widespread use, even entrepreneurs in the most isolated cases can now have access to resources they otherwise wouldn’t. interestingly, it has been found that younger women seem to have outpaced men in internet usage; this is specifically the case for women under the age of 65 (fallows, 2005). to examine the difference in types of resources obtained from online social network connections and the types of relationships contained within the networks, we present the following hypotheses: h1: there is a significant difference in the types of resources male and female entrepreneurs acquire through online social networks. h2: with the growing use of the internet, female entrepreneurs have access to more weak ties through online network connections. research methodology sampling the target population for this study is made of both male and female entrepreneurs from throughout the united states who own or are in the process of starting business ventures which can be classified as small businesses. the entrepreneurs to be included in the study were identified in two ways. first, entrepreneurs were identified by their attendance at local small business development centers training or information sessions. second, entrepreneurs were identified by survey monkey audience, an online research panel of participants. all participants were over the age of 18 and either owned or were in the process of setting up a business. to determine the correct sample size and effect size for the study, a power analysis was performed with pilot study data. with a target effect size of 0.02 and alpha (α) = 0.05, to obtain a power of approximately 0.80 a sample size of 392 is needed. keeping the above analysis in mind it was determined that with the nature of the research questions and the required sample size it would be best to use an online panel as the anchoring sample for this study. online panels allow the researcher to reach a higher level of diverse respondents while achieving the most stratified sample possible (dillman, 2007; johnson, 2016). a questionnaire was developed using the survey monkey online survey construction interface after a pilot test. the finished survey was submitted to survey monkey audience an online panel used to collect survey responses redd, t.c., et al., gender differences in acquiring, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 22-36) 29 from specific target audiences. a paper and pen version of the survey was also distributed to potential business owners through small business development center at a state university in the southern part of the country and several clients of the state sbdcs of minnesota, delaware, oregon, and louisiana. in instances where the survey was distributed electronically, separate survey links were established to track the response rate. in total 2,151 invitations to participate were extended. a total of 555 usable surveys were returned resulting in a 25.8% response rate. to check if there is nonresponse bias, we sorted early and late responders by date and used the two groups as proxies for responder and non-responder respectively. the t-test shows there was no significant difference between the two groups. measures strength of ties: information on the strength of ties within the social network was gathered using an existing scale (marsden & campbell, 2004) where the respondent was asked to report not only the size of their social network used for business purposes but also they were asked to supply information on the frequency of using each type of business contact either for resources or to discuss business matters. the three-item construct has a cronbach’s alpha higher than the recommended value of 0.70. online resources: the panel study for entrepreneurial dynamics (psedii) identifies seven different categories of resources provided to entrepreneurs through social network connections. these measurement items used in this study are borrowed from the psedii. more specifically the measurement items classify the resources obtained into the following categories: information & advice, creativity, emotional support, business services, funding, training & skills, and introduction to other network connections. this allowed for the tabulation of the quantity and types of resources gathered by each entrepreneur from online network sources. data analysis and results table 1 tabulates the frequencies of several demographic variables such as gender, age, race, education level, and frequency of internet usage. table 2 summarizes the anova results for hypothesis 1 and table 3 summarizes the t-test results for hypothesis 2. we tested our hypotheses using the anova and t-tests because pedhazur and schmelkin (1991), as well as blanca et al. (2017), suggest that the anova and t-test analyses are 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 22-36) acceptable techniques to use when analyzing the difference in means between two groups. table 1: sample demographics male female n/a total 229 261 19 location urban rura1 suburban 60 64 105 50 80 131 education level some high school high school some college associate degree bachelor degree graduate school other 7 22 53 30 67 25 25 5 37 78 39 56 27 19 # employees 1-4 5-9 10-19 20-49 50-100 n/a 148 20 17 11 12 21 202 10 5 0 2 42 access to resources an anova was performed to compare male and female entrepreneurs in terms of the types of resources obtained from the online social network. specifically, the resources examined were information & advice, creativity, emotional support, business services, funding, training & skills, and introduction to other network connections. each resource revealed a significant difference between male and female entrepreneurs, except information and advice (see table 2). this gives support to hypothesis 1, as there is a statistical difference in the type of resources obtained from the social networks of male and female entrepreneurs. in general, a larger percentage of females used the internet to access information and advice than their male counterparts. redd, t.c., et al., gender differences in acquiring, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 22-36) 31 access to weak ties we predicted with hypothesis 2 that with the use of the internet, women would have more weak ties. the t-test results show that there is a significant difference in the number of weak ties between the two groups (f=6.717, p =0.010), thus, hypothesis 2 is supported (see table 3). further crosstabs analysis, gave surprising results, revealing that the female entrepreneurs in this study on average have more weak ties in their social networks than their male counterparts. these results suggest, that even with the availability of the internet in most areas there remains a difference in how male and female entrepreneurs use their social networks. this finding also challenges the research of the past which has always found that women would have less weak ties in their social networks than men. we believe that this result can be attributed to the widespread use of the internet. it indicates that female entrepreneurs have identified online social network connections as a means to fill a previous void or structural hole in obtaining social capital. discussion & conclusion this research brings to the gives insight into the differences in how male and female entrepreneurs create social networks. specifically, the study examines how male and female entrepreneurs approach their online social networks for different resources and interestingly, the study reveals that women now have more weak ties than men in digital settings, no doubt because of the internet. this may be because women entrepreneurs have traditionally had less weak ties in their social networks, they may look to the internet and online social networks to create the weak ties they have been missing; filling the so-called structural holes (burt, 2017) a study conducted by pew, confirms that women use the internet more often than men and for longer periods (fallows, 2015). 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 22-36) table 2: anova tests for hypothesis 1 & resource analyses sum of squares df mean square f sig. onlineintro between groups .689 1 .689 3.344 .068 within groups 100.578 488 .206 total 101.267 489 onlineinfo between groups .001 1 .001 .003 .953 within groups 95.038 488 .195 total 95.039 489 onlinetraining between groups .272 1 .272 2.781 .096 within groups 47.777 488 .098 total 48.049 489 onlinefunding between groups .988 1 .988 17.748 .000 within groups 27.175 488 .056 total 28.163 489 onlinebizsvc between groups .647 1 .647 5.136 .024 within groups 61.477 488 .126 total 62.124 489 onlineemo between groups .662 1 .662 5.029 .025 within groups 64.238 488 .132 total 64.900 489 onlinecreativ between groups 1.118 1 1.118 6.206 .013 within groups 87.945 488 .180 total 89.063 489 table 3: t-test results for hypothesis 2 levene’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means t df sig. (2tailed) mean diference std. error diference 95% confidence interval of the diference f sig. lower upper equal variances assumed 6.717 0.01 -1-72 376 0.086 -0.90455 0.52584 -1.93849 0.1294 equal variances not assumed -1.771 292.885 0.078 -0.90455 0.51072 -1.9097 0.1006 these results also align with dong et al. (2016) which found that entrepreneurs find more diverse ties in online friendships than face to face networks. looking beyond our tests for significance, our key findings also show that women are less likely than men to use online social networks to access funding, training and skills, and business services. men, on the other hand, are less likely than women to access creativity and ideas, emotional support and information and advice. future research can address similarities redd, t.c., et al., gender differences in acquiring, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 22-36) 33 or differences in how male and female entrepreneurs access these resources online in comparison to those connections which are traditional face to face connections. in future studies, it will be interesting to see if the scales of success in terms of creating and maintaining a business venture will finally balance between male and female entrepreneurs as the internet has served as a great tool in overcoming barriers to entry. the implications for individuals, cities, and geographic areas that have created business support or development incubators are important. examining female entrepreneurs gives us a great deal of insight into the many challenges faced by most minority entrepreneurial groups. the results of this study suggest, that perhaps training materials can be developed to help struggling entrepreneurs, but not without internet access otherwise identifying and acquiring online network resources more readily through education and direction will be very difficult. small business development centers and disadvantaged business enterprise developers may consider developing online training to help these struggling groups better identify the resources now available to them through internet relationships where internet access is available. references [1] aldrich, h., & martinez, m.a. 2001. many are called, but few are chosen: an evolutionary perspective for the study of entrepreneurship. entrepreneurship theory and practice, summer, pp.41-56. 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[45] yang, y., chawla, n. v., & uzzi, b. 2019. a network’s gender composition and communication pattern predict women’s leadership success. proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 116(6), 20332038. article history: received: 14 april, 2020 accepted: 25 may, 2020 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.34.pp41-58 original scientific paper the impact of covid-19 pandemics on schools – challenges and new opportunities for a woman-owned organization silvia barnová1 slávka krásna2 gabriela gabrhelová3 dti university, department of school pedagogy and psychology, dubnica nad váhom, slovakia a b s t r a c t the world-wide covid-19 pandemic situation has had a significant impact on the everyday work of organizations, including private educational institutions. in the proposed study, the authors focus on how a private school providing pre-primary, primary, and secondary education has faced the biggest challenges of these times 1) in compliance with its mission, to provide children and youth with high quality education regardless the circumstances; 2) to take advantage of the situation, i.e. to find the best possible alternatives and so, be one step ahead of its competitors; and 3) as being partially dependent on school fees, not to lose paying customers. after a thorough consideration of alternatives, the school – as one of few in slovakia – opted for offering the whole educational program online only several days after all schools were closed in the country. the purpose of the study is to provide an example of good practice for other – not only woman-owned – organizations and to support the real efficiency of the applied approach by relevant data. the authors of the study carried out a 1 corresponding author, e-mail: barnova@dti.sk, tel. 00421 903 200 7567 2 e-mail: krasna@dti.sk, tel. 00421 905 990 973 3 e-mail: gabrhelova@dti.sk, tel. 00421 907 791 610 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 41-58) questionnaire survey with the school’s students, the students’ parents, and the whole teaching staff, focusing on their overall satisfaction with the realized online education, their experiences and opinions, as well as their attitudes towards elearning in secondary schools in general. the questionnaire survey was a part of a larger research focusing on distance learning strategies applied during school closures in slovakia. in the study, topic relevant research findings are presented, which indicate that the pandemics has not had a negative impact on this particular educational institution and this woman-owned business has even found new opportunities for its future work key words: woman-owned organization, covid-19, private school, school closure, online learning, streaming introduction in 2020, the new covid-19 coronavirus has represented an unprecedented challenge for educational systems worldwide. in march 2020, to prevent the spread of respiratory diseases caused by covid-19, governments reacted to the situation by massive school closures. in most countries, all educational institutions were closed for a certain period of time and these measures negatively affected 90% of the learners’ population on all levels of education, including lifelong learners (unesco, 2020b,c). there were also countries, in which schools were closed locally, which means extra millions of learners who could not attend schools or other educational institutions. in april 2020, when the number of closed schools was the highest, education in 195 countries was interrupted. such a situation in education can have a long-term effect on the society from the aspect of the availability of human resources in the future (the world bank, 2020), which is one of the reasons for supporting distance learning (not only) in the times of crisis. distance learning solutions during school closures as a reaction to the new situation, with the aim to ensure the continuity of students’ education, schools started to apply various forms of distance learning. where it was possible, they introduced technology supported learning, but many schools had to face several problems related to their learners’ connectedness. so, as a consequence, the pandemic has brought new dimensions of exclusion (unesco, 2020c) – distance learning was not silvia barnová, slávka krásna, gabriela gabrhelová 43 accessible for everyone. despite the attempts to provide learners with a wide range of alternatives, schools were not able to reach as many as 500 million students worldwide (giannini, 2020). there were differences between countries in the applied strategies for education during school closures on national levels. in less developed countries, radio and tv broadcasting were used, but not every student had access to them. in more developed countries, the trend was to use digital technologies for educational purposes as much as possible, but certain groups of students (especially the socially disadvantaged ones) could not connect, even though in most families there was at least one smartphone which could be used for online learning. in these families, there were usually more children in one household and also internet access was problematic (bell et al., 2020). therefore, in the case of every single school, the situation of the institution and the specifics of students had to be thoroughly considered in order to provide students, regardless their backgrounds, with equal opportunities to learn. when it came to school closures, schools had to face a new task – to modify or completely change the forms and methods of teaching they were used to apply and to seek new, effective alternatives, which could find their application under the new circumstances. it was a great help for schools when companies such as microsoft or google made their applications available to schools for distance learning and provided them, their teachers and their students with user support (di pietro, 2020). the above described non-standard conditions created space for identifying the opportunities and limits of distance learning and online learning in the direct educational practice in primary and secondary schools, which, compared with higher education institutions, are less frequently mentioned in the context of replacing school based education by various forms of distance learning ( radović -marković, živanović, 2019). school closures in slovakia in slovakia, the first covid-19 positive patient was recorded on march 6, 2020. when new cases started to occur, restrictive measure were introduced in order to prevent the spread of respiratory diseases caused by the new coronavirus. one of them was the decision by the ministry of education, research and sport of the slovak republic, based on which all schools and school facilities were closed on march 16, 2020. that decision affected 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 41-58) almost 1 million learners from all age groups, including more than 480.000 primary school and 215.000 secondary school students (cvti sr, 2020). schools had not been prepared for such measures and not even the ministry of education had a clear vision on how to ensure education for an unpredictably long period of time. slovakia with no previous experiences with any kind of crisis situation, did not have a plan, and therefore, the government’s and the ministry of education’s reactions were slow, they were not able to react to the new circumstances flexibly and provide schools with sufficient support and guidance. another factor having impact on the situation was the unpreparedness of the educational system for the introduction of distance learning. according to unesco (2020a), preparedness for distance education is determined by the following factors: a) preparedness in the field of digital technologies (electricity, technical devices, internet access, etc.); b) preparedness of content (educational resources); c) preparedness of teachers (digital competencies, skills for designing content and working online), and family support (favorable conditions for learning in households); d) preparedness for monitoring and evaluating the processes (monitoring accessibility, students’ work, providing feedback, etc.) and as experiences have shown, slovakia, similarly to many other countries, was not sufficiently prepared. certain shortcomings can still be observed in the following fields: a) the digital infrastructure is not satisfying, there are huge differences in its accessibility between schools, teachers and students; b) a big share of the teaching materials made available during the crisis has still not been verified in the teaching practice; c) the existing storages of educational content must be improved to make access and filtering simpler; d) students’ access to online education varies – equality is not ensured for students from disadvantaged social backgrounds (cedefop, 2020). so, schools in slovakia found themselves in a situation when they had to make risky decisions, to take over the responsibility, but there are many examples from practice when the teacher was the decisive factor from the aspect of ensuring continuity of education as well as promoting students’ learning process in their home environments. there was a range of alternative approaches that schools or individual teachers – based on the specifics of their students and on their conditions – selected from: a) e-mailing students handouts; b) individual communication with students; c) online instruction; d) their combination. the first five grades of elementary schools in slovakia were reopened on june 1, 2020. as for other educational institutions, they could start teaching on june 23, 2020, just 7 working days prior to summer holidays. for students, silvia barnová, slávka krásna, gabriela gabrhelová 45 going to school was not compulsory, they could continue in distance learning as well. covid-19 pandemics from the point of view of a private educational institution there are debates on whether educational institutions can or cannot be considered businesses, but despite their specifics or the fact that most of them are non-profit organizations and being such, they do not generate profit, in order to survive on the educational market, they must behave like any other enterprise. they provide services (education) to their customers (students and their parents) (are schools businesses?, 2017). the authors of the paper carried out a survey in a private educational institution (kindergarten, primary school, and secondary grammar school) in bratislava which is run as a woman-owned business. the fact that the owner of the school is a woman, as well as the headmaster, the deputy-headmaster of the school, and six out of eight heads of departments are women, plays an important role from the aspect of the customers’ (parents’) trust in the institution and the innovations to be introduced. as research results on gender differences between male and female leaders show (caliper, 2005), women in general possess several qualities that can be considered advantages in school management. they are more persuasive when discussing educational issues with parents as they are stronger in interpersonal skill, they bring their experience (including motherhood) into school management, are more emphatic and engaging of others, so, parents are more likely to believe that they will do their best for the good of students. women show more willingness to listen to others, to take in information from all sides and only after that they select the best possible solution from the available alternatives. they also have qualities which have an important role to play in crisis situations – caliper’s findings say that, if compared with men – they are more flexible, more willing to take risk and bring innovative solutions. after the first cases of respiratory diseases caused by covid-19 were detected, the founder (owner) of the school made attempts to keep the school functioning as long as possible in order to ensure quality education to students and not to get the students’ parents – being the school’s customers – into an unpleasant situation when they have to stay with their children at home or find someone to look after them. the president of the bratislava selfgoverning region closed all the schools founded by the bratislava self46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 41-58) governing region for five days on march 9, 2020. on march 10, 2020, taking into account the seriousness of the dramatically changing situation in the region and under the pressure the school found itself, the school participating in our survey was closed by its owner/founder as well. all schools and school facilities in the country were closed by the ministry of education on march 16, 2020. as the owner of the school believed that after two weeks the students would come back to school, the school opted for the strategy to e-mail students or their parents’ handouts and worksheets to be worked out by students for every subject once a week. all these materials contained tasks and exercises for revising what had been taught at school before it was closed. the original idea was that the school’s students would learn new educational content after school reopening as the school did not want to burden the students’ parents who were in a difficult and uncertain situation anyway. only students who were supposed to take school leaving exams in may continued in regular consultations with teachers via skype or whatsapp immediately. there were several factors which had an impact on the process of the selection of the most suitable alternative among the available ones. the first one was the necessity to apply a pro-customer approach and not to transfer the responsibility for students’ education to parents. there were parents who simply could not stay at home with their children during the day as they had to go to work and another group of them worked from home, so, for them, it would be extremely difficult to teach their children at home. another important factor, which was considered, was the question of students’ connectedness. having in mind the fact that being a private school student and paying school fees means that there were no socially disadvantaged students in the school, the students’ internet access was evaluated as satisfactory. so, naturally, the school opted for online education, more particularly live-streaming lessons. after negotiations with a private company, the school was selected for a pilot programme where microsoft teams was used for the purposes of distance education in the school. in the first phase, microsoft trained two teachers from the school for working in the application. the two trained teachers generated accounts for all students and teachers and were responsible for the technical aspects of online education. they also run an initial training session for their colleagues who also attended online courses organized by microsoft. teachers could take home the technology and teaching aids they needed from school and the data they used at home were paid by the school silvia barnová, slávka krásna, gabriela gabrhelová 47 as well. for students’ parents, the school opened for certain hours to give them an opportunity to take their children’s textbooks home. on march 25, 2020, teachers started to teach online from their homes based on a timetable adjusted to online learning. during the first three days, the whole system was tested with satisfying results. taking part in online education was not obligatory, but as experiences show, for parents, it represented an acceptable and comfortable solution and even though there was a few days’ delay in several cases, all students joined the online lessons. so, students were provided with equal opportunities to learn. primary school pupils started with three lessons a day while secondary school students had 4 lessons. from the following week onwards, all school subjects were covered and the teachers also provided students with individual consultations on demand. everything was managed to be able to finish the school year without any difficulties as for the covered educational content or students’ assessment. teacher – parent communication as well as staff meetings were carried out online – e-mails, edupage and microsoft teams were used. after school reopening in slovakia, the school did not record a big interest of students or their parents in going back to school. many of them were still afraid of becoming infected and others did not see a sense in sending their children to school just a few days before the school year ends. therefore, lessons were streamed from the classroom to ensure the same quality of education both for students in the classroom and those staying at home. teacher, student and parent satisfaction survey as a part of a larger research on the applied distance learning strategies in slovakia and the new opportunities that the introduction of the online learning option can bring for secondary education, being carried out by the authors of the paper, a satisfaction survey was conducted in the presented private school. the questionnaire survey was focused on the stakeholders’ satisfaction with the realization of online learning between march 25 and may 31, 2020, i.e. almost the whole period when school based education was interrupted in slovakia. bellow, only the partial results of the survey, relevant to the scope of the paper, are presented. the sample consisted of 22 teachers, 74 secondary grammar school students, and 61 parents of secondary school students. 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 41-58) figure 1: sample source: own research for the purposes of the survey, four questionnaires were designed – a questionnaire for teachers, a questionnaire for secondary grammar school students, a questionnaire for the parents of elementary school pupils and a questionnaire for secondary grammar school students’ parents. in each of the questionnaires, both closed-ended and open-ended items were used with the aim to gather quantitative data but also gain information about the participants’ experiencing, to get an insight into the factors influencing their attitudes, etc. in the case of each of the administered questionnaires, three scores and indexes were calculated – the respondents’ satisfaction with the quality of online education, the respondents’ satisfaction with the organization of online learning, and the respondents’ satisfaction with the technical realization of online education. these scores and indexes were later used for further calculations and verification of research hypotheses. in the context of the paper, especially the first calculated score for each group of respondents – satisfaction with the quality of online education – is important. students’ satisfaction with online education the score for student satisfaction with the quality of online education was calculated based on the scores of five 5-point likert scale items – yes (4), silvia barnová, slávka krásna, gabriela gabrhelová 49 rather yes (3), rather no (2), no (1), i do not know (0) – in the student questionnaire. in these items, the students were asked about the correctness of the school’s decision to introduce online learning (“do you agree with the school’s decision to introduce online education during school closures?”), whether they liked learning online (“do you like learning online?”), how satisfied they were with the lessons (“are you satisfied with the quality of online lessons?”), whether their teachers can teach online (“do you think your teachers are good at teaching online?”), and whether they understand topics presented online (“if you compare learning in the classroom and learning online, are topics presented online clear enough for you?”) . as the results show, students evaluated the quality of education in 5 items (possible maximum score = 20) positively – group average = 16.31 (81.55% of the possible maximum; standard deviation = 3.607; group mean = 16.86 (84.29% of the possible maximum) – which is illustrated in figure 2. gender differences between girls and boys were found in their evaluation of the quality of online education – boys were more satisfied (group average = 16.94; standard deviation = 3.140; group mean 17.50) than girls (group average = 15.86; standard deviation = 3.883; group mean 16.44). as the results of other research show, there are no significant differences between boys and girls in the time spent online – e.g. according to the findings of smahel et al. (2020), boys in slovakia spend online 144 minutes a day, while in the case of girls it is 146 minutes a day – and so, the causes must be searched for in other fields, e.g the type of activities boys and girls do online, gender differences in their attitudes towards teachers, in their need for direct social contact, etc. in opened-ended questions, we asked the students about things they liked and did not like during online education. each of the 74 students in the sample provided at least one answer both for the positives and the negatives of online education. according to them, the pros of studying from home were: 1) comfort (21 students) – “i have everything i need at home.”; “i don’t have to get up as early as usual.”; “i can stay at home and learn.”; 2) using digital technologies for learning (12 students) – “easier access to learning materials.”; “we could join the lessons from anywhere.”; “i liked online presentations.”; 3) learning climate (10 students) – “teachers applied a better approach.”; “our teachers made their best to make everything 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 41-58) clear to us.”; “there was a more relaxed atmosphere during the lessons.”; 4) not interrupting learning (8 students) – “we could study like under normal conditions.”; “we learned everything we would learn in the classroom.”; 5) timetable (8 students) – “we had fewer lessons and we started later.”; “we had more time for doing homework and for other activities.”; 6) maintaining social contact (8 students) – “during the lessons, i had an opportunity to see my teachers and schoolmates at least virtually.”; “we were in touch with our friends and teachers.”; 7) other (9 students). figure 2: the score for students’ satisfaction with the quality of online education source: own research there were also fields in which the participating students experienced some difficulties or were not satisfied with. we classified their answers into skorehovziak f re qu en cy 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 0. 00 0. 04 0. 08 0. 12 n = 74 bandwidth = 1.136 d en si ty -2 -1 0 1 2 5 10 15 20 normal q-q plot theoretical quantiles s am pl e q ua nt ile s 5 10 15 20 silvia barnová, slávka krásna, gabriela gabrhelová 51 six categories: 1. too much homework (21 students); 2. technical issues (12 students); 3. problems with understanding certain topics online (9 students); 4. behaviour issues (7 students); 5. timetable (4 students); and 6. other (26 students) – including answers which did not fit to any of the above categories and indifferent answers, such as “i do not know”, “nothing”, etc. parents’ satisfaction with online education in the case of the parent questionnaire, we applied the same approach as for the questionnaire for students. we calculated the score for parents’ satisfaction based on the scores for 6 items focusing on how satisfied they were with the quality of lessons (“are you satisfied with the quality of the educational process?”); how satisfied their children were with online learning (“is your child satisfied with the quality of the educational process?”), whether the respondents’ children had individual online consultations with their teachers (“have your child taken the opportunity for individual consultation with a teacher?“); how they evaluate the teachers’ ability to teach online (“are you satisfied with your child’s teachers’ ability to teach online?”); whether their children understood educational content presented online (“can your child understand educational content presented online?”); and whether, in parents’ opinion, online education reduced the lack of social contact during the pandemics (“do you think that online education can partially reduce the lack of social contact with peers?”). based on the obtained data, we can assume that the students’ parents were satisfied with the quality of online education in spring 2020. bellow, we present the findings from the questionnaire for secondary grammar school students’ parents, i.e. the parents of students participating in our research. as figure 3 shows, the scores calculated from 6 items (possible maximum = 24) were high enough to assume that the students’ parents showed satisfaction with the quality of the realized online education – group average = 18.41 (76.71% of the possible maximum); standard deviation = 3.288; group mean = 19.29 (80.39% of the possible maximum) – but, if the data obtained from students, parents and teachers are compared, it is clear that parents were the least satisfied with the quality of online education during pandemics. based on their responses in the opened-ended items, it must also be pointed out that they were much more critical to certain aspects of the educational process during pandemics than their children. several parents 52 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 41-58) provided more than one answer in both items. the students’ parents listed the following benefits of online education during the pandemics: 1) continuity of education (22 parents) – “teachers explained new topics and we could work from home.”; “it is much better to have our children online than to work out worksheets with them every day.”; “everything is almost like in the classroom.”; 2) maintaining social contact (16 parents) – “at least some socialization.”; “students’ contact with their teachers and schoolmates.”; “communication between peers.”; 3) comfort (14 parents) – “we saved a lot of time as we did not have to commute.”; “we spent more time together as a family.”; 4) having a daily routine (6 parents) – “i appreciate that children had a certain daily routine.”; 5) timetable (6 parents) – “more time for doing homework.”; “fewer lessons and the same quality of education.”; 6) students' engagement, independence, taking over responsibility (5 parents) – “students’ independence.”; “more opportunities for individual work.”; 7) development of students’ technical skills (4 parents) – “students learned to use a new application.”; “students gained a better orientation in the online environment.” 8) other (12 parents). as mentioned above, despite their overall satisfaction, parents were critical about certain aspects of the realized online education. they were dissatisfied with: 1. technical issues (22 parents); 2. the lack of social contact (9 parents); 3. too much homework (7 parents); 4. the quality of lessons (6 parents); 5. the timetable (4 parents); 6. behavior issues (3 parents); 7. control and assessment (3 parents); 8. teachers’ insufficient preparedness (3 parents); students’ inability to adapt to the online environment (3 parents); other (14 parents – including indifferent answers). silvia barnová, slávka krásna, gabriela gabrhelová 53 figure 3: the score for parents’ satisfaction with the quality of online education source: own research when evaluating the parents’ responses, a certain degree of caution is necessary as it is difficult to find out whether they evaluated how the school handled the situation during the pandemics or the quality of education itself. the fact that the parents had an opportunity compare their experiences with the experiences of parents from other schools and see that they did not have to become their children’s teachers has an important role to play. therefore, it can be assumed, that they were satisfied with the school’s and the school management’s quick reaction and flexibility rather than with the quality of online education compared to classroom based learning. teachers’ satisfaction with online education our intention was to calculate the score for satisfaction with the quality of online education from the score of 8 items (possible maximum score = 32) – “have you provided your students with the opportunity for individual online histogram of skore skorehovrsg f re qu en cy 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 0 5 10 15 20 5 10 15 20 25 0. 00 0. 05 0. 10 0. 15 density.default(x = s n = 61 bandwidth = 1.18 d en si ty -2 -1 0 1 2 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 normal q-q plot theoretical quantiles s am pl e q ua nt ile s 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 41-58) consultations?”; “do you think your students are prepared/mature enough to study online?”; “do you think that educational content presented online can be equally understandable for students as educational content presented in the classroom?”; “do you have a student not being able to learn working online?”; “do you feel sufficiently prepared for teaching online in the future?”; “what kind of feedback have you received from your students?” (positive – rather positive – rather negative – negative – i do not know); “what kind of feedback have you received from your students’ parents?” (positive – rather positive – rather negative – negative – i do not know) – in teachers as well, but as the data below show, the participating teachers were unexpectedly positive in their subjective perception of the investigated issues. what was surprising, in the case of teachers, only positive (“yes” or “rather yes”/”positive” or “rather positive”) and indifferent (“i do not know”) answers were recorded. table 1: the score for teachers’ satisfaction with the quality of online education frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid 20 3 13.6 13.6 13.6 21 1 4.5 4.5 18.2 22 6 27.3 27.3 45.5 23 4 18.2 18.2 63.6 24 5 22.7 22.7 86.4 25 2 9.1 9.1 95.5 26 1 4.5 4.5 100.0 total 22 100.0 100.0 source: own research therefore, instead of the score for satisfaction, the index of satisfaction was calculated – group average = 22.77 (71.16% of the possible maximum); standard deviation = 1.660; group mean = 22.80 (71.25% of the possible maximum). such high scores in teachers can be explained by the fact that, for most of them, online teaching was a completely new experience (68.2% of the participating teachers had no previous experiences with online learning or teaching and further 4.55% of teachers had no previous experiences with silvia barnová, slávka krásna, gabriela gabrhelová 55 teaching) and in such cases, individuals’ subjective interpretation and experiencing of certain phenomena is more optimistic, even euphoric. the benefits of online learning during the pandemics, as indicated by teachers, can be divided into the following categories: 1) development and innovations (9 teachers) – “the digital competencies of both students and teachers were developed.”; “it was an opportunity to improve my teaching skills.”; “application of a whole range of new teaching methods.”; 2) maintaining social contact during pandemics (7 teachers) – “we could communicate with our students.”; “communication with my students and colleagues.”; 3) ensuring continuity of education (7 teachers) – “students’ education was not interrupted due to the quarantine.”; “students did not lose their interest in education.”; 4) effectiveness and flexibility (4 teachers) – “flexibility in time.”; “highly effective lessons.”; “online learning is a cost saving solution for all stakeholders.”; 5) promotion of students’ independence and responsibility (3 teachers) – “students had to take over the responsibility for their learning and time management.”; “developing students’ independence in learning.”; 6) individualized approach (2 teachers) – “we had more time for individual consultations.”; “i could apply a more individualized approach.” 7) other (3 teachers). although being satisfied with the quality of education, the teachers listed several problems, they had to face when teaching online in the following fields: 1. technical issues (8 teachers); 2. behavior issues and problems with students’ attention (7 teachers); 3. demanding and time-consuming lesson planning (5 teachers); 4. difficult control and assessment of students’ work and performance (2 teachers); and 5. other (6 teachers) – including indifferent answers. the participating teachers’ responses are influenced by the fact that in several items, they performed self-evaluation and so, their responses migh be a picture of how they perceive themselves and their work rather than the quality of lessons. 56 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 41-58) discussion and conclusions both the schools’ experiences and the results of the survey show general satisfaction with the online learning programme introduced for the period when the schools were closed. it is a positive finding from several aspects. firstly, the school managed the situation during the first wave of pandemics well, has a functioning system of distance learning, which means that it is ready to face the eventual second wave of pandemics or any other crisis situation which could lead to school closures. this information undoubtedly represents a big advantage on the educational market. secondly, the school can build on the experiences and feedback on online education realized during the pandemics, take advantage of them and provide its customers with services which are not offered by many (if any) educational institutions in the country – e.g. allowing students who cannot be in the classroom due to a range of reasons (being sick, taking part in a competition abroad, etc.) join their schoolmates in the classroom via the internet; provide individual online consultations for students online, do certain learning or extracurricular activities online, etc. on the other hand, we must be careful and not to be too enthusiastic about the suitability of this form of online learning for secondary school students. we must have in mind that the online programme was not introduced under standard conditions and the fact that the stakeholders were satisfied with that solution during the crisis, does not necessarily mean that, if they were asked, they would opt for replacing traditional, classroom based education by online learning. but there is no reason for being skeptical, the two-and-a-half-month experience revealed the shortcomings of livestreaming lessons and the highlighted those things, which should be improved and then, online learning can be used even after the world goes back to normal. to conclude, although the obtained results cannot be generalized to all schools or the whole population of secondary school students, the findings are useful from several aspects. it must be pointed out that the covid-19 pandemics showed how unprepared educational systems worldwide, as well as individual schools, were for crisis situations. international organizations such as unesco, oecd, etc. call for examples of good practice, which should help national governments in crisis planning. the above presented educational institution can serve as an example of good practice for other schools, as the experiences supported by the obtained data show that online silvia barnová, slávka krásna, gabriela gabrhelová 57 learning in the presented form can, under specific conditions, be well applied in crisis situations in schools were all students have an opportunity to connect. the presented findings can also be perceived as a very good signal for the school and its owner as they have proved that they are flexible, innovative and are able to provide high quality education even under unfavourable circumstances. references [1] are schools businesses? 2017. available at http://www.strategicedtech.com/blog/are-schools-businesses. 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[9] smahel, david, machackova, hana, mascheroni, giovanna, dedkova, lenka, staksrud, elisabeth, ólafsson, kjartan, livingstone, sonia, hasebrink, uwe. 2020. eu kids online 2020: survey results from 19 countries. eu kids online. http://www.strategicedtech.com/blog/are-schools-businesses https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/news-and-press/news/slovakia-vet-during-covid-19-crisis https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/news-and-press/news/slovakia-vet-during-covid-19-crisis https://gemreportunesco.wordpress.com/2020/05/15/distance-learning-denied/ https://gemreportunesco.wordpress.com/2020/05/15/distance-learning-denied/ 58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 41-58) [10] unesco. 2020a. “distance learning strategies in response to covid-19 school closures“. available at https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373305. [11] unesco. 2020b. “education: from disruption to recovery.” available at https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse. [12] unesco. 2020c. global education monitoring report 2020: inclusion and education: all means all. paris: unesco. [13] the world bank. 2020. “the world bank education global practice. guidance note: remote learning & covid-19”. available at http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/531681585957264427/pdf/gui dance-note-on-remote-learning-and-covid-19.pdf. article history: received: 29 october, 2020 accepted: 1 december, 2020 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.12.pp32-50 jel: a20 original scientific paper 1blearning model of female entrepreneurship in indonesia: development of learning model based on the characteristics and needs of female entrepreneurs widiyanto2f3 arief yulianto muhammad feriady ahmad nurkhin universitas negeri semarang, central java – indonesia a b s t r a c t this study aims to provide an overview of an effective entrepreneurship learning model for female students in vocational schools. the previous research related to the characteristics and needs of female entrepreneurs becomes the basis for building the model. the method used in this research was research & development with a 3-step design, preliminary study stage, development stage, and model validation stage. this research involved 32 research informants. at the initial stage, this study used a literature review related to the characteristics and needs of female entrepreneurs in indonesia for designing learning content. the next stage is the design of learning methods based on the needs and characteristics of indonesian women. the results of this study are an effective learning model for female students in vocational schools. then, at the model testing stage, the study illustrates that the effectiveness of the learning model was based on the characteristics and needs of indonesian women based on learning outcomes. this 3 corresponding author, e-mail: widiyanto@mail.unnes.ac.id widiyanto, arief yulianto, muhammad feriady, ahmad nurkhin 33 study concludes that the particular learning model for women in indonesia is very appropriate to be developed based on the needs and characteristics of women. this study suggests the need for support from various parties in optimizing the particular learning model for women based on the needs and characteristics of female entrepreneurs. key words: entrepreneurship learning, learning model, female entrepreneurs, development, education, vocational school, entrepreneurship education introduction many studies have widely explored entrepreneurship learning on the growth of entrepreneurial spirit and readiness. almost all of them stated that there was a significant effect between entrepreneurial learning and the formation of entrepreneurial traits, characters, or intentions (hasan, khan & nabi, 2017; hussain & norashidah, 2015; jena, 2020; küttim et al., 2014). furthermore, friskawati (2018) and boldureanu et al. (2020) stated that entrepreneurial learning heavily influenced entrepreneurial decision-making. suasana and suandana (2014) conducted research entitled analysis of student entrepreneurship potential. it illustrates whether students can obtain entrepreneurial potential through entrepreneurial education. the entrepreneurship education model continues to develop to find the best formulation to increase interest in entrepreneurship (gabrielsson et al., 2020). the development occurs due to various factors that cause entrepreneurship learning to be ineffective in increasing interest and entrepreneurial orientation (abd rahman et al., 2018). a study conducted by gianiodis and meek (2020) explained the need to develop an entrepreneurship education model due to the development of today's information and communication technology. one of the factors that determine an effective entrepreneurship learning model is gender. research by petridou, sarri and kyrgidou explained the differences in understanding the entrepreneurial perspective between men and women. furthermore, van ewijk and belghiti-mahut (2019) demonstrated that in their uae research, they found differences in the effect of entrepreneurship learning on female and male students' entrepreneurial interests. meanwhile, ogundana et al. (2021) explained the role of education and training as the dominant factor in developing female entrepreneurship in developing countries. various studies related to the differences in the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education for women and men emphasize 34 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 32-50) the gender variable as an essential determinant of developing entrepreneurship learning models. meanwhile, other studies have stated that there are problems related to the role of women in business. agasalim (2021) said that gender differences and women's participation in politics and entrepreneurship are still fascinating issues for discussion. it refers to the many issues related to equality. furthermore, lazić, jovanović, and lazarević-moravčević (2021) concluded that most serbian women work in the business sector, which is very vulnerable to crises, such as tourism, catering, and trade. for this reason, policies are necessary to awaken female entrepreneurs. tambunan (2017) explained that some of the obstacles that indonesian women face in running a business are: 1) low level of education and lack of training opportunities, 2) heavy household chores, 3) there may be legal, traditional, customs, cultural or religious constraints, 4) limited access to financing from banks or other formal financial institutions. this problem has become urgent and needs a solution, one of which is through entrepreneurship learning. a study by rudhumbu, du plessis and maphosa (2020) has proven that there are more complex and formidable challenges; the existence of tailored entrepreneurship education and training for women can offer opportunities for female entrepreneurs to improve their knowledge and technical skills. in line with this, the findings of ershadi, rezaee & bagheri (2020) explained the powerful social and cultural influence on women's entrepreneurship. based on this view, examining the relationship between entrepreneurship education and female entrepreneurship is crucial. furthermore, what is an effective entrepreneurship learning model for increasing women's entrepreneurship? research question: what is an effective entrepreneurship learning model for increasing the mindset and orientation of female entrepreneurs in indonesia? the entrepreneurial learning model in schools should adapt to the characteristics of students (petridou, sarri, & kyrgidou, 2009). furthermore, the research initiated by vukmirović (2019) concluded that there is a need to develop an entrepreneurial learning model that focuses on women. vukmirović (2019) highlighted the concept of entrepreneurial learning for women. entrepreneurship education for women focuses on increasing selfconfidence and the courage to start new businesses. in addition, widiyanto, arief yulianto, muhammad feriady, ahmad nurkhin 35 entrepreneurship education should have an orientation on the different needs of women. most researchers explore entrepreneurship learning in business and management vocational schools without special treatment for female students. in contrast, all business and management vocational high school students are women. teachers often experience ineffectiveness in learning because of the low motivation of women in entrepreneurship. entrepreneurship learning models various learning models also play a role in determining the effectiveness of entrepreneurship learning. the project-based entrepreneurship learning model successfully increases students' entrepreneurial spirit growth (farida et al., 2018). meanwhile, another model of nature-based entrepreneurship learning (paramita, 2017) is also considered capable of increasing the enthusiasm and readiness of entrepreneurship for several students. another study says that entrepreneurship learning is very effectively carried out through a direct experimental model (arnila, 2022). besides that competency-based learning models are also effective in increasing interest in entrepreneurship, this is due to the emphasis on entrepreneurial attitudes in learning objectives (amalia, 2021). the learning model follows our education system and consists of three components: input, process, and output. input is something that has been given, which is given by the education unit. at the same time, the process is a learning area that is the authority of the teacher to develop activities to achieve the goals set in the curriculum as input. at the same time, the output manifests. it results from the developed process as a learning model and benchmarking outcome. the learning components, in general, are students, teachers, learning objectives, material/content, methods, media, and evaluation. meanwhile, sumiati and asra (2009) group learning components into three categories: teachers, content or learning materials, and students. elements of entrepreneurship learning materially, according to tung (2011), are 5, namely: know-what (entrepreneurial knowledge), know-why (values and motives), know-who (social interaction), know-how (entrepreneurial skills and abilities), and know-when (intuition, the right time to start up). 36 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 32-50) previous studies have included several models of entrepreneurship education. honing (2004) explains that there are at least three models of entrepreneurship education: 1) the convention model that encourages the preparation of business plans without doing it, 2) the experimental model that emphasizes hands-on experience and practice, and 3) contingencybased entrepreneurship education that applies the concept of a piagetian balance and emphasized to provide the cognitive tools and flexibility to accommodate unexpected environmental factors faced by future entrepreneurs. in addition, linan (2004) describes an intensive-based entrepreneurship education model that prioritizes aspects of interest as cited in ajzen's theory and sapero and sokhol. in general, the model of entrepreneurship education for women is no different from that of men. amalia and korflesch (2021) explain that learning in indonesia is dominated by the direct involvement of students in entrepreneurship. furthermore, hani et al. (2012) demonstrated that although there is no gender difference in entrepreneurship education in indonesia, entrepreneurship education for women still needs to be done. learning variations according to the characteristics of women is essential to encourage women's entrepreneurship according to the needs of these women. the importance of extraordinary entrepreneurship learning for women is due to the phenomenon that women in developing countries are dominated by those with dual identities, so special treatment is needed (babbitt, brown, & mazaheri, 2015). the dual identity of women as mothers and career women is one of the drivers of the need for the emergence of women's needs in applying the entrepreneurship education model in indonesia. characteristics and needs of women entrepreneurs in indonesia as quader (2012) described, the characteristics of entrepreneurial women are the main carrying capacity of successful female entrepreneurs. the features of entrepreneurial women, as quoted by quader (2012), include: 1) female entrepreneurs are more prepared to face losses than male entrepreneurs, 2) have a higher motivation to develop as a form of financial independence, 3) have an unchanging lifestyle and continue to prioritize children, 4) emphasize training and skills development. furthermore, bastaman and juffiasari (2018) described the characteristics of female widiyanto, arief yulianto, muhammad feriady, ahmad nurkhin 37 entrepreneurs in indonesia, namely: 1) tolerance and flexibility, 2) realism and creativity, 3) enthusiasm and energy, 4) being able to relate to the community, 5) having a medium level of self-confidence. a study conducted by hani et al. (2012) explained that there are various characteristics of entrepreneurial women in indonesia, namely: 1) most women in business are inspired by family, close friends and business success stories in various media, 2) women need high support from family in business, 3) women need equality and equal opportunity, 4) being confident and motivated, 5) being involved in various entrepreneurial activities and entrepreneurial networks, 6) tending to avoid conflict, 7) being interested in self-development and business development. a study conducted by rafiki and nasution (2019) described the success factors of female muslim entrepreneurs, who later become a necessity in entrepreneurship education for women, are: 1. trait related factors, which consist of: managing risks, optimism, commitment, decision making, being achievement-oriented, tenacity, advancement drives; 2. behavioral related factors, which consist of financial management and resources, leadership and management skills, networking, effective marketing, technology resources, human resource talent; 3. social psychological related factors: understanding competition, understanding rules and regulations, partners and support business, government networking, family business background, strategic location. entrepreneurship education for women should consider these needs. to sum up, the essential components in the characteristics of female entrepreneurs are tolerance, prioritizing family, involving in a business and networking environment, and having high self-confidence. furthermore, the needs of female entrepreneurs in indonesia are focused on business networking and also improving soft skills and entrepreneurial networking. research methods this research was a research & development (r&d) developed by borg and gall (1983:775). it has ten steps, but then the researchers design it into three phases: preliminary study, development, and model validation. 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 32-50) the preliminary study stage focused on disclosing the needs and characteristics of successful female entrepreneurs and maximizing them by determining entrepreneurial learning needs. at the development stage, this research projects and develops a new learning model for female students in vocational high schools based on the characteristics of successful female entrepreneurs in indonesia. at the model validation stage, this study will measure the effectiveness of the learning model's application in improving students' entrepreneurial spirit and spirit in general. the stages of research and development based on the borg and gall (1983) model in this study are as follows: figure 1: research and development model adapted from the gall and borg model (1987) source: gall and borg model (1987) • test of the suitability of the material with syntax (expert judgment) • learning syntax applicability test • material development • learning syntax development • resource collection • designing learning syntax • determining the needs of women's entrepreneurship learningentrepreneurship need assessment revising early product field test 1 field test 2 plan early product development first assessment revising operational test revising product implementation implementation based on the pbl model process evaluation and learning results widiyanto, arief yulianto, muhammad feriady, ahmad nurkhin 39 this research focuses on how education carries out entrepreneurial learning for women. the locus in this study is in the city of semarang, and the research object was the vocational high school (vhs) of business and management in two public vocational schools in the city of semarang, namely semarang 2 vhs and semarang 9 vhs. the suitability of themes and locus were considered from the aspect of the number of female respondents in vocational schools of business and management dominated by female students. purposive sampling was used in this study to determine the number of respondents used. the categories of respondents selected were: 1) education policymakers, 2) entrepreneurship learning teachers, 3) students, and 4) parents of students. respondents in this study are in table 1. table 1: key informants no. research informants details of data sources number keys total 1 principal 1 person 2 vhs 2 people 2 head of expertise program 1 person 2 vhs 2 people 3 teachers 3 people 2 vhs 6 people 4 students 5 people 2 vhs 10 people 5 parents/guardians 5 people 2 vhs 10 people 6 secondary education authority, basic education authority of semarang 1 person 7 education authority of central java 1 person total 32 people for measuring the validity of the data, this study has four criteria. they are the degree of trust (credibility), extending the research, discussing it with colleagues and similar researchers, and transferability. then, the analysis results are compiled into research reports. further, colleagues, linguists, and communication experts should read them to avoid misperceptions and misunderstandings. dependability, which means reviewing similar research to control the results of scientific studies, is crucial too. confirmatory, which means developing a log book to record all events and events found in the study, is to maintain objectivity. the data analysis involves three activities written as follows: (1) data display, (2) data reduction, and (3) conclusion drawn/verification. the 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 32-50) whole process has been carried out properly and in accordance with qualitative research procedures. research results and discussion research results the first stage of this research is to identify the need for a specific entrepreneurship learning model for women. the results of a literature search and field review on entrepreneurship learning can be explained by the matrix as follows: table 2: need assessment matrix learning objectives content of the required material content indicators analysis of the current situation available not available entrepreneurial skills women's skills in entrepreneurship (quader, 2012; bastaman & juffiasari, 2018) managerial skills, accounting skills, risk-taking competence, mastery of social media √ creativity and innovation (quader, 2012; bastaman & juffiasari, 2018) innovation and creativity in developing business ideas √ entrepreneurial motivation entrepreneurial motivation (hani et.al, 2012) free from social pressure, motivated to develop business ideas. √ women achievement (hani et.al, 2012) having equal social status and having an economic role in the family √ widiyanto, arief yulianto, muhammad feriady, ahmad nurkhin 41 learning objectives content of the required material content indicators analysis of the current situation available not available women entrepreneur self-confidence women selfconfidence (hani et al., 2012) having a medium level of confidence and self-placement √ social psychological related factor (rafiki & nasution, 2019) understanding competition, understanding rules and regulations, partners and support business, government networking, family business background, strategic location √ trait related factors (rafiki & nasution, 2019) managing risks, optimism, commitment, decisionmaking, achievementoriented, tenacity, and advancement drive √ behavioral related factors (rafiki & nasution, 2019) financial management and resources, leadership and management skills, networking, effective marketing, technology resources, human resource talent √ resource: based on literature review of indonesians female entrepreneurship needs the next stage is the development of learning syntax. in this study, the learning syntax adopted was the pbl syntax from borrows (1986); newhouse (2017). the product development of the learning syntax is as follows: 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 32-50) table 3: syntax development of entrepreneurial learning for women original syntax developed syntax/activity phase 1 student orientation to the problem 1. introducing learning objectives and learning activities 2. raising the issues of female entrepreneurs in indonesia 3. categorizing problems faced by female entrepreneurs in indonesia; family support social stigma managerial ability and leadership technical ability phase 2 organize student grouping of student groups based on problems and division of tasks phase 3 individual and group research 1. conducting a mini research project to investigate the success of female entrepreneurs in solving the problem. 2. having a group discussion about the problem and finding a conclusion phase 4 develop and present the work 1. providing group discussion result 2. making a general conclusion phase 5 analyze and evaluate the problem-solving process 1. arranging the material from the discussion result 2. analyzing the problem-solving and material matching 3. making a specific conclusion 4. making an assessment the next step is measuring the success of learning syntax. the measurement in this research refers to the experimental model with a nonequivalent control group design. further, comparing the post-test results in the two classes becomes the basis of the assessment. different tests were conducted to measure differences using the new syntax developed in this study. the following table presents the assessments related to learning achievement: widiyanto, arief yulianto, muhammad feriady, ahmad nurkhin 43 table 4: independent samples t-test of post-test independent samples test levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. tdf sig . (2-tailed) mean differe nce std. error differe nce 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper po st -t es t equal variances assumed 2,398 ,126 2,076 69 ,042 7,183 3,460 ,280 14,085 equal variances not assumed 2,082 66,586 7,183 ,041 3,449 14,068 ,297 based the table shows the differences between classes controlled with the experimental class using the developed syntax. furthermore, the n gain test was used to measure the difference in learning outcomes between the two classes being tested. the results are as follows: table 5: test n gain n-gain score class statistical std. error experimental mean 0.273 0.13726 maximum 1.00 minimum -2.00 control mean 0.092 0.14532 maximum 1.00 minimum -3.00 the n-gain test results showed a more significant change in the pre-test and post-test values in the experimental class using development syntax. the next step is to analyze the usability of syntax in the learning objectives. this research uses qualitative methods of investigation to determine the suitability of the learning syntax with the goals of entrepreneurship learning in women. the results of the analysis are in table 6 below: 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 32-50) table 6: matrix of syntax conformity with learning objectives no learning objectives on female entrepreneur ship achievement indicators results of syntax application supporting components 1 entrepreneurial skills students can be entrepreneurs if they meet the characteristics of students in learning achieved in phases 2 & 3 structured tasks 2 entrepreneurial motivation students are interested in the business world and prioritize business as a career. seen in phases 1 & 5 profile of female entrepreneur s & mini research results 3 female entrepreneurs’ self-confidence students can increase their self-confidence as female entrepreneurs and solve various social problems related to entrepreneurship with various stigmas of female entrepreneurs in society. achieved in phases 1, 3, 4 discussion entrepreneurship learning at school does not only aim to produce great entrepreneurs but also to produce graduates who are professionals in all jobs (slamet & fiany, 2020). an entrepreneurial spirit, such as being innovative, creative, independent, proactive, and having the courage to take risks and find opportunities, is not only needed to run a business but is also very much needed for professionalism in the world of work. furthermore, particular learning aspects for female entrepreneurs are fundamental because they do not only talk about entrepreneurial skills but also consider how to increase women's confidence in entrepreneurship and carry out their professional careers (bhardwaj, 2014). the critical role of teacher competence in the success of entrepreneurship learning begins when designing learning activities until the evaluation. sirait (2021), muhlis (2016), and nursyam (2019) support the conclusion. in learning entrepreneurship, specifically for women, the teacher's vital role as a motivator is dominant. it is because the main widiyanto, arief yulianto, muhammad feriady, ahmad nurkhin 45 problem of female entrepreneurs is self-confidence in entrepreneurship and running business relationships. anggadwita et al. (2017) explained the factors of multicultural society's demands as the biggest challenge in developing women's entrepreneurship in indonesia. in principle, the model is a systematic pattern or design. in contrast to learning, the teacher uses a method to implement the plan. the learning model is still a basic framework or conceptual framework to explain procedures or steps in achieving learning. (suprihatiningrum, 2013). the development of an entrepreneurial learning model specifically for women as a result of the research has the assumptions: (1) the model uses a problembased learning model pattern, (2) the component information is based on the results of the research, (3) the learning model should be implemented at the vocational school of business management, and most of the students are female, (4) the model is only for vocational high schools with dual system education. the development of entrepreneurship learning specifically for women focuses on the importance of self-confidence of female entrepreneurs and efforts to solve the social problems of female entrepreneurs. based on the female entrepreneur profiling adopted from quader (2012), hani et al. (2012), and rafiki and nasution (2019), this research has developed a learning model based on the needs and characteristics of female entrepreneurs. the development of learning models is carried out by setting specific learning objectives, strengthening learning materials and content, and changing learning syntax, which is modified from pbl syntax (borrows, 1986; newhouse, 2017). tests of learning models that had been carried out found the effectiveness of learning models in optimizing entrepreneurship learning, especially for women. in addition, the measurement of syntax proved that there was a match between the syntax designed to learn entrepreneurship education for women in indonesia. this answers the various challenges for female entrepreneurs, as stated by tambunan (2017), which mentions that some obstacles to female entrepreneurs are social, religious, environmental, and cultural. in addition, rudhumbu, du plessis and maphosa's (2020) opinion about the challenges in learning entrepreneurship specifically for women. the testing side of the learning model that has been developed has good results. this is evidenced by the non-equivalent group test-based test in the control and experimental classes, which revealed differences in the 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 32-50) results of the two. in addition, the practical class had better learning outcomes using a modified model. on the measurable side of learning objectives with learning syntax, there was also a conformity that emphasized new content based on the needs and characteristics of female entrepreneurs in indonesia. other research findings from cho and chaudhuri (2020) and riantoputra and muis (2020) regarding the dominant psychological aspects influencing females' entrepreneurial interest said that weighting the content based on women's needs in learning syntax can attract female students to explore entrepreneurship. in addition, increasing selfconfidence is also a high priority in developing this model. this study concludes that female students prefer to receive entrepreneurship learning treatment based on their needs and passion. examples of projects in the beauty, culinary, and media businesses are the most popular with female students. learning by presenting female entrepreneurs is more inspiring than male entrepreneurs. the following learning stage reveals that female students' confidence in practicing entrepreneurship is the best part of this model of entrepreneurship education. conclusion this research has developed a particular entrepreneurship learning model for female students in the vocational school of business management. this particular entrepreneurship learning model for women is based on the characteristics and needs of female entrepreneurs in indonesia. the main reason for the need for specific emphasis on entrepreneurship learning for women is related to socio-cultural factors and the perspective of indonesian society towards female entrepreneurs. testing the learning model based on the characteristics and needs of female entrepreneurs proved that the learning model was practical and very feasible to use. the findings of this research should become a critical consideration for the policy maker in developing and designing an entrepreneurship curriculum at a vocational school. he should analyze the students' needs and students’ characteristics. this research provides suggestions for schools to incorporate the experiences of women entrepreneurs in indonesia into entrepreneurship learning. specialization in the needs of women entrepreneurs also needs to widiyanto, arief yulianto, muhammad feriady, ahmad nurkhin 47 be discussed in learning. furthermore, it can also be pursued to have teaching practitioners who come from women entrepreneurs. furthermore, this research has several limitations, especially in projecting the results of using the learning model in the long term. there is a need for further research to measure the model with treatments and syntax developed for entrepreneurship learning in the long run. the second is that the research respondents still need to be more varied. respondents are only limited to high school female students. it needs to be explored again by adding research respondents. reference [1] abd rahman, n., halim, l., ahmad, a. r., & soh, t. m. t. 2018. challenges of environmental education: inculcating behavioural changes among indigenous students. creative education, 9(1), 43-55. 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[41] vukmirović, v. 2019. entrepreneurship education among university students as a predictor of female entrepreneurial undertakings. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, (3-4), 86-102. article history: received: july 5th, 2022 accepted: february 20th, 2023 note of guest editor the multifaceted and controversial impact of covid19 on all aspects of human life has been discussed in the scientific literature for over a year. the problem of covid19 impact on the position of women in the economy, society, and the family occupied a special place. the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education actively publishes on its pages the results of the most relevant and cutting-edge research on gender equality or inequality and gender differences in various fields of activity. the problems of the increased domestic burden on women because of schools’ and kindergartens’ closure, the deterioration of the economic situation of many families where women were forced to leave work, and the growth of psychological tension among working women have already been repeatedly touched upon. the issues of assessing women's opportunities to do business in the context of a pandemic, their reactions to lockdown demands, the problems of increasing fear, anxiety, and uncertainty about the future of female entrepreneurs are widely covered. at the same time as the experience of different countries has shown compliance with the requirements of self-isolation and quarantine, an extensive lockdown and other negative conditions and phenomena of the covid19 pandemic have led to an exacerbation of many traditional gender problems, and also revealed new ones. a whole range of issues related to the education of women in the context of a pandemic, as well as the role and place of women in the education system (female teachers in schools, female professors at universities, female researchers, etc.) is widely presented in the previous issues of the women's journal of entrepreneurship and education, and was continued in new research. i would like to express my deep gratitude to the editor-in-chief of the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education prof. dr. mirjana radovich-markovic for the invitation to become the editor of a special issue of the magazine dedicated to the impact of covid19 on the gender aspects of business and education. within the framework of a special topic this issue of the journal presents the results of researches devoted to the analysis of psychological differences in the perception of distance learning by young men and women, their approaches to the requirements in organizing the educational process at the university and differences in methods of achieving success. the works which are devoted to the psychological characteristics of gender problems in business, reveal gender differences in the perception of professional and life success among entrepreneurs and company leaders, reveal the gender characteristics of the value orientations of entrepreneurs, as well as the characteristics of the gender and socioprofessional identities of workers, managers and entrepreneurs. special sociological surveys made it possible to identify the opportunities and risk factors of female entrepreneurship in the context of a pandemic in specific regions and countries. the results of this analysis are presented in the following issue of the journal. the problems of small and medium-sized businesses are also highlighted. an important area of research is the assessment of gender issues in the field of hired labour in various companies because of a pronounced tendency to change the composition of jobs and professions under the influence of computerization and digitization, aggravated under the influence of covid19. the special issue offers a discussion of gender issues in the field of labour and employment in various sectors of the economy under the influence of digitization. a special area of research is the assessment of gender differences in the composition and structure of employees of state and municipal authorities. these and many other problems require their solution and elimination. i hope that the works included in the special edition will expand the base of theoretical and practical knowledge in the field of education, employment, female entrepreneurship, as well as identify the dangers of increasing gender problems and propose ways to solve them. prof. dr. zhanna mingaleva perm national research polytechnic university, faculty of humanities department for economics and industrial management 432, 29, komsomolsky prospekt, perm, 614990, russia "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references doi: 10.28934/jwee23.12.pp188-211 jel: b54 original scientific paper 8bfemale msme practitioners and digitalization from a feminist perspective linda dwi eriyanti 2 7f1 sus eko zuhri ernada2 8 f2 honest dody moelasy29 f3 adhiningasih prabhawati3 0f4 university of jember, faculty of social and political science, department for international relation, jember, indonesia a b s t r a c t this study focuses on female msme practitioners’ use of digital technology and what it means to them. the feminist intersectional approach is used to answer how gender, religion, social class, daily activities, and place of residence shape the characteristics of women entrepreneurs. this study is guided by this research question ‘how do women interpret the business they are running, and what is the urgency of digitization in running their business?’ participants were female msme practitioners from kangean and paciran sub-districts selected using snowball sampling. data analysis was carried out interpretively using a feminist standpoint by including the researcher's knowledge as a reference. the feminist intersectional approach helps identify female msme practitioners' religiosity and life orientation in the two regions in running their businesses. furthermore, unlike other studies that find digitalization a necessity in business, this study finds that digitalization is 1 corresponding authoe, e-mail: linda.fisip@unej.ac.id 2 e-mail: eko.ernada@unej.ac.id 3 e-mail: honestdody.fisip@unej.ac.id 4 e-mail: adiningasih@gmail.com l. d. eriyanti, s. e. z. ernada, h. d. moelasy, a. prabhawati 189 not urgent for women. religiosity and life orientation formed from the intersection of many factors around them make female msme practitioners embrace their gender role. they accept and even believe that developing an msme business is not the main purpose of their life. even they believe that they need to avoid digital technology due to its negative impact. key words: intersectionality, digitalization, female msme practitioners introduction in indonesia, the contribution of msme to the national economy in 2021 will reach 61%. the number of msmes reached 64.2 million, and 99% were at the micro level. women manage 57% of these micro msmes. female debtors from the people's business credit program reached 42%. in particular, the government distributes the ultra micro financing program (umi), which has flexible access and administration, although the number is still limited. 95% or more than 6.4 million of the debtors of the umi program are women. this program is complemented by a mentoring program to improve entrepreneurial skills and knowledge so that these women can develop their businesses (kementerian keuangan republik indonesia 2022). mastery of digital technology among women entrepreneurs is a necessity that not only has an impact on success in their economic and business activities but also as an effort to build gender equality. digital technology is electronic tools, systems, and resources such as computers, social media, cellular phones, and the internet used to improve a company's operations in meeting the expectations of its customers (shamaki, ibrahim, and philemon, 2022). adapting to digital transformation allows women entrepreneurs to broaden the spectrum of their businesses, from small businesses to large, that men have so far dominated (bennett, 2021). during the covid-19 pandemic, women entrepreneurs were the most vulnerable group affected. research conducted by vasilić et al. (2020) in serbia shows that 76 percent of companies managed by women have experienced the negative impact of the pandemic, which has increased their workload at home. on the other hand, this situation creates opportunities for women due to the adjustment of production and services shifting to the home. product innovation and flexibility, as well as the use of online space and digital technology, are essential in developing a business during a crisis (lazić, jovanović, and lazarević-moravčević 2021). 190 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 188-211) in the indonesian context, msmes run by women have difficulty surviving. nearly 90% of msmes managed by women require government intervention. as many as 87% of msmes managed by women experienced enormous losses, and 25% experienced a loss of half of their income. two of three women-owned msmes were forced to close permanently or temporarily during the pandemic (maesaroh, 2021). a decrease in demand resulted in a drastic decrease in income, which occurred after the implementation of large-scale social restrictions during the pandemic. several studies have found that the decline in income among msmes run by women is partly due to the low level of digital literacy (goldstein et al., 2022; un women, 2020; oecd and ilo, n.d.; bennett 2021; oecd, 2019). previous research shows that the digitalization of msmes in indonesia is still around 21%, while digital market opportunities are increasingly penetrative with the emergence of various platforms (azizah, 2019). the magnitude of this digital market opportunity has yet to be utilized optimally by many msmes in indonesia, especially msmes run by women. this study aims to identify and analyze the characteristics of female msme practitioners, they interpret the business they run, and the urgency of digitalization is in running their business. literature review and theoretical underpinnings digital literacy is the user's knowledge and skills in utilizing digital media, such as communication tools and internet networks. user proficiency in digital literacy includes the ability to find, work on, evaluate, use, make and utilize it wisely, carefully, and precisely according to its use (suherdi et al., 2021). digital literacy is essential in efforts to empower women's economy. with the mastery of digital technology, women entrepreneurs can access a broad market and make it possible to obtain capital disbursement to increase the capacity and quality of their production. adoption and adaptation to new technology is the main issue that requires digital orientation, digital capabilities, and digital transformation in the business they manage. female msme practitioners need to take advantage of digital technology's enormous potential and significant role in improving their business performance to enhance strategic competitive advantage and economic development (shamaki, ibrahim, and philemon, 2022) one part of digital technology that is easily accessible to businesswomen is social media. low-cost and low-complexity social media l. d. eriyanti, s. e. z. ernada, h. d. moelasy, a. prabhawati 191 can help msmes overcome social marketing problems in highly competitive industries. this can affect the success of msmes, which can even play an essential role in the country's economic growth (ali abbasi et al., 2022). the use of social media is an option because of its relative advantages, cost-effectiveness, compatibility, interactivity (technological factors), entrepreneurial orientation (organizational factors), and customer pressure (environmental factors). social media platforms are becoming a vital part of marketing activities. social media has become a way of competing against large corporations with low costs and limited resources. in addition, social media can also help msmes to be more creative (qalati et al., 2022). the use of digital technology also plays an essential role in increasing the businesses owned by women driven by increased financial inclusion. the compatibility and collaboration of technology adoption with the business regulatory framework can encourage higher financial inclusion and produce better socio-economic welfare. in this regard, policymakers can encourage increased internet diffusion and digital tools to support reasonable business regulations, improving people's lives and closing gender gaps. on the other hand, financial institutions also need to be encouraged to promote and provide access to digital financial services and products to meet the needs of low-income citizens and reach those groups who do not own bank accounts (yakubi et al., 2022). thus, women who operate msmes can get the same benefits from this financial inclusion. digitalization is essential for msmes for several reasons., it does not require much money but is a practical step in developing msmes, can be a means of sharing information and inspiration between entrepreneurs, is an effort to expand the market and income of msmes, introduces msmes on a broader scale, and will be able to increase the number of workers absorbed from the growth of the msmes. in subsequent developments, the growth of msmes is expected to have an impact on reducing poverty and unemployment (pemerintah daerah kabupaten kendal, 2021). the potential of women as business actors the criteria for msme in indonesia are regulated in article 35 to article 36 of pp umkm. micro enterprises have business capital of up to one billion rupiahs or annual sales results of up to a maximum of two billion rupiahs. small businesses have business capital from one billion to five billion rupiahs or have sales proceeds of between two billion rupiahs to 192 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 188-211) fifteen billion rupiahs. meanwhile, medium-sized businesses have working capital of between five billion rupiahs and ten billion rupiahs or have annual sales of between fifteen billion rupiahs and fifty billion rupiahs. (“pp nomor 7 tahun 2021.pdf” n.d.) many women become msme practitioners because of the pressure of family needs. this differs from men who do business out of desire. doing business for women is an option considering that women's career opportunities in the formal sector are often hindered by marriage, childcare, and a glass ceiling. the desire for career advancement, independence, selfefficacy, and family background drives entrepreneurial women (cho, li, and chaudhuri, 2020). in indonesia, women run their businesses as a side activity to provide for the family's needs and help their husbands. they started the business with their capital, setting aside spending money or relying on loans from relatives, and still consider their husbands and parents the primary source of their initial capital. the main reasons not to borrow from a bank are the high-interest rates, complicated procedures, and lack of necessity. in addition, it is also influenced by low bank confidence in providing capital loans, which is only around 45% -55%. therefore, cooperation from the private sector, banking, and other institutions is needed to support women. women must organize and improve their entrepreneurial skills to innovate products and improve management skills to compete and survive in their businesses (marthalina, 2018). these women also run businesses without adequate skills. training and assistance in marketing, production, or business opportunities are needed considering the low quality of human resources, lack of innovation, and low access to capital (asnawan et al. 2022; astuti, kartono, and rahmadi 2020; azizah 2019b; maimuna, limbong, and pracita 2022; ulya and wahyudi 2022). the disruptive nature of covid-19 has created a spectrum of opportunities for innovation and transformation in business enterprises. it is evident that during the pandemic, business owners adapted to emergency conditions and pivoted their business model to capture opportunities that offer new products/services and market differently. msmes need to acquire high-level leadership capabilities, enhanced digital skills, and sufficient business domain knowledge to help them address the related challenges (alam et al. 2022). msmes with the most internet users in indonesia are found in yogyakarta, reaching 58%. they use the internet for business l. d. eriyanti, s. e. z. ernada, h. d. moelasy, a. prabhawati 193 communication (91.2%), sales/purchases (79.8%), advertising (64%), browsing (46.9%), and mobile banking transactions (14.4%). 60% of these msmes are run by women, 90% are micro-businesses, and 98% are in the industrial and service sectors. their level of education is also relatively high, where 50% of them have high school and university education. (kusumawardhani et al., 2022) women use digital media a lot in their daily activities. they use cell phones and personal computers to access the internet. thus, opportunities are opened for the process of adopting innovative technology to increase women's abilities in the context of running msmes (widyastuti et al., 2016). in solo, central java, payment gateway-based fintech and digital marketing have a positive and significant effect on the financial performance of msmes. financial literacy moderates the influence of payment gateway-based fintech on the financial performance of msme (octavina & rita, 2021). business actors with good financial literacy make sound financial and business decisions. it may impact the development and sustainability of the business in the future (jayanti & karnowati, 2023). women must prepare to adopt the technology needed for production, finance, and marketing. in indonesia, in general, msmes are optimistic and willing to innovate. they believe technology and digitalization can improve and innovate their business. however, they still feel overwhelmed in the learning process and feel insecure when doing digital transactions (arifin & kohar, 2022). msmes still need innovation, especially in information and communication technology. female msme practitioners still experience limitations in running an e-commerce business (linawati et al., 2018) meanwhile, research on female msme practitioners in the province of bali shows that many msmes still must work hard to adapt to technology with various limitations. not all craft-weaving msmes in bali can access digital technology. the inequality of access and the abilities of female msme practitioners indicate that the digitalization of the economy has yet to be fully able to become a solution for a more humane and prosperous economy for all people (telagawathi et al., 2021). digitalization of msmes is not only related to business continuity and improving the economy but also related to concern for the environment. bookkeeping, an essential part of msme, can be done more efficiently, neatly, and environmentally friendly because it is paperless (sagena et al., 2023). 194 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 188-211) feminism intersection the concept of intersectionality was raised by crenshaw (1989) to identify discrimination against women that occurs in the social order and layer of society, which includes skin color and the growing social stigma. intersectionality, which kimberl-e crenshaw coined, is the recognition of interrelated identities, defined by the relative sociocultural power and privileges that shape people's individual and collective identities and experiences. this approach allows for a more nuanced analysis because it does not prioritize a single social category or conceptualizes social categories fixedly and statically (morton, muchiri, and swiss, 2020). building on the intersectional approach, collins (1991) combines the study of ethnicity and religion more closely with the intersection of gender, race, class, and nation. by emphasizing family roles, collins understood that individuals would learn their assigned place in the hierarchy of race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, and social class within their family of origin. nash (2008) expands the concept of intersectionality to include religion, citizenship, ethnicity, and race, which are political markers of women's identity and are a source of discrimination. nash argues that intersectionality helps to see how oppression and privilege are shaped based on race and social class. furthermore, riley (2003) sees that women's identities are constructed historically, discursively, and categorically (kiranantika, 2022). intersectionality places the individual's life experience at the center of attention, an approach that seeks to overlay or expand narratives to explain how identities and intersectional structures are plausible (vacca, 2022). the intersectional approach has come a long way. it has even been more broadly re-theorized in the digital feminist' knowledge culture', namely as a way to capture everyday learning practices that are facilitated and shaped through the digital culture that is practiced in everyday life (kanai, 2021). the contemporary feminist intersectional movement seems to offer a different approach that can overcome distance. the concept of intersectionality focuses on the interrelated effects of multiple dimensions of power and oppression in everyday life. intersectionality refers to various oppressions that cross, for example, the intersection with race and gender, sexuality, class, and country. oppression is not single but layered. (crenshaw, 1991; collins, 2019) intersectionality is helpful in explaining the marginalization of women who are always considered a minority. the l. d. eriyanti, s. e. z. ernada, h. d. moelasy, a. prabhawati 195 intersectional feminist movement aims to demarginalize the voices of minority women and, at the same time, various articulate forms of inequality in political claims that can create solidarity (giorgi, 2021). intersectionality will help explain that women as msme practitioners are in a state of intersection between traditional gender roles, the pressure to fulfill economic needs, and the development of digital technology. it is still sharpened by these women's social conditions, beliefs, and educational level, which shape their character, attitudes, and motivations in utilizing or not utilizing digital technology to run their businesses. methods the researchers adopted the data collection model of bouman et al., which suggested that research in the field of women entrepreneurs by building good relations with informants. it helps researchers gain access so informants can express their hopes and desires. researchers need to help provide insight to help describe informants' areas of knowledge and motivation hidden in their subjectivity. researchers also find out the daily activities of informants and use the same language to gather information (sudarmanti, bauwel, and longman, 2013) the research was conducted in two sub-districts in east java, namely kangean island, which is in the sumenep district, and paciran sub-district in the lamongan district. the research data in this study were taken using the snowball sampling method, with female msme practitioners as the subjects. the 42 women who became participants in this study were in various age ranges, ranging from 20 to 50. the female msme practitioners in paciran and kangean are micro-entrepreneurs with a monthly sales turnover of between 3 million and 10 million rupiahs. they have been in business for less than ten years. 69% of participants were married, 23% were widows, and 8% were single. the educational level of female msme practitioners in the sunan drajat islamic boarding school area, banjarwati village, paciran, has a percentage of bachelor graduates of 42.9%, the same as the percentage of high school graduates (sma). meanwhile, the percentage of female msmes practitioners who have graduated from junior high school (smp) is 14.3%. thus, the educational level of the female msme practitioners in paciran was excellent and has passed a minimum of 9 years of compulsory education. 196 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 188-211) meanwhile, the education level of female msme informants in kangean tended to be middle to lower; namely, 67% had junior high and high school education with low life skills. 11% have an elementary school education, and 22% have a bachelor's degree. the age range of most msmes practitioners was around 30-40 years. focus group discussions and interviews with various parties, including islamic boarding school caretakers, local government, and women's religious organizations. interviews were conducted (1) to find out the opinions, thoughts, and memories of the subjects studied in their language, (2) carried out by relying on traditional feminine skills, with an approach that is full of understanding, open, accepting and responding to other people's feelings and the ability to talk about things sensitive matters without eliciting feelings of threat, (3) to avoid control over research subjects, while at the same time building a sense of connectedness with the people who are research subjects (reinhart, 2005). data analysis was carried out using interpretive analysis methods. interpretation involves the researcher's construction of the reading of events, thus enabling an understanding of the research experience expressed (denzin, 2009). results the characteristics of women with relational competence, compassion, sensitivity, intuition, cheerfulness, nurturing, and empathy help women to be more market-oriented. market orientation is the strength to survive the crisis. meanwhile, long-term social orientation can help retain clients longer, which is needed when customers are scarce. this characteristic also enhances internal social support in msmes. the resilience of women entrepreneurs enables them to overcome obstacles such as access to credit. these characteristics give women special skills that arise during crises, making them better able to handle pressures such as during a pandemic (marconatto et al., 2022). individual character and psychological character have a positive influence on business performance. tenacity in trying and hardworking is the principal capital that needs to be supported by other positive characteristics (miftakhuljanah et al., 2016). women need to be more innovative, future-oriented, willing to take risks, and confident to be successful in their businesses (tambrin, 2019). most female msme practitioners in indonesia fall into the micro and subsistence category. they do business not because they want to but l. d. eriyanti, s. e. z. ernada, h. d. moelasy, a. prabhawati 197 because they have no choice. they run a business to meet their daily needs. it is influenced, among other things, by the need for more business capital, low formal education, and lack of special business skills, including mastery of digital technology. these women need more interest in making their business more prominent, without staff, and only use the internet in a limited way, usually only for communication purposes. being a subsistence msme also makes women prioritize raising children over their business, even if they are willing to change the type of business that they can do while doing household chores. (kusumawardhani et al., 2022) female msme practitioners in indonesia experience various obstacles in running their businesses: (1) access to capital, which is due, among other things, to a lack of procedural knowledge to access banking services and the limited grant and credit schemes provided by the government, (2). access to the market, due to limited space for women to move more in the domestic realm, (3) access to information due to limited use of technology and limited information according to the needs of women in entrepreneurship. 4. access to training to develop skills and capacity as an entrepreneur (helmiatin 2017). the age range for most female entrepreneurs is 35-45 years (faridyah, 2020). women involved in msmes are more likely to own small businesses than men. msmes run by women are more informal and not registered with the government, and their turnover is also lower than those run by men. more female msme practitioners work in the trade or service sector, and only a few are in the manufacturing sector, except for food, textile, and garment production. the business is often at the local scale. next, regarding using technology, for example, computers, women use computers less often than men and even more women do not (40% versus 47%) (japhta et al., 2016). women experience obstacles in running their businesses because of the double burden. they experience pressure to balance their responsibilities at home and the need to focus on business. the pressure experienced by women is not only from the family but also from the surrounding community, who think that women must be fully responsible for work in the household before carrying out business activities or other activities. female msme practitioners allocate income from their businesses to meet household needs, which results in a lack of investment in their businesses. even in running their business, 54% of female msme practitioners say that their spouse and family dominate financial planning. women also often 198 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 188-211) experience anxiety and lack self-confidence due to the firm belief that earning a living is the responsibility of men. the space for women to move is limited because of culture and control from society. those living in rural areas will need help accessing government offices and other businessrelated services far from where they live. often they are not allowed to travel independently, not having the time or money to reach them. women also experience discomfort when dealing with officials who are primarily men (japhta et al., 2016). most women involved in msmes in paciran run food and beverage businesses and sell clothes. many of them also have other professions apart from running msme. usually, they have their primary profession as teachers who teach inside the sunan drajat islamic boarding school and outside the sunan drajat islamic boarding school area. as in paciran, msmes in kangean generally sell processed food products. however, most processed food products at kangean are made from fish, such as shrimp paste, fish balls, pempek, and other processed seafood. it comes from sea fishing as the dominant livelihood of the kangean people. several processed fish, such as pempek and fish balls, are mainly processed into frozen food to be distributed outside kangean island. msmes in kangean have also penetrated the field of delivery services. apart from j&t express, sicepat, and jne, kangean island has local expeditions, including anj express. the existence of local expeditions is a choice for the community because inter-island shipping costs are much cheaper than general expeditions. anj express has been running for three years now. the target destinations are big cities outside the island, such as jakarta. in addition, the target of shipments is also made overseas, currently focusing on malaysia. generally, the goods that will be distributed are goods and some food produced by the msme community. the expedition takes place according to the ship's departure schedule, which is three times a week on monday, wednesday, and saturday. however, this is not certain because if the ship experiences problems such as damage or repairs, the goods will accumulate at the distributor agent. expedition time depends on the destination location. if the destination is around indonesia, it takes 3-7 days, while malaysia generally takes ten days. apart from processed food and services, msmes in kangean have also penetrated the accessories and clothing goods sector, such as tailors and decorative deliveries. msmes of this type generally look for basic materials in surabaya or other areas out of the island. for production, the materials l. d. eriyanti, s. e. z. ernada, h. d. moelasy, a. prabhawati 199 were brought to kangean. these msmes sell several goods: shoes, sandals, and clothes. the majority of consumers are in the local area of kangean. very rarely marketed outside the island. it is because shoes and sandals are purchased outside and traded within the kangean community. another fact is that the average msme actor has never attended training from the government to improve skills for msme development. gender intersection the inequality in gender relations that places women in paciran and kangean experiences oppression. this oppression is interpreted in various ways by women running msmes. it has an impact on the low ability of women to run their businesses. female msme practitioners in kangean and paciran have had relatively large business opportunities. however, this great opportunity does not allow women to develop businesses freely. it is because women's access still needs to be improved. such access includes access to information, resources, and markets. the lack of availability of positive information for business development causes difficulty accessing information. there is a lot of hoax information that is even more widespread and readily accepted by women. another problem is that there are still women who need cell phones. if there is only one cellphone in a family, it is usually the husband or children who use it. female msme practitioners have difficulty accessing material and non-material resources around them for business development. one example is business capital in the form of credit provided by banks which are still gender-blind and are not widely used by women. it is due to complex administrative processes and a need for understanding procedures to the point that no property can be used as collateral. in addition to material resources, there are non-material resources in the form of knowledge, skills, reputation, social networks, and spiritual resources. spiritual resources include a thirst for knowledge, a vision of opportunity, a work ethic, sensitivity to discipline, family solidarity, community solidarity, and good faith. regarding non-material resources, it is difficult for women to access and utilize them. it happens because women's formal education level is still low compared to men. meanwhile, knowledge derived from everyday experiences is not considered valid and scientific. likewise, the placement of women in the domestic sector makes women learn skills related to caring for their families and doing household work. it makes them alienated from 200 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 188-211) the public world, making it difficult to network and build solidarity among women. the participation and involvement of female msme practitioners are high. however, the business units that are carried out are still on a small scale, as can be seen from the types of msme developed, turnover, and limited marketing outreach. it is because they still have to carry out various domestic activities, such as taking their children to school and reading the qur’an, as well as various other domestic activities. most of the income from msme run by women is also used for their children's needs to go to school or for additional pocket money for their children. on the side of women's participation, female msme practitioners could be more optimal in participating in the business. the orientation of women who prioritize their roles in the family and other professions, such as being a teacher, creates a lack of urgency to continue developing a business. msme practitioners in paciran, for example, have a high sense of gratitude and consider the blessing factor. even though the income from being a teacher is less than that of msmes, they still prioritize teaching because they believe in blessings. their thoughts are related to the culture within the islamic boarding school, which teaches much gratitude. even though their husbands assist them in preparing for the needs of msmes, they still feel that the domestic sphere is more important and is their duty. several factors cause them to focus on other things than developing msmes. the first is because they need to prioritize time for msmes. they want to be energized so they have time to take care of their family. second, sme actors who have other professions, namely teachers, prioritize teaching more, even though their business can be developed bigger because, according to them, teaching is a noble profession and brings blessings. religion the atmosphere in the two research locations has very strong islamic nuances. for example, recitation activities are routinely carried out in both the paciran and kangean areas. in addition, many business entities are founded based on islamic principles or contain elements of the islamic religion. in paciran, many large islamic boarding schools have been established. in one village, banjarwati village, there are six islamic boarding schools with students from various regions in indonesia. the types of islamic boarding schools also vary, from general to islamic boarding schools that focus on specific areas, such as memorizing the qur’an. the l. d. eriyanti, s. e. z. ernada, h. d. moelasy, a. prabhawati 201 figure of the kiai (islamic religious leader) is also highly respected in paciran. the community around the sunan drajat islamic boarding school still believes in the kiai's glory. in kangean, there is also the large al hidayah islamic boarding school which has a significant influence in strengthening the religious culture of the kangean people. religious figures from the pesantren are also highly respected in kangean, but their influence is less intense than that in paciran. pondok pesantren sunan drajat is influential in terms of market, employment, and thinking. the students, alumni of the students, and the community around the sunan drajat islamic boarding school highly respect the figure of kyai ghofur, the leader of the sunan drajat islamic boarding school. he became a figure admired and followed. there is also great fanaticism towards kyai ghofur, especially from the sunan drajat islamic boarding school students and alums of the sunan drajat islamic boarding school. they uphold the motto "sami'na wa'ato'na", which means "we listen and we obey," so that when there is an order from kyai, the santri will answer "ready to carry it out." life based on the islamic religion, which is very strong in the area around the sunan drajat islamic boarding school, results in several unique factors, one of which is a matter of gratitude and seeking blessings. communities around the sunan drajat islamic boarding school have a high sense of gratitude. they do not prioritize the pursuit of material things but rather the pursuit of blessings. it is illustrated by the statements of the msme community members who tend to lead a life that they think is sufficient and calm, that is, with lots of gratitude. it makes the thinking of female msme practitioners around the sunan drajat islamic boarding school not to get as much profit as possible from selling but how their sales can be enough for their daily needs and bring blessings without forgetting worship. many people believe in the 'advantages' possessed by kyai. for example, kyai ghofur is famous for his 'suwuk', in the business unit built by sunan drajat, a herbal medicine that is quite famous. they have many customers because they are considered to have received special prayers from kyai ghofur. apart from that, according to the information from several business units from the sunan drajat islamic boarding school, kyai ghofur played a significant role in expanding its market. the fanaticism of the alumni and the many admirers of kyai ghofur are spread throughout indonesia. they have many customers because they are considered to have received special prayers from kyai ghofur. 202 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 188-211) female msme practitioners in kangean are also members of the qur’an recitation group. within one week, at least an average of them attended 3-4 recitations. the existence of this group is a space for economic empowerment and strengthening. this study forum helps increase the capacity of female msme practitioners and build a more comprehensive sales network. in assisting to increase the capacity of msmes, one of the efforts of the recitation groups initiated by the fatayat and muslim women's organizations includes encouraging recitation members to make home industries and sell them during recitations. in addition, the fatayat group has mobilized its members to bring their products during the recitation. limited living facilities to support business most female msme practitioners in paciran already use digital technology in their daily lives, such as mobile phones. the smooth condition of the internet network in paciran makes mobile phones a potential tool for business development. they also have private vehicles that they use daily. however, despite having these facilities, public facilities in paciran are still inadequate. digital delivery applications already exist in various cities in indonesia, such as gojek and grab, still need to be made available in paciran. then, for access to the city of lamongan, as well as to the city of surabaya, there are still few public transportation services, there are only buses and vans, but they are not available in large numbers. the majority of their access outside the area is using private vehicles. meanwhile, in kangean, female msme practitioners experience problems accessing the internet. even though they have used a cell phone, not all points in kangean have internet access. this disparity in signal coverage impacts the difficulty of accessing online applications to support community businesses and technological developments in general. due to network constraints, the go-way application, a digital innovation in kangean, was used less massively. go-way banners and driver recruitment have been found in kangayan district. however, the signals of various internet network providers also have yet to reach all areas of kangean island, especially the kangayan district area, which is only centered around kangayan district. l. d. eriyanti, s. e. z. ernada, h. d. moelasy, a. prabhawati 203 low digital literacy understanding digital use still needs to improve in the kangean and paciran areas. in the kangean region, the lack of digital literacy is influenced by the uneven distribution of the internet network there. this disparity to reach impacts the difficulty of accessing online applications to support community businesses and technological developments in general. due to network constraints, the go-way application, a digital innovation in kangean, was used less massively. go-way banners and driver recruitment have been found in kangayan district. however, the signals of various internet network providers also have yet to reach all areas of kangean island, especially the kangayan district area, which is only centered around kangayan district. apart from the internet network disparity factor, the people in kangean do not yet have an awareness and understanding of the use of digital technology for business development. for them, digital technology is used more for communication and entertainment. meanwhile, in paciran, low digital literacy is influenced by cultural and individual factors. even though there are no internet network constraints, many people choose to study something other than digital technology. people think that digital technology, such as mobile phones, may cause negative impacts; thus reducing their use. discussion intersection and female msme practitioners the research conducted in iran explains that instagram can empower women by providing a platform for women to run their businesses. women can access resources even though they have household responsibilities and activities. running a business that gives women income will make them more confident and able to make decisions. (mahdipour 2022). in contrast, this study identified many factors that shape the agency of female msme practitioners in indonesia. the intersection of gender, race, social class, education level, cultural environment, and religion form the unique characteristics of female msmes practitioners. 204 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 188-211) women's motivation to do business women involved in msmes in the sunan drajat paciran islamic boarding school and kangean admit that they open businesses to meet household needs. in the patriarchal tradition, the primary breadwinner in the family is the man. hence women will only work/do business if they feel that fulfilling a living from their husbands is not enough. otherwise, women are forced to work because they do not have a living: husbands work abroad or are widowed. msme for women is only one of the jobs that they have. women's main job is domestic affairs, caring for the family and household. beyond that, other job sectors, including being a teacher, are also more of an option. msme is also considered an activity to channel creativity or hobbies. understanding religion makes women who do msmes feel quickly satisfied with what they have obtained, surrender and willingly accept the situation so that women do not try to expand their business reach. they consider an environment that provides opportunities and good fortune to be grateful enough. this intersection makes women perceive that msme's digitalization does not need to be carried out due to several reasons, including unfavorable situations and conditions, namely mobile phone ownership and difficulties in getting a signal. another reason is the negative view of mobile phones and the internet. many still assume that cell phones and the internet bring harmful effects. using mobile phones too often will interfere with their work activities and productivity. using digital technology most of the use of digital technology by female msme practitioners in kangean and paciran is limited to social media. msmes in kangean can only operate social media platforms such as whatsapp, facebook, and instagram for promotions and buying and selling transactions. however, most msmes cannot yet perform editing and design processes. one of the factors hindering activity through social media is the uneven signal coverage and lack of skills in using social media. apart from the signal factor, the average age of female msme practitioners is already less productive, making it difficult for them to understand and study the features available in technology. l. d. eriyanti, s. e. z. ernada, h. d. moelasy, a. prabhawati 205 in kangean, most msmes benefit from digitalization because their products are becoming more widely known by the public. apart from that, starting from the pandemic, which required all activities to be online, people are now more interested in placing orders through digital technology. however, in the process, female msme practitioners also feel they need to feel the benefits. when they use digital technology in the form of online purchases using the go-way delivery service (a local delivery service in kangean), they feel annoyed because couriers often ask for their orders to come first, thus disturbing offline buyers. in the end, several female msme practitioners decided not to use go-way anymore. on the other hand, signal providers such as telkomsel and xl have not yet reached the entire area of kangean island, especially the kangayan district area, which is only centered around the kangayan district. the people of kangayan must reach certain areas to get telephone and internet signals. however, the opportunity for marketing through digital technology has attracted the attention of the public, and it has been proven that they are willing to go to the trouble of gathering in a place with a signal just to be able to shop. according to them, this still saves time because by being in one place, they can choose many items from various sellers in online media. several female msme practitioners in paciran also use digital technology in their business. they utilize digital technology for product development and ordering raw materials, networking with other msmes, payments, and marketing. female msmes selling processed food products such as cakes and chocolate have learned much about product development from youtube and the msmes community network on facebook and social media. the understanding of female msme practitioners in paciran about the use of social media is also quite good. they also understand that there are digital buying and selling platforms such as shopee and tokopedia. however, they do not use an online buying and selling platform. they think that digital technology is not needed because their target market is only students and visitors who do not need to use digital platforms for marketing. although many women in both kangean and paciran have used digital technology, some refuse to conceive. they think digital technology interferes with their daily activities, and they think it only drains their time and worries about being unable to work optimally. they consider that the profits they get from traditionally doing business are sufficient. shopping 206 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 188-211) for raw materials at traditional markets or from sellers around them is more pleasant and makes them have a mutually beneficial bond. the limited time due to the double burden they bear, namely domestic work, formal activities, and social activities, is enough to burden female msme practitioners in both regions. being a housewife, being a teacher, and participating in various recitation activities, which can be up to 2-3 times a week, is hard enough for women. it becomes a consideration for limiting his business ventures as much as possible. according to them, using digital technology would be troublesome because of the large number of orders and the inability to handle them. there is still a negative perception of using digital media, such as mobile phones. mobile phones are considered to make them complacent and forget about other work, so they reduce their use. not to mention they have to buy credits and internet quota for the phones. meanwhile, on the other hand, the still complex signal makes them have to take the time to gather in one place, as was done by the women involved in msmes in kangean. conclusion the intersection of gender, religion, social class, education level, and geographical area has shaped the unique characteristics of women smes in kangean and paciran. they have the orientation of building a business to fulfill their daily needs and intend to develop it only if many things are more important. they are taking care of the household, working on getting blessings, and doing religious activities as the peak orientation of life guiding women in their daily activities. the use of digital technology, which on the one hand, can help women's msmes` business development, is interpreted differently. digital technology is not considered a necessity but only used when it is considered not to interfere with other activities. therefore, the use of digital technology is not just because of the inaccessibility of facilities in the form of cell phones, internet signals, and important information. however, the life orientation that is awakened in female msme practitioners determines their choice of whether to use it or not. digital skills are less explored as a tool to support business development, and their use is still "social media consumption." the view formed by the scope of islamic boarding schools has more to do with gratitude and blessings, resulting in a paradigm of society that is not so l. d. eriyanti, s. e. z. ernada, h. d. moelasy, a. prabhawati 207 concerned with pursuing material things and developing its business. most msme practitioners' motivation is not driven by 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[44] widyastuti, dhyah ayu retno, ranggabumi nuswantoro, and thomas adi purnomo sidhi. 2016. “literasi digital pada perempuan pelaku usaha produktif di daerah istimewa yogyakarta.” jurnal aspikom, 3(1): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.24329/aspikom.v3i1.9 [45] yakubi, yusef ali yusef, basuki basuki, rudi purwono, and indrianawati usman. 2022. “the impact of digital technology and business regulations on financial inclusion and socio-economic development in low-income countries.” sage open, 12(3): 215824402211161. article history: received: december 10th, 2022  accepted: june 6th, 2023  https://doi.org/10.24329/aspikom.v3i1.9 note of editor-in-chief global crisis influenced by covid-19 affects every aspect of business activity. women’s entrepreneurship is an area that needs specific research attention in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. therefore, the aim of this special issue is to capture research that can provide new knowledge with regard to female entrepreneurial behavior in this time of crisis. i would especially like to thank prof. radka čopková from technical university of kosice in slovakia. she collected a number of researchers who contributed to the topic of this special issue. in addition, we ask authors to quote papers from our journal properly, as well as to send us the papers that have not been published yet. the responsibility for plagiarism is solely of the author. november, 2020 editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković doi: 10.28934/jwee20.34.pp181-201 jel: i20 original scientific paper women, entrepreneurship and education: descriptive bibliometric analysis based on scopus database teodora slavinski1 marija todorović2 university of belgrade, faculty of organizational sciences, department for management and specialized management disciplines, belgrade, serbia valentina vukmirović3 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia alessandra maria montenegro4 university of belgrade, faculty of organizational sciences, department for management and specialized management disciplines, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t descriptive bibliometric analysis seeks to present the characteristics of published scientific papers that examine the phenomena of "women", "entrepreneurship" and "education". using standard bibliographic and bibliometrics indicators, the specifics of publications from the point of publishing dynamics, belonging to different scientific areas, characteristics of a publication source, individual or joint authorship, geographical distribution, published content and citation metrics are presented. the research results rely on analytical tools provided by scopus and bibexcel, while a wordcloud text generator was used to create some of the graphical presentations. a total of 330 papers dated in the period 1 corresponding authoe, e-mail: teodora.slavinski@fon.bg.ac.rs 2 e-mail: marija.todorovic@fon.bg.ac.rs 3 e-mail: valentina.vukmirovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 4 e-mail: alessandramontenegro9@gmail.com, 182 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 181-201) from 1976 to 2020, were published in a total of 198 journals indexed in the scopus database. created as a result of individual research work or in collaboration with 811 different authors, the content of these works falls into one of 22 categories of research areas. the observed papers were cited by 4976 other documents indexed in the scopus database. this study should be considered as a systematization of articles published in eminent scientific journals and should motivate other authors to conduct further researches in the field of bibliometrics. key words: women, entrepreneurship, education, descriptive bibliometric analysis, gender, science production, scopus database introduction examining the nature and the dynamics of published papers is a widespread approach among authors who find their field of research in the spectrum of bibliography and bibliometrics. in order to follow the development trend of the observed research topic (roth et al., 2020) or trends (zhu et al. 2020), journal publication activity (tang et al., 2018) or scientific discipline (lampe et al., 2020) the authors have recognized benefits of bibliographic analysis for greater comprehension of activities performed in the scientific community. complex bibliographic data and metadata provide a wide range of analytical possibilities, which represents one of potentials of digital transformed organizational capacity (slavinski and todorovic, 2019). the application of it technologies has led to fundamental changes in the field of librarianship (salazar 2019). moreover, bibliographic databases such as scopus and web of science have provided wider utilization of analytic tools in order to capacitate scholars to exhaust all the potentials of available bibliography data. the opportunity to analyze and compare all the results of their bibliography searches was given to authors, enabling them to provide more compatible references for their research endeavors. as a matter of fact, examination of the education and the effectiveness of women-led entrepreneurial engagements have been noted throughout numerous publications covered by bibliography bases. according to contextual narrative the quality of education has been emphasized as the prediction of entrepreneurial success (vukmirović, 2019; rudhumbu et al., 2020), women empowerment fundamental (banihani 2020) or a trigger of future entrepreneurial intentions (armuña et al., 2020). the publications have also highlighted the importance of women's entrepreneurship both in the context teodora slavinski, marija todorović, valentina vukmirović, alessandra maria montenegro 183 of economic revitalization (khan 2020) and domestic economies strengthening (radović-marković et al., 2010). through multidisciplinary approaches towards the issues of "women", "entrepreneurship" and "education", research efforts have shown the increased interest of the academic community to interpret these phenomena from the point of the different scientific fields. the constant increase in the number of research papers recognizes the need to approach the analysis of such publications from the position of bibliographic analysis, as an effective method for interpreting the existing written corpus. bibliographic analyzes of scientific papers dealing with women’s participation issues have been registered within the fields of psychology (gonzález-álvarez and cerveracrespo 2019), management (artto et al., 2009; zhu et al. 2020) or higher education (collins and steffen-fluhr 2019). also, the authors examined the inequality of women’s scientific productivity in academia (filandri and pasqua 2019; mayer and rathmann 2018) and scientific journals ’editorial boards (wang et al., 2020). although the incensement of articles examining the phenomena of "women", "entrepreneurship" and "education" has been noted within the last 15 years (called wee paper in the further text), there is no bibliographic paper that covers topics as the dynamics or nature of published work. such bibliographic studies are common for many research fields (palomo et al., 2017), while in recent years the publication of bibliographic papers from the position of gendered publication trends (dalal et al., 2020) or gender inequality in scientific careers has become especially topical (filandri and pasqua 2019). in order to fill this gap, the study aims to present the results of bibliographic analysis for wee papers and thus point out the novelties identified in publications created after 2003. this paper is organized as follows: first, criteria for database formation, bibliometrics approaches, and employed software were presented within the sample and methodology section. second, bibliographic indicators related to the following research questions: characteristics of scientific area, according to evolution and its dynamic; characteristics of scientific productivity, according to authorship and publications' source; characteristics of scientific productivity, according to sources and affiliations; characteristics of scientific productivity, according to publications' content and characteristics of further publications' life, were presented in the results section. third, summarized results interpreted from the point of novelties brought through the younger period of publication, as well as limitations and suggestions for creating similar studies 184 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 181-201) in the future were presented in discussion and limitations. the last section contains some final conclusions of the performed analysis. sample and methodology research sample was formed by extracting data from the scopus bibliographic database. the exported data contained full bibliographic records, such as citation and bibliographical information, funding details, abstract and keywords etc. the primary criteria for bibliographic units research corresponded to the scientific papers published in the period from 1976 to 2020. the competitiveness of the scopus bibliographic platform comparing to other specialized databases was the main research subject of various scientific papers (harzing and alakangas 2016), wider time coverage of recorded units was emphasized as its biggest advantage (mongeon and paul-hus 2016). finding adequate bibliographic data was realized as follows: the search was limited to scientific papers that contained the term "women", "entrepreneurship" and "education" in their title, abstract or keywords. the results of the given criterion amounted to 330 scientific papers, which bibliographic data was retrieved on june 9, 2020. the largest number of documents was written in english (313), while scientific papers in spanish (11), lithuanian, russian, serbo-croatian, french, german, japanese, polish and ukrainian were also registered. employment of analytical tools provided by scopus was sufficiently for acquiring most of the results demanded by research. available tools were used for the explanation of the publication’s dynamics in greater details, as well as in identifying the characteristics of publications in the context of scientific disciplines, the most dominant publication sources and most fruitful authors. for grouping publications into two production eras and for the purpose of their comparison, analytical tools were combined with “advanced search” options and appropriate filters. frequency analysis results, which aim was to present the characteristics of the published content, were obtained using bibexcel software, created by olle persson, while the accompanying graphical representations were exported from the wordscloud online text generator. teodora slavinski, marija todorović, valentina vukmirović, alessandra maria montenegro 185 results characteristics of scientific area, according to evolution and its dynamic the oldest publication covered in scopus database, which fulfills inclusion criteria by containing terms "women", "entrepreneurship" and "education" in title, abstract or keyword section, dates back to 1976. called the byanshi: an ethnographic note on a trading group in far western nepal, this paper has been published in the journal contributions to nepalese studies and was categorized as a scientific research in the field of anthropology. written by manzardo, dahal and rai (1976), this article could be considered as research activities' isolated demonstration, as it was the only wee paper in the first 12 years of production (the next one is published in 1988). with the aim of scientific production's examination, graph 1 presents the growing trend in the number of wee publications by year, from 2003 to 2020. in the following sections, observed period of time refers to "the younger period of production", in opposite to 27 years old "older period of production" (19732002). publication number exported from bibliographic data indicates that "the younger period of production" was significantly more fruitful. from 1976 to 2002, only 29 published papers (average 1.11 papers per year) were identified, while 301 articles were published from 2003 onwards (average 17.7 papers per year). accordingly, 91% of the total number of observed publications was published during "the younger period of production", while "the older period of production" resulted with only 9% of published works (although the older phase took into consideration a time frame which lasted almost a decade longer). 186 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 181-201) graph 1: number of published papers per year source: authors’ own observing data presented in graph 1, the most fruitful production year was 2019, with 43 published papers. while the largest number of papers was published in 2019, this year is followed by 2016 with 39 and 2018 with 31 published papers. throughout 2017, 27 articles were produced. at the time of writing, 25 publications were declared in 2020. no publications were recorded in 2003, which makes it the least prolific year of scientific production. only 1 published article dates in 2004, while 2 scientific publications were recorded during 2005 and 2006. characteristics of scientific productivity, according to authorship and publications’ source according to classification of the research areas provided by scopus, the written corpus of 330 observed publications falls under researches within 22 different scientific disciplines. the largest number of publications was categorized as the subject area of business, management and accounting (192 publications or 32.1% of the total production), followed by social sciences (158 papers or 26.4%) and economics, econometrics and finance (114, 19.1%). the remaining 22.4% of publications were categorized as researches in the field of arts and humanities, engineering, medicine, etc. it should be noted that the publication content does not have to correspond exclusively to one subject area, and that it can be categorized as a combination of several research categories. comparing data from two production eras, it is notable that the research topics of papers containing terms of "women", "entrepreneurship" and teodora slavinski, marija todorović, valentina vukmirović, alessandra maria montenegro 187 "education" in their title, abstract or keywords are different in order to the period of publication. the greatest number of papers published during the older period of production covers topics within the scientific area of social sciences (30.2%), business, management and accounting (25.6%) and arts and humanities (23.3%). in the following years, increased number of papers in the field of business, management and accounting was noted, as this area covers the most numerous group of scientific articles (32.6%). it is followed by social sciences with 26.1% and economics, econometrics and finance with 20.4%. although it was one of the most represented research categories for publications created before 2002, research works in the field of arts and humanities represented only 2.7% of the younger period of production. in order to examine scientific journals as the sources of scientific production, wee papers were published in 198 journals indexed in the scopus database. journals were classified into 10 groups, according to the criterion of grouping by the number of published papers. as expected, the most numerous group of journals consisted of journals with only one published paper and this group amounted in 77% of the observed journals. journals with 2 scientific papers corresponded to 12.1%, while journals with over 2 papers were equal to 10.6% of the total number of journals sources. the largest number of papers published in the same journal is 29 articles (which amounts 8.8% of the total papers), and qualifies the international journal of gender and entrepreneurship as the most represented journal of the wee publication corpus (see table 1). the most prolific journals, shown in order of publications' total number, were presented in table 1. sources of publications were linked to the belonging journal group, with citation metric values provided by scopus. list of journals corresponds to journal groups from 1 to 7, while the last three (group 8, 9 and 10) were excluded from this review as journals with 1, 2 and 3 published papers in total. the citation metric included in table 1 represents the ratio of the total number of citations for the observed source in 2019 and the total number of documents published in the journal for the period 2016 to 2018. taken from the scopus bibliographic database, this method provides data dependence, since among the observed sources there is no uniformity of publishing dynamics, nor publication quantity at the level of one year. also, monitoring the citation score of the journal enables the identification of potential reputability and its positioning within the associated research discipline, as well as active participation in its co-creation. 188 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 181-201) table 1: scientific journals with corresponding journals’ groups and cite score source name journal group cite score international journal of gender and entrepreneurship group 1 2.07 international journal of entrepreneurship and small business group 2 1.22 gender in management group 3 1.8 international entrepreneurship and management journal group 4 5.6 journal of developmental entrepreneurship group 4 0.92 journal of small business and entrepreneurship group 5 1.58 education and training group 6 2.94 history of the family group 6 0.73 international journal of entrepreneurial behavior and research group 6 4.75 journal of business venturing group 6 11.13 journal of small business and enterprise development group 6 3.03 entrepreneurship and sustainability issues group 7 5.77 journal of enterprising communities group 7 2.34 journal of entrepreneurship education group 7 1.7 journal of entrepreneurship in emerging economies group 7 2.67 source: authors’ own characteristics of scientific productivity, according to publications’ sources and affiliations the bibliographic database covered published research activities of 858 authors (or 811 scholars without their repetition) of 330 articles dating in the chronological period of 44 years. published papers were the results of individual author scientific engagement, as well as research collaborations which were more numerous the author list of only a quarter of the publication has only one author. on the other hand, research collaboration can be described as follows: 28% of publications were created as a result of collaboration of 2 authors, 24% of papers were written by 3 authors, 14% were signed by 4 authors and 3% by 5 authors. the collaboration of 6 or more authors is characteristic of a total of 5% of publications. the most numerous authors’ list equals 10 authors, which is the characteristic of only 1 article. the average number of authors per paper is 2.6. in order to examine the publishing intensity for the observed authors, the number of published papers per author was considered as a valid indicator of the scientific engagement. teodora slavinski, marija todorović, valentina vukmirović, alessandra maria montenegro 189 table 2 shows the list of 10 most prolific authors, who expressed research interest in issues related to women, entrepreneurship and education, as well as the source and year of published work. in an attempt to present characteristics of research activities in greater details, the values of the last column indicate author's tendency to cooperate on projects with other researchers (or on the contrary, to approach these activities individually). in order to numerically translate such tendencies, the presented values correspond to the coefficient of collaboration (ci) the ratio of the number of papers written in co-authorship and the total number of papers for the observed author (palomo et al. 2017). in this regard, the obtained values correspond to the interval 0-1, so as the value is closer to 1, the greater cooperation with other colleagues has been expressed by author. table 2: the top 10 authors of wee publications author papers source name and publication year ci johansen, vegard 4 journal of education and work (2017) education and training (2016) international journal of entrepreneurship and small business (2013) international journal of gender and entrepreneurship (2013) 0.25 belas, jaroslav 3 economic research-ekonomska istrazivanja (2019) entrepreneurship and sustainability issues (2018) polish journal of management studies (2018) 1 cepel, martin 3 economic research-ekonomska istrazivanja (2019) entrepreneurship and sustainability issues (2018) polish journal of management studies (2018) 1 gavurova, beata 3 economic research-ekonomska istrazivanja (2019) entrepreneurship and sustainability issues (2018) polish journal of management studies (2018) 1 lucarelli, caterina 3 international journal of gender and entrepreneurship (2020) international journal of gender and entrepreneurship (2016) international journal of entrepreneurship and small business (2015) 1 190 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 181-201) author papers source name and publication year ci alvarez, claudia 2 computational and mathematical organization theory (2015) journal of small business and enterprise development (2011) 1 aterido, reyes 2 world development (2013) small business economics (2011) 1 brush, candida greer 2 journal of business venturing insights (2017) journal of business venturing (1997) 1 chen, helen l. 2 journal of engineering education (2019) international journal of engineering education (2016) 1 cheng, ranis 2 journal of entrepreneurship (2015) gender in management (2014) 1 source: authors’ own the most prolific researcher of wee papers is vegard johansen, author of 4 scientific publications. in addition to the largest number of written papers, the author stands out as the only author of the top 10 most fruitful whose works are not only the result of collaborations individual authorship characterize 3/4 of his total work. the other 22 publications presented in table 2 are the results of inter-author collaborative endeavors, as evidenced by the equal values of the collaboration coefficients for the other 9 authors. the only publication that belongs to the older period of production was published in the journal of business venturing in 1997. only one paper from 2020 has been published in the international journal of gender and entrepreneurship, created by caterina lucarelli. the applicability of analytic tools provided by scopus is multiple and it enables the perception of the production trend from different points of view. for the purposes of this paper, scopus analytics was employed in order to analyze the observed corpus of papers from the position of the author's affiliation as well as to represent the most influential countries in papers' creation. data related to the country was derived from bibliographic data section of the authors' affiliation. furthermore, they were formed as a determinant of geographical distribution depending on the scientific institution's location of and do not necessarily indicate to the observed authors' nationality. the data shown in table 3 represent top twenty most teodora slavinski, marija todorović, valentina vukmirović, alessandra maria montenegro 191 dominant institutions in which authors were employed at the time of publication (as well as belonging countries). table 3: geographical distribution by institutions affiliation country number of papers babson college usa 5 umeå universitet sweden 5 østlandsforskning norway 4 universitat autònoma de barcelona spain 4 università politecnica delle marche italy 4 tecnologico de monterrey mexico 3 univerzita tomase bati ve zline czech republic 3 stanford university usa 3 university of ghana ghana 3 boston university usa 3 universiteit van pretoria south africa 3 manchester metropolitan university uk 3 lunds universitet sweden 3 simmons school of management usa 2 institute of economic sciences serbia 2 commission of a socially sustainable malmö sweden 2 brock university canada 2 pennsylvania state university usa 2 universitat de barcelona spain 2 university of south africa south africa 2 source: authors’ own the top 20 institutions which were most influential in creating the observed corpus of knowledge, indicated that those located in the usa were most often engaged in research activities. authors located in 5 of those institutions have created 15 papers in the field of wee. they are followed by authors from 3 swedish institutions umeå university, lunds university, commission of a socially sustainable malmö. two institutions from spain were registered among 6 papers' bibliographic data, while 5 papers were written by authors from two institutions in south africa. the next number of publications is characterized by only one research institution from each 192 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 181-201) country 4 papers were written by authors from institutions in norway and italy and affiliations of 3 papers' authors were institutions from mexico, czech republic and ghana. scholars from institution in serbia (institute of economic sciences) and canada (brock university) created 2 papers within the observed group of publications. geographical distribution from the point of the most presented countries indicated to different conclusions. although, as expected, the anglo-sanskrit-speaking countries were at the very top of productivity (usa with 74 and uk with 32 published publications), they were followed by india with 26 documents. researchers from spain were the authors of 20 publications, scientists from canada of 13, while german authors wrote 12 papers from the observed corpus. authors of 10 papers from institutions from italy, malaysia, south africa and sweden were registered on proper bibliographic section. characteristics of scientific productivity, according to publications’ content further steps of bibliometrics' examinations lies in the analysis of publications' content. in this manner, sections of bibliographic data related to the title, abstract and keywords of publications play a major role in further processes. the presented indicators relied on the concept of frequency analysis, so the text units were ranked according to the number of identified repetitions for the observed written corpus. frequency analysis of words in title, abstract and keywords sections were employed in order to identify the most dominant research topics for wee publications, while keywords' frequency results pinpointed to the most present terms in published papers descriptions. these terms were exclusively authors' choices and they did not rely on standardized textual determinants, which may be available within specialized bibliographic databases. figure 1 contains two types of data presentation the graphical segment of terms used in titles, abstracts and keywords, and tabular frequency presentation of observed textual units. while the intensity of repetition was indicated by the size of presented terms in the graphical section, this phenomenon was treated in table numerically. the graphical and tabular section of data presentation simultaneously represents two stages of analysis. while the graphical part was exported from free online word cloud generator’s frequency analysis visual results, the tabular section presents the results of further exported material treatment. the main necessity for manual data processing lies into the fact that wordcloud text generator is treating set teodora slavinski, marija todorović, valentina vukmirović, alessandra maria montenegro 193 of textual inputs as the individual and unique data units, without possibility of similarities recognition. therefore, the validity of the results would be compromised without further selection of terms and their grouping by similarity (according to the principle of the same root word, where nouns are represented in the singular, and all plurals, derived adjectives or verb nouns are combined), so the presented frequency values are the sum of individual data values. those textual units that do not contribute to the greater understanding of the published content (such as the terms “data”, “study”, “sample”, “analysis”, “purpose”, etc.) are excluded from the final tabular presentation. figure 1: frequency of terms in title, abstract and keyword sections source: authors’ own as expected, matching between terms used as inclusion criteria and textual results of the frequency analysis was noted. detected for 1215 times, term "entrepreneurship" was most commonly used term in the title, abstract and keywords. although the term "women" is the second most common word for the observed set of bibliometric indicators with frequency of 840, this should be taken with skepticism, due to the assumption that the terms “women” and “female” are used for the purpose of examining the same phenomenon. according to thelwall (2018), classifying people by biological sex rather than socialized gender is more appropriate in social phenomenon examinations than vice versa. for the purposes of this section, these terms were equated, therefore frequency value was expressed collectively, by term frequency entrepreneurship 1214 woman 840 student 531 education 383 gender 312 business 290 society 229 economy 203 female 201 man 107 194 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 181-201) summation frequency for term “women” and “female”. value amounted 1041 and indicated to high frequency of observed terms. on the other hand, terms "man" and "male" were identified for only 186 times in total, which emphasizes even more female-orientation of wee papers. the same method was used to identify the most commonly used keywords, which are shown in figure 2. in this case, the only textual inputs corresponding to the bibliographic section of the keywords were employed, which leads to conclusion that frequency analysis was performed on a total of 3548 terms. figure 2: frequency of terms in keyword section term frequency entrepreneurship 442 woman 259 education 178 gender 166 health 106 society 101 female 73 factor 65 employment 48 africa 44 source: authors’ own the procedure used in the previous section was repeated. therefore, presented terms express results of textual units grouping. in this manner, frequency value for term "entrepreneurship" corresponded to sum value of frequency for terms "entrepreneurial", "entrepreneurs", "e-entrepreneurship", “stem entrepreneurship” etc. repeated for more than 440 times, this group of units represent 12.4% of entire text in keyword section. the results do not differ much from those presented by figure 1, as the group term "woman" was registered as the second common textual group through obtained bibliographic data. in this case, the term "female" was not assigned to group "woman", as it refers to social movement more than socialized gender. furthermore, it corresponds to separate text group consisting of the terms as "feminism" or "feminist" and its frequency value amounts 73. grouped under teodora slavinski, marija todorović, valentina vukmirović, alessandra maria montenegro 195 the term "gender", the examined frequency of the corresponding units (as "genders", "gender-based", "gender-role") amounts to 166. term "africa" was repeated 44 times in the first ten most frequently used keywords, indicating a closer geographical determinant of the samples used in 44 different papers. characteristics of scientific productivity, according to publications’ content references lists for 4999 documents covered in scopus contained at least one of the 330 wee papers. this indicates that the observed articles had influence on the scientific content creation of almost 5000 publications 77.5% were categorized as scientific articles, 9.8% as book chapters, and 4.9% as conferences paper. reviews, books etc. amounted 7.8% of the total number of citing documents. in the last 15 years wee papers were cited 6517 times. in graph 2, linear trend serves for presentation of citation metric through period of time (starting with 2007 received citations' exponential growth have been noted). presentation was formed by exclusion of authors' self-citations data, which caused decrease of total citations' value by 323. moreover, excluding self-citations reduced the initial values by only 3.9% per year in average, indicating to wee papers' recognition among other scholars. graph 2: citation trend per years source: authors’ own 196 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 181-201) the highest citation of papers was recorded in 2019, when it counted a total of 1268 citations. this resulted in a growth of 42% compared to the number of citations registered in the previous year. the lowest citation was identified in 2005, when it amounted to a total of 59 citations or 0.9% of the total citations number for the observed period of time. the citation of wee publications can be further interpreted from the point of the scientific journals in which it was detected. the most frequently cited wee papers were established by the analysis of the references lists among scientific production of the journal of business venturing. it is not surprising that this journal stands as one of the most influential for the observed research area and is regarded as the journal with highest cite score of 11.13 in table 1. its influence on reshaping the research results within examinations of "women", "entrepreneurship" and "education" phenomenon was pinpointed through observation of the 10 most cited wee papers as well. furthermore, 5 of the most cited articles were published in this journal: − does entrepreneurial self-efficacy distinguish entrepreneurs from managers in 1998, − a theoretical overview and extension of research on sex, gender, and entrepreneurship in 1993, − israeli women entrepreneurs: an examination of factors affecting performance in 1997, − entrepreneurship and female youth: knowledge, attitudes, gender differences, and educational practices in 1998 and − entrepreneurship and the initial size of firms in 1989. the most cited publication dates back to the older period of production and is the outcome of the joint activity by researchers chen c.c., greene p.g. and crick a. this paper was joined by the other 5, since they were all created before 2003. in addition to gender, work and organization (as the journal in which article named the changing experience of australian female entrepreneurs was published in 2000), all other papers of the older period of production were published in the journal of business venturing. the homogeneity in terms of journals as publication source does not characterize documents dated throughout the younger period of production all papers have been published in several scientific journals: journal of applied psychology, entrepreneurship: theory and practice, management science and entrepreneurship and regional development. teodora slavinski, marija todorović, valentina vukmirović, alessandra maria montenegro 197 discussion and limitation issues of women in entrepreneurship and the role of education for successful entrepreneurial achievements have become numerous researchers' preoccupations. women empowerment was registered not only through published content of wee papers, but also through the authorships more than 50% of the most prolific authors presented by table 3 were female. as it has been emphasized before, the vast majority of the most prolific authors' articles were created as scientific collaboration, so this disable drawing conclusions about cooperation behavior in order of gender. in aim to enlighten this question, it is necessary to establish the gender for all 811 authors registered in scopus and to perform the cross analysis of their research activities. observing collaboration index of the most prolific authors, as indicators of their research styles, leads to conclusions that co-authorships are the most dominant research form among wee papers, but this does not describe in more details the nature of collaborations. based on a sample of the 10 most profiled authors, it is concluded that research collaborations are the most common research style. moreover, although it was assumed that exclusively female or exclusively male scientific collaborations would be characterized by a larger number of papers, this was found for only 11% of the bibliography presented in the table. one of these publications (entrepreneurial intent of engineering and business undergraduate students) was signed by as many as 7 female authors, which was significantly above the average number of authors per paper (2.6). the younger period of production brings novelties from the point of the scientific journal heterogeneity. journals whose scope corresponded to the topics of wee papers are significantly less numerous than those in which papers were published after 2003. the journal of business venturing stands out as a respectable source of publications of the older period of production, and its influence on the work of researchers of the wee phenomenon is evidenced by the high values of cite score. the growing linear trend of citing wee papers indicates that the relevance of the dominant topics of these publications does not abate, and indicates that publications focusing on "women", "entrepreneurship" and "education" will continue to be present through future scientific endeavors. however, in order to present more precise projections on the future publications trends within wee frame, it is necessary to overcome the limitations of this paper. 198 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 181-201) examining the sample formed by searching bibliographic materials, so that they correspond to the publication type of the journal and contain the observed terms in the fields of titles, abstracts and keywords, was effective in monitoring the dynamics of publishing, but also for describing some of the examined characteristics of publications. however, from the point of the published content, this inclusive criterion also had some shortcomings. although verified through other publications in the field of bibliography, the results of the frequency analysis of textual units do not represent a breakthrough. analysis of the published content is a complex research endeavor and requires the inclusion of other types of published documents. also, in order to form a credible research framework in order to better understand the movement of research trends from the position of "women", "entrepreneurship" and "education", it is necessary to include secondary documents stored on the scopus bibliographic database. it should be noted that scopus only analyzes the citations of the journals in its index, which could limit bibliographic research as well. although the study is the result of descriptive bibliometric analysis, the inclusion of a larger number of quantitative bibliometric indicators would enable more precise monitoring of the research trends evolution and its development. by quantifying the model, it would be possible to examine the fit of the obtained results into the "price's law" as a measure of "scientific productivity in the field", fitting into the "bradford's law" in order to identify scientific journals in the "nucleus zone" and into the lotka's law” in order to find “different levels of research contribution” per author (palomo et al. 2017). on the other hand, the use of bibliometric indicators and the implementation of standard bibliometric analyze such as co-occurrence analysis would provide greater detail and precision for the observed set of publications, explaining several different natures of their interdependence. conclusion the academic community has shown increased interest in scientific research on the phenomena of "women", "entrepreneurship" and "education" within the last 15 years. this conclusion is supported by bibliographic analysis' results especially from the point of the publishing dynamics, so as the citation metrics for the observed scientific corpus. while similar researches are registered only sporadically through earlier publication periods, the specific scientific domain of such works mostly corresponded to teodora slavinski, marija todorović, valentina vukmirović, alessandra maria montenegro 199 the spectrum of social sciences (with a part of the research being attributed to the arts and humanity). the contents of the works published after 2003 bring some novelties in terms of the examined phenomena. in addition to the fact that such publications are incomparably more numerous than those created before 2003, the researchers have been approached more intensively to scientific projects from the point of business, management, economics or finance. since there are no bibliographic articles examining wee papers, this study serves to pinpoint to some significant conclusions. the growing trend in the number of wee papers indicates that the relevance of research issues "women", "entrepreneurship" and "education" is not waning, but that these topics are commonly received by publishers. supporting the strengthening of these topics in the scientific community is not exclusively related to journals with gender diversity in aims and scopes section. contrary, gender perspective within different scientific disciplines represents a necessity for wide range of scientific topics. the permanent citation of papers indicates their active role in the creation of science, while the respectability of papers is indicated by high citation indicators and 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[24] zhu, ruifang, yaping wang, rui wu, xin meng, shifan han, and zhiguang duan. 2020. “trends in high-impact papers in nursing research published from 2008 to 2018: a web of science-based bibliometric analysis.” journal of nursing management. article history: received: 9 july, 2020 accepted: 10 september, 2020 doi: 10.28934/jwee22.12.pp97-116 jel: o34, m14, l60, l80 orginal scientific paper 5bboard gender diversity and intellectual capital performance of firms in india bharathi kamath university of mumbai, mumbai school of economics and public policy, mumbai, india a b s t r a c t the study analyses the impact of female representation on boards of top indian firms and examines its impact on the intellectual capital (ic) performance of these firms. a sample representing firms across different industries is studied for a five-year period from fy 2014-15 to 2018-19. the data is analyzed using panel regression wherein blau’s index, shannon’s index of gender diversity and the percentage of independent women directors are taken as explanatory variables. the ic performance is measured using value added intellectual capital (vaic) and its sub-components viz. human capital efficiency (hce), capital expended efficiency (cee) and structural capital efficiency (sce). ic performance results are a clear indication that at existing levels of women representation, gender diversity or iwd is not showing any specific and strong impact for the sample firms. the result for ic sub-components is mixed. the cee is seen to be significantly influenced by the gender diversity on boards, whereas the hce and sce are not associated with it. key words: gender diversity, corporate governance, women on boards, intellectual capital performance, india 98 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 97-116) introduction gender diversity is a widely discussed subject across corporates in india as the new corporate governance regulation mandates minimum representation of women on the board of directors. diversity, empowerment and inclusion go together especially when it is related to gender and ethnicity. there have been several studies that have attempted to find the impact of gender and ethnic diversity on a firm’s performance in different countries and industry contexts, and the results have been mixed (adams & ferreira, 2009; christiansen et al., 2016; arora & sharma, 2016) diversity on board is also studied in terms of the composition of the board, age, education, professional experience, ceo duality and similar aspects. the female population in the world is normally seen as not getting represented either in the formal workforce, top positions and boards of firms. this phenomenon is seen both in developed and emerging economies. “women comprise 49% of asia’s population and 36% of gdp, but only 12% of board seats, according to bofaml” (bank of america, merrill lynch) market research. “as of 2015, about 17% of s&p 1500 boards still have no women directors and 35% have only one woman director. the lack of gender diversity becomes more severe in smaller firms” (wright, 2013). the dismal representation on board is attributed to several reasons including cultural and social aspects. one of the several factors that are recognized to be a major hindrance is the belief that women lack the requisite knowledge and skills. one more factor that poses a serious concern, especially in india, is that women join the workforce at lower levels of management, and during the actual growth phase of their career take a long break for meeting the family responsibilities, therefore not many women are able to make it to the top management during the rest of their career. however, in recent years, many countries have taken the legal route to ensure that women are represented adequately on board of firms as voluntary inclusion was rarely happening. the companies are inducting women on board only as tokenism, for compliance to legal mandate, some firms are appointing their own family members or closely known people so that there are not many hindrances in their functioning, and therefore not involving them much in the actual decision making. if the firms are demonstrated empirically that the representation of women on board is beneficial in more than one way, there may be a possibility of an increase in bharathi kamath 99 the representation. representation of women on board is important for getting different perspectives for effective decision-making (zelechowski & bilimoria, 2004). a balanced board is always considered better than a skewed one for improved performance. in this context, the present study analyses and examines the female representation on boards and its impact on the intellectual capital (ic) performance of these firms. the significance of the present study can be highlighted by the fact that there are very few studies that focus on the impact of gender diversity on boards on the intellectual capital performance of the firms, and there are no studies in the indian context. this paper proves as a starting point in stressing the need for an inclusiveness policy in the composition of boards. the problem that this paper attempts to address is that despite the guidelines mandated having a fixed number of women directors among the listed firms; compliance seems to be slowly picking up. this brief introduction is followed by the review of previous literature to identify the gap and the contribution of the present study to literature extant. the research methodology outlining the models used in this study, a detailed explanation of each variable used, and the sample size is provided. an overview and analysis of gender diversity are done before presenting the results of panel regression, this is followed by major conclusions, limitations and policy implications. the present study proposes the following objectives: a. to explore the impact of women representation on board of indian companies on the intellectual capital b. to analyze the impact of women representation on board on intellectual capital sub-components (human capital, structural capital and relational capital) performance. review of previous literature the systematic review of previous literature is arranged in the following manner. studies that focused on the need and significance of gender diversity on board are discussed, this is followed by studies that clearly found a direct impact of gender diversity on performance. some studies which found an inverse association, neutral impact and others that looked at specific dimensions of gender diversity rather than just the representation is presented in the latter half. lastly, very few studies that refer to ic performance and gender diversity are reviewed. 100 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 97-116) abad et al. (2017) report that gender diversity in the boards reduces the information asymmetry which implies a higher level of disclosure to the stakeholders. therefore, the authors suggest a higher representation of women on board to enable higher quality and quantity of information about the performance of firms. jurkus et al. (2011) find that gender diversity has an impact on reducing agency costs; however, the diversity is extremely significant only when there is no strong external governance. indeed, female directors are more likely to raise more questions than the other directors and might be also more active and tougher monitors (farrell & hersch, 2005; adams & ferreira, 2009; carter et al., 2010). reguera et al. (2017) observe that spain in spite of being the second country in the world that has legal sanctions for including women on the board of firms, their representation still remains below the expected levels. however, their proportion has increased tremendously since the law has been passed. the performance of firms with women representatives on boards has seen an increasing trend. arora and kumar (2016) observed that most european countries such as norway, the uk, sweden and finland gave a better representation to women on board. even the developed countries like the usa, canada and australia have very less gender representation. in a study of around 1466 nse listed companies; the researchers found that only 9 percent representation was given to women on board. the representation was a meager 4.5 percent in the unlisted companies. vaibhavi and soundarya (2015) note that in spite of the companies act in india mandating the inclusion of women directors by firms listed on stock exchanges, there is a gross underrepresentation even in india. they recommend intervention by higher legal authority as research has time and again super imposed the direct impact of the inclusion of females on the board. adams and ferreira (2009) study the us firms and find that female directors do contribute to the firms’ strict monitoring and performance. the paper also studies the impact of gender diversity on observable board inputs, such as attendance and additional committee assignments. their study also suggests that the average gender quota tends to reduce performance. khan and vieito (2013) on the other hand find that ceo gender has a positive impact on firm performance in the us. christiansen et al (2016) in their analysis of around 2 million european firms find that there exist country differences as well as sector differences in the representation of women in managerial positions and corporate boards. their results find a high bharathi kamath 101 correlation between firm performance and gender representation in senior management. further, they reveal that the positive association is quite strong in industries that require high levels of creativity, skills and critical thinking i.e. knowledge-intensive industries abdullah and ismail (2013) analyze the top 100 non-financial firms of malaysia to find an inverse association between gender diversity and firm’s performance for the year 2007; campbell and vera (2008) find that both in terms of percentage and indices the female participation on board has a direct impact on the value of firms in spain. though the move towards higher female representation is legislative in nature rather than organic, the result is positive in terms of economic gains for the stakeholders. low et al. (2015) in their study of asian firms from four countries observe a direct relationship between gender diversity and firm performance. ahmadi et al. (2018) also suggest gender diversity among other board characteristics such as ceo duality, board independence and ceo’s tenure to be a significant influencer on performance for firms in france. mahadeo et al. (2012) observe that women are poorly represented on boards of mauritius companies. the reason for this is quoted as the social setup in asian countries where the role of women in the workforce is pre-defined. however, the result of this study finds that a gender-diverse board has a direct significant impact on the performance of firms. lückerath-rover’s (2013) study of dutch companies finds representation on board as low as 5 percent. this study reveals that firms with female directors on board do perform higher than other firms that do not have females on their boards. arora and sharma (2016) study the impact of board characteristics on the financial performance of firms in india and find that the board size does have a strong influence on performance; mukherjee and singh (2014) opine that “firms with women directors have a greater return on equity i.e. 4.4%, while firms with zero gender diversity show a roe of 1.8% on an average per year. the results were seen to be applicable to the family-run companies as well as the private companies”. thus, gender representation on board studied for different time periods has shown that they increase the stock value and profitability of firms in some countries and industries while it does not have an impact in others. smith et al. (2006) in their research of 2500 danish firms find that there is a direct association between female representation and their qualifications in a firm’s financial performance. marimuthu and kolandaisamy (2009) could not establish any consistent relationship 102 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 97-116) between gender diversity and a firm’s profitability over time series. opstrup and villadsen (2014) have an interesting observation that gender diversity in the top management by itself will not result in the better financial performance of firms. gender diversity has to be complemented and supported by the overall structure of the organization. their research in denmark finds a direct association in organizations that encourages crossfunctional teamwork. pletzer et al. (2015) in the meta-analysis find that most studies find that the gender representation in the firms across all countries has been significantly low. they also observe that most studies find that gender representation automatically without considering other factors does not result in higher performance of firms. daunfeldt and rudholm (2012) find that gender diversity has a lagged inverse effect on the profitability of swedish firms. therefore, they suggest that it should not be made mandatory for the firms to have more women directors on board. nguyen et al. (2015) find a pattern in the relationship between gender diversity and firm performance in vietnam. they reveal that till the threshold level of 20 percent is reached, there is a significant direct relationship observed, thereafter the relationship is not very pronounced and tends to reduce the performance. some studies like that in carter et al. (2010) report no support through evidence of any link (neither direct nor inverse) between gender and ethnic diversity on a firm’s financial performance (tobins q and roa) in the usa. chapple and humphrey (2014) in their study of australian firms find that though there is no general evidence to support the improvement in firm financial performance with an increase in female representation, however, there has been positive evidence from very few specific industries. ciavarella, (2017) found that overall diversity in boards doesn’t have any significant relationship with firm performance in european countries; however, the researcher finds that at the executive level, higher female representation does have a strong direct impact. rodríguez et al. (2012) also are of the opinion that women perform better when the educational background and working conditions are similar to both; they recommend a balanced board for the best results. nadeem et al. (2017) find that gender diversity has no impact on ic performance for the 906 listed firms in china, when endogeneity was taken in while estimation. better monitoring of performance and higher disclosure of intellectual capital information by including female representation on board was found in spanish firms (tejedo et al., 2017). van der zahn bharathi kamath 103 (2006) in the study of south african firms find that if women are designated as insiders, then there is an inverse relationship between women directors on board and intellectual capital performance; the association between ic performance and the representation turns positive if women are designated as outsiders. nadeem et al. (2019), find a direct relationship between ice, its components and female representation on board in top 500 listed companies in the uk. based on their findings they recommend that there should be a legal increase in the representation of women on board. swartz and firer (2005) find no significant relationship between gender diversity and a firm’s intellectual capital performance in south africa so, we can see from the above literature that some studies find a direct association between gender diversity and a firm’s performance, some find that the association is inverse and some researches find a neutral impact of gender diversity on financial performance. the results also vary between countries. there are limited studies to analyze the impact of gender diversity on the ic performance of the firms. in the indian context, there have been no studies that have focused on this area. following testable hypotheses based on the research objectives are framed. h1: there is a significant direct relationship between the gender diversity and intellectual capital performance (ice) h1a: there is a direct association between female representation and hce h1b: there is a direct association between female representation and sce h1c: there is a direct association between female representation and rce research methodology sampling: since this is the first of its kind study, a small sample representing different sectors for panel data of 5 years used was found appropriate for this study. therefore, the top 50 firms which are listed on nse (national stock exchange) and classified as nifty50 are taken up five-year period from fy 2014-15 to fy2018-19. the sampling technique is non-probability sampling. the sample is a group of firms that has been preselected by the stock exchange to reflect the performance of high mcap in the country. this group of fifty firms is revised based on the changing 104 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 97-116) economic and market environment. nifty 50 has been used in several research papers as a representative sample for firms. the significance of selecting these firms is that it has a wide representation from all sectors. the sample includes public sector firms and private firms both from the manufacturing and service sector. besides ownership representation in this set of firms also is quite diverse. the nifty 50 index is a well-diversified 50 companies index reflecting overall market conditions representing 13 sectors of the economy. “the nifty 50 index represents about 66.8% of the free float market capitalization of the stocks listed on nse as on march 29, 2019”. “the total traded value of nifty 50 index constituents for the last six months ending march 2019 is approximately 53.4% of the traded value of all stocks on the nse”. (www.nseindia.com). data source: the research paper uses two different types of data, one financial in nature and the other related to the characteristics of the board. the data is available in the annual reports of the companies which are compiled by cmie and provided through the prowess database. the data is largely drawn from this database and the data gaps are filled using the annual reports which are available on the company’s website. the impact of gender diversity on intellectual capital performance is studied using panel data of 50 firms for a period of five years. model for panel estimation: 𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼 (𝑉𝑉𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖, 𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖, 𝑆𝑆𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖, 𝐻𝐻𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖) = 𝛽𝛽0 + 𝛽𝛽1𝐵𝐵𝑆𝑆𝐼𝐼𝐵𝐵𝐼𝐼𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 + 𝛽𝛽2𝐵𝐵𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐵𝐵𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 + 𝛽𝛽3𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐵𝐵𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 + 𝛽𝛽4𝐵𝐵𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐵𝐵𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 + 𝛽𝛽5𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐵𝐵𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 + 𝛽𝛽6𝐵𝐵𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐵𝐵𝐼𝐼𝑋𝑋𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 + 𝛽𝛽7𝐼𝐼𝐴𝐴𝐼𝐼𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 + 𝛽𝛽8𝐵𝐵𝑌𝑌𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 + +𝛽𝛽9𝑆𝑆𝐼𝐼𝑆𝑆𝐼𝐼𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝐼𝐼𝐴𝐴𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 + 𝛽𝛽10𝑆𝑆𝐼𝐼𝑉𝑉𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 + 𝑒𝑒 … … … … … … … … … . . (1) where, vaicit, = value added intellectual capital ; ceeit, = capital expended efficiency; sceit, = structural capital efficiency; hceit = human capital efficiency ; bsizeit = size of board of ith company for time period t; bindit= independence of board; ceodit = ceo duality; = board activity; =index of diversity; iwdpropit= proportion of independent women directors on board; ageit= age of the firm; typeit= type of firm (service or manufacturing); saleslogit= log of sales (income); levit = leverage; variables: independent variables: the independent variables are classified into three broad categories viz. board characteristics (board size, board independence, board activity and ceo duality), gender-related variables bharathi kamath 105 (diversity index (blau/shannon) and proportion of iwd), and firm identification and characteristics (age, type, size and leverage) the dummy for women on board, yes/no cannot be used, as it was observed that since there is a legal requirement of women’s representation on board, all firms in the sample do have women as directors on their board. the ratio of women on board has been used by several studies. however, it is considered not a good means of measuring diversity as the decisionmaking of the women on board may be constrained by these members being non-independent. therefore, the proportion of iwd on board may be a better way to understand the implication of their presence at the policymaking level. dependent variables: the main focus of the paper is analyzing the impact of gender diversity on intellectual capital performance which is measured using value added intellectual capital (vaic) and its subcomponents viz. human capital efficiency (hce), structural capital efficiency (sce) and capital expended efficiency (cee) thus, vaic includes capital spent on physical & financial assets and intellectual capital i.e. human and structural capital. the detailed definition and measurement of each of the independent and dependent variables are provided in table 1 below. table 1: independent and dependent variables used in the panel estimation s. no variable measured as 1 value added intellectual coefficient (vaic) vaici=hcei+scei+ceei 2 human capital efficiency (hce) i i hc va =ihce human capital efficiency coefficient for the firm i (hcei); vai, value added by the firmi; hci, total salary and wage costs for the firm i. 3 capital expended efficiency (cee) i i ce va =icee capital expended efficiency coefficient for firmi (ceei); vai, value added for the firmi; cei, book value of the net assets for firm i 106 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 97-116) s. no variable measured as 4 structural capital efficiency (sce) iii i i hcvasc va sc −= =isce structural capital efficiency for the firm i (scei); vai, value added for the firm i; hci, total salary and wage costs for the firm i. 5 value added (va) iiiiiiii rmtddpiwva ++++++= where vai, value added by firm i computed as sum of; ii, interest expense; dpi, depreciation expenses; di, dividends; ti, corporate taxes; mi, equity of minority shareholders in net income of subsidiaries; ri, retained earnings by the firm 6 board size (bsize) number of members on the board of the firm for each of the fy2014-15 to fy2018-2019 7 independence of board (bind) proportion of independent directors on board to total board members 8 ceo duality (ceod) 0 if chairperson and managing director is not the same person, 1 if chairperson and managing director is the same person. 9 age of firm (age) the age is based on their year of incorporation till the year 2018. i.e. a firm incorporated in the year 2000 would be aged as 18 years. 10 type of firm (type) firms classified as manufacturing (0) and services (1) based on their primary business. 11 size of firm (slog) log of sales 12 leverage (lev) ratio of total liabilities to total equity 13 independent women director (iwdprop) ratio of total independent women directors on board to total independent directors 14 blau index (bi) ∑ = −= 2 1 21 i ipbi , where i=(1, 2), pi = proportion of board members of each category 15 shannons index (si) i i i ppsi ln 2 1 ∑ = −= , pi = proportion of board members of each category there are different measures of gender diversity used by various papers. the most common is estimating the percentage of women directors bharathi kamath 107 in the total directors. the other is just to incorporate just whether women on the board are present or not by using a dummy. these two measures do not capture the actual diversity if the entire sample consists of at least one woman per company on board or if some single-member board consists of all women. therefore, the diversity index is used to capture the intensity of board diversity. this paper identifies two such indexes which are commonly used for measuring gender diversity. the first one is the blau index and the other is the shannon index. both indexes are considered complementary to each other. in the case of the blau index, the values can range between 0 and 0.5, when the proportion of males and females are equal; we get the index at 0.5 and the diversity is said to be maximum. in the shannon index, the value would range between 0 and 0.69 as we are considering only male and female (2 groups) as classification. “the shannon index is more sensitive to small changes in the gender diversity of boards because it is a logarithmic measure”. (abad et al., 2017) descriptive statistics basic descriptive statistics of the dependent and independent variables used in the model are presented in table 2. among the dependent variable, vaic of all firms is 4.858; hce has the highest mean among subcomponents at 4.117 followed by sce at 0.488 and lastly cee at 0.253. the mean leverage of all companies is within the acceptable standard. the productivity of all firms is around 0.743 on average. the number of board members of any company was around 13 on an average, with some like state bank of india (sbi) having 32 members and some firms just having six members on their board. the maximum number of women on board by any company was five on one hand and others did not have even a single women representation on board. a maximum of onethird of the board has been represented by women among all companies, the average being just 0.13. 108 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 97-116) table 2: descriptive statistics: dependent and independent variables s. no variable mean minimum maximum std. dev. 1 lev 1.324 0.020 7.540 1.308 2 saleslog 12.493 7.406 15.613 1.383 3 cee 0.253 -0.089 1.584 0.276 4 hce 4.117 -13.714 45.024 5.433 5 sce 0.488 -19.190 5.109 1.596 6 vaic 4.858 -19.139 46.985 5.909 7 women on board 1.668 0 5 0.934 8 total board size 13.284 6 32 3.713 9 w-proportion 0.130 0 0.364 0.072 10 blau index 0.216 0 0.463 0.095 11 independent directors total 6.708 0 13 2.038 12 independent proportion 0.522 0 0.833 0.139 13 iwd 1.088 0 4 0.807 14 iwd proportion 0.171 0 0.6 0.129 15 two or more iwd 0.204 0 1 0.404 16 shannon’s index 0.365 0 0.655 0.126 17 age of firm 46.540 13 113 25.343 source: estimated by the author the blau index shows clearly that only a few companies have diversity on their board at the optimum level. on average the index hovers around 0.216; the shannon index is also averaging at 0.365, and the higher end is 0.65, which is lower than the perfect evenness of 0.69. firms do have at least one iwd on their board on an average, with a maximum of four iwd by one firm. the firms on average are meeting the statutory requirement of fifty percent of independent directors on board, with some firms having a proportion of as much as 0.83 of independent directors. results and discussion of panel regression the results analyze the impact on intellectual capital and its subcomponents’ performance. ic performance and gender diversity tables 3 and 4 below present the panel regression results on the impact of gender diversity on intellectual capital and its sub-components performance. it can be observed that all the models specified are statistically significant. the overall intellectual capital performance is highly associated bharathi kamath 109 only with the size of the board (0.274) and ceo duality (2.179). (kamath, 2019; buallay and hamdan, 2019) both the blau and shannon indexes of gender diversity are seen not to be having any statistically significant impact on the ic performance of these firms. it is possible that since the representation of women on board is quite recent in nature, and has been made mandatory by the regulator for listed firms, just their presence in terms of number, which is very small in proportion to the size of the board, may not have been enough to make a significant impact on performance. similar results were obtained by several earlier studies. (swartz & firer, 2005) the results in the context of ic sub-components are varied in nature. in the case of capital expended efficiency, it is seen that the size of the board (−0.011) has an inverse impact on its performance. cee of these firms is also associated with debt equity ratio (−0.049) and age (0.001). table 3: results of regressionintellectual capital performance dependent variables vaic cee vaic cee n 50 50 50 50 adjusted r2 0.134 0.284 0.141 0.294 f statistic 3.669 9.381 3.886 9.838140 p-value 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 tvalue tvalue tvalue tvalue intercept 13.916*** 4.931 0.363*** 2.628 14.432*** 5.168 0.382*** 2.749 explanatory variables beta beta beta beta size of board 0.274*** 3.064 −0.011*** −3.218 0.281*** 3.211 −0.010*** −3.274 independence of directors −0.217 −1.410 0.008 1.531 −0.239 −1.600 0.007 1.509 board activity −0.024 −0.224 0.001 0.262 −0.023 −0.212 0.0007 0.124 ceo duality 2.179*** 3.513 −0.007 −0.296 2.122*** 3.505 −0.003 −0.139 independent women directors on board −0.155 −0.056 0.191 1.418 −0.370 −0.141 0.176 1.362 blau index 0.225 0.065 −0.282* −1.678 ---- shannon index ----0.318 0.130 −0.200* −1.729 service/manufacturing −0.294 −0.555 −0.031 −1.084 −0.325 −0.613 −0.025 −0.909 sales −0.952*** −3.993 −0.002 −0.191 −0.989*** −4.289 −0.002 −0.233 lev −0.111 −0.478 −0.049*** −5.501 −0.131 −0.567 −0.047*** −5.335 age 0.0002 0.027 0.001*** 4.137 0.0008 0.118 0.001*** 4.203 source: estimated by the author the gender diversity index is seen to be statistically significant and has an inverse association with cee. blau (−0.282) and shannon’s (−0.200) 110 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 97-116) both indicate that in the sample firms, the cee decreases with an increase in gender diversity on boards. similar results were reported by nadeem et al., 2019 table 4: results of regressionintellectual capital performance dependent variables hce sce hce sce n 50 50 50 50 adjusted r2 0.183 0.087616 0.189 0.080363 f statistic 5.317 2.266296 5.523 2.062286 p-value 0.000 0.015 0.000 0.028 tvalue tvalue tvalue tvalue intercept 13.424*** 5.812 0.564 1.049 13.763*** 6.008 0.579 1.064 explanatory variables beta beta beta beta size of board 0.239*** 3.457 0.023 1.290 0.255*** 3.758 0.022 1.169 independence of directors −0.228* −1.941 −0.019 −0.680 −0.261** −2.279 −0.022 −0.772 board activity 0.021 0.248 −0.024 −1.107 0.035 0.417 −0.025 −1.134 ceo duality 1.818*** 3.661 0.149 1.553 1.779*** 3.654 0.146 1.487 independent women directors on board 0.120 0.057 −0.553 −1.159 −0.612 −0.302 −0.562 −1.222 blau index −1.243 −0.472 0.780 1.186 ---- shannon index ----0.035 0.018 0.560 1.152 service/manufacturing 0.274 0.649 0.041 0.379 0.261 0.618 0.024 0.216 sales −0.929*** −4.868 −0.021 −0.529 −0.976*** −5.293 −0.022 −0.555 lev −0.066 −0.363 0.066*** 3.399 −0.085 −0.468 0.065*** 3.210 age −0.006 −1.055 0.0002 0.136 −0.004 −0.822 0.0003 0.161 source: estimated by the author the model w.r.t human capital efficiency (hce) is statistically significant (p<0.000). it can be observed in table 4 that among the independent variables, the size of the board and ceo duality have a strong direct impact on hce. the independence of directors (-0.228) is negatively associated with human capital performance. both independent women directors and the gender diversity index do not influence the hce. the model of the last sub-component of ic is sce; it is seen to be having low goodness of fit (0.087) and is seen to be also statistically significant only at 10 percent. it is also observed that none of the characteristics of the board, gender diversity index has any impact on the performance of this ic subcomponent. thus, none of the hypotheses related to ic performance and gender diversity can be accepted. bharathi kamath 111 research and policy implications there has not been enough evidence yet regarding the association between women representation and ic performance. the results may be justified in terms of the regulations mandating women on board, which are of recent origin. there are many firms that have nominated directors, just to comply with the regulations; others have very few independent women directors. the research results may vary with the passage of time and the broadening of the sample size. further parameters such as age, educational qualifications, skills, corporate experience, and representation on other companies’ boards may be some factors that may be able to explore the relationship in a wholesome manner. without undermining the significance of the present study, which provides a good starting point for analyzing this area from a multi-dimensional perspective. as far as the policy implications are concerned, the regulator not only has to mandate the number of women on board, but also take cognizance of the proportion of independent women directors, in large boards, just having one women director doesn’t help in enforcing the views and opinions. besides this, there must be advocacy programs conducted for firms to appreciate and recognize the significance of women representation. consistent efforts towards gender diversity are expected to bring in new insights and perspectives and help in improving organizational performance in long run. (siciliano, 1996) “a board of directors without any women is more likely to be missing some key skill sets that could improve the board’s advisory effectiveness”. (wright, 2013) the representation of women to bring in diversity should be more voluntary in nature rather than regulatory or for compliance. the practitioners can internally study and design their own requirements of optimal gender mix on the firm’s boards for improving performance. the rules cannot change culture and belief patterns. concerted effort not only from the regulator but the management of firms and other stakeholders is required to ensure that the representation of women on board improves in every listed company. “the primary argument against board gender diversity is that the board must seek diversity not in terms of gender, but rather with respect to expertise, opinions, and perspectives, since it is heterogeneity in these traits—not gender diversity per se—that improves the firm’s long-term value” (wright, 2013). the results of this study may be limited to the small sample size and period of study. availability and processing of disaggregated data is a major 112 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 97-116) constraint. the scope of research in this area is immense in the indian context; future research can focus on the study of the impact of gender diversity in pre-regulation and post-regulation scenarios. the researcher can take up sector-specific studies and provide inputs to policy makers as to which sector requires higher levels of gender diversity, as all sectors may not respond similarly to changes in board characteristics. there may be studies taken up to include the impact of gender diversity not only at the top management levels, but gender inclusiveness at the middle and general level in specific firms. conclusion the role and significance of women on board of companies have been a subject of research interest across various sectors and country contexts. whether there should be diversity with regard to gender on board has also been debated by policy makers and researchers. the study of the impact of gender diversity on ic performance has shown mixed results (adams and ferreira, 2009; christiansen et al., 2016; arora & sharma, 2016). though there have been very few studies related to gender diversity and firm performance in india, this is the first study of its kind, which attempts to look at its impact on ic performance and sub-components. ic performance is associated with the size of the board and ceo duality. the characteristics of board and gender diversity do not influence the ic performance for the sample firms in the period of study. even in the case of sub-components of ic, it is observed that only cee has a statistically significant relation with gender diversity. hce shows association with independence and size of the board, whereas no factor of board characteristics influences sce of these firms. firm characteristics of size, age and leverage have varying impacts on the ic performance as well as on its sub-components. though the results of the study do not provide a strong case for including gender diversity on the board of the firms, as it does not have any impact on the ic performance of the firms; there may be several factors that may be causes for such statistical results as mentioned in the previous sector. not getting too much influenced by the results of this study, there is still a need to look into this issue of women representation from a different perspective beyond firm performance. the major factor inhibiting the representation and participation of women on board is cultural rather than economic. the efforts of businesses toward gender inclusiveness are also bharathi kamath 113 inconsistent, as observed in our sample where only 20 percent of the firms are voluntarily providing more representation to women than the mandated requirements. fixing mandatory quotas can only be a starting point for achieving gender parity, the actual role of women in decision making and policy issues is what is to be stressed rather than just their mere presence in numbers. the effort of businesses to improve gender participation and representation at all levels, especially at the middle management level rather than just at the top would help in achieving the much required parity smoothly. references [1] abad, d., lucas-pérez, m.e., minguez-vera, a. and yagüe, j. 2017. “does gender diversity on corporate boards reduce information asymmetry in equity markets?”, brq business research quarterly, 20(3): 192-205. 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[41] nse official website: www.nseindia.com, https://www1.nseindia.com/products/content/equities/indices/nifty_50.htm article history: received: november 15th, 2021 accepted: june 5th, 2022 https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/dec/18/interbrand-valuable-brands-women-board https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/dec/18/interbrand-valuable-brands-women-board http://www.nseindia.com/ https://www1.nseindia.com/products/content/equities/indices/nifty_50.htm doi: 10.28934/jwee23.12.pp89-109 original scientific paper 4brevamp of tourism industry in nepal: women entrepreneurial orientation, competitive advantage, and firm performance pratikshya bhandari1 1f1 school of management, metharath university, thailand bijay sigdel1 2f2 school of management, metharath university, thailand sarana photchanachan school of management, metharath university, thailand13 f3 kullaya uppapong1 4f4 marketing department, uttaradit rajabhat university, thailand asmita bhattarai15 f5 prithvi narayan campus institute of science and technology, tribhuvan university, nepal a b s t r a c t the covid-19 pandemic unexpectedly disrupted people and placed a global consequence; no industry has arguably been as hard-hit as nepal's tourism industry. therefore, the study has examined the influence of entrepreneurial orientation (eo) on revamping women-owned tourism businesses and how the mediating effects of competitive advantage influence the performance of womenowned tourist firms in nepal. data were collected from 172 women-owned tourism 1 corresponding author, e-mail: sevendropsc@gmail.com 2 e-mail: sigdelbijayy@gmail.com 3 e-mail: sarana.p@mru.ac.th 4 e-mail: is_nong@yahoo.com 5 e-mail: asmitabhattarai73@gmail.com 90 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 89-109) businesses via a survey questionnaire. partial least squares structural equation modeling (pls-sem) tests the hypothesis and quantifies the relationship using algorithms and bootstrapping. data analysis revealed that eo doesn’t directly affect the performance of the business, whereas, through the mediation of competitive advantage, eo and business performance have a relationship. furthermore, findings show that eo plays a crucial role in revamping womenowned tourism businesses. this study has an important implication for womenowned tourist enterprises looking to improve their operations and, in turn, obtain a competitive advantage. keywords: women entrepreneurial orientation, competitive advantage, firm performance, covid-19, tourism industry introduction nepal is the birthplace of lord gautam buddha and home to mount everest, the highest mountain peak in the world. it is one of the most visited tourist destinations because its natural landscape, traditions, and eminent generosity of diverse ethnic assemblies are the things that attract tourism (mofa, 2022). therefore, the tourism industry is nepal's most vital business sector contributing to social and economic development. however, the wave of covid-19 has massive moments that have reshaped the contemporary also forthcoming scenery of the tourism industry. reminisce the covid-19 pandemic's initial flare-up in december 2019 and blew out hastily athwart the world through human-to-human transmission (li et al., 2021; chen et al., 2020). the tourism industry is the initial and the maximum knockout sector by covid-19 (i. ocheni et al., 2020), which has a catastrophic impact. in this intricate state, women entrepreneur is anguishing the most (kumar & singh, 2021). the travel limitations of covid-19 have triggered incomparable injury to global tourism by dropping international arrivals in 2020 by 74 percent with a projected loss of us $ 1.3 trillion (unwto, 2021). vaccination is one of the factors to build confidence to travel and, thus, revamp the tourism industry (morenogonzalez et al., 2020; su et al., 2021). toward revamping the hard-hit tourism industry, the government of nepal focuses on women entrepreneurs because men are migrating to other countries for job seeking. hence, nepal focuses on economic development and promoting sustainable tourism by emphasizing women entrepreneurs (murarka, 2022). according to the earlier literature, entrepreneurial p. bhandari, b. sigdel, s. photchanachan, k. uppapong, a. bhattaraii 91 orientation (eo) is deliberate to revamp the business in crises like the ebola virus, sars, and other virulent viruses that previously dared the world. eo not only stretches competitive advantage to the business but also gives the direction for revamping the business (li et al., 2021; kottika et al., 2020). generally, eo is a deliberate arrogance that clarifies the dealings and arrangements that strategically bid business groundwork decisions and actions (mehrabi et al., 2019). eo cultivates its reputation as a firm that embraces creativity, takes calculated chances, and wants to lead the way with proactive innovations to gain a competitive edge by imitating how a company explicitly or implicitly chooses to behave (wang et al., 2020). the idea that women entrepreneurs can simultaneously have beneficial benefits for economic growth is the foundation of the development program's approach to this topic. women who want to establish businesses can think creatively and start taking risks with the composition of numerous factors that deal with the ambiguous business environment (ge et al., 2022). therefore, eo has been recommended as an instrument for solving the existing issue and revamping the business as well as a decisive portion of the firm performance and competitive advantage in the current environment (isichei et al., 2020). nepal is a remarkable tourist destination because of its numerous gorgeous snow-capped mountains, varied fauna, and rich socio-cultural history within a constrained geographic area. nepal is for a good reason called the "amazon of asia" because of its biodiversity and unique variety of flora and fauna. it is also a shelter for almost 8 percent of the world's bird species (mofa, 2022). the tourism industry's total contribution to nepal's gdp is about 3.6 percent, whereas its total impact was us $2.2 billion in 2019 (the world bank, 2022). women entrepreneurs play a justifiable role in the growing economic (achakpa & radovic-markovic, 2018). the pandemic has had a disparaging influence on the travel and tourism sector, specifically on travelers' anxieties and risk perceptions, and it has a longlasting negative effect on their intention to travel. currently, the globe is working to revitalize and modernize the tourist sector, especially those nations that depend on travel and tourism-related earnings (balasubramanian et al., 2021). women's entrepreneurial behavior is a possible source of reviving the business and a competitive advantage (bhandari & amponstira, 2021). the covid-19 pandemic epidemic is much more severe than anticipated; hence it is hard to recognize and identify the proper way to revamp the downfall business. there are several studies about the relationship of eo and performance of tourism industry (i.ocheni et al., 92 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 89-109) 2020; tang et al., 2020; balasubramanian et al., 2021; luu, 2021) as well as the mediating effect of competitive advantage on them (kiyabo & isaga, 2020; mostafiz, hughes, & sambasivan, 2021). however, the studies related to women entrepreneur on the tourism industry are limited (ribeiro et al., 2021; filimonau et al., 2022). consequently, this study addresses the research gap by studying the performance of eo and women-owned enterprises, with competitive advantage playing a mediating role in revamping the tourism business. therefore, the study has studied the influence of eo on revamping women-owned tourism businesses and how the mediating effects of competitive advantage influence the performance of women-owned tourist firms in nepal. the study helps women business owners grasp the value of eo and competitive advantage for modernizing businesses and raising performance levels. the literature review and hypothesis are developed in the following section, followed by the methodology, data analysis and discussion, conclusion, and implications. finally, the limitation and further research are discussed. literature review and hypothesis development hereunder is a brief literature review on the nepali tourism industry, the tourism industry and covid-19, and the connection between eo, competitive advantage, and performance. the tourism industry in nepal nepal is an idyllic destination for someone who loves to experience the authentic and mesmerizing. it is the amalgamation of a steamy jungle in terai to the icy peak's mountains and abundant rivers where more than 45 percent of tourist visit to see the natural resources. the things that attract tourists to nepal are religious sites, mountain climbing, canyoning, hiking, paragliding, hot air balloon, bungee jumping, and many more untouched and undiscovered things. nepal is a unique place where the royal bengal tiger and asiatic rhinoceros are spotted, including 15 national and wildlife parks (two unesco heritage sites). due to the above reason, nepal is a tourism hub for those who want to discover a unique experience, and of course, tourism is the mainstay of the nepalese economy (mofa, 2022; murarka, 2022). p. bhandari, b. sigdel, s. photchanachan, k. uppapong, a. bhattaraii 93 for this research, gandaki province is selected as the study area. gandaki province has a bundle of natural beauty with the highest lake in the world, tilicho (4,919m), breathtaking mountain ranges, and crystal-clear lakes. the province is also well-known as nepal's hub of tourism destinations (ministry of tourism gandaki, 2021). the tourism industry and covid-19 the tourism sector is extremely vulnerable to various events, including terrorism, pandemics, and natural disasters. because of this, the tourism sector must constantly be well-prepared for defense and recovery measures. since travel is necessary for tourism, any variables that affect travel could negatively influence the tourism sector, such as covid-19. (yeh, 2021). indeed, covid-19 has prominently reduced the essentials of leisure travel and hedonistic gateways (kaushal & srivastava, 2021). the situation resulted in widespread unemployment, loss of over 10,000 jobs, and loss of revenue, income, and livelihood in numerous nepalese tourist sectors, including aviation, trekking, mountaineering, and hospitality (joshi et al., 2022). therefore, a robust apparatus is required to recuperate the tourism industry for the tourism-based country. entrepreneurial orientation and firm's performance the cardinal concept of entrepreneurship is entrepreneurial orientation (jiang et al., 2018). nowadays, entrepreneurship concentration is increasing. the market is changing in the blink of an eye, and appropriate entrepreneurship strategies can reflect better business performance. eo has been conceptualized in two significant views: a unidimensional concept (vega-vazquez et al., 2016; wang et al., 2020) and a multi-dimension concept (covin & lumpkin, 2011). the unidimensional concepts of eo have three dimensions: proactiveness, risk-taking, and innovativeness (vega-vazquez et al., 2016; dai & si, 2018). eo is ostensible only when firm pageants the three dimensions. eo drives firms to be progressive, risktakers, and ground-breaking in the market to accomplish competitive advantage (jiang et al., 2018). conceptually and empirically, the connection between entrepreneurship and business performance is widely recognized (lumpkin & dess, 1996; fairoz et al., 2010; li et al., 2021). according to the situation, each dimension of eo contributes to the firm performance 94 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 89-109) (bhandari & amponstira, 2021). the proactiveness, innovativeness, and risk-taking aspects of eo were the focus of this study. abstractly, it is claimed that the eo proactiveness, innovativeness, and risk-taking dimensions are drivers of excellent company performance (saeed et al., 2014). the environment is typically characterized by rapid change, an uncertain product and business lifetime, and no guarantees of future financial success. as a result, businesses need to constantly look for new opportunities presented by eo (ribeiro et al., 2021). companies that pursue innovation while taking risks will eventually achieve a competitive edge, which will impact their success (kallmuenzer et al., 2019). the main factor influencing businesses' perseverance is how proactive the business environment is (fadda, 2018; kallmuenzer & peters, 2018). it is envisioned that high eo businesses are expected to do well, but low eo businesses are expected to be less proactive, innovative, and risk-takers, which may be able to create a competitive edge, consequently, inferior performance. as a result, the study advises: h1: there is a significant and positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance in the tourism industry. competitive advantage and firm performance in a concentrated market, a competitive approach has a momentous stimulus on the firm performance (anwar, 2018). a firm can acquire a cost leadership-based advantage by dropping different marketing, operation, and management cost in the same way; differentiation-based can acquire by discerning its product and services from competitors (yang et al., 2018). a business can achieve a competitive advantage when it brings the potential actions that can intrude on its competitors' actions (wang, 2014). from a management perceptive, competitive advantage is a foremost ingredient for business subsistence (bhandari & amponstira, 2021). the study (wiklund & shepherd, 2003; lechner & gudmundsson, 2014; gonzalez-rodriguez et al.,2018) publicized that competitive advantage has a substantial relationship with firm performance. thus, the study suggests: h2: there is a significant and positive relationship between competitive advantage and firm performance in the tourism industry. p. bhandari, b. sigdel, s. photchanachan, k. uppapong, a. bhattaraii 95 entrepreneurial orientation, competitive advantage, and firm performance strategic decision-making processes to familiarize with new goods and services and restructure organizational ideologies and behavior in the spirit of entrepreneurship are included in entrepreneurial orientation (eo) (wales et al., 2020). with the enactment of eo behavior, a firm can have to recuperate competitive advantage and better firm performance (zahra & covin, 1995; wiklund & sherpherd, 2003; mahmood & hanafi, 2013). the study (muindi & masurel, 2022) states that the dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation are responsible for entrepreneurial performance. in the same way, eo and competitive advantage are the focal aspects of the firm performance growth (ibrahim & mahmood, 2016). the study (mustafa et al.,2015; ibrahim & mahmood, 2016; kiyabo & isaga, 2020; bhandari et al., 2022) states that a positive relationship exists between eo and firms' performance, and competitive advantage positively mediates the relationship between eo and performance. it is the urge to be an eo firm and the intensification of the competitive advantage to deal with a competitive business environment (bhandari & amponstira, 2021). thus, the study suggests: h3: there is a significant and positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and competitive advantage in the tourism industry. h4: there is a significant and positive mediation of competitive advantage between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance in the tourism industry. the proposed hypothesized research framework is demonstrated in figure 1. 96 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 89-109) figure 1: research framework source: authors compilation methodology the study, which provoked thought, examined the function of eo in reviving the tourism industry by focusing on women tourist entrepreneurs. it also examines how competitive advantage mediates the relationship between eo and business performance. the measurements employed in this investigation are gathered from the literature and validated by scales. for the questionnaire development, the unidimensional eo consists of proactiveness, risk-taking, and innovativeness (vega-vazquez et al., 2016; wang et al., 2020). the competitive advantage consists of differentiated products, market responsiveness, and market sensing (kiyabo & isaga, 2020), and performance consists of customer retention, reputation, and product service effectiveness (han et al., 2019; gonzalez-rodriguez et al., 2021). the items of eo, competitive advantage, and performance were measured on a 5 – point likert scale from 1, "strongly disagree," to 5, "strongly agree". the study used a quantitative methodology, conducted surveys to gather data using carefully drafted closed-end questionnaires, and focused on standards and statistics. five experts did the item objective congruence (ioc) tests for the questionnaire before going to the data collection process. data were gathered from women tourism business owners in nepal's gandaki province who operated tourism-related enterprises in the hotel, restaurant, travel, leisure, and entertainment industries. initially, a list of women tourism entrepreneurs was gathered from the chamber of h2 h3 entrepreneurial orientation competitive advantage firm performance h1 h4 p. bhandari, b. sigdel, s. photchanachan, k. uppapong, a. bhattaraii 97 commerce and industry of different districts of gandaki province. then purposive sampling techniques were to collect the data. the pilot study uses a sample of 30 respondents to examine the validity of the items. the study floated 200 questionnaires; out of that, 172 questionnaires are usable, i.e., 86 percent. the data has been processed through statistical package for social science (spss) and smart partial least squares (smart pls). there were 172 respondents in total that participated in the survey. the year of operation of respondents up to 5 years was 79 (45.93%), followed by 6 to 10 years was 38 (22.09%), above 15 was 34 (19.76%), and 11 to 15 years was 21 (12.20%) respectively. the number of employees working in enterprises from 1 to 9 was 160 (93.02%), 10 to 49 was 11 (6.39%), and more than 100 was 1 (0.58%), respectively. the type of enterprises of the respondent are micro-enterprises 132 (76.8%) followed by small enterprises 35 (20.3%) and medium enterprises 5 (2.9%) respectively. data analysis and discussion the study uses the sem model at smart pls 4 to analyze and evaluate the data obtained from the survey. structural equation modeling is a statistical method for determining the relationship between observable and latent variables (hair et al., 2021). structural equation modeling consists of two steps to calculate the data: pls-sem bootstrapping and the pls-sem algorithm. the most popular for estimating path models with the relationship between latent variables is pls-sem (sarstedt, ringle & hair, 2021). the constituents of the measurement and structural model become structural equation modeling. measurement model the measurement model measures latent variables through observable variables (kang & ahn, 2021). in this study measurement model consists of cronbach's alpha and composite reliability. a composite reliability of over 0.70 is considered good (hair et al., 2021), and cronbach's alpha is above 0.70 or 0.60 (griethuijsen et al., 2015). 98 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 89-109) table 1: reliability test results construct cronbach’s alpha composite reliability entrepreneurial orientation 0.688 0.713 competitive advantage 0.694 0.696 firm performance 0.816 0.816 source: authors compilation structural model the structural model is the latent variable's association and relationship (kang & ahn, 2021). in this study structural model shows path analysis, coefficient of determination (r2), and effect size (f2). path analysis path analysis determines the relationship between the variables (harris & tao, 2022). in this study, path analysis shows path coefficient value, standard deviation (sd), p-value, 95% confidence interval, and t-value. the path coefficient's range is from -1 to +1. the hypothesis is accepted if the pvalue is below 0.05 and the t-value is higher than 1.96. and path coefficient is known as significant when the zero value excludes the 95% confidence interval (hair et al., 2021). table 2: path analysis hypothesis beta sd t-value pvalue llci ulci entrepreneurial orientation-> firm performance 0.224 0.165 1.353 0.176 -0.148 0.512 competitive advantage -> firm performance 0.576 0.151 3.809 0.000 0.3 0.899 entrepreneurial orientation -> competitive advantage 0.642 0.08 8.078 0.000 0.487 0.803 entrepreneurial orientation -> competitive advantage -> firm performance 0.37 0.121 3.058 0.002 0.192 0.663 source: authors compilation the initial hypothesis (h1) is, "there is a significant and positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance in the p. bhandari, b. sigdel, s. photchanachan, k. uppapong, a. bhattaraii 99 tourism industry." according to table 2, the path coefficient for hypothesis (h1) is 0.224, the t-value is 1.353, and the p-value is 0.176, which is less than the t-value of 1.96 and greater than the p-value of 0.05. and zero falls into 95% confidence interval [-0.148, 0.512]. so, based on the above analysis, hypothesis (h1) is rejected. furthermore, a previous study supported a negative and non-significant relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and the performance of business (messersmith & wales, 2013). the second hypothesis (h2) is, "there is a significant and positive relationship between competitive advantage and firm performance in the tourism industry." the path coefficient for hypothesis (h2) in table 2 is 0.576, the t-value is 3.809, and the p-value is 0.000, which is greater than the t-value of 1.96 and less than the p-value of 0.05. and zero does not fall into a 95% confidence interval [0.3, 0.899]. so, based on the above analysis, hypothesis (h2) is accepted. additionally, a prior study that examined the relationship between competitive advantage and business performance also provided additional evidence in favor of this study (bhandari & amponstira, 2021). the third hypothesis (h3) is, "there is a significant and positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and competitive advantage in the tourism industry." the path coefficient for hypothesis (h3) in table 2 is 0.642, the t-value is 8.078, and the p-value is 0.000, which is greater than the t-value of 1.96 and less than the p-value of 0.05. and zero does not fall into a 95% confidence interval [0.487, 0.803]. so, based on the above analysis, hypothesis (h3) is accepted. additionally, earlier studies showing a favorable and significant relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and competitive advantage supported this study (mustafa et al., 2015). the fourth hypothesis (h4) is, "there is significant and positive mediation of competitive advantage between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance in the tourism industry." according to table 2, hypothesis (h4) has a path coefficient of 0.37, a t-value of 3.058, and a p-value of 0.002—all of which are greater than the t-value of 1.96 and lower than the p-value of 0.05. and zero does not fall into a 95% confidence interval [0.192, 0.663]. so, based on the above analysis, hypothesis (h4) is accepted. additionally, a prior study demonstrates a competitive advantage's mediating role in the association between entrepreneurial orientation and business performance (kiyabo & isaga, 2020). 100 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 89-109) coefficient of determination (r2) a measure of how much of an endogenous construct's variation is accounted for by its predictor construct is called the coefficient of determination (r2) (hair et al., 2021). r2 values of 0.75, 0.50, and 0.25 are regarded as being respectively substantial, moderate, and weak. (hair et al., 2021). the study shows that the value of r2 of competitive advantage is 0.413, and performance is 0.547, which is weak and moderate. this indicates that the independent variable has a 41.3% variance in competitive advantage and a 54.7% variance in firm performance. effect size (f2) the influence of the predictor construct on an endogenous construct is measured by the effect size (f2) (hair et al., 2021). a small, medium and large effects are defined as having an effect size of 0.02 to 0.14, 0.15 to 0.34, and above 0.35 (cohen, 2013). figure 2: path model source: authors` compilation p. bhandari, b. sigdel, s. photchanachan, k. uppapong, a. bhattaraii 101 table 3: effect size (f2) construct competitive advantage firm performance entrepreneurial orientation 0.702 (large effect) 0.065 (small effect) competitive advantage 0.429 (large effect source: authors` compilation conclusion the tourism sector was among the first to shut down since it was thought to be one of the coronavirus carriers. the global pandemic nearly put an end to tourism. eo provides a deliberate competitive advantage to the business and gives the direction of revamping the business. an entrepreneurial woman in the development program is shipwrecked on the premise that women-owned businesses can concurrently engender optimistic economic development. the study examined how eo influences womenowned tourism businesses' renovation efforts, and the mediating effects of competitive advantage influence the performance of women-owned tourism firms. the findings show that eo plays a decisive protagonist in revamping the business. moreover, in the women-owned tourism industry, eo doesn't have a direct relationship with firms' performance; nonetheless, with the mediation of competitive advantage, eo has an indirect relationship with firm performance. additionally, there is a relationship between competitive advantage and firm performance. in the precise form, the verdict of this study bids treasured aids to eo, competitive advantage, and firm performance of women-owned tourism businesses. similarly, eo and its dimension are the dynamic features necessary for revamping the tourism business in this current situation. implication it isn't easy to extend the business protocols when there is an unpredicted wave like covid-19. the covid-19 pandemic's overwhelming effects significantly impacted the tourism sector. according to the study, the tourism sector has changed since covid-19 and will probably reinvent itself as a sustainable enterprise. it is time to have entrepreneurial thinking for revamping the business and trying to be proactive to gain competitive advantages. the eo differs as per the business structure, where they are 102 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 89-109) operated, and the availability of resources. this research has concluded that competitive advantage mediates the link between eo and company performance. if a business gains competitive advantages, then only a business achieves better performance. research also indicates that womenowned tourism businesses may profit by investing in their eo potential to achieve excellent performance by differentiating their firms from competitors and assisting in the recovery of the businesses. hence, this research revealed that eo is essential for businesses revamping the tourism industry. limitations and further research the limitations of this study made room for future research. the primary drawback of this study is the use of cross-sectional data, which may make it more difficult to recognize the irrationality of women entrepreneurs' deeds. however, further research can be done with a longitudinal approach to comprehend women entrepreneurs' deeds better. the second limitation is its focus on the women-owned business with certain geographical reasons or a country; however, further research can be conducted to imitate and inflate the study to different sectors and themes. it might reveal even more erudite edifices of the eo-firm performance link. the third limitation is that this research was conducted during the pandemic, so entrepreneurs focus on revamping businesses. it is possible to undertake additional research to examine how innovations might be transformed for the tourism sector to combat the covid-19 issues. references [1] anwar, muhammad. 2018. 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"contextual influences on the corporate entrepreneurship-performance relationship: a longitudinal analysis." journal of business venturing (elsevier) 10: 43-58. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/0883-9026(94)00004-e. article history: received: june 25th, 2022 accepted: march 29th, 2023 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.12.pp167-187 jel: l26, c54 original scientific paper 7busing structural equation modeling in the analysis of the relationship between internal and external factors and women entrepreneurs’ success sunčica stanković2 4f1 slađana vujičić25 f2 faculty of business economics and entrepreneurship, belgrade, serbia mirjana radović-marković2 6f3 faculty of economics and engineering management, university business academy, novi sad, serbia a b s t r a c t in modern business conditions, entrepreneurship, as a significant driver of economic growth and development, is also an important facilitator of women's empowerment in developed and developing countries. taking into account the significant contribution of female entrepreneurship to economic development and, on the other hand, its contribution to the empowerment of women, the paper examines the factors that influence the success of female entrepreneurs in the republic of serbia. the effects of many factors on the success of women entrepreneurs have been the subject of numerous studies, but this study focused on internal and external factors, which are still largely unexplored, particularly in the republic of serbia. in this sense, the aim of this work is to determine whether internal and external factors have direct, positive, and significant effects on women entrepreneurs' success. the specific research aims are: 1) determining whether 1 corresponding author, e-mail: suncica.stankovic@vspep.edu.rs 2 e-mail: sladjana.vujicic@vspep.edu.rs 3 e-mail: mradovic@gmail.com 168 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 167-187) internal factors have a positive effect on women entrepreneurs’ success and 2) determining whether external factors have a positive effect on women entrepreneurs’ success. the causal relationships between observed variables were assessed using the structural equation modeling method. the obtained results showed that both internal and external factors are significant determinants of women entrepreneurs' success. the results emphasize the need to motivate women to start their own businesses by organizing various educational courses and workshops and women's support programs by the government. key words: women’s entrepreneurship, need for achievement, self-confidence, risk-taking, economic factors, sociocultural factors, republic of serbia, sem introduction most countries in the world, at any level of development, promote entrepreneurship as a significant form of self-employment for men and women. the importance of this topic is indicated by the fact that a large number of authors deal with different aspects of entrepreneurship in their studies (schneider, 2017; haseeb et al., 2019; mukha et al., 2021; zelekha, 2021; jović bogdanović, dimić, vučić,2022;marković et al., 2022). in that sense, the sector of small and medium enterprises (sme) is an important factor not only in the development of innovation but also in improving the competitiveness of countries, developing entrepreneurship, and increasing productivity (milanović, 2020). one of the more precise definitions includes the term entrepreneur as a woman who owns at least 1% of the company, performs at least one management function in the company (marketing, finance, human resources), and is employed in the company. one of the more precise definitions of the term women entrepreneur means a woman who owns at least 1% of the company, performs at least one management function in the company (marketing, finance, human resources) and is employed in the company (pantić-popović, 2014). pérez-pérez and avilés-hernández (2016) list four factors that influence women's decision to engage in entrepreneurship. the first factor is related to reasons of the internal type, which relate to women's motivation, concerns and desires. the second factor refers to reasons of an external type, such as the social and economic context. the third and fourth factors are related to cultural changes and women's development, and they include family reasons and reasons related to cultural changes. on the other hand, the success of female entrepreneurship, according to the results of studies by sunčica stanković, slađana vujičić, mirjana radović-marković 169 different authors (balogun et al., 2017; meroño-cerdán et al., 2018; khan et al., 2021), is influenced by numerous factors. khan et al. (2021) divide these factors into internal and external. the mentioned authors state the following as internal factors of the success of female entrepreneurship: the need for achievement, risk-taking, and self-confidence, and external factors, and, as external factors: economic and sociocultural factors. one of the first and most extensively researched components of the empirical studies of female entrepreneurship is the motivational foundation for choosing it as a career path (brush 1992; holmquist & carter 2009). the findings of the study imply that a variety of factors influence women's decision to choose self-employment as their labor market status. according to apergis and pekka-economou (2010), all of those motives fall into one of the two major types of motives: the push (negative) motives group or the pull (positive) motives group. carree, & verheul (2012) cite negative motives for undertaking entrepreneurial activity: difficult working conditions at their current workplace, low family income, unemployment and similar reasons. on the other hand, the aforementioned authors cite positive factors: the possibility of higher earnings, better social status, professional success, a greater degree of independence and reasons similar to these. in most cases, according to stošić et al. (2016) it is justified to talk about a combination of motives from these two groups, with the predominance of one of them. according to stošić et al. (2016), it is usually appropriate to discuss a combination of these two groups' motivations, with one of them always having the upper hand. according to the findings of the study conducted by the aforementioned authors, women in the republic of serbia choose an entrepreneurial activity as a career path based on both push and pull motives, with pull motives predominating. as a result, it can be said that female entrepreneurship in the republic of serbia is more of a chance than a necessity. four pull factors: economic freedom, better income, self-fulfillment and achievement, and personal development, as well as two push factors: job discontent and a lack of career prospects, were discovered to be the most important entrepreneurial motivators, according to dahr et al. (2022). although the statistics in this area are insufficiently developed and incomplete, in serbia, the most relevant source of data for the number of women's businesses is the business registers agency. however, official data show how many women are in the formal status of entrepreneurs but not how many women among registered entrepreneurs actually manage their 170 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 167-187) businesses (pantić-popović, 2014). in serbia, in the first six months of 2022, 25.816 business entities were founded, which is 4.520 more companies and entrepreneurs than in the same period of 2021, the business registers agency announced. according to the data available from the chamber of commerce and industry of serbia, there are 31% of companies in serbia that are owned by women, and 87% of them are satisfied because they entered the entrepreneurial world. previous research has focused on how crucial it is for women to have motivation, family support and self-confidence (azmi, 2017), a lack of business skills (muhammad et al., 2017), risk-taking and motivation (abd rani & hashim, 2017), and culture, government policies, access to finance, and regulation (muhammad et al., 2017), internal and external factors (khan et al., 2021). the influence of many factors on the success of female entrepreneurs has been the subject of numerous research. however, external and internal (self-confidence, need for achievement and risk-taking) and external (economic and sociocultural) factors have still been insufficiently investigated in the republic of serbia. for this reason, the subject of this work is the analysis of the relationship between internal and external factors and women entrepreneurs' success using structural equation modeling. according to the research’s subject, the research aims to determine whether these factors have direct, positive, and significant effects on women entrepreneurs’ success, and the specific research aims are: 1) determining whether internal factors have a positive effect on the women entrepreneurs’ success, and 2) determining whether external factors have a positive effect on women entrepreneurs’ success. the paper is structured as follows. after the introductory presentation, the second part presents an overview of the literature, which is relevant to the researched area and research hypotheses. the third part of the paper includes research methodology. this part of the paper presents the data, sample, questionnaire, variables, model, and analysis, as well as the results of the analysis. in the last part, the key conclusions of the research were drawn, possible limitations were pointed out and recommendations were given to future researchers. literature review during the last decades, there has been an increase in the number of female entrepreneurs on an annual basis (rehman and roomi, 2012). sunčica stanković, slađana vujičić, mirjana radović-marković 171 however, despite this growth, there is still a small number of women who have succeeded in their business (alam et al., 2011; kallerber et al., 2017). as a complex phenomenon, entrepreneurial success is determined by numerous factors, primarily social, cultural, and economical, but also by education (schneider, 2017). marković et al. (2022) emphasize the importance of the education process to improve the well-being of men and women and encourage their entrepreneurial activity. this is supported by the fact that, before and during entrepreneurship, education and training are key determinants of maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit and business management (pérez-pérez and avilés-hernández, 2016). on the other hand, sigdel (2016), in her study, obtained results according to which the level of education does not determine the type of business a female entrepreneur will engage in, nor does the legal ownership status of the company. also, according to the results of the aforementioned study, the level of education does not affect the source of funds for starting a business owned by women, nor the support that women receive for starting a business. alam et al. (2011) point out that, considering that the businesses owned by women are very often small and grow slowly, women entrepreneurs do not consider themselves successful if their success is measured from an economic perspective. in addition, women subjectively perceive their business success in terms of balancing work and family, freedom to choose their own daily activity, reputation, and contribution to the community, children and the quality of life they provide for themselves (fenwick and hutton, 2000). female entrepreneurs consider that they have achieved business success only if they manage to achieve a balance between the multiple roles they have, that is, the role in the business and the role in the family (ibid). kalyani and mounika (2016) cite internal and external factors as factors of the success of female entrepreneurship. similarly, in their research on the success factors of female entrepreneurship in pakistan, khan et al. (2021) emphasize internal factors, which include: the need for achievement, risk-taking, and self-confidence, and external factors, which include economic and sociocultural factors, as success factors of female entrepreneurship. the concept of motivation, according to mcclelland (1988), includes three types of needs for achievement motivation: 1) the need for achievement, 2) the need for power, and 3) the need for belonging. dewi et al. (2016) believe that the need for achievement is crucial for top managers. 172 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 167-187) jayeoba et al. (2013) define the need for achievement as a source of motivation for the long-term business success of entrepreneurs. the results of some studies show that abilities, such as self-confidence and motivational strength, can help women become successful entrepreneurs (abd rani and hashim, 2017; azmi, 2017; muhammad et al., 2017), while their need for achievement positively influences their business success (khan et al., 2021). while making short-term and long-term decisions, self-confidence, as another internal factor, is of great importance for top managers. the results of certain studies have shown that self-confidence significantly and positively affects the business success of self-employed in developing countries (balogun et al., 2017; khan et al., 2021). kirkwood (2009), researching female entrepreneurship in new zealand, suggests that entrepreneurial self-confidence may differentially influence women's entrepreneurship. while for some women self-confidence records growth over time, it limits others, reducing their ability to access finance and their aspirations for growth. studies also indicate that risk-taking can positively influence the success of women entrepreneurs (meroño-cerdán et al., 2018; khan et al., 2021; muindi and masurel, 2022), especially in developing countries (zalata et al., 2019). slovic (2000), most research on risk perception showed that women are more worried about the risks of starting a business than men. since risk-taking is an important quality of successful entrepreneurs, the risk aversion of women entrepreneurs can be seen as an obstacle to their growth. wube (2010) suggests that economic factors refer to the internal and external financing of the firm, which is important for the business success of the firm. previous studies have shown that fluctuations in political and economic systems significantly affect women's entrepreneurship success, which is why these factors lead to an increase or decrease in their performance and success at a significant level (abdallah & alnamri, 2015; lindvert, et al., 2017; khan, 2021). the results of the study by hassan et al. (2022) showed that the psychological, political and economic empowerment of women positively and significantly affects female entrepreneurship, while the impact of social empowerment of women is negative but not at a statistically significant level. khan et al. (2021) point out that sociocultural factors can influence the success of female entrepreneurs. balakrishnan and low (2016) suggest that, in developing economies, sociocultural factors significantly influence the sunčica stanković, slađana vujičić, mirjana radović-marković 173 decision-making and success of female entrepreneurs. according to messikh (2021), the support of parents and the government has a significant influence on the entrepreneurial intents of female students in algeria, whereas other characteristics like self-efficacy, entrepreneurial education, and attitude toward entrepreneurship have less of an effect. pérez-pérez and avilés-hernández (2016) highlight the lack of entrepreneurial culture and social support as factors that greatly affect female entrepreneurship. similarly, according to the results of the studies by poggesi et al. (2016), and arasti et al. (2012), sociocultural factors significantly and positively influence women entrepreneurs’ success. definitions of internal and external factors, which are the focus of studies dealing with this topic, are shown in table 1. table 1: internal and external factors of women entrepreneurs' success 174 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 167-187) research methodology data, sample, questionnaire, variables, and model the survey method was used for quantitative research, with the target population being women entrepreneurs in the republic of serbia. the research, including the pilot test, was carried out in the period of july october 2022. 518 questionnaires were collected, while the examination of the questionnaires determined that, due to observed irregularities, 4 questionnaires should be excluded from the analysis, and 514 questionnaires were used for further analysis; that is, 514 respondents were included in the convenient sample. web and face-to-face survey techniques were used for data collection. for the research, a questionnaire was constructed, consisting of four parts. the first part of the questionnaire related to the demographics of the respondents (age, marital status, and education level). the second part of the questionnaire covered female entrepreneurs' perception of internal factors, the third part contained female entrepreneurs' perception of external factors, and the fourth part of the questionnaire contained female entrepreneurs' perception of entrepreneurs' success. the items were measured using a fivepoint likert scale (1 i do not agree at all; 5 i completely agree). dependent variable: the instrument for measuring the “women entrepreneurs’ success“(wes) consisted of 4 attitudes, taken and adapted according to bernard et al. (2016), and khan et al. (2021). more detailed information about the instruments for measuring the construct “women entrepreneur’s success” in the research is presented in table 2. table 2: measurement items for constructing “women entrepreneur’s success” construct items references women entrepreneurs’ success (wes) wes1 family savings tend to increase wes2 profits of my enterprise tend to increase wes3 there is an increase in sales and profitability during the three last years wes4 family income tend to increase bernard et al. (2016); khan et al. (2021) sunčica stanković, slađana vujičić, mirjana radović-marković 175 the independent variables in the research model are internal and external factors. the internal factors (intf) measurement instrument consisted of 12 items, taken and adapted according to khan et al. (2021). items are divided into three factors: 1) self-confidence (sc) 5 items; 2) need for achievement (nfa) 4 items; and 3) risk-taking (rt) 3 items. more detailed information about the instruments for measuring the construct “internal factors” in the research is presented in table 3. table 3: measurement items for constructing “internal factors” the external factors (extf) measurement instrument consisted of 7 items, taken over and adapted according to khan et al., 2021. items are 176 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 167-187) divided into two factors: 1) economic factors (ef) – 4; and 2) sociocultural factors (scf) (3 items). more detailed information about the instruments for measuring the construct “external factors” in the research is presented in table 4. table 4: measurement items for constructing “external factors” following the methodology applied by khan et al. (2021), the planned research examines relationships between internal and external factors and women entrepreneurs’ success. figure 1 graphically presents the research model. figure 1: conceptual model sunčica stanković, slađana vujičić, mirjana radović-marković 177 methods the causal relationships between internal and external factors and women entrepreneurs’ success were assessed using the structural equation modeling (sem) method. according to the sem method, the assumption is that there is a basic mechanism that leads to the theoretical covariance structure between vectors of random variables, and the goal is to propose and test a model that mimics the basic mechanism. the goal is to propose and test a model that will mimic this basic mechanism (malaeb et al., 2000). the null hypothesis (h0) in sem is that the covariance matrix of the observed variables (σ) is a function of the set of parameters (θ) (bollen, 1989), so it is: 𝐻𝐻0: 𝛴𝛴 = 𝛴𝛴(𝜃𝜃) (1) when it comes to linear models, the goal is to reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative. however, when it comes to the sem model, the goal is to accept the null hypothesis because rejecting the null hypothesis means rejecting the initial model. sem is a combination of factorial, regression, and path analysis. it, according to bolen and long (1993), includes five stages: 1) model specification; 2) model identification; 3) parameter estimation; 4) model fit testing; and 5) model respecification. according to anderson and gerbing (1988) approach, the measurement model was first evaluated, and then the structural model. by applying the maximum likelihood method, based on the covariance matrix, the parameters of the model were evaluated. confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the measurement model. cronbach alpha was used to check the internal consistency of the construct. factor loadings, average variance extracted (ave) and composite reliability coefficient (cr) were used to check convergent validity. discriminative validity was checked on the basis of the fornell–larcker criterion, i.e., on the basis of the value of the √𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 2 . before these analyses, the vif test was used to check whether the data set had problems with multicollinearity, as well as the common method variance bias test (cmv) to check whether the first factor explained less than 50% of the total variance in order to avoid measurement errors. the statistical package spss ibm statistics version 21 and amos graphics were used for data processing. 178 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 167-187) results description of the research sample according to the data shown in table 1, most of the respondents are between 41 50 years old (29.0%), and the least were 61 or older. the average age of respondents was 42.83 years (sd = 11.213; range 20–63). as far as marital status is concerned, there were more married women in the sample (60%), while the highest percentage of women have completed high school or faculty (48.6%). table 5 shows the demographics of the respondents. table 5: demographics statistics description frequency % age ≥ 30 129 25.1 31 40 79 15.4 41 50 149 29.0 51 60 133 25.9 ≤ 61 24 4.7 marital status single 205 39.9 married 309 60.1 education level secondary 233 45.3 high/faculty 250 48.6 master/phd 31 6.0 sample adequacy, multicollinearity, and cmv test structural equation modeling, according to lee et al. (2010), implies the adequacy of the research sample, the absence of problems with multicollinearity, and the common method variance bias test (cmv). when it comes to the sample size, hoelter (1983) recommends a minimum of 200, while this study included 514 respondents. vif test values are less than 3 (ranging from 1.568 to 2.337), indicating no multicollinearity problem. cmv was analyzed using harman's single-factor test. the obtained results show that all attitudes in the model can be categorized into six constructs, while the first construct explains 46.617% of the total variance, which is less than 50% (podsakoff et al., 2012). sunčica stanković, slađana vujičić, mirjana radović-marković 179 measurement and structural model analysis the measurement model was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis. according to the data tabulation, all fit indicators are at an adequate (χ2/df) or perfect level (nfi, nnfi, cfi, rmsea, srmr). detailed results are shown in table 6. table 6: structural model fit indicators χ2/df nfi nnfi (tli) cfi rmsea srmr obtained values 2.508 0.977 0.979 0.986 0.054 0.032 adequate fit* ≤ 3 ≥ 0.90 ≥ 0.90 ≥ 0.95 ≤ 0.08 ≤ 0.08 perfect fit* 0 or > 2 0.95 or near 1 0.95 or near 1 0.95 or near 1 0 or ≤ 0.050 0 or ≤ 0.050 note: according to: * hu and bentler (1999); byrne, (1994; 1998) table 7 shows that factor loadings range from 0.624 to 0.890 for the construct "internal factors", from 0.904 to 0.988 for "external factors", and from 0.744 to 0.776 for "women entrepreneurs’ success." the values of cronbach's alpha coefficient (for the first factor is 0.835, for the second 0.943 and 0.844 for the third factor) indicate high internal consistency (pallant, 2007). values of average variance extracted (ave) ranged from 0.577 to 0.897, which is above the threshold of 0.50 (fornell & larcker, 1981). in addition, the values of the composite reliability index (cr) were found to be adequate (above 0.70), ranging from 0.845 to 0.945. according to the obtained results, the condition of convergent validity is met. table 7: reliability and validity of all constructs latent constructs factor loading cronbach’s alpha composite reliability ave intf 0.835 0.848 0.655 nfa 0.890 rt 0.886 sc 0.624 extf 0.943 0.945 0.897 ef 0.988 180 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 167-187) latent constructs factor loading cronbach’s alpha composite reliability ave scf 0.904 wes 0.844 0.845 0.577 wes1 0.745 wes2 0.776 wes3 0.774 wes4 0.744 for the discriminant validity test, the square root of ave was calculated. discriminant validity is confirmed by the fact that the value of the √𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 2 for each factor is greater than its correlation with the other two factors. (fornell & larcker, 1981). the results are shown in table 8. table 8: discriminant validity (fornell–larcker criterion) latent constructs intf extf wes intf 0.809* extf 0.252 0.947* wes 0.598 0.381 0.760* note:* √𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴2 the structural model shows the causal relationship between exogenous and endogenous constructs (hair et al., 2016). the explanatory power (r2) and path coefficient (β) were estimated. the r2 value of “women entrepreneurs’ success” was 0.410, which proves the model’s predictive power (hair et al., 2016). according to obtained research results (table 9), internal factors directly significantly and positively affect women entrepreneur success (β = 0.536, p < 0.001). the results also indicate a direct positive effect of external factors on women entrepreneurs’ success (β = 0.246, p < 0.001). this speaks in favor of the fact that both internal and external factors are significant determinants of women entrepreneurs’ success. sunčica stanković, slađana vujičić, mirjana radović-marković 181 table 9: hypotheses assessment hypotheses paths β s.e. t r2 decision h1 intf⟶wes 0.536 0.044 10.846*** r2wes = 0.410 supported h2 extf⟶wes 0.246 0.035 5.515*** supported note: r2 coefficient of determination; *** significant at p < 0.01. conclusion the aim of the conducted research was to determine the effects of internal and external factors on women entrepreneurs’ success using structural equation modeling. the obtained results indicate that the business success of entrepreneurs is significantly, positively and directly influenced by the factors included in the analysis. the research results are in line with the research results of other authors (hasan & almubarak, 2016; abd rani & hashim, 2017; azmi, 2017; muhammad et al., 2017; adiza, alamina, and aliyu, 2020; khan et al., 2021), who also indicated a significant and positive relationship between the observed variables when it comes to female entrepreneurship in developing countries. the conducted research has several limitations. one of the limitations of this research is that it is based on the analysis of data, which is a reflection of the subjective perceptions of the respondents, and the validity of the obtained results can be questioned. however, when considering the nature of the researched phenomenon, the subjective nature of most of the data for analysis is an indispensable element of research. the next limitation refers to the size of the sample, but the obtained results can serve as a starting point for defining the framework of future research, which would imply the realization of a larger sample, but also apply some other econometric methods in data analysis, or include moderator variables, such as, on example, marital status. another limitation is reflected in the territorial limitation only to an individual country, i.e., the republic of serbia. in this sense, future researchers could compare the results obtained in this research with the results of the analysis of factors that influence the success of women's entrepreneurship in other countries. the importance of the growth and development of women's entrepreneurial activity in the republic of serbia is undeniable, first of all, if it is taken into account that self-employment gives women the opportunity 182 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 167-187) to improve their economic and social status. therefore, the necessity of further promoting female entrepreneurship and increasing research on this topic is a key implication of this research. references [1] abd rani, samsul hana, and norashidah hashim. 2017. 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"what stands behind the gender gap in entrepreneurship? untangling the intergenerational parental role." plos one, 16(12): e0261108. article history: received: november 20th, 2022 accepted: may 30th, 2023 doi: 10.28934/jwee20.34.pp3-22 original scientific paper handling injustice are women too sensitive? denisa rovenská1 pavol jozef šafárik university in košice, faculty of public administration, department of social studies, košice, slovakia a b s t r a c t at time of covid-19 pandemic, not only isolation and loneliness were increasing, but injustice was increasing, as well. scholars argue, workplace is quite unjust toward women in general suggesting salary, benefits, little value to their voice, career growth and it shows covid-19 pandemic exacerbates injustice at work moreover. the aim of the contribution was to analyze the character of relationship between women's sensitivity to injustice, emotions, employment sector and coping with injustice at work during covid-19. 208 women with the average age of 26.08 years (sd = 7.39) answered the questions measuring sensitivity to injustice by justice sensitivity inventory (schmitt et al., 2010; slovak version lovaš, 1995), emotions by positive affect scale and negative affect scale (džuka & dalbert, in džuka, 2019) and coping by brief cope (carver, 1997; slovak version ficková, 1992). the results showed that women were sensitive to injustice at work (m = 4.49; sd = .89), felt anger mostly (m = 4.35; sd = 1.31) and used adaptive coping strategies more than maladaptive coping strategies (t(207) = 15.47, p < .001). the analysis of character of relationship between selected variables showed that negative affect and employment sector were predictors of coping with injustice at work. specific results are part of the contribution. key words: injustice, work, women, sensitivity to injustice, emotions, employment sector, coping, covid-19 1 e-mail: denisa.rovenska@upjs.sk 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 3-22) introduction the status of women in human society has faced many difficulties since we remember, and even nowadays there are many questions about who woman should be, what kind of roles she should have, how she should behave or what she should do for a living. obviously, women face these issues or better say these expectations in private and professional life, as well. despite of formally advanced and open-minded society which proudly proclaims equality between men and women, the reality is completely different and liberalism in opinions and attitudes has led to chaos rather than to gender justice. as it is said in official un women site "the covid-19 pandemic has created a global emergency of multiple dimensions. most national governments have adopted extraordinary measures to protect their citizens and overcome the pandemic. prior to the covid-19 global crisis, 2020 was expected to be a year for reviewing achievements and accelerating progress on gender equality after 25 years of the adoption of the beijing declaration and platform for action and 20 years since un security council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. there is now major concern that covid-19 and its impact will push back fragile progress on gender equality, including in relation to reversing discriminatory laws, the enactment of new laws, the implementation of existing legislation, and broader progress needed to achieving justice for all." (un women, 2020). throughout history there have been considerable gender differences in justice issue. according to fula (2004) it is because the femininity is emphasized by ability to live in apparent subordination, to live inside patterns and break them at the same time. on the other hand, men are attached to rules and to need to produce new ones in order to orientation and evaluation of behavior within rational and proper schemes. whereas female identity is more focused on being with others, male identity is focused on organizing relationships according to ethics and normative morality. justice and injustice perceptions it appears that current situation of covid-19 has advanced the level of injustice toward women and men. for example, johnston (2020) from rapid research information forum (rrif) estimated that the pandemic will result in greater disadvantages for women than men. according to un women denisa rovenská 5 (2020) the impacts of covid-19 are exacerbated for women simply by virtue of their sex across every sphere. in the context of work, compounded impacts are felt especially by women who are generally earning less, saving less, and are more likely to be employed in the informal sector. on the other hand, alon et al. (2020) suggest that despite injustice and vulnerability of gender equality in these days, there are opposing forces which may ultimately promote gender equality in the labor market. first, businesses are rapidly adopting flexible work arrangements, which are likely to persist. second, there are also many fathers who now have to take responsibility for childcare, which may erode social norms that currently lead to a unfair distribution of the division of family work. justice is a complex phenomenon involving several aspects. in general, it is possible to differentiate three types of justice: (1) distributive justice (fairness of distribution), (2) procedural justice (fairness of procedures, decision-making process), and (3) interactive justice (fairness of treatment) (greenberg & colquitt, 2005). however, at the level of practical life, and especially work settings, the concept of organizational justice proposed by colquitt (2001) is considered. this model distinguishes distributive, procedural, interpersonal (fairness in terms of dignity and respect) and informational (fairness in providing information and explanations) justice. application of justice principles at work (or society) is not complicated, however due to unethical actions taken by some individuals, these principles may not be fairly implemented in certain situations or areas. social reality is variable, and therefore justice is burdened with subjective perception, evaluation and normative judgments (váně, 2006). therefore, diversified attitudes toward justice lead to situations in which person may be convinced his / her individual right has been violated and attributes responsibility and guilt to another person (mikula, scherer & athenstaedt, 1998). ogungbamila and udegbe (2014) summarized chosen contributions on gender differences in perception of injustice across some cultures. in sample of employees in western culture, lambert et al. (in ogungbamila & udegbe, 2014) reported that female employees felt as justly treated as their male counterparts. however, studies conducted among employees in africa (e.g. mueller & mulinge, in ogungbamila & udegbe, 2014) and asia (e.g. youn, in ogungbamila & udegbe, 2014) indicated that females perceived higher level of injustice at work than males. gender differences in asia have been confirmed even during covid-19. lim et al. (2020) found out that although a substantial share of both men and women anticipated a reduction in the 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 3-22) gendered division of paid work after covid-19, women were not as optimistic as their male counterparts about this potential reduction. especially, younger women were most skeptical about the prospect that paid work will be less divided by gender beyond the pandemic. we can assume that covid-19 may not have crucial impact on injustice perception for women and men. the issue of justice is much deeper and more complex, it has very long history and the waves of social changes are probably not strong enough to change the basis of current unjust society. justice is absent even from covid-19 illness. men are about 60% more likely to be severely ill or to die from the complications of covid-19 than women (rozenberg, vandromme & martin, 2020). lerner and clayton (2011) argue that people's reactions to injustice are intuitive, thus perception of injustice automatically evokes subconscious processes that include situation assessment, cognitive categorization of responses (i.e. sensitivity to injustice) with associated affective experience (i.e. emotions) and a tendency to act (i.e. behavior). from this perspective, people's reactions to injustice can lead, for example, to an intuitive association of a random unfair outcome with perpetrator's previous bad acts (callan et al., 2014) or to urge to punish perpetrator or to help victim of injustice (rand, greene & nowak, 2012). the core element of differences in injustice perception embodies in a different level of sensitivity, which may influence the emotional and behavioral response to injustice. this tendency to perceive others' behavior as unfair or to perceive oneself as an object of unfair treatment is defined as sensitivity to injustice (lovaš, 1995). sensitivity to injustice refers to an individual’s concern for justice which leads to interindividual differences in intensity of disturbance, discomfort or indignation experienced by an individual in situations related to injustice. scholars argue women are more justice sensitive compared to men (e.g. schmitt et al., 2010). this difference may reflect women’s elevated emotional vulnerability, as well as social and gender role or brain activation. the perception of injustice has a significant relation to the character of an emotional reaction, specifically in terms of subjective emotional state and consequences of these emotions (mikula, scherer & athenstaedt, 1998). traditional justice concept argues perception of injustice can lead to emotional state which can increase motivation to re-establish justice. if an individual experiences injustice, he / she feels anger or even rage most often. these two dynamic emotions are considered "emotions of justice" and thus denisa rovenská 7 may represent factors significantly influencing perception of injustice (lively, steelman & powell, 2010). in the context of gender, few gender differences were found in experience and expression of anger. rather, contextual factors (e.g. gender of an decision-maker) have stronger effect on emotional responses than gender of a victim (johnson et al., 2007). the theoretical literature has been emphasizing anger as main emotional response to injustice, however there is a limited amount of research dealing with emotional responses in their complexity (e.g. jasper & owens, 2014; krehbiel & cropanzano, 2000; lotz et al., 2011). the reason may be found in statement that people mostly rely on anger to prevent injustice. another explanation may be that anger can produce a sensitivity of injustice perception, because it is normatively difficult for people to respond angrily without believing that their activity is based on justice principles (miller, 2001). people respond to injustice at work by negative emotions, by direct or indirect behavioral response like sabotage, vandalism, resistance, withdrawal or reduced citizenship behaviors (jermier, knights & nord, 1994). douglas and martinko (2001) argue that anger has a strong relationship with attitude towards revenge and workplace aggression. likewise, khattak et al. (2018) found positive relationship between negative emotions (anger) and deviant workplace behaviors. mikula (1993) assumes that victim coping response to injustice is characterized by intensive feelings of anger, disappointment, depression and/or helplessness, strong sense of injustice and a greater number of direct activities aimed at re-establishing justice. several coping strategies have been described in the literature used by individuals to deal with injustice. above all rationalization, helping victim of injustice or blaming victim have been discussed (hafer & gosse, 2011). some authors also identified alternative coping strategies, which individuals use in positive way of understanding the suffering of injustice. for example, it can be an ability to perceive benefits in one's own suffering ("everything bad is good for something"). although there has been an effort to explore this kind of strategies (e.g. davis, nolen-hoeksema, & larson, 1998), this kind of coping has not been explicitly confirmed as effective, and it has a very little attention among scholars. it is essential to mention study by džuka, dalbert and schmitt (2013). the authors focused on identifying specific coping strategies that could 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 3-22) mediate the effect of just world belief in relation to subjective well-being. they were able to define 8 strategies: (1) revenge, (2) intentionality minimizing (e.g. intention to harm), (3) forgiveness, (4) rumination avoiding (e.g. selfregretting: "why this happened just to me?"), (5) consequences minimizing (e.g. of harming activity), (6) self-accusation, (7) forgetting, and (8) non-adaptive reaction. moreover, they found out that four chosen strategies could create one factor named "assimilative coping response to injustice " people who cope with injustice in that way are likely to eliminate a negative experience caused by injustice through cognitive reinterpretation, which has assimilative character. the ambition of theoretical part was to define and clarify the key variables of the contribution and subsequently empirical part will focus on analysing these variables in term of statistic procedures. methods objectives the aim of the study is to investigate character of relationship between women's sensitivity to injustice, affect, employment sector and coping with work injustice during covid-19. sample and data collection procedures the sample consisted of 208 women. respondents aged from 18 59 years (m = 26.08, sd = 7.39). regarding the level of education, 0.8 percent had completed primary education, 45.2 percent had completed the secondary level, and 54 percent were university certificate holders. the average length of an employment was 7.88 years (sd = 8.39). 52.2 percent worked in public sector, and 43.8 percent were employed in private sector. data were collected from slovak republic using an online self-report survey delivered in slovak language by google forms during covid-19 situation (between may 21 and july 1, 2020). sample was not demographically representative. participation was voluntary and anonymous; all respondents were treated in accordance with the ethical guidelines. denisa rovenská 9 measurements respondents completed a general socio demographics questionnaire wherein they indicated age, sex (male/female), education level (primary/secondary/tertiary education), and type of sector in which they were employed (private/public sector). instruction for filling the questionnaire was the key element which described the concept of justice at work during covid-19: "workplace could be quite unfair toward women suggesting salary, benefits, little value to their voice, career growth and it has showed that covid-19 pandemic exacerbates injustice at work moreover. think about specific work situation during covid-19 which you have perceived as unfair to you and try to approach this survey through those eyes." respondents completed the following measures: justice sensitivity inventory (schmitt et al., 2010; slovak version lovaš, 1995) measure includes four questionnaire scales measuring (1) victim ("it makes me angry when others receive a reward that i have earned."), (2) observer ("i am upset when someone does not get a reward he/she has earned."), (3) beneficiary ("i have a bad conscience when i receive a reward that someone else has earned."), and (4) perpetrator sensitivity ("i feel guilty when i treat someone worse than others."). each scale contained 10 items that were answered on a 6-point rating scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 6 (exactly). the scale of victim sensitivity was used in research according to nature of study. cronbach´s alpha in this research was .86. positive affect scale and negative affect scale (slovak version džuka & dalbert, in džuka, 2019) the emotional component of subjective wellbeing was assessed by the positive affect scale consisting of four descriptors (enjoyment, happiness, joy, feeling fresh) and the negative affect scale comprising six descriptors (anger, guilt feeling, shame, fear, pain and sadness). respondents were asked to state how often they experienced each of these states. the answers were given on a 6-point scale ranging from 1 (almost never) to 6 (almost always). cronbach´s alpha values were: (a) positive affect scale .89, (b) negative affect scale .67. brief cope (carver, 1997; slovak version ficková, 1992) 28-item multidimensional measure of strategies used for coping or regulating cognitions in response to stressors. this abbreviated inventory (based on the complete 60-item cope inventory) is comprised of items that assess the frequency with which a person uses different coping strategies ("i've been 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 3-22) turning to work or other activities to take my mind off things," "i've been making fun of the situation," or "i’ve been criticizing myself") rated on a scale from 1 (i haven't been doing this at all) to 4 (i've been doing this a lot). there are 14 two-item subscales within the brief cope, and each is analysed separately: (1) active coping (α = .53), (2) planning (α = .45), (3) use of emotional support (α = .51), (4) use of instrumental support (α = .68), (5) positive reframing (α = .71), (6) acceptance (α = .49), (7) religion (α = .88), (8) humor (α = .83), (9) venting (α = .73), (10) denial (α = .59), (11) substance use (α = .90), (12) behavioural disengagement (α = .47), (13) self-distraction (α = .62), and (14) self-blame (α = .81). 14 scales can be divided into two dimensions, 8 of which measure adaptive coping strategies (scales 1 8), and 6 of which focus on maladaptive coping (scales 9 14) (meyer, 2001). evidence indicates adaptive coping scales tend to be linked with desirable outcome, whereas maladaptive coping scales tend to be associated with undesirable outcome (carver et al., in meyer, 2001). many studies on brief cope have used the combined subscales (adaptive versus maladaptive coping) (e.g. cooper et al., 2006; garcía et al., 2018; meyer, 2001). cronbach´s alpha values were: (a) adaptive coping .60, (b) maladaptive coping .62. statistical analysis the data were processed using spss 20. descriptive statistics were used to summarize data from a sample using indexes such as the mean and standard deviation. one sample t-test was used to test whether there were differences (1) between negative affect and positive affect among women, (2) between adaptive coping and maladaptive coping among women. an independent samples t-test was used to compare (1) the level of victim sensitivity between women employed in public and private sector, (2) the level of positive / negative affect between women employed in public and private sector, (3) adaptive / maladaptive coping between women employed in public and private sector. pearson correlation was used to analyze the relationship between two variables (tested variables victim sensitivity, negative affect, positive affect, adaptive coping, maladaptive coping). multiple regression was used to analyze linear relationship between selected predictors (victim sensitivity, negative affect, positive affect, employment sector) and one outcome variable (adaptive coping, maladaptive coping). all statistical methods were implemented according to their conditions. denisa rovenská 11 results women reported higher level of victim sensitivity (m = 4.55; sd = .85; items were answered on a 6-point rating scale ranging from 1 not at all to 6 exactly). in other words, women were very sensitive to work injustice from a victim's perspective. there were no differences in the level of victim sensitivity between women employed in public and private sector (public sector: m = 4.51, sd = .79; private sector: m = 4.68, sd = .89; t(206) = -1.453, p = .148). the experience of work injustice evocated negative affect rather than positive affect (na: m = 3.33, sd = .89; pa: m = 1.58, sd = .94; t(207) = 20.49, p < .001). women felt anger mostly in situations of work injustice (m = 4.45; sd = 1.28; 6-point scale ranging from 1 almost never to 6 almost always). frequencies for various emotions are provided in table 1. table 1: the emotional component of subjective well-being emotion m sd anger 4.45 1.28 sadness 4.16 1.51 pain 3.16 1.53 fear 2.89 1.51 shame 2.68 1.45 guilt feeling 2.53 1.30 feeling fresh 1.65 1.13 enjoyment 1.61 1.02 happiness 1.59 1.17 joy 1,56 1.09 source: author based on research results there were no differences in the level of negative affect between women employed in public and private sector (public sector: m = 3.26, sd = .86; private sector: m = 3.41, sd = .92; t(206) = -1.210, p = .228). there were no differences in the level of positive affect between women employed in public and private sector, neither (public sector: m = 1.54, sd = .97; private sector: m = 1.63, sd = .91; t(206) = -.671, p = .503). results showed women used adaptive coping more than maladaptive coping (table 3; ac: m = 3.81, sd = .65; mc: m = 2.93, sd = .75; t(207) = 15.47, p < .001). specifically, they most frequently coped actively with 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 3-22) injustice at work (m = 4.43, sd = .99; table 2). frequencies for use of various coping strategies in work injustice situations are provided in table 2. table 2: coping strategies coping strategy m sd active coping 4.43 .99 planning 4.30 1.04 use of emotional support 4.29 1.16 use of instrumental support 4.25 1.18 positive reframing 3.78 1.24 acceptance 3.73 1.12 self-distraction 3.69 1.34 venting 3.65 1.05 self-blame 3.26 1.48 humor 3.10 1.44 behavioral disengagement 2.72 1.11 religion 2.70 1.80 denial 2.50 1.35 substance use 1.66 1.25 source: author based on research results there were differences in adaptive coping between women employed in public and private sector. women in private sector used adaptive coping more than women in public sector (public sector: m = 3.73; sd = .56; private sector: m = 3.92; sd = .74; t(206) = -2.176, p = .031). there were no differences in maladaptive coping between women employed in public and private sector (public sector: m = 2.87, sd = .69; private sector: m = 3.01, sd = .82; t(206) = -1.376, p = .170). table 3 shows the means, sd and bivariate correlations among the main variables. victim sensitivity and negative affect were positively correlated (r = .247, p < .01). correlation between negative affect and adaptive coping was positive (r = .217, p < .01). correlation between negative affect and maladaptive coping was positive, as well (r = .441, p < .01). table 3: means, sd and correlations between measured variables (n=208) denisa rovenská 13 m sd 1 2 3 4 1 victim sensitivity 4.55 .85 2 negative affect 3.31 .88 .247** 3 positive affect 1.60 .95 .021 .090 4 adaptive coping 2.89 1.51 -.027 .217** .088 5 maladaptive coping 2.68 1.45 .112 .441** .121 .284** source: author based on research results ** p < .01 the linear model explaining adaptive coping was statistically significant [f (4, 203) = 3.858, p = .005, r2 = .071] and explained 7.1% of the variance in adaptive coping. the model showed negative affect and type of employment sector significantly contributed to adaptive coping (table 4). table 4: linear model explaining adaptive coping adaptive coping f (4, 203) = 3.858; p = .005 b s.e. ß t p victim sensitivity -.053 .054 -.068 -.977 .330 negative affect .149 .052 .203 2.892 .004 positive affect .055 .047 .080 1.180 .239 type of sector .178 .089 .136 1.994 .047 source: author based on research results taking into consideration that negative affect was significant predictor of adaptive coping there was a need for further analysis. the linear model explaining adaptive coping in the context of negative affect was statistically significant [f (6, 201) = 2.413, p = .028, r2 = .067] and explained 6.7% of the variance in adaptive coping. the model showed solely sadness contributed to adaptive coping (b = .063, s.e. = .035, ß = .147, t = 1.791, p = .045). the linear model explaining maladaptive coping was statistically significant [f (4, 203) = 13.679, p < .001, r2 = .212] and explained 21.2% of the variance in maladaptive coping. the model showed only negative affect significantly contributed to maladaptive coping (table 5). 14 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 3-22) table 5: linear model explaining maladaptive coping maladaptive coping f (4, 203) = 13.679; p < .001 b s.e. ß t p victim sensitivity -.016 .058 -.018 -.275 .784 negative affect .374 .055 .443 6.851 <.001 positive affect .059 .050 .074 1.182 .239 type of sector .085 .095 .057 .901 .369 source: author based on research results the linear model explaining maladaptive coping in the context of negative affect was statistically significant [f (6, 201) = 8.912, p < .001, r2 = .21] and explained 21% of the variance in maladaptive coping. the model showed guilt (b = .088, s.e. = .040, ß = .156, t = 2.198, p = .029) and sadness (b = .094, s.e. = .037, ß = .189, t = 2.502, p = .013) contributed to maladaptive coping. discussion victim sensitivity is a self-related concern for justice. according to thomas, baumert and schmitt (2012) justice sensitivity is assumed to include four psychological components, a perceptual component and three components concerning different kinds of reactions to injustice: 1. perception it is assumed that persons high in justice sensitivity possess a low perceptual threshold for injustice compared to persons low in justice sensitivity, and therefore detect an injustice even if there are only a few and weak cues indicating this; the assumed characteristic reactions toward perceived injustice are the following: 2. emotion on the emotional level, strong reactions are indicative of persons high in justice sensitivity; 3. cognition on the level of cognition, high justice sensitivity results in repetitive and intrusive thoughts about injustice; 4. motivation on the level of motivation, persons high in justice sensitivity feel an urge to restore justice and show a willingness to act toward this goal. denisa rovenská 15 in other words, scholars hypothesize there is relationship between sensitivity, cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspect of justice perception. our study focused solely on emotional aspect and behavioral aspect as reactions toward perceived injustice. nevertheless, it has brought quite interesting results. first, there was relationship between victim justice sensitivity and negative affect (women were very victim sensitive to work injustice and mostly felt anger in situations of work injustice). mikula, scherer and athenstaedt (1998) argue that women who are victims of injustice (compared to men) consider these situations to be more unfair and less justified. furthermore, considering that women may present a greater development in the perception of their own emotions and therefore would be more prompt to resort to them to face a stressful (unjust) situation (garcía et al., 2018). those who are victim sensitive react strongly to situations that advantage others and disadvantage the self, such as when others are undeservingly better off than victim herself/himself. a victim who is highly sensitive to injustice is interested in justice but, on the other hand, he/she fears that it will be exploited by other party (baumert et al., 2012). consequently, this belief ends in a disproportionate aversion to expectations that others hide their intentions (gollwitzer & rothmund, 2009). as a result, victim reacts more sensitively (gollwitzer & rothmund, 2009), evaluates others through anger (gollwitzer et al., 2012) and shows a lower willingness to cooperate. the victim's responses are driven by anger in order to restore justice (schmitt & maes, 2006). second, there was (1) relationship between negative affect and adaptive coping, (2) relationship between negative affect and maladaptive coping. third, the linear models explaining coping showed that (1) negative affect (sadness) and type of employment sector significantly contributed to adaptive coping, (2) negative affect (guilt, sadness) significantly contributed to maladaptive coping. adaptive responses of coping include direct coping, if the problem can be solved, reappraisal, regulated emotional expression, and non-repressive self-control (connor-smith & flachsbart, 2007). adaptive coping means respond in a mature and healthy manner, use knowledge to adjust to negative situation and avoid an overreaction or other wrong reactions. on the other hand, maladaptive coping includes rigid dysfunctional approach coping (rumination, venting, confrontation) and rigid maladaptive avoidance based 16 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 3-22) on abandonment, social isolation, inhibition, and emotional suppression (connor-smith & flachsbart, 2007). traditional approach stresses the link between negative affect and maladaptive coping. when people experience injustice, their affect is negative and their coping strategies are characterized by sabotage, vandalism, resistance, withdrawal or reduced citizenship behaviors (jermier, knights & nord, 1994). it is necessary to remember that these types of strategies for injustice reflect synergistically character of coping. coping strategies for injustice such as sabotage or revenge explain coping with injustice in an interaction framework which includes situational factors, social characteristics, stressor's conditions faced by individual and/or his/her social roles. however, our research looked at coping with work injustice during covid-19 through the lens of an idiosyncratic framework and took into account only coping strategies by which woman can cope with work injustice during covid-19 by herself (i.e. from her point of view; subjective reduction of work injustice consequences experienced during covid-19). unfortunately, scholars have not yet paid a lot of attention to this type of research, and therefore it is not possible to compare our results with other studies. the variability of the results could reflect the uniqueness and dynamics of women's emotional world. women are very sensitive to changes and their feelings are influenced by social context. it was said that female identity is more focused on being with others (fula, 2004), thereby unexpected pandemic crisis exploiting work injustice could create specific emotional and behavioral reactions. as it has been shown, negative affect was related to both adaptive and maladaptive coping. it is necessary to seek answers in deeper analysis of relationships between individual negative emotions and particular coping strategies to understand specific nuances. adaptive coping is focused on constructive ways of responding to unfair situation, and it can be controlled by negative affect such as sadness. this emotion can motivate woman to cope with work injustice through accepting, gaining perspective, and an effort to understand the meaning of "why work injustice happened" rather than trying to live a lifetime of unwarranted self-blame. on the other hand, emotion such as guilt can be found behind maladaptive coping. this type of emotion can evoke a tendency to experience a broad range of negative responses such as worry and self-criticism, to have negative self-image, etc. findings from the current study underscore the importance of taking into account particular emotions when considering differences in coping denisa rovenská 17 responses when we discuss work injustice during covid-19. these results clearly point to diversiform world of emotions that cannot be understood simply through the lens of statistical procedures. negative emotions do not uniquely determine maladaptive coping. it will be always woman's choice how she tries to manage negative affect, and subsequently how it is reflected in coping with work injustice, not only in actual situation of covid-19, but during her life span. finally, discussion-worthy result is also finding pointed to type of employment sector as significant predictor of adaptive coping. our study revealed that women in private sector used adaptive coping more than women in public sector. previous studies have shown significant difference between private and public sector employees, which, in general, indicates lower organizational commitment among public sector employees (buelens & van den broeck, 2007). private sector workers develop a higher effort level compared to those from the public sector (do monte, 2017) and are more satisfied with their work than public sector workers (borges, 2013). if women in private sector are more committed, more satisfied and develop higher efforts, it can reflect logically in adaptive coping strategies. by using active planning, seeking emotional and/or instrumental support women directly works on controlling potential stressor (i.e. injustice) through appropriately targeted behavior, embracing responsibility for resolving situation with her internal resources. it will be beneficial for future research to work with a larger number of respondents, which will in turn improve the representativeness of the sample as well as the adequacy of the linear models. moreover, independent variables explained a smaller proportion of variance in the dependent variable. for this reason, (a) it will be effective to take into account other independent variables which may be potentially related to coping with work injustice, and (b) use structural equation modeling to analyze structural relationships between tested variables. these two steps will offer consistency and comprehensive explanations of the actual research phenomena. it is possible to assume the existence of significant predictors such as (a) dispositional personality traits (e.g. čopková, 2020; köverová, 2014; shi et al., 2009; penley & tomaka, 2002), (b) situational leadership style (armagan & erzen, 2015; loi, lam & chan, 2012), working conditions (lichner, halachová, & lovaš, 2018) or organizational culture (erkutlu, 2011). the other limitation can be found in design of research. the research was conducted during covid-19, and it is possible that this situation could influence the results. it will be essential to 18 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 3-4, 3-22) do another research pointed to work injustice during covid-19. new research should be focused on particular types of justice (distributive, procedural, interactive), it should enquire for aspects of work-life balance during covid-19 or adjustment of working conditions during covid-19. the good option will be also to do interviews with women to catch individual experiences related to life in the context of covid-19. conclusion the present research provided support for the predictive relevance of negative affect and employment sector of work injustice coping framework. gender injustice still exists and occurs in every area of life. women are confronted by discrimination and injustice; 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"teorie spravedlnosti a její možné typologie." pro-fil, 7(1): 24-28. article history: received: 2 november, 2020 accepted: 3 december, 2020 doi: 10.28934/jwee21.34.pp42-60 jel: j24, l26 original scientific paper 2baverage matching levels for two digcomp competence areas of the female entrepreneurs in serbia đina ivanović3 f1 vladimir simović4f2 ivana domazet5 f3 marija antonijević6f4 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t this paper aims to analyze the average level of matching the self-assessment and real-life scenario digital competences questions of serbian female entrepreneurs using an online survey. the authors focused on the questions which belong to the first two areas of the digital competence framework (digcomp). the online survey consisted of four general, and 71 self-assessment and lifescenario combined questions. the survey was distributed and used from the 5th february until the 5th march 2021. results showed that the average matching levels of both areas were higher than 50% (medium). on the other side, according to the authors, they were not on a satisfactory level. the females' best performances in matching (above 80%) were in the "browsing, searching, and filtering data, information and digital content" (segment of the first area) and "interacting through digital technologies" (segment of the second area). opposite, respondents' lowest matching level performances were in the "managing data, 1 corresponding author, e-mail: djina.ivanovic@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381638312430 2 e-mail: vladimir.simovic@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381637777409 3 e-mail: ivana.domazet@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381653537651 4 e-mail: marija.antonijevic@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381628982180 đina ivanović, vladimir simović, ivana domazet, marija antonijević 43 information and digital content" (part of the first area) and "sharing through digital technologies", and "engaging in citizenship through digital technologies" (part of the second area). the results of the conducted research show that female entrepreneurs should pay more attention to required competences for organizing data in digital environments and on competences directed to digital society services. key words: digcomp, framework, digital competences, female entrepreneurs, matching levels, serbia introduction digital skills are among the eight key competences for lifelong learning (european parliament & council, 2006). according to unesco (2021), digital skills are defined as "a range of abilities to use digital devices, communication applications, and networks to access and manage information. they enable people to create and share digital content, communicate and collaborate, and solve problems for effective and creative self-fulfilment in life, learning, work, and social activities at large". digital skills such as digital literacy belong to the group of essential skills in the 21st century, according to eshet alkalai (2004). this is the consequence of enormous changes in all industries, especially in the information technology (it) industry (domazet & lazić, 2017). there are always significant gaps between market-required digital competences and their actual levels (simović & domazet, 2021). the study conducted on workforce age 16-64 by bradić & banović (2018) indicated a low level of digital skills in most respondents, and 62.6% of them were female (female respondents who do not have any digital skills or have low skills). this is in line with the results of eurostat's digital skills indicator quoted in the same paper of bradić-martinović & banović (2018), which shows that almost half of the respondents have low digital skills or do not have any skills at all. that information is vital because it can be used as a benchmark since this research investigates the levels of digital skills of females, with the particular emphasis on the first two areas of the digcomp 2.0: the digital competence framework for citizens (in further text digcomp). three reasons were the motive for conducting this research. the first motive is based on the fact that digital skills are crucial for harmonization with european union regulations. the key leaders of the republic of serbia 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 42-60) have been trying since 2012 to harmonize with the eu regulation by introducing the new strategic documents in education (domazet, lazić & simović, 2014). the primary goal of moving forward is to improve the educational system using more interactive information and communication technology in the education process (ivanović & antonijević, 2020). the second motive was that the entrepreneurial industry in serbia has grown in all quarters of 2020, despite the contemporary crisis caused by covid-19. comparing the total percentages in 2020 and 2019 has increased by 2% y-oy (statistical office of serbia, 2021). the third motive was that similar research had not been yet conducted in the republic of serbia. this study provides valuable data about female entrepreneurs', which today belongs to the major factors of a country’s prosperity (achakpa & radović-marković, 2018) competences and represents a valuable basis for future research in this field. literature review there is a few literature in the world on measuring female entrepreneurs' digital competences and none, as previously mentioned, in the republic of serbia. as noted by the author rizza (2014): "digital competences is the general term used to describe or explain the ability (of a citizen, a student, a teacher, etc.) in a specific context". the primary source for creating the survey for this research was the project "digital competences development system (dcds)" and the "digcomp" framework implementation. the value of this framework implementation can be found in different case studies from spain, denmark, italy, hungary, poland and others (kluzer & pujol, 2018). the framework consists of five areas and several segments in every area. the areas are as follows as per kluzer and pujol (2018): 1. information and data literacy − browsing, searching, and filtering data, information and digital content − evaluating data, information and digital content − managing data, information and digital content 2. communication and collaboration − interacting through digital technologies − sharing through digital technologies đina ivanović, vladimir simović, ivana domazet, marija antonijević 45 − engaging in citizenship through digital technologies − collaborating through digital technologies − netiquette − managing digital identity 3. digital content creation − developing digital content − integrating and re-elaborating digital content − copyright and licenses − programming 4. safety − protecting devices − protecting personal data and privacy − protecting health and well-being − protecting the environment 5. problem-solving − solving technical problems − identifying needs and technological responses − creatively using digital technologies − identifying digital competence gaps in this research, the first two areas are used to measure the digital competences of female entrepreneurs. since those areas are more comprehensive and broader than other areas and can be explained as the first step and a base for further digital improvement, they were selected to be measured and evaluated. the importance of choosing these areas can be explained by the fact that people should have basic skills (consisted of the first two digcomp areas) to upgrade their knowledge to higher levels (other areas). digital competences provide a high potential for economic growth in every country (radović-marković, 2016). to stay up to date with the skills required in job vacancies, people should know their competences' levels at the moment and try to improve them. according to european commission (2017), 44% of the eu population had an insufficient level of digital competences, meaning they did not possess the minimum – basic digital competences to meet the needs in 2016. 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 42-60) according to the digital economy and society index (desi) of the european commission, women in the eu have a special digital scoreboard created to monitor women's participation in the digital economy and society. the monitor is named "the women in digital (wid)", and it measures the performance of the women based on twelve indicators. the wid in 2020 stated the following (european commission, 2020): − women are still less likely to have specialist digital skills and work in this field than men, as only 18% of ict specialists in the eu are women. − the gender gap is present in all twelve indicators measured − the gap in basic digital skills has narrowed from 10.5% in 2015 to 7.7% in 2019. serbia has been trying actively to improve women position by adopting national strategy for gender equality from 2009 (pavlović & ognjenović, 2020). the action plan for implementing the national strategy for gender equality for 2019 and 2020 recognized the need for increasing the competences in the ict sector (national strategy citated by the association of the business women in serbia, 2019). the same organization noted that one of the growth measures required were skills for digital entrepreneurship (2019). regarding this action plan, authors anđelković, jakovi and kovač (2019), from the dea-center for public policy research (as the part of the team project awakening of women’s digital entrepreneurship project) did the research which aim was to empower and promote women’s entrepreneurship development. in mentioned research, authors gave the suggestions for overcoming obstacles in starting digital entrepreneurship. those authors quoted that developing gender-sensitive training for writing business plans, training in bookkeeping, development and business management, and training women-potential entrepreneurs are required for guiding traditional and digital entrepreneurship (2019). in a recent paper of the authors shukla et al. (2021) noted that: "future of women’s entrepreneurship lies in the efficient and effective use of ict". following the mentioned, the year 2020 especially brought enormous demand for digital platforms and digital competence improvement. the reason for that demand was mitigation measures on the covid-19 virus (social distancing, working from home, etc.). according to the authors vučeković et al. (2021), women underestimated their skills regarding working on digital platforms. it can be only assumed that women do not have the necessary digital skills to work remotely (online) or do not have đina ivanović, vladimir simović, ivana domazet, marija antonijević 47 enough confidence to show them. according to the above, this work aimed to measure the female entrepreneurs' digital competences in serbia and compare them with literature results. research methodology this paper aims to overview female entrepreneurs' average matching level (%) on self-assessment and their real-life scenario questions in the republic of serbia. the average matching levels show the correctly matched and answered self-assessment questions (likert scale) and real-life scenario questions (example) in both areas. the reason for having beside self-assessment questions, real-life scenario questions can be commented by the fact that self-assessment tests get immediate feedback which helps students make changes to their understanding and adapting. on the other side, the real-life scenario tests can address the knowledge gaps in understanding (university of connecticut, n/d). another assumption of the different author, fulks (2004), is that self-assessment tests must support conclusions. as a result of these conclusions, both tests need to be combined to get the valid level of competences’. for that purpose, an online survey was created using google forms. it consisted of four general questions (1. education level, 2. place of residence, 3. age, 4. type of business) and 71 questions that represent the mixture of self-assessment and real-life scenario questions, associated with the first two digcomp framework areas (information and data literacy and communication and collaboration). one of the research goals was to compare the subjective opinion of the respondents (questions for selfassessment) with the actual levels of their competences (questions from real life). the survey was active from the 5th february until the 5th march 2021. the structure of the survey questions is given in table 1. the table shows areas and their segments and the number of questions in each segment and total. 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 42-60) table 1: the structure of the survey questions (areas, segments and the number of questions in the survey) the area of the digcomp segments of area no. of selfassessment questions no. of real-life scenario questions the total number of questions information and data literacy browsing, searching and filtering 8 5 13 evaluating data, information and digital content 4 2 6 managing data, information and digital content 4 1 5 communication and collaboration interacting through digital technologies 9 4 13 sharing through digital technologies 4 2 6 engaging in citizenship through digital technologies 8 2 10 collaborating through digital technologies 3 1 4 netiquette 6 2 8 managing digital identity 4 2 6 total number of the questions 50 21 71 source: authors' calculation the first area information and data literacy, had twenty-four questions, based on sixteen self-assessment and eight real-life scenario questions. the second area, named communication and collaboration, consisted of fortyseven questions, conducted from thirty-four self-assessment and thirteen real-life scenario questions. thus, the total number of questions was seventy-one (fifty self-assessment and twenty-one real-life scenario questions). the online survey was shared through cooperative e-mail groups of the associations of female entrepreneurs. the associations were the chamber of đina ivanović, vladimir simović, ivana domazet, marija antonijević 49 commerce of serbia and "biznis na štiklama". the survey was shared with more than 800 e-mail addresses. the total number of a random sample (fullfield and valid surveys) of the respondents for further analysis was 114. results the results were analyzed in two phases. in the first step, the authors have checked answers whether data is valid for further analysis and then, in the second stage, essential data was extracted for this research. in the first chart, the education level of the respondents (female entrepreneurs) is shown. chart 1: the education level of the female entrepreneurs source: authors' calculation as we can see from the chart above, 36.8% of the female entrepreneurs finished bachelor studies, 31.6% high school, 28.9% master studies and 2.6% phd studies. none of the respondents had finished only elementary school. in the following table, the top 5 (in the total number of respondents places) residence places of the female entrepreneurs are shown. 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 42-60) table 2: the top 5 residence places of the female entrepreneurs place of residence % of the respondents novi sad 28.9 kragujevac 28.9 belgrade 21.1 subotica 10.5 užice 2.6 other 8 total 100 source: authors' calculation all city places (100%) are divided into five places with most respondents' shares. the 28.9% had both cities, novi sad and kragujevac. in second place is belgrade with 21.1% and in third and fourth place, subotica and užice. the other towns together had 8% in total. the age structure is given in table 3. table 3: the age structure of the respondents age % of the respondents 18-24 44.7 25-34 13.2 35-44 21.1 45-54 18.4 55-64 2.6 total 100 source: authors' calculation table 3 shows the respondents who mainly had 18-24 years (44.7%) and 35-44 years (21.1%). in table 4, the top three business types with the highest share of female entrepreneurs are shown. đina ivanović, vladimir simović, ivana domazet, marija antonijević 51 table 4: the top three business types of female entrepreneurs business type % of the respondents other service activities 28.9 art, entertainment and recreation 13.2 education 10.5 accommodation and catering services 10.5 other 36.9 total 100 source: authors' calculation based on age structure and the female entrepreneurs' business type, most female entrepreneurs from 18-24 are working in other service activities, in which hairdressing and other beauty treatments are included. also, in the second business type, with the highest share of respondents (art, entertainment and recreation), is the increased potential for young entrepreneurs and the field of education. the other business types have in total 36.9%, but individually do not have more than 3%. the program used to analyze the obtained results was spss 25 software, and its option crosstab with 95% probability to analyze the results based on matching the self-assessment questions to their real-life scenario questions. after matching through the crosstab function, the authors present the results in percentages. to obtain an average matching level, all percentages were summed and divided by the total number of questions in that area. table 5 shows the average matching level between self-assessment results (likert scale questions) and real-life scenario questions for the first area of digcomp (information and data literacy). 52 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 42-60) table 5: the matching between answers on self-assessment questions and real-life scenario questions of the first area, "information and data literacy" self-assessment questions real-life scenario questions % of the respondents who answered with 4* on the likert scale (self-assessment) and with the correct answer on its real-life scenario question 1. my ability to use the toolbar buttons and the address bar of a web browser (firefox, chrome, explorer, edge, safari) is: you want to refresh the web page you are visiting. you click... 78.95 2. my ability to use a search engine (google, bing, yahoo) to find the information i need is: you are looking for information about the quality of the railway service in serbia. in order to find it you use... 86.84 3. my ability to navigate inside a website using its internal menu is: 1. click on this link https://www.ien.bg.ac.rs/ then navigate into the website and answer to the following question: how do you find most information about the ies researchers? 2. look at the picture below. the "about" link is an element of: 1. 34.21 2. 78.95 4. my ability to download and save files from the internet is: what does it mean to download a file from the internet onto your local device? 84.21 5. my ability to differentiate the official website of a service or product provider from other non-official websites is: please, click on the two links below and then answer: which one is the official website of ryanair? 57.89 https://www.ien.bg.ac.rs/,and đina ivanović, vladimir simović, ivana domazet, marija antonijević 53 self-assessment questions real-life scenario questions % of the respondents who answered with 4* on the likert scale (self-assessment) and with the correct answer on its real-life scenario question 6. my ability to differentiate promoted/advertised digital content and nonadvertised content on the internet is: look at the images below, showing the results of a google search for "solar panels": which of the highlighted items is advertised content? 10.53 7. my ability to organize folders (create, copy, move, rename, delete) and manage files (create, locate, copy, move, rename, sort, delete,) on my digital device is: you have to store the digital photos that you took in 2016, 2017, 2018 and you want to group them on a monthly basis for quicker retrieval. which of the following folder organization solutions do you choose? 47.37 average matching level of the first area (%) 59.87 *i have sufficient skills to operate on my own source: authors' calculation based on the average matching level, it can be concluded that respondents' (female entrepreneurs) competences of the first digcomp area are in the medium level (a little higher than 50%). one reason for that conclusion is that responses on the first part of the question, "my ability to navigate inside a website using its internal menu are" and its real-life scenario question is below 50% (34.21%). besides that, there is a low percentage (just 10.53%) of correct matching answers on the sixth question, "my ability to differentiate promoted/advertised digital content and nonadvertised content on the internet is". however, on the other side, the matching level on self-assessment questions "my ability to use a search engine (google, bing, yahoo) to find the information i need" and "my ability to download and save files from the internet" and their real-life scenario questions is above 80%. 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 42-60) it can also be concluded that respondents have the highest matching level of the first area in "browsing, searching and filtering" (above 80%), which is essential for retrieving and boosting new skills. on the other side, their weak point is managing data, information and digital content. in other words, female entrepreneurs need to pay more attention to organizing data in digital environments. in table 6, the matching level between the results of self-assessment (likert scale questions) and real-life scenario questions for the second area of digcomp (communication and collaboration) is shown. table 6: the matching level between answers on self-assessment questions and real-life scenario questions of the second area, "communication and collaboration" self-assessment questions real-life scenario questions % of the respondents who answered with 4* on the likert scale (self-assessment question) and with the correct answer on its real-life scenario question 1. my ability to create and save contacts in my digital devices is you are creating a contact on your smartphone about a friend of yours. which of the following sets of information would you include in the contact in order to communicate effectively with your friend? 73.68 2. my ability to send and receive e-mails (send, reply, forward) and to manage them is you have received an e-mail with a file attached from a colleague of yours. you want to send the file to your boss with some changes in the message's text. which of the following steps do you choose? 65.79 3. my ability to send text messages via instant messaging applications (whatsapp, messenger, skype...) is you want to send a short message to a friend of yours, you send it 94.74 đina ivanović, vladimir simović, ivana domazet, marija antonijević 55 4. my ability to create an account to access and use online digital services (e-mail, social media, other interactive public and private services) is look at the image below then answer to the following question: in order to create an account on facebook, you need to 68.42 5. my ability to share files as attachments to an email is what kind of file is it possible to share as an attachment to an email? 86.84 6. my ability to upload self-created content (e.g. a photo) to be shared on websites that request it and/or that give this possibility (social media) is can you share a photo by posting it on a website that you are visiting? 28.95 7. my ability to respond to authentication requests, if that is needed to access (public/private) services websites, is what is an authentication request? 52.63 8. my ability to fill an online form (also using a dropdown list, check box, radio button, calendar and other functions) is you just moved to bologna and you would like to use the municipal civic digital network iperbole. look at the picture below of the service's online access page: what do you have to do in order to access the service? 50 9. my ability to send and receive e-mails with multiple recipients (and "answer to all" to support group communication) is you received an invitation to a party through an e-mail which was sent to you and three other friends of yours. unfortunately, you will not be able to go and you want to inform everybody about it. which of the following e-mail commands would you use to send quickly your regrets message? 81.58 56 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 42-60) 10. my ability to apply basic online writing rules (such as to avoid writing full words in capital letters, to take care of spelling, to refer to others through their nicks or nicknames....) is you have just joined an online professional community and you want to introduce yourself in the general forum. select the most appropriate way to do so among the three choices below 81.58 11. my ability to recognize socially/ethically inappropriate online behavior and communication such as hate speech, flaming, trolling, cyber-bullying, online stalking etc. is look at the images below. which one shows an inappropriate online behaviour/communication? 71.05 12. my ability to recognize the footprints that i willingly leave online using different communication applications (e.g. posts in forums, blogs, "likes", published/shared photos and video etc.) and identify those that may damage my reputation is which of the following actions can damage your reputation? 60.53 13. my ability to adjust my online profile depending on the potential audience (formal-informal, professional, official, thematic etc.) is look at the pictures below. which one would you use as a profile picture in a professional social network? 60.53 average matching level of the second area (%) 67.41 *i have sufficient skills to operate on my own source: authors' calculation đina ivanović, vladimir simović, ivana domazet, marija antonijević 57 based on the second digcomp area results, the average matching level of self-assessment questions and their real-life scenario questions is 67.41%. that percent can be commented as higher than the medium level of 50%. the highest matching level is on the question "my ability to send text messages via instant messaging applications (whatsapp, messenger, skype...)" with 94.74%, as well as on questions "my ability to share files as attachments to an e-mail" with 86.84% and "my ability to send and receive e-mails with multiple recipients..." and "my ability to apply basic online writing rules..." with the 81.58%. to sum up, this sample of female entrepreneurs has the highest matching level of the second area in interacting through digital technologies (above 80%), which is essential for establishing cooperation with other people and nurturing relationships. on the other side, the lowest matching level was in sharing through digital technologies and engaging in citizenship through digital technologies. hence, the female entrepreneurs need to pay more attention to the competences directed to social services participation as a citizen. conclusion even though this paper is not a national representative, it can be a reasonable basis for expanding this topic's research scope. given the information above, it can be noticed that even though digital competences are necessary, there is a possibility of a competences gap that needs to be filled. comparing results from the paper and other literature mentioned, it can be concluded that there is a 'lower level' matching of essential competences (both areas of the digcomp in the text) even though some of them are higher than average (above 50%). the results showed that more attention is needed for competences required for online involvement as a citizen, organizing in digital environments and recognizing appropriate digital technologies for sharing. further research will analyze the matching levels of their selfassessment and real-life scenario questions based on the other three digcomp areas implemented on female entrepreneurs. 58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 42-60) acknowledgements the research was supported by the ministry of education, science and technology development of the republic of serbia. limitations of the research as this research is done on a small sample, it is required to do the research 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(ed.), stagnancy issues and change initiatives for global education in the digital age (pp. 259-282). igi global. http://doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-4993-3.ch012 http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/document.cfm?doc_id=44390 https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/women-digital-0 http://doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-4993-3.ch012 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 42-60) [22] statistical office of the republic of serbia. 2021. available at https://www.stat.gov.rs/ [23] statistical office of the republic of serbia. 2019. available at https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs [24] unesco. 2021. available at https://en.unesco.org/ [25] university of connecticut. n.d. available at https://cetl.uconn.edu/resources/assessment-of-learning/assessmentdesign/comparing-assessment-tools-methods/# [26] vučeković, miloš, radović-marković, mirjana, đukanović, borislav, duković, svetlana and dragojević, arsen. 2021. gender aspects of working from home in serbia. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, (1-2): 18-36. article history: received: april 3rd, 2021 accepted: july 21st, 2021 https://www.stat.gov.rs/ https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/ https://en.unesco.org/ https://cetl.uconn.edu/resources/assessment-of-learning/assessment-design/comparing-assessment-tools-methods/ https://cetl.uconn.edu/resources/assessment-of-learning/assessment-design/comparing-assessment-tools-methods/ doi: 10.28934/jwee21.12.pp70-83 jel: j60, o150 preliminary reports 4bwomen entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) elena seredkina10 f1 perm national research polytechnic university, faculty of humanities, department of philosophy and law, perm, russia olga burova1 1f2 olga ganina1 2f3 perm national research polytechnic university, faculty of humanities, department of sociology, perm, russia a b s t r a c t the article is devoted to the analysis of the level of development of women's entrepreneurship in the context of the pandemic and the crisis of 2020. the thesis that women's entrepreneurship was most affected by the covid19 pandemic was verified. the article presents the results of an original focus group interview with female entrepreneurs of the perm region (russia), conducted with the aim of studying their social well-being and adaptation to the conditions of the pandemic. despite negative assessments of socio-cultural conditions and measures to support women's entrepreneurship in russia, there is a high adaptability of russian female entrepreneurs to crisis conditions. female entrepreneurs find new opportunities for business development, expect the further development of women's business communities and the reduction of gender inequality. based on the results of the focus group the qualities that contribute to the more successful adaptation of female entrepreneurs to the conditions of the covid19 pandemic were 1 corresponding author, e-mail: elena_seredkina@pstu.ru, tel. +79197106179 2 e-mail: olgabu@mail.ru , tel. 79027932613 3 e-mail: ganinaoa@yandex.ru, tel. 79028072950 elena seredkina, olga burova, olga ganina 71 highlighted: the ability to establish and maintain social ties (networking), focus on the social importance of business, flexibility in making new decisions and focus on learning. key words: women's entrepreneurship, pandemic, covid19, small and medium-sized businesses, risk factors, opportunities introduction the crisis caused by the covid19 pandemic has significantly affected private business, primarily small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as individual entrepreneurs (zaitseva, kokina, & pecheritsa, 2020). in terms of the depth and scale of its impact, this crisis can be compared to a humanitarian catastrophe. the pandemic's economic crisis hit women's entrepreneurship particularly hard (un women, 2020; we forum, 2020). un and world bank reports show that female entrepreneurs have suffered more than men from the crisis: 64% versus 52% (sme competitiveness outlook 2020: covid19, p. 32). thus, it was feared that covid19 pandemic could significantly reduce the economic empowerment of women, further increasing the gender gap. an increasing number of studies are now focusing on gender differences when analyzing the impact of the pandemic on private entrepreneurship (koltai and geambasu, 2020; vasilić, popović-pantić, & semenčenko, 2020; manolova et al., 2020). this is critical because womenowned small and medium-sized enterprises tend to be more vulnerable to economic shocks, especially in developing countries, although governments try to provide them with a variety of support (floro, tornqvist, & tas, 2009; unaids, 2012; mingaleva et al., 2014). the high vulnerability of women’s businesses is explained by a number of objective reasons. firstly, the business of female entrepreneurs is mainly concentrated in the types of activities that are most strongly dependent on the state of the regional and global economy tourism and hospitality, retail and wholesale trade, the service sector (sme competitiveness outlook 2020: covid19, p. 32). secondly, compared to men, women run younger, smaller, and therefore most vulnerable businesses (vasilić, popović-pantić & semenčenko, 2020). 72 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 70-83) thirdly, traditionally women are more focused on housekeeping, caring for children and other family members (cesaroni, pediconi & sentuti, 2018; jackson, 2019). this functional role of women intensified during the lockdown, when schools, kindergartens, after-school activities places and nursing homes were closed. as a result, women have been given most of the responsibility for family care, including the care of elderly relatives (koltai and geambasu, 2020; vasilić, popović-pantić & semenčenko, 2020, radović -marković & živanović, 2019). fourthly, during the lockdown period increased the “pre-existing gender disparity in business, spanning inferior digital skills, financial marginalization, lack of access to education and disproportionate domestic duties” (the mastercard index of women entrepreneurs, 2020, р. 6). the russian economy is characterized by many global trends caused by the covid19 pandemic. according to the results of the survey of russian entrepreneurs (n = 1500 people), conducted at the end of march 2020, female entrepreneurs are more likely to report the negative consequences of the pandemic for their businesses than men: 90% and 82% respectively (post-pandemic business: recovering from shock, 2020). at the same time, two-thirds of women's businesses (68%) are small organizations with up to 15 employees involved in services, culture, sports and event organization sectors. theoretical background according to the results of the annual study of the mastercard index of women entrepreneurs (miwe), in 2020 russia is ranked the 22nd out of 58 surveyed countries in the overall ranking of countries with the best conditions for women entrepreneurs (in 2019 29th place). at the same time, the international ranking of russia is improved from the 16th to the 3rd place in terms of an indicator reflecting the strengthening of the women’s position in the society (by reducing the gender gap in business from 47% to 16%). in terms of indicators of women's access to finance and knowledge (knowledge assets & financial access) russia moved from the 19th to the 17th place in 2020. in terms of socio-cultural conditions and measures to support women's entrepreneurship (ease of doing business, cultural perceptions of entrepreneurs, quality of governance, entrepreneurial supporting factors), russia still remains at the bottom of the ranking (46-47 place) (the mastercard index of women entrepreneurs, 2020). elena seredkina, olga burova, olga ganina 73 there was an increase in female entrepreneurship in russia before the pandemic. however, in the most cases the reason for women's motivation was the need to provide a source of income in the absence of other work options (global entrepreneurship monitor russia national report, 2020). this is confirmed by various studies of russian scientists. in the process of a survey conducted among perm entrepreneurs (n = 120 people) at the end of 2019 beginning of 2020 it was found that female are twice as likely as male to have forced motivation (24% versus 12%), although both women and men are dominated by voluntary choice of entrepreneurial activity (67% and 75%, respectively) (seletkova & lazukova, 2020). forced motivation for entrepreneurial activity is a factor that hinders the adaptation of female entrepreneurs to crisis conditions. forced motivation in general negatively affects various aspects of labour and entrepreneurial activity, reduces the initiative of people in business and hinders entrepreneurship (mingaleva, deputatova, & starkov, 2016) global entrepreneurship monitor russia 2018 and 2019 results allow us to conclude that russian female entrepreneurs react more sharply to the changes in the socio-economic situation. during the crisis they are more focused on the transition to employment compared to male entrepreneurs. on the other hand, these results indicate that women are better able to adapt to long-term unfavorable economic conditions and find opportunities for entrepreneurial initiatives (global entrepreneurship monitor russia national report, 2020). although, some experts have questioned the traditional gender concepts of crisis response, in which women seek to reduce risk while men seek to take advantage of opportunities and make no distinction between the sexes (maxfield, shapiro, gupta & hasset, 2010; manolova et al., 2020; eagly & carli, 2003). according to a study by the all-russian public organization of small and medium-sized businesses "support of russia" there was a decrease in the index of female entrepreneurial activity because of the covid19 pandemic in 2020 (women business index, 2020). the lowest scores in 2020 were obtained for such an indicator as the "entrepreneurial ecosystem" and the highest for the indicator "personal qualities" that contribute to entrepreneurial activity. at the same time, 58% of the surveyed female entrepreneurs (n = 400 people) received additional education during the last 6 months. this indicates that even in times of crisis women are focused on developing their professional competencies. 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 70-83) moreover, experts note that some women entrepreneurs are trying to reap the benefits associated with the awareness of new opportunities in a situation of pandemic and lockdown. in particular, they try to adapt to extreme conditions, change old business models and offer new products and services. there are successful stories of female entrepreneurs responding creatively to the challenges of the covid19 pandemic (manolova, et al., 2020). for example, 42% of female entrepreneurs have shifted to a digital business model, 37% are developing an area of business to meet local or global needs and 34% have identified new business opportunities since the pandemic (the mastercard index of women entrepreneurs, 2020). due to the pandemic the situation in the perm region (russia) is also unfavorable for female entrepreneurs. a self-isolation regime was introduced in april 2020 in the perm region. many companies were forced to suspend or restrict their activities. restrictions on business were gradually removed from may 2020, but they remain in some areas (mass events, organization of concerts) so far. during the lockdown and the pandemic, the structure of small and medium-sized businesses in the perm region has changed as follows. the number of small and micro-enterprises in the perm region was 92.9% of the values on 03/10/2020 (calculated by the authors based on the data of the unified register of small and medium-sized businesses of the russian federation (the federal tax service, 2021). at the same time, in januarydecember 2020 there was a decrease in retail trade turnover (turnover in comparable prices amounted to 94.7% by 2019), catering turnover (71.5% by 2019), sales of paid services to the population (83.4% of the 2019 level) (socio-economic situation of the perm krai in january-december 2020, 2021). the largest reduction in the volume of paid services in the perm region is observed in areas typical for female entrepreneurship: tourism and hotel business, culture. the dynamics of the reduction in the volume of paid services in typical “female” types of entrepreneurship in the perm region in 2020 is shown in figure 1. elena seredkina, olga burova, olga ganina 75 figure 1: dynamics of the volume of paid services in industries typical for female entrepreneurship in 2020, perm region (russia) (data for 2020 in% to 2019 in comparable prices) source: compiled by the authors based on the report "socio-economic situation of the perm region in january-december 2020, 2021". the regional specificity of the processes under study is determined by a number of factors: 1) the regional structure of the economy and the structure of female entrepreneurship, 2) the forms and timing of restrictions imposed in connection with the covid19 pandemic, 3) business support measures implemented in the region. material and methods a study was conducted in march 2021 using the online focus group discussion method to assess the social well-being female entrepreneurs in perm and their adaptation to the pandemic. online focus group was conducted in real-time using the web conferencing service, which is pretty much in line with the traditional face-to-face focus group method (kite and phongsavan, 2017). focus group is one of the qualitative research methods that do not allow to determine the prevalence of a particular opinion and calculate the shares, percentages, but make it possible to investigate in more depth social attitudes, motives and factors influencing decision-making and 76 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 70-83) people's behavior, focusing on subjective experience and perceptions of study participants. the research methodology was developed on the basis of data from previous russian and world studies and reports: «covid19: the great lockdown and its impact on small business» (sme competitiveness outlook), «the impact of covid19 on women» (un women), the mastercard index of women entrepreneurs, global entrepreneurship monitor, «post-pandemic business: recovering from shock» (nafi research centre), women business index ("support of russia"). the experience of applying qualitative research methods (online focus group and in-depth interviews) was also used to determine strategies for adapting russian small and medium-sized businesses to the conditions of the pandemic (small business crash test, 2020). this research was carried out with the support of the all-russian public organization of small and medium-sized enterprises "support of russia". the study was conducted with the aim of identifying the characteristics of the social well-being of female entrepreneurs in the context of the pandemic’s the impact on the business sector. in this regard, the main objectives of the focus group interview were: 1) to determine the characteristics of female entrepreneurship, incl. motivation and barriers to starting a business; 2) to study the subjective assessment of the favorableness of social conditions for female entrepreneurship: the attitude from the social environment, the business environment and the state; 3) to highlight the main problems faced by female entrepreneurs in the context of the pandemic, as well as options for responding to these problems; 4) to determine the factors that contribute to and hinder the adaptation of female entrepreneurs to the conditions of the covid19 pandemic (in comparison with men entrepreneurs); 5) to identify the ideas of entrepreneurs regarding the prospects for the development of female entrepreneurship. the participants in the discussion were seventeen representatives of the perm female entrepreneurship, who run their business as the main type of activity that constitutes their main source of income. the business ladies had more than 10 years of business experience, and their age was 35-55 years old. the main areas of their business activities are the beauty and elena seredkina, olga burova, olga ganina 77 sport industry, crop production, retail trade, accounting services, and the manufacturing sector. results the results of this study show that the main motives for women entering business are self-realization, the desire for financial independence and contribution to family well-being. often business for a woman is not an end in itself and not a means of earning, but a tool for creating socially significant services and products (education and upbringing of children, meeting the needs of women in the field of health and beauty, etc.). generally, russian women come into business after the birth of children. external support is extremely important for women to enter entrepreneurship, as they are less self-confident, less inclined to take risks and often have to overcome psychological barriers associated with the place and role of women in society (jianakoplos & bernasek 1998; rigolini, gabaldon & le bruyn goldeng, 2021; rubio-banona & esteban-lloret, 2016; eagly,1987). according to the respondents who participated in the study opposition to women's business activity is widespread both in families and in the society. counteraction is expressed in mistrust of women's initiatives, disdain for women's abilities, restraint in the form of an appeal to “female” household roles, and in some cases, intimidation. a similar attitude in the family, among business partners, landlords and other contractors significantly reduces the number of women who are involved in entrepreneurship. according to the observations of the participants, who for three years have participated in teaching free business education under the “motherentrepreneur” program, not only opposition, but even a simple lack of support is blocking female business activity. in such a situation, the position of society is extremely important even a little help or advice provided at the start often plays a decisive role. however, along with these issues, it can be noted that the covid19 pandemic has highlighted a number of strengths of female entrepreneurs. for example, focus group participants note that, according to their experience, men are less adaptive, more withdrawn and more vulnerable due to excessive male pride. women tend to have a more flexible and active approach, a more positive outlook on things. at the same time, they show a higher level of social responsibility, they are ready to take care of children 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 70-83) and elderly relatives not out of a sense of duty, but at the behest of their hearts. the respondents confirm that women entrepreneurs have experienced more significant losses in business than men. this is due to the concentration of women in precisely those spheres of activity that were most affected by the pandemic tourism, the beauty and fitness industries, retail trade, catering, and educational services. at the same time, all respondents noted that the peculiarities of women in doing business have become not a source of vulnerability in the context of the covid19 pandemic, but on the contrary a key resource for overcoming the crisis. women actively create communities, take an active position in any interactions, build relationships with all parties involved in business processes, which ultimately creates an ecosystem of mutual support, information, partnership. these are the ecosystems that have become the basis for finding creative solutions, new ideas and obtaining relevant information. at the same time, as a rule, men refused this format of cooperation. this is especially noticeable with the example of landlords. judging by the experience of the participants, female landlords went towards tenants and significantly reduced payments, helping to keep the business, winning in the long term, in contrast to male landlords who did not change conditions, were tough, adamant and indifferent to the problems of tenants. another feature of female entrepreneurs that helped them overcome the consequences of the lockdown and the pandemic is the willingness of women to improve their professional skills and to learn. the respondents note that in all offline and online business courses the vast majority of participants are female. in their opinion, self-esteem does not allow male entrepreneurs to attend educational courses, especially if the teacher is a woman. they prefer to learn from their own mistakes. for the further development of female entrepreneurship, the respondents consider it extremely important to provide women with a real opportunity to choose between entrepreneurship and other forms of organizing their lives. a prerequisite for this is the gradual removal of society from stereotypes about the abilities of women, the traditional “female share” and other constraining factors. it should be noted that in comparison with the older generation young people (20-30 years old) are already largely freed from the influence of such stereotypes, which indicates the presence of clear positive dynamics. elena seredkina, olga burova, olga ganina 79 this is also related to the leveling of conditions for doing business for women and men. participants note that gender equality is observed in matters of government support, business management procedures, fulfillment of obligations and compliance with requirements. however, women meet enormous resistance from society, rejection and even disrespect at the stages of the start of new ideas, directions, in situations of any negotiations, in the context of the manifestation of initiatives even at the formal level (the respondents cited examples of legislative initiatives of women's communities). this makes entrepreneurial conditions unequal for male and female participants. according to the businesswoman of the perm region the solution is to develop networking among women entrepreneurs and female business communities in addition to eliminating stereotypical perception in society. in general, the respondents see positive prospects for female entrepreneurship, since more and more women has come into this sphere, and the state of the social environment has a positive trend in terms of reducing the role of stereotypes and eliminating inequality. in addition, in the context of the expanding automation of work and everyday life, more and more time and effort for women is freed up for active work, including entrepreneurial. at the same time, business areas, which are predominantly female often prioritize not the company's profit, but social value, created utility or problem solving. this approach is becoming one of the most important business trends in the modern globalizing world. in connection with the above circumstances female entrepreneurship is perceived as a promising and socially significant part of business. the conditions of the pandemic are testing predominantly female spheres of business (due to the peculiarities of these spheres themselves), however, the very feminine approach to doing business contains resources for overcoming crises and using new business opportunities that are opening up. conclusion the results of a study on the behavior of female entrepreneurs in perm region during the covid19 pandemic has showed the following. firstly, the situation in female entrepreneurship in perm region is in line with the global trends. the consequences of the pandemic had a more negative impact on female entrepreneurship for objective and subjective reasons: female entrepreneurs in russia and in perm region do business in the 80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 70-83) sectors of the economy most affected by the pandemic and do not receive sufficient (subjectively expected) social support. the pandemic has greatly increased the vulnerability of female entrepreneurs. at the same time, female entrepreneurship is characterized by qualities that contribute to a more successful adaptation to the conditions of a pandemic the ability to establish and maintain social ties, an orientation towards the social significance of business, flexibility and readiness to master new competencies and types of activities. one of the ways to overcome the crisis for female entrepreneurs is additional education. the research participants have demonstrated a pronounced focus on professional development, training in offline and online courses. women who have managed to keep their businesses amid a pandemic positively assess their prospects, expect further development of women's business communities and a decrease in negative stereotypes towards female entrepreneurship in society. the focus group method allowed to find out the opinion of the most active part of female entrepreneurs who were able to maintain their business in the context of the pandemic and even develop it. however, the application of this method has objective limitations for research since it allows to cover only a small part of female entrepreneurs and does not allow quantitative assessments of phenomena and processes. however, the results obtained reflect the main risks, problems and opportunities that small businesses face as a result of the pandemic. the data obtained will be used in the future to develop a quantitative (standardized) survey of different groups of women entrepreneurs. in particular, it is planned to interview female entrepreneurs who have closed or mothballed their businesses, female entrepreneurs who are experiencing current difficulties in doing business, female entrepreneurs who intend to 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https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020%20/05/industries-gender-women-coronavirus-covid19-economic "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references doi: 10.28934/jwee22.12.pp19-38 jel: o150, o170, j160 original scientific paper 1bthe role of self-help groups (shgs) in business growth of indian nascent women entrepreneurs: during the pandemic period sabiha fazalbhoy3f1 symbiosis centre for management studies, pune, symbiosis international (deemed) university, faculty of management, pune, india saikat gochhait4f2 symbiosis institute of digital and telecom management, symbiosis international (deemed) university, faculty of management, pune, india a b s t r a c t the purpose of the current study is to understand the role of shgs in business growth of nascent women entrepreneurs in the indian context during the pandemic period. it is a primary study of 220 indian shg women entrepreneurs using a structured questionnaire-based survey using 12 well-defined variables extracted from the literature to explain the construct’s ‘role’ and ‘business growth in the context of indian shg women entrepreneurs. a quantitative research methodology has been adopted in the study, and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data and interpret the findings. major findings of the study state that the pandemic had caused both hindrances as well as opportunities for businesses of indian shg women, in this context, the role of shgs in supporting business growth of their women entrepreneurs has been insufficient as per the respondents, shgs need to focus upon technology-driven roles and adopt training modules for enabling online marketing platforms along with financial access, help to diversify and revive the 1 corresponding author, e-mail: sabiha.fazalbhoy@scmspune.ac.in 2 e-mail: saikat.gochhait@sidtm.edu.in 20 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 19-38) business with a modified approach. based on the results of the study, suggestions for shgs and policymakers in the indian context have been put forth in order to match with the changing dynamics of the market and consumers during the pandemic. the study has increased the understanding of the needs of shg women entrepreneurs and appropriate policy measures required for their business growth in the indian context. key words: women entrepreneurs, shgs, india, pandemic, business growth, shgs role introduction women entrepreneurs are considered navigators of change who brave all odds, are born thinkers and multitaskers donning a dual role of a homemaker and an entrepreneur simultaneously. according to the 6theconomic census by the national sample survey organization (nsso, 2014) out of the 58.5 million businesses in india, only 8.05 million i.e. 13.76% are managed and owned by women. the emergence of woman entrepreneurs and their contribution to the national economy is quite visible in india, particularly post the industrial reforms in 1991; thus, women entrepreneurship is a very important criterion for economic development. total msmes contribute up to 8 percent of the country’s gdp, with women being an important subset within them. (government of india, 2011). the covid 19 pandemic has caused alarming disruptions to many businesses in india, particularly the micro, small and medium ones running at the base of the pyramid levels. the nascent and micro women entrepreneurs were hit hard, and many of them had closed down their businesses during this time. the global pandemic's economic crisis has hit women's entrepreneurship gravely (un women, 2020; we forum, 2020). shgs concept became popular worldwide in 1976, when prof muhammad yunus, a nobel prize winner, working as a professor at the chittagong university, bangladesh, formed the grameen bank, in bangladesh (golam and choudhury, 2013). shgs in india emerged with the main purpose of micro-finance being a solution for the financial inclusion of the rural and urban poor. shgs were introduced similar to the concept of “community driven development” primarily focusing on financial interventions and microfinance. 90% of all shgs in india comprise women. they are perceived as a platform for empowering women through financial inclusion and social development. the basic principles on which shgs function are group approach, mutual sabiha fazalbhoy, saikat gochhait 21 trust, group cohesiveness, the spirit of thrift, demand-based lending, collateral-free, women-friendly loan, peer group pressure in repayment, skill training capacity building and empowerment of women through entrepreneurship. in the wake of the pandemic, their role must be modified to adapt to the changing situations, thus the subject of the current study was to understand the changing role of shgs in the business growth of indian women entrepreneurs who are their members. literature review while women entrepreneurs are considered important drivers of economic growth, they face a number of constraints and limitations. it has been noted that women entrepreneurs in india lack awareness and education and the constraints faced by them can be overcome by providing timely and specific training and skill development programs (garga & bagga, 2009). in india, the ministry for entrepreneurship and skill development and nabard (national bank for agriculture and rural development) have pioneered a number of schemes and support systems for women entrepreneurs to overcome their constraints, particularly for those women entrepreneurs who lack education and awareness. one of the finest models to support and promote women entrepreneurship in india at the base level is the shg model, which was initiated by nabard and given a formal structure known as the three-tier model in 1991 through sblp (self-help bank linkage) program. subsequently, many schemes were introduced by the indian government, the most current one being the deendayal antyodaya yojana – national urban livelihoods mission (nulm) (ujagare & bhagwat, 2017). the indian government aims to universally mobilize women into shgs and provide support with several new opportunities for entrepreneurship under different government schemes moving beyond the concept of savings and thrift. thus, focusing on the importance of women entrepreneurs, their contribution to the economic growth of their country and their requirements during the pandemic period, the objectives of the current study were developed. role of shgs various studies in india state that shgs have empowered women members to get financially independent and have enabled them to become entrepreneurial shgs had a positive impact on the socio-economic status of 22 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 19-38) women and have empowered them (patel & patel, 2017). a study in the ncr region of india stated that shgs through microfinance have helped women to develop and establish entrepreneurial enterprises, have enhanced their decision-making abilities and made them socially empowered (bansal & singh, 2019). similarly, in another research across indian states, it was seen that economic empowerment among shg women is enhanced through access to microfinance provided by their shgs (samineni & ramesh, 2020). a study conducted to find out the empowerment of rural women through shgs in india stated that women are empowered in three ways, namely economically, socially and politically, after associating with shgs (gupta & rathore, 2020). as reported on the world bank website (2020), shg women across 90% of indian districts are actively supporting the eradication of the covid 19 pandemic through manufacturing face masks, sanitizers, running community kitchens, providing essential commodities through the nrlm (national rural livelihoods mission) which has been actively promoting rural women by mobilizing them into shgs across india. the covid 19 pandemic caused many disruptions and has particularly affected the micro and small businesses set up by women entrepreneurs, the pandemic's economic crisis has hit women's entrepreneurship gravely (un women, 2020; we forum, 2020). thus, the roles of shgs are required to be modified accordingly to suit the changing needs of these women entrepreneurs and support their businesses. in order to understand the role played by shgs in the business growth of their women entrepreneurs, the researchers have used the following variables derived from literature to develop the research framework, collect and analyze the data and arrive at the findings and results. 1. financial access and supporta study across six states of india focusing on the sustainability of shgs stated that financial access and support is essential for shg federation to ensure outreach, proper governance and to reduce and limit dependency on external agencies, it also enhances their ability to face different socio-economic circumstances and legal and regulatory framework (salomo et al., 2010). a report titled “development costs and sustainability” states that the absence of savings and appropriate legal framework form major limitations on the financial viability of shgs (srinivasan & tankha, 2010). a study in nayagarh district of odisha, conducted on 400 shg women from 68 shgs, found out sabiha fazalbhoy, saikat gochhait 23 that major problems faced by shgs in supporting women members are access to financial resources (suchitra & bishnoi, 2019). 2. trainingit was noted that shg women entrepreneurs’ success can be increased through regular and focused training (mani & menon, 2012). training forms an important component of shgs however, training is provided to the members of shgs particularly women by the self-help promoting institutions (sandhu, 2013). rajpal and tamang (2014) from the study of savaria et al (2009) assessed the impact of shgs on poverty reduction and employment generation and found out that shgs had increased the income and standard of living of women entrepreneurs. their study further stated that shgs improved the employment level of poor and rural women and provided them basic training, credit and basic services like education. a study in ernakulum district of tamil nadu, india has concluded that lack of education and awareness form major constraints along with government support and access to proper training to improve marketing skills and production methods (jose, chockalingam & velmurugan, 2019). 3. marketing supportresearch conducted to understand the marketing constraints faced by women shgs in coimbatore district of tamil nadu, india, concluded that inadequate resources for marketing their products, lack of access to marketing platforms and avenues, lack of knowledge, inadequate technology support, lack of proper machines to meet the market demands, inadequate training form the major constraints for marketing their products (krishnaveni & haridas, 2014). a study in the nayagarh district of odisha found out that major problems faced by shgs in supporting women members are marketing in which the respondents stated lack of proper marketing facilities, advertisement and heavy competition as the major constraints (suchitra & bishnoi, 2019). the major challenges faced by shg women entrepreneurs are a lack of marketing support from their shgs. marketing support by shgs is critical for the success of business ventures of shg women entrepreneurs (poornima & ramanaiah, 2019). 4. personal growthpersonal growth plays a major role in enhancing the business growth of women entrepreneurs. thus, the role of shgs in providing personal growth is very essential (sulur & barani, 2012). in a study, it was observed that shgs promote female work participation which not only increases their family income but also brings economic independence to women (angel, 2012). leadership qualities, communication skills, personal growth and risk-taking abilities have 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 19-38) increased in women entrepreneurs after joining shgs (vadde & ratnam, 2014). 5. access to technical resourcestechnical resources imply new technologies, technical upgrades, new market interventions in technology, machinery, etc. in research conducted to understand the indicators for business success and constraints faced by women shgs in the coimbatore district of tamil nadu, india, has been found out that access to technical resources forms an essential and important indicator of business success (krishnaveni & haridas, 2014). 6. business counselingsli (sustainable livelihood initiative) is an exclusive business vertical and has adopted a group model (nabard, 2014). business counseling is an essential role parameter of shgs as it motivates women entrepreneurs to make the right decisions. shgs play a pivotal role for women entrepreneurs by providing opportunities and counseling for rural women to establish and run micro-enterprises (angel, 2012). a study in chennai states that counseling offered through shgs has motivated women to become entrepreneurs thus empowering them economically and socially (malarvizhi, 2014). as per a study in the urban mysore district of karnataka, shgs have empowered women leading to the success of their business enterprises (savitha & rajashekhar, 2010). a study in malagasy states that business counseling through support organizations has enabled capacity building and promotion of female entrepreneurship (laza berger & ramdiale soubaya, 2019). 7. educationshgs role in providing education to women entrepreneurs is essential for their development and knowledge gain, which in turn results in business growth (gupta, 2000). education in the form of training in financial literacy enables more effective use of funds, particularly for women, who have often been restricted from attending school and are characterized by lower rates of formal education (haworth et al., 2016). women entrepreneurs growth there are individual/personal factors and business factors that impact the business growth of entrepreneurs. in the current study, the researchers have used five variables derived from literature to study the business growth of women entrepreneurs, they aremarket expansion, technological growth, employee growth, infrastructure growth and financial growth as stated below. the respondents were asked to state the importance of these variables for their business growth on a likert scale of 1-5 where 1=not sabiha fazalbhoy, saikat gochhait 25 important at all, 5= very important. this enabled the researchers to understand the importance of the chosen variables and the results verified that they were considered very important for business growth as the majority of the respondents certified it. 1. market expansionincrease in sales, increase in the number of employees, increase in profit and assets, as well as increase in the firm´s value and internal development are the indicators of business growth (machado, 2016; achtenhagen et al., 2010). business growth is related to new markets and diversification (davidson et al., 2010). success parameters for entrepreneurs include adding a new product or service, expanding operations, and selling to a new market (gundry & welsch, 2012). 2. technological growthinformation and communication technologies (icts) have provided women with education and skills for marketing their products along with access to markets and business growth (gill et al., 2010). ict access and utilization can boost women’s enterprise creation and greatly improve the competitiveness of female-owned firms (united nations conference on trade and development, 2010). 3. employee growthbusiness growth can also be seen by the increase in the number of employees and sales turnover rates, the increase in the number of employees is an indicator of business growth. human resource is a very critical component for business growth as the right team can facilitate entrepreneurial growth and timely achievement of business goals (machado, 2016; achtenhagen et al., 2010). 4. infrastructure growthit has been noted in some researches for women entrepreneur’s businesses that the major growth parameters are profit, enhanced turnover, total assets and market share. right infrastructure provides adequate facilities to develop the idea into a market-ready product to be launched successfully (majumdar, 2008). 5. financial growthfinancial and non-financial lifestyle criteria are used to judge business success for women entrepreneurs (walker & brown, 2004). availability of finance and access to finance is a central concept to explain success in entrepreneurship from an economic perspective. financial capital is important for acquiring the necessary assets, avoiding liquidity problems and thus ensuring ongoing operations (frese & gielnik, 2014). 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 19-38) objectives and research questions the primary objectives of the current study were (1) to understand shgs’ role in the business growth of indian women entrepreneurs during the pandemic period and (2) to identify their changing role during the pandemic period and provide suggestions for enhanced business growth. researchers have also briefly analyzed the current government policies for shgs and women entrepreneurs in the indian context and have provided suggestions on them, from the findings that have emerged from the primary data collected from the respondents. research methodology the current research involves the study of shg’s role in business growth of indian women entrepreneurs during the pandemic period. two primary study areas under this are 1. role of shgs and 2. business growth of women entrepreneurs in the indian context. the period of study is the year 2020 during the pandemic period. the study involves the collection of both primary and secondary data. quantitative research design has been employed in the current study as the study uses well-defined structured variables derived from the literature, clear and well-defined objectives and research questions and an objective approach to primary data collection using a structured close-ended questionnaire. the primary source of data included the factual data collected by the researchers from the respondents who are women entrepreneurs and are members of shgs across india, using a close-ended structured questionnaire. the rating scale used to capture the respondent’s opinions was a five-point likert scale. questionnaire development-to collect the quantitative primary data a structured questionnaire has been used. five-point likert scale questions were prepared to understand the role of urban shgs and business growth of women entrepreneurs. the first part of the questionnaire consisted of demographic questions covering the respondent’s profile. respondent’s demographic data like name, address, qualification and contact number (optional) was asked. brief information about the organization including the name of the enterprise, size of the enterprise, etc. was captured. the next part consisted of questions relating to business growth of women entrepreneurs and the role of shgs. to study business growth of women entrepreneurs, variables used were – financial growth, market expansion, sabiha fazalbhoy, saikat gochhait 27 technological growth, employee growth and infrastructure growth. to study the role played by shgs, variables used were marketing support, financial access and support, training, access to technical resources, personal growth, business counseling and education. the next part consisted of questions relating to the role of shgs in promoting business income, business activity and investment. questions framed were simple and precise focusing on the research goal. all the questions were easy to understand and did not contain any acronyms, jargons or terminologies that might be unfamiliar to the respondents. a midpoint response option such as “neither agree nor disagree” or “neutral” was included on the rating scale used. the rating scale used to capture the respondent’s opinions is the five-point likert scale. the likert scale has been used to collect data as the topic analyzes the role of urban shgs in the growth of women entrepreneurs using variables derived from an extensive literature review, hence questions used the rank and order to understand the extent to which role is played by urban shgs in business growth of women entrepreneurs. most of the questions had a 5point likert scale ranging from always, very often, sometimes, rarely and never. in a few instances, the likert scale is used ranging from very important, important, neutral, not very important, not important at all. the categorization used for coding the captured responses on the likert scale was from 1 to 5. reliability and normality tests the questionnaire was checked for reliability using cronbach’s alpha. cronbach’s alpha values for all variables were above the threshold mark of 0.7, showing a high level of internal consistency for the measurement scale(variable wise details appended in table 1 below). table 1: results of reliability test using cronbach’s alpha variables alpha value results financial access and support 0.998 reliability supported training 0.992 reliability supported marketing support 0.999 reliability supported personal growth 0.992 reliability supported access to technical resources 0.998 reliability supported business counseling 0.992 reliability supported education 0.972 reliability supported 28 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 19-38) variables alpha value results increase in income 0.989 reliability supported increase in business activity and promotion 0.990 reliability supported increase in investment 0.987 reliability supported the constructs used in the current study were checked for validity using content validity. content validity ratio and content validity index have been used to compute validity index and confirm validity (lawshe, 1975). the overall content validity index was 0.979, which is above the required threshold value and hence, the validity of the constructs used in the current research was confirmed. normality in the current study was checked using george & mallery’s test to compute normality. variables with skewness values between +2 and -2 and kurtosis values between +2 and -2 indicate normality. all variables used in the study have required threshold values, thus normality was supported. (variable wise details appended in table 2 below). table 2: george and mallery’s test for normality of variables variables n statistic mean statistic std. deviation statistic skewness statistic kurtosis statistic financial access and support 220 3.46 .955 -1.259 .113 training 220 2.80 .643 -.274 .273 marketing support 220 2.07 .895 .890 .275 personal growth 220 2.35 .540 .012 -.843 access to technical resources 220 2.17 .873 .724 .035 business counseling 220 2.52 .623 .525 -.338 education 220 3.12 .669 .216 .019 thus, it is inferred from the above observations that all variables have skewness values between + 2 and-2 and kurtosis values between +2 and-2 hence normality is supported. there are several ways by which we can assess the normality of a variable. in the current study, we have used the george and mallery’s test as seen above to assess the normality of the data. the main source of the secondary data included published literature on various dimensions of entrepreneurship in the form of government reports, sabiha fazalbhoy, saikat gochhait 29 research reports and research publications in reputed journals and books. the sample for the study consisted of women entrepreneurs who were members of shgs in india. the unit of analysis was women entrepreneurs and the sampling method used to collect data was probability sampling in which simple random sampling was used. in the current study, the sample size (220) was calculated using the estimation of proportion formula. the margin of error used was 5% and the confidence interval was 95% (aguila & gonzález-ramírez, 2013). the data collected was analyzed using statistical tools to arrive at the findings of the research and state the conclusion and suggestions based on them. the main constructs of the study were – women entrepreneurs, shgs, role and business growth. data analysis and interpretation demographic details of the respondents 220 respondents who were women entrepreneurs belonging to shgs situated in india were requested to share information through a structured close-ended questionnaire shared with them. the women entrepreneurs were in the early stages of their businesses. the demographic details of the respondents are appended in table 3 below. table 3: demographic profile of respondents variable response option frequency percentage marital status married 184 83.6 unmarried 25 11.4 divorced 10 4.5 separated 1 0.5 total 220 100 qualification high school 23 10.6 ssc 46 19.8 hsc 61 28.1 graduate 79 36.4 post graduate 11 5.1 total 220 100 transport facility two-wheeler 146 67.9 four-wheeler 57 25.2 three-wheeler 9 4.2 other 8 3.6 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 19-38) variable response option frequency percentage total 220 100 type of enterprise micro 159 72.27 small 51 23.18 medium 10 4.54 from the above demographic table, it is evident that the majority of the respondents (women entrepreneurs) were married, the majority were well educated as they had pursued a graduate degree, the majority of the respondents were running micro-enterprises and had a transport facility for their business. role of selfhelp groups (shgs) in business growth from the primary data collected from 220 indian shg women entrepreneurs on a 5-point likert scale, where 5= always, 4= very often, 3= sometimes, 2= rarely and 1= never, it was observed that the respondents opined the majority of the role parameters, essential for achieving business growth were not provided consistently by their shgs during the pandemic period, variables wise details are presented below: table 4: shg’s fulfillment of requirements for business growth parameter never rarely sometimes very often always frequency and percentage frequency and percentage frequency and percentage frequency and percentage frequency and percentage financial access and support 37(16.8%) 37(16.8%) 7(3.2%) 137(62.3%) 2(0.9%) training 33(15%) 50(22.7%) 117(53.2%) 20(9.1 %) 0(0) marketing support 76(34.6%) 107(48.6%) 14(6.4%) 23(10.5%) 0(0) personal growth 35(15.9%) 112(50.9%) 73(33.2%) 0(0) 0(0) access to technical resources 66(30%) 107(48.6%) 25(11.4%) 22(10%) 0(0) business counseling 31(14.1%) 99(45%) 79(35.9%) 11(5%) 0(0) education 29(13.2%) 24(10.9%) 106(48.2%) 51(23.2%) 5(2.3%) sabiha fazalbhoy, saikat gochhait 31 interpretation from the above results, it can be interpreted that shgs are unable to play a significant role in growth of women entrepreneur’s business during the pandemic period in the indian context as the major factors impacting business growth like marketing support, access to technology and technical resources, training and education are rarely or infrequently provided by the shgs as seen from the above table. the respondents stated that the pandemic has impacted their business in two distinct ways, firstly their financial resources and support have become unavailable and secondly, marketing and networking for products have become very difficult, thereby resulting in losses and business closure for some of them. there are 1. business constraints in the form of product quality concerns and modifications and enhancement in products owing to the pandemic and2. lack of government support and awareness. this has enabled the researchers to understand and thereby conclude that there is a need for revised governmental policies for shg women entrepreneurs in india. the researchers also tried to understand the impact of the shgs role in increasing income, investment, and promotion of business activity of women entrepreneurs in order to analyze and understand how the shgs role can be modified to suit the changing business environment during the pandemic period. hence the respondents were asked to respond to a set of structured questions relating to these on a 5-point likert scale where 5= always, 4= very often, 3= sometimes, 2= rarely and 1= never. the responses have been tabulated below in table 5. table 5: shgs role in increasing income and investment parameter never rarely sometimes very often always frequency and percentage frequency and percentage frequency and percentage frequency and percentage frequency and percentage role in increasing income 35(15.9%) 18(8.2%) 112(50.9%) 50(22.7%) 5(2.3%) role in increasing investment 34(15.5%) 11(5%) 132(60%) 40(18.2%) 2(0.9%) 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 19-38) the results from the respondents, as stated above have indicated that shgs are unable to provide consistent support for promoting income, investment and promotion of business activity of women entrepreneurs during the pandemic period. findings and discussion major findings from the current study state and confirm that shgs have not been able to play a significant role in business growth of women entrepreneurs in the indian context during the pandemic period, particularly with respect to important growth parameters like market expansion, infrastructural and technological growth. the respondents have perceived these parameters as very important and crucial for their business growth. the study is in line with mcgee et al. (1995); merz and sauber (1995); ilavarasan and levy (2010); van de ven (1984); gill et al. (2010); jensen and oster (2009) who have considered these parameters as important for business growth and have stated proper marketing avenues, technology, growth in sales revenue as some of the chief dimensions of success for a business enterprise. in the current study, maximum respondents stated that their shgs were not able to provide the above business growth parameters. the current study further confirms the studies by suchitra and bishnoi (2019) and poornima and ramanaiah (2019) which state that shgs are unable to provide adequate business growth support. suggestions and conclusion from the results of the current study, it can be concluded that the role played by shgs in business growth of women entrepreneurs in the indian context during the pandemic period is not sufficient and holistic. a number of regulatory, promotional and credit policies are available, however, the respondents confirmed that they have limited education and exposure, thus are unable to connect with most of these benefits. a number of government schemes and support organizations are functioning in the country both national and state-wise which identify the small scale and budding entrepreneurs, provide them with professional expertise, entrepreneurship training and skill development, to name a few like icecd (international centre for entrepreneurship and career development), ficciflo (federation of indian chamber of commerce and industry), wima sabiha fazalbhoy, saikat gochhait 33 (women industries and entrepreneurs of maharashtra), fiwe(federation of indian women entrepreneurs), cwei (consortium of women entrepreneurs of india. through such collaborations, shgs can broaden their network and in turn benefit their women members, particularly during the post-pandemic period. these schemes are for women entrepreneurs and respondents stated that shgs lack the awareness most of them. thus, it is suggested to provide a one-stop platform, connecting shg federations with all women entrepreneurship promoting organizations in the country to ensure ease of access. as most of the shg women entrepreneurs (respondents) are using mobile phones and are technologically connected through internet services on cell phones, it is suggested that a mobile phone-based helpline that uses an interactive voice response (ivr) system to communicate information to shg women entrepreneurs must be started by the government. the helpline can be used to 1) send information on relevant government schemes, 2) include a toll-free number to call into for questions, and 3) connect buyers\ online platforms to shg women entrepreneurs. it is suggested to provide a unique identity number to each shg women entrepreneur to ease business processes like taxes, permissions and compliances of business and government licenses. suggestions for policy measures as seen in the current study, the role of shgs in providing important growth parameters like marketing, technology, and infrastructure is not significant for the overall business growth of women entrepreneurs. it is suggested to create a policy that focuses on providing support to shg women entrepreneurs in achieving holistic business growth. organizations like nabard, the ministry of entrepreneurship and skill development, government of india are putting efforts into recognizing and providing support to women entrepreneurs. however, their schemes lack awareness, timely execution and access. as per the new policy paper of nabard 2019-20, the pilot project eshakti envisages connecting shgs digitally districts-wise and state-wise. more such projects in a consistent manner are required particularly in the post-pandemic period to enable the sustainability of shgs and enhance their functionalities. national policy for entrepreneurship and skill development (2015) has many schemes and support systems for women entrepreneurs, however, the shgs framework 34 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 19-38) needs to be formalized and given an independent identity they still lack entrepreneurial identity. employability is promoted and not entrepreneurship. thus, a specific policy to encourage entrepreneurial capabilities and growth among shg women is needed to enable them to face market uncertainties and changing business environment during the pandemic period. researchers suggest to align and modify the existing government policies focusing on shgs and entrepreneurship growth at the micro-level, in sync with unesco’s (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization) mission of alleviating poverty and bringing gender equality, especially in developing countries. acknowledgments the authors express their gratitude to the shg federation leaders and managers who facilitated the data collection and responses from the shg women entrepreneurs. the authors also express their sincere gratitude to the shg women entrepreneurs who took the time and inclination to participate in our 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digital age – definition, challenges, and potential revenue streams jelena novaković17 f1 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t being an artist presents a challenge in a modern world, where more and more activities are happening online and where an entrepreneurial spirit is necessary for success. artists, being a specific species, often without an entrepreneurial spirit, find this situation discouraging and difficult. this especially goes to the female artists, because living in patriarchal societies such as ones in western balkans, they are expected to conduct numerous household chores in addition to the professional life – often on their own. in this article, the author will try to present the situation of a female artpreneur in a digital age first by defining the artpreneur, placing the female entrepreneur in the appropriate digital age and social context, and finally, offering a potential solution or at least ideas that can contribute to the empowerment of female artpreneurs in serbia. since the first step in women empowerment is the economic one, providing additional revenue streams, particularly ones that can be generated from home is one of the key benefits of the digital art market. key words: artpreneur, artist, entrepreneur, female, digital, art market, ecommerce 1 address: zmaj jovina 12, belgrade, serbia, e-mail: jelena.novakovic@bg.ac.rs, tel. + 381 638419491 152 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 134-150) introduction the digital age (or information age) brought various novelties to businesses around the globe, but one common feature is that they are increasingly conducted online. this digitalization enables people to develop their business and later promote it from the comfort of their office or home. this possibility reduces or eliminates most of the costs traditionally associated with the business and its development. however, it is impossible to make the most from those benefits of modern times without appropriate knowledge and skills. in this paper, the author will demonstrate why developing artists with new skills to become artpreneurs is not only a great opportunity but also a necessity for many female artists. at the same time, the digital business and marketing skills of the artists in their quest for becoming artpreneurs will be scrutinized. this topic is of prime importance since the notion of the artpreneur is a fairly new one. while there is a general understanding of this concept, details are still equivocal to the general readership. raising awareness is important on the notion of the artpreneur, and in particular, a female artpreneur is of utmost importance, since it is the only way to generate suggestions on how to improve their position and instigate their development in the modern, digital age. artist, entrepreneur and our definition of an artpreneur there is no unified, generally accepted definition of the entrepreneur. the reason for that is that entrepreneurship is a dynamic concept that continues to be reconfigured as they adapt to the specific historical, social, cultural, and infrastructural context. hence, on the one side, rattern and usmanij (2020) recognize two views of entrepreneurship: casual and effectuation approach. the casual approach is affiliated to economic plans and strategies and emphases how education impact business development rates, and the effectuation approach reflects uncertain environments by suggesting entrepreneurs use available resources. another view is that entrepreneurs detect profit opportunities, balance supply, and demand, and their profit is a return to alertness (kirzner & ricketts, 1992). according to schumpeter (1975) an entrepreneur is a “person that is innovative in his/her pursuit of making money. the entrepreneur uses their experience and networks to find new and better ways in which they strive to reach and meet jelena novaković 153 the needs of their customers”, and landstrom (2005) presents davidsson’s distinction of “entrepreneurship as a societal phenomenon” and “entrepreneurship as a scholarly domain”. the new economic activities and positive marketplace changes dominate davidsson’s theory. according to him, only new and successful activities can cause the changes in the marketplace – and thus, constitute an entrepreneurship. the lack of a generally accepted definition is one of the very few shared points between the notion of artist and entrepreneur. definitions of both artist and entrepreneur are fluid and it is very hard and arguably unnecessary to have a firm definition. consequently, numerous authors keep questioning if there is a need or possibility to define the art and hence the artist, especially in a general sense (adajian, 2018). instead of choosing one definition for an artist, in this article, a functionalist definition that artist is anyone creating art professionally will be used, since it suffices the purpose. artists, in general, are not considered to be versatile or interested in entrepreneurship and consequently generating a substantial income (abbing, 2002). this is why it is of utmost importance for them to develop those skills (engelmann et al., 2012). creating art requires solitude, and artists often follow their own creative path – not knowing what is considered a trend or what sells well. even though most art marketing books suggest “to research needs in the environment and create an offer that can easily be marketable and sold “, it is not an easy task for artists, because it is hard to abandon their artistic exploration and adapt to the market trends, and most of them don’t want to follow that path (dragićević šešić, 2020). the prime question remains is the combination of an artist and an entrepreneur possible? are there enough meeting points for somebody to be an artist and an entrepreneur at the same time – an artpreneur? in our view, the answer to this question is an affirmative one. the true artist introduces something new and innovative and this is also an important trait of the entrepreneur. both break with social conventions, in economic terms and with existing equilibriums, to assemble new combinations of elements, materials, and production systems, and show no opposition to change (vecco, 2019). a modern-day artpreneur increases connectivity and as schumpeter contemplates the artpreneur is not only an economic entrepreneur. in castell's (2009) words, this "relational capacity confers power and cannot be characterized as an attribute". according to chang and wyszomirski (2015) art entrepreneurship is a “management process through which cultural workers seek to support their 154 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 134-150) creativity and autonomy, advance their capacity for adaptability, and create artistic as well as economic and social value “, and varbanova (2013) defines it as “an economic as well as sociocultural activity, based on innovations, exploitation of opportunities and risk-taking behavior”. considering notions of art, artist, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, and being inspired by definitions of “artpreneur” given by vecco (2019) and scott (2012), we came with our own definition: “the artpreneur is an artist discovering and pursuing new artistic and cultural ideas, with a primary life goal to build an artistic career with income from artistic production.” level of digital skills in serbia and modalities for its improvement mastering digital skills is necessary for any artpreneur to prosper and succeed in the modern, digital age. if there was any doubt about this, the covid-19 pandemic definitely confirmed this statement. during the covid-19 pandemic, there were virtually no cultural and art events at some points and it will be less public investment in artistic work and cultural production in months to come. by acquiring knowledge in digital areas, artpreneurs can easily combat with many challenges, including pandemiclike ones. despite a general lack of entrepreneurial spirit, artists are often perceived as “the main influencers on social media”, as stated by nearly three-quarters (73%) in hiscox art trade report 2020. this is an increase compared to the results collected in 2019, where 67% of the respondents made the same statement. the same source confirms that more artists are “likely to see social media as important in building their careers without the input of traditional tastemakers”. this became particularly evident in the 2017 report when instagram overtook facebook as the preferred social media channel for the art world and it remains the most effective way to reach new buyers. this is a rather new trend, and while hiscox started providing reports in 2013 the question of the artists as influencers were not analyzed and hence did not emerged until 2019. in line with the previous analysis, it is important to investigate the level of development of digital skills in serbia. results of the survey presented by bradić-martinović and banović (2018) demonstrate that the “overall level of digital skills of the workforce in serbia, measured by eurostat’s’ digital skills indicator, have much space for improvement”. nearly half of the jelena novaković 155 respondents (49%) either have low digital skills or none at all. however, results from serbia are not meaningfully different from the eu average (17.3% in the eu don’t have any digital skills, 25.5% have low skills, 26% have basic skills and 31.2% have above basic skills), but in some eu countries, the situation is much better. in norway “only 2.9% do not have any digital skills, in luxembourg, 11.7% have low skills, in the czech republic, 35.8% have basic skills, and again in luxembourg, 55.3% have above basic skills”. bradić-martinović and banović (2018) established the presence of a gender gap in digital skills amid the working population in serbia. “the calculation for women shows that 62.6% of respondents do not have any digital skills or have low skills, while 37.3% have basic and above basic skills. the calculation for men shows that 46.7% of respondents do not have any or have low skills, while 53.2% have basic and above basic skills, and these results are in line with eu average”. the future of art and cultural work in serbia after the covid-19 crisis is very doubtful and it only adds up to the marginal position of art and culture in serbia. unfortunately, none of the state institutions provided a plan to overcome this strong situation and the only measure they enforced was a highly criticized one – the cancellation instead of the postponement of the public call for projects in 2020 (dragićević šešić, mikic & tomka, 2020). this should not be discouraging for the artists in their pursuit to become artpreneurs – on the contrary. there are numerous ways to monetize artistic work and consequently being able to live from it. moreover, now more than ever, with the digital age and digital art being in focus, opportunities are easier to reach than ever – the determination of a real female artpreneur to live from its art despite all social, technical, and administrative obstacles is the first and most important ingredient. female artpreneurs female artpreneurs share the same challenges that male artpreneurs are facing, but also have one's characteristic due to the pre-determined roles to its gender in society. challenges for female entrepreneurs, particularly ones living in dominantly patriarchal societies in balkans and hence in serbia, are numerous. in the still active and ongoing social division and gender roles, women have a very dense and demanding schedule and are generally expected to do numerous chores alongside their work. in one research, women entrepreneurs were asked a question about their activities after work 156 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 134-150) hours. the results showed that women entrepreneurs in serbia spend most of their time on house and family duties (61%). on the other hand, only 23% of their time is spent on working on their professional improvement which leads us to a conclusion that women entrepreneurs, regardless of their numerous business duties, don’t want to neglect their house and family. they are paying special attention to their families by balancing between work and house and family duties. (ravić & nikitović, 2017). a particular challenge for women in digital industries is the fact that due to their possibility to work from home, it is often expected that they can do many housework and other chores during working hours. women are less likely than men to use online social networks to access funding, training and skills, and business services. men, on the other hand, are less likely than women to access creativity and ideas, emotional support, and information and advice (red & wu, 2020). stereotypes and social norms are just some of the factors why women are less likely to become entrepreneurs, according to the literature. (vukmirović, 2019). in serbia and other transitional countries, radovic-markovic (2015) demonstrated that are more often part of the less profitable business and are rarely starting their businesses. for female artpreneurs, mastering digital skills can be of crucial importance. access to the internet has eliminated many barriers and obstacles to accessing people, skills, training, financial resources, etc. (sadowski, maitland & van ongen, 2002). since the internet and digital environment present an environment where many gender-based biases are eliminated, it is of utmost importance for women artpreneurs to become proficient in it. in the following chapter, we will present some possibilities for online revenue for artists. online revenue streams for artists in the contemporary world, shopping is more and more conducted online. this trend is increasing and it is present throughout the globe. for example, in india, the online art market is increasing rapidly, because the youth culture mostly shops online. at the same time, more and more people want art and other collectibles to be part of their wealth record, and they can easily purchase art pieces of their choice online. the online art market is increasingly becoming a new “profit bonanza” in india (rani, 2017). online trading transcends borders and digital artpreneurs need to master online trading skills regardless of the part of the world they are coming from. jelena novaković 157 when it comes to the platforms themselves, according to the annual hiscox art trade report 2020, instagram is unavoidable as a buying and research platform, a platform where art and millennial buyers are especially active. just to mention a few statistical data, more than 200 million instagram users visit at least one business profile every day, spend around 30 minutes on the platform, and in that time, a large percentage of instagram users are visiting business profiles whereas over 80% use instagram to research products and services. having that in mind, with around 130 million instagram users tap on shopping posts every month, it is obvious that people buy directly from instagram, which is easier than ever with many new shopping and e-commerce features developed this year (newberry, 2021). while instagram presents an important place for digital marketing and art management, there is much more than instagram and social media when it comes to the potential revenue streams for artpreneurs. we will point out several of those. selling art prints on a personal website the first option that comes to mind is the direct one selling art on a personal website. this option requires numerous investments in advance: creating a website, paying for hosting, connecting the website with an application that allows you to receive payments and sell your art, etc. after that, an artpreneur needs to promote the website and it requires both skills, ideas, and again, investments. even after selling, for example, an art print, it needs to be sent to the buyer and this process is also associated with additional costs and in many countries, including serbia, one administrative procedure. before leaving the republic of serbia, an author has to obtain permission from the republic institute for the protection of cultural monuments of serbia. the procedure requires taking the artwork to the expertise, paying the fee, and picking up (in person) the permission and after that an artwork. hence, only authors have the right to bring along a photograph of the object and they have to declare a final destination of the artwork. finally, this procedure has to be repeated for each artwork. this procedure aims to protect the unregulated export of artworks that are considered of high value for the republic of serbia (although the question is if this procedure has any effect on that). while the goal of the 158 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 134-150) procedure is clear it is also clear that this procedure is not in line with the modern, digital world and presents a substantial obstacle for law-abiding artists in serbia trying to launch their international careers. online art markets with built-in search engines – the example of etsy etsy is an online marketplace for handcrafted goods, connecting independent sellers with potential buyers. founded in 2005, with constant operational and technological progress, from payments to search engine, marketing capabilities, shipping, and creating reliable sellers, by 2018, this e-commerce platform attained about 2 million sellers with 50 million products (gebel, 2020). the company sees itself as the incubator of women entrepreneurship since more than 87% of etsy’s sellers are women. knowing that 97% are operating from their home and 80% of sellers are individuals, makes this ecommerce platform a perfect fit for female artists living in serbia. even though this important community of microbusinesses provides supplemental income and jobs to makers, it is often overlooked as the engine of economic development. with that in mind, in 2019, etsy organized a meeting in washington where sellers could talk directly to policymakers. the most important topics were internet sales tax, international shipping, internet access, economic security, and other ways to support sellers. when it comes to people from serbia selling art on etsy, according to erank, the top sellers (ones with more than 1000 sales) are all selling digital downloads. this is one of the best-selling categories on etsy since it doesn’t require a shipment. another popular item is miniature because it is easier and cheaper to ship them than larger items and they are generally less expensive. standing out from the crowd is the most important feature of success in general art and it also stands for etsy. to be successful on etsy, sellers should try to pick a unique shop name, create high-quality photographs representing their work, and master search engine optimization (seo) to attract potential customers. jelena novaković 159 online art galleries – the example of saatchi according to the research presented in hiscox, the new as well as younger buyers favor online marketplaces, with 71% of them buying on marketplaces like saatchiart, artspace, artsy, riseart, or artnet. more than half of 56% of the younger collectors preferred mentioned platforms, even though that number decreased from 2019 when it was 66%. saatchi art is an online art platform that guarantees direct communication between artists and potential art buyers. it enables buyers to purchase art immediately and it has open access for all artists, who can upload artworks without limitations. this can easily overwhelm buyers and confuse them. keeping that in mind, artists can gain recognition from the platform (through curatorial collections, or “artist of the week “) and increase their chances to make a sale, in addition to marketing and promoting themselves. potential buyers can have concerns about their value, so the valuation system in the online art market is the same as that in the offline market where the intermediaries co-construct the meaning and value of the artwork. there are several online art galleries in serbia (prodaja umetničkih slika online, serbianaart, art berza, and art galerija online, to name a few), however since none of them have a great number of artists involved, and anyone can make their gallery, it makes the quality of the majority of artworks questionable, and with their website designs and user interfaces, they are yet to rise to the level of the internationally recognized online art markets mentioned in this article. print on demand market places with built-in search engine – the example of society6 and redbubble print-on-demand market places, such as society6 and redbubble, are suitable for any artist with basic digital skills. it only requires an artist to upload the work and the platform handles all of the production, shipping, customer service. the first step is a creation of an account, followed by design upload and selecting products on where designs should be printed on. society 6 and redbubblе have different pricing systems. society6 predetermines the percentage (around 10%) a seller can earn out of every sale. on the other 160 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 134-150) hand, redbubble is more flexible and allows the seller to decide on his own on the profit margin. transfer of knowledge one of the revenue streams for passive income is teaching art classes or providing tutorials. there are many platforms where the artist can share their knowledge (skillshare, udemy, domestika just to name a few). but to do so, alongside expertise, artists need to know how to film and edit their videos. artpreneur can learn to do this in various ways and many of those are available online – in the same platforms where tutorials will be given. skillshare and other similar platforms even encourage their “students” to take the next step and create their own class – through workshops and classes on teaching. conclusion since digital art market transcends borders, it presents a great opportunity for serbian female artpreneurs. they are now able to have possibilities for additional revenue streams since the digital art market enables them to work from home. from selling art through a personal website, engaging in online art markets, or creating courses and teaching art onlineopportunities are numerous. as demonstrated in this article, an online presence (regardless of the form) is just a start of a modern artpreneur journey. basic digital skills are not enough anymore to succeed in a digital world. mastering digital skills, including digital art marketing, is essential in attracting potential buyers. finally, management skills are also becoming condition sine qua non for any artpreneur. just a glance at this list of skills that needs to be acquired demonstrates how challenging, time-consuming and expensive this road to success is. moreover, while there are some possibilities to acquire those skills through the support of the state or eu and regional initiatives they are simply not enough. all the stakeholders, particularly states should invest more in helping (female) artpreneurs to fulfill their potentials but artpreneur should not wait for this to happen – if anything it is not in the spirit of artpreneur to wait for the help. a permanent search for new opportunities and exploiting them should be a mindset accepted by all artpreneur-aspiring artists. jelena novaković 161 the author acknowledges financial support from the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic of serbia. references [1] abbing, hans. 2002. why are artists poor?. amsterdam: amsterdam university press. 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[24] ricketts, martin and israel m. kirzner. 1992. “kirzner’s theory of entrepreneurship – a critique”. in austrian economics: tensions and new directions, ed. bruce j. caldwell, stephan boehm. 30: 67 -102. dordrecht: springer. [25] sadowski, bert m., carleen f. maitland, and jos van dongen. 2002. “strategic use of the internet by small-and-medium-sized companies: an exploratory study”. information economics and policy, 14(1): 75-93. http://www.heritage.gov.rs/english/izvoz_umetnickih_predmeta_u_inostranstvo.php http://www.heritage.gov.rs/english/izvoz_umetnickih_predmeta_u_inostranstvo.php https://blog.etsy.com/news/2019/etsy-celebrates-the-creative-entrepreneurs-we-support-across-the-globe/ https://blog.etsy.com/news/2019/etsy-celebrates-the-creative-entrepreneurs-we-support-across-the-globe/ https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics/ jelena novaković 163 [26] schumpeter joseph a. 1975. capitalism, socialism and democracy. new york: harper. [27] schumpeter, joseph a and ursula backhaus. 2003. “the theory of economic development.” in: joseph alois schumpeter, ed. jürgen g. backhaus, boston: kluwer. [28] serbianaart. 2021. www.serbianaart.rs (accessed april 2, 2021). [29] skillshare. 2020. www.skillshare.com (accessed june 15, 2020). [30] tammi c. redd and sibin wu. 2020. “gender differences in acquiring business support from online social networks”. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 1-2, 22-36 [31] varbanova, lidia. 2013. strategic management in the arts. new york: routledge. [32] vecco, marlena. 2019. “the “artpreneur”: between traditional and cultural entrepreneurship. a historical perspective” in the routledge companion to arts management, ed. william j. byrnes and aleksandar brkić, 85-103. abingdon: taylor & francis. [33] vukmirović, valentina. 2019. “entrepreneurship education among university students as a predictor of female entrepreneurial undertakings”, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 3-4, 86-102. article history: received: february 1st, 2021 accepted: may 10th, 2021 http://www.serbianaart.rs/ http://www.skillshare.com/ doi: 10.28934/jwee21.12.pp18-36 jel: m14, m20, m54 original scientific paper 1bgender aspects of working from home in serbia miloš vučeković2f1 singidunum university, belgrade, serbia mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia borislav đukanović svetlana duković university donja gorica, podgorica, montenegro arsen dragojević ipsos, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t in this exploratory research, we examined the socio-economic aspects of working from home for men and women in serbia, their psychosocial adjustment to that work, and especially the differences among serbian freelancers by gender. in an online survey participated 180 women and 228 men. according to sociodemographic variables, it was determined that women are significantly younger, that they work significantly shorter at home, and that there are significantly fewer of them in predominantly "male" occupations: it sector, construction, and transport. according to several economic variables, no statistically significant differences were found by gender, except that women are significantly more likely to be guided by a good business idea and higher earnings when starting a business at home, and more often consult a psychologist when in crisis. no statistically significant differences were found in terms of psychosocial adjustment, but also 1 corresponding author, e-mail: milosvu@gmail.com m. vučeković, m. radović marković, b. đukanović, s. duković, a. dragojević 19 among men and women freelancers, with some minor exceptions. based on the analysis of the content of three types of questionnaires, the social profiles of women and men working at (from) home are described. in the final part of the study, unexpectedly similar research results by gender were elabourated in detail. key words: gender, work from home, business, covid19 introduction in the last decade, serbia has seen a higher growth of those who work at home compared to other countries in the region. it is certainly the result of better knowledge of information and communication technologies of young people in serbia than in other neighboring countries (b&h, montenegro and macedonia, and even albania). young people were motivated in many ways for the development of this sector: they got jobs faster, had significantly higher incomes, and realized opportunities for faster professional development. truth be told, the employment relationship did not, as a rule, have a permanent character, but new opportunities for higher earnings and professional development were opened. the best example is the development of the freelance industry in serbia, which took place faster than in all the previously mentioned surrounding countries. today, about one hundred thousand freelancers work in it in various activities. although freelancing includes all forms of teleworking, the development of information and communication technologies has been a catalyst for work at home in serbia. due to the restrictive employment policy in these countries, many, especially young people, saw self-employment as the only chance for any employment. working from home provided the most optimal prospects in many ways. acquiring basic computer skills for young people with an average level of education was not an impossible problem. a series of these parallel and later related processes was contributed by the covid 19 pandemic, which made work at home widespread. literature overview in the middle ages, the village was the epicenter of economic activities, and production took place within extended patriarchal families or cooperatives, unrelated and independent. true, there was a division into "men's" and "women's" jobs, but they took place within the household. in the modern era, the place of work was moved outside the family to a 20 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 18-36) factory or office, and the family became a guaranteed private sphere. with the development of mass production, women are increasingly involved in work outside the home, and in some extreme war situations, they dominate the production process. in the post-industrial society in the most developed western countries, there is a pronounced tendency to return women to their standard family roles, which was the best indicator of family success in the higher social layers. this process has continued in recent decades due to rising unemployment. it is known that the unemployment rate of women is always higher than that of men. the social crisis, conditioned by covid19, only accelerated work at home for both men and women. to our knowledge, gender aspects of work from home have not been particularly frequently researched, and in our country, research and literature on this topic are particularly scarce, which is why our study has a markedly exploratory character (radović marković, et.al. 2021a). contrary to common gender stereotypes, women who work at home balance better between business and private life (kossek et al, 2006). moreover, these authors draw more radical conclusions that further challenge common gender stereotypes; women make better use of some of the benefits of teleworking, make better use of the autonomy provided by this work, and therefore feel less depressed than men (kossek et al., 2006). other authors go a step further and conclude that women do better in both family and professional jobs (sullivan & lewis, 2001). additional authors confirm this finding and explain it by the greater efficiency of women in planning the time needed for work and family, which in their opinion is a crucial reason (maruyana et al., 2009). a survey of 2,000 respondents by consulting firm deloitte found that women are more likely to endure staying and working at home than men; more than half of women said that it was more pleasant for them to work at home than in the office, and men quite the opposite. the analysis of the answers shows that women balance much better in the daily distribution of work and personal obligations when they work at home. working at home is more suitable for women because it is in the spirit of the traditional distribution of gender roles, according to which the dominant area of activity for women is the family and for men is the job. in the home atmosphere, everything is close and familiar to a woman, which allows her to do all the work with greater motivation and productivity and to easily switch from doing family to professional work and vice versa, without additional effort and loss of energy. that is why many women have stated m. vučeković, m. radović marković, b. đukanović, s. duković, a. dragojević 21 that they would like to continue working at home after the pandemic and whenever possible. there is another important additional reason; moving from work responsibilities to various family jobs, especially those related to caring for loved ones, women do not experience painful frustrations due to the conflict of professional and family roles. they feel fulfilled and satisfied. however, the crisis caused by the pandemic has brought new burdens to women. the pandemic has caused increased isolation of all members and the need for constant and intensive interactions, especially between parents and children. the increased demands of younger children deprive women of significant extra time and energy. the demands of other family members mostly go to women, and less often the situation is reversed. although women with all these burdens cope with the need to pay a high price, other family members usually do not perceive it as a problem because it is a woman's "natural" obligation as a pillar of the house and a guardian of a good family atmosphere. even though women have the help of their husbands in family affairs, the largest part of family affairs is the area of a woman's sovereignty according to the perception of others, and also according to the selfperception of women. these stereotypes mean that huge work done by women in the family is not valued financially or in any other way. in contrast to women, men are attached to work, not only because of earnings and confirmation of their abilities but also because of social connection. so, work is the basis for building the identity of adult men. that is why the pandemic has hit them much harder than women, and most of them eagerly want to return to their natural professional environment outside the home office or factory. truth be told, it is not a small number of men who use remote work opportunities during a pandemic to be with family members during a stressful period of isolation (labutina & aliyeva, 2020). according to a research report, working from home during the pandemic was much more acceptable for men (inc., 2020). thus, 77% of men said they were more productive at work with children than 46% of women. also, 57% of men estimated that the end of a classic work engagement outside the home had a positive effect on their professions; 34% of men versus 9% of women said they progressed at work by working from home; 26% received a salary increase versus 13% of women. to achieve all this, 29% of men are empowered versus 10% of women (inc., 2020). earlier analyzes show that employers' behavior towards women is 22 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 18-36) discriminatory because women were more successful in overcoming the crisis due to the transition to work at home, caused by a pandemic. a study conducted in the united states in 2020 confirmed these findings (dishman, 2020). the men did much better again. thus, 26% of men and 13% of women received raises, 28% of men received important new projects as a reward; the same percentage of women received praise for working at home during the corona crisis, while in addition to all that, the percentage of men who received praise was twice as high. (dishman, 2020). these findings indicate gender-based discrimination against women, which is particularly pronounced in social crises. although women showed greater flexibility and adaptability to work from home in times of crisis, according to the results of most research, men are perceived as more successful and therefore much more often rewarded in different ways. regardless of these attitudes, which we have often encountered so far, gender relations when working at home or remotely are quite complex, and sometimes contradictory, especially when it comes to hidden, insufficiently visible aspects. gender differences are particularly pronounced in what is the main motive for work in general, and that is earnings; except in very rare situations and countries, women are paid less than men, especially if they work traditionally in the office. on average, in different categories at upwork, men are charged 57% more per hour than women. this difference is even greater with fiverr, where men usually charge 80% more than comparable services offered by women. the bottom line is that women are paid less because they bid or otherwise accept less money for the job. this was because they felt that their skills were not so valuable or because for whatever reason they believed they had to offer a lower rate to have a better chance of winning. if they work in the traditional way, they are even more reserved; so that they would not be perceived as aggressive and those who always "stick out" do not discuss and withdraw when it is necessary to present otherwise very convincing arguments for increasing earnings. they are satisfied with smaller amounts and in the end, they get small pay raises. in contrast, men are always looking for more. if they don’t get it, they negotiate until they get more than what was offered to them, even though they don’t get as much as they asked for. if they need to apply for new job opportunities, women will be reserved so that others would not perceive them as pretentious, hard-working, aggressive. they question themselves whether they should apply because they do not meet all the criteria, while men do not question themselves but m. vučeković, m. radović marković, b. đukanović, s. duković, a. dragojević 23 think that they can achieve everything by training during work. the same situation is with women working on digital platforms. they underestimate their skills and experience and therefore ask for less and end up getting less. in one study, 37,599 men and women freelancers earned less than men for all of the above reasons. for every dollar a man earns, a woman with a similar profile and abilities earns 62-89 cents for a similar job (dubey et al. 2017). the online labour market is commonly known as the free professions market and has grown rapidly in recent years. the institute predicted that by 2020, 43% of the u.s. workforce will be freelancers (dubey, 2017). the fact is that globally, women do not earn as much as men. on average, women earn about 54% of what men earn for a similar job (guillory, 2017). female writers in canada earn only 55% of what male writers earn (guillory, 2017). despite everything, women prefer to work from home or freelance than work in the traditional way. according to this research (hoorovitz, 2015), women are much more likely than men (71% vs. 51%) to pursue a freelance professional carrier to make extra money, emphasizing the existence of a pay gap. it is also more likely that freelancers will have schedule flexibility (58% of women versus 43% of men) and that they will “have independence from things like office dynamics” (40% vs. 26%) (hoorovitz, 2015). moreover, unlike the traditional worker who derives most of his life meaning from the size and origin of his salary, women are more comfortable maintaining a diverse job and personal identity. the majority of full-time freelancers are women53%. this is significant if you take into account that 53 million americans do some freelance work. of particular interest is the statistical report on 7,000 freelancers from 150 countries (noor khan, 2020). the number of women in the free labour force is also constantly increasing, but it is still lower than the number of women in the regular labour force. although the percentage of women in the global workforce is 39 percent, in the category of free professions it is 24 percent. countries with more than the average female freelancers are the philippines (62%), the united states (47%), serbia (34%), argentina, and ukraine (both with 30%, (noor khan, 2020). despite all the problems they struggle with, whether they work at home and are freelancers, or use flexible working and private time, women in the world are incredibly adept at creating and using social networks. their social capital, which is not inherited but is most often created by themselves while working at home or 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 18-36) as freelancers, is the most important counterweight to male dominance. partly because of this, women in a smaller number of countries earn the same as men (venezuela, romania, mexico, bolivia, indonesia) or even more. research method research on various aspects of doing business at home in serbia is very rare, and relatively rare even among foreign researchers. since more reliable knowledge based on empirical research is very modest or non-existent, we limited ourselves to an exploratory approach because we did not find empirical data for comparison, at least not in the domestic literature. we directed the research in three directions to single out more important problems that could be the topics of future research. first, we determined the initial research framework that consists of economic social aspects of working from home, with special reference to the experiences of serbian freelancers in the "gig economy" and, finally, the psychosocial adjustment to work at home in serbia. the second research direction is to determine the differences and similarities in terms of work at home according to gender. third, in the discussion, we will offer possible answers to research dilemmas in the light of existing empirical data. sample size for this research is 408 surveyors, of which 166 (44,9%) are freelancers, and 204 (55,1%) are others that are working from home. an electronic survey with three questionnaires was conducted. the first questionnaire on socio-economic aspects, in addition to the basic socio-demographic variables, also contains questions on the length of work at home and the activity in which they work. the other 14 questions relate to the economic aspects of working from home. the questions include the following: whether this way of working at home should be recommended to others, what are the advantages and reasons for doing business at home, whether other family members are included in this business, what are the basic rules for this business, criteria based on which it is determined whether the undertaken business is on the way to success, how and under what conditions offices should be formed at home, how to look and be trained while doing business from home, whether there are beliefs about the constant increase of business and earnings from year to year, what strategies are used to increase earnings, the most common problems in doing business in this way, what strategies are used to m. vučeković, m. radović marković, b. đukanović, s. duković, a. dragojević 25 overcome these problems, what practical advice is given to other entrepreneurs for work at home. the second questionnaire consists of 14 statements from the social adjustment scale, of which 13 are answers on the likert five-point scale, and one is given in the binary form. the statements from the scale refer to the following: there is less time for yourself and your hobbies than before starting a business; working from home makes it impossible for me to engage in physical activities; work from home has affected the quantity and quality of sleep, since i work at home i pay less attention to family and partner; since i work at home i have more time to hang out with friends; this job fulfills me, my income is enough for all my needs; i am confident in the future success of this business; i have trouble separating my job from my private life; i don't have enough contact with other people during work; since i work at home i am more tense and anxious; family and friends support me in this job, while i work at home others do not bother me so i can fully dedicate myself to the job. the tenth question is given in a binary form and refers to the physical separation of business and private space in the apartment house. these two questionnaires were filled in electronically by those who work at home, while freelancers also filled in a questionnaire specially designed for them. it covers the following aspects: − how freelancers primarily work at home; − whether information technologies will enable new employment models in the future; − what is most important when choosing a job; would freelancers work in the "gig economy" as the only source of income; − whether freelancers would change full-time employment for flexible contract work; in the last two years; − how many employers have freelancers worked with; whether working in the "gig economy" can significantly reduce unemployment; − whether working in the "gig economy" can contribute to people's quality of life; how best to improve the position of workers in the "gig economy"; − whether the outflow of brains abroad can be reduced through platforms and in the "gig economy"; 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 18-36) − would freelancers also recommend this way of working to others as the best choice in employment; what are the benefits of doing business at home; − what to do when working at home; whether freelancers include other members of their family in their work activities. key findings distributions of men and women by age and education are given in tables 1. and 2. table 1: distributions of men and women by age age male female n percentage n percentage from 18 to 25 42 18.4 29 16.1 26 -34 60 26.3 51 28.3 35 – 44 54 23.7 52 28.9 45 – 54 57 25.0 43 23.9 55 – 64 10 4.4 3 1.7 over 65 5 2.2 2 1.1 total: 228 100.0 180 100.0 source: authors table 2: distribution of men and women by education education level male female n percentage n percentage secondary school 49.1 1 0.6 high school 112 18.4 80 44.4 faculty 42 32.5 43 23.9 total: 74 100.0 56 31.1 source: authors gender differences by age are not significant (t = 0.959; p = 0.338, see table 1). there were also no statistically significant differences by education (man whitney = 20195; p = 0.732, table 2). however, in terms of the length of work at home, statistically significant differences were found between the genders, although they are moderate, table 3. m. vučeković, m. radović marković, b. đukanović, s. duković, a. dragojević 27 table 3: men and women by the length of work from home education level male female n percentage n percentage up to 5 years 149 65.4 135 75 from 6 to 10 years 46 20.2 33 18.3 from 11 to 15 years 16 7.0 8 4.4 more the 15 years 17 7.5 4 2.2 total: 228 100.0 180 100.0 source: authors men are significantly more likely to work longer at home than women (man whitny u = 18235,500; p = 0.017). based on previous knowledge, men are more prone to the risk of starting entrepreneurial activities, so they are more likely to start working at home earlier. the greater propensity to take risks is conditioned by a better previous start; as a rule, men have more money and social capital than women, which is why the consequences of failure in entrepreneurship for women are greater and therefore they take less risk. table 4: men and women by type of activity activity male female total n % n % n % economics, law, finance, research 10 8.9 6 7.1 16 16 construction 22 12.9 1 10.1 23 23 industry 20 21.8 19 17.2 39 39 it and programming 25 16.8 15 13.2 30 30 cosmetics and hairdressing services 3 8.9 13 7.1 16 16 marketing 6 7.8 8 6.2 14 14 education 36 6.3 29 28.7 65 65 transport 7 4.5 1 3.5 8 8 trade 69 69.3 55 54.7 124 124 tourism 16 21.8 23 17.2 39 39 art, design, web design 6 7.2 5.7 5.7 13 13 total: 228 180 408 source: authors 28 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 18-36) gender differences are statistically highly significant (table 4). men are significantly more represented in construction, it programming and transport (x2 = 44,394; df = 11; p = 0,000). these are otherwise occupations in which men dominate, so this finding is expected. in the further analysis, we tried to determine whether there are statistically significant differences between men and women on the questions from the questionnaire from the economic perspective. contrary to expectations, only two questions showed statistically significant differences: when starting a home-based business, men were significantly more likely than women to be guided by higher earnings and a good business idea (x2 = 8.50; df = 2; p = 0, 018); to overcome problems at work, women use the help of a psychologist as a solution (x2 = 15.532; df = 6; p = 0.16). no statistically significant gender differences were found on any of the questions from the freelancer questionnaire, except for question 12: “how best to improve the position of workers working in the ‘gig economy’”. men mentioned significantly more often the acquisition of greater trust among employers, and women the necessity of greater union affiliation (x2 = 7.050; df = 2; p = 0.029). finally, we examined whether there were statistically significant gender differences on the psychosocial adaptability scale, as well as three-factor scores on this scale. table 5: psychosocial adaptability scale and three-factor scores by gender t test significance 1. since i started my own business, i have much less time for myself and my hobbies. 0,890 0,374 2. working at home does not prevent me from devoting enough time and motivation to engage in physical activities. -0,084 0,933 3. working at home has negatively affected the amount and quality of sleep. 0,240 0,810 4. since i work at home, i pay less attention to my family and partner. -0,138 0,891 5. since i work at home, i have more time to hang out with friends. 0,713 0,476 6. the job i am currently doing fulfills me. -0,517 0,606 7. the current income i earn is enough to cover all my current needs. 1,322 0,187 m. vučeković, m. radović marković, b. đukanović, s. duković, a. dragojević 29 t test significance 8. i am confident in the stability and future success of my current business -0,287 0,774 9. i have a problem separating my job from my private life. 1,494 0,136 10. i would like to have more contact with others during my work people. 1,184 0,237 11. since i work at home, i feel more tense and upset. 1,051 0,294 12. my family and close friends mostly support me in my current job. 0,319 0,750 13. during work at home, others (family, friends, neighbors) do not disturb me, and i can fully dedicate myself to work. 1,300 0,194 the first factor score 0,404 0,687 the second factor score -0,052 0,958 third factor score 1,335 0,183 source: authors men and women do not differ statistically significantly in any of the 13 questions from the scale. we also found that there was no significant difference in the three-factor scores on the scale of psychosocial adaptation to work at home (table 5). we will describe the factors based on which the factor scores were calculated. three pure, interpretable factors with saturations above 0.600, which carry 57% of the variance, stood out. the first, strongest factor explains the 35,136 variances. it indicates the general balance between work at home and other life activities. on this factor with high saturations above 0.600, six items stood out: − paying more attention to family and partner since working at home 0.820. − better sleep 0.723. − more time for yourself and hobbies 0.633. − more time to hang out with friends – 0. 631. − less tense and anxious since working at home 0.626. − no problem to separate work from private life 0.613. this factor indicates finding the optimal incentive for all other life activities (especially social ones) with the work they do at home. we called it the factor of the optimal relationship between work at home and all other life activities. 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 18-36) on the second factor, which explains 10.775% of the variance, with high saturations above 0.600, the following items stood out: − cash income that meets all living needs 0.837. − stability of work at home now and in the future 0.808. − job fulfillment 0.676. the second factor tells how much work at home meets a person's needs financial, self-actualizing, security, social. we have the whole maslow hierarchy in this factor (basic needs, security, self-actualization). we would call this factor the "satisfaction of needs" factor. on the third factor, which explains 8,100% of the variance, with saturations above 0.600, three items stood out: − avoidance of social isolation during work at home 0.692; − support of family and close friends in the work he does at home 0.618; − not interfering with family, friends, and neighbors at work at home 0.617. the third factor is the factor of strong social support of family and friends for work at home. we can call it a factor of social support for family and friends to work at home. finally, we examined whether there were statistically significant differences between the genders by multiple responses. their detailed presentation would require a large space, so we will only summarize the results, as no statistically significant differences were found. in terms of programming, in the last two years men have been significantly more represented than women (x2 = 23.185; df = 1; p = 0.000). when it comes to translation, lectures, and research work, no statistically significant differences were found between men and women. there were also no statistically significant differences between the sexes in terms of health, pension, and life insurance. also, men and women do not differ significantly in terms of assessing the negative, but also the positive aspects of working at home. these surprisingly consistent and yet unexpected results will be discussed in more detail in the final part of the study. despite the rare answers in which statistically significant differences were found between men and women, we will try to point out fewer specifics between men and m. vučeković, m. radović marković, b. đukanović, s. duković, a. dragojević 31 women by analyzing the content of finer differences in the answers and "reconstruct" their social "profiles" in slight hints. "profile" of women who work at home in serbia women who work at home in serbia are, on average, somewhat younger and therefore have a shorter work experience than men. they are no different from men in education. they also do not differ significantly from men in terms of the type of activity, except that there are significantly more men in the it sector, construction, and transport, which are otherwise considered "male" jobs. they see the biggest advantage in working at home in flexible working hours because it enables them to use and distribute time for work and family and greater personal autonomy in work (radović marković et.al., 2021). guided by pragmatic principles, women in serbia primarily rely on other people's positive experiences and do not appreciate external effects such as dressing for business at home, but they believe that establishing an office at home and its good equipment is especially important for a successful business. they believe that the basic motive for working at home is higher earnings than working in the office, in which they do not differ from men. however, unlike men, they pay more attention to possible financial risks as strategic elements in planning a business at home. from these motives, working in the "gig economy" suits them best. the emphasized pragmatism of women who do their business at home is conditioned by a series of objective and subjective factors that are either invisible or little visible to the environment. first, flexible working hours allow them to plan much better and fulfill family and professional obligations. otherwise, the risks for women are higher, and they are contained in more often hidden than open discrimination and stigmatization of women by close people from the environment. employers also show more hidden than open stigma, which women are painfully aware of. women pointed out a bit shyly that their close people support and help them less at work than men, and that is why they sometimes feel insecure and tense. in these crises, they are significantly more likely to seek the help of a psychologist. because they are generally under greater pressure to achieve their professional goals, they use faster and more pragmatic paths that are riskier to implement and therefore fall into psychological crises more often. at times, they feel lonely and helpless, overwhelmed by the monotony of life. this monotony is reinforced by reduced social contacts and excessive life routine. lack of free time for social and recreational activities also 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 18-36) affects sleep disorders, which both men and women do not recognize. in a series of contradictory statements, both women and men state that working at home does not fulfill them. moreover, 2/3 of women and men in moments of complete honesty pointed out that they do not see any advantages of working at home compared to classic work arrangements outside the home, which is contrary to earlier statements. discussion the results of this study are contrary to our expectations because only a few questions found statistically significant differences between men and women. we expected these differences to be more numerous and pronounced. by analyzing the content of the answers, we came to finer differences that could not be shown in a more robust statistical analysis. our conclusions, based on the analysis of the content, should be accepted with reservations because they indicate mild tendencies that are not discriminatory enough for the usual methodological standards. however, we consider them instructive to select topics for new research in this area, which is one of the more important cognitive contributions of the study. let us return to the basic question of why the differences between the genders did not show even though they were expected, except in a few cases. the theory of gender relations this time is not cognitively fruitful, and it can direct us even less to more complete explanations. at a lower level of content analysis, gender analysis can lead us to some extent to possible explanations. we hypothesize that the two interrelated processes may have contributed to the predominant absence of gender differences. the first is the decades-long chronic and cumulative socio-economic crisis that has gripped the countries of southeast europe, during which women have generally fared better. the crisis in some periods was so deep that it called into question the biological existence of the lower social layers. in the working classes and some lower layers of the middle class, mostly women have shown great entrepreneurship and success in overcoming these most difficult forms of crisis. women from these strata were the biggest victims of the crisis, and it was expected that they would be the most motivated to get out of it, pulling most members of these strata from the bottom (đukanović, 2018). however, this spontaneous women's "movement" was a catalyst for members of other layers to get out of the crisis, or at least mitigate it. over time, women became significantly more equal to men in many jobs that were considered masculine. the lack of m. vučeković, m. radović marković, b. đukanović, s. duković, a. dragojević 33 differences between men and women at work at home can be attributed to certain specifics of transition processes in the countries of southeast europe, and even in serbia. what they all have in common is that these societies were not prepared at all to accept the neoliberal socio-economic concept, and it came as a natural element in many. again, the most numerous "lower" social strata went through the worst. pauperization due to mass unemployment, general hopelessness, and anomie with more or fewer oscillations follow these layers in most of these societies to this day. it is no coincidence that everyone who has got a job in the last two or three decades sees it as an important lottery win, even though the results of their business contribution are disproportionately higher than their earnings. one gets the impression that both men and women did not want to question this mantra of gain because they experience it in an almost religious way; they are the chosen ones of destiny after years of unemployment. this value pattern is stronger than all gender differences and largely unifies value attitudes and erases differences in the opinions and behaviors of both men and women towards work at home and towards work in general. this seems to be the most significant factor in the absence of gender differences, which is why gender factors play a more secondary role. women contributed the most to the amortization of major stressful situations in professional and especially family life during the chronic crisis in the balkans. paradoxically, they often paid a high price for it, sometimes because they saved men from crises and covered up their inefficiency. this was particularly pronounced in montenegro; it was not enough for men that they primarily contributed to the biological survival of the family, but in every public communication they had to emphasize that it was the merits of husbands to strengthen and strengthen the untouchable halo of the male part (đukanović, 2018). somewhere more, somewhere less, in the countries of southeast europe, men were protected in various ways from family and relatives, primarily women. as a result, they were often demotivated and unentrepreneurial, but in any case, less motivated than was expected of them due to the traditional division of roles. in montenegro, this overprotection took a perverse form (đukanović, 2018). in order not to be in a situation to betray the high social expectations of the close social environment, they were very ambivalent and therefore less willing to take risks, to serve in the army when i cannot be a general! " less was expected of women from the lower social strata and therefore they were more willing to take risks and more motivated to succeed. 34 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 18-36) our further analysis of the content of the answers showed two prevailing tendencies in the social profiles of men and women in serbia, although the similarities in the profiles of men and women are greater than the differences for all the reasons mentioned so far. women are predominantly pragmatic, and men are oriented towards building business strategies at home; women look for the shortest and most productive way to solve problems in given conditions, and men look more for holistic longterm solutions; women plan to take into account alternative situations and circumstances, and men often ignore these situations and circumstances, believing that good business plans will allow them to reduce or lose the discrepancy between the initial conditions and the achievement of set goals in the future. in keeping with their pragmatic principles, women are not willing to take greater risks, and men are. conclusion since women in serbia start their business in poorer financial positions, they more often survive in small businesses as independent entrepreneurs due to a more rational and careful assessment between initial opportunities and business achievements than men (radović marković, 2018a). willingness to take greater risks certainly depends on conditions that are not particularly favorable in serbia for several reasons: taxes and burdens on private individuals are high, and the services and trade sector, in which there are monopolies, is favored; the productive and non-productive sectors are monopolized by foreign capital; the banking sector and monetary policy are greatly influenced by foreign financial and oligarchic centers, etc. in such a socio-economic context, small businesses of both genders can hardly operate successfully and survive if they do not show maximum flexibility and adaptability (radović marković, 2018). despite the unfavorable environment, women in serbia, who have worse starting positions for business, manage to survive and in most of the examined aspects are equal to men. references [1] dishman, l. 2020. women say working from home is hurting their careers. men believe they are thriving. avaiable at: m. vučeković, m. radović marković, b. đukanović, s. duković, a. dragojević 35 ttps://www.fastcompany.com/90544049/study-women-believe-workingfrom-home-is-hurting-their-careers-men-are-thriving. 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[7] лабутина, д., алиева, ф. 2020. дистанционка добавила женщинам бесплатной работы. gazeta.ru. avaiable at: https://www.gazeta.ru/lifestyle/style/2020/10/a_13336549.shtml. (22. february, 2021.) [8] maruyama, t., hopkinson, p.g. and james, p.w. 2009. “a multivariate analysis of work–lifebalance outcomes from a large-scale telework programme”, new tecnology, work and employment, vol. 24 no. 1, pp. 7688. [9] noor, khan, t. 2020. gender pay gap in the gig economy is narrower: report. avaiable at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/346259. [10] работа из дома вредит карьере женщин и помогает карьере мужчин, показало новое исследование. 2020. inc. avaiable at: https://incrussia.ru/news/rabota-zhenshhin-muzhchin/. 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[15] sullivan, c. and lewis, s. 2001. “home-based telework, gender, and the synchronization of work and family: perspectives of teleworkers and their co-residents”. gender work and organization, vol. 8 no. 2, pp. 123-145. article history: received: march 8th, 2021 accepted: may 2nd, 2021 "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references note of editor in chief jwee is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal that welcomes high-quality research papers. the journal publishes research articles, reviews, case studies and guest edited issues. since 2020, papers have published in the journal are indexed by scopus. this is an important achievement of jwee and will mean that the journal will now attract more submissions of high-quality research worldwide. i would like to ask authors to follow technical instructions for writing your papers and not to send papers that exceed 16 pages of text. in the end, i would like to thank my colleague prof. dr. zhanna mingaleva who collected quality articles from russia as a guest editor. yours faithfully, prof. dr mirjana radović marković "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references doi: 10.28934/jwee20.12.pp103-124 jel: a20, d60 scientific review educating girls, educated women: dehomogenizing the impact of education in development tricia beck-peter american institute for economic research, united staets of america nikolai g. wenzel1 fayetteville state university, broadwell college of business and economics, united staets of america a b s t r a c t after a half-century of failed top-down international aid efforts that ignore basic microeconomics, the new development economics (nde) offers an alternative. first, sound institutions (such as rule of law, property rights, contractual enforcement, etc.); second, respect for basic microeconomic principles (from incentives to knowledge). within the new development economics, development economist william easterly offers controversial and innovative insights; one of these is the ineffectiveness of education alone, and without sound institutions for promoting growth. we argue that easterly is generally correct, but we improve on easterly's lessons by dehomogenizing education. specifically, education for girls has high marginal returns: at the micro level, even a slight increase in education dramatically improves the health of girls and their daughters in a virtuous cycle. at the macro level, educated women have a significant marginal impact on growth and institutional improvement. we complement a theoretical approach with a case study that demonstrates the 1 corresponding author, l.v. hackley distinguished professor for the study of capitalism and free enterprise, 1200 murchison road, fayetteville, nc 28301, usa, e-mail: nikolaiwenzel@gmail.com 104 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) importance and marginal impact of educating girls even if sounds institutions are not yet present. key words: william easterly, education, development, girls introduction in his book the elusive quest for growth: economists' adventures and misadventures in the tropics (easterly, 2001), development economist william easterly blazes heroic trails, with a micro-based development policy. among his controversial arguments, easterly shows that education in developing nations, though a cornerstone of mainstream development economics, does not result in economic growth. easterly supports this argument by showing there is no correlation between primary school enrollment and gdp growth. we argue that easterly's argument is correct, but incomplete: his findings can fruitfully be supplemented by a dehomogenization of education, with a particular emphasis on the education of girls, and the role of women in development. easterly demonstrates that education has failed to stimulate economic growth.2 his evidence begins with the "lack of association between growth in schooling and gdp growth" (easterly, 2001, 73). easterly attributes the inability of education to stimulate growth to institutional frameworks and systemic problems, including failed incentive structures. in sum, "if the incentives to invest in the future are not there, expanding education is worth little. having the government force you to go to school does not change your incentives to invest in the future" (ibid). the problem is compounded by institutional frameworks that reward political over economic activity (gwartney et al., 2016). the new development economics (nde) is as hopeful as it is frustrating. indeed, after a half-century of bankrupt development theories that probably do more harm than good (easterly, 2006; coyne, 2013), a new approach, based in reality rather than fancy models or quixotic aspiration, is welcome and refreshing. however, the next step is unclear. now that we know the recipe – sound institutions that transmit knowledge and generate the right incentives – how do we get there? 2 for more traditional views of education and development, see heyneman and lee, 2016; birchler and michaelowa, 2016; or riddell and niño-zarazúa, 2016. beck-peter, t., et al., educating girls, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) 105 to be sure, others have written on this (see, e.g. tullock, 1967 and 1975, or olson, 1982). but the political problems are as intractable as the economics are (ultimately) elegant and simple. for example, stroup (2011) builds on the work of scully (1988, 1992, and 2002). yes, economic freedom is correlated with growth, and with more equal distributions of income. but, beyond that, economic freedom is also specifically correlated with the well-being of women. indeed, stroup (2011) finds positive correlations between economic freedom and female educational attainment, as well as female parliamentary representation. he also finds negative correlation between economic freedom and maternal mortality rate and adolescent fertility rate, as well as the united nations development programme's gender inequality index. in sum, economic freedom increases the well-being of women. this is all fine and good. but how do we get there? in this paper, we will argue that one of the paths to institutional change and economic freedom is the education of girls, and the women they will become. it is understandable for any new development school economist to adopt a pessimistic attitude regarding economic development, and the sad string of failed silver bullets. and we agree with easterly (2001)'s overall assessment of education's irrelevance for development. however, there is a spot of good news: easterly's argument is incomplete, for two reasons. the first comes from differentiation of the human capital gains to various degrees of education. what easterly is leaving out in each of the cited cases is that the growth in enrollment was only in primary school. in 1991, right after the end of the period studied, secondary school enrollment was still very low. of those countries, only two have secondary education enrollment available in the world bank database: angola with 12% enrollment, and mozambique with 7% enrollment (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator). the first available year of data for the remaining countries shows the highest rate of secondary school enrollment in ghana in 1995, at 36%. this analysis of un data shows that none of these countries has high secondary school enrollment at the time of study. easterly's omission, however, lies in assuming that the human capital gains from education increase in a uniform linear fashion, and that additional years of schooling generate uniform marginal gains, which should translate into marginal increases in gdp. years of schooling, however, do not generate such marginal gains, because of the difference in content between primary schooling and secondary schooling. primary 106 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) schooling is designed to provide basic skills: literacy and numeracy. it is logical that increasing these basic skills will not lead to high levels of economic growth, because these skills alone do not create particularly useful human capital. the skills gained in secondary schooling are different from those gained in primary school. these skills include civic knowledge, critical thinking, problem solving, and analysis – the skills that empower individuals to contribute to markets and political systems. these are the skills that empower inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs, the people who can generate increases in gdp. the second omission in easterly's work is that he is looking for visible evidence of economic growth, rather than extrapolating data regarding potential for growth based on the quantity and quality of human capital made available to a nation. a well-hidden source of potential human capital lies under half the sky: women. educating girls will create economic growth and mitigate the pitfalls detracting from the success of education initiatives implemented without regard to a gender lens. this assertion is based on the higher returns to investment derived from investing in the health and knowledge of women, and from the tendency for educated women to become civically involved and contribute human capital to the private and public spheres. education has important effects on the lives of girls that their male counterparts will not experience, or will experience with much lower marginal returns. the most critical immediate effect of educating a girl is education's ability to postpone marriage. postponing marriage, especially in the case of child marriages, is the starting point for a chain reaction that improves the lives of girls, the women they grow into, and the children they will someday bear. after a literature review, section one starts with the microeconomic importance of educating girls, using the simple example of postponed marriage and childbirth. section two makes the "meso-economic" bridge between the micro-level of girls' education and the macro-level of institutional change and economic development (see dopfer et al. 2004). section three offers a case study. the final section concludes. literature review easterly's work nestles within the "new development economics" (nde). nde emerged in response to a half century of failed development policies that transferred wealth from rich to poor countries, while ignoring beck-peter, t., et al., educating girls, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) 107 the laws of economics (easterly 2001, boettke et al. 2008). instead of relying on facile assumptions of policy-makers benevolence and omniscience, nde applies the tools of robust political economy (see leeson and subrick 2006, pennington 2011, and ikeda 2003). that is, which institutions will be robust enough to accommodate the absence of benevolence and omniscience among policymakers? firstly, nde borrows from public choice, in questioning the benevolence of policymakers, and studying politics as exchange, rather than politics as romance (buchanan and tullock 1962, klein 2005, bastiat 2012[1850]) or gwartney et al. 2005, chapters 5 and 6). post-romantic analysis of government pushes us to seek institutional designs that will be robust in the face of actors who cannot be assumed to act towards some "common good." instead, the political problem comes down to adopting institutions that will constrain bad behavior and provide incentives for good behavior. a post-romantic analysis calls for rule of law, and constitutional constraints on the state. it also calls for limited government, to minimize the opportunities for government capture, wealth redistribution, and advancement of private preferences through public means. voluntary mechanisms (the market and civil society) align incentives properly, and thus vastly outperform the ballot box in aggregating and revealing preferences. second, nde borrow from austrian economics the skepticism about policymakers' full knowledge. as early as 1920, austrian economist ludwig von mises explained that communism – as the reductio ad absurdum of central planning – could not, ex hypothesi, function (mises, 1990[1920]). because communism lacks private property, it lacks prices, and thus competition. without the profit and loss system to convert individual choices into efficient outcomes, through division of labor and knowledge, there cannot be efficient allocation of scarce resources and communism must fail. mises was ultimately right, although it took another 70 years before communism crumbled. more broadly, mises student f.a. hayek rebelled against what he perceived to be an "abuse of reason," or the (inappropriate) use of the methods of the natural sciences in the analysis of social phenomena (see hayek, 1979[1952]). hayek demonstrated why the neoclassical paradigm was fallacious, from its assumptions to its methodology. a full literature can be summed up into a fundamental problem: in a world without omniscient agents, how can economic activity take place, and how can social cooperation happen? the quest for robust 108 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) institutions, to cope with the problem of non-omniscient people, constitutes the second part of robust political economy (read, 1958; mises, 2007[1955]; or hayek, 1945 and 1979[1952]. on the importance of institutional environments for encouraging the right types of productive entrepreneurship, and thus growth, see mises, 1998[1949]; baumol, 1990; harper, 2003; holcombe, 1998; rosenberg, 1960a; kirzner, 1973 and 1997; or desoto, 2000. more generally, the literature on the importance of sound institutional environments is also abundant (see, e.g. rosenberg, 1960b; north and weingast, 1989; jensen and meckling, 1979; scully, 1992 and 1988; jensen and meckling, 1979; holcombe, 1998; coyne and leeson, 2004; or boettke and coyne, 2003). finally, studies have offered conclusive empirical evidence of the strong link between sound institutional environments and economic growth and prosperity (e.g. gwartney et al., 2016). microeconomic effects of girls' education on marriage and health the focus of much of easterly's work is macroeconomic. easterly (2001) searches for evidence of the impact of education in macroeconomics measures (predominantly gdp). many of the effects, however, manifest themselves on a microeconomic scale, predominantly within the family. educated girls and the women they become have more favorable experiences in the home, starting with marriage.\ one third of girls in developing nations are married before the age of eighteen, and one-seventh of girls are married before the age of fifteen (http://www.popcouncil.org/research). early marriage is often associated with early age at first childbirth, which often occurs before development is complete. adolescent childbearing bears significant risk. for girls aged 1519, complications during pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death (world health organization, 2015; see also neal et al., 2012). the world health organization (2016) reports that "adolescent mothers (ages 10–19 years) face higher risks of eclampsia, puerperal endometritis, and systemic infections than women aged 20 to 24 years, and babies of adolescent mothers face higher risks of low birth weight, preterm delivery and severe neonatal conditions." early marriage also results in skewed power dynamics within the household. traditional child marriage in many cultures involves an older beck-peter, t., et al., educating girls, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) 109 man taking a child bride (see unicef, 2015). it is also common for a child bride to be a second or third wife in a polygamous marriage, and older husbands and their wives are more empowered to exercise control over child brides. women in polygamous marriages are more likely to suffer physical and sexual violence (kimuna, 2008). women who get married young, especially those who marry much older men, are usually less capable of asserting themselves or establishing firm positions in a household. these girls have less agency, autonomy, status, and power in the household. they are also more likely to be raped or physically assaulted by their husbands (kimuna, 2008.) the negative consequences of child marriage are broad and farreaching. if child marriage is the root of so many sources of suffering for families in the developing world, it would be wise for development economists to seek the abolition of the practice. lest we be accused of topdown imposition of "western" norms, we return to the classical liberal tradition. locke (1988) and mill (1978[1959]) along with almost all thinkers in this tradition, argued that children constitute exceptions to a scheme of full liberty. children lack intellectual and moral autonomy – including the autonomy to enter into a marriage contract.3 many have advocated a policy-based approach for the abolition of child marriage. in accordance with this mindset, anti-child marriage legislation is enshrined in prominent human rights doctrine, including the convention on the rights of the child and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. the convention on the rights of the child was signed by every un country except for somalia and the united states, and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women was ratified by every country except iran, palau, somalia, sudan, tongo, and the united states. this means that 19 out of the 20 countries with the highest rates of child marriage officially recognize the practice as a violation of human rights. it also suggests that a policy-based approach may have limited success. the failure of policy to prevent child marriage can be explained using easterly's incentive-based model. poor parents with limited means to feed 3 all but the most radical anarcho-capitalists accept state restrictions on child marriage, as part of the state's defense of individual rights. anarcho-capitalists would rely on emergent norms to protect the rights of those who are not yet capable of moral agency, while allowing those children who demonstrate moral agency to be fully free (rothbard, 1998, chapter 14). but this is a philosophical aside for another context. 110 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) their children have an incentive to pass responsibility for their nutrition to others. because the marriage of a daughter acts as a transfer of legally held property, it can be used to generate capital and reassign responsibility. in societies that practice bride price, younger girls fetch a higher price due to their ability to be manipulated and increased chance of virginity. these reasons create incentives for parents to ignore the law, and to bribe corrupt law enforcement officers to look the other way. policy measures thus far have largely failed to liberate girls from forced child marriage. education, however, can dramatically influence a girl's age at first marriage and thus consequently vastly improve the quality of her life; indeed, female education is a protective factor against child marriage. demographic and health survey data from 20 countries with the highest prevalence of child marriage reveal that girls' schooling is the most important factor associated with age at marriage (gupta et al., 2008). when unicef conducted a study of 42 countries, it found that young women with some primary school education were "significantly less likely" to be married before the age of eighteen than were their uneducated peers (jejeebhoy and halli, 2006; unicef, 2005; see also ikamari, 2005). the effects of primary school, as summarized above, are significant. the effects of secondary school, however, are even more encouraging (see gupta et al., 2008). the world fertility survey found that women with at least seven years of education got married four years later than similar illiterate girls (jejeebhoy, 1995; see also unicef, 2005, 6 and undesa, 1997, c2). the effects of educating girls on decreasing the prevalence of child marriage are also seen on an intergenerational level, indicating a compound interest of sorts. girls with literate mothers have a significantly lower probability of being engaged or married before the age of 18 (see johnsonlans, 2008). increases in primary and secondary school enrollment decrease the prevalence of child marriage, which in turn indirectly mitigates the negative effects of early marriage and early childbearing. increases in enrollment also directly mitigate many of the symptoms of early marriage and childbearing. when compared with illiterate mothers, educated mothers experience lower rates of infant mortality and malnourishment (sandiford et al., 1995, 12). literate women enjoy more bargaining power in the home. literate women are empowered to limit family-size, provide food and financial support for the family, prioritize their daughters, and to discourage the early marriage of their daughters (johnson-lans, 2008, 18). women who beck-peter, t., et al., educating girls, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) 111 are educated are also more likely to vaccinate their children (ahmad et al., 2013). educating women begins a virtuous cycle of education that persists over generations; "better educated women have higher aspirations for their children's education and are less likely to expect labour support from their school-going children than are uneducated women'' (jejeebhoy, 1995, 3). in a 2005 study of 951 women and 1,000 adolescent girls, it was found that having a literate mother led to a 14% increase in the likelihood that the daughter would be literate (johnson-lans and kamdar, 2005; see also chudgar, 2009; for a case study on the positive correlation between educated mothers and the school attendance of children, see kamanda, madise and schnepf, 2016). from micro to macro: the meso-economic girl effect if the only effect of education were that it pushed back age of first marriage, and the goal of international development theory and policy is to improve quality of life, then the outcomes would more than justify the investment. however, that this is only the beginning. if women are empowered and skilled, they can contribute to their economies in a more complete manner. they can harness their human capital to create technology, engineer solutions, generate capital, impart knowledge, lead revolutions, and save lives. the advancements in western technology, medicine, and science contributed by women have vastly improved quality of life around the world. the empowerment of women in the developing world could result in incredible technological advancements. the cost of the exclusion of women from political and economic processes can be deduced from the austrian knowledge problem: knowledge is based in experience, and because each individual in a society has a unique experience, each individual in a society has unique knowledge. women have different experiences than men, even in societies with high levels of gender equality, because women are biologically different from men. these differences can include differing opportunity costs relating to family life and reproductive life, but can also include different experiences in cultural or institutional frameworks. if women (or any systematically disenfranchised group) have unique knowledge rooted in experience that is not being incorporated into the legal, institutional, or economic framework of a society because of oppression, that society experiences the negative 112 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) effects of the knowledge problem. if half the population of any society is hindered from contributing its unique knowledge, the society suffers from an artificial shortage of knowledge (generally, see hayek, 1945). furthermore, empowered women can change the systems that hinder economic growth. if systemic, institutional change is to be enacted, and if this change is a prerequisite for development (as easterly and the new development economics show), then the empowerment of members of a disenfranchised members of a society can be an effective vehicle for reform. this abstract, theoretical extrapolation can have real-world effects. if the needs of women are unvoiced, nothing can be done to help them. if women are unable to protest unjust practices, and men have an incentive to perpetuate them, the unjust practices will continue. for instance, if the law prohibits a woman from asking for a divorce, men are able to contribute less marital output (or engage in abusive behavior) because there is no mechanism by which wives can discourage this behavior (e.g. divorce or threat of divorce). if the law states that only men can own property, men in power have a strong incentive to perpetuate the status quo. these are just two examples of legal institutions that could be challenged by women in government, and are perpetuated through the disenfranchising of women (see taylor-robinson heath, 2003). the mckinsey global institute found that lack of global gender parity could cost the global economy $28 trillion dollars by 2025 (woetzel et al., 2015). this gender parity opportunity cost is based on their gender parity system (gps,) which identifies five global zones that inhibit women's' participation in the global economy: blocked economic potential, unpaid work, inequality in legal rights, political under-representation, and violence against women. regional inhibitions include low labor-force participation in quality jobs, low maternal and reproductive health, and unequal access to education. it is this final blockade, unequal access to education, which perpetuates these regional failures. furthermore, unequal access to education inhibits women from creating systemic change in political and economic institutions that inhibit economic growth. what is to be done? we outline here three avenues; the first two have to do with the state actually fulfilling its duty to protect the rights of individuals (in this case, girls and women), in its role of "protective state" (see buchanan, 2000[1975]). the third has to do with the specific economic leverage of investing in girls and women. beck-peter, t., et al., educating girls, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) 113 the protective state (1): girls' education and women's rights one case in which the empowerment of women can lead to institutional reform is in differences in policy pursued by male and female politicians. female politicians place a higher priority on women's' rights legislation than do their male colleagues (robinson and heath, 2003). this is to be expected, as women have an incentive to protect their own rights. female politicians are often more frequent participants in the debate of bills involving family issues and the rights of women and children. because they are speaking up in legislative debate, they are contributing their unique knowledge and experience to the formation and alteration of legislation, thereby improving the quality of the work. the protective state (2): removing economic barriers for women institutional reform is a prerequisite for growth. institutions such as property law, inheritance law, and regulation may disadvantage women entrepreneurs, thus hindering their production. if women are unable to own capital and earn returns from it, they are limited in their ability to generate profit or continue production. if inheritance law bans women from receiving an inheritance from their parents, or their deceased husbands, women have limited access to start-up capital. if regulation creates significant barriers to entry, which are unnavigable to the uneducated, then women will bear the brunt of the cost because they are less likely to be educated. in fact, twothirds of the world's illiterate population is female: if barriers to entry prohibit the illiterate from formal activity, women will bear a disproportionate fraction of the cost. investing in girls and women: higher returns on investment we have already seen the economic returns to women's economic development and the protection of individual rights. what of investment in women specifically? the grameen bank, whose founder muhammad yunnus started microlending, focuses its lending on women (more than 95%), for five reasons: because (1) women make better use of small loans than men; (2) women have a better track record of repayment than men; (3) women are a huge untapped labor pool; (4) loans to women increase their access to capital; and (5) women who receive loans adopt healthier lifestyles and improve the 114 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) economic status of their families (see esty, 2013 or yunnus, 2008). several other studies corroborate the grameen experience. mccarter (2006) notes that "women make up approximately eighty-three percent, or sixty-six million, of reported microfinance clients. they not only make good clients – women have proven better at paying on time than men – but are also key drivers of development." in sum, "investing in women, literally, has proven the most effective way to increase individual family expenditures on health and education, improve nutrition and food security, protect against emergencies, and begin the slow process of tackling the gender inequalities that hinder development in so many countries around the world." a study by price waterhouse coopers (2014) finds that "on average, women invest 90% of their income on their families, investing in the education of their children and the healthcare of their relatives. and the oecd (2010) reports that "women usually invest a higher proportion of their earnings in their families and communities than men." what can we do? what works? a case study from senegal those familiar with the elusive quest for growth will remember the feelings they experienced while reading easterly's evaluation of the impact of education in the developing world (easterly, 2001). easterly sees educating those trapped in a struggling economy as a sisyphean effort: no matter how many resources or how much effort is exerted in education, a failed institutional structure will drag the stone back down the hill. the good news comes from one significant exception: education changes the lives of girls, and the lives of the families those girls will create one day. tostan: a senegalese educational initiative it is one thing to explore the relationship between education and girls' lives through statistics, but another entirely to explore case studies that illustrate just how powerful this impact can be. one such case study is the success of tostan, a senegalese educational initiative. tostan was founded in 1991 by american expatriate molly melching (www.tostan.org). the program began with melching teaching people in the rural village of saam njaay to read and write their native tongue. the informal structure of melching's classes made them accessible to those who had been excluded from the french-speaking education system. the curriculum and scope of tostan expanded rapidly in the 1990s. the final beck-peter, t., et al., educating girls, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) 115 curriculum included units on problem-solving, health and hygiene, preventing child mortality, financial management, leadership and group dynamics, conducting feasibility studies for proposed income-generating projects, literacy, numeracy, democracy, and human rights. women in saan njaay were empowered by tostan. lessons on health and germ theory taught them how to protect themselves and their children from contaminated water. they began to learn things about their bodies that we take for granted, including why they menstruated and why washing their hands was important. they strengthened their relationships with the families that they had left when they married, since senegalese marital norms include patrilocality. they joined with the men to advocate to be included in a project to provide safe drinking water to participating villages. together, they organized a wood lot to cut down the amount of time needed to gather wood daily, and built clay-and-sand stoves to reduce the need for wood, thereby freeing more time for schooling. a health center was built by the villagers. a community garden was built and tended for more than thirty years. the village flourished. the most astounding success of tostan was unforeseen by melching, and resulted from the curricula involving health and human rights. women were beginning to learn that they had rights. these rights were recognized (if not fully secured) by international human rights treaties including the international covenant on civil and political rights; the international covenant on economic, social, and cultural rights; the declaration on the elimination of violence against women; and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. these treaties were ratified by the senegalese government, and thus applied to these women, who had been told forever that their only right was the right to be a dutiful wife and daughter. they had the right not to be beaten by their husbands. they had the right not to be raped, or killed because of dowry, or married against their will. they had the right to control their own bodies, and to practice family planning. they had autonomy over their own bodies. to put this change in perspective, remember that unless american citizens are organ donors, their organs cannot be used for transplants. without consent given while americans are alive, their organs cannot be used to save the lives of those in need. american corpses have bodily autonomy. conversely, the tostan women were born belonging to their fathers, and died belonging to their husbands or their sons. their bodies could be used, bruised, and abused without their having the right to deny the 116 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) touch of any man. senegalese women were never taught that their bodies belonged to them. these living, breathing women had less bodily autonomy than american corpses. the women of malicounda bambara, another tostan village, made the decision first. they had learned that they had rights, and they had once discussed a practice known to them as '"the tradition," also known as female genital cutting (fgc). the practitioners of the "tradition" discussed it in hushed tones by soft firelight, for the first time. they remembered the girls they had lost, the blood that was shed. culture dictates that they never discuss the "tradition," for fear of invoking the curse of bad spirits. they had been told that the bad spirits were the reasons girls died after they had been cut, but they now knew that blood loss and infection had taken their sisters and daughters. after discussion and reflection, the women of malicounda bambara told melching that they were choosing to end fgc in the village. the villagers of malicounda bambara held each other accountable for the decision they had reached as a group. village representatives travelled to other villages with which they inter-married, to tell them they had abandoned the practice and that their sons would no longer marry girls who had been cut. public statements of abandonment were made in hundreds of villages throughout the kolda and thiès regions. on february 14, 1998, representatives from 13 villages, representing 8,000 senegalese citizens, made a joint declaration that they were following the precedent set by malicounda bambara. this effectively changed the marriage markets for these villages and intermarrying neighbors: the collective decision reversed the incentive structure that perpetuated fgc (easton, monkman, and miles, 2003.) today, more than 1,600 villages have collectively decided to abandon fgc, representing 30% of the practicing population (unicef, 2005.) diop and askew (2009) conducted studies in the kolda region, comparing similar villagers who had or had not participated in the tostan program, almost twenty years after the first public declaration of abandoning fgc. they found that "the proportion of women who believe that [fgc] is a social necessity decreased significantly among women in the intervention villages, from 70 percent at baseline to 15 percent among participants and 29 percent among non-participants. in the intervention group, the baseline for women who would have their daughters cut was 71%. at endline 18 months later, it was 12%." beck-peter, t., et al., educating girls, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) 117 while fgc still exists in senegal, its prevalence is declining and attitudes about it are changing. every day, girls who would have been cut just two decades ago are growing up intact and living healthier, more productive lives. as people are being empowered through education, they are applying critical analysis to previously taboo aspects of their lives. they are becoming key decision makers, and experiencing autonomy for the first time. education is not changing their gdp (yet), but it is changing their relationships with their culture, their families, and themselves. the tostan approach the foundation for the success of tostan was its bottom-up approach to empowerment through education. it employed local traditions and learning styles by incorporating drama and storytelling, elements which are intrinsic to senegalese culture. it used existing social capital to incorporate members of the community not enrolled in the program, through requiring that tostan students begin dialogues with their peers outside the program about the material they were covering. lessons were delivered in the local language, wolof, rather than the colonial french. the program is largely administered and delivered by senegalese members of the communities they served; for many years, melching was the only american on staff. lessons took place in the community during the evenings, thereby respecting the workloads of the students. community efforts decreased the need for time-consuming travel to gather water and firewood. local knowledge was used to create a curriculum that incorporated the skills and experiences of participants, respecting the austrian knowledge problem. lessons were held inside the community, rather than in remote destinations that would strain attendance. finally, the community center where lessons were held was used to distribute medications to mitigate the effects of disease on the ability to learn. the methods that make tostan a successful program are absent from traditional education in many developing countries. major problems plaguing education in these countries include a language barrier, teacher absenteeism, distance, lack of supplies, and rote memorization instruction. easterly (2001) was right to critique the quality and impact of education in developing nations: most educational institutions in the developing world deliver low quality education with limited success. tostan is proof that education can be successful, if executed correctly, and creates a prototype for further projects (see easterly, 2006; see also tooley, 2013 or dixon, 118 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) 2013 on educating the poorest, through private efforts, where the state has failed). conclusion while easterly's work is revolutionary and worthy of attention; only at the margin is it incomplete, due to the absence of a gender-based dehomogenization of education. easterly's willingness to confront the limited effectiveness of aid spending is a lesson for all development professionals (see easterly, 2001 or lal, 2000). in the spirit of mises (2007[1955]), and despite the widespread failures of development economics and policy, we assume that most people who go into development work do so out of a genuine desire to improve the lives of people in developing nations.4 because of this desire, it is tempting for those in the aid world to conclude that anything helps – or worse, boldly to persevee with perfect plans that fail. easterly's challenge reminds us of the most basic tenet of economics: resources are scarce. because of this scarcity, it is vital to the future of development that ineffective and inefficient practices be abandoned. the need is too great for waste. furthermore, easterly's work calls our attention to a huge roadblock in the way of effective development: unsound institutions. unsound institutions inhibit growth. they permit kleptocratic authoritarians to siphon off aid contributions to pay off allies and assure patronage; they also promote stagnation, as political activity is rewarded over economic activity. unsound institutions limit the abilities of women to own businesses and extract capital. institutional change, however, can be made only by those on the inside. efforts by exterior powers demanding institutional reform will be ineffective (see boettke et al., 2008). the demand for institutional reform as part of acceptance of financial aid is coercive and cannot lead to the establishment of culturally sound institutions. only those who grow up in a culture can truly understand the dynamics that must be accounted for in the creation of effective institutions, and these people can only apply their unique cultural knowledge to institutional reform if they are given the tools to do so, namely education and empowerment. if the goal of the new 4 contra hancock (1994), who looks at the (theoretical) incentive problem and the (actual) corruption of the development industry. beck-peter, t., et al., educating girls, jwee (2020, no. 1-2, 103-124) 119 development economics is institutional reform, then the education of girls must be pursued as a route towards reform. there is no panacea for economic development. there is, however, a virtuous cycle that can be exploited to improve health, wealth, and institutions. the first step towards instituting this virtuous cycle is to empower and educate girls. we must, however, close on a cautionary note. we have argued here that education for girls is an exception to the rule that education (in general) does not lead to growth, absent institutional change. this does certainly not imply that we are arguing for top-down, state-run, centrally planned, government-to-government programs that ignore the local reality, and arguably do more harm than good (see bauer, 1972 and 2000, hancock, 1994, coyne, 2013, or easterly, 2014). instead, we argue for targeted private programs that respect basic microeconomics (including incentives and local knowledge). beyond the case study we present, see for example the pioneering work of james tooley (2013) or pauline dixon (2013), who describe immensely successful, private, grassroots, bottom-up programs that educate poor children (see also easterly, 2006 and 2014). acknowledgments for feedback and insights, the authors thank participants at the 2016 meeting of the association of private enterprise education the usual disclaimer applies. references [1] ahmad, samreen, shahzada bakhtyar zahid and anwar zeb jan. 2013. 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[77] yunnus, muhammad. 2008. banker to the poor: micro-lending and the battle against world poverty. new york: public affairs. article history: received: 03 february, 2020 accepted: 14 may, 2020 publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade associate editors aidin salamzadeh, faculty of entrepreneurship, university of teheran, iran hiroko kawamorita kesim, ondokuz mayis university, turkey editorial office journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by donat graf, beograd kylie goodell king0f introduction theory and hypothesis development network analysis social capital centrality density strong and weak ties women and entrepreneurship hypotheses methods procedures analysis and results evaluation of hypotheses discussion theoretical and practical implications limitations and future research conclusions references tammi c. redd1f sibin wu2f introduction literature review gender differences in network composition resource acquisition networking ability hypotheses network resources research methodology sampling measures data analysis and results access to resources access to weak ties references dejana pavlović3f kosovka ognjenović4f introduction current state of women in the republic of serbia methods and data women in poverty from 2016 to 2018 in the republic of serbia conclusions references nina miković6f introduction research results correlation analysis of competitiveness and gender equality for eu member states including serbia and montenegro in 2019 conclusion references daniela palaščáková9f lenka palaščáková10f introduction gender equality in sport methodology results number of medals in sports according to gender conclusion references andre clark11f floricatomos12f introduction methodology women entrepreneurs’ approach to learning defining success main findings conclusions and recommendations reflection and suggestions for further research references tricia beck-peter nikolai g. wenzel13f introduction microeconomic effects of girls' education on marriage and health from micro to macro: the meso-economic girl effect the protective state (1): girls' education and women's rights the protective state (2): removing economic barriers for women investing in girls and women: higher returns on investment what can we do? what works? a case study from senegal tostan: a senegalese educational initiative the tostan approach conclusion acknowledgments references radka čopková17f introduction the dark triad machiavellianism narcissism psychopathy the dark triad in teaching profession method sample procedure and tool results conclusion references networks, aspirations, and outcomes of mom entrepreneurs gender differences in acquiring business support from online social networks perspectives on poverty by gender within the republic of serbia the competitiveness and gender equality overview of serbia, montenegro and croatia in 2019 persistence of gender stereotypes in sports entrepreneurial learning and the success of welsh businesswomen educating girls, educated women: dehomogenizing the impact of education in development the dark triad in helping professions – comparison of teachers and pedagogy students doi: 10.28934/jwee22.12.pp137-153 jel: l26, l32 original scientific paper 7bantecedents of entrepreneurial intentions of female undergraduate students in bangladesh: a covariance-based structural equation modeling approach md. mizanur rahman1 5 f1 brac business school, brac university, bangladesh aidin salamzadeh1 6f2 faculty of management, university of tehran, tehran, iran mosab i. tabash17 f3 college of business, al ain university, united arab emirates a b s t r a c t due to the economic and social development, particularly in developing countries through entrepreneurship, businesses, government organizations, and legislative bodies have all paid particular attention to entrepreneurship development. however, these developments are impossible without strengthening female students’ entrepreneurial intention (ei). as a result, the primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of entrepreneurial antecedents on bangladeshi female undergraduate students’ ei. a well-organized questionnaire was prepared and circulated to responders using the snowball sampling technique to achieve the goal. finally, 251 female undergraduate students from higher educational institutions were chosen as the sample size. the covariance-based structural equation modelling (cb-sem) approach has been applied using amos software to complete the analysis procedure. the findings revealed that two 1 corresponding author, e-mail: mizanur.rahman@bracu.ac.bd 2 e-mail: salamzadeh@ut.ac.ir 3 e-mail: mosab.tabash@aau.ac.ae 138 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 137-153) entrepreneurial antecedents (attitude and subjective norm) have a significant beneficial impact on ei. the study's outcomes indicate that entrepreneurial attitude, and subjective norms, play a vital role for bangladeshi female students in enhancing their ei. key words: bangladesh, cb-sem, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial intentions, female undergraduates, tpb theory introduction entrepreneurship is simply one of the individual’s capabilities to create business opportunities and capitalize on those opportunities to generate value and profit for the company (ohanu & ogbuanya, 2018; mensah et al., 2021). organizational capacity and professional abilities are developed through an evolutionary and inventive process (chukwu et al., 2019). additionally, entrepreneurship can be defined as a coordinated effort that results from original thought or creation and a unique viewpoint on something that already exists (galvo et al., 2017). entrepreneurship is also crucial in fostering innovation and increasing productivity (milojevic et al., 2021). as a result, entrepreneurship is often regarded as a critical economic force and a catalyst for the growth and health of the global economy (gieure et al., 2020; tleuberdinova et al., 2021; slavinski et al., 2020). due to the economic and social development, particularly in developing countries through entrepreneurship, businesses, government organizations, and legislative bodies have all paid particular attention to entrepreneurship development. as a result, entrepreneurship is often regarded as a critical economic driver and a stimulant for the development and health of the world economy (mensah et al., 2021; guo et al., 2016). in the international community, it is seen as a novel strategy that can be relied on to reduce unemployment while simultaneously encouraging social progress and economic prosperity (coulibaly et al., 2018). depending on the circumstances, the amount of economic growth experienced by a country may be linked to the nature of entrepreneurship in that country (ramadani et al., 2022; antonijević et al., 2022; radović-marković et al., 2021; radovićmarković et al., 2021b; naderibeni et al., 2020; chukwu et al., 2019). the development of entrepreneurial orientation can aid in the reduction of unemployment as well as the promotion of social and economic prosperity (gieure et al., 2020; abdul et al., 2019; samuel and rahman, 2018; rahman et al., 2017; abdul et al., 2017). md. mizanur rahman, aidin salamzadeh, mosab i. tabash 139 with over 161 million people, bangladesh is one of the world's most populous countries. women constitute slightly less than half of the total population. according to the united nations development programme, bangladesh is one of those countries where most of the population is young. approximately half of the population is under the age of 25(hechavarria et al., 2019; new age bangladesh, 2018). bangladesh hoped to gain middleincome status by 2021 by concentrating on developing an innovative economy. bangladesh currently has 151 universities, which is a significant number. there are 105 private universities, and the rest are public universities (rahman et al., 2021; ugc, 2019). according to the most recent data, the total number of students enrolled in private universities is 349160 (2,47,947 men and 1,01,213 women), while the total number of students enrolled in community universities is 8,17,707 (males=5,07,928 men and females=3,09,779) (ugc, 2019). even though many students seek to find employment following graduation, many of them struggle terribly (ramadani et al., 2022). the situation of graduate students' unemployment in bangladesh is the most critical of the country's present concerns. according to the master card index of women entrepreneurs (miwe, 2021), bangladesh was also ranked last out of 65 countries. as a group, the miwe represents approximately 80 percent of the worldwide female workforce and conducts extensive research into the socio-demographic variables that aid or impede women's ability to attain their goals. miwe's findings indicate that female entrepreneurs and professionals in middle eastern and african economies and some asian economies continue to lag behind their male counterparts in terms of their ability to progress professionally as business leaders, professionals, or technicians (miwe, 2021). without a doubt, bangladesh is in a challenging situation. it is likewise imperative to devote greater attention to promoting the entrepreneurial aspirations of students, particularly female students in bangladesh. a further consideration is an importance of emphasizing students' entrepreneurial intention (ei) to promote entrepreneurship growth. because it boosts a person's motivation to start a new business, it can also be defined as the process of becoming identity, which opens up the possibility of beginning a new business, as well as aiding an entrepreneur in their venture (swarupa and guyal, 2020; ramadani et al., 2019). according to the theory of planned behaviour (tpb) assumption, attitudes, subjective standards, and perceived behavioural control (pbc) can all influence an individual's intention to do something. in this study, these three elements are recognized as the antecedents of ei. however, in terms of tpb theory, the 140 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 137-153) primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the antecedents of ei among female undergraduates from bangladesh. the study's outcomes reveal that entrepreneurial attitude, subjective norms, play a vital role for bangladeshi female students to enhance their ei. the rest of the paper is put together as follows. the following section discusses the study's theoretical framework and hypotheses. after that, the overall methodology is described. the study also explains how the data was processed and what was discovered. finally, the implications of the study are discussed. theoretical background and hypotheses development the theory of planned behavior (tpb) has been extensively used to explain the ei (tpb). this theory is commonly utilized in the area of human behaviour. tpb has also been used to describe entrepreneurial aspirations and behaviours in earlier studies (schlaegel and koenig, 2014). according to tpb, one of the essential variables in an individual's behaviour is their intentions, which are influenced by three psychological constructs: attitude toward behaviour, subjective norms, and perceived behaviour control (pbc) (ajzen, 1991). attitude is a subjective assessment of the outcomes of one's desired conduct that determines how much one loves or dislikes it. subjective norms refer to how members of a society see their social obligations. finally, pbc is described as self-efficacy, which is defined as one's belief and confidence in one's abilities and the ease with which one can do a particular activity. pbc, sometimes known as self-efficacy, refers to how many difficulties somebody expects or is willing to face when starting a new business (ajzen, 1991). tpb was utilized to predict ei in university students, and three behavioural antecedents were employed to show the theory's validity (anjum et al., 2018; farrukh et al., 2018; karimi et al., 2017). however, current research demonstrates that the relative importance of the antecedents (attitude toward behaviour, subjective norms, and perceived behaviour control) on students' ei and their impact varies significantly between situations and countries (linan et al., 2013; nabi and linan, 2011). following a thorough investigation of current literature using tpb, the study discovers the following framework has been developed. md. mizanur rahman, aidin salamzadeh, mosab i. tabash 141 figure 1: research framework source: authors’ elaboration, based on ajzen (1991) and cameron et al. (2012) attitude and ei it is critical to consider an individual's attitude because it will decide the actions and behaviours they will engage in in the future. according to ajzen (1991), attitude can be described as an individual's overall judgment and assessment of their own behaviors as well as the acts of other people. the willingness to react to specific objects in the surroundings as an expression of admiration for the object can also be defined as attitude (efendi and makhfudli, 2009). developing an awareness of attitudes and entrepreneurial intention, according to ismail (2015), is essential since they both can have an influence and can be a necessary step in generating higher entrepreneurial intention. many researchers have discovered that positive attitudes toward behaviour have a significant and positive effect on entrepreneurial intentions (shi et al. 2020; paco et al., 2011; agolla et al., 2019; azizuddin et al., 2020). in addition, training and skill development programs can help to foster good attitudes about entrepreneurship among participants (ramadani et al., 2022). we came up with the following hypothesis, which was supported by the literature: h1: attitude has positive impact on ei for female undergraduate students in bangladesh. attitudes subjective norms perceived behavioural control entrepreneurial intention 142 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 137-153) subjective norms and ei the term "subjective (social) norm" refers to the pressure placed on individuals by society to engage in or refrain from a particular action or behavior (ajzen, 1991). people's decisions to participate in or refrain from participating in a particular activity are influenced by a person's point of view on that activity or activity's subject (wedayanti and giantari, 2016). individual’s decision to become an entrepreneur will be influenced by the beliefs or points of view of family, friends, and members of society who he or she considers to be important in his or her life. the researchers discovered that more ei is associated with both subjective norm (noor and malek, 2021; wedayanti and giantari, 2016). people who come from business families are more likely to aspire to start their own firm or take over an existing one, and their entrepreneurial ambitions may be influenced by their family background as a result (kolvereid, 1996). because it helps to reduce uncertainty and dangers (farooq et al., 2018), these findings show that subjective norms are significant because they can have a favorable impact on entrepreneurial behavior if they are implemented successfully (ahmad et al., 2019). we came up with the following hypothesis, which was supported by the literature: h2: subjective norm has positive impact on ei for female undergraduate students in bangladesh. perceived behavioural control and ei a person's belief that he or she can control or show certain behaviours is called "perceived behavioral control (pbc)" (ajzen, 1991). it's up to the person, and if he or she has strong beliefs and confidence, he or she will choose to be an entrepreneur and has a good chance of being successful when starting a business (al-jubari et al., 2019). a study conducted in malaysia on asnaf millennials discovered a significant favorable relationship between pbc and pre-start-up behavior (mahmood et al., 2019). additionally, a recent study conducted by ahmed et al (2020) and discovered that pbc has a significant favourable impact on entrepreneurial behaviour among university students in pakistan. besides, andi and meilan lin, (2020) say that pbc makes students more likely to be entrepreneurs. mahmood et al. (2019) found that entrepreneurial intent was affected by pbc in a roundabout way. we came up with the following hypothesis, which was supported by the literature: md. mizanur rahman, aidin salamzadeh, mosab i. tabash 143 h3: perceived behavioural control has positive impact on ei for female undergraduate students in bangladesh. methods sample and procedure the respondents for this study are bangladeshi female undergraduate students from higher educational institutions. the researchers acquired their data via a widely distributed self-administered questionnaire. the dependent variable is entrepreneurial intention (ei). the antecedents of entrepreneurial intention are the independent variables (attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control). a snowball sampling approach was used to give the questionnaire to the respondents in this study. if the authors utilize the cb-sem with amos, as kline (2005) recommended, a sample size of 251 is sufficient and large. after the authors received 50 responses, we conducted a pilot test and found that the data was highly consistent. table 2 has more information on the reliability values. measures of scales table 1: measures of scale variables no. of items sources entrepreneurial intention 10 ajzen (1991) and cameron et al. (2012). attitudes towards behavior 6 subjective norms 6 perceived behavioral control 6 source: authors, based on ajzen (1991) and cameron et al. (2012) each item uses a five-point "likert scale", with responses ranging from "strongly disagree" (1) to "strongly agree" (5). data analysis tools two software packages (spss and amos) were used to finish the data analysis. prior to using the amos software, the authors conducted a preliminary examination of the data for missing values, normality, outliers, and multicollinearity problems in the first step. amos was used to do 144 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 137-153) confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) for all variables with measurement models and a structural model to test the direct effect. ethical subject matters we provided a consent form with the questionnaire that stated the study's fundamental objective. using that consent form, the authors certified that all of the information they had acquired would be used solely for the objectives of this study. furthermore, it was guaranteed that all data would be kept entirely confidential. data analysis and findings in the first step of the data analysis, we have done the cfa for all research variables to validate the appropriate items have been selected for the studied variables. we run the measurement model in the second stage, which is dependent on the items that have been confirmed. after getting the fit indices of measurement mode, finally, we run the structural model to test our formulated hypotheses. cfa to validate the constructs cfa has used to check the construct validity of the questionnaire. it is possible to utilize this strategy if the questions on the survey have already been used in other research projects (prudon, 2015). in addition, we used items from other studies, which are listed in table 1. if we look at table 1 again, we can see that ei initially had ten components (10). however, based on the amos report's modification indices (mi), we have excluded six items (items 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 9) for ei. initially, there were six items for all independent variables (attitude, subjective norms, and pbc). based on the modification indices (mi) of amos output, we removed one item (item no 2) for attitude, two items (items no 4 and 5) for subjective norms, and one item (item no 5) for pbc (item no 6). in table 2, we provide the fit indices of all of our research variables after deleting those items from our variables. additionally, figure 1 depicts the variables. for each research variable, the cfa results demonstrated an appropriate factor loading of larger than 0.6 (awang, 2012). as a result, the study's unidimensionality has been confirmed. the md. mizanur rahman, aidin salamzadeh, mosab i. tabash 145 factor loading of each item (0.6) was considered the best match when convergent, construct, and discriminant validity was analyzed. table 2: measures of reliability and validity oi ui cr ave rmsea gfi cfi x 2 /df att 6 5 .898 .64 .067 .984 .992 2.11 pbc 6 5 .873 .58 .109 .969 .975 3.99 subn 6 4 .776 .48 .038 .995 .997 1.36 ei 10 4 .797 .50 .000 .997 1.00 0.72 source: authors’ elaboration figure 2: cfa for individual construct (variable) source: authors, amos software measurement model it was decided to use the measurement model in this study to check the model fit and discriminant validity and ensure that the data was reliable. 146 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 137-153) table 3: model fit indices (measurement model) name of index results for model rmsea .062 gfi .903 cfi .947 nfi .900 chisq/df 1.96 source: authors’ elaboration figure 3: measurement model source: authors, amos software it has been determined that the measurement model is valid by the fit indices rmsea (062), gfi, cfi, nfi (.903, .947, and 900), and chisq/df (1.96), which have all met or exceeded the acceptance criteria for the measurement model (figure 3 and table 3). as a result, we can run the structural model to test our formulated hypotheses. md. mizanur rahman, aidin salamzadeh, mosab i. tabash 147 structural model figure 4: structural model source: authors, amos software table 4: values of structural model independent variable dependent variable estimate s.e. c.r. p att -------ei 0.773 .090 7.470 *** pbc ------ei -0.013 .069 -.184 .854 subn ------ei 0.214 .062 3.163 .002 r2=.80, source: authors’ computation figure 4 and table 4 show a direct association between entrepreneurial antecedents of female undergraduate students and ei in bangladesh. entrepreneurial antecedents accounted for 80% of the variance in ei (r2 = 0.80), indicating that they are highly predictive. this study discovered that attitudes and subjective norms have a statistically significant favourable impact on the ei of female undergraduate students from bangladesh. the β scores for attitude (β =0.773, p=0.000) and subjective norms (β = 0.214, p=0.002), were statistically significant. as a result, therefore, h1 and h3 are supported. the fundamental objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of entrepreneurial antecedents on the ei of female undergraduates in 148 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 137-153) bangladesh. to test the effects, we formulated three hypotheses. so, we have discussed our discussions based on our formulated hypotheses. when the findings demonstrated a statistically significant positive correlation between attitude and ei, our first hypothesis (h1) was accepted. based on our first hypothesis (h1), the findings demonstrated a significant positive relationship between attitude and entrepreneurial intent (ei). according to some researchers, entrepreneurial attitude is a powerful predictor and significantly impacts ei (jalil et al., 2021; agolla et al., 2019, majeed et al., 2021; radović-marković, 2018; salamzadeh et al., 2021) it recommends that students must focus more on their attitudes to increase their ei. the hypothesis (h2) is shown to be false, meaning that there is no statistically significant association between pbc and ei in this study. the findings contrast to previous studies conducted by other researchers, who discovered a substantial link between this attribute and entrepreneurial aspiration in a sample of participants (andi and mei-lan lin, 2020; agolla et al., 2019, majeed et al., 2021). but, our finding is similar to the findings of (jalil et al., 2021). one of the explanations for his inconsistent finding is the cultural difference and lack of confidence of the female students. finally, for hypothesis three (h3), the finding revealed that subjective norms and ei have a significant positive relationship that is statistically significant. thus, strong support from close friends and family members, coworkers and professors, and anybody else who students regard to be important in their lives can help them develop their entrepreneurial goals. recently published studies also found similar findings. (andi and mei-lan lin, 2020; agolla et al., 2019, majeed et al., 2021). conclusion the main goal of this paper is to find out how entrepreneurial factors affect the ei of bangladeshi female undergraduate students. based on the tpb theory's assumptions, we came up with three main hypotheses to help us reach the goals of this study. the results showed that attitude and subjective norm, both entrepreneurial antecedents, have a significant positive effect on ei. the study results show that an entrepreneurial attitude and subjective norms are crucial for bangladeshi female undergraduate students to improve their ei. from the results of this study, the researcher could figure out the antecedents that lead university students in emerging countries like bangladesh. students' attitudes need to be changed to be more md. mizanur rahman, aidin salamzadeh, mosab i. tabash 149 positive, and their families and friends need to be supportive. governments, higher educational institutions, other organizations and agencies must figure out how to enhance the students' interest in business while still in educational institutions. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank everyone who took the time to comment and provide information for this research. references [1] abdul, m., rahman, a. a., yahya, m., & rahman, m. m. 2019. “entrepreneurial characteristics and intentions among undergraduates in malaysia.” world review of entrepreneurship, management and sustainable development, 15(5), 560-574. 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[50] world bank. 2020. data: population, total – bangladesh. available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.pop.totl?locations=bd article history: received: may 12th, 2022 accepted: june 24th, 2022 http://ugc.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/ugc.portal.gov.bd/annual_reports/0b944cc5_aa77_44b7_b1db_cc1a20e0eb37/2021-09-08-06-49-e0bf991565e624555d9915b54629624d.pdf http://ugc.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/ugc.portal.gov.bd/annual_reports/0b944cc5_aa77_44b7_b1db_cc1a20e0eb37/2021-09-08-06-49-e0bf991565e624555d9915b54629624d.pdf http://ugc.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/ugc.portal.gov.bd/annual_reports/0b944cc5_aa77_44b7_b1db_cc1a20e0eb37/2021-09-08-06-49-e0bf991565e624555d9915b54629624d.pdf https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.pop.totl?locations=bd doi: 10.28934/jwee21.12.pp174-189 jel: i24, j16 scientific review 10badopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria omolade o. olomola2 5f1 university of ibadan, faculty of law, dept. of private and property law, nigeria chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26 f2 koladaisi university, oyo road, ibadan, nigeria a b s t r a c t the importance of education and the need for women’s education, in particular, is advocated worldwide. however, there are still impediments to the realisation of women’s right to education in nigeria. it is through education that women acquire the desire and nature for the attainment of values, competence, skills, attitudes and knowledge. this paper highlights the need for serious consideration to be afforded to adult education generally in addition to adult literacy specifically in a bid to aid women in achieving their right to education. as such, the concept of adult and non-formal education being a basis aimed at the abolition of illiteracy amidst women in nigeria was discussed. key words: women’s right to education, literacy, adult education, non-formal education, access to education 1 corresponding author: e-mail: omolade_olomola@yahoo.com 2 e-mail: chiomeme@yahoo.com omolade o. olomola, chioma agnes olumide-ajibola 175 introduction women’s lives and destinies all over the world are being trampled upon due to the fact that there is a deprivation of their right to make and get financial freedom through decent means. the female folk are being compelled to marry and then raise children. some are led into prostitution and other illegal acts just because they do not possess power or even a voice to stand up for themselves. women as a group are the worst hit when it comes to poverty and economic crises. machel (2002) and oxfam (1999) observed that the education of women was the first of their activities to be sacrificed in time of crisis. this is a trend that runs contrary to the moral principles of the world conference on education for all (efa) which took place in jomtein in 1990 which was restated by the world education forum (wef) in dakar in 2000 where allegiance to basic education for everyone with specific highlight on girls’ education was re-established. there exists in nigeria, a legal structure to safeguard the rights of women specifically the right to education. however, it could be perceived that in spite of the availability of these laws, the laws seem not to be so effective in the actual daily life of the women due to the scarcity of educational access particularly literacy. literacy is formulated in educational institutes and all other surroundings that are suitable for not only youths but adults also and is an implemental form of learning of reading, writing and numeracy which via the non-formal methods of education is learned to assist the student in understanding short simple sentences (unep, 1978). literacy in a narrow sense is the capacity to be acquainted with how to read and write. the analogy of farming can be used to describe adult literacy. it can be equated to fertilizer that is required for development to take root and grow (aspbae, 2006). women use literacy skills for themselves and the nation as it can be used to increase direct access to information (jeffries,1967). forms of education in nigeria there exist three main forms of education recognised in nigeria. they are informal, non-formal and formal. in informal education the student or learner learns from community, family, religious leaders, and peers and this is from the day to day life and the actions carried out at work, while with the family or even during relaxation as it does not require any deliberate work. 176 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 174-189) the non-formal education is a not so structured system of education as it is loosely organised. it could or could not be directed by a formal syllabus and is open to all categories of people. the interest of the learner is paramount because it directs their input and involvement and directs the tempo of the classes as it encourages discussions and debates. it is open to everybody irrespective of the age or sex and this is carried out in seminars, conferences, courses and even workshops. however, the non -formal form takes place outside of the educational institutions. it helps people possess valuable skills that they otherwise would never have gained. formal education is an organised method of education that is conducted by the use of a formal curriculum. at the completion of the course of study a certificate that is formally recognised is given to the student such as a diploma or a degree. the teachers are professionals and not just people with only experience. it is regulated by statutory laws and is controlled by the state (national policy on education 2004). it is what obtains in educational system s such as schools, universities and other institutions. delineating adult education the definition of adult and non-formal education is so wide as its scope can be said to have no limit as it is flows through all the facets of life. unesco (1976) stated that adult education is the constituent of education that lasts throughout life and starts from the crib and terminates in the tomb. it also stated that it denotes that total body of organised education processes whether in the formal sector or otherwise as it pertains to the content level and method. harry and kasi (2012) were of the opinion that adult education may possibly be termed as the entire educational actions or procedures which adults involve themselves in all through their life in order to ensure that their knowledge is up to date and also to widen their horizon to enable them to live a better life. this is in line with the final international conference on adult education(unesco, 1976), which adopted the declaration of the right to learn which stated that the right to learn is the right to read and write. according to borode (2002), adult education in nigeria comes under non-formal education. he stated that non-formal education serves like an alternate to formal education process and remains an intentional and systematic learning carried out separate from the formal school system. furthermore, that it is usually designed for adults in or out of school and omolade o. olomola, chioma agnes olumide-ajibola 177 people attend it for the purpose of updating their knowledge; improving their skill and performance on the job; to ensure promotion in their places of work or remedy their educational imbalance. adult education is also the practice of adults being taught and educated which takes place frequently either in the place of work or by extension or continuing education courses at secondary schools, high schools, colleges in the community, universities and lifelong learning centres (chijioke, 2010). the concept of adult education encompasses every planned and focused opportunity for learning which is presented to individuals who are acknowledged and who acknowledge themselves as being adults in their own society (rogers, 1992). these individuals are also the adults who had to leave the formal education which is the first system of education or those that were not in the initial education but cannot attend again because they are way beyond that level. there are various ways in which adult education could be classified. one way is to classify it into the following categories: a) the formal adult education: it has some features like that of the formal school system. b) the non-formal adult education: in terms of organization, it is totally different from the formal form and takes place out of school. it is based and tailored to suit the learners so that it will be beneficial. c) the informal adult education: carried out informally and is not organised as it can be accomplished through watching television, listening to radio or even reading of books and normal daily activities. it could further be classified into four major segments namely (nzeneri, 2002): i. the education that is for personal development and emancipation: the programmes here are basically for the personal life of the learner and it also sets the learner free from all forms of ignorance and includes such programmes as the adult basic, political, functional literacy, environmental, women, citizenship, preventive. ii. the education that is aimed at skills development and competence: this encompasses all programmes that are for skill acquisition and training with the resultant effect of the ability to handle and operate efficiently all tools. such programmes include education 178 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 174-189) on the following: apprenticeship, post basic, vocational, aesthetic and labour. iii. the education for adjustment and sustainability: an important reason for anfe is to aid the learners in adapting to the changing realities of life. these programmes consist of education studies that have to do with peace, health, family planning, reproductive, community, co-operative, population. iv. education for the continuation and awareness: this includes extension education, continuing education, intermittent education, second chance education. adult education could also be classified into different types such as adult basic education; functional education; political education; environmental adult education; women education; citizenship education; consumer education; liberal education; apprenticeship education; vocational education; post-basic education; workers’ education; internship education; labour education; peace education; population education; family planning education; reproductive education; health education; fundamental education; co-operative education; community education; remedial education; extension education and distance education. objectives of adult education according to the national policy of 2004, the objectives of adult education amongst others are: 1) to make available functional literacy as well as continuing education aimed at adults and youths who at no time were opportune to have the benefit of formal education or who were not able to finish their primary education. 2) to make available functional and remedial education aimed at the young individuals that were not capable of concluding their primary education. these objectives highlight the fact that adult education programmes have been designed as alternative educational opportunities for individuals who could not attend or who missed out at the formal level (unicef, 1993). it was opined that the totality of the objectives is geared towards one target which is to ensure that the adult is equipped with all that is needed for existence in a bid to become a person of relevance to his immediate omolade o. olomola, chioma agnes olumide-ajibola 179 environment and society in general (indabawa, 1992). this is achieved by assisting to proffer solutions to societal problems. right to education education is a fundamental right by itself and because it is an empowering right, it accelerates human development in every way. it is a right and not anything that should be quantified by financial benefits. education raises awareness and understanding (radović marković et al. 2012). it also opens up the consciousness of individuals to fresh prospects while developing dignity and self-respect. it is a basic human right crucial for enjoying many other rights (cescr, 2002). there are certain features of the right to education. this is referred to as the 4a scheme and it was propounded by tomasevski, who was the erstwhile un special rapporteur on the right to education. it comprises the required contents for education and was adopted by the icescr committee (cescr, 2002). it distinguishes between the four interconnected and indispensable aspects of education which are availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability. availability deals with the availability of a satisfactory number of educational institutions, programmes and infrastructure to expedite the achievement of this right. accessibility denotes education being accessible to everyone. it has three aspects namely economic accessibility, non-discrimination and physical accessibility (tomasevski, 2001). acceptability deals with the form and substance of education given. this consists of the curricula and the techniques for teaching. adaptability has to be adaptable. it is ideal for the curriculum to be revised continuously to make it useful and relevant for the learners. the right to education includes delivery of quality education that is available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable to the requirements of the students. legal framework on education at the core of every one of the various fundamental human rights treaties are the standards and -principles of gender equality and nondiscrimination. international human rights law forbids the discrimination meted out on women in the sphere of education. 180 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 174-189) nigeria has ratified several international instruments that deal with the right to education along with the right of women to education. nigeria remains bound by the obligations under these treaties. examples of these treaties are: a. universal declaration of human right (udhr, 1948) b. convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw, 1979). (article 10). c. unesco convention against discrimination in education (cade, 1976). d. icescr (1966): articles 13 and 14. e. african protocol on the people’s rights and rights of women apprrw (2003): article 12 the national commission for mass literacy, adult and non formal education (nmec) is the statutory federal government department saddled with the onus of ensuring that any individual who based on whatever reasons; could not or had not benefited from the formal system of schooling is made to be literate. it is to eradicate illiteracy among the citizenry. this is inclusive of youths that are not in school, children found on the streets, women in purdah, teenagers that have become mothers, nomads who are not literate, almajiris and other fishermen who are migrants. the purpose is for the beneficiaries to be able to utilise these literary skills received in their daily socio-economic activities. it was established by decree no 17 of june 26, 1990 but it did not take off fully until june 25, 1991. its aim is to organise and manage the different facets of the non-formal education (nfe) in nigeria. this it does by coordinating and monitoring government agencies, academic institutions, and non –governmental organisations (ngos) taking part in the programmes of nfe. this was done further to the jomtien and delhi declarations where it was agreed to by nations that were members of the un to eradicate illiteracy by year 2000 to expedite development. nmec works in conjunction with the state agencies for mass education (sames). it is the sames that provide the structure for the literacy classes carried on in the local governments. the right of women to education in nigeria, women’s literacy and right to education is categorised under adult and non formal education (anfe). on the part of the government, it is carried out by nmec. this agency works with adults of which women omolade o. olomola, chioma agnes olumide-ajibola 181 are inclusive and is concerned with ensuring that any adult not literate should be made literate. statistics have shown that out of the 774 million illiterates worldwide, women account for 64% (unsd gender statistics, 2010). this is just a slight difference from what it was in the early part of the 1990s. the millennium development goal (mdg) of the un that deals with the advancement of gender equality and women enablement makes use of education as its objective while it uses the measurement of the level of disparity in education based on gender as its pointer of advancement and growth. concerning women education, nigeria’s policy on education has eventually tilted towards a gender focus. the commitment of nigeria towards formulation of policies on equality in education could be seen in formulation of various policies over time. the blueprint on women education was launched in 1986 and this was succeeded by the creation of women education units in both the ministries of education at the federal and state levels. the purpose of the units was to take care of both the urban as well as the rural women with the aspiration to advance in their education. the blueprint was to make available equal educational opportunities to all. vocational centres were also run which taught such vocations as cloth weaving, tie and dye, farming, processing of food and its preservation, tailoring, cooking, cosmetology, secretarial, and computer studies. mass literacy classes are being carried on in and around nigeria and women are the major targets of the fight against illiteracy. then there was the family support basic education programme which was launched in 1994. closely followed was the universal basic education which was created in 1999. the national policy on women was inaugurated in 2001 with the education for all fast track initiative following closely in 2002. the policies were still being created with the strategy for acceleration of girls education in nigeria in 2003. this was basically geared towards girls and ensuring that the girls child is paid much attention in terms of education. this was to speed up the plans and proposals for the girl child education by the federal government. next in line that was formulated was the national economic empowerment and development strategy (needs) which was in 2004 which was the same year with the ube act. objectives of women education unesco (1988) came up with the ensuing, as the objectives of women education to: 182 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 174-189) a. empower women to better the health and nutrition of their families. b. cause there to be a rise in the productive capability of women which would further lead to an increase of the standard of livelihood of the family. c. provide access to suitable technologies for the women and also the administration of cooperatives. d. ensure that the women’s societal and cultural standing is improved. e. make it possible for the women to carry out their duties more efficiently. f. assist women to overcome any fears and any notions of being inadequate or inferior that they may possess. g. educate women in comprehensive development, which is mental, social, physical, psychological, religious and economical. for the objectives to be achieved, it must be done by first and foremost, ensuring that women acquire quality education. when this is done, the knowledge, skills, attitudes and other potentials that are required by women for full participation in national development will be developed. relationship between adult education and women’s right to education nigeria views education as essential to enable a person dwell in and add his own quota to the societal development. it will be done through the acquisition of all necessary skills and abilities which could be physical and mental. women that are not literate are often side-lined by the society (rovenská, 2020). this is why the adult education for women is important. education is therefore the fundamental implement that they would be provided with to equip them to perform any functions as complete members of the society. as women the option is the attendance of adult education classes. this is a second opportunity for women who were not afforded the opportunity of benefitting from the formal school system as they would be able to better their position. this was the reason why the federal government in 1986 established women education units in the ministries of education both at the federal and state levels. the creation of eighty eight (88) women adult education centres was an attestation of the belief that the education of the women is at the core of progress and advancement. the participation of omolade o. olomola, chioma agnes olumide-ajibola 183 women in the formal education helps to broaden their experience and it furthermore offers them entrance to novel resources and skills as education is seen as the main tool for passing on this skills and attitudes (shaheed, 1995). a woman’s role could therefore be said to be restricted to commercial and sexual work, satiating the desires of men, labouring in the fields, nurturing babies and kitchen duties such as cooking of food (hammond & jablav, 1992). using adult literacy as an empowerment tool can be accomplished successfully by designing and implementing well laid out programmes for literacy and non-formal education. in 2010, severe importance was placed on the empowerment of women. the un former secretary general ban-kimoon while delivering a speech (ban, 2010) stated that if literacy is used to empower women who have different and many responsibilities in the society, there would be a great contribution made towards the nation’s development. true empowerment of women can only be achieved when they are given higher levels of authority and are afforded the opportunity of acquiring education and skills. to achieve this, programmes that deal with developments are created to enhance the standards of living of the women and empower them to participate in the procedures that would aid their progress domestically, in the society and the nation as a whole. the principal aim is to lessen the weight that women carry on a daily basis via suitable programmes that deal with empowerment such as those on skill acquisition, basic education or even dissemination of heath of family information. the question of women’s literacy skills is of importance not only for educational and cultural reasons but also because it forms the very core of modernization and development. in other words, literacy is perceived as a means of building a community as well as promoting social and individual standards of living (mutanyatta, 2004). the burdens shaped by progressing technology today requires an improved level of knowledge, skills, understanding as well as the ability to improve someone’s living and working conditions. for example, in modern civilized society, reading and writing are considered indispensable elements for personal advancement and achievement (jeffries, 1967). although literacy cannot be claimed to be the entire cause of development or an end in itself, it is an important factor in its capacity to reduce levels of inequality especially between women and men (mcgivney & frances, 1991). sex discrimination in the delivery of education opportunities has victimized females in all communities of the world and the result of this discrimination has given rise to a high rate of illiteracy among women (pierette, 1985). it was further observed that the 184 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 174-189) importance of their contribution to life is not only at the family level but national wise (germaine, 1985). through the ages, women have constantly been performing all sorts of tasks in their homes and taking active role in various community endeavours. developing countries, including nigera, organise various programmes for the benefit of every woman which are executed by the federal government but in liaison with international institutions who are also the sponsors. the states and local governments also collabourate with the federal government. decree no. 30 (decree no 30 of 1989) was promulgated to better the lot of women in nigeria culturally, economically, politically and socially as well as general welfare as it created the national commission for women (ncw) to execute programmes for women. the objectives of the commission include (oyitso & olomukoro, 2012): i. the promotion of women’s welfare in every sense; ii. encouraging the complete use of women in human resources development and ensuring that they are regarded as active participators in national development at every level possessing equal rights and obligations; iii. encouraging the women to be responsible mothers take and take care of their health; iv. doing all things possible to ensure that there is an improvement in women’s civil, political, cultural, social and economic education; v. assisting ngos and act as a liaison between the organisations that cater for women and the government; vi. the encouragement of the purpose and reasons for the establishment of cooperative societies as well as events amid women who are either in urban or rural parts. and to also arouse the enterprising spirit in them to aid them in the area small-scale industries. vii. formulating and disseminating standards of morality for the family and the general public and setting up programmes aided by institutions to instil moral education in both the woman and the child; viii. working in the direction of the complete abolition of every practice either social or cultural that tends to discriminate against and degrade womanhood (review of european studies, 2012). quite a number of organisations exist which organise classes for women by providing adult and non-formal educational chances to them. omolade o. olomola, chioma agnes olumide-ajibola 185 some of the organisations are religious women’s organisations. there are also many ngos that have education classes for women like the armed forces officers’ wives associations of nigeria, which comprises of the army, navy, and air force. in the same way, various international agencies such as unicef, unesco, undp, british council, van leer education foundation, inter alia impart immensely to numerous programmes that have to do with the education of the nigerian woman. it was stated in the unicef/fgn master plan of operation for the 1991-95 programme of cooperation, that one of the chief areas that needed the intermediation of unicef was the subject of women’s education. it is specified in the plan that the project pertaining to the education of women would speed up the accomplishment of functional literacy by improving accessibility and the quality of the education given for women who are of parturition age. it made provision for basic literacy and numeracy trainings for women in the skills that have to do with improving self, generating income and promotion of good hygiene and health related matters (ojobor, 2008). there has also been the use of radio to improve the education in the community which was achieved through the assistance of unesco (2018) while funds were provided by undp to sustain the literacy programmes taking place in various states in the country. the number of literacy centres in nigeria has increased significantly while quite a large number of ngos that have gotten involved in literacy. also, higher institutions27f3 are having literacy centres which are also called extra mural centres. conclusion and recommendation adult education is the way out of women illiteracy. women have the right to education and through adult education or literacy classes their right to education can be fulfilled no matter their age. it is recommended that women must as a group be primarily convinced and persuaded that education is a way which leads to self-development and that education will be of benefit to them individually and then to the larger society. it is therefore paramount that the women need to be addressed via seminars and conferences carried out in the local level of the importance of education particularly literacy. there should be more awareness made for the women literacy classes. the announcements for the start of the 3 such as the university of ibadan under the extra mural lessons held by the adult education department in the faculty of education of the university of ibadan. 186 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 174-189) programmes should be publicized more through the radio and televisions via jingles. the announcements would state the date of commencement of the classes and the available centres. mobile literacy centres should be established in the rural areas. the facilitators in these mobile centres would be made to move round different locations in the local government in order to reach a vast majority of who would otherwise not attend the centres. the mobile centres could be in markets where the women could be found and the literacy classes be carried out there in groups. the literacy classes for women should be set within the confines of women’s issues. the women should be strengthened to confront the obstacles faced in the home-front and the society at large. literacy could be used to provide the women to access to knowledge on such subjects as family, women’s own health, health and nutrition, agricultural production, reproduction. this would help improve their manner of dealing with their anxieties and drives home the benefit of literacy. the literacy classes should be organized in such a way that allowance or accommodation is made for women who come in with their little children. activities or space could be provided for the children so that they do not distract the mothers from their lessons. references [1] aspbae. 2006. resourcing for quality: adult literacy learning. journal of adult education development: [2] ban, k. 2010. world literacy day. empowering women through literacy empowers us all. fortune world news 8. 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[8] germaine, b. 1985. “jobs for women” unesco, switzerland. omolade o. olomola, chioma agnes olumide-ajibola 187 [9] hamburg declaration on adult learning and agenda for the future adopted at the fifth international conference on adult education convened by unesco and held at hamburg germany from 14 to 18 july 1997. [10] hammond, d and jablav, a. 1992. the africa that never was, prospect heights, woveland press [11] harry, c. i. and kasi g. 2012 adult and non-formal education as an instrument for eradication of poverty and illiteracy. african journal of historical sciences in education 8, 1 [12] indabawa, s.a. 1992. themes in adult and non-formal education. lagos: text and leisure publishers ltd [13] international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights icescr, dec 16 1966, unts 993, p3 entered into force jan 3, 1976. [14] jeffries, c. 1967. literacy: a world problem. pall mall press limited, london. [15] klaus d.b. 2005. the protection of the right to education by international law. martinus nyhoff publishers. [16] machel, g. 2002. conflicts fuels hiv/aids crisis. retrieved from http//www//psnews.net. [17] mcgivney, v. and frances, m. 1991. adult education in development: methods and approaches from changing societies. national institute of adult continuing education. united kingdom. [18] mirjana radovic marković, radmila grozdanić, goran kvgić, dušan marković and slađana vujičić. 2012 new educational strategies versus the traditional methods p international review (2012 no.1-2) [19] mutanyatta, j.n.s. 2004. challenges of adult education for the 21st century in tanzania. journal of adult education tanzania 12 [20] nyerere j.k. 1967. socialism and rural development. government printers, dar-es salaam. [21] nzeneri, i.s. 2002. meaning and scope of adult and non-formal education. in j. m. kosemani ed introduction to education. port harcourt: university of port harcourt press [22] ojobor j. a. 2008. education; a catalyst for women empowerment. ethiope. journal education and science, 41 [23] oxfam, uk. 1999. education in conflict. retrieved from www.oxfamuk/policy,gender. [24] pierette, p. 1985. equality of educational opportunity for girls and women. unesco, switzerland. [25] oyitso, m and olomukoro c. o. 2012 enhancing women’s development through literacy education in nigeria. review of european studies. canadian center of science and education. 4, 4: [26] review of european studies vol. 4, no. 4; 2012 p.70 retrieved from www.ccsenet.org/res. http://www.oxfam/ http://www.ccsenet.org/res 188 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 174-189) [27] rogers, a. 1992. development and adult education in adult learning and development london cassell education ltd. [28] shaheed f. 1995. networking for change the role of women’s groups in initiating dialogue on women’s issues” in afkhami eds faith and freedom: women’s human rights in the muslim world, i.b taurus & co london and new york [29] the jomtien world conference on education for all 1990. meeting basic needs. jomtien, thailand 5-9 march 1990. new york: undp. unesco, unicef and world bank. [30] the protocol to the african charter on human and people’s rights on the rights of women in africa apprrw 2003 [31] the recommendation on the development of adult education 1976 adopted by the unesco general assembly 19th session holding in nairobi kenya on the 26th of november 1976. [32] tomasevski. k. 2001 human rights obligations: making education available, accessible, acceptable, and adaptable. right to education primers no 3; novum grafiska ab gothenburg [33] tomaševski, k. 2006. human rights obligations in education: the 4-a scheme, wolf legal publishers, nijmegen. [34] un 1999. committee on economic, social, and cultural rights cescr, general comment no 13, the right to education art 13 of the covenant 8 december 1999, e/c. 12/1999/10, note 2 at para1 from htttp://www.refworld.org/docid/4538838.html. [35] un doc e/cn.41/1999/9, chapter ii. [36] unesco. 1976 recommendation on the development of adult education. [37] unesco: the state of education in nigeria, lagos: unesco office, united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation unesco institute for statistics, financing education-investments and returns, analysis of the world education indicators, 2002 edition: executive summary. retrieved from http://portal.unesco.org/uis/template/pdf/wei_execsummary_eng.pdf [38] unesco. final report; third international conference on adult education paris, unesco 1972. [39] unesco. convention against discrimination in education 1960, unts 429, p.93. entered into force on january 3, 1976, [40] unicef. 1993: reaching the unreached. new york, unicef, biography [41] universal declaration of human rights g.a. res 217, ungaor 3rd session. supp. no 127 at 71 un doc a/80 1948 [42] unsd gender statistics. 2010 developing gender statistics: a practical tool united nations economic commission for europe and world bank institute. http://portal.unesco.org/uis/template/pdf/wei_execsummary_eng.pdf omolade o. olomola, chioma agnes olumide-ajibola 189 article history: received: january 11st, 2021 accepted: march 18th, 2021 "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references doi: 10.28934/jwee21.34.pp61-75 jel: j16, l26, l82, o56 original scientific paper online social networks and women’s entrepreneurship: a comparative study between iran and hungary parisa bouzari1 hungarian university of agriculture and life sciences (mate), faculty of economics and social sciences, department of supply chain management, gödöllő, hungary aidin salamzadeh2 university of tehran, faculty of management, department of business management, tehran, iran maryam soleimani3 payame noor university, economics and accounting, department of management, tehran, iran pejman ebrahimi4 hungarian university of agriculture and life sciences (mate), doctoral school of economic and regional sciences, gödöllő, hungary a b s t r a c t the present study aimed to investigate the effect of online social networks on women’s entrepreneurship in hungary and iran in a comparative study. the statistical population of the present study consists of women entrepreneurs active in the field of online businesses in iran and hungary. the questionnaire was distributed via online links on social networks (on the online business website, 1 e-mail: paaarrriii.b@gmail.com 2 corresponding author, e-mail: salamzadeh@ut.ac.ir 3 e-mail: m.soleimani@pnu.ac.ir 4 e-mail: ebrahimi.pejman@stud.uni-mate.hu 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 61-75) twitter, facebook, and instagram), and respondents were asked to answer questions if they were women entrepreneurs. anova test was used to examine the variable of online social networks on different platforms in iran and hungary. the results indicate that facebook media in hungary in women entrepreneurship is significantly different from other online social networks. based on the data collected, more than 95% of women entrepreneurs in hungary use facebook. conversely, in iran, instagram has a significant difference in women's entrepreneurship from other online social networks and is the most popular media in women’s entrepreneurship. so that more than 92% of female respondents in iran have a channel related to their online business in instagram media. these important findings emphasize the importance and impact of social networks as entrepreneurial channels according to the atmosphere of each country. key words: women’s entrepreneurship, online social networks, iran, hungary, comparative analysis introduction due to the importance of entrepreneurship in the economies both nationally and globally, it is the key driver of economic development and success (roshandel-arbatani et al., 2019). as of the early 2000s, women's entrepreneurship is believed to be the main source of innovation and development (rosca, agarwal, & brem, 2020; vučeković et al., 2021). the prevalence of men dominance in the business culture has led to a rising number of women entrepreneurs (özsungur, 2019), which are thought to be a crucial asset for developing the global economy, playing a significant role in society (kawamorita, takahashi, & demiryürek, 2020). the reason for the importance of women's entrepreneurship is that it is an employment route that part of women can probably furnish for themselves and, at the same time, open up the opportunity for other people as employers or employees (bahramitash & esfahani, 2016). as of the start of 2020, the world has evidenced an unparalleled huge exogenic shocking event affecting society and economies worldwide to an extent unnoticed as of world war ii (kuckertz & brändle, 2021). alongside the terrific intimations on the health of people, covid-19 has hitherto caused serious damage to the business sector and the general economic issues globally (lazić, jovanović, & lazarević-moravčević, 2021). startups and minor initiatives, including women-directed businesses, account for the most susceptible actors in the economy (koltai et al., 2020). women parisa bouzari, aidin salamzadeh, maryam soleimani, pejman ebrahimi 63 possessed businesses are usually more susceptible to economic effects because they have less mean firm age and size, and their concentration is in the industrial sectors most strongly affected by blackouts in the economy (manolova et al., 2020). consequently, the covid-19 pandemic has a negative impact on women-directed businesses (koltai et al., 2020). throughout the covid-19 spread, digitalization or digital transformation is helpful for firms in gaining and sustaining competitive advantages by the improvement of their organizational flexibility and resilience (guo et al., 2020). the utilization of digital technological innovations in entrepreneurship, or digital entrepreneurship, has a major contribution to propelling innovation and the entrepreneurial activities of people, contemporary businesses, and government organizations (leong, tan, tan, & faisal, 2020). information technology has supplied wideranging opportunities for developing women. as such, women now adopt it for various business-linked activities, including making letters, preparing a report, storing data, online translation and type tasks, programming, content production, sales, and marketing (mivehchi, 2019). accordingly, applying digital technological innovations throughout the covid-19 outbreak is becoming of higher importance for women-directed businesses. as announced by the global entrepreneurship monitor (gem) in 2020/2021, the national entrepreneurship context index (neci), which provides summaries of the mean state of an economy’s environment for entrepreneurship, is 4.0 for iran, meaning the lower than the adequate status of entrepreneurial environments. additionally, in iran, a drop in the total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (tea) rate from 10.7% in 2019 to 8% in 2020 (salamzadeh & dana, 2021). comparing tea rates by women for 2019 and 2020 reveals that women's entrepreneurship rates have dropped greater than males in the same period in iran. from another viewpoint, based on statistics publicized by the oecd, hungary indicators of female entrepreneurship display that the share of females self-employed in the industrial sector from 2018 to 2019 has altered from 4.6 to 5.5 %, and from 7.1 to 7.2 % in services. conducting comparative studies and considering the similarities and differences of diverse economies in the field of entrepreneurship can help to realize appropriate strategies to improve the entrepreneurial situation in countries. given the importance of women’s entrepreneurship for the economic development of countries and the need to strengthen it in the context of the covid-19 crisis, as well as the potential and unique capacities 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 61-75) of digital technologies to improve women’s entrepreneurship, this study aimed to investigate the effect of online media on women’s entrepreneurship in iran and hungary and the comparison of these two countries from this perspective. accordingly, the main question of this research is: rq: how online social networks can affect women’s entrepreneurship in iran and hungary? literature review entrepreneurship is believed to be the key driver to develop any growing economy (mathew, 2010). females’ entrepreneurship was introduced into academic issues in the early 1980s (pettersson et al., 2017). according to investigations on females’ entrepreneurship, the number of females' entrepreneurs is very variable worldwide (gimenez-jimenez, calabrò, & urbano, 2020). throughout the past decade, employment opportunities have been provided for females worldwide more than ever formerly, breaking numerous rules and changing the restrictions forced on these people (de silva et al., 2021). females' entrepreneurship is under the management and influence of the psychological, social, economic, physical, technical, and legal environments (özsungur, 2019). as an exclusive entrepreneurial atmosphere, the digital environment has been represented in public media in recent years (dy, marlow, & martin, 2017; bradić-martinović, zdravković, & mišić, 2020). the diverse types of digital media, including social media, mobile applications, and web-based services, have established a background for entrepreneurial undertakings of people, novel ventures, and conventional businesses for the delivery of the value proposition to current and novel customers (ebrahimi et al., 2019). an increasing number of entrepreneurs are nowadays accepting social media, including facebook, instagram, and twitter, for more competitiveness of their businesses since these media can present more tools for entrepreneurs to expand social interplays and sustain those relations (redd & wu, 2020). a digital entrepreneur is a person who is involved in creating and delivering main business undertakings and tasks, including production, marketing, distribution, and stakeholder management, using information and communication technologies (icts) (ngoasong, 2018). the application of social media and other digital means is crucial for parisa bouzari, aidin salamzadeh, maryam soleimani, pejman ebrahimi 65 underprivileged groups, including females, who are considered low-status people who receive restricted resources (kawamorita et al., 2020). assumedly, digital entrepreneurship facilitates the involvement of marginalized groups (e.g. females), as online platforms are engaged in developing and implementing their own social and contractual frameworks that are oftentimes self-reliant (mcadam, crowley, & harrison, 2019). the influence of digital technological innovations on females' entrepreneurship has been scrutinized in previous research. social media and entrepreneurial opportunity for female entrepreneurs has been shown to be related in the urban areas of bangladesh (hossain & rahman, 2018). in emerging economies, primarily kenya, indonesia, nigeria, egypt, and south africa, social media are claimed to provide novel opportunities for women entrepreneurs, encouraging the generation of novel businesses directed by women, owing to their flexibility and characteristics (cesaroni, demartini, & paoloni, 2017). the wide application of ict to assist the entrepreneur to create an advantage, research, partake in the worldwide business for transferring technology, training, collaboration, and development initiatives at the global level has been emphasized in a previous study (mathew, 2010). in another study (ameen & willis, 2016), inaccessibility to icts was reported generally for arab women and arab women entrepreneurs particularly, and icts were claimed to effectively improve females’ entrepreneurship as they are helpful to overcome the majority of obstacles. similar findings were observed for females in indonesia (setini et al., 2020). on the other hand, no significant role was found for digital technologies in improving females' entrepreneurship elsewhere (dy et al., 2017). the same authors reported that offline inequalities could be readily reproduced online, and digital technology could insufficiently surmount the resource restrictions encountered by immigrant females. in iran, the contribution of digital technologies to females' entrepreneurship has been examined in some investigations (e.g. bahramitash & esfahani, 2016; mivehchi, 2019). for example, it was found that iranian women-possessed initiatives usually encounter certain challenging conditions to access some infrastructure services, in particular telecoms and the internet (bahramitash & esfahani, 2016). a study on the influence of it on iranian females’ entrepreneurship demonstrated that it had a significant and critical contribution to both simplifying job accessibility and improving the marketing and sales of 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 61-75) products (mivehchi, 2019). of studies on females’ entrepreneurship, the below-mentioned surveys are some examples in hungary. a recent examination (primecz, 2021) on the contribution of social enterprise to females' life improvement in hungary has shown that an award-winning and famous social enterprise in hungary can only slightly impact the social state of females. in other investigations (siničáková, 2011; salamzadeh, yadolahi farsi, & salamzadeh, 2013; holienka, jančovičová, & kovačičová, 2016), the motivators of females' engagement in early-stage entrepreneurial undertakings were studied in visegrad countries (i.e. czech republic, hungary, slovakia, and poland), discussing the dissimilarities among the mentioned countries. elsewhere (ribes-giner et al., 2018), the combined economic and social aspects linked to women's entrepreneurship were examined in oecd countries. some authors have claimed that the combined high risk of the country and little involvement of females in power positions in organizations were associated with high women's entrepreneurship (salamzadeh, 2018). according to the reviewed literature, scant surveys have comparatively studied the influence of digital media on females' entrepreneurship, particularly between developed and developing countries. thus, the current research compares the influence of online media on women’s entrepreneurship between hungary and iran. method in this study, cabrera and mauricio’s (2017) 7-item questionnaire on women’s entrepreneurship was used. the most important concepts mentioned in the items are “independence in the field of entrepreneurship”, “flexibility of online businesses” and “belief in the financial success of online businesses”. likewise, a 5-point likert scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree has been used. the statistical population of the present study consists of women entrepreneurs active in the field of online businesses in iran and hungary. the questionnaire was distributed via online links on social networks (on the online business website, twitter, facebook, and instagram), and respondents were asked to answer questions if they were women entrepreneurs (the authors tried to obtain and identify online jobs run by women entrepreneurs). to ensure that, respondents were asked to enter demographic information and contact numbers on the response form if they parisa bouzari, aidin salamzadeh, maryam soleimani, pejman ebrahimi 67 wished. a sample of 95 female entrepreneurs in hungary and 105 female entrepreneurs in iran were studied. before the formal data collection process, a pilot study was conducted (ebrahimi et al., 2021) for confirming the content validity and reliability from 20 sample sizes. the verification of the icc coefficient was done regarding consistency and absolute agreement to confirm the questionnaire's content validity (khajeheian & ebrahimi, 2020; janavi et al., 2021). cronbach's alpha coefficient was also used to confirm the reliability of the research questionnaire. given that the value of this coefficient was greater than 0.7 (kelidbari, fadaei, & ebrahimi, 2016; hair et al., 2017; ebrahimi et al., 2018; roshandel-arbatani et al., 2019) indicates the internal consistency of items related to women's entrepreneurship. in addition, the value of the ave index is greater than 0.5 (gholampour et al., 2020; moghadamzadeh et al., 2020; ebrahimi et al., 2021) which indicates convergent validity. key findings and discussion the current study highlights the importance of online social networks on women’s entrepreneurship. the rate of women’s entrepreneurship on online social networks has increased rapidly. the highest number of respondents are in the age range of 25 to 35 years (80.2%). it reveals the interest of the young generation in online businesses in iran and hungary. first, it is essential to mention that the test of homogeneity of variance has been examined. according to the results of levene’s test for equality of variance and the value of sig> 0, it can be claimed that the data obtained in both iran and hungary should be considered as equal variance assumed. anova test was used to examine the variable of online social networks on different platforms in iran and hungary (kaufmann & schering, 2014). the test results show a significant difference between social networks in the field of women’s entrepreneurship in iran and hungary (sig <0) . data related to female entrepreneurs in hungary (table 1) and iran (table 2) are examined. post hoc tests have been used for multiple comparisons between different online social networks using the bonferroni test (armstrong, 2014). 68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 61-75) table 1: multiple comparisons of online social networks based on bonferroni post hoc test (hungary) online social networks (i) online social networks (ii) mean difference sd sig ci 95% facebook linkedin 0.583 0.246 0.031* [0.118, 1.283] twitter 1.288 0.669 0.038* [0.614, 3.190] youtube 1.002 0.548 0.020* [0.555, 2.560] instagram 0.097 0.548 0.003* [1.459, 1.655] linkedin facebook -0.583 0.246 0.191 [-1.283, 0.117] twitter 0.705 0.705 0.552 [-1.299, 2.710] youtube 0.419 0.591 0.434 [-1.262, 2.101] instagram -0.485 0.591 0.465 [-2.167, 1.197] twitter facebook -1.288 0.669 0.558 [-3.190, 0.614] linkedin -0.705 0.705 0.672 [-2.710, 1.299] youtube -0.285 0.858 0.812 [-2.726, 2.155] instagram -1.190 0.858 0.802 [-3.631, 1.250] youtube facebook -1.002 0.548 0.690 [-2.560, 0.555] linkedin -0.419 0.591 0.775 [-2.101, 1.262] twitter 0.285 0.858 0.778 [-2.155, 2.726] instagram -0.904 0.786 0.833 [-3.087, 1.278] instagram facebook -1.097 0.548 0.919 [-1.655, 1.459] linkedin 0.485 0.591 0.698 [-1.196, 2.167] twitter 1.190 0.858 0.834 [-1.250, 3.631] youtube 0.904 0.768 0.905 [-1.278, 3.087] note: sd, std. deviation; ci, confidence intervals; * sig <0.05 significant at 95% ci; twotailed test (source: authors) the results of table (1) indicate that facebook media in hungary in the field of women’s entrepreneurship is significantly different from other online social networks. based on the data collected, more than 95% of women entrepreneurs in hungary use facebook. conversely, according to table (2), in iran, in the field of women’s entrepreneurship, instagram has a significant difference from other online social networks and is the most popular media in the field of women’s entrepreneurship. so that more than 92% of female respondents in iran have a channel related to their online business in instagram media. parisa bouzari, aidin salamzadeh, maryam soleimani, pejman ebrahimi 69 table 2: multiple comparisons of online social networks based on bonferroni post hoc test (iran) online social networks (i) online social networks (ii) mean difference sd sig ci 95% facebook linkedin 0.264 0.638 0.802 [-1.550, 2.079] twitter -0.628 0.638 0.838 [-2.443, 1.186] youtube -0.596 0.481 0.820 [-1.964, 0.771] instagram -0.751 0.432 0.838 [-1.981, 0.477] linkedin facebook -0.264 0.638 0.791 [-2.079, 1.550] twitter -0.892 0.672 0.852 [-2.805, 1.019] youtube -0.861 0.526 0.844 [-2.356, 0.634] instagram -1.016 0.482 0.364 [-2.386, 0.354] twitter facebook 0.628 0.638 0.858 [-1.185, 2.43] linkedin 0.892 0.673 0.872 [-1.019, 2.806] youtube 0.031 0.526 0.803 [-1.463, 1.527] instagram -0.123 0.481 0.902 [-0.770, 1.246] youtube facebook 0.861 0.526 0.804 [-0.634, 1.964] linkedin -0.419 0.591 0.775 [-2.101, 2.356] twitter -0.317 0.526 0.678 [-1.526, 1.463] instagram -0.155 0.237 0.789 [-0.829, 0.519] instagram facebook 0.751 0.432 0.038* [0.477, 1.981] linkedin 1.016 0.482 0.034* [0.353, 2.386] twitter 0.123 0.482 0.002* [1.246, 1.493] youtube 0.155 0.237 0.001* [0.519, 0.829] note: sd, std. deviation; ci, confidence intervals; * sig <0.05 significant at 95% ci; twotailed test (source: authors) conclusion this paper aimed to study women's entrepreneurship in iran and hungary and compare them in terms of the type of social networks. to this end, iranian and hungarian women’s entrepreneurship has been compared in 5 types of social networks, including instagram, facebook, linkedin, youtube, and twitter. according to the research results, social networks are essential for women's entrepreneurship in iran and hungary. women use different social media platforms to start online businesses. past research has highlighted the importance of social media and other online media to provide a platform for entrepreneurship, especially women's entrepreneurship. the importance of digital media to boost women’s 70 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 61-75) entrepreneurship in bangladesh (hossain & rahman, 2018); emerging economies (cesaroni et al., 2017; vukmirović, 2019); arab countries (ameen & willis, 2016; mathew, 2010), indonesia (setini et al., 2020) and iran (bahramitash & esfahani, 2016; mivehchi, 2019) have been emphasized in previous research . the results show that the most popular social network for women entrepreneurs in hungary is facebook, and for women entrepreneurs in iran, it is instagram. based on the statista website, facebook ranks first in the world in 2021 in the ranking of social networks based on the number of active users. according to this ranking, instagram is in fourth place after facebook, youtube, and whatsapp. the different behaviour of women entrepreneurs in choosing the type of social network to start and run online businesses is related to the different cultural, social, economic, and political conditions in these two countries. in iran, this behaviour is particularly affected by filtering popular social networks such as facebook and youtube. on the other hand, the unique capabilities of the instagram social network for activities related to the introduction of products and services by women entrepreneurial businesses make this social network in iran and have made this social network more attractive in iran than whatsapp, which is not filtered. the current study highlights the importance of online social networks for women’s entrepreneurship in iran and hungary. the results revealed that women's entrepreneurial behaviour in iran and hungary has a significant difference according to the type of platform. this important finding emphasizes the importance and impact of social networks as entrepreneurial channels according to the atmosphere of each country. online businesses are based on entrepreneurial behaviour and marketing on online social networks and various platforms and can easily influence consumer shopping behaviour. investigating the reason why facebook media in hungary and instagram media in iran are more popular with women entrepreneurs can be a suggestion for qualitative research in the future. future researchers are suggested to use qualitative methods to examine the behavioural differences of entrepreneurs in different social networks. future researchers are also suggested to examine the behavioural differences of female entrepreneurs in different age groups, especially in qualitative research and through interviews. one of the limitations of this study was the collection of data from women entrepreneurs in covid-19. specifically, data 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[47] https://www.gemconsortium.org/report/gem-20202021-global-report [48] https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-rankedby-number-of-users/ [49] https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=83119 article history: received: august 15th, 2021 accepted: november 29th, 2021 doi: 10.28934/jwee21.34.pp164-183 original scientific paper 9bwork stress of female primary school teachers during covid-19 pandemic and demographic differences alexander loziak18 f1 the institute of social sciences of the centre of social and psychological sciences, slovak academy of science, košice, slovakia a b s t r a c t recent research shows teachers report their job being very stressful (oecd/talis). the covid-19 pandemic caused many changes in education, which put teachers under additional strain (sokal, trudel & babb, 2020). female teachers in slovak primary education outnumber male teachers by a ratio of 9-to1. even though women spend as much time in work as men, women´s involvement in household chores is more than double. this creates an even greater challenge. the paper has several aims – the first aim is an examination of the stress level of primary school female teachers during the pandemic. the second aim is an examination of the intensity of measured stressors. the third aim is to compare work stress in female and male teachers. the fourth aim is to investigate the role of variables (age, work experience, education stage) on work stress. the research sample consisted of 473 teachers (426 female). according to results, over 58 % of female teachers reported quite a bit (34 %) or a lot of (24,7 %) experienced work stress. overall, female teachers perceived most stress in stressors: having too much administrative work to do, uncertainty associated with frequent changes in education caused by pandemic and social acknowledgment. female teachers compared to male teachers experienced significantly more stress in several stressors, for example: being held responsible for students’ achievement and perfectionism. younger and less experienced female teachers perceived significantly more stress in specific stressors. 2nd stage female teachers 1 address: karpatská 5, košice, slovakia, e-mail: loziak@saske.sk alexander loziak 165 experienced more stress in specific sources of stress compared to 1st stage female teachers. key words: teacher, female teacher, stress, work stress, demographic, demographic differences, covid-19 pandemic introduction recent research repeatedly shows teacher stress is a serious issue. when teachers are asked to rate the level of their work stress, roughly 20-25 % of them report their job being very stressful (unterbrink et al., 2007; travers, 2017). in the case of female teachers, talis 2018 survey reports 11,3 % of slovak female teachers experiencing a lot of stress (oecd/talis). a consequence of this work stress is teacher attrition, the rate at which teachers leave the profession (shannon et al., 2017). in a survey of english teachers (lightfoot, 2016), almost half of them revealed they planned to leave the profession in the next five years and almost 80 % of schools disclosed they had problems recruiting teachers. through attrition, teacher work stress substantially threatens the quality of education. the covid-19 pandemic caused worldwide school closures, which put teachers under additional strain. german study surveying 380 teachers during school lockdowns reports teachers experiencing medium to high levels of stress (klapproth, federkeil, heinschke & jungmann, 2020). longitudinal research of canadian teachers followed their experience of work stress at two points in the covid-19 pandemic. over the first three months of the lockdown, teachers exhibited increasing levels of exhaustion and cynicism. additionally, teachers´ attitudes toward constant changes in educational processes became more negative (sokal, trudel & babb, 2020). interesting findings of a survey during the first week of october 2020 indicated a high level of average teacher burnout, significant predictors of burnout being anxiety communicating with parents and administrative support (pressley, 2021). female teachers in primary education in slovakia outnumber male teachers by a ratio of 9-to-1 (education and training monitor, 2019). even though female workers spend as much time in work as male workers, women´s involvement in household chores is more than double when compared to their partners. this inequality can lead to more overall strain (cerrato & cifre, 2018). moreover, covid-19 lockdown has intensified 166 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 164-183) women's domestic workload, which could exacerbate these issues (adisa, aiyenitaju & adekoya, 2021). over the years teacher stress research revealed many sources of stress are similar to those concerning comparable occupational groups (for example lack of time), but others are more job-specific (dealing with classes and students/pupils (travers, 2017). multiple attempts to identify such sources and their broader categories were made. authors greenberg, brown, and abenavoli (2016) differentiate four main sources of teacher stress. the first source of stress is school organization, which includes lack of school support and unsatisfactory relationships with administrators, colleagues, or students/pupils. the second main source of stress comprises job demands, stressors like too much administrative work, too much teaching, managing students/pupils with behavior problems, and communicating with difficult parents. the third main source of stress is problems with work resources including limited teacher autonomy or limited decision-making. the fourth source of stress according to the authors is social and emotional competence, which affects teachers´ ability to manage work challenges adequately. in 2018, a study assessed teachers´ stress using individual interviews. the main goal of the study was to identify sources of stress in the teaching profession. following stressors were recognized as most stressful; lack of administrative support, challenges associated with managing of students/pupils, teacher perceptions, and state mandates (haydon, leko & stevens, 2018). in the population of slovak teachers, the most intense sources of stress were identified; frequent legislative changes, working with pupils with special educational needs, and professional acknowledgment (žitniaková-gurgová & behúňová, 2017). research examining the relationship between gender and teacher work stress has produced mixed results. some studies indicate male teachers experience more stress related to their job (aftab & khatoon, 2012), but the majority of findings suggest female teachers are more vulnerable to occupational stress (oecd/talis; santamaría et al., 2021). research on female teachers´ burnout levels confirmed 49 % of the sample reported very high levels (tikhonova et al., 2019). there is also evidence that male and female teachers process stress differently, according to klapproth et al. (2020) female teachers experienced significantly higher stress levels, but coped with it more functional way. alexander loziak 167 regarding the impact of teachers´ age on work stress, findings are less clear. some studies indicate older teachers generally report higher levels of work strain and burnout. according to a 2021 study, older teachers reported a higher level of occupational stress and exhaustion than other groups (xhelilaj, petani & ntalla, 2021). the findings of authors kavita and hassan (2018) show teachers in age (31-50 years) experienced more work stress compared to the younger age group (20-30 years) and older age group (51-60 years). contrastingly, a study of teachers during the covid-19 pandemic suggests the opposite trend. younger teachers (23-35 years old) experienced higher levels of stress compared to middle-aged teachers (36-46 years old), but lower levels of stress when compared to older teachers (over 47 years old). so overall stress intensity distribution depending on age groups seems to form u-shape, meaning youngest and oldest teachers experienced comparatively more occupational stress during pandemic (ozamizetxebarria, 2021). another study on teachers´ stress during pandemic reported age groups of less than 30 years old and 31 to 40 years old experienced more occupational stress compared to older age groups during this time period (chitra, 2020). years of work experience is another factor affecting teacher stress. aftab and khatoon (2012) suggest teachers with 6 to 10 years of experience perceive the highest levels of stress, while teachers with 0 to 5 years of experience perceive the lowest levels of stress. other data points out teachers with teaching experience between 11-15 years experienced more stress compared to all other groups (kavita & hassan 2018). a study focusing on female teachers pinpointed that age and years of experience were inversely related to emotional burnout. therefore, younger and less experienced female teachers were more vulnerable to burnout (tikhonova et al., 2019). the slovak primary school system is divided into the primary and secondary education stages. the 1st education stage consisting of 4 grades educates the youngest pupils in the age of 6 to 9. the 2nd education stage comprising of five grades educates older pupils in the age of 10 to 14. the role of 1st and 2nd stage teachers differs substantially. 1st stage teachers generally manage and lead their class and teach almost all subjects in that class. 2nd stage teachers specialize in particular school subjects and teach multiple classes. taking into account the differences, the level of general stress and sources of stress might vary in these two groups. 168 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 164-183) findings from the 2017 study show first education stage teachers report a higher rate of burnout compared to ones in the second stage. additionally, a critical state of stress was measured in 36 % of the first stage teachers, compared to 20 % present in second stage teachers (žitniakovágurgová & behúňová, 2017). however, data on the slovak population of female teachers during the pandemic period indicates 2nd stage teachers experiencing more occupational stress (loziak, fedáková & čopková, 2020). as this introduction presents, some research on teacher work stress during the covid-19 pandemic is already published. scientific data generally points to a worsening trend in this area. however, research focusing on specific sources of stress and the role of gender and other variables on stress during the pandemic is, at least to our knowledge, lacking. the goal of the present paper is assessment and examination of the stress level and specific sources of stress in primary school female teachers during the covid-19 pandemic. we investigate whether work stress differed in female and male teachers. we also analyze the role and impact of measured variables (age, years of experience, and education stage) on female teachers´ work stress. methods the original research sample included 489 primary school teachers. after conducting an analysis of careless responses, we excluded 16 participants from the sample. in the remaining sample of 473 school teachers (426 female, 47 male), the age ranged from 25 to 62 (mean 44.48) with 19 years of work experience on average. for the majority of the analysis, we have used a sample of 426 female teachers. 171 teachers worked at the first primary education stage, 255 teachers worked at the second primary education stage. in this sample, the age ranged from 25 to 62 (mean 44.95) with 19 years of average work experience. 171 female teachers worked at the 1st primary education stage, 255 female teachers worked at the 2nd primary education stage. data were collected in october 2020, in the time frame the most of primary school education in slovakia was face-to-face, only 10 % of teachers taught remotely. the sample was created by self-selection. voluntary response sampling was applied. an online questionnaire was alexander loziak 169 delivered to the teaching staff of 28 primary schools in all slovak regions, teachers completed the questionnaire voluntarily. the completion of the survey took approximately 25-30 minutes. despite self-selection, analysis has confirmed sample can be considered representative of primary school teachers´ population in key characteristics of gender, age, and region. two measurements of work stress were used a talis stress questionnaire (oecd/talis) and a teacher stressor questionnaire (clip & boghean, 2015). we have also measured age, years of experience, and education stage. talis stress questionnaire is part of the international talis survey, which asks teachers and school leaders about working conditions and learning environments, and in 2018 has surveyed many countries including slovakia. the stress questionnaire consisted of 12 items. the first item assed general stress level of teachers (i experience stress in my work). 11 items measured intensity of specific stressors in the teaching profession (having too much lesson preparation; having too many lessons to teach; having too much marking; having too much administrative work to do; having extra duties due to absent teachers; being held responsible for students’ achievement; maintaining classroom discipline; being intimidated or verbally abused by students; keeping up with changing requirements from authorities; addressing parent or guardian concerns; modifying lessons for students with special needs). items utilized 4-point scale was used from 1 (not at all) to 4 (a lot). mcdonald’s omega (ω) for 11 items assessing specific stressors in 2018 (sample of 3043 slovak teachers) was evaluated at 0,942. mcdonald’s omega (ω) for the same items in our study was estimated at 0,825. the teacher stressor questionnaire (tsq) was another method of identifying specific stressors for primary school teachers. we decided to use an additional scale to assess a more comprehensive list of possible stressors. the method was applied previously by slovak researchers (žitniakovágurgová & behúňová, 2017; loziak, fedáková, čopková, 2020). from the original 15 items, 5 items were discarded because they investigated the same sources of stress as talis questionnaire items. the remaining 10 items were utilized (social acknowledgment; low wage; taking multiple roles; perfectionism; routine; professional acknowledgment; teacher education; insufficiency or lack of materials; relationships with school management; relationships with other teachers). we added 3 items (school 170 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 164-183) performances; preparing new forms of education; classroom teacher stress) covering valid stressors identified in recent research of slovak teachers stress (loziak, 2021) and 2 items (regulations in education caused by a pandemic; uncertainty associated with frequent changes in education caused by pandemic) covering sources of stress associated with the pandemic situation in october 2020. to assess the perceived intensity of work stressors, a 5-point scale was used from 1 (not stressful at all) to 5 (extremely stressful). mcdonald’s omega (ω) for this modified, 15 item version of the questionnaire was evaluated at 0,880. results following the first aim of this paper, we examined the stress level of primary school female teachers during the covid-19 pandemic. the overall work stress level was measured by item i experience stress in my work. four different answers were possible: 1 (not at all), 2 (to some extent), and 3 (quite a bit), 4 (a lot). 5,6 % of the sample (24 participants) answered not at all. 35,7 % of the sample (152 participants) answered to some extent. 34,0 % of the sample (145 participants) answered quite a bit. 24,7 % of the sample (105 participants) answered a lot. cumulatively, over 58 percent of female teachers reported quite a bit or a lot of experienced stress in work. alexander loziak 171 figure 1: perceived stress level of primary school female teachers figure 2 displays mean values and standard deviations of 11 stressors measured by the talis stress questionnaire, partly addressing the second aim of the study – examination of the intensity of stressors. respondents answered on a 4-point scale from 1 (not at all) to 4 (a lot). the highest mean score was measured in sources of stress having too much administrative work to do and keeping up with changing requirements from authorities. the lowest mean score was detected in stressors having too much marking and being intimidated or verbally abused by students. considering the scale of the used questionnaire, in 9 of the stressors teachers reported at least some extent of stress, which indicates perceived stress in a variety of situations. 172 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 164-183) figure 2 female teacher talis questionnaire stressors – mean values and standard deviations figure 3 presents mean values and standard deviations of 15 stressors measured by the teacher stressor questionnaire. these results also address the second aim of the study. respondents answered on a 5-point scale was used from 1 (not stressful at all) to 5 (extremely stressful). the highest mean score was estimated in sources of stress uncertainty associated with frequent changes in education caused by pandemic, regulations in education caused by pandemic and social acknowledgment. the lowest mean score was measured in stressors routine and relationships with other teachers. these results also suggest a high level of stress in a wide variety of work situations, as in 11 out of 15 stressors mean score surpasses the 3point (midpoint) answer. alexander loziak 173 figure 3 female teacher tsq questionnaire stressors mean values and standard deviations in further comparative analyses, welch´s t-test was utilized, as unequal variances of samples were identified by the f test. moreover, according to some researchers (delacre, lakens, leys, 2017) welch’s t-test provides better control of type i error rates when the assumption of homogeneity of variance is not met, and it loses little robustness in comparison to student’s t-test when the assumptions are met. authors argue that welch’s t-test should be used as a default statistical test. effect sizes were calculated using hedges g. following the third aim of the paper, we compared samples of men and women in general stress levels and all measured sources of stress. welch´s t-tests and hedges g were applied. although general stress levels did not vary significantly by gender, we identified statistical differences in four specific sources of stress. in all of these stressors, female teachers experienced significantly higher levels of work stress. hedges g for calculations ranged from (g = 0,32 to 0,63), which can be considered medium effect size. being held responsible for students’ achievement was a stressor with the highest measured effect size (g = 0,63), meaning differences in the experienced work stress between men and women were 174 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 164-183) greatest in this stressor. overall, these results indicate female teachers perceived higher levels of stress at least in some of the work situations. the results of the analysis are presented in table 1. table 1: comparison of female and male teachers in sources of work stress sources of work stress female m (sd) male m (sd) t (p) g being held responsible for students’ achievement 2,94 (0,84) 2,40 (0,85) 4,11 (< 0,001) 0,63 perfectionism 3,62 (1,05) 3,13 (1,14) 2,83 (0,007) 0,45 relationships with other teachers 2,55 (1,16) 2,08 (1,18) 2,79 (0,007) 0,42 school performances 3,27 (1,33) 2,85 (1,35) 2,04 (0,046) 0,32 in the next section of the results, the fourth aim of the paper is addressed. following analysis compared two age groups (25-43 years old and 44-62 years old) of female teachers in general stress level and all measured sources of stress. even though general stress levels did not vary significantly concerning age, we identified statistical differences in seven sources of stress. in stressor having too much administrative work to do, older female teachers experienced more work stress. in all other sources of stress, higher levels of work stress were experienced by younger female teachers. hedges g ranged from (g = 0,19 to 0,33), which can be interpreted as a quite low effect size. more detailed results of the tests are presented in table 2. alexander loziak 175 table 2: comparison of age groups (25-43 years old) and (44-62 years old) in sources of work stress of female teachers sources of work stress 25-43 m (sd) 44-62 m (sd) t (p) g having too much administrative work to do 3,14 (0,86) 3,31 (0,81) 2,19 (0,032) 0,21 being held responsible for students’ achievement 3,05 (0,82) 2,84 (0,84) 2,49 (0,013) 0,24 maintaining classroom discipline 2,90 (0,93) 2,58 (0,99) 3,40 (< 0,001) 0,33 being intimidated or verbally abused by students 1,90 (1,07) 1,62 (0,90) 2,84 (0,005) 0,28 addressing parent or guardian concerns 2,75 (0,97) 2,57 (0,92) 1,99 (0,048) 0,19 teacher education 3,28 (1,26) 2,91 (1,22) 3,05 (0,002) 0,29 uncertainty associated with frequent changes in education caused by pandemic 4,36 (0,88) 4,18 (1,03) 1,97 (0,049) 0,19 we also compared female teachers in general stress level and all assessed sources of stress based on years of work experience; for this purpose, two groups were created (0-20 years and 21-40 years of experience). a significant difference in general stress level was not confirmed, however, we discovered statistically significant differences in eight sources of stress. in all of these stressors, less experienced female teachers (those with less than 20 years of experience) perceived more occupational stress. hedges g ranged from (g = 0,20 to 0,31), suggesting lower effect size. table 3 presents results in more detail. 176 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 164-183) table 3: comparison of years of experience groups (0-20 years) and (21-40 years) in sources of work stress of female teachers sources of work stress 0-20 m (sd) 21-40 m (sd) t (p) g maintaining classroom discipline 2,87 (0,97) 2,60 (0,96) 3,15 (0,002) 0,31 being intimidated or verbally abused by students 1,86 (1,05) 1,62 (0,89) 2,55 (0,011) 0,25 addressing parent or guardian concerns 2,75 (0,96) 2,54 (0,92) 2,35 (0,019) 0,23 teacher education 3,25 (1,27) 2,88 (1,20) 3,08 (0,002) 0,30 preparing new forms of education 3,39 (1,05) 3,12 (1,18) 2,53 (0,012) 0,25 classroom teacher stress 3,08 (1,35) 2,68 (1,29) 3,08 (0,002) 0,29 regulations in education caused by pandemic 4,28 (0,99) 4,06 (1,12) 2,08 (0,038) 0,20 uncertainty associated with frequent changes in education caused by pandemic 4,36 (0,88) 4,17 (1,03) 2,02 (0,045) 0,20 lastly, a comparison of 1st education stage and 2nd education stage female teachers in general stress level and sources of stress was computed. although general stress levels did not vary significantly by education stage, we identified statistical differences in six specific stressors. in these six stressors, 2nd stage female teachers experienced significantly higher levels of work stress. hedges g for calculations ranged from (g = 0,22 to 0,38), which can be considered small to medium effect size. in stressor classroom teacher with effect size (g = 0,38), we identified the largest difference in the perceived stress between 1st education stage and 2nd education stage female teachers. the results of the analysis are presented in table 4. alexander loziak 177 table 4: comparison of first stage teachers group and second stage teachers group in sources of work stress of female teachers sources of work stress 1st stage m (sd) 2nd stage m (sd) t (p) g having too much lesson preparation 2,19 (0,76) 2,40 (0,88) 2,45 (0,015) 0,24 having too much marking 1,71 (0,76) 1,92 (0,84) 2,60 (0,010) 0,25 being intimidated or verbally abused by students 1,61 (0,89) 1,85 (1,04) 2,54 (0,012) 0,25 social acknowledgment 3,63 (0,95) 3,84 (0,92) 2,23 (0,027) 0,22 taking multiple roles 3,42 (1,16) 3,68 (1,09) 2,34 (0,020) 0,23 classroom teacher stress 2,60 (1,18) 3,09 (1,40) 3,90 (< 0,001) 0,38 discussion the first objective of this paper was the examination of the stress level of primary school female teachers during the covid-19 pandemic. reflecting experienced work stress, 34,0 % of female teachers reported quite a bit of stress, 24,7 % reported a lot of stress. based on these proportions, it can be implied that over 58 percent of female teachers perceived their work being stressful in this time period. only 5,6 % of the sample answered not at all, suggesting no experienced stress. our results correspond with some other findings in the field. part of research before the covid-19 pandemic suggested 20-25 % of teachers reporting their work as very stressful (unterbrink et al., 2007; travers, 2017), which matches 24,7 % of our sample answering they experience a lot of stress. however, when compared with the results of the talis 2018 survey, which reports 11,3 % of slovak female teachers answered experiencing a lot of stress (oecd/talis), it seems levels of stress in slovak female teachers increased since 2018. it is unclear whether the observed increase is caused by a pandemic, as the pandemic started in 2020. 178 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 164-183) our results are also comparable with a study on female teachers´ burnout level which revealed 49 % of the sample reporting very high levels (tikhonova et al., 2019). overall findings suggest over half of female teachers experience a considerable amount of occupational stress, which is an alarming proportion. the second aim was an examination of the perceived intensity of measured sources of stress in female primary school teachers. in a group of stressors measured by the talis stress questionnaire, the highest mean values were detected in stressors having too much administrative work to do (m = 3,23) and keeping up with changing requirements from authorities (m = 2,99). administrative work seems to be a pressing problem, as it was identified as one of the most stressful aspects of teachers´ work by other research as well (haydon, leko, stevens, 2018). high intensity of stressor associated with changing requirements from authorities can be in our opinion related to the overall pandemic situation ongoing in education. in a group of stressors assessed by the teacher stressor questionnaire, the highest mean scores were estimated in sources of stress uncertainty associated with frequent changes in education caused by pandemic (m = 4,27), regulations in education caused by pandemic (m = 4,18), and social acknowledgment (m = 4,18). although the intensity of the first two mentioned stressors is kind of unsurprising and supported by other research (sokal, trudel, babb, 2020), the intensity of stressor associated with social acknowledgment is quite unforeseen. similar stressor, professional acknowledgment (m = 3,39) scored rather high in our study as well. these two stressors were measured by the same questionnaire in slovak teachers (general, not female) in 2017, however, mean values did not reach the same levels – social acknowledgment (m = 3,16) and professional acknowledgment (m = 2,58) (žitniaková-gurgová, behúňová, 2017). we suggest work stress of female teachers related to social and professional acknowledgement increased over the last years. research of teacher stress is often focused on workload and work activities, but based on our results we can argue this research scope is insufficient. the third goal of the research was investigating the role of the gender, so the comparison of stress levels and sources of stress in female and male teachers was made. despite the fact general stress level did not differed significantly by gender, we identified statistical differences in following stressors: being held responsible for students’ achievement (g = 0,63), perfectionism (g = 0,45), relationships with other teachers (g = 0,42) and alexander loziak 179 school performances (g = 0,32). all of the stressors followed the same trend, female teachers experiencing significantly higher levels of work stress in contrast to male counterparts. this is in line with the majority of findings proposing women working as teachers are more vulnerable to occupational stress (oecd/talis; santamaría et al., 2021). it is rather interesting to pinpoint specific stressors that threaten women´s mental health in work more than men´s. for example, a significant difference in stressor being held responsible for students’ achievement with the highest effect size may imply female teachers care more about students´ successes, resulting in more experienced work pressure. the fourth aim of the paper was the investigation of the role of age, years of experience, and education stage on sources of work stress of female teachers. for purpose of examining the impact of age, we created two age groups: 25-43 years old and 44-62 years old. we did not confirm the statistical difference in general stress for age, however, we managed to identify differences in several sources of stress. in stressor having too much administrative work to do (g = 0,21), older female teachers experienced more work stress. in stressors being held responsible for students’ achievement (g = 0,24), maintaining classroom discipline (g = 0,33), being intimidated or verbally abused by students (g = 0,28), addressing parent or guardian concerns (g = 0,19), teacher education (g = 0,29), and uncertainty associated with frequent changes in education caused by pandemic (g = 0,19), higher levels of work stress were experienced by younger female teachers. apart from administrative duties, which seem to burden older teachers more, the general trend shows younger teachers feel a higher level of stress in more situations. our findings are supported by a study during the covid-19 pandemic that reported age groups of less than 30 years old and 31 to 40 years old experience more occupational stress than older age groups (chitra, 2020). the results of our paper are almost identical to mentioned study in terms of age ranges where statistical differences occurred, but it is important to emphasize we did not confirm differences in overall stress, only in specific stressors. when examining stressors with significant differences more closely, we can speculate higher level of stress of younger teachers in certain situations (maintaining classroom discipline or addressing parent or guardian concerns) might be simply affected by insufficient work experience. stressor uncertainty associated with frequent changes in education caused by pandemic on the other hand implies younger female teachers were more 180 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 164-183) vulnerable to the stress that was directly related to ongoing pandemic restrictions in education. with the intention of examining the impact of experience on teachers´ stress, we created two groups: 0-20 years of work experience and 21-40 years of work experience. we did not manage to confirm the statistical difference in general stress level with respect to experience, but we did confirm differences in several sources of stress. in all of the stressors, less experienced female teachers reported more occupational stress. we confirmed statistical differences in following sources of stress: maintaining classroom discipline (g = 0,31), being intimidated or verbally abused by students (g = 0,25), addressing parent or guardian concerns (g = 0,23), teacher education (g = 0,30), preparing new forms of education (g = 0,25), classroom teacher stress (g = 0,29), regulations in education caused by pandemic (g = 0,20) and uncertainty associated with frequent changes in education caused by pandemic (g = 0,20). a similar inverse relationship of years of experience and stress was discovered by another study of female teachers (tikhonova et al., 2019), even though stress was researched in form of emotional burnout. findings support our expectation that differences in some stressors like maintaining classroom discipline or addressing parent or guardian concerns might not necessarily be the result of young age but rather lack sufficient work experience. findings also imply that similarly to age, more years of experience might be a protective factor for stress related to pandemic restrictions. this is rather surprising as many might expect younger people to be more adaptive to changes, at least in the case of using more technology during pandemic education. based on our results, important implications for different groups of teachers can be proposed. data strongly suggests younger and less experienced female teachers are more vulnerable to stress associated with changes in education due to pandemics. these can be important findings to sectors and institutions that provide help and counselling to teachers. counselling from mental health professionals can be adjusted and targeted to beginner teachers, who can feel overwhelmed in these crises situations. this does not mean more experienced teachers should be overlooked, rather different types of help should be provided to different age groups. finally, differences between the 1st education stage and 2nd education stage female teachers were computed. we pinpointed six specific sources of stress in which 2nd stage teachers perceived more stress: having too much alexander loziak 181 lesson preparation (g = 0,24), having too much marking (g = 0,25), being intimidated or verbally abused by students (g = 0,25), social acknowledgment (g = 0,22), taking multiple roles (g = 0,23) and classroom teacher stress (g = 0,38). these results are supported by our previous research on female teachers, which also suggest 2nd stage teachers experience more work stress (loziak, fedáková, čopková, 2020). however, the findings of these two studies differ in some ways. while in the 2020 study statistical difference was measured in stressor related to lack of professional recognition, in the present study no differences in this stressor were discovered. the present study on other hand emphasizes important differences in classroom teacher stress. this fact suggests it was more difficult for 2nd stage female teachers to lead their own classes during the covid-19 pandemic. we can only guess what factors made it more difficult for them compared to 1st stage, but a fact that 2nd stage teachers work with multiple classes on top of their own might play a role. research also seems to imply 2nd stage female teachers are more burdened by stressors associated with workload (having too much lesson preparation, having too much marking, taking multiple roles) compared to 1st stage. we propose a reduction of marking requirements for this group of teachers, at least during times of pandemic or similar crisis, which can be an effective way to reduce their stress. education system can also consider making sure 2nd stage teachers are not overly strained by multiple roles in school. approaching the end of the study we would like to acknowledge the limitation of our research. an unevenness of used scales did not allow us to unite all measured stressors in one list and compute a comprehensive comparison of all of the stressors. however, we decided to use scales in their original forms, which allowed us to make other valuable comparisons. in conclusion, we would like to emphasize that teachers of this age deserve more attention than ever before. pandemic stopped many aspects of our lives, but education continued even in the most critical moments. it is our social responsibility to take notice of teachers´ problems, to study these problems scientifically, and also to make sure produced findings are used for improvements in education and teachers´ everyday work lives. 182 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 164-183) references [1] adisa, toyin, aiyenitaju, opeoluwa and adekoya, olatunji. 2021. 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"stresory a syndrome vyhorenia v práciučiteľa zš."pedagogika.sk, 8(2) article history: received: november 4th, 2021 accepted: december 20th, 2021 doi: 10.28934/jwee22.12.pp61-78 original scientific paper 3bthe effect of gender and age on the dark triad in helping professions – the comparison with the general population radka čopková8f1 technical university of košice, department of economics, faculty of economics, košice, slovakia a b s t r a c t due to the factorial approach to personality traits, helping professionals, similarly to all humans, resp. other workers in any area, dispose whole range of personality traits – adaptive and maladaptive. since helping professionals are supposed to help others, the aim of the present study was the exploration of three maladaptive personality traits machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, and subclinical psychopathy on this specific sample considering gender differences comparing them to the general population. 312 participants from different sectors of the helping professions pedagogical workers, healthcare workers, rescue workers, social workers, and the general population have participated. short dark triad sd3 has been administered (jones & paulhus 2014; čopková & šafár, 2021). the main result showed that helping professionals scored significantly higher than the general population in psychopathy. the testing of between-subject variability while controlling the effect of gender and age indicated that healthcare workers and rescue workers scored significantly higher than the general population in psychopathy. there were also gender differences detected, men in both samples (general and helping) scored higher in dark triad traits. the results support the assumption that even among helping professionals, who are usually expected to be selfless and prosocial, there are individuals who are attracted by the other side of pursuing this type of profession the power they have over the person 1 e-mail: radka.copkova@tuke.sk 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 61-78) they provide help to. based on several limitations the study is considered as a pilot one that might focus the attention on this understudied topic. key words: dark triad, machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, subclinical psychopathy, helping professions introduction helping professions are defined as the type of occupation where helping others is the core element. by helping others one could understand guidance, protection, heal, and health improvement of those who found themselves in unpleasant life situations (chart et al., 2014; kopřiva, 1997; musil, 2004). on the other hand, it is not rare to experience unpleasant medical staff who seems to have no interest in people´s well-being and tries to get rid of them as quick as possible (weber, 2004). or teachers who like to show off their great personality, but if someone tries to oppose them, uncontrollable anger comes from them (bańka & orłowski, 2012). research on the personality of helping professionals is not new. however, a common tendency is to put more emphasis on adaptive personality traits its "bright" side – represented by the big five or light triad (kaufman et al., 2019). high scores in agreeableness and conscientiousness were positively associated with a desire to help, while high scores in neuroticism correlated with decisional uncertainty about choosing the helping profession (upmane, et al., 2016). other studies (bacp, 2018; géringová, 2011; heinonen et al., 2012; kopřiva, 1997; wampold & carlson, 2011) found other significant predictors in the helping process – flexibility, empathy, willingness, patience, or kindness. above mentioned studies not only summarize the desirable qualities the helping workers typically exhibit, but also provide requirements of what qualities helping workers are supposed to have. however, helping professionals, similarly to all humans, i.e. other workers in any area, have a whole range of personality traits – adaptive and maladaptive. as maladaptive personality traits, the so-called “dark side” referred by jones and williams (2002) as dark triad – machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, and subclinical psychopathy is understood. this assumption is based on trait theories claiming that personality traits are dimensions that all people rate on a spectrum. another argument that supports the importance of exploring the dark sides of personality in helping radka čopková 63 professionals is that the latter side of the motivation to pursue a helping profession and the trends behind it cannot be overlooked. even people strongly interested in helping others may abuse the asymmetry of social roles in the helping process (guggenbuhl-craig, 2007). the dark motivation for the performance could be saturated by hidden selfish goals and an effort to show off one´s own personality for the perpetual need for admiration or the desire for power, where there are egoistic goals disguised by the need to help (bakir et al., 2003). there are other studies proving that dark triad traits play no negligible role in the performance of the helping profession (babiak, 1995; bakir et al., 2003; bucknall et al., 2015; pegrum & pearce, 2015; selingson, 1992). based on the aforementioned studies on motivation to practice the helping profession (upmane et al., 2016; waterman, 2002) and other studies comparing helping professionals and the the general population in adaptive traits (chibnall, et al., 2009; meit, et al., 2009) we assume that a career in this area is chosen mainly by people who, compared to the general population, show a higher level of prosociality and personality traits associated with it. but we were also interested in the issue of differences in the personality traits of helping professionals and the general population from the other side. we aimed to find out if helping professionals differ from the general population in dark triad traits by considering the gender aspect, because there is evidence that occupational choice is still strongly associated with gender (watt, 2010). dark triad and helping professions the helping process is an interaction between a professional and a client that is supposed to improve the client´s conditions on the psychological and physical level (chart et al., 2014). by some authors, the helping profession is seen as a by-product of the weakening role of the family or service provided by other classical social support systems. helping professions thus replace their role in institutionalized form (matoušek, 2003). musil (2004) states that the common feature of helping professions is to offer the necessary help while overcoming difficult life situations and circumstances. during the helping process, the worker is the main working tool, the relationship between the helping professional and the client is the main working element and the helping is the main job description (kopřiva, 1997). 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 61-78) géringová (2011) includes doctors and other medical staff, psychologists, social workers, psychotherapists, teachers, speech therapists, and policemen, rescuers in helping professions. a prerequisite for the performance of certain professions is talent, for others, particular practical skills are required and for others certain personal prerequisites. the worker's main tool is their personality. however, it is less clear that in professions requiring certain personality traits, those traits can predict the success or failure of professional performance (kopřiva, 1997). the person who comes to the helping professional tries to find help and support. whether they approach doctors, social workers, psychologists, or others, seeking person experiences a problem. this problem automatically puts the person in a subordinate role compared to the helping professional. in this situation, two motivational forces may drive the approach of the helping professional – pure interest in the improvement of the client´s condition (kopřiva, 1997), or the desire to control, manipulate and be perceived as the one who helps and is admired for that (guggenbuhl-craig, 2007). research findings in this area have provided a full list of personality traits and features that the helping professional is supposed to possess. for teachers, these requirements are oriented towards self-knowledge, understanding, and sensitivity to pupils' needs, charm and organizational skills (géringová, 2011; kopřiva, 1997). for psychologists, counselors and psychotherapists, it is sincerity, decency, honesty, resilience, humility, wisdom, courage, acceptance, warmth, interpersonal perception, focus on others, affective modulation, expressivity, empathy, and receptivity (bacp, 2018; heinonen et al., 2012; wampold & carlson, 2011). among social workers, the most valued are moral integrity, humanity, personality maturity, prosociality, empathy, teamwork, initiative, dynamism, social feeling, sense of humor, and life optimism (levická, 2007; ružička, 2010; schavel et al., 2008). as far as medical staff is concerned, communication and social skills are appreciated by doctors, while affection, patience, empathy and expertise by nurses. carers should be patient, flexible, hardworking, responsible, honest, sociable, knowledgeable and have a good judgment (géringová, 2011; kopřiva, 1997). on the other hand, the latter side of the motivation to pursue a helping profession and the tendencies behind it could not be overlooked. even people strongly interested in helping others may abuse the asymmetry of social roles in the helping process (guggenbuhl-craig, 2007). the dark radka čopková 65 motivation for the performance can be saturated by hidden selfish goals and an effort to show off one´s own personality for the perpetual need for admiration or the desire for power, whereas there are egoistic goals disguised by the need to help. machiavellianism is typical of emotional separation, manipulative behavior, and achieving goals regardless of others (al aïn et al., 2013). machiavellists see other people as very untrustworthy and negative. they share private and false information about their life in order to get closer to their victims. on the surface, they act like introverts who have a negative view of the world, and their priority is to care only for their own well-being. they are very good liars, but their manipulation is so clever that ultimately they cannot be regarded as totally evil, because they are really skillful in distortion of rules (wilson et al., 1996). subclinical narcissists love themselves, but their self-confidence is very fragile. they see themselves as superior, perfect, important, and infallible. on the other hand, any negative feedback harms their self-image. the basic mechanism that drives them is their constantly lusting ego, whose basic motive for survival is the constant validation of their own value by their social environment. thus, narcissistic individuals' lives are constantly revolving around their value, which is unstable and depends on the amount of positive responses from society. so, it is not surprising that life with narcissists is very exhausting, although in the short term they may seem charming or even pleasant (spain et al., 2013), in the long term they have difficulty in maintaining long-term friendships, confidence or they lack concern for others (morf & rhodenwalt, 2001). subclinical psychopaths are impulsive, not empathetic, not caring, emotionally shallow, and dominant (forsyth & o' boyle, 2012; paulhus & williams, 2002; rauthmann & kolar, 2012). however, there are still relatively few research findings on the dimensions of the dark triad in the sample of helping professions. due to selingson (1992), psychologists often show their narcissistic personality structure. the dangers of narcissistic therapists are the presentation of their insight from the narcissistic world to the therapeutic process, in which they put their needs above those of the client (that should be the priority). their underdeveloped ego can disrupt the view of the whole social situation, thus limiting a critical view of the client's problems. the research of bakir et al. (2003) was based on the assumption that doctors and other medical staff are naturally expected to be kind and helpful 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 61-78) toward the patients. however, at the same time, researchers were aware of the contrast between these expectations and reality. the physician should be able to put the patient's interests above their own, which is almost impossible in the case of a machiavellistic, psychopathic and narcissistic personality, and therefore the physician's behavior may be dangerous to the patient. bucknall et al. (2015) attempted to survey these aversive traits in medical staff, but the results were not significantly different from the prevalence of these traits in the general population. more detailed analysis revealed that surgeons scored significantly higher in narcissism and nurses in psychopathy. in their research, pegrum and pearce (2015) focused only on the degree of subclinical psychopathy in physicians, significant results were reported again in surgeons’ sample and, surprisingly, in pediatricians. in interpreting the results, the authors point out how much the physician's work is related to the central characteristics of subclinical psychopathy such as depersonalization, emotional coldness, or increased resistance to stress. also, findings from comparing the incidence of machiavellianism between medical students and practitioners themselves, i.e. doctors were interesting. the aspirants for the medical profession showed a higher level of machiavellianism, which decreased with the length of practice (bratek et al., 2015). adams and maykut (2015) were interested in the potential dangers if nurses and other medical staff have dark traits. patients' statements that nurses are careless and insensitive are not rare. failure to respect the human side of the patient can lead to direct physical or indirect psychological consequences. research of the dark triad has not skipped pedagogues. lenkov, rubtsova and nizamova (2018) examined machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, and psychopathy among teachers in kindergardens, elementary and secondary schools, and universities. university teachers have shown the highest levels of all dark personality traits. compared to elementary and secondary school teachers, university teachers were significantly higher in machiavellianism and narcissism. psychopathy was significantly higher in elementary and secondary school teachers. however, in some cases, the presence of personality traits typical of the dark triad features is desirable for the pursuit of the helping profession, especially when it comes to rescuing services. for example, in the policemen, characteristics of subclinical psychopathy such as high selfesteem, stress resistance, courage or low anxiety, are welcome features due radka čopková 67 to the specific demands of the profession, while working as defensive mechanisms in facing the traumatic experiences (babiak, 1995). another thing that comes into question is the gender aspect. despite of the attempts to social progress, there is still occupational gender stereotyping present. men are more likely to engage in stem occupations (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) (watt, 2010), while women usually choose socially-oriented occupations. for example, farquhar (1998) claims the teaching profession is still considered one of the so-called gendered occupations (kelleher et al., 2011). the same problem is in professions such as social work, nursing and psychology (wilbourne, 2010), because females usually engage in such kinds of occupations as arts, humanities, education and helping professions (richardson & watt, 2006). on the other hand, rescue workers are usually men (huffman et al., 2015; miller et al., 2003; sinden, 2013). except for gender stereotypes, watt (2010) lists several factors that may affect the occupational choice based on gender – social barriers and supports, parents, peers, teachers, media, ability, perceived abilities, and motivation. the family structure as the factor that influences how risky an occupation one will choose was discussed in the work of deleire and levy (2004). in their research, grazier and sloane (2007) connected occupational choice with gender and risk aversion. the authors emphasize, that men are less risk aversive than women. it suggests that women usually choose safer jobs. these findings support the assumption that occupational choice is affected by personality traits too. in the context of gender and our research focus, we found dark triad traits necessary to discuss, because there was association between mentioned traits and risk behavior found (crysel et al., 2013). as jonason and davis (2018) found, machiavelliansim, subclinical narcissism, and subclinical psychopathy were associated more with masculinity than femininity. method sample in the study, 312 slovak respondents have participated. their age ranged 18 65 years (mage = 36.23; sd = 10.79). females represented 70.2 % of all respondents (n = 219), aged 18 65 years (mage = 35.18; sd = 11.77). males 29.8% (n = 93), aged 20 62 (mage = 38; sd = 7.74). the research sample was divided by the working area into the general population 68 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 61-78) sample (without job specification) and helping professionals population sample. the general population consisted of 161 participants (51.6 %) aged 18 – 54 years (mage = 34.98; sd = 9.63), 68.9 % females (n = 111, mage = 34.42; sd = 10.26) and 31.3 % males (n = 50, mage = 40.64; sd = 4.4). the helping professionals population sample consisted of 151 participants (48.4%) aged 19 – 65 years (mage = 37.13; sd = 11.83), 72.5 % females (n = 108, mage = 38; sd = 12.57) and 27.8 % males (n = 43, mage = 34.93; sd = 9.53). four groups of helping professionals were identified: pedagogical workers (pg) kindergarten teacher, elementary school teacher, secondary school teacher (47.7 %); healthcare workers (hc) doctor, nurse, physiotherapist, nurse, sanitary, dental technician (21.9 %); rescue workers (rs) policeman, fireman, rescuer, soldier (23.8 %); social workers (sw) social worker, psychologist, special pedagogue (6.6 %). convenience and purposive sampling methods have been used. procedure and tool short dark triad (jones & paulhus 2014; for slovak adaptation see čopková & šafár, 2021). machiavellianism ("most people can be manipulated."), narcissism ("i insist on getting the respect i deserve.") and psychopathy ("i like to get revenge on authorities.") are all represented by 9 items (27 items in sum). 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree) is used. 5 reverse-coded items must be reversed. the internal consistency calculated by cronbach alpha coefficient was as follows αm = 0.754; αn = 0.680; αp = 0.725. data were electronically (google docs-form) collected from march to april 2019. the heads of schools, kindergardens, counselling centres, healthcare centres, police and fire departments were asked to participate. after their acceptance, they were asked to disseminate the questionnaire to their employees. respondents expressed their consent by completing the questionnaire. the participation was voluntary and anonymous. the data analysis was conducted in ibm spss statistics 21 and jasp 0.14.1. the exploratory research design has been used. no missing data were noticed in the dataset. data were normally distributed (kolmogorovsmirnov test p < 0.05; skewness and kurtosis ˂ ± 1). cronbach's alpha (cronbach α) was used as the indicator of internal consistency. we tested between-subject variability by ancova that allowed the control of additional variables that might influence scores on the dependent variable. cohen´s d was used as an indicator of the effect size. radka čopková 69 results at first, we compared the average scores participants in both groups – helping professionals and the general population have reached on scales of the short dark triad – machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, and subclinical psychopathy. descriptive indicators (table 1) showed that helping professionals scored higher in machiavellianism than the general population. opposite, descriptives suggested that the general population scored higher in narcissism compared to helping professionals. surprisingly, in psychopathy, helping professionals scored higher than the general population. thus, we aimed to test the significance of assumed differences. whereas our research sample was unbalanced regarding gender and age, analysis of covariance was conducted to compare differences between groups in dark triad traits along with controlling the effect of gender and age on between-subject variability. the results have shown that helping professionals did not differ from the general population in machiavellianism [f (1,308) = 0,948; p = 0,331, η2 = 0,003]. there was a significant, but weak effect of gender on machiavellianism (p < 0,001; η2 = 0,053). men scored significantly higher than women [f (1,308) = 7,114; p = 0,008, η2 = 0,022]. specifically, men in general sample scored higher than women in helping sample (t = -3,057; p = 0,002); men in general sample scored higher than women in general sample (t = -4,783; p < 0,001). in narcissism, helping professionals did not differ from the general population as well [f (1,308) = 0,789; p = 0,376; η2 = 0,003] and there was a significant, but weak effect of gender on narcissism (p = 0,001; η2 = 0,035). in general, there were no gender differences [f (1,308) = 0,056; p = 0,813, η2 = 0,00]. however, post hoc testing showed that men in general sample scored higher than women in helping sample (t = 3,067; p = 0,002); men in general sample scored higher than women in general sample (t = 2,544; p = 0,011); and men in helping sample scored higher than women in helping sample (t = 2,076; p = 0,039). opposite, according to our results helping professionals scored significantly higher than the general population in psychopathy [f (1,308) = 9,563; p = 0,002; η2 = 0,030]. there was significant effect of gender (p < 0,001; η2 = 0,090) and age (p = 0,006; η2 = 0,024) on psychopathy. however, effect of gender and the kind of profession was not significant [f (1,308) = 0,358; p = 0,550, η2 = 0,001]. post hoc testing suggested that men in helping sample scored higher than women in general sample (t = 5,500; p < 0,001); men in general sample scored higher than women in general 70 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 61-78) sample (t = 3,330; p < 0,001); and men in helping sample scored higher than women in helping sample (t = 3,970; p < 0,001). table 1: ancova – dark triad and profession m (sd) f p η2 post hoc mach g 161 2.84 (0.73) 2,084 0,083 0,027 hc > pg hc > rs hc > sw hc > g pg 72 2.78 (0.64) hc 33 3.14 (0.93) rs 36 3.05 (0.63) sw 10 2.52 (0.44) h 151 2.90 (0.71) nar g 161 2.61 (0.65) 0,695 0,596 0,009 pg 72 2.52 (0.55) hc 33 2.39 (0.57) rs 36 2.71 (0.51) sw 10 2.27 (0.42) h 151 2.54 (0.54) psy g 161 1.85 (0.56) 2,722 0,030* 0,034 hc > g rs > g pg 72 1.88 (0.64) hc 33 2.03 (0.85) rs 36 2.37 (0.74) sw 10 1.92 (0.52) h 151 2.03 (0.73) note: mach=machiavellianism; nar=narcissism; psy=psychopathy; h=helping profssionals population; g=the general population; pg=pedagogy workers; hc=healthcare workers; rs=rescue workers; sw=social workers; n=number of participants; m=mean; sd=standard deviation; n=number of participants; *p<0.05 source: author based on research results due to the surprising result suggesting that in psychopathy helping professionals scored significantly higher than the general population, we decided to compare the average score of specific helping professions with the general population. again, ancova was conducted with gender and age as covariates. descriptives (table 1) showed that in machiavellianism, healthcare workers and rescue workers scored higher than the general population. results showed no significant differences, p value was above the criterion 0,05 even it was close. however, post hoc testing suggested that healthcare workers scored higher than rescue workers, the general population, pedagogical workers and social workers (presented in a row radka čopková 71 according to means adjusted to covariate). due to this result, it would be appropriate to conduct additional research. also, there was significant effect of gender on machiavellianism (p < 0,001; η2 = 0,046). similarly, in narcissism, rescue workers scored higher than the general population. again, statistical analysis didn´t show any significant differences. but there was significant effect of gender on narcissism (p = 0,009; η2 = 0,022). in psychopathy, means suggested that pedagogical, healthcare, rescue and social workers scored higher than the general population. this is the main reason we were interested if there is a specific group of helping professionals that might determine significantly higher scores in the helping group compared to the general population and if specific groups of helping professionals differ in dark triad traits as well. as we assumed, ancova showed that the general population and groups of helping professionals significantly differ in psychopathy. results of post hoc testing indicate that rescue workers and healthcare workers scored significantly higher in psychopathy than the general population. both, gender (p < 0,001; η2 = 0,053) and age (p = 0,011; η2 = 0,021) had significant effect on psychopathy. for easier orientation, the above-mentioned results are presented graphically in figure 1. figure 1: dark triad in the general population and helping professions source: author based on research results 2,84 2,90 2,78 3,14 3,05 2,522,61 2,54 2,52 2,39 2,71 2,27 1,85 2,03 1,88 2,03 2,37 1,92 0,00 0,50 1,00 1,50 2,00 2,50 3,00 3,50 general helping pedagogical healthcare rescue social machiavellianism narcissism psychopathy 72 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 61-78) conclusion the goal of the present study was to explore three maladaptive personality traits machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism and subclinical psychopathy, on a sample of helping professionals and compare them with the general population with considering the gender aspect. what at first glance may seem paradoxical, or even absurd, ultimately has a rational explanation. in relation to the incidence of aversive personality traits in helping professionals, the basic question that interested us was whether the helping professionals differ significantly from the general population. we assumed that helping professionals should have a lower degree of aversive traits than the general population, based on the demands placed on the prosocial side of their personality (bacp, 2018; géringová, 2011; heinonen et al., 2012; kopřiva, 1997; wampold & carlson, 2011). surprisingly, this assumption was not confirmed. helping professionals scored higher in psychopathy than the general population. this result suggests that helping professionals may not have more adaptive personality traits than the rest of the population. it also supports the assumption that the power helping professional has over the client (guggebnbuhl-craig, 2007), the status that the performance of the helping profession brings or satisfaction the need for admiration (morf & rhodenwalt, 2001) can really attract even those helping individuals whose personality equipment does not reflect the expected standards. on the other hand, it is understandable that having aversive personality traits is important in the performance of the helping profession. helping workers need to be stronger and tougher, as they face challenging situations on a daily basis on which people's lives depend on physical, mental and spiritual levels. in our research, healthcare workers showed a significantly higher rate of psychopathic tendencies than the general population. this result is similar to the results of pegrum and pearce (2015), who identified a significant incidence of subclinical psychopathy in surgeons and pediatricians. in the case of surgeons, this is not so surprising if we consider that surgical operations are risky for the patient's life, as is the work of a surgeon, which clearly requires emotional distance. similarly, it is not natural for any human to cut into another human being, not everyone is able to do so. therefore, surgeons must have a lot of control over the emotions involved in the performance of their profession. human life depends on them. in the devolved meaning, one could say that social workers, and especially radka čopková 73 psychologists, are “soul surgeons” and it is also necessary for them to stay emotionally distant from clients. not only for the well-being of the client but also for their own well-being. perhaps that is the reason why they scored significantly higher in our research than teachers who, on the contrary, are expected to have a human and warm attitude towards pupils. according to our findings, rescue workers showed significantly higher psychopathic tendencies than the general population. at the first glance, these results may be worrying, but if we look more closely at the work of police, firefighters, soldiers, and rescuers, it is obvious that in certain situations it is clearly desirable that they draw on the dark corners of their personalities (babiak, 1995). as they experience tense situations involving death, injuries, tragedies, conflicts, threats to life and property in their work, it is in their interests and in the interest of society to be able to cut off emotionally, to deal with situations sometimes in an inhumanly cold manner, not to be involved too much in interpersonal relationships. they must exercise their power quickly and without emotion, when necessary, as they often make decisions about life and death. on the other hand, this profession guarantees them some social prestige, which is demonstrated by the wearing of uniforms, presentation in the media, thus ensuring a positive response from the others. by having human lives in their hands, they can acquire a sense of superiority. the search for excitement, action, and new experiences beyond the everyday experience can all meet the needs of individuals with machiavellistic, narcissistic and psychopathic features. as expected, in our sample, males were underrepresented. it reflects the fact, that men are less likely to choose the helping profession (watt, 2010). additionally, gender was a significant covariate of all results which supports previous findings related to the role of gender in dark triad traits (jonason & davis, 2018; jones & paulhus, 2014). despite the gender disproportion of general and helping samples, women scored lower in all dark triad traits. together with gender, age was a significant covariate in psychopathy. klimstra et al. (2020) found positive age trends of dark traits in adolescence and negative in adulthood which suggests that the level of dark traits decreases with age. obviously, there are some limitations present in this study. first of all, we did not control the occupation of the general population sample so there is a chance some helping professionals were included. different approaches to the definition of helping profession caused the problems with the categorization. also, our sample consisted of many different professionals 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 61-78) so there was a need to create broader groups of helping professionals with a similar focus. also, gender proportion in our sample was not equal, but it is necessary to say, we were not interested in gender differences. instead of this, we controlled the effect of gender on our dependent variables. of course, we admit that testing a gender-balanced sample could bring different results. we see the reason for gender disproportion in our research sample in the feminisation of the teaching profession (farquhar, 1998) because teaching is still considered one of the so-called gendered occupations (kelleher et al., 2011). the same problem we perceive in professions such as social worker, nurse and psychologist (wilbourne, 2010). since rescue workers are usually men (huffman et al., 2015; miller et al., 2003; sinden, 2013) and at the same time they were not strongly represented in our sample, the result is gender disproportion. also, cronbach´s alpha value in the narcissism subscale was lower than recommended 0.7. as pallant (2011) states, cronbach´s alpha is sensitive to the number of items on the scale. if there are less than 10 items, lower reliability coefficients are acceptable. the narcissism subscale in short dark triad consists of 9 items. based on several limitations we consider this study as a pilot one that might focus the attention on this understudied topic. in spite of these limitations, the study pointed out that even among helpers, who are naturally expected to act prosocial, we can find individuals attracted by the other side of pursuing this type of profession the power they have over the person they are helping and supporting. in the future, it is important, in the light of the dark triad, to address specific helping professions and to examine possible risks that individuals exhibiting maladaptive personality traits present to their clients. references [1] adams, lisa y., and colleen a. maykut. 2015. “bullying: the antithesis of caring acknowledging the dark side of the nursing profession.” international journal of caring sciences, 8(3): 765-733. 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[51] wilson, david s., david near, and ralph r. miller. 1996. “machiavellianism: a synthesis of the evolutionary and psychological literatures.” psychological bulletin, 119(2): 285. article history: received: january 12th, 2021 accepted: may 10th, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1982.9713415 http://www.bedrugfree.ne/ doi: 10.28934/jwee21.34.pp1-21 original scientific paper 0bdo business-friendly states attract female entrepreneurs? halil kaya0f1 northeastern state university, college of business and technology, department of accounting and finance, broken arrow, oklahoma, united states a b s t r a c t in this study, we examine whether business friendly states attract more female entrepreneurs compared to non-business friendly states. in the survey that we employ, business-friendliness has four components. these are the “ease of hire”, “ease of start”, “training/networking programs”, and “regulations”. besides looking at how each of these business friendliness components affects the concentration of female entrepreneurs in a state, we also examine how each component affects other entrepreneur characteristics including “previous entrepreneurial experience”, “age”, “political view”, “education level”, and “race”. our results for “overall business friendliness” show that, in businessfriendly states, there are more female owners and experienced owners when compared to the other states. in these states, there are more conservatives but fewer liberals and independents. also, in these states, we are seeing more technical college and high school graduates and fewer community college graduates and master’s graduates. finally, in these states, we see fewer asian or hispanic owners when compared to the other states. with regard to the components of business friendliness, we find that the states with higher scores in “ease of start” or “training/networking programs” have significantly more female entrepreneurs when compared to the other states. our results show that “ease of hire” and “regulations” do not significantly affect the concentration of female entrepreneurs in a state. 1 e-mail: kaya@nsuok.edu 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) key words: regulations, business friendliness, small business, entrepreneurship introduction in this study, we examine how a state’s institutional framework affects female entrepreneurship in that state. we use a survey that explores how business-friendly each u.s. state is. the survey has an overall business friendliness score for each state. it also gives each state scores on four components of business friendliness which include “ease of hire”, “ease of start”, “overall regulations”, and “training and networking programs”. our objective is to find how the overall business friendliness score of each state as well as each of its four components affects the concentration of female entrepreneurs in each state. do more business-friendly states attract more female entrepreneurs? do states with a better hiring process or a better startup process attract more female entrepreneurs? how do the regulations in each state affect female entrepreneurship in that state? do states with better training and networking programs attract female entrepreneurs? besides examining the relationship between business friendliness and the gender of the entrepreneurs, we also examine the relationship between business friendliness and a few other characteristics of entrepreneurs including “previous entrepreneurial experience”, “age”, “political view”, “education level”, and “race”. we try to answer the following question: do more business-friendly states attract certain types of entrepreneurs? in previous research, institutions are divided into two groups: formal institutions and informal institutions. according to this classification, laws, regulations and government procedures are classified as formal institutions and beliefs, ideas and attitudes (i.e. culture) are classified as informal institutions. previous studies like smallbone et al. (2010), vaillant and lafuente (2007), kreft and sobel (2005), ovaska and sobel (2005), klapper, laeven, and rajan (2006), parker (2007), van stel, storey, and thurik (2007), acs and szerb (2007), nyström (2008), acs et al. (2009), stephan and uhlaner (2010), dreher and gassebner (2013), and others show that formal institutions are important for entrepreneurship. other studies like wennekers and thurik (1999), valdez and richardson (2013), aidis et al. (2007), manolova, eunni, and gyoshev (2008), and others show that informal institutions are important for entrepreneurship. halil kaya 3 a group of papers including amine and staub (2009), baughn, chua, and neupert (2006), estrin and mickiewicz (2011), noguera, alvarez, and urbano (2013), and noguera, et al. (2015) focus on the relationship between institutional framework and female entrepreneurship. these studies examine how different formal and/or informal institutional factors affect female entrepreneurship. they generally argue that only certain formal and informal institutional factors are important in female entrepreneurship. in this current study, we follow the footsteps of amine and staub (2009), baughn, chua, and neupert (2006), estrin and mickiewicz (2011), noguera, alvarez, and urbano (2013), and noguera, et al. (2015), and examine how certain formal and/or informal institutional factors affect female entrepreneurship in the u.s. as mentioned above, we focus on business friendliness of u.s. states. in this current study, out of the four components of business friendliness, “ease of hire”, “ease of start”, and “overall regulations” represent formal institutions and “training and networking programs” represent informal institutions. this study makes an important contribution to the literature because it focuses on the relationship between business friendliness (which covers both formal and informal factors) and female entrepreneurship. the paper shows that, out of the three formal institutional factors, only “ease of start” affects the concentration of female entrepreneurs in a state. the other two formal institutional factors which are “ease of hire” and “overall regulations” do not affect female entrepreneurs’ decision to start a business in a state. the paper also shows that the informal factor that is examined (which is the “training and networking programs”) is also an important factor that affects female entrepreneurs’ decision to start a business in a state. this finding is in line with the previous studies. the second main contribution of the study is its finding of a significant relationship between business friendliness and the other characteristics of entrepreneurs. the study shows that business-friendly states attract entrepreneurs with certain characteristics. first, business-friendly states attract more experienced entrepreneurs. second, entrepreneurs in these states tend to have a more conservative political view. third, these states attract more technical college and high school graduates and fewer community college and master’s graduates. fourth, they attract fewer asian or hispanic entrepreneurs. we advise policymakers to consider the findings here when developing their strategies for attracting entrepreneurs to their state. for example, if 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) they want to attract more female entrepreneurs, they will need to improve the start-up process and the training and networking programs. improving the hiring process or the regulations will not attract more female entrepreneurs. as shown in this paper, improving the start-up process, the hiring process, the regulations, or the training and networking programs each will attract certain groups of entrepreneurs to a state. therefore, depending on the state’s objectives, each state should focus on improving different aspects of the entrepreneurial process. institutional framework and female entrepreneurship formal institutions and female entrepreneurship previous studies show that formal institutions are important for entrepreneurship. for example, kreft and sobel (2005) show that taxes, regulations, and private property rights are important for entrepreneurial activity. ovaska and sobel (2005) argue that corruption, credit, contract enforcement, monetary policy, policies supporting economic freedom, and foreign direct investment are important for entrepreneurial activity. klapper, laeven, and rajan (2006) find that regulations that create additional costs to startup firms deter new firm creation. parker (2007) contends that rules and regulations affect the organizational form of startups. van stel, storey, and thurik (2007) find that while labor market regulations and minimum capital requirement are important, the administrative considerations are not important for nascent or young businesses. acs and szerb (2007) argue that developed countries should deregulate their financial markets and reform their labor market, while middle-income countries should make technology more available, increase human capital, and promote enterprise development. nyström (2008) argues that a smaller government sector, a better legal structure, and fewer regulations promote entrepreneurial activity. acs et al. (2009) find that regulations, administrative burden and government intervention deter new startups. stephan and uhlaner (2010) explain that opportunities and quality of formal institutions are both important. dreher and gassebner (2013) show that entrepreneurial activity is hampered when the startup process is more complex or when there are larger minimum capital requirements. bitzenis and nito (2005) show that, in albania, changes in tax laws, unfair competition, and insufficient financial resources are detrimental to halil kaya 5 entrepreneurship in that country, while others like bureaucracy and corruption are not. bergmann and sternberg (2007) examine the entrepreneurial environment in germany and show that the rate of new startups is not similar in different regions due to the unemployment situation in each region. aidis, estrin, and mickiewicz (2008) explain that russia's business environment (i.e. networks and formal institutions) favors entrepreneurial insiders (i.e. those already in business) rather than outsiders. manolova, eunni, and gyoshev (2008) show that, in bulgaria, entrepreneurs were dissatisfied with the laws, government policies, and regulations promoting entrepreneurship. for iran, nawaser et al. (2011) contend that laws/regulations are important. for portugal, branstetter et al. (2014) show that the reforms in portugal benefited only certain groups. ghani, kerr, and o'connell (2014) find that, in india, the education level of local people and the quality of the physical infrastructure are important for entrepreneurial activity. also, strict labor regulations deter entrepreneurship. for spain, garcía-posada and mora-sanguinetti (2015) show that judicial system is important. besides the above-mentioned papers, there are papers that specifically focus on the relationship between formal institutions and women’s entrepreneurship. for example, welter (2004) explains that, in germany, women entrepreneurs should be supported more. bock (2004) explains that rural development policies do not support dutch farmwomen. estrin and mickiewicz (2011) find that women are less likely to undertake entrepreneurial activity in countries where the state sector is larger. also, discrimination against women, in particular, restrictions on freedom of movement away from home, make it less likely for women to have high entrepreneurial aspirations in terms of employment growth. amine and staub (2009) show that female entrepreneurs in sub-saharan africa face a daunting array of challenges arising from the socio-cultural, economic, legal, political, and technological environments in which they live. based on the previous findings on the relationship between formal institutions and entrepreneurship, and between formal institutions and female entrepreneurship, we expect to find a positive relationship between our three formal factors (i.e. “ease of start”, “ease of hire”, and “overall regulations”) and female entrepreneurship. therefore, our first three hypotheses can be stated as below: hypothesis 1: “states with an easier startup process attract significantly more female entrepreneurs”. 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) hypothesis 2: “states with an easier hiring process attract significantly more female entrepreneurs”. hypothesis 3: “states with more favorable regulations attract significantly more female entrepreneurs”. informal institutions and female entrepreneurship there are several papers that focus on the relationship between informal institutions and entrepreneurship. for example, wennekers and thurik (1999) argue that culture, technology, demography, and institutional framework are all important for the entrepreneurial environment. valdez and richardson (2013) stress the importance of differences in beliefs, values, and abilities in entrepreneurship and deemphasize the transaction and opportunity costs. quite a few studies focus on the relationship between informal institutions and female entrepreneurship. for example, for ukraine and lithuania, aidis et al. (2007) contend that informal institutions (i.e. gendered values and norms) deter female entrepreneurs. for latvia and hungary, manolova, eunni, and gyoshev (2008) show that skills/knowledge is important. for iran, nawaser et al. (2011) contend that motivational factors and laws/regulations are important. noguera, alvarez, and urbano (2013) find that fear of failure and perceived capabilities are important factors for female entrepreneurship. baughn, chua, and neupert (2006) focus on normative influences as a key institutional factor affecting female entrepreneurship. amine and staub (2009) state that regulations, as well as normative and cognitive systems deter female entrepreneurship. noguera et al. (2015) find that informal factors such as recognition of entrepreneurial career and female networks are more important for female entrepreneurship than formal factors. similarly, khyareh (2018) shows that informal factors such as fear of failing, entrepreneurial skills, and female networks are more important for female entrepreneurship than formal factors like education and start-up capital. other studies like brush (1992), rosa and hamilton (1994), brush et al. (2006), and sexton and bowman-upton (1990) examine how characteristics of female entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial intentions, motivations or self-efficacy affect female entrepreneurship. halil kaya 7 in our study, one of the components of business friendliness is “training and networking programs” and it is an informal factor that has been shown to explain both entrepreneurship in general and female entrepreneurship. networks allow entrepreneurs to access resources such as capital, information, and skills. greve and salaff (2003) show the importance of networks for entrepreneurship. also, knowing someone with previous experience who can provide support to the entrepreneur is shown to be valuable (hoang and antoncic (2003), greve (1995), allen (2000), kwong, jones‐evans, and thompson (2012), and langowitz and minniti (2007)). based on the previous findings on the relationship between informal institutions and female entrepreneurship, and more specifically between networks and female entrepreneurship, we expect to find a positive relationship between the availability of “training and networking programs” in a state and female entrepreneurship. therefore, our final hypotheses can be stated as below: hypothesis 4: “states with better training and networking programs for entrepreneurs attract significantly more female entrepreneurs”. data and methodology our objective is to see how business friendliness in a state affects owner characteristics. the 2013 “united states small business friendliness survey” (by thumptack.com and kauffman foundation) asks small business owners to rate their state in each category of business friendliness. the survey also asks them basic questions on their personal characteristics (i.e. gender, age, political view, entrepreneurial experience, race, education, and position in the firm). all of the variables in this study are explained below. business friendliness variables: overallscore: each state’s overall business friendliness score easeofstart: each state’s ease of start score as shown in the survey easeofhire: each state’s ease of hire score as shown in the survey overallreg: each state’s overall regulations score trainingnetworking: each state’s training/networking score each state’s “overallscore” on business friendliness is available in the survey. the survey also includes each state’s scores on the components of business friendliness (i.e. “ease of starting a business”, “ease of hiring”, 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) “regulations”, and “training and networking programs”). we convert the letter grades in the survey to numbers as follows: a+ becomes 12; a becomes 11, and so on. the lowest letter grade is f. after the conversion, f becomes 1. the owner characteristic variables are explained below: position in the firm: “managerbutnotowner”: the % who are the manager but not the owner “nonmanageremployee”: the % who are an employee but not the manager “ownerandmanager”: the % who are the owner and the manager “ownerbutnotmanager”: the % who are the owner but not the manager previous entrepreneurial experience: “previousentre”: the % who has previous entrepreneurship experience “previousstartups1”: the % who started one previous business “previousstartups2”: the % who started two previous businesses “previousstartups3”: the % who started three previous businesses “previousstartups4”: the % who started four previous businesses “previousstartups>4”: the % who started more than four previous businesses the other variables are self-explanatory. when doing the empirical analyses, we run nonparametric tests that compare “high” and “low” overall score states in terms of owner characteristic variables. for each category, the mean score is used to decide whether a state has a “high” or “low” score in that category. table 1 shows the descriptive statistics for our variables. halil kaya 9 table 1: summary statistics (all variables in %) variable mean median stdev min max panel a. overall score and components overallscore 6.93 7.00 3.51 1.00 12.00 easeofstart 6.93 7.00 3.51 1.00 12.00 easeofhire 7.02 7.00 3.54 1.00 12.00 overallreg 6.98 7.00 3.47 1.00 12.00 trainingnetworking 7.17 8.00 3.29 1.00 12.00 panel b. position and experience managerbutnotowner 3.39 3.25 1.87 0.00 8.33 nonmanageremployee 0.53 0.41 0.72 0.00 3.23 ownerandmanager 94.02 94.59 2.80 86.11 100.00 ownerbutnotmanager 2.05 2.01 1.80 0.00 8.33 previousentre 43.84 43.33 6.78 29.49 57.14 previousstartups1 44.74 44.64 12.08 16.67 100.00 previousstartups2 30.53 31.51 8.03 0.00 41.67 previousstartups3 15.10 14.68 7.42 0.00 33.33 previousstartups4 4.18 4.42 3.63 0.00 14.29 previousstartups>4 5.45 4.76 4.54 0.00 21.43 panel c. owner characteristics female 37.00 36.96 5.96 21.05 52.94 age<25 2.09 2.18 1.67 0.00 8.70 age25-34 18.72 19.21 5.14 5.26 35.48 age35-44 24.27 25.32 3.98 14.29 31.82 age45-54 28.18 28.46 5.88 10.00 46.67 age55-64 21.38 20.45 6.32 8.70 42.11 age>64 5.36 5.71 2.61 0.00 11.43 independent 30.52 28.85 6.62 21.05 52.63 otherpolitical 17.43 16.67 4.80 8.33 34.78 leanconservative 14.51 14.17 4.54 0.00 26.32 leanliberal 12.84 11.79 5.14 5.06 26.47 strongconservative 14.86 14.71 6.70 0.00 26.09 strongliberal 9.84 9.89 3.92 0.00 19.05 no highschool 0.66 0.00 1.06 0.00 4.35 highschool 17.18 17.09 4.73 4.76 34.09 community college 17.99 17.28 6.67 5.26 35.00 technical college 16.00 14.67 5.09 4.35 26.32 undergrad 31.51 31.58 8.11 10.00 61.70 master’s 12.88 13.27 4.35 4.26 24.05 doctoral 3.79 3.64 2.59 0.00 15.79 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) variable mean median stdev min max asian 1.67 1.12 2.73 0.00 16.67 otherrace 5.38 4.21 5.34 0.00 26.67 black 7.36 4.84 7.72 0.00 34.71 hispanic 4.95 3.85 4.26 0.00 16.16 white 80.63 81.82 11.33 53.33 100.00 source: author’s own work empirical results table 2 looks at owner characteristics in highand low-overall score states. the last column shows mann-whitney-wilcoxon test results. table 2: comparison of highand low-overall score states high-overall score low-overall score mann-w. mean med. mean med. p-value panel a. position and experience managerbutnotowner 3.61 3.48 3.12 3.00 0.2152 nonmanageremployee 0.52 0.00 0.55 0.51 0.1341 ownerandmanager 93.66 94.57 94.49 94.64 0.2191 ownerbutnotmanager 2.21 1.91 1.84 2.09 0.4632 previousentre 45.39 45.24 41.87 41.75 **0.0360 previousstartups1 45.62 45.83 43.61 42.09 *0.0901 previousstartups2 29.80 30.00 31.45 32.37 0.1292 previousstartups3 14.75 14.29 15.55 14.90 0.4014 previousstartups4 5.00 5.26 3.13 3.04 *0.0812 previousstartups>4 4.82 4.00 6.26 5.59 *0.0920 panel b. owner characteristics female 38.43 37.63 35.18 36.42 *0.0706 age<25 2.00 2.18 2.22 2.15 0.4579 age25-34 19.54 19.75 17.68 17.54 0.1013 age35-44 24.46 25.53 24.02 25.00 0.3614 age45-54 27.49 27.69 29.07 28.54 0.2599 age55-64 20.65 20.00 22.30 21.01 0.2350 age>64 5.86 5.71 4.71 5.47 0.2514 independent 28.94 28.19 32.53 29.81 **0.0451 otherpolitical 16.27 15.79 18.91 16.76 *0.0724 leanconservative 16.39 15.00 12.10 12.21 ***0.0024 leanliberal 11.18 9.92 14.96 15.09 ***0.0025 strongconservative 17.88 17.95 11.01 10.03 ***0.0006 halil kaya 11 strongliberal 9.33 9.89 10.48 9.88 0.2556 no highschool 0.55 0.00 0.82 0.39 0.1385 highschool 18.21 17.74 15.87 16.18 *0.0516 community college 16.54 16.54 19.84 20.13 *0.0503 technical college 18.03 18.52 13.40 13.04 ***0.0012 undergrad 31.10 30.86 32.02 32.20 0.2772 master’s 11.76 10.73 14.30 14.44 **0.0403 doctoral 3.82 3.64 3.75 3.67 0.3276 asian 0.95 1.09 2.59 1.83 **0.0303 otherrace 4.83 3.82 6.08 4.28 0.2036 black 8.41 4.44 6.03 4.95 0.2769 hispanic 3.87 2.89 6.34 4.80 **0.0171 white 81.94 81.82 78.95 81.17 0.2192 source: author’s own work panel a shows that there is no significant difference between the two groups of states with respect to the respondent’s position, however the two groups differ significantly in terms of the owner’s previous entrepreneurship experience. in the high-overall score states, there are more experienced owners when compared to the other states (except for owners with four or more previous entrepreneurship experience). panel b shows that, in the high-overall score states, we see more female owners compared to the other states (38.43% versus 35.18%). panel b also shows that, in the high-overall score states, there are more conservatives and fewer independents and liberals, there are more high school and technical college graduates and fewer community college and master’s graduates, and there are fewer asians and hispanics when compared to the low-overall score states. there is no significant difference between the two groups in terms of the age of the owner. table 3 looks at owner characteristics in highand low-ease of start score states. again, there is no significant difference between the two groups with respect to the owner’s position in the firm. in the high-score states, there are more experienced people when compared to the other states. panel b shows that, in the high-score states, there are more female owners (38.93% vs 34.54%). there are more strong conservatives and fewer liberal leaning owners, and more technical college and high school graduates in these states. in terms of the race or age of the owner, we are not seeing any significant difference between the two groups of states. 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) table 3: the impact of "ease of start" high-score low-score mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value panel a. position and experience managerbutnotowner 3.50 3.28 3.27 3.20 0.4167 nonmanageremployee 0.63 0.39 0.41 0.46 0.3910 ownerandmanager 93.65 94.57 94.50 94.64 0.2816 ownerbutnotmanager 2.22 1.87 1.83 2.20 0.4947 previousentre 45.14 45.24 42.18 42.12 *0.0880 previousstartups1 43.36 44.64 46.51 45.29 0.2431 previousstartups2 30.77 30.09 30.22 32.37 0.2556 previousstartups3 16.41 15.28 13.44 13.60 *0.0922 previousstartups4 4.42 4.96 3.87 3.17 0.2202 previousstartups>4 5.05 4.76 5.97 4.28 0.3711 panel b. owner characteristics female 38.93 38.64 34.54 35.55 **0.0202 age<25 1.97 2.18 2.25 2.18 0.4789 age25-34 19.63 19.23 17.57 18.43 0.2556 age35-44 23.92 24.63 24.71 25.43 0.3419 age45-54 28.29 28.46 28.05 28.41 0.5000 age55-64 20.91 20.00 21.97 20.80 0.3713 age>64 5.27 4.99 5.46 5.91 0.2641 independent 29.67 28.72 31.60 29.41 0.3663 otherpolitical 16.25 15.48 18.94 16.76 *0.0590 leanconservative 15.45 14.46 13.30 13.51 0.1036 leanliberal 11.97 10.26 13.95 13.61 **0.0426 strongconservative 16.52 15.08 12.75 10.28 **0.0196 strongliberal 10.13 9.89 9.46 9.71 0.3419 no highschool 0.63 0.38 0.70 0.00 0.3621 highschool 18.30 18.53 15.76 15.79 **0.0236 community college 17.29 17.28 18.88 17.28 0.2861 technical college 17.42 17.00 14.17 13.04 ***0.0090 undergrad 30.45 30.65 32.86 32.20 0.1755 master’s 12.36 11.32 13.53 14.24 0.1755 doctoral 3.55 3.64 4.09 3.67 0.3323 asian 1.40 1.61 2.03 0.69 0.3340 otherrace 4.47 4.03 6.54 4.28 0.2858 black 9.12 4.44 5.12 5.03 0.2553 hispanic 4.93 4.03 4.98 3.76 0.4529 white 80.08 81.45 81.33 83.76 0.3713 source: author’s own work halil kaya 13 table 4 compares the highand low-ease of hire score states. again, there is no significant difference between the two groups with respect to the owner’s position in the firm. in the high-score states, there are more experienced people when compared to the other states. interestingly, there are fewer people with two previous experiences in these states. table 4: the impact of "ease of hire" high-score low-score mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value panel a. position and experience managerbutnotowner 3.53 3.38 3.27 3.14 0.3009 nonmanageremployee 0.52 0.00 0.54 0.46 0.2504 ownerandmanager 93.69 94.30 94.34 94.69 0.2208 ownerbutnotmanager 2.26 1.64 1.85 2.24 0.4323 previousentre 44.88 45.20 42.85 42.55 0.1577 previousstartups1 42.99 42.81 46.41 47.71 0.1005 previousstartups2 29.21 30.52 31.78 33.03 *0.0702 previousstartups3 15.99 15.95 14.26 14.47 0.2285 previousstartups4 5.02 4.86 3.37 3.03 *0.0808 previousstartups>4 6.78 6.07 4.19 3.37 **0.0166 panel b. owner characteristics female 37.95 37.30 36.10 36.94 0.1608 age<25 1.61 1.89 2.55 2.27 *0.0927 age25-34 18.12 18.85 19.30 19.29 0.2406 age35-44 24.87 25.76 23.69 24.37 0.1454 age45-54 27.79 26.74 28.56 28.57 0.2170 age55-64 22.15 20.76 20.64 19.50 *0.0896 age>64 5.46 5.58 5.25 5.80 0.4636 independent 31.09 28.46 29.97 29.41 0.4948 otherpolitical 16.23 15.79 18.57 18.83 *0.0875 leanconservative 15.70 15.09 13.37 13.64 *0.0776 leanliberal 12.18 10.74 13.47 13.64 0.2366 strongconservative 15.98 15.59 13.80 12.60 0.1608 strongliberal 8.81 8.69 10.81 10.83 *0.0573 no highschool 0.69 0.43 0.64 0.00 0.2461 highschool 17.41 17.65 16.97 16.98 0.4173 community college 16.44 18.17 19.46 17.28 0.1454 technical college 17.48 16.95 14.58 13.33 **0.0339 undergrad 30.64 31.20 32.33 31.82 0.3287 master’s 13.37 13.92 12.41 12.27 0.3335 doctoral 3.97 3.64 3.61 3.57 0.4792 14 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) high-score low-score mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value asian 1.11 1.11 2.21 1.69 0.1757 otherrace 3.94 3.94 6.75 4.35 0.1450 black 9.50 5.05 5.33 4.26 0.1421 hispanic 5.25 3.54 4.67 4.07 0.4173 white 80.20 80.23 81.03 83.05 0.4123 source: author’s own work panel b shows that there are similar number of female owners in these two groups of states (37.95% versus 36.10%). when we look at the age variables, in the high-score states, we are seeing fewer people that are younger than 25 and more people that are between 55 and 64 years of age. in these states, there are more are more people leaning conservatives and fewer people who define themselves as a strong liberal. in these states, there are more technical college graduates. in terms of the race groups, there is no significant difference between the two groups. table 5 compares the highand low-overall regulations score states. again, there is no significant difference between the two groups with respect to the owner’s position in the firm. in the high-score states, there are more experienced people. panel b shows that there are similar number of female owners in each group (37.96% versus 35.78%). we do not see any significant results for the age groups. in the high-score states, there are more conservative people and fewer liberal people. in these states, there are more technical college and high school graduates and fewer people with an undergraduate degree. in terms of the race groups, in the high-score states, there are fewer asians but more black owners. table 5: the impact of "overall regulations" high-score low-score mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value panel a. position and experience managerbutnotowner 3.34 2.94 3.46 3.56 0.2771 nonmanageremployee 0.52 0.00 0.54 0.49 0.1993 ownerandmanager 93.90 94.67 94.18 94.45 0.4895 ownerbutnotmanager 2.23 1.87 1.82 2.20 0.4632 previousentre 45.95 45.73 41.14 41.28 ***0.0075 halil kaya 15 high-score low-score mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value previousstartups1 43.70 43.84 46.07 45.79 0.2905 previousstartups2 30.24 30.95 30.89 31.82 0.2556 previousstartups3 16.49 16.67 13.33 14.58 0.1320 previousstartups4 4.12 4.42 4.24 4.32 0.4841 previousstartups>4 5.44 5.56 5.46 3.43 0.2036 panel b. owner characteristics female 37.96 37.63 35.78 36.42 0.1134 age<25 1.99 2.18 2.23 2.15 0.4579 age25-34 18.53 19.23 18.98 18.68 0.4582 age35-44 24.95 25.53 23.39 24.61 0.1436 age45-54 27.71 27.16 28.79 28.80 0.2515 age55-64 21.23 20.00 21.56 21.49 0.2115 age>64 5.59 5.45 5.06 5.84 0.3516 independent 30.62 28.72 30.39 29.41 0.5000 otherpolitical 16.19 15.94 19.02 17.84 *0.0706 leanconservative 16.16 15.00 12.40 12.21 ***0.0040 leanliberal 10.69 9.92 15.59 15.57 ***0.0002 strongconservative 17.51 16.92 11.48 10.28 ***0.0024 strongliberal 8.83 8.65 11.13 11.47 **0.0311 no highschool 0.61 0.00 0.73 0.13 0.4606 highschool 18.15 17.74 15.95 16.62 *0.0967 community college 18.28 19.35 17.61 16.85 0.3614 technical college 17.30 16.90 14.33 13.04 **0.0123 undergrad 29.50 30.19 34.07 33.91 ***0.0038 master’s 12.39 13.27 13.49 13.41 0.2951 doctoral 3.77 3.52 3.82 3.78 0.2772 asian 1.03 1.09 2.50 1.65 *0.0757 otherrace 4.83 4.08 6.09 4.28 0.2227 black 9.54 5.92 4.58 4.05 **0.0487 hispanic 4.77 2.89 5.19 4.05 0.1083 white 79.83 78.57 81.65 84.33 0.2685 source: author’s own work table 6 compares the highand low-training/networking score states. again, there is no significant difference between the two groups with respect to the owner’s position in the firm. in the high-score states, there are more experienced people. 16 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) table 6: the impact of "training and networking" high-score low-score mann-w. variable mean med. mean med. p-value panel a. position and experience managerbutnotowner 3.43 3.38 3.35 2.85 0.3096 nonmanageremployee 0.61 0.42 0.44 0.00 0.3100 ownerandmanager 93.63 94.37 94.48 94.95 0.1120 ownerbutnotmanager 2.33 2.22 1.73 1.91 0.3180 previousentre 44.11 44.35 43.53 42.55 0.4019 previousstartups1 43.84 45.18 45.79 42.86 0.3818 previousstartups2 31.36 31.46 29.56 31.82 0.4222 previousstartups3 15.19 14.80 15.01 14.68 0.4120 previousstartups4 4.80 5.26 3.46 3.05 *0.0673 previousstartups>4 4.82 4.91 6.19 4.35 0.3817 panel b. owner characteristics female 39.41 38.83 34.21 35.90 ***0.0065 age<25 2.31 2.35 1.85 1.61 **0.0151 age25-34 19.63 19.37 17.68 18.64 0.2483 age35-44 24.89 25.16 23.54 25.53 0.1905 age45-54 26.72 27.43 29.88 28.57 *0.0525 age55-64 21.08 20.23 21.72 20.55 0.4844 age>64 5.37 5.07 5.34 5.93 0.4171 independent 30.40 28.14 30.66 29.41 0.4274 otherpolitical 17.45 18.33 17.41 15.79 0.2738 leanconservative 14.62 14.00 14.38 15.00 0.4687 leanliberal 12.18 10.87 13.60 12.03 0.1277 strongconservative 14.68 13.64 15.07 16.15 0.3670 strongliberal 10.68 11.30 8.87 8.65 **0.0326 no highschool 0.70 0.32 0.62 0.00 0.2283 highschool 18.45 18.14 15.72 16.67 *0.0849 community college 17.90 18.17 18.08 17.28 0.4121 technical college 15.71 14.20 16.33 16.90 0.2915 undergrad 29.79 32.48 33.49 30.86 0.3621 master’s 13.91 13.92 11.67 12.27 *0.0809 doctoral 3.54 3.64 4.08 3.52 0.4583 asian 1.20 1.15 2.23 1.12 0.3948 otherrace 5.15 4.46 5.65 4.08 0.3048 black 10.28 8.84 3.99 4.24 **0.0154 hispanic 4.22 3.44 5.81 4.26 0.1045 white 79.16 80.01 82.33 84.18 0.1767 source: author’s own work halil kaya 17 panel b shows that, in the high-score states, there are more female owners (39.41% versus 34.21%). when we look at the age variables, we are seeing that, in the high-score states, there are more owners who are younger than 25 and fewer owners who are between 45 and 54 years of age. in the high-score states, there are more strong liberals. in these states, there are more high school and master’s graduates. in terms of the race groups, in the high-score states, we are seeing more black owners. conclusion our results for “overall business friendliness” show that, in businessfriendly states, there are more female owners and more experienced owners. we also find that, in these states, there are more conservatives but fewer liberals and independents. also, there are more technical college and high school graduates but fewer community college graduates and fewer people with master’s degrees when compared to the other states. we also find that, in business-friendly states, there are fewer asian and hispanic owners when compared to the other states. next, we examine whether each component of business friendliness affects firm characteristics. first, we compare high-ease of start score states to low-ease of start score states. we find that “ease of start” affects most owner characteristics. we find that there are more female owners and more experienced people in the states with a high ease of start score. therefore, our results fail to reject hypothesis 1 which states that states with an easier startup process attract significantly more female entrepreneurs. there are fewer liberals and more conservatives. also, there are more technical college and high school graduates. when we look at “ease of hire”, we are seeing that, in the states with a high-ease of hire score, there are more people with four or more previous startup experience. there are fewer younger owners and more older owners. there are more conservatives and fewer liberals. also, there are more technical college graduates. however, there is no significant difference between the two groups of states in terms of the percentage of female owners. therefore, we reject hypothesis 2 which states that states with an easier hiring process attract significantly more female entrepreneurs. when we look at “overall regulations”, we find that, in the states with a high-overall regulations score, there are more people with previous startup experience. there are fewer younger owners and more older owners. there 18 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) are more conservatives and fewer liberals. there are fewer people with an undergraduate degree and more people with a technical college or high school degree. also, there are fewer owners that are “asian” but more owners that are “black”. however, there is no significant difference between the two groups of states in terms of the percentage of female owners. therefore, we reject hypothesis 3 which states that states with more favorable regulations attract significantly more female entrepreneurs. we find that there are more female owners and more experienced people in the states with more training and networking programs. therefore, our results fail to reject hypothesis 4 which states that states with better training and networking programs for entrepreneurs attract significantly more female entrepreneurs. we see younger entrepreneurs in these states, and we also see more liberals. there are more high school graduates and more people with a master’s degree. also, there are more owners that are “black”. our results confirm that business friendly states attract certain types of entrepreneurs. our results also indicate that different components of business friendliness attract different types of entrepreneurs. policymakers should consider the findings here when developing their strategies for attracting entrepreneurs to their states. references [1] acs, zoltan j., pontus braunerhjelm, david b. audretsch, and bo carlsson. 2009. 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"linking entrepreneurship and economic growth." small business economics, 13(1): 27-56. article history: received: july 15th, 2021 accepted: november 3rd, 2021 404 not found doi: 10.28934/jwee22.12.pp117-136 jel:l26, l32 original scientific paper 6bretail-based women entrepreneurship entry model through small business orientation (sbo) md. rahat khan12 f1 city university, department of business administration, dhaka, bangladesh sanjoy kumar roy1 3f2 city university, general education department, dhaka, bangladesh most. tahura pervin1 4f3 dhaka university of engineering & technology, department of humanities and social sciences, dhaka, bangladesh a b s t r a c t the study aimed to evaluate the opinions of the retail small business women entrepreneurs to develop an entry model for women entrepreneurship in an emerging economy. the study was conducted through in-depth interviews among the 20 small business women entrepreneurs. the sample was purposefully selected. for data sources triangulation the study also added participants and industry observation. the data coding and analysis were conducted based on the method of (gioia et al., 2013). the study constructs an entry model regarding retail-based women entrepreneurship from an emerging economy perspective. the grounded entry model of women entrepreneurship identified three crucial factors such as motives, challenges, and supports. all the components encompass the entrepreneur, society, and government. hence the authors believe the grounded model is a 360 degree model for the people who are engaged in women 1 corresponding author, e-mail: rahatkhan.mrk14@gmail.com, tel: +088 01913 439 951 2 e-mail: mritojonmajoy@gmail.com 3 email: tahura@duet.ac.bd 118 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 117-136) entrepreneurship. the outcomes of this research would play a great role in future research into the field of sbo and women entrepreneurship for emerging economies. key words: women entrepreneurship, entry model, small business orientation, retail business, emerging economy introduction small enterprises are contributing to society in several ways: for example, by creating new jobs, tax revenues, usable goods and services, charity contributions, technical advances, and social investments in the communities (williams et al., 2020). contemporary retail business is clearly different from conventional retailing. many new operating strategies are adopted to boost the cost-effectiveness as well as the overall retail efficiency (lukic, 2012). hence, the retail business is a good platform for small business entrepreneurs (moudrý & thaichon, 2020). entrepreneurship has been considered one of the key platforms of economic growth for a country (urbano et al., 2019). basically, entrepreneurship focuses more on opportunities rather than resources (clark & ramachandran, 2019). in addition, the concept of entrepreneurship has emerged significantly (khan, 2019). for instance, the entrepreneurs can be classified as commercial as well as social (douglas, 2013) and those entrepreneurial facts and procedures are not restricted to the start-ups of a firm but may engage in whole organizations. these above approaches have commenced the escalating research flow focused on entrepreneurial orientation (covin & wales, 2019; wales et al., 2020). alongside, attention on small business management has debatably reshaped over the years (goerzig & bauernhansl, 2018). the significance of small business through entrepreneurial actions has largely dominated the concentration of researchers and popular press from both the firms’ and individual perspectives (karami & tang, 2019). in subsequent years, women entrepreneurs have received more research concern since women entrepreneurship is seen as a significant driver of socio-economic progress (alves et al., 2017). as per the ilo (international labor organization), female entrepreneurs contribute 42% of all the operating businesses in the formal sector (akter et al., 2019). the world trade organization (wto) enforces engaging and enabling women to participate and allows them to invest in a risk-free enterprise since they md. rahat khan, sanjoy kumar roy, most. tahura pervin 119 return 10 times to society (world trade organization, 2016). furthermore, establishing women's economic engagement is critical for accomplishing an economy’s sustainable development goals (sdgs) (akter et al., 2019). as a result, current research interests have centered on how female entrepreneurs plan and which model they follow to start a venture through the retail-based sbo. in bangladesh, the country aims to become a middle-income country status. to achieve this aim; bangladesh has to concentrate on reducing the unemployment problem through small business and entrepreneurship platforms including male and female entrepreneurs (ferdousi& mahmud, 2019). the entrepreneurs in bangladesh have their own adequate aptitude and creativity to lead feasible business opportunities (khan, 2019). how do bangladeshi women entrepreneurs plan to start a venture through sbo? which type of entrepreneurship entry model do they follow to start a venture through sbo? how do the bangladeshi government and policymakers provide women entrepreneurship opportunities to support the sbo concept in an emerging economy? to address such questions this particular followed a qualitative multiple case study research based on the in-depth interviews as well as participants’ observations. a number of twenty female retail entrepreneurs were selected judgmentally to conduct this research. since the last decade, many countries have shown more interest in women's entrepreneurial activities for their economic growth on the macrolevel (dean et al., 2019; eijdenberg, et al., 2019). for those consequences, plenty of researches have been conducted to unveil the pros and cons, practice and gapes, opportunities and utilization from different perspectives across the globe (ferdousi & mahmud, 2019). according to the bangladeshi small business and entrepreneurship literature, few types of research have been found on the entrepreneurship orientations through smes (hoque et al., 2018); for rural development (mckague et al., 2017) through agri-business (saad et al., 2019); poultry farming (begum et al., 2019); social business (ferdousi & mahmud, 2019); women empowerment (hossain & khan, 2019). however, the study has been suffering to address some close research in small business orientation through the retail business platform from the women entrepreneurship perspective in bangladesh on a few occasions and finally fall shorts to retrieve. so, the study considered the above issue as a research gap and decided to explore the research in the above context. the study aimed to evaluate the opinions of the retail small business women entrepreneurs to learn their entry model towards entrepreneurship practice in bangladesh, opportunities, and threats, and the 120 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 117-136) future direction of their business. the following sections will focus more on the details of the research proceedings. theoretical anchoring theory of entrepreneurship entrepreneurship is more than just starting a new business (khan, 2020). in an unpredictable context, entrepreneurship is characterized as a mechanism of creating value as well as appropriation guided by entrepreneurs (radović-marković, 2018). the entrepreneur and their entrepreneurial mindset drive the entrepreneurial phase of value generation. the entrepreneurial cycle is not self-contained; the innovator is an intrinsic part of the entrepreneurial cycle. as a result, entrepreneurial ambition and capabilities are inextricably linked to the entrepreneurship process (moghadamzadeh et al., 2020; ebrahimi et al., 2021). in the economic arena, it indicates that female entrepreneurs are more sensitive to sexist stereotypes influenced by culture than men entrepreneurs (vukovic & nevalennyi, 2021). women entrepreneurship has indeed been highlighted as a critical untapped resource of economic progress and growth (kaya, 2021). this concept contends that a country's overall benefit (financial, societal, and so forth) is influenced in part by the labor of its females and that as more females labor, societies flourish. female entrepreneurship boosts a country's economic well-being by lowering poverty and improving the total amount of family earnings, which translates to improved education as well as wellness for their kids in particular (achakpa & radović-marković, 2018; khan et al., 2018). the process of value creation in entrepreneurship suggested two steps those are choice of entry mode for enterprise creation and the other one is enterprise monetization (mishra & zachary, 2014). hence the selection of entry mode in entrepreneurship is very much crucial. there are several entry modes is available for creating a new venture such as small business with sole proprietorship, partnership, cooperative, and company formation (pride et al., 2020). however, the preference of small businesses is very much popular, especially for those who are comparatively underprivileged in knowledge, capital, and/or some other related required resources in entrepreneurship (runyan & covin, 2019). thus, the study selected the phenomena of women entrepreneurship and small business in the context of emerging economies like bangladesh. md. rahat khan, sanjoy kumar roy, most. tahura pervin 121 retail-based women entrepreneurship in emerging economies female entrepreneurship researchers revealed that entrepreneurship is indeed a gender-based phenomenon (jennings & brush 2013). for the foundation of women-owned entrepreneurship in an emerging economy, most of the start-up enterprises were very much successful as small-scale and retail-based or sole proprietorships starting (yadav & unni, 2016). enterprising activities might be entrenched in families. women may play a big part in the greater entrepreneurial phenomena and sustainable growth (welsh et al., 2021). consequently, there is a pressing need to look at many aspects of female entrepreneurship development. to further understand the distinctiveness of female entrepreneurship as a study topic, current theoretical notions must be broadened (yadav & unni, 2016). internationally, there are approximately 252 million women entrepreneurs (kogut & mejri, 2021). despite the fact that women earn better results in total than their male colleagues, women tend to confront more commercial and personal challenges with respect to generating money, societal restraints, time, and talent limits. female entrepreneurs in emerging countries confront additional restrictions and obstacles as a result of their volatile environment (brush et al., 2021). emerging markets’ enterprises have political as well as legal instability, societal violence, essential promarket changes, economic downturns, regional isolation, inadequate infrastructure, bad governance, enormous bureaucracy, youth unemployment, weak economic development, low productivity, and so on (liu et al., 2019; kogut & mejri, 2021). accumulation of such challenges created entrepreneurship opportunities’ discrimination including gender inequality. thus, women entrepreneurs in certain emerging economies have experienced unforeseen turmoil. despite these obstacles, the emerging countries still have enormous development potential in the future years by engaging women entrepreneurs alongside male entrepreneurs (kogut & mejri, 2021). hence, this study seeks women's entrepreneurship entry model from an emerging economy perspective. study context entrepreneurship is a key factor for gaining economic freedom for any country (khan et al., 2022). an entrepreneurship activity depends on three traditional factors such as land, labor, and capital (hisrich et al., 2017). in the case of bangladesh, the majority of small enterprises characterize those 122 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 117-136) three factors as the most vital actor to impel the economy (khan and roy, 2022). considering the whole industrial units in bangladesh, more than 90% of the units are small enterprise ventures, which include micro and cottage industries (hossain et al., 2018). small business has contributed 25% of the gdp to the national economy. in addition, 40% of the employment opportunities have been created by small business firms as well (islam et al., 2019). so, the government of bangladesh is keen to give greater priority to entrepreneurship and small enterprises (al ahad & khan, 2020). bangladesh bank has taken some significant legislative steps for the growth of entrepreneurship as well as a small enterprise. target concerned credit program by which banks as well as nbfis (non-banking financial institutes) carry out their sme (small management enterprise) financing operations on their own by establishing an annual goal; prioritized credit scheme for female entrepreneurs; establishment of dedicated or sme support desks for female entrepreneurs in every bank and nbfi; expansion to maintain financial participation of the sme or agriculture branches; 15% refinancing fund quota for woman entrepreneurs; loans up to taka 25.00 lac is permitted to woman entrepreneurs against individual guarantee and without any securities; disbursement of accessible credit to sme businessmen to facilitate sme funds; recognizing assistance for small companies, women's businesses and the retail and utility sectors; favorable interest rate (10%) support for woman entrepreneurs; establishment of a branch offices control cell; and both the nbfis and banks are advised to follow a different business plan for funding small and medium-sized enterprises; focal individual for each nbfi and bank for managing grievances and supplying businesses with other business support facilities (dcci, 2013). methodology research design the study is focusing on two types of research methods mainly named observation of the women entrepreneurship sbo nature and in-depth interviews with the women entrepreneurs. the prime technique of data collection is an observation of the research context, such as retail-based women entrepreneurship patterns, challenges, and motives (khan, 2019; khan, 2021). the observation approach is appropriate to avoid the biases of the responses of the respondents (khan & sharma, 2020). the study closely md. rahat khan, sanjoy kumar roy, most. tahura pervin 123 observes some retailing operations and culture in bangladesh from the impendence of the country till now. figure 1: research design flow chart source: authors’ case selection due to a single district context data, the whole district is considered as a single case study research (adom & anambane, 2019). each case was selected from various enterprises operated in the dhaka district. each enterprise was conducted by a female entrepreneur. the ventures were selected purposefully based on the mutual consent of the authors and interview participants. data collection and sampling procedure both the interview and participant observation were used for data collection as a method of triangulation in data sources for this research (nancy carter et al., 2014). for the in-depth interview-based research a number of 15 to 30 participants is sufficient (malhotra, 2017; vasileiou et al., 2018). relying on that methodological assistance the study purposefully selected 20 female entrepreneurs from the dhaka district of bangladesh (as evidence from an emerging country) from an unknown population size (lack 124 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 117-136) of valid dataset). in-depth interviews are generally used to yield both observational and qualitative data where evaluation can be challenging. indepth interviews are a very effective tool for examining qualitative analysis (cao et al., 2020). table-1 briefly explained the data collection and participants’ observation technique. table 1: informants’ detail source: authors’ research instruments, data recording, data analysis techniques, and ethics each of the participants was willingly engaged in a time range of 15 to 45 minutes of interview protocol (mair et al., 2016). however, owing to some privacy reasons the participants’ names were not disclosed in the paper. each of the participants was presented as ‘informant-1 to informant20’. such code was used as a pseudonym. informants’ detail was summarized in table 1. the collected data was structured as a three-element md. rahat khan, sanjoy kumar roy, most. tahura pervin 125 coding framework suggested by (gioia et al., 2013). the research had some very specific ethical characteristics that needed to take into account while conducting the study in bangladesh more narrowly in the dhaka division. the research fruitfully pursued all the related ethical protocols as well as codes of research ethics. not any fake or unclear information was presented and utilized in this research (matthews 2014). as per the philosophy of qualitative researchers’ ethical viewpoint, there are in total three fundamental ethical values that were attained, those are, justice, respect for persons, as well as beneficence (mack, 2005). founded on those three ethical principles the authors agreed that, all the ethical principles were firmly scrutinized and that all the selected data sources for this proposed qualitative study are ethical. not any data misleading or leak of data privacy was considered during the period of data collection. before approaching the constrained sources of secondary as well as primary data required authorization was taken. moreover, the researchers refrained from any kinds of unethical practices like data leaks and misinterpretation during this research. analysis and findings after the participants and industry observation as well as in-depth interviews with the women entrepreneurs the study revealed some interesting findings. the data structuring from the collected data was depicted in figure 2. the summary of major findings was: a few interview participants shared that before starting the entrepreneurship venture they have tried to manage a job that was more preferred to them than starting their own venture. two female participants expressed their motives towards retail-based sbo as follows. informant-7 replied, “the main purpose of starting my business is to stay well. it’s like a job for me. if i have a job in an organization, then i can earn money. so i started the business without getting jobs.” informant-3 stated that, “my father likes my presence in his business because; in this business, i don’t have any trouble in rain or sun and easy work. so, my father encouraged me to do this business.” 126 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 117-136) figure 2: data structure source: authors’ development the above two comments are the glimpse of the response of the other informants. more specifically informant-2; 8; 19; and 13 explained the same. for managing venture capital, they managed from their own sources md. rahat khan, sanjoy kumar roy, most. tahura pervin 127 or as part of the family business. however, few of them said microfinancing is a tool of their sourcing capital. no one of them responded about banks or any other financial institutions rather micro-financial institutions. the average period of their doing business is almost more than 4 years and they faced many challenges till now. most of the problems were created from social and political sources they shared. in addition, financing sources (money) were other big challenges, as well as location decision, knowledge of business, bad debt from lending customers, lack of expertise employees, attitudes of the society towards entrepreneurs, uneven competition, etc. were also potential sources of the challenges. in addition, a few more issues also affected the whole entrepreneurship process. informant-6; 17; 11; and 20; shared their challenges as, “we have encountered many types of problems. firstly, society does take it positively the presence of female entrepreneurs. secondly, we have to pay some subscriptions to some local political backed up people for the smooth running of our business. some employees or partners escaped with capital. the sourcing of our fund was very much challenging initially. we deposit some of our pocket money from class two to class twelve; also we have taken some money from our family members. then we started these businesses.” finally, they shared some good things about their business along with some recommendations for future development of the sectors. the summary of their proposals was that; government should take a good look over the women entrepreneurs and their entrepreneurial activities. some awareness programs are also mandatory for the improvement of current situations. the women’s business platform should be free from any type of the social, political, or local influence. both academic and practical knowledge is mandatory to develop future growth. in conclusion, the participant shared some good words which will create more opportunities for the new entrepreneurs. one of the specific comments was noted from the discussion. informant-1 said, “i want to make my business grow bigger by increasing more capital, i need more financial support from the government. i also need some more knowledge related to my business which will strengthen my business as well as my operating capabilities. 128 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 117-136) figure 3: process model of entry model *source: authors’ based on the data structuring and coding, this particular study unearthed an entry model of retail-based female entrepreneurs from an emerging country context and evidence from the real-life women entrepreneurs. before the discussion of the result, the study tried to draw a retail-based entry model (figure 3) for women's entrepreneurship based on the results. the above model narrated a single direction influence of female entrepreneurship challenges on sbo and the whole process of women entrepreneurship. on the other hand, double direction influences are observed from required support towards sbo and its motives from the female entrepreneurs. md. rahat khan, sanjoy kumar roy, most. tahura pervin 129 discussion the study focused on entrepreneurship entry modes’ different contexts (for instance, xi et al., 2017; runyan & covin, 2019; etc.). however, no such entry models were found for women’s entrepreneurship in any economy including emerging ones. hence this research is unique in this regard. the study is possibly the first attempt to enrich an entry model for the women entrepreneurship literature in small business orientation through the retail business platform in an emerging economy. a very few studies were found but all of those are fully on discussing the situations (for instance; chowdhury, 2017; begum et al., 2019, etc.) rather than identifying the fact or investigating through the real entrepreneurs. the study unveiled a new retail sbo-based women entrepreneurs’ entry model which reflects the female entrepreneurs’ attitudes towards sbo and a general pattern of small business practice in an emerging economy like bangladesh. the model is an updated dimension of the sbo model by (runyan & covin, 2019) with a value edition of the female entrepreneurs’ entry model. the basic difference between the two models is (runyan & covin, 2019) observed sbo dimensions on sbo outcomes and this study unearths the sbo attitudes and entry model toward women entrepreneurship. however, few challenges were observed from the interview responses. for example, in a particular discussion with the entrepreneurs regarding the challenges to operating a business; most of them addressed that, the social and political factors have a significant influence on the smooth operations of their business. the finding supports the outcomes of (philip, 2011; islam et al., 2011; mendy & rahman, 2019). the above discussion can be pointed to as evidence of the women entrepreneurship entry model of attitudes toward retail-based sbo in an emerging economy like bangladesh. as the literature had some gaps to learn more obvious about the context of women’s entrepreneurship in an emerging economy. the current research would play a great role in future research (both empirical and qualitative) into the field of women entrepreneurship in emerging economies like bangladesh. limitations this study, like the previous studies, has certain limitations. informants were extremely cautious and professional in sharing their views due to certain privacy and strategic concerns. more particular, the proprietors were extremely hesitant to give all relevant information rather than just the 130 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 117-136) professionally written ones, and reaching them was quite difficult. the female entrepreneurship entry model is highly significant for a country's economic growth; hence, a few more studies are required to study the entire influence of such model. since the research was only exploratory in nature, certain descriptive findings depending on the aforementioned factors must be investigated. furthermore, only a few causal correlations between variables may be evaluated in this study topic. in such circumstances, several demographic parameters such as age, experience, educational degree, and so on (since these behavioral and psychological components are critical in women's entrepreneurship) might be investigated as moderators. despite certain drawbacks of that study, the authors can still assert that the current study has some positive implications from a management and research standpoint. conclusion the outcomes of the study displayed a great value for the researchers in more understanding of women’s entrepreneurship entry model through the small business orientation (sbo) in both the individual and collaborative states. the entry model of female entrepreneurship was considered some crucial components. the study tried to categorize the components under three categories such as motives, challenges, and supports. all the components encompass the entrepreneur, society, and government. hence the authors believe such a model is a 360-degree model for the people who are engaged in female entrepreneurship. however, the results of the study were explained based on the interview outcomes rather descriptive manner. the revealed findings are attractive because the study investigated an essential theme that was principally uninvestigated in retail-based sbo as a tool of women's entrepreneurship in an emerging economy like bangladesh. with this research, the construct entry model of women entrepreneurship through sbo in bangladeshi retail business will provide momentum to other practitioners and management scholars for further investigation into the women sbo phenomenon. recommendations and future research agenda for the learners, the outcomes can be attracted female entrepreneurs in assembling their courses more pertinent for the public interested to start md. rahat khan, sanjoy kumar roy, most. tahura pervin 131 their own business. for the government and policy-makers of any emerging countries country like bangladesh, the study findings can enrich the supportive and promotional programs on retail-based women entrepreneurship through the sbo platform. future researches can be explored women's entrepreneurship through medium and/or large-scale business orientation. few more quantitative types of research questionnaire surveys would have enhanced the field of research in women’s entrepreneurship. in addition, this current woman entrepreneurship sbo entry model can be compared with other south asian countries or the countries those having a similar pattern of economic growth like bangladesh. acknowledgments we first acknowledge the creator who gave us strengths & wisdom for learning. after that, we acknowledge the respondents for their valuable opinions & support to unearth the manuscript. we are also showing our gratitude to the students of 49th batches, department of business administration, city university, bangladesh. references [1]. achakpa, p., &radović-marković, m. 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(2016). women entrepreneurship: research review and future directions. journal of global entrepreneurship research, 6(1), 118. article history: received: december 13th, 2021 accepted: june11th, 2022 https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/world_trade_report16_e.pdf 13_jwe_3-4 final udc: 005.961:005.914.3]:159.9 ; 005.583.1/.3 ; 658.114.2 jel: l26 id: 203434252 original scientific paper the role of the partner of an entrepreneur beatrice avolio, sandra garcía dulanto, ross knutson, luis augusto maldonado, josé carlos peñaloza rojas, ricardo van dyck arbulú, centrum católica graduate business school a b s t r a c t this research examines the role of one’s partner in the motivation of the entrepreneur in the small and medium enterprise. this impact has been analyzed in terms of the hierarchy of needs as explained in the theory of human motivation by abraham maslow (1991). the study uses a qualitative analysis of twenty-two cases of entrepreneurs who have had partners in the initial or growth stage of the company, and who have up to fifteen years in the market and that sell less than fifteen million dollars annually. the results of the study show that the motivation of the partner seems to be a factor that is valued and recognized by the entrepreneurs, and the entrepreneurs of both genders acknowledge the moral support of their partners as one of the major factor in the development and growth of their businesses. among its practical implications, the research provides a theoretical framework for understanding the motivational role of the partners and the entrepreneurs and establishes that entrepreneurs who have managed to stay in the activity of the new business with the support of the partner seem to be perceived as successful people. the originality and value of this study is that it provides primary information on the relationship between the businessperson and his/her partner and contributes to the understanding of the role of partners in the development of the business activities of an entrepreneur. key words: entrepreneur, relationship between the businessperson and his/her partner motivation, moral support 52 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) introduction in recent years, entrepreneurship has become an object of study throughout the world, because it is considered one of the main engines of economic activity. however, the entrepreneurship is a complex phenomenon that can be found in a variety of settings and circumstances. when the motivations are studied of entrepreneurs who are successful in business, the factors that motivate them stand out, as well as the types of behavior associated with business growth and the generation of wealth. these factors of motivation and behavior are evident in displays of power, money, image, and a transition of the family’s socioeconomic status. motivational factors are among the main influences on the entrepreneur and, among these, one of the most important is the family, especially the partner, who supports the person who decides to take the risks of undertaking a new business (kirkwood, 2009). the entrepreneur is an important source of income generation, employment and growth of the gross domestic product. studies conducted in several countries show that the entrepreneur is successful in his business when he is supported by the partner. in that sense, the entrepreneur and spouse constitute a cornerstone in the development of a nation's economy. studying the influences of the partner on the entrepreneur who starts a business is also important, basically because we need to know if the support of the partner has a positive or negative effect on the development of the entrepreneur and why it is necessary to investigate if what the partner transmits to the entrepreneur in everyday interaction is transferred to the professional life of the entrepreneur. prior research the family firo (fundamental interpersonal relationship orientation) is a model based on a family business. it includes three dimensions of family interaction: inclusion, control and integration (danes, rueter, kwon, & doherty, 2002). a study of husband and wife on family farms supports this model and suggests that both the sense of inclusion and the ways in which control is managed are important for achieving integration in family business. in a similar configuration, some couples who own farms have been studied to investigate the relationship between tension and business, conflict and marital satisfaction (amarapurkar & danes, avolio, b., et al., the role of the partner, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) 53 2005). the role of farm women has been observed very specifically by danes and mctavish (1997). others propose a model for subsistence family business as a research tool to help understand the family and business, and the intersection of the two (stafford, duncan, danes, & winter, 1999). research on family business has proposed other theoretical models to help expand the understanding of family businesses. a perspective on the matter is the motivation to improve the family environment (aldrich & cliff, 2003). this concept is based on the idea that people are part of social connections, hence, "do not decide to start a business in the air" (p. 577). these authors suggest that the perspective of the model to improve the family part shows that the family system includes features with three interrelated components: (a) transitions (marriage, divorce, birth of a child), (b) resources (financial, human, social) and (c) norms, attitudes and values. in this latter category, there are rules regarding the interaction between family members, attitudes toward work and the family, and terminal instruments and values. this family system impacts on the process of starting business and its results (aldrich & cliff, 2003). while this review highlights only two extremes in the field of family business, there are many other approaches to a more comprehensive review of family businesses (heck, hoy, poutziouris, & steier, 2008). in fact, recent research has highlighted the need to offer several perspectives simultaneously in order to conduct the research in this area (heck, hoy, poutziouris, & steier, 2008). on the other hand, the study of the literature on gender offers another perspective. it shows that women think rationally when they make decisions about their careers. the major premise behind this approach is that women perceive their business as connections of cooperative relations rather than economic units. this means that, for women, one cannot separate the family business relationships, the society and personal relationships: "the business is integrated into the life of the businesswoman" (brush, 1992, p. 16). the vision that was just outlined differs from the work of gilligan (1982), who said that women and men have different conceptions of themselves, and therefore have different ways of thinking about relationships. the interpretation of this author leads us to assume that there may be gender differences regarding how the spouse affects the motivation of the entrepreneur to start a business. business motivation generally revolves around four issues: desire for independence, monetary motivation, factors related to family and factors 54 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) related to work (demartino & barbato, 2003). the results of comparative studies on gender show that independence and work-related factors appear to be strong motivators for men and women. some gender differences have been found in money-related motivators. most gender differences are related to the subject and family (kirkwood, 2004), while the family is a strong factor in motivating a woman to become an entrepreneur (buttner & moore, 1997; kim, 1996, mallon & cohen, 2001). there are gender differences that combine weight and housework (buttner & moore, 1997), family policy and family obligations (demartino & barbato, 2003), and raising children (cromie, 1987). the conclusion of these studies points to the flexibility required by the women in their roles as mothers and professionals. this is a factor to leave paid jobs and become entrepreneurs (mallon & cohen, 2001). conversations with a spouse on "dreams, time demands and financial risk" have been considered important for starting a business (van auken & werbel, 2006, p. 59). in a study of ethnic family businesses, decisions were made to start a business and, in the immediate context, "the traditional gender roles" are defined within the family (alcorso, 1993, p. 102). it was also found that many men who are business owners were not successful without the help of the wife (alcorso, 1993, baines & wheelock, 1998). support from the spouse has also been found to be particularly important during the initial stages of the business (wheelock & baines, 1998). one of the key concerns in the question of whether the spouse plays a significant role in the motivation of businesspersons is: what happens to those who co-found or who are co-owners of a business with their spouse? partners can be defined as many couples who share a job and personal relationships; this does not necessarily mean they have to be owners or partners in the business. fitzgerald and muske (2002) highlight what is defined in the term "partner" and suggest their definition: if the spouse works a few hours in the business, both can have great power over the operation and management of the business. however, there are very few studies of this type of partners (cole & johnson, 2007) and those that exist have been published in the popular press and not in academic journals (smith, 2000). other studies have similarly observed that husbands view themselves as leaders when working in this type of business, while women are more involved in administrative tasks (marshack, 1994). in these businesses, the perception is co-entrepreneurial dynamism, as the spouses may move in and avolio, b., et al., the role of the partner, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) 55 out of commitment to work and share the responsibilities of the business (muske & fitzgerald, 2006), even after divorce (cole & johnson, 2007) . theory of human motivation the impact on the needs and the behavior of entrepreneurs has been analyzed in terms of the hierarchy of needs, explained on the theory of human motivation by maslow (1991). he studied the motivation from the individual's needs. the humanistic (or holistic) theory proposed by maslow emphasizes the individual as a whole and, therefore, the motivation also has an impact on the individual as a whole. the cornerstone of motivation in this theory is the satisfaction of needs grouped into hierarchical categories. needs can be physiological (such as deficiencies in the organism) or psychic (something that the person requires for his well being.) in his theory, the desire to meet the needs motivates people and, when basic needs are met and reach a saturation point, new, higher needs appear that are never saturated and are a strong potential for motivation. the holistic approach defined by abraham maslow proposes that the individual is an "integrated and organized" whole, which "means that an individual is motivated and not just part of him" (p. 3). in addition, when talking about meeting needs, this theory states that "satisfaction takes place in the whole individual, not a part of him" (maslow, 1991, p. 3). with his ideas, maslow developed the known primary hierarchy of needs: (a) physiological, (b) security, (c) love and belonging, (d) esteem or value, and (e) self-realization. physiological needs are those "that are usually taken as a starting point for a theory of motivation (maslow, 1991). the first need of the maslow hierarchy contains the series of physiological needs necessary for human homeostasis, equilibrium and survival (reeve, 1994). clear examples of these needs are hunger, sex and thirst. these physiological needs are the most dominant of all needs, which means that if "a person lacks food, safety, love and esteem; he would probably feel the need for food more strongly than anything else" (maslow, 1991, p. 23). security needs arise when the physiological needs are met. according to maslow, this category of need includes "security; stability; dependency; protection; freedom from fear, anxiety and chaos; need for structure, order, law and limits; strong protection, and so on." (maslow, 1991, p. 25). 56 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) the need for love and belonging appear after physiological and security needs are well satisfied, "the needs of love involve giving and receiving affection. when they are not satisfied, a person will deeply feel the absence of friends, colleagues or children. such a person will be hungry for relationships with people in general [...] and will strive valiantly to achieve that goal." the sense of belonging appeals to maintain “the importance of the neighborhood, one’s own territory and clan” and is supported by "our profound animal tendencies to flock, herd, to regroup, to belong" (maslow, 1991, p. 29.) the need to be valued refers to the desire for a generally high valuation of themselves, with a firm and stable base; they are in need of self-respect or self-esteem, and the esteem of others. maslow believes that this category of needs can be subdivided into two groups: (a) the desire for power, achievement, adequacy, expertise and competence, confidence in the world, independence and freedom, and (b) the desire for reputation or prestige (defined as respect by other people), status, fame and glory, dominance, recognition, attention, importance, dignity or appreciation " (maslow, 1991, p. 29.). the role of the partner and the family as a source of motivation for the businessperson in many cases, businesses end up mixing with the family or vice versa. this can arise when one partner is engaged in a business that occupies a lot of time, causing less time to be shared with his partner and children, or when some family members work in a business, which generates conflicts and affects the coexistence of all. most research on the partners and business activity has focused on the role of the family and the partner at advanced stages of the business. there is research focused on the number of women working in the husband's business (danes & olson, 2003), their leadership roles (danes & olson, 2003; poza & messer, 2001) and on interpersonal dynamics (danes et. al., 2002). in many of these cases, the wife of the businessman works either formally or informally in the business, providing support to personnel or doing unpaid work. there are gender differences in the role that the spouses of businesspersons take in a business (kirkwood, 2009). the work done by the wife of the businessman is more administrative (baines & wheelock, 1998) and often unpaid or unrecognized (sinclair, 2000). avolio, b., et al., the role of the partner, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) 57 these situations mirror gender differences in the traditional roles of women and men. women take the role of lesser authority, while men focus more on planning the future of the business, the finances, procurement and the employment of personnel (alcorso, 1993) or technical support (baines & wheelock, 1998.) these results have led research to suggest that the wives of businessmen are invisible (philbrick & fitzgerald, 2007). while it may be invisible, the work of the spouse is almost always vital for financial development (van auken & werbel, 2006) and, of course, for the survival of some businesses (baines & wheelock, 1998). statistics highlight gender differences. only 35% of husbands of businesswomen assume any part in the business, while 60% of businesses owned by men have help from a spouse (miettinen, 1986). the low incidence of the spouses of businesswomen working in the business is highlighted in a study showing that, of twenty-one cases analyzed, there is not one in which male partners participate (baines & wheelock, 1998). some more recent studies highlight a lack of understanding by the spouse who is not involved in managing the business (philbrick & fitzgerald, 2007). even though the wives of businessmen do not always engage significantly in leadership of the business, they are vital to the functioning of the business (marshack, 1994). there has also been a focus on the roles played by men and women in family businesses and their roles in families (fitzgerald et al., 2001; lee, danes & shelley, 2006, lee, rowe & hong 2006). upon assessing the role of the partner as a source of motivation, one must first understand what needs are generated in the individual as part of the relationship in order to establish whether or not he meets that function. depending on whether the partner is male or female, there are different interests that will be translated into demands or requirements of the partner, a situation that happens from the moment he is selected. various studies have shown that women place more emphasis on socioeconomic status, ambition, character and intelligence when they feel attracted by a member of the opposite sex (feingold 1992). the man “exercises “sexual selection pressure on the woman" and in this case, "competition focuses on the reproductive value, which is associated with youth and health, issues that are usually manifest in the appearance and physical attractiveness" (petri & govern, 2006). these differences in the interests of men and women regarding their partners are maintained over time and are accentuated with the appearance of children. 58 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) once the couple is constituted, the perceptions of either party impact not only behavior, but also the perception or image that boyfriends or husbands have of themselves, as a result of the mutual feedback that occurs over time (cast & cantwell, 2007, p. 172). a study undertaken in new zealand (kirkwood, 2009) on the role of the partner in the motivation of entrepreneurs found that the role of the partner, whether men or women, is vital to starting and developing a business; even more, in many cases, partners found businesses together or have preponderant roles in the business started by the entrepreneurs. in peru, a study conducted with female entrepreneurs identified that, in most cases, there was a family that encourages and supports entrepreneurship when women want to become entrepreneurs. moreover, it found that the family is actively involved in the company, which ends up being part of the family responsibilities of the entrepreneur: "the hiring of family members in their businesses is common among women entrepreneurs [...], which shows that, for women, the company is part of their role within the family" (avolio, 2008, p. 132). methodology the research has a descriptive purpose and has used a qualitative approach to analyze the role of the partner in the motivation of the entrepreneur. the qualitative strategy used is the multiple case study under a holistic design, because the research analyzes the role of the partner in the motivation of the entrepreneur of the small and medium enterprise in peru. the population of small and medium-sized enterprises comprises all those formal companies that sell up to fifteen million dollars annually and whose founding member continues to manage the company. the analysis is performed on the period of introduction and early growth of the company. since there is no single registry of small and medium companies in peru, various sources have been used to identify the participants of this study, especially credit information in the financial system, in which there is a registry of legally constituted businesses, information on the number of years the company has been operating, information on the founders, information on whether they continue in the control and management of the company, and information on personnel contacts. for the sample, a combination of the following techniques is considered: snowball and maximum variation and it should meet the following criteria: the company avolio, b., et al., the role of the partner, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) 59 must be legally constituted at the time of the interview, the entrepreneur must be the primary manager of the company, i.e., the general manager, the company must have at least two employees, the business must have up to fifteen years in operation, and the partner must have shared with the entrepreneur (for at least two years) the beginning and early development of the business. the following sources of evidence have considered in the collection of data: (a) direct observation, (b) in-depth interviews and (c) various documents. data collection was performed through in-depth interviews in a session of 90 to 120 minutes, in quiet places where the respondent would pay due attention to the interview. if for some reason, the interview could not be carried out, this would take place in a second session. the interviews were prepared openly, conducted from a script, and were recorded and transcribed with the express permission of the interviewees. the information was codified, categorized and analyzed using analytic induction (strauss & corbin, 1998) and the procedures suggested by miles and huberman (1994) to analyze the qualitative information. to process the information, atlas ti software was used, permitting the maintenance of clear evidence from the narratives, the codification of the information and the conclusions of the study. the interview guide was structured considering demographic information and the needs from the maslow’s theory of human motivation (maslow, 1991) which are: physiological; safety; belonging, in relation with the partner and with the family; recognition; and self-actualization. the study was done in perú. the global entrepreneurship monitor [gem] found that: "of the entrepreneurs who decide to put a company in peru, 45% create it trying to exploit a business opportunity, and primary motivation of 72% of these is to gain a higher income that allows them to improve their main situation " (p. 13). according to several reports worldwide of gem, peru has always had entrepreneurial activity. this country is located in the first place both regionally and globally, with an average of 40% of the rate of entrepreneurs (from 2004 to 2006). it is worth noting that, in 2007, it ranked second after thailand and, in 2008, second after bolivia. also in that year, the country achieved a rate of entrepreneurial activity of 25.98%, i.e., one in four peruvian adults were undertaking some type of new business activity (2007, p. 13). currently, the levels of entrepreneurship in peru have been decreasing and it warns of a downward trend. in 2009, it was fourth in latin america (with a rate of 60 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) 20.9%) behind guatemala (26.8%), jamaica (22.7%) and colombia (22.4%) and sixth worldwide – behind uganda (33.6%), guatemala (26.8%), yemen (24%), jamaica (22.7%) and colombia (22.4%) (gem, 2009). four conditions related to the validity and reliability were considered: (a) validity of the construct, (b) internal validity, (c) external validity and (d) reliability ']" (yin, 2003, p. 34), and measures assigned to the concepts studied. in the research, the use of a protocol of the case was considered, in which the field procedures were established, including procedures similar for the interviews, techniques for creating an atmosphere of trust with the interviewee, formats for interview notes, time of the interview, etc. and, most importantly, the same interview guidelines were used for all cases. the use of a database on each case, with a standardized structure, enabled the transfer of the data and the formation of a solid, complete and detailed source of the information collected. the use of research participants for data collection was especially prepared for the study and with knowledge of qualitative research methods. the support of an external professional was received to verify the content and the logic of the survey and the analysis, while comparing the findings obtained. results of the case analysis: presentation and discussion of results twenty-two in-depth interviews were performed with entrepreneurs selected to reflect the heterogeneity of entrepreneurs. for this study, it was taken into account that all informants had partners at the beginning of their business: whether they were unmarried, married or cohabiting. similarly, with regard to the age of the partners, it is warned that there is no major age difference between the respondents and their partners. all the entrepreneurs have family beyond their partner. moreover, the fact that all are married means there is some stability with respect to their personal life. the entrepreneur respondents are mainly between 36 and 65 years old. the partner relationship of 82% of the respondents is over six years old, which helps to explain the possible influence of the partner in their decisions. 46% maintain a partner relationship of between six and fifteen years, representing half of the majority of the entrepreneur respondents that are between 36 and 45 years (eleven in total). in addition, 18% of the male and female entrepreneurs have a relationship of less than five years, and avolio, b., et al., the role of the partner, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) 61 another 18% have a relationship of between 16 and 25 years. with respect to the processes of maturing of the companies evaluated through the entrepreneurs, 41% have an average of seven years since the founding of his company, 32% of companies have been founded an average of three years ago, and 18% are companies more than fifteen years old. many of the companies of the respondents (41%) are between six and ten years old. need for security and health to analyze the security and health needs the following themes were studied: perception of the spouse’s support in the decision to initiate the business (table 1) and the role of the spouse towards the fear of failure when starting an enterprise (table 2). in the study, it was found that the individuals who supported more both men and women entrepreneurs in the decision to start their business were the spouse, parents, siblings or children, business partners and others. when analyzing the perception of spousal support towards the decision to become an entrepreneur it was fond that for both, men and women, the role of the spouse is fundamental in the decision to start the enterprise, and, in some cases, in the collaboration in necessary activities to initiate the business. from the results, it can be noticed that 12 men entrepreneurs (that is 67% of the total of men who participated in the study) perceived the support from their partners. on the other hand, for women entrepreneurs, 100% of them received support from their spouses. for example: “my wife help me, she work like a workwoman, she feed us and also she work in the production, she was there until the final stage of the distribution of the product” (domingo, san borja). table 1. perception of support when starting the business support men women frequence percentage frequence percentage spouse 10 55.50% 4 100% parents 5 28.00% 0 0% siblings or children 1 5.50% 0 0% business partners 1 5.50% 0 0% others 1 5.50% 0 0% total 18 100% 4 100% 62 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) in the case of the fear of failure and the support from the spouse, the results show that 45% of the participants do not showed high levels of fear of failure. this situation is different in the case of women in which one of four participants (25% of the sample) referred they had fear of failure. consequently, 3 out of 4 women (75% of the participants) referred they had some presence of high feelings of fear to failure before starting their business. a common characteristic in the cases where the entrepreneurs referred little presence of fear to failure was that they do not had household burden or they had many years of experience. table 2. fear of failure at the start of the business fear of failure men women frequence percentage frequence percentage si 7 39.00% 2 50% no 11 61.00% 2 50% total 18 100% 4 100% need for affiliation to analyze the need of affiliation between the entrepreneur and his or her partner (in the sense of belonging, love, emotional dependence, and esteem) the following themes were explored: activities that the entrepreneurs make with their partners or their family (table 3); the partner’s influence in the business creation (table 4); the support of the partner or the family of the entrepreneur to resolve problems in the business (table 5); and the values of the partner that the entrepreneur perceived during the first years of the business (table 6). it is shown in table 3 that 67% of the male entrepreneurs interviewed had spare time outside the business to have some familiar activities or with their spouses. on the other hand, 100% of the female entrepreneurs interviewed had the time for such activities, maybe to not neglect their roles as mother or wife. in table 4 it is shown the influence of the spouses when creating the business. in the case of male entrepreneurs 68% recognize the support from their wives. in table 5 it is shown that 77% of male entrepreneurs are supported by their partners or their family in difficult times; this situation is similar to female entrepreneurs (100%). one of the interviewers referred avolio, b., et al., the role of the partner, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) 63 that she perceive that her partner could not give her any support in his business; however she referred that his partner is the one in charge to raise their children, the one in charge of household maintenance, in charge of the health insurance and the cars, for which objectively, it is a support event if the informant does not recognize it expressively. in table 6 it is shown that 100% of the female entrepreneurs interviewed recognize a set of values in their partners (thus, the final count of values is higher than the interviewed). in is shown that a positive attitude is the main value entrepreneurs recognize in their partner, following by the order, and perseverance. table 3: activities entrepreneurs make with their partner or family gender have activities do not have activities frequence percentage frequence percentage male 12 67.00% 6 33.00% female 4 100.00% 0 0.00% total 16 6 table 4: influence of the partner in the creation of the enterprise gender positive influence negative influence frequence percentage frequence percentage male 15 68.00% 6 14.00% female 4 18.00% 0 0.00% total 19 86.00% 6 14.00% table 5: entrepreneurs perception on the support of their partners and family when facing problems gender have support don't have any support frequence percentage frequence percentage male 14 77.00% 4 23.00% female 4 100.00% 0 0.00% total 18 86.00% 4 64 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) table 6: values of the partner that the entrepreneur perceived during the first years of the business gender partner's value frequence percentage male positive attitude 6 26.00% perseverance 4 17.00% order 3 13.00% openness 2 9.00% analitical, reflexive, controlling 3 13.00% female optimistic 3 13.00% order 1 4.50% determination 1 4.50% total 23 100.00% need for recognition the themes explored to analyze the need for recognition were: the contribution of the partner for the success of the entrepreneur (table 7) and the recognition of the partner in the accomplishments of the entrepreneur (table 8). it was found that the entrepreneurs appreciate the recognition from their partners in their business activities. for example: “yes, she proud of me. she always thanks me for the things i gave to her and she is always telling me that she didn’t think that i will have so much success with the business, she has been with me since the beginning and has witnessed the growth of the business, she notice we are gaining more money and our kids have all their needs covered” (carlos, callao). “i think so, and she shows me by giving me preferences to make international trips and giving me more comfort for my hobbies” (hernán, callao). the contribution the partner makes in the success of the entrepreneur is showed in table 7. the information was organized around two key concepts: economical contribution and moral contribution. the first one refers to a direct financial contribution that the partners make to the business, and also to the financial support with the family expenses while the entrepreneur does not generate incomes; 23% of the interviewed affirm that they receive economical contribution from their partners. moral avolio, b., et al., the role of the partner, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) 65 contribution refers to the company and support the entrepreneur receive from their partners especially in emotionally negative and positive moments, giving them a constant emotional support. in the case of female entrepreneurs, the 50% had an economical contribution and the other 50% moral contribution. in contrast, the 83% of male entrepreneurs referred that they received moral contribution from their partners while only 17% economical contribution. in relation with the recognition from their partners about their achievements, the results showed that all of them appreciate and recognize their success (table 8). the ways to express the recognition were diverse, mainly in the form of gratitude, in the possibility of their children education, improving their economic stability, material wealth, etc. table 7: contribution of the partner for the entrepreneurs success values male female total percentage economic 3 2 5 23.00% moral 15 2 17 77.00% total 18 4 22 100.00% table 8: recognition from the partner of the success of the entrepreneur gender yes percentage no percentage male 18 81.00% 0 0.00% female 4 19.00% 0 0.00% total 22 100.00% 0 0.00% need for self-realization the themes explored when analyzing the need for self-realization were the following: support of their partners in difficult time (table 9), attitudes from their partners that have help in having success with their business (table 10) and acceptance of the business advises from their partners. regarding the support of their partners in difficult moments of the business, the results show that most of the partners or family of the interviewed entrepreneurs supports them being this support essential to face 66 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) those difficult moments. regarding the attitudes of the partners the entrepreneurs considered have help with the success of their business; most of the entrepreneurs pointed out that persistence and conviction were the ones that stand out. female entrepreneurs mentioned that the values that stand out were: optimism, creativity, persistence, and passion. regarding advises given by their partners, 78% of the entrepreneurs take into account these suggestions. in the case of 64% of the interviewed entrepreneurs listens and accept advises from their partners, while 18% does not. for women entrepreneurs 75% of them listens and accept the advises from their partners. table 9. support of the partner in difficult times of the enterprise gender received support received support frequence percentage frequence percentage male 14 64% 4 18% female 4 18% 0 0% total 18 82% 4 18% table 10. attitudes from their partners that have help in having success with their business gender attitudes frequence percentage male 14 4 18% female 4 0 0% total 18 4 18% table 11. acceptance of the advises from their partners gender acceptance reject frequence percentage frequence percentage male 14 64% 4 18% female 3 14% 1 4% total 17 78% 5 22% avolio, b., et al., the role of the partner, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) 67 model proposed: the role of the partner of an entrepreneur the proposed model presents the different roles of the partner of an entrepreneur, obtained based on the results of the study (figure 1). the red lines illustrate the influence of the entrepreneur on his partner; the black lines show the influence of the partner on the entrepreneur. among the main security needs voiced by the respondents are the absence of fear, protection and stability. it seems that the entrepreneur satisfies, through emotional support, the partner’s need for lack of fear and vice versa. protection is given through the continual support and that stability is given through economic support. the needs of affiliation that stand out the most are the need for affection and a sense of belonging. the sense of belonging is satisfied through time shared with the family, while the need for affection, through the constant tenderness in the relationship with the partner. figure 1: model proposed 68 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) the major needs shown in the study for recognition were achievement, status, expertise and competence. the need for social status of the partner is satisfied by the entrepreneur through his professional and economic growth. the need for achievement is satisfied by the partner through the recognition of the entrepreneur’s achievements, as well as the manifestation of pride by the partner, while that for expertise and competence of the entrepreneur are attained through the values learned from the partner. regarding the need of self-realization, the two most frequently named by respondents were self-worth and self-confidence. conclusions the research focused on the following: (a) what is the role of the partner in the motivation of the entrepreneurs of small and medium enterprises? (b) are there differences on the partner’s motivation for male and female entrepreneurs? and, (c) what are the different types of support that the entrepreneurs receive from their partners? on the role of the partner in the motivation of entrepreneurs in small and medium enterprises, it seems that the motivation of the partners substantially influenced the development of the business or new enterprise activity. regarding the influence of the partner as a driving force in the creation of the business, in cases where entrepreneurs had a partner in the beginning, it was noted that the partner has a positive influence in this endeavor. this is to note that, in most cases, the entrepreneurs sought the approval of the partner before starting the entrepreneurial activity. according to the information obtained, in most cases in the study, it can be seen that the partner actually plays a very important motivational role. on the differences between the motivation of partners of male and female entrepreneurs, there seems to be no substantial differences between the motivation of the female and male partner. most of the female informants stated that they did not put their business aside to pursue other opportunities that arose along the way. in the case of male respondents, it appears that they did rule out other employment opportunities during the course of their business. of the cases interviewed, results show that male respondents tend to be more concerned about the generation of additional income, while in the case of female entrepreneurs, the main concern is the future stability of the family. most of the male respondents say they currently spend less time on their business than at first, leading us to assume avolio, b., et al., the role of the partner, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) 69 the importance of the partner and family to the respondent. nonetheless, male entrepreneurs spend less time on household chores and with the children. otherwise, most of the female entrepreneurs report that they allow time for family activities outside work and do not neglect their partner or their family. they organize themselves in order to attend, in addition to their businesses, their family obligations. most female respondents perceived support from their partners, especially to begin their entrepreneurial activities, while male respondents perceived support from their partners and from their parents. on the different types of support that entrepreneurs receive from their partners, both male and female respondents recognize attitudes in their partners that have helped them succeed. emotional support is one of the factors that is most valued by the respondents. at the time of beginning their business, most of the respondents had the direct support of their partner or relatives to face difficult situations. there were two very specific concepts of the contribution by the partner in the process of starting a new business: the economic contribution and moral support. references [1] alcorso, c. 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(1998). dependency or self-reliance? the contradictory case of work in uk small business families. journal of family and economic issues, 19(1), 53-73 uloga partnera preduzetnika a p s t r a k t ovo istraživanje ispitalo je ulogu partnera u motivaciji preduzetnika u malim i srednjim preduzećima. obaj uticaj je analiziran na osnovu hijerarhije potreba kao što je objašnjeno u teoriji ljudske motivacije abrahama masoua (1991). u istraživanju smo koristili kvalitativnu analizu dvadeset i dva slučaja preduzetnika koji su imali partnere u početnoj fazi razvoja preduzeća, koji su prisutni na tržištu već petnaest godina i koji imaju promet manji od 15 miliona dolara godišnje. rezultati istraživanja pokazuju da motivacija partnera jeste faktor koji se ceni i priznaje od strane preduzetnika, i preduzetnici oba pola govore da je moralna podrška njihovih partnera jedan od najbitnijih faktora u rastu i razvoju njihovog preduzeća. pored praktičnih implikacija, istraživanje daje i teoretski okvir za lakše razumevanje motivacione uloge partnera i preduzetnika i pokazuje da su preduzetnici koji su su uspeli da opstanu u poslovanju uz podršku partnera vidjeni kao uspešni ljudi. originalnost i vrednost ove studije jeste to što ona daje primarne informacije o odnosu izmedju poslovnih ljudi i njihovih partnera i doprinosi razumevanju uloge partnera u razvoju poslovnih aktivnosti preduzetnika. avolio, b., et al., the role of the partner, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 51-73) 73 ključne reči: preduzetnik, odnos izmedju poslovnih ljudi i njihovih partnera, motivacija, moralna podrška article history: received: 15 september, 2013 accepted: 25 october, 2013 14_jwe_1-2 udc: 005.961:005.914.3(73+81) ; 334.722-055.2(73+81) jel: b54, l26, j16 id: 207718668 original scientific paper cultural and socio economic experiences of female entrepreneurs in brazil and the united states: an exploratorial and empirical analysis holland neila, business and entrepreneurship professor, stratford university, baltimore campus,united states of america a b s t r a c t over the last twenty years female entrepreneurs have been increasing in numbers in economies of developing and developed nations across the world. but although female entrepreneurship participation rates have increased worldwide, it appears that economic and socio cultural patterns still prescribe whether a female can become or want to become an entrepreneur in her society. this qualitative exploratory study investigates the phenomenon of female entrepreneurship comparing female entrepreneurship in two contexts: brazil and the united states. the economic differences on a macro level between these two countries have been well documented and national socio cultural differences have been discussed. but very little has been focused at the individual level of the female entrepreneur per se, that is, how they perceive and experience the economic and the social cultural macro environment with their businesses. this research attempts to fill this gap and this was done by reviewing the literature and by analyzing the responses from interviews with 60 female entrepreneurs in brazil and in the united states. the findings indicated that the female entrepreneurs from both countries share similarities in motivation for starting the business in terms of pull factors, such as search for financial independence, want to be one’s own boss, need for autonomy, and self actualization. the women from both groups also identified customer satisfaction and recognition from society as key elements for success. the perception of gender barriers was shared by both groups but other factors such as religion were emphasized only by the americans. networking was perceived as important, but different patterns of networking emerged among the brazilians and 4 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) the americans. definitions of success also differ among the women independent from their nationality. this research contributed to an increased understanding of the process of female entrepreneurship as it related to how economic and socio cultural forces influence these processes. the findings indicated that the female entrepreneurship process becomes a combination of two processes: a person driven process and a response to environment process. key words: female entrepreneurship, informal business, cultural practices, social practices, opportunity entrepreneurship, necessity entrepreneurship introduction over the last twenty years female entrepreneurs have been increasing in numbers in economies of developing and developed nations across the globe (sharpe, 2000). but although female entrepreneurship participation rates have increased worldwide, it appears that economic and socio cultural patterns still prescribe whether a female can become or want to become an entrepreneur in her society (jonathan & da silva, 2007). some reasons are obvious, such as, lack of employment and opportunities; others are disguised in patriarchal heritage that precludes female entrepreneurship (jonathan & da silva, 2007). against this backdrop it appears that in less developed countries necessity and informal entrepreneurship are more prevalent than opportunity entrepreneurship (gem 2005). an explanation at the macro level is perhaps that with less job opportunities in developing nations, the ‘need’ to become an entrepreneur seems to be the answer for females to make a living by creating their own jobs (anderson, 2008). at the socio cultural macro level, the motivation to become an entrepreneur out of need surfaces because of the socio cultural structure of certain nations that hinder females from finding work that provides them independence, self actualization and flexibility for work-life balance (anderson, 2008). country cultural dimensions as identified by hofstede (1980,1991) and research that followed (e.g. trompenaars & hampden-turner (1998), seem to impact individuals differently and various studies have examined the differences and similarities between samples of entrepreneurs in developed countries (aldrich, 2000; greve, 1995; dodd & patra, 2002; johannisson & nilsson, 1989). while the research on differences on a national level has received significant attention (valtonen, 2007; mazimoto et al, 2008) the literature regarding the impact of economic and socio cultural factors from the individual female entrepreneurs’ perspective has received little attention. holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 5 this study explores the phenomenon of female entrepreneurship taking into consideration two different countries in terms of economic and socio cultural contexts: brazil and the united states. the economic differences on a macro national level between these two countries have been well documented in national and international reports (perreault, mccarthy & cannon, 2007). national socio cultural differences have been discussed in the works of hosftede (1980), trompenaars & hampden-turner (1998), and machado et al (2000). but very little has focused at the individual level of the female entrepreneurs per se, that is, how they experience the economic and socio cultural macro environment; and at the time of this writing no comparative studies regarding female entrepreneurs in brazil and the united states have been developed. the research question and the purpose of the study the focus on existing research regarding female entrepreneurs in brazil and the united states mainly concentrates on broad generic census type of data (gem, 2003; sebrae, 2003, 2007). to further the existing understanding of differences among female entrepreneurs at the individual level, this qualitative study went beyond generalizations and utilized the experiences and opinions of participants in brazil and the united states in order to explore whether and how these women differ despite possible differences in economic and socio cultural contexts. methodology this qualitative study uses a methodological stance based on a phenomenological approach which focuses on understanding experiences and enables the researcher to relate to and use the women’s stories to answer the research question. face to face and telephone interviews were conducted to explore possible impact of country level economic and socio cultural factors on individual brazilian and american female entrepreneurs. the study searches for understanding on how the women contextualize their experiences and view their business within their respective economic and socio cultural environments. the brazilian and the us contexts were investigated, secondary data were reviewed, and primary data were collected from 60 participants34 in brazil and 26 in the united states. the 6 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) findings were compared to determine whether typical themes that emerged from the data were either similar or different among the two groups. the participants were selected with the help of judgment sampling techniques, also known as purposeful sampling (marshall, 1996). purposeful sampling was aided by ‘snowballing sampling’ (patton, 1990). in order to capture the women’s stories the interviews were conducted in portuguese in brazil and in english in the united states. the face to face interviews were conducted at the women’s premises in brazil and the united states. the analysis of the data was based on the results from various interpretations based on the women’s stories and what was provided by past studies in the literature review. the techniques for analysis included grouping the results based on pattern matching and clustering of themes under standard categories (yin, 1994) using the method of thematic network analysis (sirling-attride, 2001). entrepreneurship as a socially and culturally constructed phenomenon anderson (2007) refers to entrepreneurship as a ‘socially constructed phenomenon’. society creates preconceptions and predetermined values that glorify or undermine the character of the entrepreneur in social cultural contexts. in brazil, entrepreneurs, especially industrialists, are mostly considered respectable, rich and well to do individuals, but the same cannot be said for informal entrepreneurs who are viewed as illegal competitors (pelegrino, 2005). since entrepreneurship is considered desirable and essential for economic growth it becomes imperative to raise the question whether and how culture actually contributes to entrepreneurship (begley & tan, 2001). the work of begley and tan (2001) with six east asian and four anglo saxon countries tested the relationship between certain cultural values such as social status of entrepreneurship and shame for business failure and individual interest in starting a business. social capital and social networks birley (1983) argues that to fully understand entrepreneurship one needs to appreciate the social networks in which the entrepreneur is involved. social networks build social capital which in turn acts as a strong holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 7 support for the entrepreneur and helps the individual to reach his or her business aim. entrepreneurs can accumulate social capital either through social interactions with family members, through business networks or by volunteering. thus social capital is a network phenomenon (anderson et al, 2007) and it is about collecting social interactions between individuals (loury, 2000). entrepreneurship is a creative process that operates in an environment that usually presents constraints (anderson & jack, 2002). in order to overcome some of these constraints, the entrepreneur through interpersonal relations takes advantages of resources that exist outside the business. the earnings of social capital are access through interpersonal ties (which may include family ties). network intensity has even been found to be associated with business survival (watson, 2006). past empirical studies have considered the differences and similarities between the characteristics of entrepreneurial networks in different countries (aldrich et al.,(1989); greve (1995); johannisson & nilsson, (1989). these studies suggested that the national samples exhibit a number of similarities and that some aspects of business networking are generic (dodd et al., 2002). family the literature shows some ambiguity in terms of the importance of the family for the entrepreneur. while the latin american and latin european cultures emphasize the role of the family (estay, 2004), too close family ties within a business can become a disadvantage (renzulli et al., 2000), and too many people from the family involved in the business may refrain the business from growing. other studies suggest that while some entrepreneurs keep the family out of the businesses, others use the family members as a form of social capital (mckeever et al., 2005). entrepreneurs capitalize on family resources to develop a network support; they utilize resources embedded in their families as a starting point to develop their businesses, even ‘beyond the formal traditionally defined boundaries of the family firm’ (anderson et al., 2005, p. 135). birley et al. (1999) developed a typology of relationships between the family and the entrepreneur after researching 500 entrepreneurs. the study generated three types of family business clusters: (a) “family rules”, (b) “family out”, and (c) “family business jugglers”. the dependency on family members for labor has also been emphasized in the literature (ram, 1994). 8 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) cross country comparative studies on female entrepreneurs although not specifically focused on female entrepreneurs, a study developed by lingelbach et al (2004) suggests that entrepreneurs in developing countries face a different set of circumstances than their counterparts in developed nations when it comes to mentoring and role modelling offered by established businesses. contrary to common perception that women primarily start their businesses from hobby related activities, it was found that women own organizations in various industry sectors, not necessarily the ones particularly found to be ‘feminine’ (carter et al., 2002). following a six country investigation (canada, singapore, south africa, australia, new zealand, and ireland) on understanding the pathways of female entrepreneurs and more specifically the types of businesses they run (mcclelland et al., 2005), it was found that in australia and new zealand, the majority of the female entrepreneurs own businesses in the retail/wholesale sector, mainly in the fashion industry. however, entrepreneurs in ireland, canada and south africa, own businesses across a variety of industries including the ones that might be considered to be predominantly male dominated industries (mcclelland et al., 2005). females are more motivated by the social aspects of their businesses and the desire to make a difference in the society (orhan & scott, 2001; still & timms, 2000). it is apparent that across the six countries investigated a strong link in the nature of businesses owned by the women existed to the extent to which these businesses can be described as ‘socially oriented’ and were intended to help the overall community (mcclelland et al., 2005). a study developed by scheinberg and macmilland (1998) with 11 countries found that ‘communitarianism’ was important for entrepreneurs, independent from the national culture. however, in certain countries, ‘money’ was more important than ‘communitarianism’. for instance, australia, great britain, the united states and finland scored high on ‘money’ and low on ‘communitarianism’ whereas south africa was high on communitarianism with women seeing their businesses as an opportunity to create work and to improve the community in general. women blend their venture’s relationships with other relationships in their lives, including family relationships and other social relations (brush, 1992) and a key motivator for women to start a business is an interest in helping others (brush, 1992). holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 9 push and pull female entrepreneurship across countries the ‘pull’ or the positive factors for becoming an entrepreneur are associated with factors of choice and the desire for entrepreneurial aspirations (orhan & scott, 2001; deakins et al., 2002). the pull factors are also associated with social status and power achieved through the entrepreneurial activity (alstete, 2002; orhan & scott, 2001; schwartz, 1976). negative or ‘push’ factors are associated with the fact that women might seek entrepreneurial ventures for lack of employment, frustration with previous employment, flexible work schedule (reflective of the family caring role associated with being a woman) and the need to earn a reasonable living (alstete, 2002; orhan & scott, 2001; carter & cannon, 1992). deakins et al. (2002) argue that push factors associated with becoming an entrepreneur are more prevalent with entrepreneurs from minority groups that may face discrimination, including women. however, contrary to deakins et al view (2002) in the six countries investigation conducted by mcclelland et al (2005) it appeared evident that push or negative factors were not important for most of the women. flexible working life and using a hobby to create a feasible business are listed in all countries. scheinberg and macmilland (1988) indicated that across different cultures in the eleven countries, similar pull factors seem to prevail among entrepreneurs. indicators of motives to start a business were need for approval and need for personal development and independence. necessity and informal entrepreneurship linked to economic development in brazil and the united states the literature indicates that economic necessity entrepreneurship tends to be more prevalent in developing countries (gem 2003) where economic contexts with lack of employment force women (as well as men) to pursue entrepreneurial activities. but necessity entrepreneurship is not only common in developing nations such as brazil but it has also been linked to informal entrepreneurship. according to the world’s women 2005 report published by the united nations, many women in developing countries start and operate informal business that are not legally registered. in brazil, a significant factor that ‘pushes’ women into informal entrepreneurship is the imposition of high taxes on small businesses; consequently, the incentive to evade taxes and become an informal 10 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) enterprise is tempting (maloney, 2004). but necessity has been pointed out as not only as of ‘economic nature’ but also as of socio cultural nature. one important aspect of ‘necessity’ entrepreneurship that is not linked to economic factors in brazil is the women’s ‘necessity’ to open a business to reconcile family and work. gender inequalities, stereotypes and perceived male entrepreneurs’ characteristics in brazil and the united states vishal et.al (2005) explores the relationship between gender-role stereotypes in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intentions. the study highlighted that entrepreneurs are perceived to have predominantly male characteristics (i.e. competitiveness), and that women also perceived female entrepreneurs as having these characteristics. a study developed with female entrepreneurs in rio de janeiro (jonathan, 2005) revealed that women tended to be optimistic and assertive in business entrepreneurship, characteristics many times associated with male entrepreneurs in brazil. jonathan (2005) concludes that although brazilian female entrepreneurs show assertiveness in dealing with being a woman in business, the elimination of discrimination and stereotypes against women in business in brazil is still a work in progress. some stereotypical literature was found related to types of business women run. these ventures are traditionally classified as craft oriented, a traditional business embraced by women (telles, 1993). studies revealed that women are taken less seriously in business than men (hisrich & brush, 1985); face challenges and problems obtaining funds from their banks (pellegrino & reece, 1982), and suffer from lack of business training (hisrich & brush, 1985). the family influence on entrepreneurship in brazil and the united states thomas and mancino (2007) studies on family influence upon the decision to become an entrepreneur generated mixed signals when half of the participants considered that family had only a small influence on their decision, whereas the other half considered family influence a decisive factor. pelegrino (2005) posited that family emotional and financial supports are crucial for the success of female businesses in brazil, but kirkwood holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 11 (2007) found that the role of parents play in trying to ‘ignite’ entrepreneurship may be gendered with fathers favoring the mentorship of sons over daughters. religion and business values the us society has been considered a religious-traditional society (valtonen, 2007) and the spirituality of the american people is reflected in many american successful female entrepreneurs as mary kay and estee lauder (valtonen, 2007). the main religions of brazil and the united states are roman catholic in brazil and ramifications of protestantism in the us (hill, 2008). one of the strongest pillars of the protestant work ethics is glorification of god through hard work and wealth (hill, 2008). from that perspective, one can argue that religion and entrepreneurship have an interdependent relationship (carswell & rolland, 2004) with the protestant ethics elevating entrepreneurship to a high status (carswell & rolland, 2004). perhaps this perspective differs from other work ethics where other religions are prevalent. for instance, the roman catholic religion which is the prevalent religion of brazil, emphasizes non material aspects of life such as free time for entertainment and family as opposed to hard work to accumulate material wealth (hill, 2008). this cultural context as related to religion might pose a threat to levels of entrepreneurship. but a study developed by carswell & rolland (2004) revealed that increasing ethnic diversity in today’s societies and associated religious value systems, do not reduce entrepreneurial levels. geert hofstede (2001) developed a comprehensive study on how values in business are influenced by culture. this study is particularly instrumental to this research since one of its objectives is to highlight possible differences and similarities in cultural values between the brazilian and american contexts. hofstede’s cultural studies dimensions resulted in parameters that are now widely used to measure and compare certain cultural components of a country. hofstede’s comparative studies on the culture of brazil and the united states suggested the following results: − power distance (pdi the extent to which the society values distance between ‘bosses’/leaders and subordinates/followers; this index has been linked to inequality). brazil scores approximately 70% whereas the united states scores 40%. this finding perhaps 12 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) indicates that there is more inequality in the brazilian society than in america. − individualism/collectivism (idv) – the extent to which a country places a high value on individual’s pursuit of his or her own economic interests as opposed to a more collectivistic approach to economic matters. it is an “i” mentality as opposed to a ‘we’ mentality. individualism is predominant in societies in which ties between individuals are loose and everyone is supposed to look after him or herself. in collectivistic societies, people are more integrated into strong, cohesive groups. in individualistic societies family ties are concentrated on immediate family members whereas in collectivistic societies ties are spread out throughout members of the extended family. the idv index has been linked to capitalism since individualistic oriented societies show higher degrees of entrepreneurial activities. brazil scores less than 40% on idv, whereas the united states scores significantly higher with over 90%. according to this finding the brazilian society would present itself as less entrepreneurial than the american society and family ties are supposedly stronger in brazil than in the united states. − masculinity (mas) – the extent to which a country values masculine traits in business and other spheres of the society (i.e. aggressiveness, goal orientation, practicability, assertiveness) more than feminine traits (caring, participatory management, nurturing ). women in ‘masculine’ countries are assertive but not as assertive as men. the difference in scores between brazil and the united states is not very significant, with brazil scoring around 50% and the united states slightly over 60%. − uncertainly avoidance (uai the degree to which individuals value predictability and a high degree of certainty in business. ambiguity is not valued as much as certainty and risk aversion. countries that score high on this dimension tend to display a lesser degree of entrepreneurship and free market orientation than countries that score high on this dimension). brazil scores over 80% whereas the united states scores slightly over 49%. − long term orientation (ltothe extent to which a country values long term strategies, investments and goals as opposed to ‘instant gratification” and immediate results and profits). brazil holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 13 scores approximately 65% whereas the united states scores approximately 30%. images of success past studies commonly define business success in financial terms but some authors believe that assessment of success for entrepreneurial ventures should take into consideration different motives for males and females (marlow & strange, 1994). cromie (1987) argues that in general men and women share some common areas of motivation for business success. for instance, men and women usually look for autonomy with their entrepreneurial venture but women place more emphasis on the needs of childcare and family while men place more importance on financial success (cromie, 1987). marlow & strange (1994) argue that if the women can combine waged labor with remaining at home, the business is considered successful. other objective measures such as increased sales and employment are predominant indicators of business success or failure (marlow & strange, 1994). however, marlow & strange argues that success of self employment for women cannot be measure in these traditional terms alone. women generally regard success in terms of how well the business met individual needs rather than in conventional terms of profitability and income gained (carter &cannon, 1992). results and analysis of data demographics and business characteristics fifty two percent of the brazilian and american women (31) were between the ages of 30 and 49 years old making this age group the largest in the sample for both countries. the brazilian women seemed to be slightly younger with 5 of the women in the age group 20-29 whereas only 1 of the american women was in this age group. the average year in operation for the businesses was ten for the brazilian women and five for the americans. eighty three percent of the brazilian women hold a higher education degree as opposed to forty two percent of the american women. 14 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) table 1 lists the business activities under merchandise retailing by country and table 2 lists the businesses under service retailing. table 1: merchandise retailing activities by country brazil united states female apparel (15) pet boutique(1) jewelry design (1) thrift store (2) female and male apparel(2) equipment sales (1) small grocery store (2) specialty store (1) shoe store (1) gift shop (2) office supply store( 2) artisan/art dealer (3) health food store(1) total (27) total (7) table 2: service retailing activities by country brazil united states insurance agency (1) franchisingsubway (1) engineering consultancy (1) bus.dev.training (1) taxi services(1) consultants (2) catering (6) nail salon (2) catering (5) fitness centers (2) pet retreat/hotel (1) certified plumber (1) pre school owner (2) total (9) total (17) in brazil, the majority of the female businesses (79%) were concentrated in merchandise retailing. only nine of the businesses were service retailing oriented. most brazilian businesses in the sample are small apparel stores. on the other hand, the majority of the female businesses in the united states are service oriented (75%). typical american businesses owned by females were fitness centers and nail salons. in terms of company longevity, the average age in brazil was 10 years with a couple of women operating their business for over 22 years. the median in the united states was lower, at about 6.4 years, but the distribution was a bit skewed since holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 15 there was a business owned by an “eighty something” year old woman named evelyn, which has been in existence for 58 years. in terms of longevity, on average the brazilian businesses were more mature. the women’s success stories to capture the women’s views on definitions of success and what were they hoping for with their business, the data were collected from the answers from the following question: “as it relates to your business, what does success mean to you”? a second question, “in your opinion what it the key to your business success?” had the purpose to probe into the important things the women regarded as the key to their success. six global themes associated with success were identified from the data. the global themes found from the answers to the question “as it relates to your business what does success mean to you?” were labelled as followed: (1) work/life balance/flexibility, (2) financial independence, (3) self actualization, (4) recognition by society, (5) customer loyalty, and (6) help others help themselves. work/life balance responses under this global theme tend to focus on two organizing themes: (1) flexibility with setting own business hours, and (2) family responsibilities are easier to reconcile with work. the brazilian women tend to emphasize more work/life balance than their american counterparts. although some americans seem to enjoy the flexibility of owning their own businesses, others reported that flexibility can very well be equated with 24/7 hard work. although both brazilian and american respondents frequently referred to flexibility as being ‘a good thing’, their views differ. flexibility is viewed as a positive indicator of success, however, it does not necessarily equate to work/life balance. in some instances, being your own boss and having the flexibility of schedule are considered a burden for some americans. financial independence as one would expect, many of the respondents from both groups emphasized the financial aspect of success. responses clustered under this 16 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) global theme tend to focus on two organizing themes: (1) owing a business is a way for women to become financially independent (2) my business should make enough profit to support my family comfortably without anybody’s help’. examples of basic themes are illustrated in the women’ comments below: “i don’t depend on anybody else; my business is my source of income’ (lynnell, us) “being a woman it is very important to be independent; the independence comes from being financially independent” (rebecca, us) although almost all the women either in brazil or the united states perceived that financial success is important for the success of the enterprise, this global theme seems to be a ‘given’ in a sense that they almost did not want to talk much about it and preferred to report on factors that were perceived more valuable to them as ‘images of success’. self actualization respondents under this global theme clustered their images of success under three organizing themes: (1) glass ceiling (2) passion, and (3) expression. the women’s views on glass ceiling and its negative effect on promotions in a traditional job, appear as a reaction that triggered the creation of their business as a way to achieve self actualization and pretty much control their destinies and careers. both the brazilian and the american groups seem to show concerns with the ‘glass ceiling’ and dissatisfaction with their jobs. for them success represents self actualization and fulfilment of a dream of being their own boss. “passion” was another organizing theme shared by the brazilians and americans that lead to their self actualization (the global theme) through their business. typical comments were: “[success] is considering that my business is instrumental for my joy of working” (maria cecilia, brazil) “i am always fired up; nobody can deflate my ‘dream balloon, nobody can destroy my passion… it gets me going” (deatrix, us) holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 17 a third organizing theme for self actualization was expression. brazilian and american respondents identified that expressing themselves through a hobby turned into a business was a means to self actualization. but for many, the comments related to ‘expression of themselves’ and ‘passion’ overlapped. for instance, an american woman stated that “success means you do it for leisure and it is always enjoyable… the passion to work on the product until its final version gives you an internal satisfaction” ( anisha, us). based on the women’s responses for the question “as it relates to your business what does success mean to you”? figure 1 illustrates a thematic network analysis for the global theme “self actualization.” recognition by society three organizing themes emerged under the global theme “recognition by society´: (1) business as an instrument for acceptance as female entrepreneur (2) a positive word of mouth, and (3) establishment of a brand global theme: self actualization 18 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) image. respondents that perceived success as being recognized by society clustered their answers around these themes. some examples were: “i rather own my own business; i feel good about representing my business at the chamber [of commerce]… it is just like…you see… they respect you” (deatrix, us) some indicated that a positive brand image in the community is instrumental for success. brazilian respondents were more inclined to perceive that sustaining brand equity through quality products brings success through recognition by society. customer loyalty the picture provided by the brazilian and the us women as they perceived their images of success through the loyalty of their customers, is clustered around four organizing themes: (1) quality customer service (2) quality merchandise (3) good prices (4) marketing research. although some respondents emphasized the quality of their merchandise as an organizing theme leading into the global theme ‘customer loyalty’, others use the help of marketing skills to enhance the perception of value in the customers’ eyes. a third organizing theme for the global theme” customer loyalty” was ‘good prices’. almost every respondent either in brazil or the united states demonstrated that customers return because of their prices. a basic and recurrent basic theme for this organizing theme was ‘better prices than the competitors’, but other basic themes such as ‘don’t want to be considered a greedy person’ and ‘planning for good prices’ also emerged. once again, the interconnectivity among these themes surfaces with the help of the thematic network analysis methodology. some respondents were concerned about setting high prices and being considered ‘greedy’ in their community. this can be linked to the effort they make to be recognized by society as a business owners with good business practices. help others help themselves the last global theme associated with images of success was ‘help others help themselves’. the ‘others’ were either employees, customers, or members of the community. there were three organizing themes associated holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 19 with this global theme: (1) make a difference in somebody else’s life (2) teach other people, and (3) inspire others/role model. many referred to the fact that owning a business and being able to provide employment for an individual was an indication of success. this was a basic theme that constantly emerged from the interviews with both the american and the brazilian women. a second emerging organizing theme was ‘teach other people’. many respondents mentioned of being a role model and inspiring others with their businesses, although this theme was not as predominant among the brazilian women as it was among the americans. moreover, this was particularly a more recurring organizing theme among the african american female entrepreneurs in the united states. african american women from the united states tend to be more inclined to serve as role model for other business women than their white counterparts in the us and brazil. in fact, the brazilian women from african descendents did not share this view at all. the key to business success to allow respondents to expand on their images of success, the women were asked to answer the question “what is the key to your business success?” the emerged themes provided additional information on their perceptions of success and helped validate some of the points discussed as a result of the answers for the first question associated with success. as it was expected, some of the themes generated from the women’s answers to this question overlapped with the themes generated from the first question “in your opinion what does success mean to you?”, but it allowed for better understanding of their images of success by further identifying emerging networking patterns. the main global themes associated with the question ‘what is the key to your business success?” were: (1) customer service (2) faith in god, and (3) planning. customer service was previously discussed as an organizing theme for the global theme ‘customer loyalty’. now it appears again as an emerging global theme from the answers associated with the key elements for success. this is a good example of how the themes interconnect, interrelate and many times overlap. customer loyalty and customer service are so strong for both the women in brazil and in the us that the organizing and basic themes associated with the global theme “customer service’ were practically the same described by the women under the global theme “customer 20 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) loyalty”. although not every woman spoke of ties with religion and their business, and very few brazilians mentioned this at all, many of the us respondents, especially the african american descendents, strongly perceived that at one point in their lives, religion played a major role in their businesses. moreover, they perceive that the key to their business success is their close relationship with god. in fact, two categories of women were identified as a result: the “believers” and the “non believers”. the ‘believers’ were strongly convinced that their purpose in life was to set up a business to glorify god whereas the ‘non believers’ totally separated the subject of religion from their business. because many respondents were categorized under ‘believers’, the second global theme associated with the question ‘what is the key to your business success?” was “faith in god”. two organizing themes emerged from this global theme: (1) ‘business is to glorify god’, and (2)’ purpose of life’. “planning” was the third global theme that emerged as the key to the women’s business success. the brazilian women tended to emphasize planning more than their us counterparts. the american women, with the exception of a few respondents, rarely mentioned that the key to their business success was planning. it appears that responses to the two questions associated with images of success followed into four distinct categories of women. these categories have been labelled as being the independents, the customer service driven, the believers, and the planners, a reflection of the patterns identified by the global themes that emerged from the answers. although some themes overlapped, for instance, a ‘customer service driven’ can also be considered a ‘believer’ and an’ independent’, generally speaking, the categories were built based on what was more important to the women. therefore, the images of success for the ‘independents’ were constructed around perceptions of financial independence, flexibility, self actualization and recognition by society. the images of success for the ‘customer service driven’ were constructed around perceptions of high quality customer service followed by a significant focus on customer loyalty. the “believers” glorified god through their businesses and perceived that success was laid up by god and fate. last but not least, the “planners” based their perceptions of success on visions of the future, planning, organization, and teamwork. holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 21 on being a woman in business to capture the women’s views on ‘being a woman in business’ and to reveal perceptions of barriers, opportunities and other factors in the economic and socio cultural environment that impact on their businesses , the following question was posed in the interviews” how does it feel being a woman in business?”. based on the patterns of responses the following global themes emerged: (1) not being taken seriously (2) an advantage (3) barriers. the emerging basic and organizing themes that gave birth to global themes for this question contained numerous references to gender issues and stereotypes. the picture provided by the brazilian and the american women were equally embedded with comments that made us believe that both the brazilian and the american cultures, from the eyes of these female entrepreneurs perpetuate gender discriminatory issues. the global theme ‘not being taken seriously’ generated four organizing themes: (1) lack of credibility from peers (2) problems with male suppliers (3) problems with male customers (4) nature of business is considered a ‘female thing’. a particular respondent, bridget from the us, showed a high level of awareness of gender discrimination coming from her peers when she described it is easy for men to get business off the ground they are considered more serious… even with loans from the banks… society expects that women run business like men…society looks at women differently. just like they expect men lead the household, maybe they [society]think that males have to earn more. it has always been a male world… i even know that mymale employees think that way… they just don’t say so. although not all respondents speak in such extreme terms as bridget, there seems to be a common element in that the women perceive the existence of elements of discrimination and gender issues in their cultures. for some respondents, the own nature of their businesses were perceived as subject of discrimination. the second global theme associated with the question “how does it feel being a woman in business” was ‘an advantage’. somewhat paradoxically, considering the focus of the previous themes, 22 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) many us respondents also perceived that being a woman in business is an advantage. this perception is evident by rebecca’s (us) comments: being a woman in business is like a ‘niche’ that draws attention to you… people is always curious to find out what you have to offer… you can take advantage of programs… like the certified minority business program from the sba… it is definitely an advantage. rebecca’s statement reflects her perceptions that there are resources in her community that as a woman in business she can take advantage of. although she feels this way about her business, she still perceives that ‘women are their worst enemies’, that society still looks at women differently and that males have a tendency to look more to each other. none of the brazilians respondents perceived being a woman an advantage in business. the third and most significant global theme associated with the question’ how does it feel being a woman in business’ was ‘barriers’. different types of barriers emerged from the responses: (1) lack of resources (2) gender barriers (3) mental barriers and emotional barriers, and (4) compensation/money barriers. gender barriers were perceived by the women through typical comments as follows: “the good old boys’ network is always there… (lynell, us) “i guess i don’t have any problems because people expect that my business [nail salon] is run by a female (anita, us) deatrix, from the us, owns a notfor -profit organization that involves knowledge of the criminal justice system. one of her complaints was the fact that people kept telling her that ‘you cannot do that… you have never been a cop…’, to which she responded angrily ‘ what about a male gynaecologist? he had never been a woman and still functions!” (deatrix, us) but not all respondents perceived gender barriers. for instance, melinda from the us perceived that “i was encouraged by family at a young age to be entrepreneur. both sides of parents owned family operated businesses by women as well as men”. mental and emotional barriers were described as women’s inferiority complex (this was more accentuated holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 23 between the us women from african descent), lack of recognition from society (previously while defining success, the women described that recognition from society was a perception of success; here a lack of recognition from society is therefore perceived as a barrier to their businesses), and lack of support from family members and friends. economic barriers emerged as perceived high taxes, competition from large businesses and low compensation. both the brazilian and the american women described that male businesses are often better compensated. but the brazilian women were more preoccupied with high taxes than their us counterparts. in fact, a high number of brazilian respondents referred to high taxes as a barrier to become a formally registered business. the importance of family for the women’s business: the advocates, the adapters and the hermits the importance of family on small business ventures has been well pointed out in the literature (aldrich &cliff, 2003; greene &brown, 1999; estay, 2004; anderson et al., 2005). in order to capture the women’s views and to understand the role of family and its impact on the women’s businesses, the respondents were asked about the importance of family for their business. the responses were organized into three global themes: (1) “means” (2) “trivial”, and (3) “insignificant”. some women were extremely positive about their family support either in terms of financial and emotional support and social capital. these women were the ‘advocates’ of family involvement in the processes of starting and operating their businesses and their responses were clustered under the global theme “means”. for these respondents, either brazilians or americans, family was everything. the ‘advocates’ perceived that spouses, siblings, and in-laws form the foundation for their businesses. their responses focused on basic themes such as ‘absolutely indispensable’ and ‘major source of financial and emotional support’. more brazilian women fell into this category than their us counterparts, but for the us women who have been in business for a short period of time, family was more important. a second group of respondents, the ‘adapters’, focused on the ‘trivial’ importance of family on their businesses. although family is slightly important to them, the support was not always there when needed; the respondents learned how to ‘adapt’ and were able to adjust to suit different 24 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) conditions were members of the family were pretty much absent. they usually made up for this lack of support by relying on outside sources – either emotional, social or financial. a third group of respondents, the ‘hermits’ did not seem to perceive any importance of family for their businesses. for these women, their own efforts without help from spouses, significant others, siblings, and in-laws, were the fiber of their businesses. in fact, some respondents did say that family members ‘mingling’ with their business was not a good idea. more us respondents fell under this category than their brazilian counterparts. perceptions and practices on education the role of education in the women’s businesses was captured through responses to the question: “what is/was the role of education in your business?” machado et al. (2000) addressed a possible relation between high levels of education, motives to start a business and success of the business. but the us and brazilian women’s responses regarding the role of education were mixed. some thought that education played a major role in their business, but others did not perceive any relationship between their education and business success. but, while the relationship between business success and education may vary, the reaction towards the fact that education is important in general does not. many respondents perceived education as some sort of instrument to gain respect and recognition. but for many, education does not necessarily translate into a formal university degree; many women from both countries emphasized vocational training. a few participants from the us responded that they are required to take continuing education courses once a year to maintain their licenses. although they do not view these courses as necessary, they report that they are ‘forced’ to take them or they lose their licenses. for another group of respondents, although they perceive that education is ‘nice’ and wished they had acquired it, neither college education nor vocational training was perceived as important for their business. experience and learning from someone else, was more important. this kind of informal education addressed by kim (2003) was emphasized by several respondents from brazil and from the us. among the group of brazilian ‘informais’ (informal in portuguese, meaning not a registered business owners), education was perceived as ‘a nice thing’ to have, but not really important for their business. holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 25 from the data collected under the question” what is/was the role of education in your business”, three categories of respondents emerged from the findings: (1) the college educated, (2) the vocational educated, and (3) the informally educated. the data also generated a major global theme ’college education’ that led into two organizing themes: (a) indispensable, and (b) marginally important. for those that viewed college education as indispensable, typical emerging organizing themes were ‘to overcome and deal with the existence of a male culture’, ‘for recognition’, ‘for respect’, and ‘for knowledge’. for those respondents that perceived that college education was marginally important, typical emerging organizing themes were ‘prefers vocational education’, ‘learned by observing others and by doing’, ‘generally important and it would pursue if had the time and money’. a group of brazilian women reported that education of any form did not bring them employment; they had to turn to entrepreneurship to earn a living. these respondents fall in the category of carree & thurick’s (2002) economic refugees. these women also tend to be ‘informais’ showing a relation between lack of employment opportunities and necessity entrepreneurship. many of these brazilian respondents were educated (either college educated or vocationally educated); but because they could not find jobs with their degrees they turned to entrepreneurship as a last resort. although educated, some women remained in the ‘waiting room’ (anderson, 2008) for jobs; entrepreneurship is a response to economic inactivity. discussion the issues addressed by the women often provided very different views which reflected the complexity of the issues associated with the influence of economic and socio cultural elements. many global themes merged from the women’s views and various women’s categories were identified and associated with the global themes. for instance, the ‘believers’ perceived that the purpose of their business was to glorify god and it was their whole purpose in life. other categories identified were the ‘independents’, the ‘customer service driven’, the ‘advocates of family support’ and the ‘hermits’ to whom business was more of a solo practice. respondents, either from brazil or the us reported that to be recognized by society was a key to their business success. for many 26 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) americans and brazilian, acceptance of a male culture exerts a pressure on them to excel and to be recognized as a successful entrepreneur. so, for some, education is an instrument to overcome economic barriers while for others is simply a pathway to recognition. in brazil a large number of women fell under the category of ‘informais’ or ‘economic refugees’. the level of economic development of the country may have something do with this, an issue addressed by maloney (2004). the relationship between the women’s categories and emerging themes the overrepresentation of basic themes associated with customer service and customer loyalty in both groups was perhaps not surprisingly, largely due to its importance to any business, independent of geographic location or economic and socio cultural environments. so here there is not a signal that might indicate differences among the women that appears to be related to economic and socio cultural practices of their environments. both groups equally valued customer loyalty. but when it comes to education, both college and vocational, although viewed by both groups as important, the respondents’ perceptions on how education influences their businesses were mixed and seemed to tie up with the socio cultural practices. for some women education did not have anything to do with their business at all, but it was perceived as important to gain recognition. this was addressed by hisrich and brush (1985) and particularly showed among the brazilian women to whom the idea of obtaining college education is likely to be influenced by socio cultural factors such as being recognized as powerful and well educated in a male dominated society. in fact, this seems to indicate that these women accept the existence of a male dominated society and might use their education as a differentiator. this phenomenon can also be tied to discussions on the global theme ‘barriers’. in order to overcome perceived gender barriers, many women, especially the brazilians, pursue higher education, even if (according to their views) this does not have anything to do with their business directly. the data from the brazilian group showed a relation between the ‘informais’ and informal education and a relation between fully registered businesses and vocational and college education. many organizing and basic themes associated with images of success overlapped, holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 27 but the responses from the brazilians somewhat differed from the americans. the majority of the brazilians tended to perceive work/life balance more important than their us counterparts. this might be attributed to the younger age of the brazilian respondents (not the age of their businesses), many still with small children at home. the flexibility of defining their own working hours was perceived as important and was associated with success. this finding seems to indicate that each woman carriers her own individual socio cultural luggage that consequently shapes her entrepreneurial experience. but for the americans although flexibility in being her own boss is tied to career longevity and is viewed as an instrument to fight the glass ceiling phenomenon, flexibility did not equate to work/life balance but pure hard work. in fact, many americans reported that they would opt out of entrepreneurship with the blink of an eye if they could find a regular job with paid vacation! another perceived element of success was self actualization. this was addressed by the literature (orhan & scott, 2001; deakins et al., 2002) and it was one of the most popular global themes among the women. in a more indirect way, overcoming the glass ceiling phenomenon by starting their businesses was an indication of success for the women; so, glass ceiling is a ‘driver’ to enter the world of entrepreneurship and both groups of women seemed to feel that way. hence, here we have a potential similarity among them that might indicate that despite the economic and socio cultural differences between brazil and the united states, the women’s perceptions are similar. respondents that perceived the elimination of glass ceiling through their ventures as an indication of success were also inclined to respond that passion for what they do and opportunity for expression were also indications of success. in fact, often the organizing themes, passion and expression overlapped. once again, socio cultural factors at a country level did not seem to play a major role here. pleasure allied with financial results epitomizes their images of success. this seemed to be a global theme that linked all respondents. there was a certain amount of variation in the responses given under the global theme ‘recognition by society’, ranging from more cultural oriented (organizing) themes as ‘business as an instrument for acceptance as a female entrepreneur’ to more ‘technical’ marketing (organizing) themes as ‘establishment of a brand image’. the first organizing theme is related to the 28 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) ‘need for approval’ phenomenon addressed by scheinberg and macmillan (1998), but also to possible perceptions of gender barriers and it will appear once more when the respondents reported barriers encountered in the environment that jeopardize their business. both groups of women perceived the importance of owning a business to be recognized as a successful woman in their society; this view was slightly predominant among the brazilian respondents. but, paradoxically, respondents that perceived that their image of success is being recognized by society as a successful woman also made clear that being a woman was an advantage and made them feel empowered because society perceived them as being different and people are always curious to see what they have to offer. either way, this perception reflects an acceptance of a male dominant society and it was a view shared by both study groups. another global theme that linked all respondents was customer loyalty. in fact, this was the most common global theme that saw no international boundaries. customer loyalty is also tied to recognition by society, since almost all women’s responses were grounded in some type of relation between being recognized by society through good customer service that in turn brings loyalty. hence loyalty is not only good for business but also brings recognition from society. this view can be associated with the concept of social responsibility and with being a good citizen (orhan & scott, 2001; still & timms, 2000) and it was shared equally by both groups of women. the social responsibility issue was also reflected in the global theme ‘help others help themselves’, a phenomenon addressed by brush, (1992), who points out that women are more preoccupied in caring for people through their ventures than men. many respondents, clustered under the group the customer sitters, expressed that their images of success were associated with helping others helping themselves. so here perceptions of success are grounded on personal values and attitudes related to caring for the economic well being of others. many women either in brazil or in the us tend to see their business like a quasi social enterprise. because of the own “female” nature of their business (children daycare, exercise/weight lost facilities) their images of success materialize through the well being of their customers. among the us african american women, helping others helping themselves was grounded on the idea of being a role model for female employees, for female family members, and for the society at large. the brazilian women from african descendent did not share this view at all. this finding was an indication that differences in female entrepreneur’s holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 29 perception of success might be more in direct relation to ethnicity rather than to any other social cultural phenomenon. the us african american women also share a global theme that was not emphasized by the brazilians: faith in god. many of the us african american entrepreneurs viewed their business success as a result of fate brought by god and their religious faith. the subject of relation between religion and entrepreneurship was brought up by several authors (hill, 2008; valtonen, 2007; carswell & rolland, 2004) but this study adds a demographic dimension (ethnicity) to this relation. several types of barriers to their business were indicated by the women. the most significant global themes that emerged from the responses were not being taken seriously and gender barriers. here once more, the own nature of some women’s business, considered typically female was perceived by some respondents as a target for discrimination. although not all respondents indicated a perception of gender barriers, many of them voiced that gender discrimination was perceived as negative and the discriminatory signals were coming from suppliers, peers and other members of the society. but paradoxically, the women who did not perceive discrimination against their business per se reported that the problem did not exist simply because the type of business they are running (i.e. nail salon, beauty shop, etc.) was viewed by society as being naturally run by a woman. although the women did not perceive that the discrimination problem was there, they themselves were accepting the fact that the business environment is male centered. the group of women for whom family support, either financial or emotional was a ‘means’ to their business, was labeled ‘advocates’. involvement of family members was encouraged and even expected by the ‘advocates’. more brazilian women fell in this category than the us women. in the us only women with young businesses were ‘advocates’. this seems to indicate that the younger the business the more important the role of family. but is also seems to indicate that there are some socio cultural elements embedded in the brazilian society that encourage the participation of family members in the business process (pelegrino, 2005). in fact, pelegrino (2005) addresses that many female entrepreneurs expect the involvement of family members in their businesses. some respondents voiced that they wished they had received more support from their families. these women were labeled the ‘the adapters’, since they were trying to ‘adapt’ to the situation (little or no support from family) while conducting 30 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) their businesses. on the other end of the spectrum, there were the ones who did not seem to bother with family involvement at all: ‘the hermits’. for them, family matters were better off outside their businesses. this phenomenon was also addressed by estay (2004); as the business grows, the participation of family members instead of helping the business, many times impedes its growth. more us women were ‘hermits’ than their brazilian counterparts. for both the brazilian and the us women networking was perceived as important for many reasons. for some, it provides informal education, for others, it provides business leads and a feeling of ‘togetherness’ and connectivity (anderson et al., 2007). this last factor was predominantly observed among the brazilian women. the collectivistic view of business that many of these women had seems to link to hofstede’s (1980) collectivistic views of the brazilian society, as opposed to more individualistic views that are predominant in the us society. the ‘togetherness’ of the brazilian women, seemed to erase all kinds of feelings of competition and brought a sense of unity that helps each other grow. interestingly the phenomenon of ‘togetherness’ was tied to ‘business informality’. many of the “informais’ in brazil depend on this type of networking to survive. in contrast, in the us where none of the respondents were informal entrepreneurs, the responses from many women indicated that they might be categorized as opportunity entrepreneurs, that is, they see entrepreneurship as a choice of career per se, not a substitute for lack of employment opportunities. conclusions the field of research on female entrepreneurship has been a stimulating and constantly evolving research area. this study has been proved to contribute to the understanding of a subfield of female entrepreneurship related to international comparisons of perceptions of women’s ventures in contrasting economic and socio cultural contexts. although there was evidence of similarities among the us and the brazilian women, for instance on the issue of good customer service practices, the reasons why customer service was important slightly varied among the women from the two groups. but this variation seemed to be more related to individual differences than to socio cultural factors at the country level. holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 31 the influences of economic factors at the macro level, were captured in the women’s responses associated with business formality or informality as well as economic necessity to start the business. interestingly, despite the fact that brazil is less developed than the united states as per economic indicators suggested by the literature, and the level of education among the general population is lower than the us, the brazilian women in our sample were more educated than the us women. this seems to contradict the expected relation between higher economic development and higher educational levels. several explanations are possible here. the data indicated that the brazilian women are generally more preoccupied with their image of professionalism and success in the society and strive to achieve a position of power through their businesses; so, education seems to be an instrument to achieve this. the most significant finding among the brazilian women that contrasts with their us counterparts is the ‘sense of togetherness’ among the ‘informais’. this seems to agree with hofstede’s collectivistic view of the brazilian culture as opposed to the individualistic view of the us culture. family involvement in the business was more important to the brazilians, also agreeing with hofstede’s collectivism index. religion was a major issue among the americans and more specifically among the african american entrepreneurs. perhaps entrepreneurship development courses at local churches in the us could be a key to fostering entrepreneurship among this group of women. local churches should team up with local governmental agencies, universities and chambers of commerce in an effort to increase the participation of the ‘believers’ in entrepreneurship. rather than emphasizing religion as a key to their business success, brazilians emphasize the technical side of being recognized by society through the development of strong brand equities and the preoccupation with delivering the best goods and services according to customers’ preferences, needs and wants. this was not emphasized by the us women perhaps due to the fact that their businesses were younger than their brazilian counterparts’; they do not seem to be sophisticated enough at this point in time to think about marketing techniques; what is important now is faith in god to get the business going. the americans perceive that there are resources in the community to help them with these ‘technical issues’ but they do not seem to be using them. a solution to this problem could be to market entrepreneurship development programs more aggressively to females in their early stages of entrepreneurship. perhaps the 32 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) existing programs are not sufficiently visible to the women; more exposure is recommended. the data indicated that despite differences in levels of economic development and socio cultural factors between the two countries, most of the businesses in both groups are categorized as typical ‘female businesses’. these businesses are known for low financial return and slow growth. a practical solution to this would be to stimulate the creation of more profitable businesses starting from middle and high schools with entrepreneurship courses mingled with sciences and technology courses in both countries. but the questions remain: do these women want a bigger business? or are they content with the flexibility for work/life balance and the opportunity for self actualization and expression that their businesses bring to them? if so, any efforts brought by local governments, schools, churches, universities and chambers of commerce would not yield successful results. this seems to suggest further research. other issues have arisen that have implications both for future research and female entrepreneurship policies. for instance, in brazil, high taxes, bureaucracy, and the high cost of starting a business were perceived by the women as barriers. it is suggested that brazilian authorities and legislators continue with their efforts to streamline the business start process by introducing cost effective ways to formalize a business. more attention needs to be paid to the fact that women entrepreneurs have very diverse perceptions of hopes and images of success that eventually underpin their entrepreneurial processes. some are more inclined to define success in financial terms, while others define success in terms of flexibility and the ‘got to be in charge’ syndrome. others simply define success and pursue entrepreneurship simply because this is their last economic resort. so, the entrepreneurship process becomes a 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(1994). the case study anthology. sage publications. thousand oaks, california, usa. kulturološka i društveno ekonomska iskustva žena preduzetnica u brazilu i sjedinjenim američkim državama: istraživačka i empirijska analiza a p s t r a k t tokom proteklih dvadeset godina žensko preduzetništvo je doživelo značajan porast u privredama razvijenih zemalja i onih u razvoju širom sveta. iako su se stope učešća ženskog preduzetništva povečale svuda u svetu, izgleda da još uvek ekonomske i društveno kulturološke šeme odredjuju da li žena može i da li želi da postane preduzetnik u svom društvu. ova kvalitativna istraživačka studija ispituje fenomen ženskog preduzetništva poredeći žensko preduzetništvo u dva konteksta: brazil i sjedinjene američke države. ekonomske razlike na makro nivou izmedju ove dve zemlje su dokumentovane i o nacionalnim društveno kulturološkim razlikama se dosta diskutovalo. ali jako malo studija je fokusirano na individualni nivo ženskog preduzetništva per se, to jest, kako one sa svojim biznisom zapažaju i doživljavaju ekonomsko i društveno kulturološko makro okruženje. ovo istraživanje, koje je radjeno na osnovu literature i analize odgovora iz intervijua holland, n., cultural and socio economic experiences, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 3-37) 37 60 žena preduzetnica u brazilu i sjedinjenim američkim državama, će pokušati da upotpuni tu prazninu. zaključci su pokazali da žene preduzetnice iz obe zemlje dele sličnosti kada je u pitanju motivacija za započinjanje biznisa, u smislu faktora privlačenja , kao što je želja za finansijskom nezavisnošću, želja da same sebi budu nadredjene, želja za autonomijom i samoostvarivanjem. žene iz obe grupe su takodje rekle da su zadovoljstvo potrošača i priznanje od strane društva ključni elementi uspeha. percepcija rodnih barijera je ista kod obe grupe ali drugi faktori kao što je religija su bili naglašeni samo od strane žena iz amerike. povezivanje se smatra bitnim, ali različite šeme povezivanja su se izdvojile kod brazilki i amerikanki. definicije uspeha se takođe razlikuju medju ženama nevezano za njihovu nacionalnost. ovo istraživanje je doprinelo povećanju razumevanja procesa ženskog preduzetništva u vezi sa načinom na koji ekonomski i društveno kulturološki faktori utiču na ove fenomene. pronalasci pokazuju da proces ženskog preduzetništva postaje kombinacija dva procesa: proces podstaknut od strane osobe i proces odgovora na okruženje. ključne reči: žensko preduzetništvo, neformalni biznis,kulturna praksa, društvena praksa, preduzetništvo šansi, preduzetništvo iz neophodnosti article history: received: 1 march, 2014 accepted: 25 may, 2014 doi: 10.28934/jwee22.12.pp187-212 jel: o15, j12, m21 original scientific paper 10bthe role of migration in women entrepreneurship and empowerment: evidence from nigeria viktoriya kan3 1 f1 westminster international university in tashkent, cpfs department, tashkent, uzbekistan boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay3 2 f2 university of chichester, business school, chichester, west sussex, united kingdom a b s t r a c t the research examines the relationship between the migration of men and the empowerment of women who remain in the households. the study looks at nigeria – a sub-saharan african country with the highest migration outflows and prevalent gender inequality. the core research question is to examine whether the migration of men affects the entrepreneurship and empowerment of nigerian women. for the purpose of this study, private entrepreneurship will state the employment status of women from both migrant and non-migrant households while the amount of housework and degree of decision-making power will constitute empowerment. the data is obtained from nigerian general household survey 2018-2019. the sample used in the current analysis consists of 12,199 women, 15 years and older. the ordinary least squares model is applied to assess the changes men’s migration might bring to the housework of women who remain in the household. logit regression addresses the entrepreneurship and decision-making power of women in nigeria. probit regression serves as a robustness check for logit, and as a separate econometric model. the findings generally support the pre-experiment 1 e-mail: vkanv98@gmail.com 2 corresponding author, e-mail: r.mukhopadhyay@chi.ac.uk 188 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 187-212) expectations: migration of men decreases the amount of housework of women in nigeria, encourages them to run businesses, but reduces their decision-making power key words: migration, entrepreneurship, women empowerment, gender and development, household decision-making, development economics, nigeria introduction given equal standing with men in the business world, women entrepreneurs would have brought 12 trillion dollars into the global economy (mckinsey global institute, 2015). women entrepreneurship is a well-known and worldwide accepted driver of human and economic development. women-run enterprises are as successful as businesses owned by men (zenger & folkman, 2019). not only does it empower women themselves, but it also stimulates sufficient improvements in the economy and society. more established enterprises mean the creation of new jobs, enhanced access to resources, building of social capital, and efficiency in the supply-demand chain. moreover, women entrepreneurs diversify the business activities in rural areas and bring interest to key sub-sectors of the economy, which should further benefit society (mukhopadhyay & mukhopadhyay, 2018). what requires further studying is which social factors may affect them and also how significant the changes will be. most research devoted to the association between migration and women working and empowerment emphasises the impact of men’s absence on housework, wage-paid employment, and the decision-making power of women remaining in the household (desai & banerji, 2008). the main goal of the study is to analyse whether coming from migrant families affects the prevalence of women business owners and their bargaining power within a household. this research focuses on nigeria – a country in the sub-saharan african region. according to pew research center, ethiopia, ghana, kenya, and nigeria contribute to more than half of emigrants to the usa. nigeria is a leader among them in terms of migration outflow, with 280,000 migrants in 2017. at the same time, nigeria remains at the top of countriesorigins of emigrants to europe: 390,000 emigrants in 2017 (pew research center, 2018). with these numbers, remittance inflow constituted 22 billion usd, which is equivalent to 5.9% of gdp in 2017 (world bank, no date). furthermore, 74% of nigerian adults want to leave their motherland, and viktoriya kan, boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 189 out of them, every fifth intend to migrate. on the other hand, nigeria is a country with a prevalence of gender inequality. high male segregation in the private sector and significant stagnation for women's human development dominate in nigerian society due to patriarchal norms (makama, 2013). the research question of this paper is to analyse and evaluate whether the migration of men affects the entrepreneurship and empowerment of women in nigeria? the first specific objective is to examine if migration lifts the housework burden on women who are left in the household. the second objective is to test whether migration influences the tendency of women who remain in the household to run private businesses. the last objective of the research is to analyse the association between men's migration and women’s decision-making power. in the case of this research, housework is denoted as part of women’s empowerment – the more time women spend on housekeeping, the less they have the power to advocate their interests in their households. migration and household standards the most common factor driving migration is earning more income for the family, consequently, the standard of living and the wealth of households improve. a household can afford to spend more money and change its usual consumption bundles (ahmed, 2020). migration benefits the financial position of migrant households – they are more income advantageous than their non-migrant counterparts (sikder & higgins, 2016). moreover, migration may have a positive long-term impact on the welfare of future generations. migrant families allocate less share of their income to consumption and more to other expenses. migration and remittances help fight malnutrition and child mortality (azizi, 2018). migration brings changes not only to the wealth of the household but also deviates from its living. migration affects the internal structure and relations of the household. when a person migrates to another location, his household labour responsibilities are reallocated among the remaining members. house repair work, ripping of firewood, and other labour that requires physical inputs, generally refer to men. when men leave the household, they leave responsibilities at home. the remaining members are required to add these tasks to their existing duties (hanson, 2007). another change migration may bring to the household is its involvement in a local business environment. remittance received from a 190 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 187-212) migrant member can serve as a source of extra capital. the household can use this money as an investment for self-employment and setting up businesses. particularly, operating small and medium enterprises (smes) positively respond to migration and remittance inflows (woodruff & zenteno, 2007). women entrepreneurship a study by mukhopadhyay (2020), that reviews the impact of women entrepreneurs in the renewables industry and how solar energy-based micro enterprises transform rural lives, also argues that entrepreneurial initiatives led by women in rural societies are not only actively engaging in complex business decision making processes but also making, servicing, marketing, installing and selling smart technologies. it is important to recognise the business acumen as well as the technical competence of women entrepreneurs in rural societies in developing countries. it is a well-known fact that the development of the private sector is a vital part of the development of the economy as it stimulates competitiveness in the market. competitiveness guarantees technological advancements in production and management, creating new jobs, and ensuring fair prices. it is increasingly noticeable that women engage in many various activities apart from housework, particularly private entrepreneurship (brush & cooper, 2012). the number of businesses established and run by women continues to increase. recent researches paid keen attention to women-owned micro enterprises (mukhopadhyay & ianole, 2021). essentially, what challenges they overcome while running their businesses, and what benefits they bring to households, society and the economy. in addition, it is important to recognise the role of a quality educational system that enhances the prospects for women to become entrepreneurs (radovic-markovic et al., 2012). de vita, mari and poggesi (2014) find women entrepreneurship as a key driver of the progress of developing countries. not only does women entrepreneurship significantly improve the economic and social environment of the nation, but it also addresses the gender gap in employment. according to the authors' findings, the proportion of male and female workers in women-owned enterprises are equivalent. moreover, women entrepreneurship significantly promotes positive shifts in gross domestic product, financial and social inclusion, and poverty reduction viktoriya kan, boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 191 (sajuyigbe & fadeyibi, 2017). however, women still face obstacles in achieving access to various facilities that can help them successfully operate in the private sector. government and microfinance organizations must pay special attention to assisting women in establishing businesses (sajuyigbe & fadeyibi, 2017; mukhopadhyay, 2020). the development and support for women's business activities result in solving regional disparity (ezeibe et al., 2013). rural areas specialise in the agriculture sector, and rural businesses commonly focus on agriculture and livestock. studies evidence that the promotion of women entrepreneurship stimulates the diversification of business specialisations. it improves the rural private sector capabilities. diversification in enterprises requires different knowledge and skills. with an increasing number of businesses, more people would be involved in financial and social activities, stimulating rural employment along with technological and capital advancements. women entrepreneurship brings a set of social benefits as well. when a woman earns money, she is more likely to efficiently allocate money to health and education for other household members (orser, riding & manley, 2006). women entrepreneurship significantly benefits children's development. some sceptics argue that women owning a business may jeopardise child care and household sustainability. schindehutte, morris and brennan (2003) prove otherwise. not only do women adequately balance the time and efforts on both business and child care, but they also significantly impact household wealth and child schooling. with more money at hand, the household can afford higher expenses on the child's health and education. at the same time, some studies propose some suggestions about the positive impact of women entrepreneurship on the schooling attainment of children with business-women mothers (schindehutte et al., 2003). women empowerment and migration several experts have conducted econometric research to identify whether men's labour migration affects women's decision-making power. some of them have found a positive association between men’s migration and women’s empowerment. in a nuclear family, without a male head of the household, women act as the apparent head and decide on the usage of remittances and other sources of income. women do not necessarily remain powerless in the absence of their husbands and oblige in-laws, which puts 192 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 187-212) an additional burden of housework on them. there is no additional workload for women since women do all the housework themselves. men’s preferences take priority in women's housework: at what time the husband wants to eat breakfast, by what time the house should be cleaned, etc. in the absence of men, women solely decide how to allocate their work time based on their utility, which could be a sign of empowerment (datta & mishra, 2011). women from migrant families may have higher bargaining power compared to their counterparts from non-migrant ones. men tend to control the social life and interactions of women. for example, women in bangladesh need permission from their husbands to visit their maternal family and friends. migrant wives are 20% more likely to engage in social life freely than women who belong to non-migrant families (fakir & abedin, 2020). integrating into society broadens the common knowledge of women about their opportunities apart from domestic duties. women from migrant households also have higher access to financial institutions services, like bank deposits (fakir & abedin, 2020). migration may not have such a clear positive effect on local households and their women in some cases. migration can be internal – moving to another city in the motherland, or international when a person leaves for a foreign country. international migration may improve women’s decisionmaking power; domestic migration may not affect it (de haas & van rooij, 2010). domestic migration allows men to have control over the household and women’s activities; since they have not moved too far from the family. there also exists some possibility of mental distress and severe uncertainty for women who remain in the household (jetley, 1987). the migration of men, in some probability, can stimulate the decisionmaking power of women in case they come from small families, but likewise, increase the burden of domestic responsibilities. a small family implies that few members can control women, like a mother/father-in-law. for example, in-laws can share housing and childcare responsibilities. women from large households may not experience any significant changes in living conditions, working and decision-making power (desai & banerji, 2008). viktoriya kan, boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 193 methodology this research wants to evaluate the existence and nature of the relationship between migration and women's employment and empowerment in nigeria. to narrow down the definition of employment, the research will focus on the entrepreneurship of women in nigeria. to accomplish the objectives of the research, i specify the respective hypotheses. the research attempts to test the following hypotheses: h1: women from migrant households engage in less housework than women from non-migrant ones in hours per week h2: women from migrant households engage more in private business than women from non-migrant households h3: women from migrant households have more power in deciding on expenditures than women from non-migrant families model and variables: definition the general econometric equation for these three models represents the theoretical concept behind the relationship between male labour migration and women employment: 𝑌𝑌𝑖𝑖ℎ = 𝛼𝛼0 + 𝛼𝛼1 ∗ 𝐼𝐼𝑖𝑖ℎ + 𝛼𝛼2 ∗ 𝐻𝐻𝑖𝑖 + 𝛼𝛼3 ∗ 𝐼𝐼𝑖𝑖ℎ + 𝛼𝛼4 ∗ 𝑈𝑈𝑖𝑖ℎ + 𝜀𝜀𝑖𝑖ℎ (1) yih is the variable of interest. it describes the employment and decisionmaking status of women i from household h. there are three variables used as yih to evaluate the employment and family position type of women in nigeria (see appendix 1 and 2). mih is the main explanatory ` and presents if a woman comes from a household, where at least one member has been abroad for employment and spent at least 6 months. 𝐻𝐻𝑖𝑖 is a vector of household characteristics. wih is a vector of individual characteristics of woman i. uih is a community-level factor, a place of residence. εih states for a residual term. the tests for the correctness of model specification and endogeneity are presented as well. model and variables: econometric identification and checks the developed equation and models will be addressed in two different econometric approaches. model 1 applies the dependent variable – 194 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 187-212) housework. since housework is a total sum of hours women spend on various domestic responsibilities, the variable is continuous. the continuous variables require the implementation of the ordinary least square method (acosta, 2011). the dependent variable of model 3 is binary, representing the degree of decision-making power of women. binary variables of interest should be addressed with logit regression (desai & banerji, 2008). model 2 is one of the first approaches to defining migration and entrepreneurship of women. there is still a lack of research on this topic, which could have further clarified the econometric approach. in the current study, model 2 will implement the logit method as model 3, since the dependent variable is also binary and the set of explanatory variables remains the same. the robustness is one of the main indicators of an appropriate econometric model. it informs about the stability of the model in predicting the studied relationship. the research will address probit regression as a robustness check (chib & greenberg, 1998). if variables are extracted correctly and the model is accurately specified, then probit findings will be similar to the results of logit. additionally, probit will serve as another econometric model itself for model 2 and model 3. the final step in modelling migration's impact on entrepreneurship and women's empowerment would be specific econometric tests. they should signal the correctness of the model, the presence of multicollinearity, and endogeneity. data and summary nghs 2018-2019 and research dataset nigerian general household survey 2018-2019, panel 4 is a component of the lsms program aimed at analysing the quality of living and socio-economic conditions of nigerian households. to conduct the nghs survey, the lsms executive group, with support from the nigerian bureau of statistics, has chosen 4976 representative households from 6 regional zones – 1,573 households from urban regions and 3,403 households from rural areas. the current research focuses on the relationship between migration and women entrepreneurship and empowerment. the dependent and explanatory variables represent women, household, and community levels. thus, individual characteristics, household rooster, working status, and migration dataset have been extracted from the initial nghs 2018 viktoriya kan, boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 195 2019. the datasets have been merged by key identification indicators, rather than appended; hence, the panel element should not deviate from the models. descriptive statistics table 1: summary statistics dependent variables all women womenheads womenspouses womenmember number of hours spent on housework per week mean 12.29 10.22 8.78 8.54 own business portion 45.04% 40.44% 48.37% 50.96% decide on expenses portion 10.33% 18.82% 9.96% 9.29% independent variables: migrant family portion 16.67% 12.95% 6.65% 11.29% remittance receiving portion 1.20% 6.08% 1.24% 1.23% age mean 36.75 56.40 38.15 26.86 primary education portion 12.69% 28.59% 21.95% 12.44% secondary education portion 23.00% 17.83% 26.02% 58.22% higher education portion 2.13% 2.69% 2.23% 5.30% region (urban) portion 30.57% 34.56% 27.38% 33.10% source: nghs 2018-2019 findings and analysis as mentioned in the methodology, the research focuses on 3 subcategories: entrepreneurship representing women employment, housework, and decision-making index stating for empowerment. the results will be discussed in the following order: 1) analyzing the findings on household responsibilities of women from migrant and non-migrant families; 2) explaining the outcomes of men’s migration and women entrepreneurship; 3) interpreting the results of the analysis on the decisionmaking power of women from migrant and non-migrant households. migration and the time spent on household chores by women since housework is denoted in the total number of hours spent on different daily chores, thus being continuous, model 1 applies ols as the regression estimate method. 196 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 187-212) appendix 3 shows the key findings from model 1 of migration and housework of women in nigeria. due to some missing values in the dataset, out of a total of 12,199 women, only 7,877 are eligible for the regression analysis. r-squared states that the implemented model and set of independent variables account for 0.5% of deviation in the number of hours spent on chores. the main independent variable of identifying women from migrant and non-migrant households supports the proponents of migration as a stimulator for women empowerment. model 1 satisfies the pre-experiment hypothesis 1 and corresponding findings from literature: migration degrades women's housework. women in nigeria from migrant households spend less time on household responsibilities than women from non-migrant families. women originating from migrant households spend 85% less time on housework than women from non-migrant houses. migration especially benefits women if they are the head of the household. women-heads have more than two times less housework than female heads of non-migrant families. if a woman is a spouse, men’s migration does not affect her house workload significantly. though, wives in migrant households still spend 17% less time doing chores than their peers from non-migrant families. the same effect migration has on other female members of the household. daughters, nieces, sisters, etc. from migrant households have 80% less time on housework. some other regressors show an expected discouraging effect on the domestic workload of women as well. receiving remittances negatively impacts the housework of women in nigeria. overall, receiving monetary and in-kind support from abroad allows women from migrant families to do almost three times fewer chores than women from non-migrant houses. women-heads prosper from remittance transfers the most. remittances reduce the hours women-heads spend on housework by four times. not least is the impact of remittances on the spouse of the house. wives devote almost four times less time to housework if they receive assistance from abroad. on the other hand, remittances do not significantly serve women if they are any other members of the household. age remains a significant factor in the domestic responsibilities of women in nigeria. the older a woman becomes, the more time she spends on housekeeping. generally, each additional year of age increases the number of hours doing housework by 3%. increasing age discourages domestic responsibilities only if a woman is the head of the household. though, the effect is insufficient. however, growing older puts an extra viktoriya kan, boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 197 housework burden on women-spouses, though insufficiently, by less than 1%. furthermore, age significantly increases the number of hours for housekeeping if a woman is some other member – not head or spouse. other female members of the family spend 3% more time on chores when growing in age. in contrast to previous research on women's employment and empowerment, education does not play a significant role in lifting the housework burden on women in nigeria. education has a definite negative impact on the number of hours spent on domestic responsibilities. on average, women with at least primary or secondary education spend 50% less time doing chores. the decrease is by 30% if the woman is the spouse of the head. the magnitude of this effect is even higher for women-heads and other female members of the family – more than 80% fall in hours of housekeeping. despite education's clear discouraging effect on women's housework burdens in nigeria, it is still insignificant. regional identity has a significant negative effect on the time women in nigeria devote to domestic responsibilities. urban women spend 87% less time on chores than rural women. further sufficient impact urban location has if women are spouses and other female relatives. urban wives and other members do chores 1.16 and 1.1 times less than their peers from rural areas. the only advantage rural women have is if they are the head of the household. in this case, rural women spend fewer hours on housework than urban female heads. migration and women entrepreneurship model 2 describes the relationship between migration and women entrepreneurship, and uses binary variable business to represent whether the participant owns any private business. with binary dependent variables, the preferable model would be logit. appendix 4 presents the results of estimating the association between migration and women entrepreneurship in nigeria. the number of observations in model 2 remains the same for all women samples and its other subsets as in the case of the housework model. r-squared describes that independent variables can imply 0.5% of the variation in women's business ownership. the main independent variable representing the entrepreneurship status of women in nigeria from migrant and non-migrant households supports the main idea of the research. migration encourages women entrepreneurship. 198 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 187-212) model 2 confirms the righteousness of hypothesis 2 and the author’s predictions: migration of men stimulates business ownership of women. women in nigeria from migrant families are more prompt to own and run private businesses than women from non-migrant households. migranthousehold women are 16% more likely to be entrepreneurs than women from non-migrant families. women-heads of migrant families are almost 11% more likely to own a business than their fellows from other households. at the same time, women-spouses are only 2% more probable to become a business person. however, while coefficients are relatively high, the effect of migration on the entrepreneurship of nigerian female heads and spouses remains insignificant. migration benefits women most significantly if they are some other household members – not head or spouse. other females from migrant families have a 38% higher chance of owning businesses than those from non-migrant families. remittances positively affect the private entrepreneurship of women in nigeria. for all women from migrant families, receiving monetary and inkind assistance from abroad helps operate their businesses. women receiving remittances are about 9% more likely to become entrepreneurs than women from non-migrant households. female household heads in nigeria prosper from remittance transfers in particular. remittances increase the probability of women-heads owning a business by almost 25%. on the other hand, remittances negatively impact the likelihood of entering the private sector if a woman is a spouse. spouses who receive monetary and in-kind support from migrant members are 15% less likely to own and run enterprises. the most noticeable impact of remittances is on females who are not heads and wives of the household. the coefficients measuring the effect of remittances are high enough but insignificant while estimating women entrepreneurship. age is negatively related to women entrepreneurship. the older woman becomes less likely to own any private business. each additional year of age reduces the likelihood of owning and running the business by 0.3%. growing older enhances the commitment of private business only if a woman is not the head nor the wife in the household. though, the effect is sufficient for women entrepreneurship only in general; and insignificant for women's diversified status. education has a mixed association with a tendency to own private businesses. in general, having at least a primary level of education increases viktoriya kan, boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 199 the likelihood of entering the private sector by almost 33%. the magnitude of the impact is even higher for women-spouses. they are 37% more likely to own their businesses. primary education has a notably keen impact if we look at women being heads of their households. primary-level educated women-heads have a 62.5% more chance of owning a business. secondary education shows the same positive effect on the entrepreneurship of women in nigeria. for women, in general, it is a positive 26% likelihood; 81% and 36% for women-heads and women-spouses respectively. however, none of the educational levels significantly impact other females in the household. what contradicts the initial hypothesis 2 is that higher education is negatively associated with women entrepreneurship. having a bachelor's, master's, or phd degree reduces the probability of running a business by 16% for women in general; by 50%, 22%, and 6.5% for female heads, spouses, and other female members, respectively. the location of the household significantly benefits women entrepreneurship. urban women have a 66% more chance to start up their businesses than rural ones do. at the same time, particularly female heads of the households and spouses are 65% and 59% more likely to own private businesses if they come from urban areas. the highest advantages have other female members of the household coming from urban regions. they have 79% more chances to be entrepreneurs. the probit model is implemented for an additional check of the estimation. since probit applies probabilities in estimating regression results, it should show similar accurate results (chib & greenberg, 1998). as the methodology explained, if probit findings correspond to logit results, then the model is used correctly. since the above tables show the same signs of coefficients and significance levels, thus probit agrees with logit, model 2 and variables are specified correctly (see appendix 5). migration and the decision-making power of women model 3 analyses the association between migration and women’s decision-making power from migrant and non-migrant households. model 3 applies the same number of observations as model 1 and model 2. binary dependent variable necessitates implementing logit model. appendix 6 shows the findings of model 3 estimating the relationship between migration and the decision-making power of women in nigeria. rsquared states that the implemented model and set of independent variables account for 0.5% of deviation in women’s bargaining power. the main 200 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 187-212) independent variable of identifying women from migrant and non-migrant households supports the opponents of migration as a driving force of women empowerment. model 3 does not uphold the pre-experiment hypothesis 3: men’s migration deteriorates women’s decision-making power. women in nigeria from migrant households have less power in deciding on household expenditures than women from non-migrant families. women from migrant households are almost 15% less likely to solely decide on the expenses than women from non-migrant houses. migration especially disrupts the bargaining position of women if they are the spouses in the household. the absence of men reduces their bargaining power by 31%. women-heads of migrant households also have less power over family expenditure decisions. the positive effect of migration is realised by other female household members. daughters, mothers, sisters, etc. of the head of migrant households are 17.8% more likely to participate in deciding income spending. however, migration insignificantly affects the decision-making power of women in nigeria. some other regressors also show the unexpected discouraging effect on women’s bargaining power. receiving remittances negatively impacts the decision-making of nigerian women from migrant households. overall, receiving monetary and in-kind support from abroad increases the likelihood of women from migrant families deciding on how to spend income by 1.6%. in contrast, when dividing the sample into status categories, remittances reduce the likelihood of women-heads, spouses, and other female members deciding on household expenditures. on the other hand, remittances do not significantly impact women's decision-making power. age remains a significant stimulating factor for the empowerment of women in nigeria. the older a woman becomes, the more chances she has to decide how to spend the household's wealth. generally, each additional year of age increases the number of hours doing housework by 1.13%. increasing age empowers a woman if she is the head of the household. though, the effect is insufficient. however, growing older deduces the decision-making power of women-spouses, though insufficiently, by less than 1%. other female members of the family also benefit from growing older. education plays a significant role in lifting the household bargaining power of women in nigeria. there is a definite positive impact of education on the chances of women to participate in deciding expenditures. on viktoriya kan, boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 201 average, women with primary education are 26% more likely to make decisions on family spending. the empowerment is 27% for women-heads, but the effect is insignificant. the sufficient increase in decision-making power is by 23% if the woman is a spouse of the head. there is no sufficient empowerment for other female members of the family due to being primaryeducated. women with at least a secondary level of education have an even higher likelihood of having a voice in deciding how to spend their income. it is 34% for women in general and 51% for wives. higher education remains insignificant in empowering women, though the effect is positive. for other female members of the family, all levels of education are negligible. regional identity is a significant factor in measuring the empowerment of women in nigeria. urban women have almost 36% more chances to decide on income spending than rural women. at the same time, urban female heads of the households are 37% more likely to allocate family wealth. the greatest impact that urban location has on other female members – mothers and sisters, for example. there is a 56% more probability they can decide on expenditures. the probit model, as an additional check of the estimation, shows the same signs of coefficients and significance levels (see appendix 7). probit supports the results of logit, model 3, and variables are specified correctly. discussion the findings of the research generally met the expectations the author had in the pre-experiment stage: migration lifts the housework burden on women in nigeria and encourages them to own private businesses. the same nature of impact has to receive remittances. additionally, urban identity benefits women in all models. on the other hand, some variables showed an unexpected effect on housework, entrepreneurship, and women’s bargaining power. first, none of the educational variables has a significant impact on the time women spend in housekeeping in model 1. one possible reason could be that nigeria is a relatively conservative country when it comes to household relations. women are still considered housekeepers and manage most of the domestic responsibilities. even for those who are educated, women remain the one who cooks, clean the house, and do other housework 202 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 187-212) chores. in a limited number of cases, highly-educated women spend less time on housework. however, on such a large scale of 7877, the importance of education may lose its value. the second impact is shown by the age variable in model 2. it states that a woman has less chance to own a business entity when she grows older. this effect may have resulted from the changes in household structure. when a woman is young, she may have enough time, strength, and motivation to realise herself as an entrepreneur. as time passes, she marries and eventually has children. she has to dedicate a lot of her time looking after her husband and kids as the family grows with time. it requires a lot more time when she has sons since boys do not share housework. when sons become adults and start earning money for the family, initially, women entrepreneurs may quit their businesses or transfer the ownership to their sons. finally, model 3 did not prove the righteousness of the respective hypothesis. the migration does not necessarily stimulate the decisionmaking power of women in nigeria. the effect is the opposite – women from migrant households have less power in deciding the usage of income compared to women from non-migrant families. this is an unexpected outcome of the research. though migration encourages women in nigeria to spend less time on domestic responsibilities and be entrepreneurs, there may still be some social obstacles to realising their potential. nigeria is a subsaharan african country with a high prevalence of gender inequality. even if a woman generates the income for the household, men and older members of the household have more voice in allocating the wealth. we can see that the highest negative coefficient is for women-spouses. conclusion there is still no clear implication whether the migration of men benefits women who reside in the household or burdens them. some experts state that women who remain in the household freely decide the allocation of their time on domestic tasks, social participation, and employment. in the absence of men, women de-facto take the lead role in household relations. at the same time, they may receive remittances and decide on using the same. others claim that the absence of men may harm women in many ways. women from migrant families take on the responsibilities of migrants, with less assistance from other household members, and a lack of viktoriya kan, boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 203 psychological support and security. the paper focuses on the relationship between migration and private entrepreneurship, and the empowerment of women in nigeria. the methodology specifies the position of women within the household: whether they are head of the family themselves, spouses, or any other female relatives. thus, this specification allows a more in-depth analysis of women living based on their status. migration discourages the housework of women; more importantly, it motivates them to become entrepreneurs and generally limits their decision-making power. future study when researching households and human development, mixed-method comes to great use. the quantitative method can numerically prove the existence and nature of a particular relationship. on the other hand, the qualitative approach may help answer questions about in-depth household relations and living standards. the current research implies only a quantitative analysis in estimating the impact of migration on women entrepreneurship and empowerment in nigeria. the scope of the study allowed the use of secondary data of nghs only. it supports two out of three pre-experiment hypotheses. migration eases the domestic responsibilities of sample women and encourages them to enter the private sector. future research could address the following questions: why is education insignificant in decreasing the amount of time that women in nigeria spend on housework? is it due to patriarchal relations within the family? why do women from migrant households experience a limit on their decision-making power after their men leave? do they feel 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"research: women score higher than men in most leadership skills." harvard business review, 206 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 187-212) june 25. https://hbr.org/2019/06/research-women-score-higher-than-men-inmost-leadership-skills# appendices appendix 1. variables and definitions definition model 1 housework the sum of hours per week woman spends on unpaid housework tasks: 𝛴𝛴(𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑖𝑖𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐; 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑒𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑖𝑖𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐; 𝑐𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑖𝑐𝑐𝑖𝑖𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑖𝑖𝑒𝑒; 𝑖𝑖𝑒𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑐𝑐𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑐𝑐𝑖𝑖; ℎ𝑐𝑐𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑖𝑖𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐) model 2 business 1 = woman owns private business 0 = woman does not own private business model 3 decisind 0 = woman cannot decide how much money to spend solely 1 = woman can decide on the usage of money independently independent variables: migrant 1 = woman is from migrant household 0 = woman is not from migrant household remitt 1 = received remittances in the past 12 months 0 = have not received remittances in the past 12 months age the age of woman edu1 1 = woman has primary level of education 0 = woman does not have primary level of education edu2 1 = woman has secondary level of education 0 = woman does not have secondary level of education edu3 1 = woman has higher level of education 0 = woman does not have higher level of education region 1 = woman belongs to urban household 0 = woman belongs to rural household https://hbr.org/2019/06/research-women-score-higher-than-men-in-most-leadership-skills https://hbr.org/2019/06/research-women-score-higher-than-men-in-most-leadership-skills viktoriya kan, boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 207 appendix 2. variables and expectations expectation model 1 housework total number of hours spent on cleaning, cooking, taking care of children, and other domestic responsibilities model 2 business private business ownership model 3 decisind power to decide on household expenses independent variables: migrant main explanatory variable in all three models. the research examines whether the employment and household position of women from migrant households differs from that of women who belong to non-migrant households. migrant is expected to have a negative effect on the number of hours spent on housekeeping, and positive on private entrepreneurship and decision-making power of women. remitt remittances include monetary and in-kind assistance from abroad. logically, if there is an additional source of income for the household, it should ease budget constraints. thus, receiving remittance may allow women to have more financial freedom. remittances are expected to alleviate the housekeeping responsibilities of women. at the same time, extra support may stimulate women to run businesses and participate in deciding family expenses. age the younger women, being daughters and daughters-in-law, may have more housework, and have a lower position within the household. as women get older, they tend to share chores with their daughters and have more rights in decision-making on dayto-day needs. i expect age to increase the amount of housework for women, while also discouraging business and stimulating decision-making power. edu1 theoretically, educated women have higher chances to get paid jobs, and become income-generators along with their husbands. it should negatively impact housework, and stimulate paid work. educated women have higher chances to be involved in the decision-making process of allocating household wealth. education should discourage housework, and enhance the entrepreneurship and decision-making power of women. edu2 edu3 208 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 187-212) region rural areas have more land for agriculture and livestock. thus, rural women may have more housework than women from urban households. households from rural areas may also have a quite conservative domestic regime, where both younger and older women follow the decisions of men. urban identity may have a discouraging effect on housework and stimulating one on entrepreneurship and decision-making rights of women. appendix 3. housework model 1 all women women-head womenspouse womenmember migrant family -0.849* -2.235* -0.178 -0.803 (0.496) (1.151) (0.811) (0.744) remittance receiving -2.945*** -4.039** -3.759** -0.846 (1.054) (1.619) (1.792) (2.152) age 0.0271*** -0.0128 0.00135 0.0318* (0.00925) (0.0285) (0.0168) (0.0166) primary education -0.512 -0.434 -0.581 -0.668 (0.388) (0.921) (0.508) (0.860) secondary education -0.550 -1.714 -0.227 -0.869 (0.361) (1.196) (0.502) (0.678) higher education -0.398 -2.440 0.473 -0.926 (0.828) (2.488) (1.374) (1.186) region -0.872*** 0.870 -1.158** -1.306** (0.318) (0.824) (0.467) (0.510) constant 8.592*** 11.67*** 9.281*** 8.855*** (0.453) (1.872) (0.699) (0.872) observations 7,877 1,004 4,269 2,604 r-squared 0.005 0.014 0.003 0.008 standard errors in parentheses *** p <0.01, ** p <0.05, * p <0.1 viktoriya kan, boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 209 appendix 4. business model 2 all women women-head womenspouse womenmember migrant family 0.156* 0.106 0.0209 0.379*** (0.0805) (0.198) (0.128) (0.127) remittance receiving 0.0888 0.248 -0.147 0.486 (0.172) (0.276) (0.283) (0.378) age -0.00298** -0.000477 -0.000155 0.00236 (0.00151) (0.00495) (0.00265) (0.00283) primary education 0.328*** 0.625*** 0.371*** 0.139 (0.0629) (0.157) (0.0797) (0.146) secondary education 0.286*** 0.809*** 0.358*** 0.105 (0.0585) (0.203) (0.0788) (0.116) higher education -0.264* -0.787 -0.531** -0.120 (0.135) (0.490) (0.222) (0.203) region 0.660*** 0.651*** 0.596*** 0.798*** (0.0519) (0.140) (0.0740) (0.0881) constant -0.335*** -0.939*** -0.385*** -0.406*** (0.0738) (0.326) (0.110) (0.149) observations 7,877 1,004 4,269 2,604 r-squared 0.005 0.014 0.003 0.008 standard errors in parentheses *** p <0.01, ** p <0.05, * p <0.1 210 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 187-212) appendix 5. business model 2 all women women-head womenspouse womenmember migrant family 0.0975* 0.0672 0.0136 0.237*** (0.0502) (0.122) (0.0795) (0.0792) remittance receiving 0.0546 0.156 -0.0926 0.302 (0.106) (0.168) (0.176) (0.233) age -0.00186** -0.000278 -9.11e-05 0.00147 (0.000939) (0.00305) (0.00165) (0.00176) primary education 0.205*** 0.385*** 0.231*** 0.0871 (0.0392) (0.0970) (0.0498) (0.0911) secondary education 0.179*** 0.501*** 0.224*** 0.0654 (0.0365) (0.126) (0.0492) (0.0719) higher education -0.163* -0.491* -0.330** -0.0730 (0.0839) (0.290) (0.137) (0.125) region 0.412*** 0.405*** 0.372*** 0.498*** (0.0322) (0.0868) (0.0460) (0.0545) constant -0.209*** -0.582*** -0.240*** -0.253*** (0.0459) (0.201) (0.0686) (0.0925) observations 7,877 1,004 4,269 2,604 r-squared 0.005 0.014 0.003 0.008 standard errors in parentheses *** p <0.01, ** p <0.05, * p <0.1 viktoriya kan, boidurjo rick mukhopadhyay 211 appendix 6. decision-making model 3 all women women-head womenspouse womenmember migrant family -0.148 -0.251 -0.317 0.178 (0.132) (0.261) (0.238) (0.207) remittance receiving 0.0158 -0.138 -0.120 -0.00914 (0.253) (0.349) (0.477) (0.619) age 0.0113*** 0.00222 -0.00320 0.00759 (0.00233) (0.00605) (0.00450) (0.00470) primary education 0.264*** 0.271 0.234* 0.254 (0.0995) (0.193) (0.136) (0.250) secondary education 0.343*** 0.282 0.511*** 0.185 (0.0951) (0.248) (0.125) (0.204) higher education 0.0193 -0.552 0.214 0.00398 (0.221) (0.641) (0.350) (0.345) region 0.357*** 0.372** 0.174 0.563*** (0.0780) (0.169) (0.116) (0.141) constant -2.818*** -1.809*** -2.323*** -2.861*** (0.123) (0.401) (0.187) (0.265) observations 7,877 1,004 4,269 2,604 r-squared 0.005 0.014 0.003 0.008 standard errors in parentheses *** p <0.01, ** p <0.05, * p <0.1 212 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 187-212) appendix 7. decision-making model 3 all women women-head womenspouse womenmember migrant family -0.0729 -0.142 -0.151 0.0893 (0.0677) (0.144) (0.116) (0.107) remittance receiving 0.0200 -0.0658 -0.0709 -0.0253 (0.134) (0.194) (0.244) (0.321) age 0.00578*** 0.00130 -0.00167 0.00394 (0.00122) (0.00343) (0.00224) (0.00243) primary education 0.135*** 0.155 0.116* 0.129 (0.0518) (0.109) (0.0689) (0.127) secondary education 0.175*** 0.155 0.263*** 0.0967 (0.0489) (0.142) (0.0649) (0.103) higher education 0.0104 -0.304 0.110 0.00146 (0.113) (0.337) (0.180) (0.176) region 0.187*** 0.213** 0.0919 0.288*** (0.0412) (0.0969) (0.0605) (0.0724) constant -1.598*** -1.082*** -1.343*** -1.620*** (0.0626) (0.227) (0.0931) (0.133) observations 7,877 1,004 4,269 2,604 r-squared 0.005 0.014 0.003 0.008 standard errors in parentheses *** p <0.01, ** p <0.05, * p <0.1 article history: received: february 6th, 2022 accepted: july 5th, 2022 doi: 10.28934/jwee22.12.pp154-169 original scientific paper 8bintegration of gender aspects into development of knowledge management system in the entrepreneurial organizations in serbia mirjana radović marković1 8f1 faculty of economics and engineering management, university business academy, novi sad, serbia zorana nikitović19 f2 faculty of business, economics and entrepreneurship, belgrade, serbia borko somborac20 f3 union “nikola tesla” university, faculty of management, sremski karlovci, serbia aleksandra penjišević2 1f4 union “nikola tesla” university, faculty of management, sremski karlovci, serbia slađana vujičić22 f5 faculty of business, economics and entrepreneurship, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t for entrepreneurial organizations to be able to successfully develop the business strategy, it is necessary to provide optimal resources for unhindered growth, internal coherence, stability of organizational culture, and competitiveness in the market. at the heart of these processes are employees, who directly influence 1 e-mail: mradovic@gmail.com 2 e-mail: zorana.nikitovic@vspep.edu.rs 3 e-mail: borko.somborac2009@gmail.com 4 e-mail: aleksandra_penjisevic@yahoo.com 5 corresponding author, e-mail: sladjana.konto@gmail.com m. radović marković, z. nikitović, b. somborac, a. penjišević, s.vujičić 155 organizational outcomes with their daily efforts, ability, and thinking. also, the improvement of business functions is necessary for the organization to be competitive with other organizations in the market. in this context, the effectiveness of knowledge management is one of the key aspects in ensuring the development of both individual and group performance. in today’s time of great challenges for entrepreneurs, managing the processes that provide knowledge to both employees and organizations can be a key aspect of business sustainability that is imperative in turbulent circumstances. the purpose of the study was to examine how organizational culture and gender aspects of employees should be put in the function of knowledge management system (kms). in line with this, this paper attempts to examine the extent to which the processes of improving the knowledge of employees from a gender perspective in entrepreneurial organizations in serbia are effectively managed. in order for women to realize a greater contribution in entrepreneurial organizations, it is imperative to stimulate the educational process by empowering both women and men to improve their well-being and participate actively in entrepreneurial organizations building. authors pointed out that when technology and organizational culture are coupled with educational assistance and training, however, adoption improves, and benefits are greater. finally, they concluded that statistical parameters explicitly show that there are no significant differences on any tested issue, between males and females. this means that their perspective is identical when it comes to the development and use of knowledge management in entrepreneurial organizations. key words: entrepreneurship, education, gender, knowledge management, organizational culture introduction imposing new economic and business patterns will create an entirely new set of consequences and decisions (radovic markovic et al., 2021). today's entrepreneurial organizations are focused on permanent changes in consumer expectations and market relations that lead them to transform into flexible business units, with an emphasis on achieving competitive advantage based on knowledge and continuity of improving human resource skills. for this reason, more and more organizations are focusing on identifying, training and retaining employees with "critical knowledge" (curcic & matejic, 2021). this type of business orientation affects the acceptance of broad frameworks at the global level, which determines the importance of the role of people as the most valuable resource and its primary impact on the growth and development of the organization. in order 156 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 154-169) to develop the potential and skills of employees, the organization should provide an environment that will support the generating and adequate use of knowledge to improve business processes, both inside and outside the organization (dreyer et al., 2021). in the modern world, with technological development, science and education (milojevic et al., 2021). this means developing, implementing, and handling a knowledge management system. the task of the modern education system should be to teach the listener to learn (endovitsky et al., 2021). today's expectations of the organization towards employees go in the direction of developing multi-functional abilities of human resources to more efficiently perform various types of complex tasks. for such realization, organizations need to establish an appropriate knowledge management model, which will provide a long-term continuum of necessary processes for establishing organizational development based exclusively on human resources competencies (lai et al., 2022). the process of competence development can be defined as the activity of systemic training of an individual to increase the adaptive capacity to perform various types of practical functions. business activities and learning are complementary functions that enable employees to expand their capacities within their daily tasks to achieve the planned goals even more efficiently in the future. active participation of employees in daily business activities is an important aspect in increasing commitment, motivation, and focus towards continuous learning and acquiring new knowledge. in order for the organization to operate successfully and make a profit, it is necessary to constantly control and maintain the career progress and satisfaction of employees, because its success is based on satisfied and advanced human resources (ilic, 2020). company staff is a unique competitive resource and source of profit in any organization (tsareva, 2021). within business units, some employees show a higher degree of affinity and potential for the acquisition of new knowledge compared to others, which organizations need to recognize and enable this group to develop to maximize individual and group capacity. for quality management of these processes, it is necessary that the organization is nominally committed to the development of a knowledge-based culture, and then to the establishment of knowledge management that will be able to support such aspirations (iyengar & montealegre, 2021). although training should be available to all employees, in practice this is often not possible due to limited resources that prevent the m. radović marković, z. nikitović, b. somborac, a. penjišević, s.vujičić 157 implementation of a collective education process. for this reason, the process of identifying employees with a high level of potential is a key aspect in further retaining the highest quality human resources and their long-term stay in the organization. the individual capacity of employees represents the level of ability and readiness of an individual to effectively adopt and apply new knowledge and continuously upgrade the necessary skills in the future. the development of individual performance further enables the total work result to be greater than the sum of individual results and by combining individual skills new organizational abilities are gained (fischer et al., 2022). such skills increase the employee's focus on the learning process and determine the individual as a resource in which there is a justification for investment, and the organization raises the market rating and increases the ability of effective business transformation. the practice has shown that these processes are never separate, but must be combined to achieve the best results, which means that there must be a proactive approach to the training process, both by the employee and the organization. employee development process management as an aspect of competitive advantage substantial empirical evidence can be found in the literature that indicates that learning outcomes come from the firm belief of employees that a certain type of knowledge can help them in their daily work and future activities (melwani, 2018). knowledge is considered one of the most important factors of economic development, and the goal of every country should be directed towards building a knowledge-based economy (dimitrijevic & mijailovic, 2021). however, without the support of the organization in the implementation of the educational process and the provision of adequate resources necessary for these activities, the effectiveness, purposefulness, and cost-effectiveness of investing in human resources are questioned. the success of an organization is connected to employees’ motivation and satisfaction (petkovic & rapajic, 2021). if the organization does not provide optimal conditions for quality knowledge transfer or if the identified needs for employee skills development are not seen as essential for organizational development, then there is little chance that positive outcomes will occur, both at the individual and organizational levels (somborac, penjišević & lazović, 2022). the 158 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 154-169) question that further deepens this topic is, should initiatives to improve knowledge comes from the employee himself or the organization? several authors claim that it is the responsibility of the organization to provide an educational environment for employees so that they can continuously develop their potential and contribute to the overall success of the organization (harrison, leitch & mcadam, 2020). in contrast, there is an opinion that it is the responsibility of the individual to use the resources already available, and that he or she should be the main initiator of the need for continuous development. to achieve a competitive advantage, the entrepreneur organization must establish an adequate level of planning, implementation, and evaluation of training and development programs for employees (tošovićstevanović & bogdanović, 2018). competitiveness is an indicator of the position that an analyzed entity occupies in a particular market, its ability to cope with direct or indirect competitors in the right way, but also a key source of creating opportunities for business improvement and long-term success (milanovic, nikitovic & garabinovic, 2020). competitive advantage can be defined as a unique position that a company develops in comparison to its competition (markovic, salamzadeh & vujicic,2019). systematic training planning is an essential prerequisite for obtaining the expected results after its completion. this means that it is necessary to perform quality monitoring of the complete working environment; identification of human resources to be trained and selection of methods and approaches to their development. in the training planning process, it is necessary to define the parameters expressed by the process formula as follows: need for training and development (n) = expected performance level (el) existing performance level (el) or n = el el today's activities of entrepreneurial organizations show shortcomings in the training and skills of employees, which can be one of the main causes of low results in the quality and efficiency of job delivery (miličković et al., 2021). in such circumstances, it is important to establish a knowledge management (cms) system, which will be tailored to organizational needs and capabilities. this is an important segment that organizations need to implement in the planned time intervals, and which will guarantee the m. radović marković, z. nikitović, b. somborac, a. penjišević, s.vujičić 159 development of skills and abilities of human resources by the needs of organizational growth. the impact of employee training on changing values and attitudes towards organizational processes an adequate level of commitment, motivation, competence, organizational behavior, etc. is the significant performance of business excellence that contributes to the growth of the organization, increased product quality, and market competitiveness (arz, 2017). an important role in this is played by educated human resources who, with their knowledge, manage to respond to all the requirements of the organization and the requirements in the external environment. the implementation and development of the continuous training process is a key value in achieving these goals. the training process can have different implications at the individual level regarding its purpose and goals. in essence, it should contribute to improving the quality of human resources for performing daily tasks, development of specific skills of employees and changes in attitudes, values, and behavior of employees in the direction of organizational needs. employees have a special attitude toward different types of business activities, which is one of the basic factors in creating forms and models of organizational behavior (lounsbury et al., 2019). in circumstances when employees express a negative attitude towards managers or executives, corporate goals, company products, and other aspects of business, there may be a reduced level of employee performance and delivery of services to the market. to eliminate such side effects, it is necessary to establish a clear knowledge management system and select an appropriate training model that will change the attitudes of employees to develop the organizational climate and change the behavior, as well as improve overall organizational performance. research method improvement, transformation, and reform is a systemic approach that should include the total resources that an organization has at its disposal, point out (ivanović & penjišević, 2019). in this regard, to review the opinions and attitudes of employees related to the quality of knowledge 160 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 154-169) management in entrepreneurial organizations in serbia, primary research was created, and the following research questions were defined: q1: to what extent does the organization effectively and systematically manage the knowledge of employees? q2: to what extent did the training influence the shaping of business attitudes and values of female and male employees in line with the organizational culture? q1: how and to what extent did the training affect the work performance? data were collected by survey method. the research sample is a sample with a deliberate approach of employees in entrepreneurial organizations on the territory of the republic of serbia. the research was conducted in the period from october 2021 to february 2022. the pilot study included 15 employees, while the final number was 92. open-ended questions where respondents had to write their opinion, will be treated qualitatively. closed-ended questions in the questionnaire from the point of view of measurement are of the scale, ordinal and nominal types. respondents rated attitudes and opinions on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 not at all, and 7 absolutely. to obtain answers to the research questions, measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode, q1-first quartile, q3third quartile), dispersion measures, symmetry measures, and correlation analysis were calculated. parametric techniques (independent-samples t test, one-way anova) were used to test the hypotheses. research results and analysis as previously noted, the total number of respondents was 92, of which 43 (46.7%) were female and 49 (53.3%) were male. the structure of the level of education is as follows: 11 (12.0%) respondents finished a high school, 33 (35.9%) a college, 43 (46.7%) with a university degree, and 5 (5.4%) with a master. the average work experience of employees is 9.88 years, the median is 9 years (i.e., 50% of employees have work experience of 9 years or less). when observing the length of work experience among gender, the average work experience of male respondents is 9.09 years with a median of 8 years, while the average work experience of female respondents is 10.79 years with a median of 9 years. work experience in relation to the level of education is given in figure 1. m. radović marković, z. nikitović, b. somborac, a. penjišević, s.vujičić 161 figure 1: work experience in relation to the level of education source: author's own calculation variable the training had a positive impact on shaping my business attitudes and values in line with the organizational culture has an average score of 4.76, median 5 (50% of respondents give a score of 5 or less), mode 5, skewness is 0.012 and can be said that variable has no asymmetry. the coefficient of variation is 25.38% (series data are homogeneous, and variability is relatively weak), q1 = 4 (25% gives a score of 4 or less), q3 = 6 (75% gives a score of 6 or less), iqr = 2. one-way anova explored the impact of education level on shaping business attitudes and values in line with organizational culture. regarding the level of education, 4 groups can be seen (group 1: high school, group 2: college, group 3: university degree, and group 4: master). no statistically significant difference was found p = 0.216 (> 0.05). subsequent comparisons using the tukey hds test indicate that there is no difference between individual groups either (all p_value (sig.) are greater than 0.05). table 1 shows that the highest average score for the question of the importance of training in forming and shaping business attitudes and values in an organizational culture given by respondents with a master's degree, with a minimum score of 5 and a median of 6, which practically means that 50% of employees with a master's degree gives a grade of 7. 162 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 154-169) table 1: descriptives of highest level of education of participants highest level of education of participants statistic std. error t he tr ai ni ng h ad a p os it iv e im pa ct o n sh ap in g m y bu si ne ss a tt it ud es a nd v al ue s in li ne w it h th e or ga ni za ti on al c ul tu re high school mean 5,00 ,270 median 5,00 variance ,800 std. deviation ,894 minimum 4 maximum 7 range 3 interquartile range 1 college mean 5,12 ,208 median 5,00 variance 1,422 std. deviation 1,193 minimum 3 maximum 7 range 4 interquartile range 2 university degree mean 4,88 ,180 median 5,00 variance 1,391 std. deviation 1,179 minimum 3 maximum 7 range 4 interquartile range 2 master mean 6,00 ,316 median 6,00 variance ,500 std. deviation ,707 minimum 5 maximum 7 range 2 interquartile range 1 source: authors, results of primary research m. radović marković, z. nikitović, b. somborac, a. penjišević, s.vujičić 163 figure 2: the training had a positive impact on shaping my business attitudes and values in line with the organizational culture source: authors, results of primary research variable the organization effectively and systematically manages the knowledge of employees has an average score of 4.54, median 5, mode 5, coefficient of variation 24.96% (variability is relatively weak), and skewness is -0.405 which indicates medium negative asymmetry, q1 = 4 (25% gives a grade of 4 or less), q3 = 5 (75% gives a grade of 5 or less), iqr = 1. one-way anova explored the impact of knowledge management by the organization. in relation to the level of education, 4 groups were identified (group 1: high school, group 2: college, group 3: university degree and group 4: master). no statistically significant difference was found p = 0.181 (> 0.05). subsequent comparisons using the tukey hds test indicate that there is no difference between individual groups either (all p_value (sig.) are greater than 0.05) the variable training and education are related to the job requirements (q13) has an average grade of 5.76, median 6 (50% of employees give a grade of 7), mode 6, skewness is -0.014 and it can be seen that the variable has no asymmetry and the coefficient of variation is 164 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 154-169) 14.76 % (variability is relatively weak), q1 = 5 (25% gives a grade of 5 or less), q3 = 6 (75% gives a grade of 6 or less), iqr = 1. figure 3: training of employees are related to the job requirements in relation to the level of education source: authors, primary research results one-way anova explored the impact of training and education on job requirements. regarding the level of education, 4 groups were identified (group 1: high school, group 2: college, group 3: university degree, and group 4: master). no statistically significant difference was found p = 0.074 (> 0.05). subsequent comparisons using the tukey hds test indicate that there is no difference between individual groups either (all p_value (sig.) are greater than 0.05). in table 2 can be seen that there are no significant linear relationships between the observed variables: the training had a positive impact on shaping my business attitudes and values in line with the organizational culture; the organization effectively and systematically manages the knowledge of employees and training and education are related to the job requirements. m. radović marković, z. nikitović, b. somborac, a. penjišević, s.vujičić 165 table 2: correlations mean std. deviation 1 2 3 the training had a positive impact on shaping my business attitudes and values in line with the organizational culture 5.04 1.148 the organization effectively and systematical manages the knowledge of employees 4.46 1.113 -.050 training and education are related to the job requirements 5.76 0.843 .079 .223* *. correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). source: authors, primary research results impact of training on shaping business attitudes and values between genders the independent-samples t test compares the results of examining the positive impact of training on shaping business attitudes and values in line with organizational culture for males and females. there was no significant difference in results between males (m = 5.04, sd = 1,172) and females (m = 5.05, sd = 1,133); t (90) = 0.024, p = 0.981 (both sides). the difference between the mean values of the variable by groups (mean difference = 0.006, 95% ci: -0.473 to 0.485) was very small (η2 = 0.004). the independent samples test compares the results of an organization’s knowledge management test between male and female respondents. there was no significant difference in results between males (m = 4.57, sd = 1,080) and females (m = 4.33, sd = 1,149); t (90) = 1,057, p = 0.293 (both sides). the difference between the mean values of the variable by groups (mean difference = -0.246, 95% ci: -0.708 to 0.216) was very small (conhen, 1988): 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 ( 1.057) 0.0123 ( 2) ( 1.057) (43 49 2) t t n n η − = = = + + − − + + − the independent-samples t test compared the results of the connection between training and job requirements in relation to the gender of the respondents. there was no significant difference in results between males (m = 5.73, sd = 0.908) and females (m = 5.79, sd = 0.773); t (90) = 166 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 154-169) 0.316, p = 0.753 (both sides). the difference between the mean values of the variable by groups (mean difference = -0.246, 95% ci: -0.708 to 0.216) was very small. discussion this research highlighted several key points, which entrepreneurs should see as guidelines, in further understanding the development of knowledge management practices. the training had a positive impact on shaping my business attitudes and values in line with the organizational culture has an average score of 4.76, median of 5 (50% of respondents give a score of 5 or less), which leaves significant room for improvement this aspect in the process of educating employees. entrepreneurs should understand that the training process is not exclusively the acquisition of new knowledge needed for everyday work. it is an opportunity for employees to share their experiences with other individuals in education, to understand the connection between their work and organizational results, but also to strengthen trust and belonging to the organization that enabled them to develop their capacities. the following tested variable the organization effectively and systematically manages the knowledge of employees has an average score of 4.54, median 5, mode 5, and a coefficient of variation of 24.96%. as in the previous case, the ambivalence of the respondents on this issue can be stated. this is a sign that employees do not recognize the organization's sufficient investment in systematic knowledge management processes. this can be one of the factors of slow organizational growth, but also the leaving of quality human resources to competing organizations where they will have more opportunities to develop their potential. and the last tested variable, training and education are related to the job requirements (q13) has an average grade of 5.76, median 6 (50% of employees give a grade of 7), mode 6, skewness is -0.014. although it can be said that this segment is relatively satisfactory, it still could not be characterized as completely successful. the positive side of this level of response is that there is a tendency of satisfaction when it comes to the connection between training and job requirements. it can be stated that nominally, entrepreneurial organizations establish a methodology of education that is related to the daily business activities of employees. however, in the long run, this cannot be fully valorized, unless, in addition m. radović marković, z. nikitović, b. somborac, a. penjišević, s.vujičić 167 to the educational nature, the training does not affect changes in other aspects of the organizational behavior of employees, such as motivation, satisfaction, and sense of belonging, self-actualization, promotion, etc. analysis of the impact of training on shaping business attitudes and values between genders showed that there are no statistically significant differences between them. however, these findings are very significant to see the potential perception and intention between women and men when it comes to knowledge management. conclusion considering the attitudes between the genders regarding the tested variables, can be concluded that statistical parameters explicitly show that there are no significant differences on any tested issue, between males and females. this means that their perspective is identical when it comes to the development and use of knowledge management in entrepreneurial organizations. such data may imply fewer gender differences in the availability of training and the possibility of developing the competencies that organizations provide to their employees without unfair or discriminatory practices. in addition, an important factor in this research is the examination of the correlation between the tested variables, which explicitly shows that there is no linear connection between these aspects. this implies crucial conclusions. the first is that there is no clear knowledge management system in entrepreneurial organizations in serbia and that the choice of education methodology is not closely related to the strategic guidelines that such a knowledge system should provide. in addition, education does not provide additional value for employees, except for the primary goal, which should be related to increasing the adaptive capacity of organizational citizen behavior of employees. although entrepreneurship in serbia, as well as globally, faces great challenges in terms of business survival, it must be understood that systematic investment in the development of employee skills, as well as their stronger connection with the organization in turbulent times, is one of the most important aspects which could mitigate the negative consequences of the current market circumstances. 168 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 154-169) references [1] arz, c. 2017. “mechanisms of organizational culture for fostering corporate 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[23] tsareva n. a. 2021. “employer brand and affective commitment of employees.’’ international review, 3-4: 137-142. article history: received: may 29th, 2022 accepted: july 2nd, 2022 https://scindeks.ceon.rs/journaldetails.aspx?issn=0352-3462 https://scindeks.ceon.rs/journaldetails.aspx?issn=0352-3462 https://www.library.ien.bg.ac.rs/index.php/jwee/issue/view/209 https://www.library.ien.bg.ac.rs/index.php/jwee/issue/view/209 https://scindeks.ceon.rs/journaldetails.aspx?issn=2217-9739 https://scindeks.ceon.rs/journaldetails.aspx?issn=2217-9739 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.12.pp131-166 jel: 120 original scientific paper 6bunderstanding gender approach to educational achievement: perceptions of outstanding female students of university in aceh, indonesia bahrun bahrun19 f1 universitas syiah kuala, department of early childhood teacher education, faculty of education and teacher training, banda aceh city, indonesia sanusi sanusi20 f2 universitas syiah kuala, department of pancasila and civic education, faculty of education and teacher training, banda aceh city, indonesia taat kurnita yeniningsih2 1f3 universitas syiah kuala, department of early childhood teacher education, faculty of education and teacher training, banda aceh city, indonesia abu bakar2 2f4 universitas syiah kuala, department of guidance and counseling, faculty of education and teacher training, banda aceh city, indonesia amiruddin hasan2 3f5 universitas syiah kuala, department of economic education, faculty of education and teacher training, banda aceh city, indonesia 1 coresponding author. e-mail: bahrun@unsyiah.ac.id 2 e-mail: sanusi_ppkn@unsyiah.ac.id 3 e-mail: taatkurnita@unsyiah.ac.id 4 e-mail: abubakar@unsyiah.ac.id 5 e-mail: amiruddin@unsyiah.ac.id 132 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) a b s t r a c t there is a known gender gap in higher education where female students have different learning outcomes at school and university levels. this review article begins by examining scientific facts supported by evidence from field studies and understanding the various factors in determining differences in learning outcomes of gender approaches in achieving higher education outcomes. for this reason, this study explores the perspective of a gender model approach to educational achievement in terms of the thoughts of outstanding students in several universities in aceh province through data analysis of the phenomenological approach to the interview data of 400 exceptional participants to hear their perceptions about their learning progress. with this semi-structured interview, we understand that differences in educational outcomes are related to gender differences in noncognitive traits of education, such as behavior, interests, motivation, personalization, consistency, and external support; however, causal interpretation of the interview evidence and literature review has concluded our research by determining which factors are most decisive for the female student achievement as a gender approach model. the implication of this study is that thought in solving policy approaches can help close this gender gap, and this finding shows how gender-based policies can close it. thus, these findings will be a meaningful input for developing studies for researchers, academic discussion, and policy-making to support female students' academic achievement in higher education institutions. in addition, the achievements obtained are expected to be a model for women to increase their capacity as social workers and entrepreneurs. key words: understanding, gender model, achievement, perception, outstanding, female students introduction measures implemented in education reform remain slow and inadequate for the education and training of young people. educational reform is one of the topics most often associated with youth problems. the inability to provide conditions that meet high educational standards can cost our country far more than just monetary investment. among other issues, the most common reason for young people leaving is the search for better education in another area or country that respects the gender gap more (ceha, 2021). female students can do better in school because they have higher role models and sincerity (amalba et al., 2017). female teachers in slovak b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 133 primary education reportedly outnumber male teachers by a ratio of 9 to 1 (loziak, 2021). eighty-six percent of teachers from schools to universities are women. so female students see that they can do well from a young age and give them goals and ambitions to help them succeed (oktan & çağanağa, 2015). in almost every subject, female students outperformed boys, especially in aceh. perhaps the same story also happened elsewhere. different conditions occur in india; women's representation is very poor in the education field. in the field of higher education, gender discrimination is rampant (basantia & devi, 2022). the growing gap between the performance of female and male students has many researchers worried about why and how this is happening (wahyuni & dahlia, 2020). despite varying educational outcomes by gender, female students typically have higher educational attainment and achievement. students from disadvantaged backgrounds suffer the most from these differences but are self-disciplined. to get good grades, many female students make themselves self-disciplined. female students are more likely than male students to record achievements, pay attention to instructors, and remember lessons more clearly. female students are more potential to spend long hours in class working on assignments and are less likely to be bored and frustrated (barndorff-nielsen, 2014). in addition, while the work of female students was praised for its appearance rather than its content, male students were more often disciplined and treated less gently than female students with their weak contradictions. teachers of "feminine" subjects such as language and art, on the other hand, spend more time interacting with female students. based on these differences, this study has tried to listen to the voices of female students who excel in universities in aceh province (fisette, 2013). many findings report persistent gender disparities in educational attainment, with female students outperforming all provinces in indonesia (de san román & goiricelaya, 2012). outstanding students have achieved learning outcomes in both academic and non-academic fields at university, so they should be proud. achievements in language skills also achieve superior marks in subjects such as math and science. the reason is that by becoming an outstanding student, the opportunity to have a bright future is tremendous. it is due to the ability to hone strength to bring out high creativity (wang et al., 2021). in aceh, the phenomenon of outstanding students is also discussed both in public spaces and at home. many factors cause the gap in academic achievement between genders (delaney & devereux, 2021), including internal factors, namely intelligence, attention, interest, talent, motive, maturity, and readiness so that it is easy to find 134 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) every year in national exams at almost all levels of education (hidayah et al., 2017). this study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of the educational achievements of female students in tertiary institutions, especially their achievements at the university level in aceh. this study seeks to respond to students' broader perceptions and perspectives about the gender gap in academic achievement among university students (netanda et al., 2019). the discussion of this study begins with the factors that cause discrimination at the level of academic culture and gender—understanding approach by examining the perceptions of students who excel in higher education and describing various obstacles to student academic progress (huffman et al., 2014). understanding the gender model of education, particularly at the tertiary level, is the first step in this critical discussion. strategies and actions to empower students in the higher education sector will emerge from it. there are three research questions: 1) what is the gender approach to student achievement in higher education? 2). what factors influence the progress of female students' achievement at universities? 3). what university-specific factors influence female student achievement progress? in order to arrive at this conclusion, qualitative data analysis was performed between 2021 and 2022 on the academic career pathways of 200 individuals who had achieved academic excellence at universities located around the province of aceh (sougou et al., 2022). gender in the context of education can be understood as a visible difference between male and female students when viewed from their physical behavior (danielsson, 2012, guo et al., 2018). gender comes from the latin "genus," which means type or trait. gender expression is also understood to characterize the roles of both sexes in all life contexts and expect men and women to a specific personal path. if gender is brought into the world of education and social personality, rules, culture, and selfmanagement, gender will produce differences between males and females. it is the basis of social strata, opportunities, and barriers. risman (2018) sees differences based on gender as having consequences on many levels, following the basic understanding of 'gender' as a social structure so that differences between men and women in education can be studied through structural and functional theories (baily & holmarsdottir, 2015). in general, gender functional analysis looks at the function of educational institutions and their positive contribution to maintaining the sustainability of the social domain system. adherents of this gender theory state that education is b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 135 training to increase individual human capital, namely the skills and abilities acquired by students; both men and women must be treated equally (vukmirović, 2019). for that matter, shaked et al. (2017) believe that schools have a duty and function to instill values that are useful for maintaining a gender balance system in the social aspects and environment. school is also a miniature representation of society that maintains the value and nature of the differences between the two types of people; male and female students (macnell et al., 2015). as we know, the norms that apply in acehnese society are also instilled in schools through the socialization of religious approaches and feminism (rinaldo, 2013). likewise, in traditional societies, women are positioned as "second people" in the relations between men and women. women are always required to look beautiful, soft, and smooth, while men are positioned as 'strong' creatures to protect women (bose, 2011). in certain societies, female students are not judged by their brains or intelligence but by their physical appearance and are valued more than brains or intelligence. however, some think both women and men have dual roles in society, especially in modern society (yazilitas et al., 2013). women often have a role in regulating reproduction, production, and society. the demand for gender equality is one of the human rights of human beings. the right to live honorably, free from fear, and make life choices is not only intended for men; women also have the same rights (fine, 2010). however, some people see this differently, where men are more focused on the production and social politics. therefore, not many women are entitled to rights following gender equality. so getting the highest education with high achievement will change the perspective on women. in other words, people assume that women only do household chores to serve the family (sharpless, 2013). the image and gender construction that is formed by the community are also socialized through the process of education and career life. some stereotypes that are detrimental to female students ultimately adorn the mindset of female students in the education process and the professional world (ertl et al., 2017). in choosing subjects, for example, female students do not excel in the appropriate field of study because they perceive it as a "heavy" field and belong to male students. on the other hand, female students prefer subjects that require "fineness," such as art and dance, hand skills, nursing, and language and literature, so these subjects are considered female subjects of choice (spacks, 2022). liberal feminism stems from the structural-functionalism paradigm developed by merton and parsons. this 136 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) school started to criticize a liberal political theory that upholds the values of autonomy, equality, moral values, and individual freedom but is also thought to treat female students differently. the basic assumptions of liberal feminism are freedom and equality rooted in rationality and the separation between the world and religion (bimer & alemeneh, 2018). the framework of liberal feminism in a universal context is undoubtedly relevant in the context of the muslim community in aceh, where they fight for equal opportunities and rights for every individual, including life opportunities and the right of female students to succeed in college with high academic achievements (lestari et al., 2022). ideally, female students in aceh must also be ready to compete in a world full of free cross-regional and continental competitions. part of this effort can be seen in women's development programs, namely by providing intervention programs to improve family living standards such as education, skills, and public policies, which can increase women's ability to be involved in the community development process (gelvin & green, 2014). in other words, the change to be achieved through education is the emancipation of women in all areas of life, such as equality in change, equality of skills, and opening up access to jobs that were previously only accessible to men. at this point, female students can develop themselves in the academic and public spheres by becoming more accomplished and more professional in their respective fields and men as equal partners (grljević et al., 2019, lachance-grzela & bouchard, 2010). many findings report persistent gender disparities in educational attainment, with female students outperforming all provinces in indonesia (de san román & goiricelaya, 2012). outstanding students have achieved learning outcomes in both academic and non-academic fields at university, so they should be proud. achievements in language skills also achieve superior marks in subjects such as math and science. the reason is that by becoming an outstanding student, the opportunity to have a bright future is tremendous. it is due to the ability to hone strength to bring out high creativity (wang, wang, wang, lau, zhang & li, 2021). in aceh, the phenomenon of outstanding female students is also discussed both in public spaces and at home. previous research has identified gender inequalities in academic success at the university level in numerous indonesian cities. all the data point to considerable inequalities in academic success between men and women. the academic achievement of women is higher than that of males. in the united states, women statistically get more b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 137 college and graduate degrees than men representing nearly half of the workforce (burgess, 2019). for additional debate, women outperform males in elementary, high school, diploma, and college levels. academic success is the same between males and girls in junior high school. the gender gaps in education occur due to the socialization process (internalization, externalization and objectivation), values of gender in the learning process so as to strengthen the gender-role identity of students and can have an impact on the achievement of education that is not optimal (handayani, 2018). in addition, this study is urgent to answer career challenges for female students entering the world of work and adapt. phenomenally, the study of the gender approach provides input for achieving achievements to become social capital in the world of work and building gender civilization and alignment with women in aceh, which is predominantly muslim, prioritizing respect for women. to discuss the above issue, we analyzed the results of interviews with around 10% of 400 female students from several well-known universities in aceh, both private and public (cardozo et al., 2022). the participants were female students with good grades representing very successful female students. on average, they come from various regions and are students who are proven to have high academic achievement and motivation. furthermore, this study report will first describe the results of a literature review on how gender is a social issue in education, where there are many factors behind the differences in academic achievement between female and male students (crisp et al., 2015). then we continue with the explanation. we then presented the results of the interviews, continued with a discussion of the findings, and ended with conclusions. the end of this report, of course, is equipped with implications for how female students achieve higher learning outcomes than male students. various arguments and factors make female students stronger than male students, as reported by multiple studies (gralewski & karwowski, 2013). materials and methods this study used the concept of descriptive analysis with qualitative and quantitative approaches. data from subject interviews were packaged in qualitative form. they clarified the relationship between the three analytical variables. a quantitative approach was used so that each variable used in 138 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) this study was interrelated to understand the gender approach from the higher education perspective in aceh province, indonesia. design and approach this paper presented the results of interviews with outstanding female students from some universities in aceh province. these outstanding female students represent high-performing individuals (turner iii & hagstromschmidt, 2022). the results of the interviews show the proportion of academic achievement that is filled by the opinions and thoughts of female students. their explanations were based on the achievements of female students at several universities. the data was from the collaborative network of universities in aceh with approximately 20 higher education institutions; this data presented a comparison of student gradations in the top rankings for achieving academic results determined by gpa scores. we analyzed the results of the interviews of female students, especially those who hold ranks 1 to 5 in each of the universities we used for data collection. the results of these interviews described the factors behind the differences in student learning outcomes, especially among female students (son et al., 2020). we focused on identifying various causes that support and do not support improving student learning outcomes. we explored this approach using a qualitative method in which we evaluated the experiences of female students on how they can become high achievers. our qualitative data analysis was based on semi-structured interviews following a theoretical approach from various qualitative studies. we believe that interviews with female students have provided an essential part of the gender model approach in higher education, where gender is an academic and social structure that provides certain factors for success (ceci et al., 2014). sample and participants we will conduct 20 semi-structured interview questions with highachieving female students in some private and public universities in the province. we will take the student year from senior students who have shown consistency in their careers and academic achievements, as well as those who have consistently been able to make their position as recipients of assistance and scholarships that are academic achievements (padilla-díaz, 2015). to recruit them, our outstanding students collaborated with academics, and those we interviewed recruited using the snowball b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 139 technique. of course, we will do the sampling method homogeneously, but considering the heterogeneity of the students, we interviewed both from campus and their gradations, etc. we consider this problem to be our way of solving the problem (khan, 2014). their participants are senior students, and we will interview those with an excellent academic reputation and abilities, not only academics but those who are active as campus intellectuals because there are also students who are academically high but less active while contributing their thoughts at the university, outside of academics. we recorded the results of the interviews with their approval so that we still respect their rights and use the camera as strategic data, including their identity (snelgrove, 2014). interview materials of course, by bringing a recorder to record all interviews and being flexible in developing their views on intellectual cases, including literary culture and learning and evaluation methods systems, all of these will be materials or factors that contribute to their success (alshenqeeti, 2014). student achievement and independent learning success in academics are not determined by academic factors but by personal characteristics and the student's family life. therefore, we will see how the perceptions of people who still act like obstacles in learning cause various solutions when faced with learning problems. we understand that academic life is also no less competitive than career life (king et al., 2018). statistical analyses the data obtained was validated by experts and analyzed for validity and reliability based on cronbach's alpha reliability and pearson validity. the ranking of the most influential variable factors was analyzed using the wilcoxon signed ranks with a probability limit of p<0.05 and a correlation value (r=1). 140 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) results table 1: demographics of the research sample. demographics of the research sample n percentage gender male 120 30% female 280 70% age (years) 18-25 350 87,5% 26-45 50 12,5% level study university semester vi 150 37,5% semester vii 160 40% semester viii 90 22,5% cluster university state university 7 35% private university 13 65% source: primary data the results section of this study describes the results of data analysis in the form of interview data with some female students; related to the gender approach to student achievement, factors that influence the progress of female students, and university-specific factors that influence female students. the data from the analysis is also supported by evidence from a similar study which backs up our findings on a gender perspective study and achievement of female students at several universities in aceh. table 1 describes the demographics of the study sample based on gender, age, years of study, and the university cluster where we obtained the data starting with a sample of male respondents who took part in the interview, namely 30%, and female students, namely 70%. furthermore, between the ages of 18 and 25, 87% of students took part in the interview. they were aged 26 to 45, 12% of those who participated in our vote. at the same time, the college level of respondents who study in the sixth semester is 37.5%. seventh-semester students 40%, and eighth-semester students 22.5% are willing to respond in group discussion forum interviews. all respondents represent seven state universities and thirteen private universities. b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 141 table 2: gender perspective on student's achievement study variable interview questions calibration (validity) expert 1 expert 2 the gender approach to student achievement 1. how do you prepare to do daily course assignments? 2. how do you deal with various challenging and piling-up assignments each semester? 3. how do you face the course expectations that are so challenging and in demand? 4. what do you do to get high marks on coursework? 5. how can you get high marks while having few supervisors? 0.7 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.7 0.8 factors influencing the progress of female students. 1. is your college environment comfortable and conducive to success? 2. are you serious about planning any action activities related to academic content? 3. how are short-term and long-term college plans prepared? 4. is there support from home and parental involvement? 5. what are the commitments in everyday life? 0.8 0.7 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.8 0.7 0.7 142 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) study variable interview questions calibration (validity) expert 1 expert 2 university-specific factors influencing female students. 1. how does the campus position support lectures? 2. do lecture facilities deliver material based on more than theory? 3. how about the reading room and library? does your campus have those facilities? 4. does your campus have facilities such as prayer rooms and cafes to support college needs? 5. does your university provide dormitories? 0.7 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.7 0.8 score 0.7: good, and a value of 0.8 is excellent. source: primary data table 2 describes the attainment of the scores of the respondents' interview questions in the context of the achievement of female students, which we divided into three categories; the gender approach to student achievement, factors that influence the progress of female students, and university-specific factors that influence female students. each type confirms the achievement of the quality score of the answers relevant to the excellence variable of female students. a value of 0.7 describes a good achievement, and a value of 0.8 is excellent according to the achievement of the results or achievements of female students according to the analysis of interviews with respondents. table 3: validity and reliability of the variable study variables study n pearson validity cronbach's alpha reliability gender approach to student achievement 400 0.73 0.81 factors influencing the progress of female students 400 0.89 0.82 university-specific factors influencing female student 400 0.91 0.95 source: primary data b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 143 table 4: wilcoxon signed ranks test of gender perspective on student's achievement variable evaluation rank n assumed of value p-value analyses gender approach to student achievement – (with) factors influencing the progress of female students positive rank 227 gender approach to student achievement < factors influencing the progress of female students p<0.05 (0.000) two hundred twentyseven respondents agreed that the gender approach influenced the achievement of female students in the academic environment. understanding gender as one of the achievements achieved by female students is highly dependent on carrying out the concept of gender properly. negative rank 151 gender approach to student achievement > factors influencing the progress of female students. as many as 151 respondents agreed that the gender approach did not entirely influence the achievements of female students. many of these subjects understood that their accomplishments were not completely due to the gender approach. other factors determine their success, such as the academic atmosphere and the uniformity of academic attitudes and actions. ties 22 gender approach to student achievement = factors influencing the progress of female students. as many as 22 respondents agreed that the achievement of female students was not related to the academic gender approach. it means that without a gender perspective, they also achieve exemplary achievements in their university environment. 144 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) variable evaluation rank n assumed of value p-value analyses total 400 note: the three assessment aspects show a significant difference (p <0.05), implying that in order to accomplish the goals set for female pupils, the gender approach is a strategy and a consideration for career development factors influencing the progress of female students – (with) universityspecific factors influencing female student positive rank 189 factors influencing the progress of female students < universityspecific factors influencing female student p>0.05 (0.423) as many as 189 respondents agreed that university involvement in implementing a gender approach was a determinant of the progress of female students' achievements. universities feel obliged and discipline the understanding of gender academically to improve student achievement. negative rank 199 factors influencing the progress of female students > universityspecific factors influencing female student a total of 199 respondents agreed that university involvement in implementing a gender approach did not fully determine the progress of female students' achievements. universities need to choose a gender approach to take action academically to increase student achievement. ties 12 factors influencing the progress of female students = universityspecific factors influencing female student as many as 12 respondents agreed that the university's involvement in implementing the gender approach had no relationship with the achievements of female students. it means that the gender approach is not related to academic achievement. total 400 note: the three aspects of the assessment showed no b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 145 variable evaluation rank n assumed of value p-value analyses significant difference (p>0.05), meaning that the university's involvement in implementing the gender approach did not fully influence the academic achievement of female students universityspecific factors influencing female student (with) gender approach to student achievement positive rank 172 universityspecific factors influencing female students. < gender approach to student achievement p>0.05 (0.517) a total of 172 respondents agreed that the university's involvement in implementing a gender approach was a determinant of the achievement of female students. it means that the academic gender approach is significantly related to academic achievement. negative rank 205 universityspecific factors influencing female student > gender approach to student achievement as many as 205 respondents agreed that the university's involvement in implementing a gender approach did not fully have a significant impact on changes in the achievement of female students. it means that the academic gender approach does not entirely determine student achievement. ties 23 universityspecific factors influencing female students. = gender approach to student achievement as many as 23 respondents agreed that universities' involvement in implementing a gender approach had nothing to do with changes in the achievement of female students. it means that the academic gender approach does not determine student achievement. 146 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) variable evaluation rank n assumed of value p-value analyses total 400 note: the three assessment aspects show no significant difference (p>0.05), but the university has a significant influence on the academic achievement of female students source: primary data table 3 reports the validity and reliability values of the research variables, and the three variables show that cronbach's alpha reliability value has strong validity. it means that the questions and matters obtained from the respondents have strong validity and are feasible to be continued in the analysis of the relationship between variables. table 4 reports the study of the variables most related to the application of academic gender to improve the performance of female students. the wilcoxon signed ranks analysis shows that the gender approach to student achievement has a tremendous influence on the factors that influence the progress of female students. it means that applying the concept of academic gender has a good effect on the academic achievement of female students. figure 1: understanding gender approach to educational achievement. correlation value 0.8-1 (strong correlation) and 0.5-0.79 (moderate). b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 147 figure 1 reported that understanding female students' achievement provides a reciprocal relationship to the university specific female student factor and the influence factor of the progress of female students. these two factors determine the influence of gender educational achievement. the excellent relationship between these three variables can determine female student achievement at the university level, society, and the world of work. the findings of this study as a whole explain the tendency of female students at our twenty universities to their voices through fgd interviews, revealing that female students performed better in courses. it is proven that female students are more thorough and organized than male students. for example, girls spend more time on their work, are more careful presenting it, and are better at meeting readiness. models of gender gaps in academic achievement vary widely by subject. as we can see from the data above, for female students, aceh far outperforms male students based on their confessions. it includes academic grades, awards, competitive results, and postgraduate experience. female students demonstrate academic achievement, involvement in campus organizations, contribution to the community, and resilience. female students perform better because they have more positive role models in college. there are about 60% of lecturers supporting female students. they see those female students can achieve high results, and that gives them goals and ambitions, which may make them want to do well in college. teachers may unknowingly reward female students who display traditional behaviors, such as poise and tidiness, that make life easier for students. according to respondents, female students are routinely given better grades in class than males of the same academic ability. regarding the specific factors of university support for the advancement of female students in aceh, several variables are consistent with student expressions. these are the quality of academic services at several universities that have faculties supported by the facilities offered, including several scholarships in aceh, the hospitality of the academy, the location of the campus, which is not so far away, as well as academic guidance and a lecture service system that makes for the rest of the women possible to have the desire to attend the lectures. the following is what they mentioned with library facilities both online and in person. assets and good universities are maintained to increase other lecture resources, then supported by insurance and health facilities, including transportation provided by the aceh government, which is free; then student dormitories 148 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) which are very comfortable then supported by academic services, which are now fully automated starting from registration, payment of tuition fees and an academy activity governance system for students. in addition, the average university already has accurate data, including the management of documents, announcement reports, and class schedules, which have been well prepared on average. every university is familiar with various scientific forums for discussion in person and online after the pandemic. the most supportive is the management and utilization of website-based and mobile technology which can be accessed free of charge to accelerate student services and offer various scholarships. the reasons for the above support factors have enabled female students in aceh to receive the best service. we studied the impact of excellent support and service at various universities on their success and achievement. figure 2: gender student activities in the university. left (drama club, photo credit by herman rn, usk, 2022 ), middle (english club, photo credit by kismulla, usk, 2022), and right (fundraising, photo credit by serambinews.com/saiful bahri, 2022) figure 2 (left) shows several university student drama clubs and extracurricular programs that complement lecture activities, especially before the pandemic. drama activities and other artistic activities, they said, helped to improve the quality and achievement of female students' motivation to better balance between college and similar extracurricular activities. additional events such as drama clubs are a forum for female and male students to develop various academic skills such as initiation and positive ideas towards creativity with activities relevant to educational goals and make their institution of study more alive. through this activity, they believe it is right to develop their potential and support the acceleration of academic achievement. b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 149 figure 2 (middle) shows that the english clubs held at several universities in aceh have encouraged improving foreign language skills and the development of campus activities that positively impact academic skills, especially foreign languages. through a series of extracurriculars, students have the goal of language development with very supportive campus facilities, where they will develop skills and improve foreign language skills through practice. what they do as an activity to develop foreign language skills is a part of what they believe: that practicing foreign language skills both in the classroom and in the english club is a part of the skill development and is also helpful in improving and achieving good results in other subjects due to the fact that english is the language that is mainly used in lectures and activities where there is much literature in english. apart from being a way to fulfill time with positive and fun things, this program has goals, various games, and increases college achievement. figure 2 (right) shows that students' fundraising activities in aceh have become an academic tradition. this activity invites people outside the campus and any parties to care about and help with university fundraising activities, usually to help victims of natural disasters and others. students, especially women, are highly motivated to do this fund racing, which is part of increasing student awareness and dedication to the community that needs help. this fundraising certainly impacts actualization and increases student achievement whereby caring and maintaining relations between the academic community and the outside community for awareness to do charity to help and get closer to the community. so, with this fundraising, students are practicing to become a party that can invite the wider community to provide sustenance and other things to help those who need assistance. discussion in this discussion section, the authors explain the data findings related to the increase in gender in college achievement of female students in aceh. in this section, we also discuss this finding, which later is supported by several results on similar themes but in other application contexts, through a discussion that seeks to explain the understanding of the gender approach in academic achievement in terms of the learning outcomes of acehnese female students. with these discussions, we understand that the achievement of learning outcomes for female students is closely related to various factors 150 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) inherent in acehnese female students pursuing academic careers. this finding has produced significant characteristics. a striking increase in learning comes from the achievement of male students' college results, which is also influenced by factors specific to each university where acehnese women are. we managed to interview 400 students with a system involving representatives; several of their achievements were expressed through several questions that were assigned to the group. generally, the gender approach to academic achievement has answered the study question. it is the result of the mass work of women related to all the hard work of carrying out assignments and then fulfilling lecture expectations with various challenges and obstacles. likewise, the various supporting factors impacting acehnese female students' academic success are the university environment, lecture content, and the multiple commitments they take seriously to excel. therefore, the unique factors that each university owns also have an impact on the academic achievement of acehnese female students, which include, for example, the support of faculties, learning materials that are relevant to course objectives, space, and campus support such as libraries, information technology facilities, the provision of scholarships and also dormitories. for a large number of acehnese students, it is, among other things, the results of interviews with several discussion groups during data collection. a. understanding of the female student's achievement our recent interviews with 400 female students from representatives of 20 universities in aceh province confirmed our assumption that a gender approach to understanding educational achievement had gained insight into the perceptions of female students who excel. we used a qualitative question-and-answer method to answer the study's hypotheses to explore the drives and motivations behind academic achievement. undeniably, girls perform very well, even in science-related subjects where boys are considered better (van der vleuten et al., 2016). the gender gap in female students' achievement of learning outcomes in higher education is no longer a mystery. review data from several previous findings supported by our interviews with 400 female students and a recent end-of-semester report at acehnese universities found that 71% of college graduates in aceh, female students completed their bachelor's degrees in 2021 with average grades. the average gpa is 3.80, compared to 61% of male graduates with a 3.30 gpa. the percentages were 71% and 61%, respectively, in 2021. in other words, female students have a higher graduation rate with higher b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 151 achievement than college as evidenced by a higher gpa than male students. these results raise a difficult question: is it as if higher education was established to encourage girls to study with high achievement and trap boys with intermediate results? (he et al., 2020). the academic achievement of female students based on our interviews is realistic. the results of motivation and enthusiasm for achieving learning goals with female students have proven to have answered our assumptions and scientific evidence from previous studies in the context of higher education outside the aceh province, and this is because outstanding female students do their best for their schools (barone & assirelli, 2020). it follows the expression in the interview, which proves that students' readiness has started since they were in school. they generally have the desire to be able to enter college and have realistic aspirations to continue teaching at a high level while continuing to excel. based on the admission in interviews, we found that most girls with good self-management tend to get high learning outcomes (wilson & kittleson, 2013). others said that the support of teachers and parents alike encouraged them to stay motivated and confident in the learning they were facing. the enthusiasm given by the teacher refers to disciplined behavior, such as being willing to carry out assignments and assessments on time and always being active in class, paying attention to assertiveness, listening and following teacher directions, and academic coordination (kretschmer et al., 2018). in interviews at other campuses, we also found that female students in aceh have seriousness in their academic duties stating their abilities could be higher. however, they are determined to succeed in social relationships (muluk et al., 2021). girls in some universities have demonstrated better self-management skills than most male students. for example, university colleagues responded to the interview by saying that "we study like playing (p. 01)", meaning that they enjoy no matter how difficult the task given by their lecturer is; they also said that "we can be calmer and more patient to do all difficult task" (p. 02). so, we see that girls' self-management and selfcontrol in terms of following instructions and what rules are in this university school makes them more focused and less confused (sage et al., 2017). likewise, teaching followed by evaluation with a learning system accustomed to solving problems through strong communication convinces us that female students are indeed ready when challenged and always are. they said, "we are very ready when challenged with hard work and hard situations in academic matters" (p.03). this is an example of good self152 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) regulation, especially in every rule and discipline applied to be carried out correctly and thoughtfully. in this free interview, we find that all academic success of female students starts from self-regulation; then, they stay motivated and tenacious, while boys cannot keep up with the achievement scores of female students. it is what female students said, "we are even willing to do more work and without being controlled in class and outside class" (p. 04). this is because the self-regulation assessed by female students is confidence (herndon & bembenutty, 2017). furthermore, female students benefit from this self-discipline during school and family education. one participant admitted that they outperformed male students in self-discipline in university learning activities. it significantly contributes to their higher grades across all majors. we found that female students were better at reading the instructions and exam rules before moving on to test-taking work (cohen, 2021). likewise, female students pay attention to the teacher instead of daydreaming, take homework seriously over playing online games or tv, and stick to heavy and long-term assignments despite boredom and stress. hence this skill is ordinary among female students. this cognitive expert also found that female students spent almost twice as long on their homework completing and starting it earlier than male students. even in mathematics and foreign languages, which have traditionally been the stronghold of male students, female students scored higher on average than male students in all subjects and non-academic activities (ayub et al., 2014). the learning factors of female students' academic achievement that we get through semi-structured interviews such as high self-discipline, as stated by participants (p. 05),, and self-awareness, as voiced by participants (p06), or seriousness in planning any activity actions related to academic content (p. p.07), set goals and set short-term and long-term plans (p.08), and keep trying even though sometimes it is challenging (p.09) despite frustration and failure at the beginning of the lecture. students' self-awareness is generally considered an adult's intelligence, not a habit for young students. when we interviewed female students, the entire college experience and students' personal lives played a significant role in most female students. the days are long gone when a female student could fail many assignments from the teacher throughout the semester but still get good grades by studying patiently and passing the major course exams. if we interview how to get high marks and about balancing with work outside of academics, female b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 153 students can complete them on time, marked by timely submission of assignments (p. 10). when referring to the opinion of psychologists, female students in college perform better in the environment than male students because they tend to focus more on learning through their study habits and assignments. generally, female students are more likely to plan academic goals to be achieved and are willing to work hard to achieve them, no matter how difficult it is (p. 12). they are also more motivated to assert themselves so that teachers feel the effort of their students and are more likely to get high marks than male students to feel intrinsically satisfied with the whole process of organizing college work. since interviews with university representatives in aceh, the overall experience of the university plays a more significant role in the power of academic success for female students compared to the position of male students in achieving learning outcomes. we ask, what do female students think about male students responding to college assignments? they answered that male students responded differently than female students (p. 13). participants added that male students focused more on learning performance rather than on self-defense and problem-solving motivation (p. 14). next, when we asked questions about competition and learning struggle, female students answered that female students use competitive instincts, they do not want to lose to male students even though they are dominating every day (p. 15). female students state: “when we study and take exams, we are apprehensive about not preparing well. however, for most male students, the exam was like a routine that did not make their hearts beat fast (p. 16). we female students believe that an excellent grade is the goal and a public display of excellence when we do well on every assignment and exam. on the other hand, we also asked female students' responses when there were many coursework assignments. they answered that the stress they experienced was mostly the ones female students could deal with naturally (p.18). with the condition that female students are calmer when doing assignments and exams, they can be sure that their performance on the evaluation will be acceptable so that a more accurate assessment of the actual abilities of female students can be made. the overall conclusion of all participants is that female students have productive abilities on the test. in contrast, male students are more anxious about the test. despite the weak nature of female students, they are very responsive and never give up when 154 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) they feel they are often supported in many academic cultures and social life, which of course, has an impact on the smoothness of lectures and educational achievement. in an environment where homework and organizational skills significantly affect their grades, it is easy for boys to feel alienated. however, small changes in education policy could give male students better opportunities. it is shown by what happened to one of the participants a few years ago when the lecturer realized that many female students who did well in the exams continued to get a+ every semester. on average, about 20% of female students at each study program level consistently receive a and b grades because they perform well on significant university subject area tests. it happens because the assessment culture in higher education is constantly updated and takes sides with the achievements of female students. likewise, administrators wisely provide female students with opportunities and improve the evaluation system to motivate female students to continue to excel by working hard on assignments and semester re-exams. a. factors influencing the progress of female students as we got in focus group discussion interviews with representatives of 20 universities in aceh, we can conclude that it is related to what factors have contributed to influencing the academic achievement of female students regardless of the elements provided by the university with all the conveniences and facilities; among other things, female students pay full attention to every communication both in the lecture hall and on other occasions with lecturers and supervisors. likewise, they are very good at time management, especially in submitting assignments for each subject. as revealed through the interviews, female students had more self-discipline and self-awareness, as stated by most interview participants. the majority of female students said they had more explicit college goals. then they were also challenged both in lectures and in everyday life. we also noted how female students got high scores because they could balance classes and other activities, which did not harm lectures. another exciting thing is the willingness of the mighty women to plan academic goals and what they will achieve through hard work, and it is okay with how difficult and challenging each subject is assigned by the course supervisor. furthermore, related to competitiveness in learning, female students answered that they were indeed more competitive by instinct, and most women were more active and concerned with learning routines. hence, they were the easiest to complete assignments and even end-of-semester exams. b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 155 judging from the acceptance of each project, women have patience and flexibility in preparing material for exams, which rarely happens to male students. in terms of the organization of learning skills, female students emphasized the routine of wanting to carry out more assignments, so many lecturers feel sympathy for the tenacity and patience seen from the almighty learning culture of female students in aceh. they said they pray a lot to get higher scores and achievements than most male students. these are, among others, some of the internal factors of female students in aceh in learning management so that they become academically successful participants. b. university-specific factors influence female students recognition of female students at several universities in aceh and academic factors include essential supports that outstanding female students generally recognize. with all the support, the college environment has helped students get what they need when at college (mersha et al., 2013). these include lecturers who help, lecture facilities such as internet access, and lecture rooms for face-to-face classes. the average in our campus is good because the campus is separated from the hustle and bustle of the city (p. 20). besides that, students also have language lab facilities and other subjects, which are relatively good, although not as good as most campuses outside aceh province (p. 21). as an islamic law area, students are also facilitated with prayer rooms with religious activities and practice pray. they are close to the library (p. 22). especially for students majoring in sports, they have sports facilities which are also open to non-sports students (p. 23). in addition, the kindness and help of the teaching staff have also made us confident to go to college, even though sometimes during heavy work assignments (p. 24). the auditorium is also our support for academic achievement event meetings. in the category of factors related to academics that we have identified above, it is evident that they have produced results for college achievement, significantly strengthening female students (dube & mlotshwa, 2018). the next success factor for acehnese female students is their recognition that the campus environment and teaching methods of lecturers have contributed to the ease for female students to learn more independently and responsibly. some female students believe that the capacities and abilities of the lecturers have contributed to their learning achievement (wibowo et al., 2020). for us, the essential thing from campus is the support of lecturers who help us achieve optimal study results (p. 25). some lecturers can master the audience well and interact in class so that students 156 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) get what they are looking for (p. 26). we believe this is an essential part of supporting outstanding female students. it is the way the lecturer motivates students to continue learning according to expectations. they said that the average lecturer in aceh has dedication and commitment to teaching supportively by targeted teaching methods, so this method has attracted students, especially women, to activate themselves with learning (kemal et al., 2019), especially now that teaching is supported by technological infrastructure with all educational innovations. the support of qualified lecturers motivates female students to be in school, especially after the tsunami, where activeness is not only in actual classes but in distance classes. the role of lecturers is very supportive of student achievement in each program and university's academic field. the lecturers we want are good ones and can create a pleasant lecture atmosphere to stimulate students' thinking and creativity to continue to be independent students who achieve maximum results (p. 27). boy students also have higher dropout rates. based on a random sample of schools, a swiss study (hadjar & lupatsch, 2010) showed that girls scored significantly higher in school than boys in music and language (german, french, and english). there are no gender differences in educational success in other subjects. boys have no advantage over girls. according to a luxembourg-based study (glock & klapproth, 2017), boys are more likely to be placed in the junior high school pathway than girls. however, this difference diminished when academic achievement was adjusted, indicating no gender difference in tracking decisions when boys and girls performed the same academically. however, school grades point to an orientation hole: girls usually do better than boys. the pisa (program for international student assessment) competency test in languages (organisation for economic co-operation development, 2013) shows that girls perform significantly better than boys. in many countries, women enroll in higher education foundations more considerably than men. however, men still have a higher transition rate than women or the proportion of eligible students starting higher education studies. "leaky lines" are still prevalent in academia, according to leemann et al. (2010): the majority of academic positions are held by women. however, a few women hold full professorships at the highest academic levels. gender differences in education can be explained in various ways, both theoretically and empirically. educational investment and academic b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 157 motivation explain the long-term situation of being under-represented and underdeveloped. according to human capital theory, sasso et al. (2020), investment in women's education will only be beneficial in 2020 if they can translate their education into employment, status, and income. from this point of view, the traditional pattern of women's low educational participation is mainly due to their greater involvement in household and child-rearing activities and lower employment opportunities. there is a strong correlation between changing gender stereotypes and increasing women's educational attainment and labor force participation—partly due to increased demand for service-related jobs. the modernization of life plans, in particular the diminishing social and economic significance of marriage and the increasing importance of women's participation in the workforce to earn a living, as well as institutional changes in the educational and social systems that make education more attractive to both men and women, has led to significant changes in prospects and plans of women's lives over the last few decades (breen et al., 2010). the increasing interest of women in education increases enrollment in high schools, and the increase in attendance at colleges and universities is mainly due to higher educational returns for women (griffith, 2010). as a result, it can be argued that the main factors contributing to the increased success of girls' education are the shift in girls' educational aspirations and the anticipated increase in opportunities for women in the labor market, particularly in public services (nilan et al., 2011). however, career and education choices continue to follow a consistent pattern. because of socialized gender stereotypes, men are more likely to choose careers with more authority, prestige, and status, perpetuating gender-based interests and life plans. according to erickson & stacey (2013), women are more likely than men to work as teachers, nurses, or in other service sectors. the characteristics of university students and issues of motivation, behavior, and attitudes have been the focus of several aspects of the academic debate surrounding successful female college students (erduran et al., 2020). female students are more likely to be upbeat, interested in college activities, and motivated by personalization. girls also score higher in terms of their subjective well-being in college. gender differences in behavior also influence educational success because good behavior will also affect how well students learn. most approaches emphasize various collegebased behavior patterns. girls' high academic achievement is linked to antisocial and incongruent behavior in student circles. the findings 158 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) demonstrated the gender differences in the behavior: girls were more likely to act casually, like not wanting to interrupt the class, being invisible, and engaging in violence. according to sullivan et al. (2014) female students were more adaptable. girls exhibit passive behavior and avoid violence more frequently in response to failure and frustration. it suggests that disruptive behavior that prevents girls from learning backward and is rarely punished by teachers is linked to educational success that is more satisfying. furthermore, girls possess what (hadjar et al., 2014) we refer to as "nerdy syndrome." it has been hypothesized that girls typically have a higher sense of obligation and are more willing to work hard. additionally, outside-of-college recreational activities are essential. on campus, female students are more interested in their spare time than male students. media consumption is frequently mentioned as a critical factor in girls' academic success. prince et al. (2020) say that girls spend more of their free time doing essential things than boys do, like playing video games and watching inappropriate movies on computers. female students may pay more attention due to their cognitive abilities, which are necessary for activities related to their coursework (shahzad et al., 2021). d. female student accomplishment as stated by the respondents, the achievement of acehnese female students' academic success is relevant to the three variables used in this study. the three variables are the gender approach to student achievement, factors influencing the progress of female students, and university-specific factors influencing female students. the three variables have synergy in achieving student achievement, especially academic achievement. the academic achievement of acehnese female students is one of the motivations and self-confidence of female students, such as institutional support such as exceptional academic advisor support, good orientation, adequate facilities, adequate instructor teaching skills, comfortable classrooms, positive lecture climate, partiality for women, and personal challenges such as good socialization, high interest, and self-confidence. in addition, female students accept responsibility, discipline, manage time, stay ahead, ask for help, not give up easily, communicate with instructors, have more lecture items, and support the family. all the factors above are the main things that affect the achievement of female students. results have shown that students with involved parents achieve higher grades, have better attendance, and have greater long-term aspirations. the academic achievement of female students is influenced by b. bahrun, s. sanusi, t. k. yeniningsih, a. bakar, a. hasan 159 the support of the facilities they get from the university, so it becomes a determining factor for students achieving academic achievement. academic achievement can refer to completing educational benchmarks such as a bachelor's degree, measured through ongoing exams or assessments. conclusion concluding the study, which aims to understand a gender approach to educational attainment in the perceptions of high-achieving female students, we would like to conclude that the results of this study have responded to the research question where a gender approach to student achievement in tertiary institutions is influenced by various factors that have influenced academic success as well as the aspect of university support with all programs and facilities. we have obtained scientific evidence from a study to gain an in-depth understanding of the gender approach to improving learning outcomes at the tertiary level through a series of questions and answers in a focus group discussion meeting with 400 female students from several state and private universities. the internal factors of acehnese female students include several issues that are internal to students, such as the habit of learning in a relaxed manner, doing all assignments with fun but seriously, being accustomed to learning, being full of expectations, and having the selfawareness to continue to participate in all academic and extracurricular activities. while the supporting factors which are typical of university support for the success of acehnese women's studies include the location of the campus, which is easily accessible to lecturers who have sufficient teaching experience, the support of adequate facilities, and the freedom of the academy to do learning activities to improve outcomes as well as the availability of scholarship support and dormitories, where some outside banda aceh students can live, these are a series of evidence from hearing the voices of acehnese women playing through focus group interviews, supported by scientific evidence from previous studies. it is hoped that these findings, especially when the variables of academic success, student internal factors, and the university's full support should become a reference that is useful in gender study activities both in the educational context and decision-making related to the gender approach at the higher education institution. 160 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 131-166) in addition to the advantages of the findings of this study, conditions with limitations and weaknesses can come from the study's design, the problem formulation, method design, and data analysis to the final report. we hope for constructive input and suggestions for future improvement of similar studies. finding of research most universities in aceh, indonesia, have implemented a gender approach academically to improve the academic achievement of female students. what is interesting from the findings of this research is that respondents from universities who do not apply gender principles have exemplary academic achievements and have an understanding of literary gender. it means that implementing the concept of educational gender 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"gendered study choice: a literature review. a review of theory and research into the unequal representation of male and female students in mathematics, science, and technology." educational research and evaluation, 19(6): 525-45. article history: received: january 17th, 2023 accepted: april 18th, 2023 14_jwe_1-2 notes from of editor-in-chief jwe journal is in its sixth year now, and during several years it has been referred to by the ministry of science, education and technological development of the republic of serbia. besides this, the journal is present in the dozen international journal bases like doaj, ecolit, copernikus, google scholar and others. during these years the journal has gained the reputation in the domestic and international circles, which is confirmed by the fact that it has already published more than one hundred scientific papers from more than thirty countries from all the continents. the first number of the jwe journal for 2014 is thematically divided into two parts: the first part comprises the practical examples and researches in the area of the female entrepreneurship, while the second part comprises different aspects of female entrepreneurship in africa. the following issue of the magazine will be thematic and it will refer to gender aspects of entrepreneurship in tourism. our guest editor will be prof. dr. zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal. therefore, i appeal to the potential authors, for the following issue, to send in the papers that deal with the mentioned topic. all papers should be sent to the e-mail of the magazine until 1. september 2014. all authors should follow the technical instructions for writing the papers. papers are subject to the blind peer review and the ones that do not meet the high standards of the jwe, will not be taken into consideration for publishing. we would like to express gratitude to all authors we cooperated with and the members of the editorial board for a successful and constructive cooperation. we would also like to invite the future authors and reviewers to contact us and to send in the papers in large numbers. in this way they will also become a part of the great network of scientists who are interested in gender aspects of entrepreneurship and education. they will also be able to suggest the topics of the future issues, exchange the useful information and send in their critical overviews. editor-in-chief acad. prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković doi: 10.28934/jwee21.12.pp164-173 jel: i29 case report 9btransformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school nining khurrotul aini22 f1 uluwiyah islamic institute mojokerto, faculty of tarbiyah, department of islamic education, mojokerto, east java, indonesia m. ridlwan nasir2 3f2 sunan ampel state islamic university surabaya, faculty of syariah and law, department of islamic, surabaya city, east java, indonesia masdar hilmy24 f3 sunan ampel state islamic university surabaya, faculty of social study, department of islamic education, surabaya city, east java, indonesia a b s t r a c t transformational leadership plays an important role in the sustainable development of islamic boarding schools. it has brought a positive and constructive influence on modern islamic boarding schools. this study aims to analyze, describe and discover in detail nyai's transformational leadership and its impact on roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school in mojokerto. use the descriptive characterization of the case study as a research method. data is collected through observations, in-depth interviews and documents. data analysis is done through data reduction process, data service and drawing conclusions. use credibility, transferability, reliability and confirmability to test the data to verify its validity. the results showed that nyai’s transformational leadership includes the effects of idealized internalization, that is, leaders have big ideas, innovations, 1 corresponding author: e-mai: niningkhurrotulaini@gmail.com 2 e-mail: m.ridlwannasir@gmail.com 3 e-mail: masdar.hilmy@gmail.com nining khurrotul aini, m. ridlwan nasir, masdar hilmy 165 beliefs, strong intentions, consistency, high commitment, integrity, an all-out attitude, and motivation internalization of sexual motivations (such as vision and imagination). tasks, transformation and maintenance, become role models, provide solutions, etc. the internalization of personal considerations includes enthusiastic attitudes, caring, self-realization, giving support, efforts in performance and growth, attention to needs and sharing experiences. last but not least, the internalization of intellectual stimulation. according to the results, it can be concluded that transformational leadership can be divided into three forms: psychological effects, social effects and cultural effects. key words: leadership, transformational, nyai introduction in today's modern era, many islamic boarding schools only impart knowledge about religious issues, while ignoring current developments (ibrahim, 2014). the curriculum is still using textual, which limited on the old book (yellow book), such as nahwu, sharaf, fiqh, tauhid, and others. the leadership in islamic boarding school is still adhere to the heredity and only favor the charisma. its management is still conservative, and even some boarding schools restrict its scope to external development (muis, 2020). this situation makes islamic boarding school left or ignored by public and had negative stigma on its low performance. this stigma appears because it is considered as uncapable in implementing good education process as expected. basically, the pattern of leadership in islamic boarding schools is judged from the perspective of social genetics (aedi, 2016). kyai pays special attention to his son becoming the future successor. if he has more than one son, the eldest son will be the successor, and the other sons will be trained to establish a new islamic boarding school or take over his in law’s islamic boarding school (legal islamic boarding school) since kyai is usually marry off his son/daughter with other kyai’s son/daughter. somewhile, he already prepared one of his students who is smart to marry his daughter and become his successor. hence it is seen that the leadership in islamic boarding school is a mere limited rights that dominated by men (dhofer, 2011). based on the javanese islamic boarding school tradition, the wife of kyai receive a title as “nyai”. structurally, nyai is seen as a secondary leadership after kyai, but in the context of education and culture, nyai has similar role as kyai (ambarwati & husna, 2016). 166 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 164-173) since the acceptance of female students (santri) in islamic boarding schools, people have increasingly felt the need for women's autonomous leadership in islamic boarding schools. in addition, the tradition of separation of men and women has also played an important role in choosing women as leaders. the irony is that although there are many important female roles that play a role in the management and leadership of islamic boarding schools, the opportunities for women to hold this position are small. however, in the development of islamic boarding schools, women have been given opportunities to lead boarding schools. nyai's external recognition demonstrated her wisdom and spirituality, and her ability to manage institutions, and she even had the opportunity to become the first person to manage a boarding school. women’s leadership style in education, especially in islamic boarding schools, is participatory and transformative (ambarwati & husna, 2016). nyai's communication and organizational style can strengthen the leadership and management of the boarding school itself. burns in luthans (2006) pointed out that transformational leadership is a process in which individuals participate with others and create a relationship that can enhance the moral and motivation of the leader or follower. this kind of leadership focuses on the needs of the followers and helps the followers achieve their best abilities. avolio et al. (1999) explained that there are four main component of transformational leadership, including; idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individual consideration, and intellectual stimulation. yulianti and sanjaya (2018) found that organizations that want to retain transformational leadership should choose leaders who can challenge their followers, without changing or breaking the organizational culture that has been good and effective in the past. the behavior of the leader should show emotion in the human aspect. this not only unleashes the maximum potential of the followers, but also increases the prosperity of the followers. indarti (2017) pointed out that transformational leadership is a kind of leadership that can make basic changes based on religious values, systems, and culture, and can realize the innovation and creativity of its followers to realize the established vision. transformational leadership has had a significant impact on islamic boarding schools. through transformational leadership, kyai/nyai tries to use various resources, such as its human resources, to achieve goals. this has provided constructive and positive effects for modern islamic boarding nining khurrotul aini, m. ridlwan nasir, masdar hilmy 167 schools. the roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school in mojokerto is a representative of the islamic boarding school that still survive under its leadership and management. this islamic boarding school is becoming a pioneer in gender equality. the phenomenon of collective leadership in terms of the division of tasks and power is treated as an attempt to fill a new position due to the increasingly specific and modern social requirements. another unique phenomenon is the gender change that can be seen in the role of nyai. nyai is able to apply the knowledge, experience and skills of her role in home life, as a wife and teacher to her children, and in public, as a leader, motivator, teacher, social controller and scholar of islam. therefore, this study has objective to analyse the transformational leadership of nyai and the effect of the leadership in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school. methodology this study uses a descriptive qualitative method and a case study method. descriptive qualitative is a method of describing and analyzing objective conditions based on certain facts (sugiyono, 2016). data collection is done through observation, in-depth interviews and recording of participants. data analysis is done using data reduction, data services and drawing conclusions. the validation test is checked by its credibility, transferability, reliability and confirmability. result and discussion transformational leadership of nyai can be classified in three forms, those are psychology effect, social effect and cultural effect. psychology effect a. improve work motivation nyai's transformational leadership frees the ego because of the importance of the followers. nyai has the ability to improve the motivation of officials, teachers and students. from all the running procedures and rules in the organization, it can be seen how great the motivation is. in the context of leadership, transformational leaders are required to have the ability to inspire everyone. in other words, the leader must be able to change the goals of the organization according to individual needs (robbins, 2001). supports given to 168 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 164-173) students can have a positive impact, such as motivation and selfconfidence that stimulate their interest, skills and abilities. b. enhance intention nad belief of all elements by implementing the intentions and beliefs of various plans in a structured and continuous manner within the organization, the rules that operate smoothly without obstacles, the process that runs consistently, and the intentions and beliefs that the learning process, either in formal school (madrasiyah) or boarding school (ma’hadiyah), works well can also be seen to this effect. c. stimulate the enthusiasm for continuous learning walumbwa et al. (2008) point out that transformational leaders should be able to persuade their followers to do their jobs, not for personal gain. this is in line with burns's statement, who claimed that the transformational leadership model emphasizes leaders to inspire the followers to be responsible for their tasks without expecting on something high. the impact on nyai's transformational leadership, can be seen such as; 1). more than 35% of teachers and education officials in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school have master degrees, 2). strengthen participation in certain activities, such as seminar, workshops, discussion groups and other, 3). conduct comparative studies with other institutions that are more professional in the program, 4). complete and refine the materials in the islamic boarding school library, and 5). participate in islamic competition. social impact social impact is an impact that relates with society. based on the data, it is found that social impact on transformational leadership of nyai was divided in two forms, such as: a. public trust is increased the findings showed that transformational leadership of nyai on public trust toward islamic boarding school is increased. as covey stated in his book entitled “the speed of trust: the one thing that changes everything” that there are five waves of trust (cited in sani (2018), including; 1) self-trust or belief in your own self. this means that leaders have a high degree of integrity and good will in leadership, good presentations and good past performance. this is commonly referred to as the reputation axis. nining khurrotul aini, m. ridlwan nasir, masdar hilmy 169 2) relationship trust. this is the availability of consistent and continuous organizational behavior. 3) the trust of stakeholders. every organization cannot protect but must guarantee the quality of its members by giving a high degree of trust. here, the working principle applies to the establishment of an organization. 4) use the principle of reputation, brand image and conclusive evidence to use market trust, that is, everything delivered has evidence. 5) social trust is that leaders should give back in the form of a dynamic and continuous community development process, so as to maintain the trust given by society. the role of an islamic leader in building the faith of society, including internally and externally, has great potential. in internal aspect, leaders can build social trust related to attempts to transfer and ensure high performance of human resources in islamic education. while in external aspect, leader pays attention to the hope of the society by building a good communication concerning on public service measurement. a smart leader cannot be guaranteed to have effective education organization because a leader, besides having knowledge and ability to lead, also demanded to behave as a role model for his followers. a. gender bias is fading nyai's transformational leadership in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school has opened up a new perspective for society, that the success of leadership does not depend on gender, but on the competition of knowledge and skills. in establishing an ideal world and society based on islamic terminology, men and women have similar responsibilities mainly in sociopolitics. the social impact of nyai's transformational leadership and the disappearance of gender prejudice also originated from the selection of women as organizers in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school. shihab also expanded its meaning to suggest or criticize the government (shihab, 1996). therefore, for the good and prosperity of society, muslims should give suggestions, criticisms and suggestions to the society in order to follow the development of society. b. strong cooperation and solidarity 170 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 164-173) nyai's transformational leadership is reflected in her attitude and behavior with a high degree of integrity, caring, enthusiasm and full of love. these actions affected the cooperation and solidarity within the islamic boarding school. a strong and solid team spirit has been established between students and teachers. munawir (1992) believes that leaders with comprehensive characteristics can do (silahturahmi) or brotherly bond or hospitality by observing the situation around. the policy she adopted is not only a top-down approach, but also a bottom-up rooted approach, thus it is establishing a strong teamwork and solidarity. cultural effect cultural effect is an effect that related with custom that has been exist or develop. according to kepmenpan no.25/kep/m.pan/04/2002, culture is derived from sanskrit language “budhayah” as a plural form of “budhi” which means sense or everything that related to mind, values, and mental attitude. based on the data, it is found that the cultural impact on transformational leadership of nyai can be classified into three forms, including: a. organizational culture quality and performance the influence of culture on the quality and performance of organizational culture can be seen from; 1). the opening of advanced classes in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school, 2). the total achievements obtained by teachers and students in academic or artistic competitions, 3). it has strong institutional flexibility in maintaining simplicity, sincerity, sacrifice, and other values, 4). obtained certification or accreditation in rank "a and b" from bans/m, and 5). the accountability and quality of education of all institutions affiliated to roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school. humphreys (2005) reinforces this, claiming that leaders with transformative leadership will continue to shift to better ways of organizing themselves. with these positive changes, workers can accept the tasks assigned by the leader at any time without feeling burdened, happy and satisfied, which can improve productivity and performance. the transformational leaders did stimulation to their followers to be more innovative and creative by asking for their arguments, drawing conclusion and implementing new approach on faced problems (bass & riggio, 2006). however, the efficiency of a nining khurrotul aini, m. ridlwan nasir, masdar hilmy 171 management organization system without cultural support affects ethics and motivation. b. authority in decision making one of the cultural influences on transformational leadership is authority in decentralized decision-making. bennis and nanus (1985) proposed that in its implementation, leaders should manage five main issues, those are: attention, communication, belief, respect, and risk. the form of non-centralized decision-making is: 1) each principal has the authority to manage the institution that become his responsibility; 2) the agency already has a plan that each principals can import it into the institution working program, such as main development plan, strategic plan and operation plan, and 3) the person in charge of the institution has the right to plan, organize, guide and observe all resources for performing certain activities (such as education, learning, and social religion). supported by bass, who said that transformational leader is a person who has personal and common self-confidence, has awareness and interest in groups or organizations, and mobilizes the attention of subordinates to achieve and develop survival. c. transformation on the management nyai's leadership has brought a larger-scale management change from traditional to modern. this happens because nyai believes that she is the agent of change who has the courage and trust in people. she also believes that she has the ability to face complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty. tichy and devanna cited in luthans (2006) stated that transformational leaders have characteristics such as courage, trust in others, good learners, and visionaries. transformational leaders also able to identify themselves as a promoter of change and value drivers, and have ability to face complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty. kuswaeri (2016) also supports this point. he claimed that leaders who successfully implement transformational leadership have the following characteristics, such as: as the agents of change, courageous and fearless, able to face complex and uncertain situations, and full of vision for the future. 172 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 164-173) conclusion from the result, it can be concluded that nyai's transformative leadership, with her high integrity, makes her a role model with great affection to participate in every occasion, a warm and protecting person, and has an impact on strong solidarity and teamwork in the life of the islamic school boarding. nyai's transformational leadership has also changed the management style from traditional to modern, which has undergone major changes. nyai's transformational leadership has produced three kinds of influence, namely psychological influence, social influence and cultural influence. psychological influences affect students’ motivation and intentions, while social influences affect social beliefs and boarding school life. last but not least, cultural influences affect customs, organizational culture, and organizational authority of leaders. references [1] aedi, n. 2016. leadership succession in pesantren. jurnal pendidikan islam. https://doi.org/10.15575/jpi.v1i2.674 [2] ambarwati, & husna, a. 2016. manajemen pesantren responsif gender : studi analisis di kepemimpinan nyai pesantren di kabupaten pati. palastren jurnal studi gender. [3] avolio, b. j., bass, b. m., & jung, d. i. 1999. re-examining the components of transformational and transactional leadership using the multifactor leadership. journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 72(4), 441–462. https://doi.org/10.1348/096317999166789 [4] bass, b. m., & riggio, r. e. 2006. transformational leadership (second edi). lawrence erlbaum associates publishers. [5] bennis, w., & nanus, b. 1985. leaders: the strategies for taking charge. harper and row. [6] dhofer, z. 2011. tradisi pesantren: studi pandangan hidup kiai dan visinya mengenai masa depan indonesia. (jakarta: lp3es). [7] humphreys, j. h. 2005. contextual implications for transformational and servant leadership. management decision, 43(10), 1410–1431. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251740510634949 [8] ibrahim, r. 2014. eksistensi pesantren salaf di tengah arus pendidikan modern. analisa. https://doi.org/10.18784/analisa.v21i02.19 [9] indarti, l. 2017. dimensi-dimensi kepemimpinan transformatif pendidikan islam. ta’allum: jurnal pendidikan islam. https://doi.org/10.21274/taalum.2017.5.1.21-36 [10] kuswaeri, i. 2016. kepemimpinan transformasional kepala sekolah. nining khurrotul aini, m. ridlwan nasir, masdar hilmy 173 jurnal tarbawi, 2(2), 10. [11] luthans, f. 2006. perilaku organisasi, edisi sepuluh. pt. andi: yogyakarta. [12] muis, a. 2020. penguatan manajemen dan kepemimpinan pesantren dalam mewujudkan lembaga pendidikan alternatif ideal. jieman: journal of islamic educational management, 1(3). [13] munawir, i. 1992. asas asas kepemimpinan islam. usaha nasional. [14] robbins, s. p. 2001. perilaku organisasi : konsep, kontroversi dan aplikasi. in prenhallindo. [15] sani, m. 2018. strategi membangun kepercayaan masyarakat pada pendidikan dasar islam. tarbiya islamia : jurnal pendidikan dan keislaman, 7(1), 49. https://doi.org/10.36815/tarbiya.v7i1.159 [16] shihab, m. q. 1996. wawasan al-qur’an tafsir maudhu’i atas pelbagai persoalan umat. wawasan al-qur’an tafsir maudhu’i atas pelbagai persoalan umat. [17] sugiyono. 2016. metode penelitian dan pengembangan (research and development/r&d). in bandung: alfabeta. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2010.11.005 [18] walumbwa, f. o., avolio, b. j., & zhu, w. 2008. how transformational leadeship weaves its influence on individual job performance: the role of identification and efficacy beliefs. personnel psychology, 61(4), 793–825. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2008.00131.x [19] yulianti, p., & sanjaya, r. 2018. transformational leadership style, team performance and team job satisfaction: mediation by levels of cognitive trust and collective efficacy. proceedings of the 2nd global conference on business, management and entrepreneurship. article history: received: april 13rd, 2021 accepted: june 2nd, 2021 "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references doi: 10.28934/jwee23.12.pp51-71 jel: j21, j24, j81 original scientific paper 2bdigital competences as a precondition for an inclusive digital economy is there a gender gap among persons with disabilities in serbia? milena lazić3 f1 valentina vukmirović4 f2 jelena banović5 f3 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia vladimir simović6f4 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia australian university, kuwait mihailo paunović7f5 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t digital labor platforms provide lower-barrier access to employment and income generation, having a great potential to create almost equal opportunities for persons with different forms of disabilities to engage in the labor market while contributing to their inclusive employment. moreover, working from remote locations allows persons with disabilities to work from home, adjust the volume and pace of the work to their specific needs, create flexible work models, and apply adapted technologies for different forms of disabilities. however, to be able to 1 e-mail: milena.lazic@ien.bg.ac.rs 2 e-mail: valentina.vukmirovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 3 corresponding author, e-mail: jelena.banovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 4 e-mail: vladimir.simovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 5 e-mail: mihailo.paunovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 52 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 51-71) provide adequate services to their distant employers or start an entrepreneurial venture, remote workers must possess a sufficient level of digital competencies, skills and knowledge. accordingly, the paper seeks to investigate the perceived level of digital competencies of persons with disabilities in serbia, focusing on gender-related issues. the results obtained are intended to serve as a starting point in identifying the gap between the perceived competencies and competencies required for starting an entrepreneurial venture or finding a job through freelance platforms. the paper's main contribution reflects the fact that the digital competencies of persons with disabilities in serbia in the context of their selfemployment are a topic insufficiently explored in the literature. key words: digital labor platforms, digital entrepreneurship, digital competencies, inclusive digital economy, persons with disabilities introduction the nature of employment arrangements is in flux (gigeconomydata.org). digital technologies and globalization alter the rules of the game in the labor market (chinoracky & čorejova, 2019) by putting pressure on employers to respond quickly to perpetual market changes. one of the most prominent transformations in that regard is, by no doubt, the emergence of the gig or platform economy and digital labor platforms as one of its critical components (ilo, 2018). the expansion of digital labor platforms such as freelancer, upwork, fiverr, etc., and the tendency of contemporary businesses to outsource some parts of their business operations to remote workers, create significant employment opportunities for interested individuals worldwide (lazić et al., 2021). the covid-19 pandemic accelerated the trend by making remote work a dominant way of performing business in "the world's largest work-from-home experiment" (banjo et al. 2020), which is, according to some authors (marsh et al., 2022), a change that will not be reversed. while digital labor platforms are a product of digital transformation, globalization and technological progress, engagement on these platforms resembles many long-term employment arrangements with digital technologies as a medium of interaction (ilo, 2018). nevertheless, to be able to provide adequate services to their distant employers, remote workers must possess the necessary infrastructure (internet access and a computer) and a sufficient level of digital competencies, skills and knowledge (ivanović et al., 2021, radonić et al., 2021, simović & domazet, 2021). m. lazić, v. vukmirović, j. banović, v. simović, m. paunović 53 along with the virtual labor market, digital technologies and globalization created a huge potential in the area of digital entrepreneurship (shamaki et al., 2022). as per startup genome (startup genome, 2022), the global digital startup economy generated 3.8 trillion usd in revenues in 2021. a digital startup requires technical infrastructure (computers, servers, internet access), financial resources (owned or borrowed), and digital competencies necessary to design and develop a digital business (simović et al., 2022). one of the clear advantages of remote work and digital entrepreneurship is their potential to provide almost equal opportunities for persons without and with different forms of disabilities (physical, sensor and/or intellectual) to engage in the labor market, contributing in that way to their inclusive employment. working from remote locations allows persons with disabilities to work from home, adjust the volume and pace of the work to their specific needs, create flexible work models, and apply adapted technologies for different forms of disabilities. moreover, europe and us data imply that persons with disabilities are more likely to be self-employed than persons without disabilities (kitching, 2014). following the contemporary trends in the labor market, the need to make the digital economy inclusive for persons with disabilities was recognized in a report co-published by the global business and disability network, which operates under the international labor organization, and the once foundation from spain (ilo & fundación once, 2021). the report emphasized the importance of developing digital competencies among persons with disabilities as an intermediary that has the potential to provide them with direct access to employers and flexible work engagements through digital labor platforms. in addition, burstrom et al. (2000) implied that countries with a higher level of flexibility in the labor market create more employment opportunities for persons with disabilities, while according to masiero (2021), digital labor is a carrier of economic opportunities for disadvantaged and marginalized individuals. given the context, the paper seeks to examine the concept of selfemployment through digital technologies among persons with disabilities by (1) assessing the perceived level of general digital and digital entrepreneurial competencies of persons with disabilities in serbia and their awareness of the potential of the freelance platforms; and (2) establishing whether there are any gender-related differences in that regard. results obtained in this paper are intended to serve as a starting point in identifying 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 51-71) the gap between the possessed and competencies required for starting an entrepreneurial venture or finding a job using freelance platforms. the paper is organized as follows. after the introductory remarks, section 2 introduces the theoretical framework aimed at providing a deeper understanding of the research problem. section 3 explains the research methodology and design, while section 4 provides a sample description. results and discussion are presented in section 5. section 6 concludes the paper and provides policy recommendations and recommendations for future research in the field. theoretical background as per official statistics (world bank, 2022), persons with disabilities represent 15.0% of the global population and, consequently, the world's largest minority. in the eu, it is estimated that around 87 million persons face some form of disability (european commission, 2021), of which only 50.8% are employed (compared to the employment rate of 75.0% of the population without disabilities). in serbia, that number is estimated to be around 700,000 (mamula nikolić et al., 2019), while the employment rate of persons with disabilities is estimated at 13.0%, compared to the 42.5% employment rate in the total population. the share of women in the total population of persons with disabilities in serbia is substantially higher than men (58.2% compared to 41.8%) (marković, 2014). moreover, as a consequence of their access to education, justice, economic opportunities, social relations, political participation, and the opportunities of gaining control over their own lives, women with disabilities are in a worse position compared to men and women without disabilities, as well as men with disabilities (krstić & beker, 2017). in addition to the employment divide, persons with disabilities face difficulties in accessing and using digital technologies due to their unfavorable socio-economic status, which severely negatively impacts their online economic inclusion. according to the united nations (un) report on disability and development (2019), the digital divide between persons with and without disabilities on the global level reaches 30.0% for internet use, as many technologies remain unaffordable and unavailable for persons with disabilities. kadijevich et al. (2020) provide information on the digital divide between persons with and without disabilities in serbia. the digital divide was noticed in mobile phones, computers, the internet and e m. lazić, v. vukmirović, j. banović, v. simović, m. paunović 55 government use. besides the divide related to basic access to digital technologies or the "first-level" digital divide, kim and hwang (2018) argue about the "second-level" digital divide. the authors state that attention should also be paid to the "type or level of digital use" as it impacts persons with disabilities' chances of using digital technologies to lend employment and increase personal income. promoting inclusive economic growth, which would empower persons with disabilities to have full access to the job market, is particularly emphasized in the un's 2030 agenda for sustainable development (un.org) and european pillar of social rights (ec.europa.eu). literature suggests that high and tenacious unemployment rates among persons with disabilities stem from workplace bias (pinilla-roncario, gallardo, 2022), employers' concern about interviewing persons with disabilities (huang, chen, 2015), challenges in utilizing public transportation while commuting to the office spaces (ilo, oecd, 2018), or the discomfort in revealing their disability status (zyskowski et al., 2015). therefore, working from remote locations using digital technologies is commonly perceived as an alternative to working in office premises and a chance for persons with disabilities to gain employment and generate income. due to limited mobility, persons with temporary or permanent physical disabilities find the chance to work from home as an advantage. likewise, persons with limitations in cognitive functioning perceive the absence of social interaction in work-from-home arrangements as a relief, as they feel that their limited social skills would negatively impact their chances of completing work tasks (ilo, 2018). despite scarce evidence regarding persons with disabilities' involvement in work practices through digital technologies, studies (ilo & fundacion once, 2021; zyskowski et al., 2015) reveal the benefits of platform work for this population segment. these include overcoming workplace discrimination due to disability status, the chance of setting flexible work schedules, a greater supply of jobs due to the global geographical scope of digital platforms and the possibility of using personal adaptive technologies. moreover, digital labor platforms' potential for employment opportunities is related to their fast-paced growth. for instance, ilo data shows that since 2010, the number of digital platforms has quintupled (ilo.org). accordingly, the opportunities for platform work in serbia are growing. based on year-over-year online freelancer revenue growth, serbia ranked among the top 10 countries in the world in 2019 (payoneer.com). likewise, based on oxford online labor index 2020, 56 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 51-71) serbia made it to the top 15 countries in the world with 1.3% of the online freelance workforce (onlinelabourobservatory.org). in serbia, governmental bodies and non-governmental organizations have recognized the need to encourage persons with disabilities to engage in the digital economy. in that regard, several it retraining initiatives were developed to assist people with disabilities in finding employment in the it sector. for instance, the training program developed by the serbian office for it and egovernment, undp and youth with disabilities forum offers training in the basics of web programming for persons with disabilities in order to enhance their prospects for obtaining employment in the field of it (undp.org). another program, supported by un women in serbia and european union, offers free training in the field of visual communications and digital marketing for women with disabilities, with the aim of their employment and self-employment in the creative industries (izkruga.org). this program recognizes the potential of digital labor platforms and empowers women to search for employment as freelancers. other free software programs in the field of graphic design for persons with disabilities, also funded by the eu, encompass an introduction to working on freelance platforms (izkruga.org). as digital labor platforms provide lower barrier access to employment and income generation for all, the paper investigates the perception of persons with disabilities regarding their engagement in digital platform work. however, to obtain employment via digital labor platforms, persons with disabilities need to possess at least basic digital competencies. due to the unfavorable educational background of persons with disabilities in serbia, where only 3.2% possess an academic degree, and 32.8% haven't completed primary education (marković, 2014), it can be assumed that only low-skilled job offers could match their competencies. as evidence on the digital competencies of persons with disabilities in serbia is scarce, the paper aims to provide data on this issue, as it could serve as a starting point in researching the opportunity for digital labor market inclusion of persons with disabilities. research methodology the data on digital competencies of persons with disabilities were collected during march and april 2022 via a questionnaire in which the respondents assessed various statements on a four-point likert scale: (1) i m. lazić, v. vukmirović, j. banović, v. simović, m. paunović 57 do not have the ability / i am not able to perform the activity independently; (2) i have very modest abilities/knowledge that is insufficient to perform the activity independently; (3) i have a certain level of ability/knowledge, but still insufficient to perform the activity independently; (4) i have sufficient abilities / i can perform the activity independently. the questionnaire consists of four parts. the first part incorporates ten questions aimed at identifying the basic socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, such as gender, age, place of residence, level of education, health problems, working ability, occupation, employment status, and salary level. the second part is dedicated to measuring the general digital competencies of the respondents. it is developed based on the methodology used in the digital competencies development system – contents of the self-assessment tool (2018), essentially based on the digcomp 2.1 framework. although the digcomp 2.1 framework contains questions for self-assessment of the level of digital competencies and a practical task (real-life scenario) used for validating the answers to self-assessment questions, due to the specificity of the target group, this study contains only questions for self-assessment. there are 34 such questions, and they are grouped into five categories. each of the five categories includes the following abilities: 1. information and data literacy – browsing, searching and filtering data, information and digital content; evaluating data, information and digital content; managing data, information and digital content. 2. communication and collaboration – interacting through digital technologies; sharing through digital technologies; engaging in citizenship through digital technologies; collaborating through digital technologies; netiquette; managing digital identity. 3. digital content creation – developing digital content; integrating and re-elaborating digital content; copyright and licensing. 4. safety – protecting devices; protecting personal data and privacy. 5. problem-solving – solving technical problems; identifying needs and technological responses; creatively using digital technologies; identifying digital competence gaps. in the third part, the respondents were asked whether they had previously started any digital entrepreneurial venture or intended to engage in digital entrepreneurship. those who gave an affirmative answer received 58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 51-71) 12 questions about their digital entrepreneurial competencies. finally, in the fourth part, the respondents were asked whether they knew what freelance platforms are and how they work – those who answered affirmatively received additional four questions about their knowledge of freelance platforms. the questions in the third and fourth parts are also based on digcomp 2.1 framework. considering this paper's scope and objectives, two research questions were raised: 1. what is the level of perceived digital competencies of women with disabilities in serbia? 2. are there any differences in perceived digital competencies between women and men with disabilities in serbia? the statistical analysis involved descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, and reliability analysis. the data is analyzed using spss v 23, and the probability level is set at p <0.05. sample description the sample consists of 245 serbian residents, members of one of the twelve member organizations of the national organization of persons with disabilities of serbia (noois) and/or the sports association of persons with disabilities belgrade (sosib). the summary of sample characteristics is presented in table 1. table 1: summary of sample characteristics category distribution category distribution gender vocation male 53.1% administrative officers 20.0% female 46.9% experts and artists 16.0% age service and trade 12.0% less than 18 2.0% other professions 38.0% 18-29 12.4% unwilling to answer 14.0% 30-39 20.4% work status 40-49 36.7% employed 18.4% 50-59 20.4% unemployed, searching for a job 18.4% 60 and more 8.1% unemployed, student 6.1% retired 57.1% m. lazić, v. vukmirović, j. banović, v. simović, m. paunović 59 category distribution category distribution difficulties with walking or climbing monthly incomes difficulties with walking or climbing 71.4% regular monthly income 77.6% other problems 28.6% no income 12.2% education level other 10.2% primary school 6.1% level of monthly incomes secondary school 67.5% up to 20.000 rsd 18.4% faculty 20.4% 20.000-40.000 rsd 38.8% phd 2.0% 40.000-60.000 rsd 12.2% other (incomplete high school, still student) 4.0% 60.000-80.000 rsd 10.2% more than 100.000 rsd 2.0% unwilling to answer/no monthly incomes 18.4% source: authors' research the sample distribution by gender indicates an almost equal representation of men (53.1%) and women (46.9%). considering the age distribution, the largest percentage of respondents is aged between 40 and 44. most of them live in belgrade municipality. the dominant share of respondents graduated from high school (67.3%) and the faculty (20%). considering health problems that represent challenges to functionality, the vast majority of the respondents face difficulties with walking or climbing (71.4%). the sample distribution by vocation reveals that most respondents are administrative officers (20.0%) or experts and artists (16.0%). the sample distribution by work status indicates that the most significant number of respondents belongs to the category of a retired person (57.1%). most respondents have regular monthly incomes (77.6%), while 12.2% have no income. in addition, 36.7% of the respondents have a steady monthly income between 30.000 rsd and 60.000 rsd, while only 2.0% earn more than 100.000 rsd per month. results and discussion the respondents assessed 34 statements about their general digital competencies, 12 statements about their digital entrepreneurial competencies, and 4 statements related to their awareness of the potential of the freelance platforms. table 2 presents descriptive statistics on the general 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 51-71) digital competencies of persons with disabilities in serbia divided into five groups. table 2: descriptive statistics on general digital competencies of persons with disabilities in serbia general digital competencies n m sd 1 2 3 4 information and data literacy female 115 3.42 0.80 4% 9% 17% 70% male 130 3.60 0.65 0% 8% 19% 73% communication and collaboration female 115 3.42 0.76 4% 4% 17% 74% male 130 3.46 0.77 4% 12% 15% 69% digital content creation female 115 3.14 0.83 4% 13% 22% 61% male 130 3.08 0.87 8% 12% 38% 42% safety female 115 3.15 0.90 4% 22% 13% 61% male 130 3.29 0.87 8% 8% 19% 65% problem-solving female 115 3.25 0.78 4% 9% 26% 61% male 130 3.31 0.92 8% 8% 23% 62% n – number of respondents; m – mean; sd – standard deviation 1 – no ability / not able to perform the activity independently; 2 – very modest abilities/knowledge that is insufficient to carry out the activity independently; 3 – certain level of ability/knowledge, but still insufficient to perform the activity independently; 4 sufficient abilities / can do the activity independently source: authors' research based on the results presented, most of the surveyed women with disabilities assessed their general digital competencies at a high level. specifically, 70.0% of the female respondents stated that they possess sufficient abilities related to information and data literacy. they can independently browse, search and filter data, information and digital content, as well as evaluate and manage data, information and digital content. regarding communication and collaboration, 74.0% of the female respondents stated that they could independently interact and collaborate through digital technologies, share digital content, and manage their digital identity. as far as digital content creation is concerned, 61.0% stated that they could independently develop, integrate, and re-elaborate digital m. lazić, v. vukmirović, j. banović, v. simović, m. paunović 61 content. regarding safety, 61.0% stated that they have sufficient abilities to protect their devices, personal data, and privacy. finally, 61.0% claimed they possess enough technical problem-solving competencies. they can independently solve technical problems, identify needs and technological responses, creatively use digital technologies, and identify gaps in their digital competencies. the independent samples t-test was used to investigate whether there are statistically significant differences in perceived general digital competencies of women and men with disabilities in serbia (table 3). considering there are two types of the t-test depending on whether the variances of the two groups (women and men) are assumed equal, levene's test for equality of variances was conducted. levene's test tests the hypothesis that the variances in different groups are equal, i.e., the difference between the variances is zero. it does a one-way anova on deviations, i.e., the absolute value of the difference between each score and its group's mean. the results of levene's test are not statistically significant, indicating that the t-test with equal variances assumed needs to be performed. table 3: independent samples t-test entrepreneurial competencies and knowledge of freelance platforms levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t sig. (2-tailed) information and data literacy equal variances assumed 1.46 0.23 1.89 0.06 communication and collaboration equal variances assumed 0.02 0.89 0.38 0.70 digital content creation equal variances assumed 0.01 0.92 -0.62 0.53 safety equal variances assumed 1.70 0.19 1.21 0.23 problem -solving equal variances assumed 3.45 0.06 0.62 0.54 the results are significant at the 0.05 level source: authors' research 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 51-71) the results of the t-test are not statistically significant for any of the five groups meaning that there are no significant differences in mean values of the perceived general digital competencies between women and men with disabilities in serbia. they both perceived to have a relatively high level of general digital competencies and sufficient abilities related to information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, safety, and problem-solving. table 4 presents descriptive statistics for self-assessment of digital entrepreneurial competencies and knowledge/use of freelance platforms. table 4: descriptive statistics on digital entrepreneurial competencies and knowledge/use of freelance platforms entrepreneurial competencies and knowledge of freelance platforms n m sd 1 2 3 4 entrepreneurial competencies female 45 3.23 0.37 0% 0% 67% 33% male 80 3.26 0.86 6% 19% 13% 63% freelance platforms female 40 3.06 0.81 0% 25% 38% 38% male 55 3.36 0.58 0% 9% 36% 55% n – number of respondents; m – mean; sd – standard deviation 1 – no ability / not able to perform the activity independently; 2 – very modest abilities/knowledge that is insufficient to carry out the activity independently; 3 – certain level of ability/knowledge, but still insufficient to perform the activity independently; 4 sufficient abilities / can do the activity independently source: authors' research the results indicate that most female respondents (67.0%) perceive to possess a certain level of digital entrepreneurial competencies, but those competencies are still insufficient for independently engaging in digital entrepreneurship. only 33.0% of the female respondents stated they have sufficient abilities to engage in digital entrepreneurship. however, as far as male respondents are concerned, 63.0% of them stated they have adequate competencies to engage in digital entrepreneurship. to test whether the differences in perceived entrepreneurial competencies between women and men are statistically significant, the independent samples t-test was conducted (table 5). m. lazić, v. vukmirović, j. banović, v. simović, m. paunović 63 table 5: independent samples t-test entrepreneurial competencies and knowledge of freelance platforms levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t sig. (2-tailed) entrepreneurial competencies equal variances not assumed 20.85 0.00 0.27 0.79 freelance platforms equal variances not assumed 7.45 0.01 2.10 0.04 the results are significant at the 0.05 level source: authors' research since the results of levene's test for equality of variances are statistically significant (p=0.00), the independent samples t-test with equal variances not assumed is used. the results of the t-test are not statistically significant, indicating that the mean difference in perceived digital entrepreneurial competencies between female and male respondents is not statistically significant. even if the difference between the mean values of the two groups seems to be high due to the relatively small sample size and large variances of the two groups (especially for the group of male respondents), the difference in means is not statistically significant. the result indicates that it is not possible to conclude that men with disabilities, on average, perceive to possess a higher level of digital entrepreneurial competencies than women with disabilities in serbia. regarding knowledge of freelance platforms, the results presented in table 4 indicate that 38.0% of the female respondents perceive to have sufficient abilities to find a job using freelance platforms. on the other hand, a significantly higher percentage of male respondents (55.0%) perceive to possess that ability. the results of the t-test (table 5) suggest that the mean difference in knowledge of freelance platforms is statistically significant (p=0.04), which means that men with disabilities, on average, perceive to have a better understanding of freelance platforms than women with disabilities in serbia. this result is obtained using the independent samples t-test with equal variances not assumed since the result of levene's test for equality of variances is statistically significant (p=0.01). cronbach's alpha was used to measure the reliability of the statements about the digital competencies of persons with disabilities. reliability means that a respondent should get the same result if he/she fills out a 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 51-71) questionnaire under the same conditions at two different time points. furthermore, two respondents with identical characteristics should get the same results. table 6 shows the cronbach's alpha coefficients for each construct (five groups of general digital competencies, digital entrepreneurial competencies, and knowledge of freelance platforms) and the number of items (statements in the questionnaire) that comprise each construct. table 6: reliability analysis competencies number of items cronbach's alpha information and data literacy 6 0.925 communication and collaboration 12 0.968 digital content creation 6 0.932 safety 4 0.923 problem-solving 6 0.932 entrepreneurial competencies 12 0.948 freelance platforms 4 0.785 source: authors' research according to field (2009), values of this coefficient above 0.7 are considered acceptable. since the values of all cronbach's alpha coefficients are much above the defined threshold, it can be concluded that all measuring instruments have good reliability. conclusion and policy recommendations the research presented in this paper was designed to identify the perceived levels of general digital and digital entrepreneurial competencies of persons with disabilities in serbia and their awareness of the potential of digital labor platforms, with a special emphasis on gender-related issues. the results obtained aim to serve as a starting point in researching the opportunity for digital labor market inclusion of persons with disabilities in serbia. the overall conclusion of the research presented in this paper is that persons with disabilities in serbia perceive that their general digital competencies are at a relatively high level. this could be the result of the efforts of the serbian national employment service (nes) in providing training opportunities for unemployed persons with disabilities, as almost m. lazić, v. vukmirović, j. banović, v. simović, m. paunović 65 half of the opportunities available were designated for training in the field of informatics, it, and electronic business. anyhow, research results indicate that some respondents still face issues in independently navigating the internet and reaching official websites or using the applications of state authorities. it was also noticed that respondents have difficulties assessing the reliability of information online and distinguishing which personal data should be visible on the internet. this prevents them from accessing information of public importance, making them susceptible to manipulation and personal data misuse. a significant percentage of respondents face challenges in managing folders and files, storing and sharing folders online, as well as digital communication and digital content creation. this means that a nonnegligible percentage of respondents face difficulties in the independent use of software for processing text and graphic content and creating presentations, as well as in the use of software for conference calls and online meetings. this significantly lowers their chances of obtaining employment, as basic general digital competencies are insufficient to maintain a competitive position in the labor market. therefore, it is necessary that competent institutions in serbia continue providing training in the domain of basic general digital competencies with an increase in coverage, i.e., the number of training opportunities available for participants, with equal geographical and gender representation. a lower level of perceived general digital competencies was also noticed regarding more complex tasks, such as the use of content creation software or the use of advanced technologies, for instance, virtual reality and 3d printers. accordingly, it implies that training organized by the nes should also provide participants with knowledge on the use of more advanced software. unlike general digital competencies, respondents didn't show much confidence regarding digital entrepreneurial competencies and the knowledge of freelance platforms and the employment chances they provide. in most cases, respondents didn't show interest in starting their digital entrepreneurial venture, nor were they aware of the online platform work concept and the employment opportunities they offer. since the primary focus of this research was to identify the gap areas for competence building through training programs, the research results point to the necessity of developing and continuously conducting training programs aiming at digital entrepreneurship and digital labor platforms, with a 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 51-71) particular focus on women with disabilities, due to identified competency gap in this regard. training should also include guidelines on opportunities for self-employment and obtaining employment without the mediation of the nes, that is, through direct contact with the employer. nes training should offer specialized knowledge aligned with the digital labor market's needs, enabling participants to apply for jobs offered on online labor platforms. it already makes part of the retraining programs initiated by several non-governmental organizations in serbia, including creative writing workshops for people with disabilities and software training for obtaining employment in creative industries. the programs implemented by the nes should include an introduction to the work on digital labor platforms and emphasize their role in starting a digital entrepreneurial venture. studies on digital competencies and the engagement of persons with disabilities in digital labor platforms are scarce. to the best of our knowledge, no similar research was conducted in serbia. apart from contributing to the body of literature, this paper might initiate a dialogue in academic circles on more inclusive and fairer digital platform work for those who are already excluded from the traditional labor market. moreover, this paper could contribute to evidence-based policymaking in the sphere of digitalization, digital inclusion, and employment, as it offers first-hand information on the digital competencies of persons with disabilities and their intentions for self-employment in the digital economy. nevertheless, one of the most prominent limitations of this research is the fact that it was based on self-assessment of the specified competence levels. more realistic insight into the actual levels of specified competencies could be provided by organizing the research based on knowledge and ability questions which would measure the actual levels of specified competencies. future research should be directed toward this goal on a larger sample of respondents. acknowledgment this paper is a result of the research financed by the ministry of 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"glass ceilings" appear in the structures of state power and administration at several critical points, which could be called as a kind of boundaries beyond which the representation of women in the system of government drops significantly. "glass ceilings" are formed both at the local level (in certain job positions) and at the system level (when moving to higher positions in job categories or from civil service positions to public positions), which indicates the institutional nature of the “glass ceilings”. key words: state civil servants, public positions, gender asymmetry, gender gaps, “glass ceiling” 1 e-mail: mvpperm@gmail.com, tel. +79128811389 viktor mokhov 109 introduction achieving gender equality in public authorities has become one of the political tasks for most modern states. without trying to assess the political and social consequences of achieving this goal, we will focus on the phenomenon of "glass ceilings" within the framework of the civil service of the russian federation. gender inequality in the power structures of the russian federation has been recorded by international organizations (aivazova, 2009; krasnov, 2019; ovcharova, 2019; rodionova, 2020). russian researchers have repeatedly drawn attention to the existence of gender inequality in power structures. so, g.f. belyaeva stated that “russia lags far behind many countries of the world in promoting women to power and the economy” (belyaeva, 2008, p. 147). it should be noted that some researchers focused their attention on inequality in exactly government bodies (kondrashova, 2020). much less attention was paid to the problem of inequality in public administration (korostyleva, 2014, 2015). and this is far from accidental, since women predominate in the civil service of the russian federation. they perform numerous important functions and, as can be seen in practice, these are mainly executive functions. the paradox of the situation lies in the fact that the majority of managerial positions in the system of public administration in the russian federation are occupied by women, but advancement to higher positions for women is associated with the need to overcome managerial “glass ceilings”. problem discussion in post-soviet russia, multilevel “glass ceilings” have formed, which is later understood as informal filters in career advancement in the public administration system based on gender stereotypes of both the male part of the administrative apparatus and, in part, women themselves. "glass ceilings" appear in the structures of state power and administration at several critical points, which are a kind of boundaries beyond which the representation of women in the system of government drops significantly. the search for these critical points, which, in fact, have become "glass ceilings" in the public civil service, will be given special attention in this paper. it is obvious that “glass ceilings” in the civil service do not appear spontaneously, they are evidence of a certain social order: the idea that all 110 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 108-120) key decisions should be made by men, and women should only implement those fundamental decisions that are developed by men, have been “conditioned”. "masculinity" (zdravomyslova & temkina, 2018; radović marković & avolio allechi, 2013.) of the management culture is largely based on the tradition of ideas about the role of women in the life of society. in this sense, we can say that “post-soviet politics retains some features of the gender ideology of the past, due to which the political leadership of women is either subordinated to the principle of “not standing out” in its decisions, and, accordingly, in positioning, or is focused on the “political unisex” behavior model” (ovcharova, 2017, p. 147). in the post-soviet period, there was an archaization of gender roles in the systems of power and administration, which was expressed, first of all, in a decrease in the proportion of women in government bodies at all its levels. while during the soviet period a purposeful policy was carried out to involve women in government and administration bodies (through actual quotas for their representation), then in the post-soviet period, when soviet restrictions disappeared, market mechanisms led to the “washing out” of women from power structures. as m.k. gorshkov noted “in post-reform russia, gender stereotypes “permeate” all social relations (employment, politics, family relations, etc.). in a sense, gender inequality is even “justified” by the traditional view of russian society: sexism, which recognizes the superiority of men over women” (gorshkov, 2016, p. 704). t.b. ryabova and o.g. ovcharova, analyzing research in the field of gender political science, note that “gender stereotypes (and political culture in general) ... act as a factor supporting gender asymmetry of power” (ryabova & ovcharova, 2016: 10). the dominance of men in the highest echelons of public administration bodies has a variety of reasons. but, as s.g. aivazova rightly noted, there are "gender gaps in the behavior and beliefs of our fellow citizens ...", which are a reflection of "... unequal integration of men and women into various spheres of society, including the spheres of political and civic activity" behind this dominance (aivazova, 2012, p. 4). the need to promote women to leadership positions in the management system is determined by objective circumstances. among them, we single out the factor of utilitarianism: women better understand and resolve social issues. according to m.a. kashina, “ensuring gender parity (representation of at least 30% of persons of the same sex) in key positions in all branches and at all levels of government is one of the affordable and low-cost ways to viktor mokhov 111 improve the social orientation of public administration” (kashina, 2013, p. 129). however, there is another argument: women can offer solutions that are in a different than masculine logic. as it was noted by g.f. belyaeva “the point is not who is better at performing the work of a parliamentarian or a leader of any level a man or a woman. the fact is that men and women act on the basis of different cultural principles, so they see problems and approach their solution in different ways” (belyaeva, 2008, p. 148). finally, the problem of gender equality is a problem of political modernization of society, the solution of which is intended to increase the number of political actors and increase the role of women in politics and social relations (vostryakov & kashina, 2017, p. 12). following the point of view given by o.g. ovcharova, by gender asymmetry we mean the characterization of “inequality of socio-political positions and statuses of men and women in the political sphere” (ovcharova, gender asymmetry of russian politics ...). gender asymmetry exists at all levels of public administration in the russian federation, although it often takes on bizarre forms. further analysis of gender asymmetry was carried out on the basis of data on the civil service (hereinafter referred to as the civil service)1 5f2, the statistics of which are contained in the handbook of employees holding public positions and state civil servants, by gender and age as dated 1st of october, 2019 (handbook on the composition of employees, 2020). results gender asymmetry in the system of state civil administration is manifested in the following main forms. 1) in the russian federation there is a traditional distribution of women in the civil service of the russian federation for recent decades: on the 1st of october, 2019, 73.9% of civil servants were women, and it is important to note that at the federal level of the civil service and in the civil service of the constituent entities of the russian federation, the percentage of women is 2 according to the federal law of the russian federation no. 58 of may 27, 2003 "on the system of public service of the russian federation", the system of public service in the russian federation includes: public civil service, military service, public service of other types 112 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 108-120) approximately the same (at the level of constituent entities of the russian federation it is equal to 74.7%). on average, women dominate in the civil service. the expression “service matriarchy” could have been used if it were not for a number of significant details that can change the perception of the real distribution of gender roles in the civil service. as it is known, at present, the structure of positions in the civil service includes 4 categories of positions (managers, assistants, specialists, supporting specialists) and 5 groups of positions (highest, chief, leading, senior, junior), which in various combinations determine the structure of the apparatus public administration (on the state civil service ...). within the framework of this system, the highest position will be the positions of the highest group in the category of “managers”, and the lowest one the positions of the junior group in the category of “supporting specialists”. in general, for all categories of civil servants at government bodies in the russian federation, we see the unconditional domination of women (supporting specialists ˗ 86.8%, specialists 73.6%, assistants ˗ 80.3%, managers ˗ 64.3%), however, the distribution by groups of civil service positions show a steady trend towards male dominance. 2) further analysis reveals a tendency: the higher the role of the civil service position in the structure of government bodies is, the lower the proportion of women is (see table 1). table 1: the proportion of women serving in public offices of the russian federation, by groups of positions (on the 1st of october, 2019) groups of positions job categories % of women junior group16f3 supporting specialists 86,9% senior group supporting specialists 88,1% specialists 74,9% leading group supporting specialists 79,1% specialists 72,4% assistants 83,1% managers 68,7% chief group supporting specialists 73,0% specialists 62,6% assistants 56,3% managers 68,7% 3 there are no positions of civil servants in other categories of the junior group viktor mokhov 113 groups of positions job categories % of women highest group specialists 46,8% assistants 37,7% managers 42,9% source: compiled by the author hence it follows that the proportion of men in the corresponding group of positions rises: in the senior group of positions more than twice, in the leading group of positions twice, in the main group of positions ˗ 1.5 times, in the highest group of positions ˗ in 1.07 times. the main positions from which the dominance of men in the structure of public administration begins to occur are the highest groups of positions among specialists, assistants and managers. 3) the intra-gender distribution by position category looks even more revealing. of all men in the civil service, their number among supporting specialists is 6.5%; among specialists 65.5; among assistants ˗ 3.8%; among managers 24.2%. for women, the situation is somewhat different: 14.9%; 64.3% 5.4%; 15.4% respectively. in fact, men are 3.8 times more likely to climb to the top of the civil service (the highest group of executive positions) than women. 4) gender asymmetry manifests itself as an unequally proportional distribution of men and women by job group: there are 1.3 times less men in the “younger” group of positions than in the higher groups, which clearly indicates non-career advancement to the top groups of positions. among women, we see the opposite picture: in the junior group, there are 6.7 times more women positions than in the higher groups of positions, which most likely indicates a competitive situation among women. 5) gender asymmetry is manifested in a significant difference between male and female representation in the civil service, depending on the place in the system of separation of powers. the general pattern is as follows: the higher the status of a position and the more resources state bodies have at their disposal and the more resources they directly distribute, the greater the proportion of men there. the results of the combined structural analysis of the proportion of women among civil servants of state bodies of the russian federation (as of october 1, 2019) are presented in table 2. 114 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 108-120) table 2: the proportion of women in the civil servants of state bodies of the russian federation (% of women) job groups executive authorities legislative authorities the judiciary and the prosecutor's office civil servants 72,0 70,5 85,9 the managers 64,2 59,9 66,9 the highest group of positions among managers 42,6 51,6 29,0 assistants 53,8 60,4 85,0 the highest group of positions among assistants 37,6 45,9 28,2 specialists 71,7 74,5 90,2 the highest group of positions among specialists 50,3 66,0 43,8 source: compiled by the author in the executive branch, the gender distribution is closest to the average data for all civil servants (72%) since they employ 81.4% of all civil servants. in the legislature, we see a similar situation. if we take the gender distribution by position group in the proportion of the size of the gender cohort, we can see the usual male dominance: in the highest group of positions among the leaders, the proportion of representatives of the male cohort of the total number of men employed in the civil service in the legislative branch, is 2.2 times higher than the same indicator for women, and two times lower for the junior group of positions. the gender asymmetry is most clearly manifested in the judiciary and the prosecutor's office. in general, if civil servants employed in the judiciary and the prosecutor's office, the proportion of women is 85.9%, then among the highest group of positions in the category "managers" there are only 29% of them, in the category "assistants" ˗ 28.2%, in the category “specialists” ˗ 43.8%. 6) gender asymmetry arises especially clearly at the level of public positions, which are divided into two groups: public positions in the russian federation and public positions in the constituent entities of the russian federation. public positions of the russian federation and public positions viktor mokhov 115 of the constituent entities of the russian federation are, in accordance with part 1 of article 1 of the federal law no. 79 "on state civil service in the russian federation", are determined as the positions established by the constitution of the russian federation, federal laws for the direct execution of the powers of federal state bodies, and positions, established by the constitutions (charters), laws of the constituent entities of the russian federation for the direct execution of the powers of state bodies of the constituent entities of the russian federation. at its core, government positions are political and imperious positions; they are designed to exercise power, while civil service positions are designed to fulfill the will of those holding public office. the gender structure of government positions underlines a general pattern: the proportion of women depends very much on the branch of government in which they are concentrated (see table 3). table 3: gender structure of government positions in the russian federation and the constituent entities of the russian federation (on the 1st of october, 2019) government positions total government positions % women state positions of the russian federation and the subjects of the russian federation, total 38399 59,9 including: in executive authorities 1763 22,6 in legislative authorities 1871 18,8 in the judiciary and the prosecutor's office 33202 64,5 in other state bodies of the russian federation 1562 52,2 source: compiled by the author as you can see from the table 3, the absolute majority of government positions were held by the judiciary and the prosecutor's office ˗ 33,202 government positions, among which the proportion of women was equal to 64.5%. it was in the judicial authorities and procurators in government positions that 93.2% of all women in government positions in the russian federation and the constituent entities of the russian federation were. in the legislative branch, the proportion of women in government positions is only 18.8%; in executive authorities ˗ 22.6%. at the same time, 116 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 108-120) in other government bodies, the proportion of women in government positions at all levels is 52.2%. in total, the proportion of persons holding government positions is 5.0% of all persons employed in government bodies of the russian federation. moreover, 7.5% of all men who served in state bodies of the russian federation, and 4.1% of women, were in government positions, and if we do not take into account the courts and prosecutors, the proportion of women decreases to 0.35%. 7) the largest gender gap occurs in the transition from civil service positions to government positions. while 72.0% of women were in the positions of the civil service in the executive branch, only 22.6% were in government positions in the russian federation and the constituent entities of the russian federation. a similar picture is observed in the legislative branch: 70.5% of women occupies civil service positions, and 18.8% are in government positions. in the judiciary and the prosecutor's office, the picture was different: in civil service positions 85.9% of women, and in government positions 64.5% of women (primarily at the expense of the judiciary office). this means that as part of the transition from management functions to functions of power, the proportion of men disproportionately increases, the role of women in the formation of the cadre is reduced, power becomes “masculine”, and managerial functions acquire a “female” character. there is a “gender gap” at this line of duty: the proportion of women in government positions is lower than in the highest group of civil service positions in the category “leaders” by 20% in executive power bodies and by 32.8% in legislative bodies. only in the judiciary and the prosecutor's office is the situation different ˗ in government positions the proportion of women reached 64.5%, while in the highest group of positions in the category of “managers” ˗ only 29.0%. in fact, this situation can be characterized as a "glass ceiling", and one of the most severe. power is becoming the dominant of men, they control both the legislative and executive power of the russian federation, leaving women to solve legal problems within the framework that they have also established. 8) among the cadres of civil servants of the constituent entities of the russian federation, the gender situation is the same. we can only note a slightly higher level of women in the respective job groups: for example, the proportion of women among the positions of the state civil service of the constituent entities of the russian federation is 73.3%, in legislative bodies viktor mokhov 117 70.5%, in executive bodies 72.0%, in the judiciary and the prosecutor's office 85.9%. 9) at the level of the executive branch, where the majority of civil servants is employed, an interesting regularity can be noticed: among supporting specialists, the role of women in the transition from one position group to another one (from the younger to the main one) changes gradually from 86.3% to 74, 9% (only by 12%); among specialists, when moving from one position group to another (from senior to higher ones), “career stages” begin to form. so, if in the senior and main group of positions the share of women is approximately equal to 72%, then in the main group of positions it is already 62.6%, in the highest ˗ 50.3%. it can be seen that the proportion of women begins to decrease by 8-10% when moving to a higher position group. in the category of “assistants”, career stages look even clearer: when moving from one position group to another (from leading to higher ones), the proportion of women begins to decline by 11-13% at each stage. in the category of “managers”, the career stages seem to have already taken their shape: when moving from one position group to another (from leading to the highest one), the proportion of women decreases by 11-14% at each stage. in fact, these trends indicate that the top executives are rapidly recruiting at the expense of male leaders who find themselves in leadership positions both as a result of career growth and as a result of “lateral entrances”, political appointments and other factors. "career steps", in view of their clear expression, quite logically lead to "glass ceilings", beyond which it is difficult for women to break through, although it is possible. however, the percentage of “gender losses” during the transition from one career stage to another is growing both in the absolute number of female employees and in their share. let us analyze the gender distribution among the “managers” category in the executive authorities. 115,534 people are employed in this category, of which 64.2% are women, which formally testifies to female dominance. however, with the transition from the leading group of positions to the highest one within this category, there is a disproportionate increase in men in higher positions. thus, of the number of men serving in the category of managers, 14.4% were in the highest group of positions, and among women leaders this figure is equal to 5.9%. in fact, the chances of men within this 118 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 108-120) category of employees to occupy top positions were 2.4 times higher than those of women. among the “assistants” category, a total of 3810 people are employed, but here the situation is close to the “managers” category: 30.3% of men employed in this category and 15.5% of women were in the highest group of positions. among professionals and providing professionals, men were about twice as likely to reach the top group of positions in their category as women. we also note that in the categories of supporting specialists and specialists, the proportion by position groups among men and women remained approximately the same up to the highest positions, in which a kind of inversion took place, in which the chances of men to occupy the highest positions became maximum. in the “assistants” category, the similarity in the distribution of positions by group of positions between men and women is violated: among men, the representation in more status groups of positions is growing. conclusion summarizing a brief analysis of gender distribution in government bodies, one can see that there are invisible official boundaries, the crossing of which changes the gender content of power and management potential. in management bodies, these are, as a rule, the highest groups of positions among the categories of specialists, assistants and managers. it is from these positions that the unconditional dominance of men begins, which grows as the official status rises. within each group of positions in the executive authorities of the russian federation, there is an increase in gender imbalance: even with the formal domination of women in a certain category of positions among men, as the status of the job group increases, an increase in the number of positions is observed. chances of taking a higher position. on average, these chances for each job category are about 2-2.5 times higher for men. "glass ceilings" are formed both at the local level (at individual positions) and at the system level (when moving to higher positions in job categories, when moving from government positions to government positions), which indicates the institutional nature of "glass ceilings" ... viktor mokhov 119 the institutional nature of "glass ceilings" in the civil service system is determined by the specific social order that has developed in post-soviet society and requires additional research. probably, here we see a combination of many reasons, including existing gender stereotypes, intragender prejudices, political practices, etc. however, the time has come to destroy the "glass ceilings", the solution of this problem must be translated into practical problems. references [1] aivazova, svetlana g. 2012. “gender characteristics of the political behavior of russians in the context of the electoral cycle of the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2011-2012”, woman in russian society, 3(64): 3-11. 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[20] directory on the composition of employees who filled public positions and civil service positions, by gender and age as of october 1, 2019. 2020. m., vol. 1-5. https://rosstat.gov.ru/folder/11191 article history: received: april 18th, 2021 accepted: june 10th, 2021 http://sdwomen.ru/ "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references 14_jwe_1-2 udc: 364-787.4-055.2(540) ; 334.722-055.2(540) jel: b54, l26, j16 id: 207719180 professional paper women entrepreneurship through “self help group” in ysr district, india rajani levaku yogi vemana university, kadapa, india 1 a b s t r a c t the position of women and their status in any society is an index of its civilization. women are to be considered as equal partners in the process of development. but, because of centuries of exploitation and subjugation, indian women have remained at the receiving end. women in india have been the neglected lot. the rate of growth of women employment in india is very low. this is because of the low growth rate of new and productive employment. the more attractive scheme with less effort is “self help group” under micro finance. it is a tool to remove poverty and improve the women entrepreneurship and financial support in india. ashgs is a small economically homogeneous affinity group of the rural poor voluntarily coming together to save small amount regularly. the present paper is mainly focusing the women entrepreneurship and economic empowerment of women after they joining shgs in ysr district, a.p. india. it concluded that shg movement in study area has helped in improving the economic status of the families. key words: women entrepreneurship, self-help group, economic empowerment of women 1 academic consultant, dept. of commerce, yogi vemana university, kadapa-516003, email: rajani_rdy@yahoo.com rajani, l.,self help group“, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 52-59) 53 introduction in the last twenty years the women of india have taken the bold step of invading the higher to forbidden land of entrepreneurship. entrepreneurship development of women. the participation of women in income generating activities for the family has been increasing overtime female work participation not only increase their family income but also bring economic development in the households. a women an entrepreneur is economically more powerful than as a male worker because ownership not only conger control over assets (and liabilities) but also gives her the freedom to take decisions. through entrepreneurship development a women will not only generate income for her by also will generate employment for other women in the locality this will have multiplier effect in the generation of income and poverty alleviation. the government of india has defined a women entrepreneur is “an enterprise owned and controlled by women saving a minimum financial interest of 51 per cent of the employment generated in the enterprise to women”. micro finance is emerging as a powerful instrument for poverty alleviation in the new economy. in india, micro finance scene is dominated by self help groups (shgs) – bank linkage programme aimed at providing a cost effective mechanism for providing financial services to the “unreached poor”. the government has implemented opportunities to unemployed including women. the shgs growth which has almost assumed the form of a movement represents a massive grassroots level mobilization of poor rural women to small informal associations capable of forging links with formal systems to help access financial and other services needed for their socio-economic advancement. basically, shgs are being promoted as a part of the micro finance interventions aimed at helping the poor to obtain easily financial services like savings, credit and insurance. the group formation and functioning are not ends but means for development. the more attractive scheme with less efforts is shgs. it is a tool to remove poverty and improve the women entrepreneurship and financial support in india. shgs enhance the equality of status of women as participants, decision-makers and beneficiaries in the democratic, economic, social and cultural spheres of life . the basic principles of the shgs are group approach, mutual trust, organization of small and manageable groups, 54 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 52-59) group cohesiveness, sprit of thrift, demand based lending, collateral free, women friendly loan, peer group pressure in repayment, skill training capacity building and empowerment. objectives of the study − to examine the factors responsible for a women entrepreneurship. − to examine the method of choosing a venture by the self employed. − to evaluate the method of canvassing the customers by a self employed women. methodology of study the present study based on the primary data as well as secondary data. the primary data were collected by through presented questionnaires from 200 respondents of shgs by selecting them randomly as sample from ysr district. the collected data were analysed by using statistical tools like classification, tabulation, and common size statement to examine the development of women entrepreneurship through shgs. age-group of select shg members age and socio-economic activities are interrelated. the young and middle age-group people can actively participate in the socio-economic activities, which is true in the activities of shgs in the study area. table 1: age-group of members of shgs age-group urban rural total 20-30 30 30 31-40 70 50 120 41-50 20 15 35 51-60 10 5 15 total 100 100 200 from the above table , it is observed that the age group of 31-40 years members were actively participated in the shgs. the age – group 20-30 and rajani, l.,self help group“, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 52-59) 55 31-40 years members were voluntary involved and highly influenced with entrepreneurial activities. the age-group 41-50 members are also in the shgs as their role is also important for shgs. they can control and solve the problems arise in the groups. educational qualifications of select shg members education is one of the inputs for empowerment. it enables the women to gather information from different sources and helps them to analyse properly and think innovatively to start the business. the education levels of the selected women shgs for the study are represented in the table 2. table 2: educational qualifications of select shg members education urban rural total illiterate 12 30 42 primary 18 45 63 high school 45 16 61 college 25 9 34 total 100 100 200 table 2 revels that out of total women entrepreneurs , 42 are illiterate, 63 are primary, 61 are high school and 34 are college level education. this indicates that more number of illiterate and primary level educated women entrepreneurs undertake entrepreneurial activities. marital status of select shg members the marital status of the women has a major influence on the women entrepreneurship. the details of the marital status of select women entrepreneur in ysr district are provided in table 3. table 3: marital status of select women entrepreneurs marital status urban rural total married 90 65 155 unmarried 0 25 25 widow 10 10 20 total 100 100 200 56 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 52-59) table 3 states that out of total women entrepreneurs, 155 are married, 25 are unmarried and 20 widow and in urban there is no unmarried women take any activities. this indicates that married women have shown more interest in undertaking entrepreneurial activities family size of the select shgs the size of the family also an important factor for the women when they entered into the business. table 4 shows the size of the family of the select shgs in ysr district. tabel 4: family size of the select shgs family size urban rural total 1-3 35 30 65 4-6 50 70 120 6-10 15 0 15 total 100 100 200 table 4 revels that out of the total women entrepreneurs, 120 have family size 4-6,65 have family size of 1-3 and 15 have family size 6-10 members. this signifies that small family members have taken more interest in entrepreneurial activities. purpose of joining shgs by the select members the main aim of the shgs is to promote savings, family support and to get credit for the productive and consumption purposes. the table 5 shows the reasons for joining shgs by the sample respondents. table 5: purpose of joining shgs purpose urban rural total for family support 45 35 80 for promoting saving 20 15 35 for social status 10 5 15 for financial security 15 25 40 for getting loan 10 20 30 total 100 100 200 rajani, l.,self help group“, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 52-59) 57 table 5 reveals that family support is the main reason for 80, financial security and promoting saving is main reason for 40 and 35, getting loan and social status are the main reason for 30 and 15 in women entrepreneurs to undertaking the entrepreneurs to undertaking the entrepreneurial activities. this indicates that family support is one of the main reasons for many women entrepreneurs start the entrepreneurial activities. activities undertaken table 6: classification on basis of activities undertaken activities urban rural total tailoring 18 25 43 bakery 25 12 37 dairy 10 42 52 beauty parlor 19 19 sheeping 16 16 32 candle making 12 5 17 total 100 100 200 table 6 state that out of total women entrepreneurs, 52members of women undertaking dairy industrial activity, 43 is undertaking tailoring, 37 is undertaking bakery, 32 is sheeping, 19 is beauty parlor and 17 is candle making. this is indicates that more number of rural women 80.00 per cent as compare to urban women undertaking dairy industrial activity. conclusion the economic progress of india depends on the productivity of both male as well as female population. however in india, women were restricted to the four walls of the kitchen for the last many years due to male dominance. of late, there has tremendous progress in social and cultural environment of indi. the women are working in all areas of the economy, which were even restricted to male members. women have proved their working ability and are working on par with men. therefore, there is an urgent need to utilize these women resources optimally since they constitute around 48 per cent of total population. the shg movement started in india has been working in right direction in developing entrepreneurship among the women and eradicating the poverty in rural and urban areas. 58 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 52-59) suggestions the following suggestions are made for women entrepreneurship and effective implementation of shgs in ysr district in particular and in india in general − the govt should implement all micro finance schemes effectively and systematically. − women should educate towards their opportunities and upgrade their knowledge according to the social and technological changes. − women should keep interest on empowering themselves and prepare themselves to face any problems in their businesses. reference [1] district rural development agency (drda) report, kadapa (2010), ysr district [2] narashiman, s., (1999). empowering women: an alternative strategy for rural india. sage publication india pvt.ltd, new delhi.199. [3] lalitha n.& b.s. nagarajan (2002). self help group in rural development. dominant publisher, new delhi. [4] www.lijjat.com žensko preduzetništvo kroz „grupe za samopomoć“ u ysr oblasti u indiji a p s t r a k t položaj žena i njihov status u bilo kom društvu pokazuje indeks njegove civilizacije. žene bi se trebale smatrati jednakim partnerima u procesu razvoja. ali, zbog vekovima duge eksploatacije i podređenosti, žene u indiji su ostale zanemarene u ovom pogledu. žene u indiji su zapostavljena grupa. rast broja zaposlenih žena u indiji je veoma nizak. ovo je posledica niske stope rasta novih i produktivnih poslova. dobar model nudi“grupa za samopomoć”, koja nudi mikrofinansiranje biznisa. to je jedan od načina da se reši problem siromaštva i da se poboljša žensko preduzetništvo i finansijska podrška u indiji. ashg je mala ekonomski rajani, l.,self help group“, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 52-59) 59 homogena grupa afiniteta siromašnih ljudi iz ruralnih krajeva koji se dobrovoljno udružuju da bi konstantno zarađivali i štedeli malu količinu novca. ovaj rad se fokusira na žensko preduzetništvo i ekonomsko osnaženje žena po pridruživanju grupi za samopomoć u ysr oblasti u indiji. zaključili smo da je pokret grupe za samopomoć u oblasti učenja pomogao da se poboljša ekonomski status porodica. ključne reči: žensko preduzetništvo, self-help grupa, ekonomsko osnaživanje žena article history: received: 2 january, 2014 accepted: 29 april, 2014 doi: 10.28934/jwee21.12.pp56-69 jel: j160 original scientific paper 3bwomen’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia milena lazić7 f1 olivera jovanović8f2 marija lazarević-moravčević9 f3 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t the subject of this paper is the evaluation of the position of women entrepreneurs in serbia in the aftermath of covid19 outbreak. the research aims to shed light on the main threats and constraints which women entrepreneurs in serbia are currently facing due to the global pandemic. we hypothesize that women entrepreneurs in serbia are particularly affected by the negative effects of covid19 health crisis. with that regard, the standard desk-research method the analysis and comparison of secondary data was combined with the case study method that included ten in-depth interviews with selected women entrepreneurs in serbia during the period january february 2021. the main conclusions are that empowering women entrepreneurs through various support programs as well as financial assistance provided by the state should be in the focus of decision-makers in the years to come. furthermore, women entrepreneurs in serbia should consider regional networking as well as entering the new markets as alternative survival strategies. 1 corresponding author, e-mail: milena.lazic@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381 64 3286 671 2 e-mail: olivera.jovanovic@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381 63 508 133 3 e-mail: marija.lazarevic@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381 64 2377 312 milena lazić, olivera jovanović, marija lazarević-moravčević 57 key words: women’s entrepreneurship, challenges and opportunities, gender equality, covid19, the republic of serbia introduction parallel with the tremendous implications on people’s health, covid19 has by far seriously damaged the business sector, as well as the overall global economy (pwc, 2021). the twin threats to lives and livelihoods continue to dominate global economic sentiment. according to mckinsey global survey (2021) conducted with more than a thousand executives all over the world, the outlook remains positive, although not as strong as in late 2020. the crisis has affected sales, profit margins, and growth rates. businesses are turning to e-commerce and digital technologies as the main drivers of success. it is estimated that companies that have implemented digital sales into their marketing strategies faced five-timesfaster revenue growth in comparison with their previous levels, as well as 30 percent higher efficiency and cost reduction of 40-60 percent within sales (mckinsey, 2021). most affected sectors were undoubtedly service-sensitive sectors with high proportion of in-person/social activities (eg. accommodation and food or recreational service sectors), as well as those sectors which were most affected by government restrictions during the outbreak (eg. transport and outbound tourism) (the bank of england, 2020). the economic recession influenced by the current covid19 outbreak has tremendously affected gender equality (alon et al., 2020) which represent limiting success factor to a country’s potential (pavlović & ognjenović, 2020). in comparison with “usual” recessions, which affect men more than women, the employment decline caused by the social distancing measures during the current crisis had more profound effects on sectors with high female employment shares. according to madgavkar et al. (2020) “women’s jobs are 1.8 times more vulnerable to covid19 crisis than men’s jobs. furthermore, women make up 39 percent of global employment but account for 54 percent of overall job losses”. one of the main reasons for this phenomenon is that the current health crisis has significantly increased the burden of unpaid care, which is mostly carried by women (madgaykar et al., 2020; alon et al, 2020). furthermore, conducting a survey of more than 5,800 small businesses in the usa between march 28 and april 4, 2020 bartik et al. (2020) 58 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 56-69) concluded that “the pandemic has caused massive dislocation among small businesses just several weeks after its onset and before the availability of government aid. across the full sample, 43 percent of businesses had temporarily closed, and nearly all of these closures were due to covid19”. results of the study also indicate that massive closures on average caused a 39-percent reduction of active employment among small businesses since january 2020. taking into account the recent trends and economic prospects, the subject of this paper is the evaluation of the position of women entrepreneurs in serbia in the aftermath of covid19 outbreak. the research aims to shed light on the main threats and constraints which women entrepreneurs in serbia are currently facing due to the global pandemic. we hypothesize that women entrepreneurs in serbia are particularly affected by the negative effects of covid19 health crisis. the paper is organized as follows. after the introductory remarks, in the second section, the review of the relevant literature has been provided. the third and fourth sections are completely devoted to methodology description and main research results. the last, fifth section refers to concluding remarks. literature review today, entrepreneurship is considered to be “the driver of economic and social development”, a significant source of competitive advantage (jovanović & lazić, 2018) and is of special importance in lowand middleincome countries (đuričin et al., 2020). nevertheless, the largest share of policy initiatives designed to protect economies during the covid19 crisis targeted established companies (kuckertz et al., 2020) which is why the global society is in high demand for research and studies that focus on startups and entrepreneurs. the results of specific studies (world bank group, 2020) indicate that smalland medium-sized enterprises were disproportionately more affected by the financial constraints and uncertainty regarding the future economic conditions. this is even more emphasized among those companies that have faced a larger drop in sales, highly associated with job losses. furthermore, it is common knowledge that innovative startups are one of the most vulnerable groups in any country (walsh & cunningham, 2016). “even in calmer times, innovative startups face liabilities of newness and milena lazić, olivera jovanović, marija lazarević-moravčević 59 smallness” (stinchcombe, 1968) that threaten their survival in the domestic and international market. the covid19 pandemic has created unique circumstances for entrepreneurship worldwide that have no documented equivalent in the current entrepreneurship literature (kuckertz et al; 2020) even though extensive literature on entrepreneurship and crisis management (parker et al., 2012; nicolau, 2015; doern, 2016; doern et al., 2018) could be of particular importance concerning the covid19 pandemic. in the face of the covid19 pandemic, entrepreneurs have to face a new reality. it is not only the health crisis affecting the global population but the economic crisis that is provoking an unprecedented economic downturn on the global level (glion, 2020). it is estimated that entrepreneurs in covid-impacted sectors are expected to lose 50 to 80 percent of their turnover in the forthcoming period (glion, 2020). the results of some research projects (women entrepreneurship knowledge hub, 2020) indicate that there is considerable evidence that covid19 has disproportionally affected women and diverse groups. the main causes that lie behind this conclusion are the previously observed wage gap (antonie et al., 2016), the employment of women entrepreneurs mainly in the service sector (ernst & young, 2020; opportunity bank, 2020; the bank of england, 2020) which was mostly affected by the crisis and the undisputable fact that women bear the burden of unpaid work including child care, household duties, and eldercare (alon et al., 2020), all of which have become more challenging during the crisis. when it comes to the republic of serbia, according to the latest data released within regional project “addico the biggest 100 in serbia 2020/21” approximately 135,000 women has started their businesses, which is estimated to be around 30 percent of the total number of owners of various business entities in our country. at the same time, 40 percent of all entrepreneurs who fail in the first five years of existence are estimated to be women. the profile of the average woman entrepreneur in serbia is: 47.7 years old, married and has obtained a minimum high school diploma. the results of the research conducted within the national project „woman for 5“ (opportunity bank, 2020) indicates that 99 percent of the total number of women entrepreneurs in serbia has small businesses with less than 10 employees while the largest share of women entrepreneurs in serbia operates in service sectors (trade, administration, finance and information technologies). 60 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 56-69) according to data released by ernst & young (2020) during the year 2020 trends in the relationship between ownership and engagement in entrepreneurship by gender have shifted slightly in favor of women (27 percent in comparison to 23 percent of all of the respondents in 2019). the results also indicate that it is still the greatest share of the university– educated entrepreneurs in serbia (75 percent compared to 2019's 73 percent). furthermore, production is traditionally most prevalent among serbian entrepreneurs (53 percent), and more and more it companies provide a wide range of software and hardware solutions (11 percent). some of the authors (domazet et al., 2018) consider the improvement of the competitiveness of the serbian economy to be one of the major challenges for policymakers in serbia which was especially emphasized during the ongoing health crisis. competitiveness has always been significant in achieving sustainable economic growth in the medium term (miković, 2020). accordingly, innovation represents “the driver of economic progress that benefits consumers, businesses, and the economy as a whole” (ecb, 2017). with that regard, recent survey results (mckinsey, 2020) indicate that responses to covid19 have accelerated the adoption of digital technologies by several years and that many of these changes are expected to exist for the long haul. furthermore, innovations in marketing, communication, and logistic channels helped organizations to overcome the initial stress caused by the onset of covid19 crisis. traditional marketing concepts have already proved to be an inadequate choice for small and medium-sized enterprises (lazarević-moravčević et al., 2019), but it is the ongoing crisis that has brought the radical digital transformation in most of the organizations in serbia. taking into account the above mentioned, “innovations have become not only an important determinant of a company’s successful development but their requirement as well” (jovanović & lazić, 2018). innovative and flexible enterprises that are in constant follow of the never-ending learning curve can be seen as the key driver of competitiveness and overall economic development through increased productivity and higher employment (prljić et al., 2016) which will be of tremendous importance in the years to come. milena lazić, olivera jovanović, marija lazarević-moravčević 61 methodology to better understand the position and main challenges which women entrepreneurs in serbia are currently facing, the authors of this paper combined the standard desk-research method and the analysis and comparison of secondary data with the case study method. a combination of quantitative and qualitative research techniques was aimed at delivering more comprehensive and thorough research results. with the analogy to our previous research study (jovanović & lazić, 2018), ten in-depth interviews with selected women entrepreneurs in serbia were conducted during the period january february 2021. the sample was constructed using the available database companywall which represents an official database of financial reports and main information (year of funding, number of employees, etc.) about small and medium-sized enterprises as well as entrepreneurs in serbia. the request for participation in the survey was sent online, while the criteria for the in-depth interview was at least five years of experience and expertise in entrepreneurial business. the main research tool used was a short semi-structured questionnaire that contained three sections. the first section was devoted to general information regarding the age and level of education of the respondents as well as the main characteristics of the enterprise owned. the main challenges in everyday business operations during 2020 were in the focus of the second section, while the third section was devoted to the increased usage of digital technologies. although in-depth interviews are more timeconsuming, they represent an useful method of collecting more thorough and detailed information about the analyzed topic. the analysis of data collected was based on descriptive statistics using cross-tabulation techniques in statistical software spss. the results of this study represent the part of the broader research project aimed at better understanding the position of women entrepreneurs in serbia in times of the global pandemic as well as the evaluation of the government help and support measures intended for women entrepreneurs. research results 80 percent of all of the respondents operate in the service sector which was particularly affected by the ongoing health crisis (figure 1). 62 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 56-69) figure 1: the sector of the business operations 80% 20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% service sector production source: authors’ calculation. on the global level, “services represent two-thirds of economic output, more than half of the world’s jobs and about a quarter of direct exports” (unctad, 2020) while in serbia services contribute to approximately 50 percent of total gdp (statista, 2020). accordingly, a profound economic recovery from the covid19 pandemic calls for governments to make the services sector a key element in their recovery strategies taking into account that services “play a crucial role in increasing productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness in the whole economy” (unctad, 2020). the largest share of the respondents (60 percent) declared that they have started their own business, which was followed by 40 percent of them declaring that they started their own business together with partner or partners (figure 2). figure 2: how the business has been started 60% 40% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% alone with partner/partners source: authors’ calculation. milena lazić, olivera jovanović, marija lazarević-moravčević 63 similarly to our previous research (jovanović & lazić, 2018) all of the respondents in the sample used their own, private funds to start a business; a large number of them (60 percent) also used loans from friends or relatives, as well as bank credits (figure 3). figure 3: the source of start-up capital source: authors’ calculation. as expected, the structure of borrowed capital indicates dominant financing by banks immediately followed by loans provided by families and friends. due to complicated administrative procedures, grants from the state and international financial organizations as the source of capital are still at an unsatisfactory level. all of the respondents in the sample consider negative economic outlook (domestic and global) to be the greatest challenge in the forthcoming period (figure 4). the small and micro business entities are expected to be most affected by lower aggregate demand. furthermore, women's entrepreneurship is particularly endangered by the negative effects of covid19 crisis taking into account that it is usually organized in form of micro and family enterprises without financial reserves and the capacity to develop long-term developing strategies. although the digital revolution triggered by the global pandemic brings a new chance, it still raises the question of business readiness in serbia. 64 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 56-69) figure 4: the main challenges in the forthcoming period source: authors’ calculation. the results obtained in this study are in line with previous researches (vasilić et al., 2020) which provided insights into the effects of the health crisis on women entrepreneurs in serbia as well as their balancing between business and family responsibilities during the changed circumstances. under their research results, vasilić et al. (2020) concluded that 76 percent of women-owned companies were negatively affected by the current health crisis and that women replaced the lack of hours spent at work with their increased engagement at home. furthermore, the results of ernst & young’s (2020) annual study emphasized negative business climate to be the greatest threat to the entrepreneurial sector in serbia. furthermore, some authors (šafarik, 2020) emphasized the importance of awareness of the increased injustice toward women at work, which is additionally exacerbated by the covid19 pandemic. in order to overcome the negative crisis effects, 60 percent of the respondents have launched new or modified products with the same percentage of them using alternative distribution channels (figure 5). milena lazić, olivera jovanović, marija lazarević-moravčević 65 figure 5: the ways to overcome the negative effects of the covid19 crisis source: authors’ calculation. “within a few weeks of the covid19 outbreak, lockdown accelerated the adoption of digital solutions at an unprecedented pace, creating unforeseen opportunities for scaling up alternative approaches to social and economic life” (hantrais et al., 2020). accordingly, digital space, innovation, and flexibility should be key success factors in the years to come. following the negative business sentiment, 80 percent of the respondents do not plan the recruitment of new employees in 2021 while 20 percent of them consider shrinking the current workforce. the results are in line with the research conducted on the global level (mckiney, 2020) which highlighted that women’s jobs are 1.8 times more vulnerable to covid19 crises than men’s jobs which is even more pronounced in the entrepreneurial sector. key findings and recommendations the results of the research conducted in this study as well as the thorough desk-research provide the basis for formulating the following recommendations and guidelines: − the precarious situation has led to the gradual change and adjustment of production and services, which is a chance for women's entrepreneurship to step forward. with that regard, innovations and flexibility represent the key success factors in overcoming the negative effects of covid19 crisis. 66 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 56-69) − online space and digital technologies represent the main tools in today’s business environment with covid19 crisis further revolutionized their usage. accordingly, special attention should be devoted to the constant education and implementation of the new technologies. − it is of significant importance to work on fostering motivation because women are now demotivated (global sentiment survey, 2020) which is why association and mutual empowerment between women entrepreneurs in serbia should not be neglected as a part of the overall solution. − it is important to have the bigger picture in mind, consider new markets, regional initiatives, and joint activities on the international level. − women entrepreneurship should be more in the focus of government help packages in the forthcoming period. conclusion the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic are mostly suffered by small and medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs. it is even more severe for those businesses run by women. the vast majority of women entrepreneurs in serbia are engaged in jobs that have suffered the most, such as tourism, catering, and especially trade. the global health crisis has caused a forced change in the usual business practice as well as fast adaptation to new circumstances. the use of digital technologies, the introduction of new or modification of existing products, and the use of alternative distribution channels are some of the solutions that women entrepreneurs in serbia have resorted to overcome the negative effects of covid19 crisis. the authors of this paper consider that empowering women entrepreneurs through various support programs as well as financial assistance provided by the state should be in the focus of decision-makers in the years to come. furthermore, women entrepreneurs in serbia should consider regional networking as well as entering the new markets as alternative survival strategies. milena lazić, olivera jovanović, marija lazarević-moravčević 67 references [1] addico. 2020. ”the biggest 100 in serbia 2020/21.“ available at: https://100najvecih.rs, accessed: 09.02.2021. 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[34] world bank group. 2020. ”unmasking the impact of covid19 on businesses – firm level evidence from across the world.” wp no. 9434. article history: received: february 2nd 2021 accepted: april 20th, 2021 "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references doi: 10.28934/jwee21.12.pp1-17 jel: j710, j160, o300 original scientific paper 0bgender aspects of digital workplace transformation zhanna mingaleva0f1 elena shironina1f2 perm national research polytechnic university, faculty of humanities, department for economics and industrial management, perm, russia a b s t r a c t covid19 has accelerated the process of jobs’ automation and digitalization in many sectors of the economy, which has increased the threat of decreasing employment for women and reducing their income. the article analyzes the gender structure of the employment and gender differences in wages of a service company based in the oil and gas industry. two key areas of the company's personnel readiness for digital transformation have been identified: personnel restructuring area and personnel development area. it was revealed that most of the personnel of the oilfield service company under study is in the area of personnel restructuring, whose jobs will be subject to the greatest automation and will be eliminated. at the same time, some categories of women employees can be completely reduced (for example accounting group, bookkeeping and payroll clerks). in addition, in the personnel development zone, which will be less affected by automation, the wages of women are 3.4 times less than the wages of men. it is concluded that it is necessary to develop special corporate programs for professional training and retraining of women and special programs for personnel development, taking into account gender issues. 1 corresponding author, e-mail: mingal1@pstu.ru, tel.: +79028335559 2 e-mail: elenashironina@yandex.ru, tel. +79922375827 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 1-17) key words: automation, digitization, workplaces, covid19, gender inequality, differentiating personnel, retraining programs introduction achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls is one of the 17 un sustainable development goals (the sustainable development goals, 2021). the world economic forum's global gender gap report 2020 showed that gender equality will not be achieved within 99.5 years. the global gender gap report assesses 153 countries' progress towards gender parity on four dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, access to education, health care and political participation. according to global gender gap report 2020, the top three ranking countries were iceland (leader for 11 years in a row), norway and finland (world economic forum, global gender gap report 2020). the wef assessment showed that it takes the world 257 years to achieve gender parity in economic participation (compared to 202 in the 2019 report). the report identifies three main reasons for this state of affairs: women are more widely represented in automated workplaces; an insufficient number of women enter the professions in which the increase in wages is most noticeable; women face inadequate access to care infrastructure and access to capital. the report shows that the underrepresentation of women in new positions hinders the reduction of the gender gap. so, in cloud computing women make up only 12% of professionals, in engineering 15%, data and ai 26% (world economic forum, 2020). as a result of the covid19 pandemic, gender inequality in automated workplaces is further exacerbated, and the proportion of women working in occupations where wage increases are most noticeable is decreasing compared to men. harari has noted that in all societies known to us special importance is attached to gender hierarchy and literally everywhere men enjoy noticeable advantages (harari, 2014). the report of the world economic forum identifies the problem of women's participation in economic life as the most important issue, considered through the level of labour force participation, wage equality, total income for men and women, ratio in leadership positions, ratio in professional positions. structural modernization of the economy based on zhanna mingaleva, elena shironina 3 the principles of automation and digitalization, carried out without taking into account gender issues and gender inequality, can lead to the loss of economic security of entire countries and regions (mingaleva & gataullina, 2012; radović marković, et.al.2021). the extreme urgency of the problem of gender inequality for russia is evident from the clearly expressed female character of russian poverty. literature review scientific studies devoted to the analysis of the reasons for the existence of the gender gap and forecasts of its elimination show that the processes occurring under the influence of the fourth industrial revolution are superimposed on the modern gender gap. both men and women can face special challenges in working life, which is likely to lead to their dismissal (shoss, 2017). kohlrausch and weber have identified the main “digitalization processes capable of overcoming or changing gendered work patterns. these include automation, the platform economy and the interactive processes by which a value is assigned to work” (kohlrausch & weber, 2020, p.13). researchers note the growing fears that automation and new technologies will destroy large numbers of jobs for the middle class (akst, 2013; autor, 2015; brynjolfsson & mcafee, 2014). moreover, the results of modern research show that “technological change is perceived as most threatening in female-dominated occupations, particularly for women” (golsch & seegers, 2021, p. 53). the biggest challenges are seen in changing of demands for qualifications and increasing of work performance (golsch & seegers, 2021, p. 52), which will increase inequality in the workplace. erik brynjolfsson and andrew mcafee have defined the impact of automation on employment such as: «…as computers get more powerful, companies have less need for some kinds of workers. technological progress is going to leave behind some people….. there’s never been a better time to be a worker with special skills or the right education, because these people can use technology to create and capture value. however, there’s never been a worse time to be a worker with only ‘ordinary’ skills and abilities to offer, because computer, robots, and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate» (brynjolfsson & mcafee, 2014, p.11) http://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.url?authorid=36968163000&amp;eid=2-s2.0-84877885470 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 1-17) david autor notes that changes in technology are changing the types of jobs available and their pay (autor, 2015). over the past few decades, the “polarization” of the labour market has been notable, with wage growth disproportionately attributable to those at the top and bottom of the distribution of income and skills, rather than those in the middle. researchers also argue that computers will replace workers in routine, codified tasks, but at the same time increase the comparative advantage of workers in solving adaptive problems, problems, required creative solutions (autor, 2015; pfeiffer, 2018). at the same time, “the scope of routine and non-routine tasks depends to a large extent on the framework conditions of work organisation and may differ significantly within occupations” (dengler & tisch, 2020, p.449). the gap between automating worker roles and replacing workers when solving tasks that require flexibility, judgment, and common sense is huge and has a gender difference. this is confirmed in a study by piasna and drahokoupil, which reveals the impact of digitalization on the structure of employment through an analysis of the change of the occupational change and the task content of jobs (piasna & drahokoupil, 2017). piasna and drahokoupil showed that if the researchers take the task content into account (repetitive vs. complex tasks) and not the occupation field, they see that women ‘exhibit a faster growth in share of non-routine, analytic and interpersonal tasks’ (piasna & drahokoupil, 2017, p. 320). according to golsch and seegers, the extent of men’s and women’s perceptions of technological changes in their workplace differ (the difference between men and women’s perceptions of technological changes in the workplace). golsch and seegers conducted a socio-economic panel study in germany, during which they compared the perception of digitalization by men and women in gender-typical and gender-atypical professions (golsch & seegers, 2021). the conditions that increase or decrease the perceived risks of technological change in the world of work, especially for women, were identified based on three surveys (soep, 2015– 2017). answering the question ‘whether social inequality between men and women may increase in the course of digital transformation’, dengler and tisch conducted a study the “relationship between digital transformation and work quality: substitution potential and work exposure in genderspecific occupations” (dengler & tisch, 2020). they analyzed the impact of digital transformation on work exposure for maleand female-dominated zhanna mingaleva, elena shironina 5 occupations. large-scale administrative data and survey data from germany were used for the analysis (dengler & tisch, 2020, р.427). the results of numerous studies are in line with our findings from previous researches (mingaleva et al., 2021; mingaleva, zinnurova & shironina, 2021). in particular, we showed how the structure of personnel and their functional responsibilities affect the speed of digital technologies’ implementation. also, it was shown how digitalization affects the professional and staffing structure of personnel, including from the position of liquidation of redundant positions and professions (mingaleva, zinnurova & shironina, 2021). in the process of various studies, it was concluded that the dismissal of some workers is inevitable due to the automation of some functions and the elimination of some positions (mingaleva, zinnurova & shironina, 2021, p.394; by, 2020, p.15). our dts model allows to develop a set of organizational and management measures for the successful implementation of the digital transformation of an organization. the need for a more detailed study of the impact of automation and digitalization on the development of gender contradictions in the field of labour and employment is increasingly discussed in the scientific literature (alemann et al., 2020; england, levine & mishel, 2020; ha, 2020; croft et al., 2021). as for the forecast of the size of workers’ dismissals because of digitalization, various international organizations, analytical and consulting agencies provide the following figures. the wef predicts the layoff of 6% of employees by 2025 (the future of jobs report, 2020). research by the future of jobs survey showed “that by 2025, 85 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines” (the future of jobs report 2020, p.5). bain & company predicts that 20% to 25% of existing jobs will be eliminated due to automation by the end of this decade (bain & company, 2020). who will suffer the most? in the process of answering this question, we have formulated the following hypotheses. h1. as a result of automation and digitalization, the gender gap will widen, as women occupy the largest number professional positions, which are primarily on the list of liquidated. h2. the ratio of women and men in leadership positions is characterized by strong segregation towards women in those industries where wages are traditionally higher. 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 1-17) h3. in russia, there is a significant gap in the wages of men and women. research method method an analysis of the gender structure of the administrative staff of oil and gas companies was carried out to test these hypotheses. the professional positions of the administrative staff in which both women and men were taken for the study. the workers of the oil and gas production sites themselves are traditionally men. the conceptual basis of the study was provided by modern approaches to strategic personnel management, innovative management, and digital modernization of the economy. the main focus was on strategic personnel management within innovational development of companies (danilina, mingaleva & malikova, 2016). as a source of methodological provisions, we used the results of research by piasna and drahokoupil (on the complexity of the problems to be solved), dengler and tisch (on the relationship between digital transformation and work quality), golsch and seegers (on the extent of men’s and women’s perceptions of technological changes in their workplace). in this study, we used the method developed and applied by us earlier to build the digital transformation snake model (dts model) (mingaleva, kostyreva, shironina & dvinskikh, 2021). this is a method of differentiating personnel depending on the problems being solved. the method includes differentiation of personnel according to two key parameters of assessment: the complexity of the problems to be solved and participation in the value creation. each parameter includes 4 main components. the structure of parameters and components is shown in figure 1. zhanna mingaleva, elena shironina 7 figure 1: main components of key measurement parameters source: compiled by the authors the second element of the research method is the classification of job roles in increasing and decreasing demand across industries for the construction of which the structure of the professional information network (o*net) was used (the future of jobs report 2020, p.151). the professional information network structure for job, skill and task analysis categories was developed by the united states department of the labour in collabouration with the bureau of the labour statistics' standard classification of occupations. this classification is the most extensive and respected classification among other approaches and has been used by the world economic forum in its regular reports since 2016. for the analysis, we used the classification of working roles in increasing and decreasing demand for professional services (the future of jobs report 2020, p.146). an additional comparative analysis of the selected classification was also carried out with the classification of working roles in increasing and decreasing demand for the national characteristics of russia (the future of jobs report 2020, p.99). the selection results are shown in table 2. 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 1-17) table 2: the increasing and decreasing job demand in the analyzed enterprise emerging redundant 1. digital marketing and strategy specialists 2. ai and machine learning specialists 3. data analysts and scientists 4. business development professionals 5. internet of things specialists 6. business services and administration managers 7. project managers 8. process automation specialists 9. lawyers 10. financial analysts 1. administrative and executive secretaries 2. accounting, bookkeeping and payroll clerks 3. data entry clerks 4. relationship managers 5. legal secretaries 6. management and organisation analysts 7. general and operations managers 8. electronics and telecommunications installers and repairers 9. client information and customer service workers 10. business services and administration managers source: the future of jobs report 2020, p.146 the third element of our research method is the method and model of the organizational potential of digital transformation (mingaleva et al., 2021). the model identifies 2 areas of impact on the company's personnel in terms of the company's readiness for digital transformation: personnel restructuring zone and personnel development zone. the organizational arrangements for creating the conditions for a successful digital transformation differ in these zones (mingaleva et al., 2021, p.75). data the analysis is based on actual data on wages, gender composition, qualifications of the administrative personnel of the oilfield services company (n = 58) and personnel in general for 2020. a survey of all employees was also carried out. as a result, answers were received to the questions about the satisfaction of employees with their job duties, the level of wages, the possibility of moving up the career ladder and the readiness for training and retraining in the course of special development programs in accordance with the requirements of digitalization and business automation. zhanna mingaleva, elena shironina 9 research results in the course of the study, groups of personnel were aggregated according to the world economic forum classification. when aggregating, 8 groups of personnel were obtained. we have focused on job descriptions, as well as on the results of interviews while defining personnel groups. the aggregation results are shown in table 3. table 3: aggregation of personnel groups of a russian enterprise in accordance with the un classification group according to un classification positions in the surveyed enterprise group number accounting, bookkeeping and payroll clerks chief accountant, accountant, payroll accountant 1 business development professionals director, deputy director, deputy director for development 2 business services and administration managers technical director, commercial director, head of the commercial department, deputy director for ecology 3 data entry clerks clerk, hr specialist, economic planning department specialist, mts specialist, labour protection engineer, ecologist 4 management and organisation analysts supervisor, head of process management department, head of ecology department, estimate engineer 5 installers and repairers vehicle repair mechanic, equipment repair mechanic, welding production technician, excavator driver, cleaners, foreman, construction and installation specialist, leading construction and installation specialist, production and technical control engineer, driver 6 lawyers lawyer, leading lawyer 7 process automation specialists specialist in process regulation, specialist in process management, head of the construction and installation work department 8 source: compiled by the authors 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 1-17) further, an assessment was carried out for each of the identified groups of personnel by gender and salary level. the evaluation results are expressed as circles of different diameters. the diameter of the circle depends on the size of the average wage in the group. the results of assessments in the form of circles of different diameters were placed on the organizational capacity assessment matrix of the company to determine the possibilities for digital transformation and automation of different groups of personnel (see figure 2). figure 2: scoring results for groups of personnel source: compiled by the authors in figure 2, “w” and “m” represent the gender structure of each group (women and men). as can be seen in figure 2, several groups are composed exclusively of men. these are groups: business development professionals; installers and repairers; process automation specialists. one group (accounting, bookkeeping & payroll clerks) is 100% women, the second group consists of 60% of women 60% women (data entry clerks). in the rest of the zhanna mingaleva, elena shironina 11 groups, the gender distribution is approximately 50/50 (lawyers; management and organization analysts; business services and administration managers). in general, there are 3 times more men in the company than women. this creates certain difficulties in the automation and digitization of workplaces and changes in the company's staffing within the framework of the gender issue. the second important result of the study relates to the development of individual training and retraining programs for personnel in accordance with the requirements of strategic personnel management. as stated earlier, training and retraining programs for company personnel should be drawn up taking into account which part of the matrix for assessing the organizational potential of the company to determine the possibilities of digital transformation they relate to (mingaleva, kostyreva, shironina & dvinskikh, 2021). the distribution of personnel groups according to development zones, obtained on the basis of actual data, is generally in line with global trends in changes in the demand for professions and qualifications. the restructuring zone (base: automation) includes such groups as: − data entry specialists; − installers and repairers; − process automation specialists; − legal secretaries; − accountants and payroll officers. the personnel development area (basis: digitalization) includes: − business development specialists; − business service managers; − management and analysts of the organization. the largest number of personnel in the oilfield services company under study is in the personnel restructuring area (see figure 3). it is these jobs that will undergo the greatest automation. 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 1-17) figure 3: scoring results for groups of personnel source: compiled by the authors this ratio of the number of personnel by zones of restructuring and personnel development is determined by the specifics of the company's activities. the main activity of employees is associated with hard physical work. therefore, men make up 83% of employees in the restructuring area. of these, 89.7% of men do hard physical work: construction of a well pad, installation of a drilling rig, drilling and casing of a wellbore, subsequent development, as well as routine and major well workovers. these worker roles cannot be fully automated. only 10.3% of men are engaged in nonphysical labour in the restructuring zone, whose work roles can be automated and performed by computers. however, the work roles performed by women in a given company and also related to the restructuring area (accounting services, legal services, data entry, and others) can be fully automated. this situation illustrates well one of the global trends in the transformation of labour structure and gender structure in employment, contained in the wef report: women are more widely represented in automated workplaces. in the future this implies massive layoffs of women in the company. regarding the situation in the field of wages, the results of the study have showed that the wages of men in the company are 1.4 times higher than the average wages of women. figure 4 shows the ratio of salaries for men and women in different groups of personnel. zhanna mingaleva, elena shironina 13 figure 4: the ratio of salaries of men and women in different groups source: compiled by the authors finally, it should be noted that there is a huge pay gap between women and men in the most paid groups of personnel included in the personnel development zone, from the personnel groups included in the restructuring zone. this gap is simply huge and amounts to 350% in the groups of personnel included in the personnel development zone (see figure 5). as can be seen from figure 5 female workers in the field of personnel development have 3.4 times less wages than male workers. with digitalization this gap may widen further. 14 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 1-2, 1-17) figure 5: the ratio of salaries of men and women in different groups source: compiled by the authors the results of this analysis confirm the conclusion in the wef report that insufficient numbers of women who are entering the professions where wage increases are most noticeable. conclusion the study has showed that russian companies have significant gender contradictions in the structure of employment and the level of wages. these problems have intensified as a result of covid19. in particular, covid19 has accelerated the automation and digitization of workplaces in many enterprises, which has created an additional threat to women's employment and their income. this problem is very acute for russian enterprises and organizations. a real danger of increasing the gender gap in those specialties and fields of employment that are promising in terms of increasing jobs in them was identified based on the analysis of the prospects for changing the structure of employment under the influence of automation and digital transformation. it is to these industries that the labour force will move from industries and companies where jobs will be cut as a result of mass automation. in particular, it was found that in the analyzed company the professional group “accounting, bookkeeping and payroll clerks” which is 100% women will be reduced completely. zhanna mingaleva, elena shironina 15 the analysis has once again confirmed the earlier conclusions about the need to develop special corporate programs for vocational training and retraining of women and special programs for personnel development, taking into account gender issues. acknowledgements this paper is a result of research projects under the code fsnm-20200026 financed by the ministry of education and science of the russian federation to 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[21] radović marković, m., đukanović, b., marković, d., & dragojević a. 2021. entrepreneurship and work in the gig economy the case of the western balkans. routledge, london, united kingdom [22] shoss, mindy k. 2017. “job insecurity: an integrative review and agenda for future research.” journal of management, 43(6): 1911–1939. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206317691574 [23] the future of jobs report 2020. 2020. world economic forum. geneva, switzerland.163 р. [24] the sustainable development goals (sdgs). 2021. www.undp.org /content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html (accessed mars 17, 2021). [25] world economic forum. 2021. digital transformation: powering the great reset. www3.weforum.org/docs/ wef_future_of_jobs_2020.pdf (accessed mars 1, 2021). [26] world economic forum. 2018. global gender gap report 2018. www3.weforum.org/docs/wef_gggr_2018.pdf (accessed mars 9, 2021). [27] world economic forum. 2020. global gender gap report 2020. www.weforum.org/reports/gender-gap-2020-report-100-years-pay-equality (accessed mars 9, 2021). article history: received: march 3th, 2021 accepted: april 29th, 2021 http://www.pwc.ru/ru/press-releases/2019/third-intellectual-club-presentation.%20pdf http://www3.weforum.org/docs/wef_future_of_jobs_2020.pdf http://www3.weforum.org/docs/wef_gggr_2018.pdf http://www.weforum.org/reports/gender-gap-2020-report-100-years-pay-equality "glass ceilings" in the system of public administration in the russian federation publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office feature of perception of distance learning by students during the first wave covid19 adopting adult education for fulfilment of the right of women to education in nigeria transformational leadership of nyai – case study in roudlotun nasyiin islamic boarding school the city-village interface in ibadan (nigeria): black soap entrepreneurship since 1918 empowerment through women entrepreneurship: a case from the beauty salon sector in sri lanka importance and role of women within the business community of azerbaijan women entrepreneurship in the time of covid19 pandemic: opportunities and risks (the case of perm region, russia) women’s entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid19 crisis: the case of serbia values of entrepreneurs and supervisors and their socio-professional identity: gender dimension gender aspects of working from home in serbia gender aspects of digital workplace transformation journal secretaries dejana pavlović, phd elena jovičić, phd institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial board vasileios kallinterakis, liverpool university, united kingdom halil dincer kaya, northeastern state university, united states of america ivana domazet, institute of economic sciences, serbia almir pestek, faculty of economics in sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina zélia breda, university of aveiro, portugal publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia printed by beograd zhanna mingaleva0f elena shironina1f introduction literature review research method method data research results conclusion acknowledgements references miloš vučeković2f mirjana radović marković borislav đukanović svetlana duković arsen dragojević introduction literature overview research method key findings "profile" of women who work at home in serbia discussion conclusion references guzel seletkova3f eugeniia lazukova4f vasilij stegnii5f karina tulieva6f introduction discussion and сonclusions references milena lazić7f olivera jovanović8f marija lazarević-moravčević9f introduction literature review methodology research results key findings and recommendations conclusion references elena seredkina10f olga burova11f olga ganina12f introduction material and methods results conclusion acknowledgements references aygun alasgarova agasalim13f introduction literature review women in the country as a part of the population the role of women in a business-active society the role of women in entrepreneurial activity characteristics of women entrepreneurship considerations stipulating women’s activities in the postindustrial society government policy towards women empowerment women’s leadership the reasons of gender problem recommendations conclusion references viktor mokhov14f introduction problem discussion results conclusion references thilini de silva17f sirkku männikkö barbutiu18f kutoma wakunuma19f gehan s. dhameeth20f introduction notions of women entrepreneurship and empowerment methodology strategy participants data collection method data analysis method results discussion resources agency achievements empowerment conclusion references mutiat titilope oladejo21f introduction the realities of entrepreneurship in africa methodology the city-village interface in ibadan olode village as a market ring for black soap beere-oje black soap trading hub in ibadan life history narratives of black soap producers in olode village features of innovation and entrepreneurship in the life histories conclusion references nining khurrotul aini22f m. ridlwan nasir23f masdar hilmy24f methodology conclusion references omolade o. olomola25f chioma agnes olumide-ajibola26f introduction forms of education in nigeria delineating adult education objectives of adult education right to education legal framework on education the right of women to education objectives of women education relationship between adult education and women’s right to education conclusion and recommendation references konstantin antipyev28f valeriy levchenko29f gennady razinsky30f introduction background methods discussion conclusion references doi: 10.28934/jwee22.12.pp79-96 jel: g2, j16 original scientific paper 4bis there a gender gap in financial inclusion worldwide? marija antonijević9f1 isidora ljumović10 f2 đina ivanović1 1f3 institute of economic sciences, department for business economics, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t this paper aims to examine the differences between men and women in 7 segments related to financial inclusion: 1) owning an account with a financial institution; 2) savings at a financial institution; 3) borrowing from a financial institution; 4) owning a credit card, 5) using a mobile phone or the internet to access an account; 6) using the internet to pay bills or to buy something online; 7) making or receiving digital payments. the research is based on the global findex database 2017. the sample comprises 144 countries worldwide. the authors applied the nonparametric wilcoxon signed-ranks test using a 95% confidence interval. the wilcoxon signed-ranks test showed statistically significant differences between men and women in all segments related to financial inclusion. regarding this, policymakers of individual countries, especially saudi arabia, kenya, turkey, hong kong, italy, spain, trinidad and tobago, and bahrain, should develop financial inclusion strategies by focusing on measures to increase and improve women’s financial inclusion, especially in the segments related to 1 e-mail: marija.antonijevic@ien.bg.ac.rs 2 corresponding author, e-mail: isidora.ljumovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 3 e-mail: djina.ivanovic@ien.bg.ac.rs 80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 79-96) making or receiving digital payments and owning an account with a financial institution. key words: financial inclusion, digital financial inclusion, digital payments, gender gap, global findex database introduction financial inclusion has become an essential issue for policymakers, the scientific community, and society (cabeza-garcía, del brio, & oscanoavictorio, 2019). the significance of financial inclusion is reflected in its contribution to poverty reduction and decreasing income inequality in developing countries (omar & inaba, 2020). also, it contributes to economic growth (cuéllar, 2021, 117) and economic development (demirgüç-kunt, klapper & singer, 2017). financial inclusion could be improved using digital financial services (dfs) (kumar, sharma & vyas, 2019), which include numerous financial services accessed and executed through digital channels. in recent years, improvements in information and communication technology (ict) have made it possible to conduct financial transactions via digital channels. financial institutions, most notably banks, alter their operations in response to market conditions and trends, attempting to provide the best digital solution to existing and new clients. banks use digital channels to improve and provide more effective and more efficient communication with clients. consequently, applying this approach enables banks to achieve greater satisfaction and loyalty from their clients (domazet & neogradi, 2019). digitalization has changed individuals’ approach and execution of financial transactions (moşteanu et al., 2020; liu & cuevas, 2021), considering the growing trend of internet users and the increasing use of mobile devices worldwide in daily activities. technical prerequisites necessary to use digital services are accessibility and availability of the internet and mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc. the growing number of internet and mobile users indicates an increasing interest in digital technology. as a result, individuals prefer undertaking their financial transactions through digital channels rather than visiting bank branches (ali et al., 2021; pavithra & geetha, 2021). despite the general improvement in financial inclusion worldwide, the financial inclusion gender gap has persisted unchanged since 2011 (trivelli et al., 2018). the financial inclusion gender gap is even more significant in regions characterised by a low level of financial inclusion for both genders marija antonijević, isidora ljumović, đina ivanović 81 (jhabvala & harvey, 2016). the significance of women’s financial inclusion is reflected in improving women’s economic empowerment and gender equality (peterlechner, 2021). affordable and effective financial tools related to saving and borrowing money, making and receiving payments, and managing risk contribute especially to low-income women to improve their empowerment and reduce poverty (holloway, niazi & rouse, 2017). the gender gap in access and use of financial services can be closed by dfs. insufficient availability of financial resources (botrić & broz, 2017), differences in technical conditions (rowntree & shanahan, 2020) and the level of digital skills (kuroda et al., 2019), disparities in the level of financial literacy (hasler & lusardi, 2017), as well as variations in perceptions related to digital technologies (goh & sun, 2014) can be the possible reasons for gender differences in using financial services, especially dfs. observed globally and based on financial inclusion data obtained from the global findex database 2011, 2014, and 2017, men are ahead of women in most observed indicators. as the most frequent reason why respondents did not have an account, both genders stated a lack of money (demirgüçkunt et al., 2018). in 2017, about a billion women did not have a bank account. more precisely, about 56% of those who did not have an account with a financial institution were women. this conclusion is backed up by research that showed a strong negative relationship between females and financial inclusion (deléchat et al., 2018). moreover, it is crucial to determine whether these differences between females and males are statistically significant. considering all the above mentioned, the research aims to examine whether there are statistically significant differences between men and women in financial inclusion in the following segments: having a formal financial account; accessing an account via telephone or the internet more frequently; owning credit cards; saving at and borrowing from a financial institution; using the internet to pay bills or buy something online and making or receiving digital payments worldwide. therefore, we used the global findex database to analyse and examine gender differences in all the mentioned segments. considering all the above mentioned, the research aims to examine whether there are statistically significant differences between men and women in financial inclusion in the following segments: having a formal 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 79-96) financial account; accessing an account via telephone or the internet more frequently; owning credit cards; saving at and borrowing from a financial institution; using the internet to pay bills or buy something online and making or receiving digital payments worldwide. therefore, we used the global findex database to analyse and examine gender differences in all the mentioned segments. this paper is structured as follows. the first section includes a literature review and the development of hypotheses, followed by an explanation of the methodology used. the third part includes empirical results and a short discussion. finally, the last part of the paper draws conclusions and deals with the issue of the gender gap from the aspect of public policymakers. literature review women are less financially included than men, even though they play an important role in the household in terms of generating and managing income (organisation for economic co-operation and development-oecd, 2018). it is considered that females living in developing countries face some discrimination (achakpa & radović-marković, 2018). according to the world bank study, women in 18 african and asian countries must require their husbands' approval to work outside the home (world bank group, 2018), limiting their ability to participate in the labour market and so earn money. this is confirmed by asaduzzaman, kabir, and radović-marković (2017) who pointed out that in bangladesh men dominated in making household decisions. also, the authors noted that females had no or had lower participation in family income and were more exposed to poverty. employment represents the major contributor to the gender gap in financial inclusion, according to the research undertaken in central and eastern european countries (ceecs), where labour market marginalisation is linked to financial exclusion (botrić & broz, 2017). it is considered that women face exclusion from the formal financial sector more likely in countries where participation of women in the labour market is lower, state-owned banks dominate in the banking sector, and laws and norms discriminate against women (morsy, 2020). to access most financial services, individuals must have a financial institution account. however, in chad, guinea-bissau, and niger, women marija antonijević, isidora ljumović, đina ivanović 83 cannot open a bank account in the same way as men because they need to provide permission or additional documentation (world bank group, 2018). saving behaviour differs by gender, considering that formal saving is more common among men in the g20 countries. in addition, there is an association between men's and women's financial literacy and their formal saving practices, showing that those with a better level of financial literacy are more inclined to save at a financial institution (hasler & lusardi, 2017). men and women also differ in saving habits, with women preferring informal savings since they may easily access their funds in an emergency (chamboko, heitmann & van der westhuizen, 2018). men have better borrowing conditions than women, such as lower interest rates and longer maturities. also, they borrow more money compared to women (harten & buri, 2014). mascia and rossi (2017) confirmed the existence of different borrowing conditions for women and men entrepreneurs related to interest rates, fees, and commissions across 11 european countries. in ecuador, having income-generating employment increases the probability of women borrowing by 14.2% (deere & catanzarite, 2018). however, as women face specific barriers to participating in the labour market, their borrowing possibilities are limited. generally, women prefer to borrow from informal sources because of difficult loan conditions (harten & buri, 2014). results of the study conducted in turkey showed that men tend to spend more using credit cards. in addition, the authors pointed out that men have more credit cards than women. however, there is no significant gender difference in owning a credit card (çankaya, ucal & o'neil, 2011). in india, males are more likely to tend to own and use credit cards, which can result from women's financial dependency (khare, khare & singh, 2012). among usa college students, credit card commitment is higher for men, and they have more positive attitudes towards credit cards than women (limbu, huhmann & xu, 2012). the scientific community has recognised the importance of gender differences in adopting new technologies (faqih & jaradat, 2015). a survey conducted in 28 countries worldwide revealed a fintech gender gap in almost every observed country (chen et al., 2021), referring to the existence of impediments to accessing and executing financial transactions via digital channels. studies involving gender analysis showed that different personal characteristics and social roles characterise men and women. consequently, they have different perceptions and process information differently (goh & 84 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 79-96) sun, 2014). education contributes to the increasing level of digital skills (european institute for gender equality, n.d.). in many countries, girls face barriers to education, resulting in higher levels of women's illiteracy, and consequently, lack of digital skills and lack of trust when using digital resources (kuroda et al., 2019). men have an advantage over women in the digital skills in the eu (european institute for gender equality, n.d.). also, bradić-martinović and banović (2018) pointed out that men have a higher level of digital skills in serbia based on a standardised survey. men are more likely than women to use digital banking services (lee et al., 2021), with younger males adopting technology earlier than younger females (chamboko, heitmann & van der westhuizen, 2018). the crucial part of the fintech gender gap can be explained by gender differences in the willingness to use new financial technology (chen et al., 2021). even if there is a greater offer and improved or more innovative options, digitally active women are more concerned about their privacy than males (chen et al., 2021). according to a study conducted in tajikistan, the level of use of financial technology varies significantly between men and women due to a disparity in understanding and use of financial technologies as well as depending on their place of residence, i.e., type of community (urban or rural) (makhkamova & saidmurodov, 2019). gender imbalance in india's growing digital environment, on the other hand, is the result of women's exclusion from fundamental technology skills, societal conventions, as well as due to financial restrictions (bala & singhal, 2018). laukkanen (2016) pointed out that gender significantly predicts adoption and rejection decisions related to m-banking, one of the most important digital banking services. according to a national panel survey of internet users in spain, intention to use the new payment system was slightly higher for men (79.5%) than women (76.8%) (liébana-cabanillas, sánchez-fernández & muñoz-leiva, 2014). also, men were more likely to use mobile payments, but they were also less affected by the risks that could potentially be realised (kalinić et al., 2019). in contrast, studies reveal that gender does not have a significant impact on adopting digital banking services (ameme, 2015). it is considered that women use the digital infrastructure less than men. a study conducted on 15 lowand middle-income countries (lmics) indicated some limitations for women in accessing smartphones and the internet (rowntree & shanahan, 2020). given that women represent the majority of the poor globally (women's world banking, 2015), it is reasonable to argue that women cannot afford a mobile phone primarily because of this. males' income is frequently larger than women's (ortiz marija antonijević, isidora ljumović, đina ivanović 85 ospina & roser, 2018); hence men are less price-sensitive than women when acquiring devices, whereby women prefer lesser quality and lesser connectivity devices (kuroda et al., 2019). in the case of online shopping, hasan (2010) found that female students expressed a lower behavioral intention to buy online than male students. also, some authors pointed out women perceived higher risk than men when shopping online (akhlaq & ahmed, 2016). awan and ho (2018) found when women recognised risk, their intention to buy online decreased more compared to men. also, these authors noted that gender influences consumers’ attitudes toward payment methods considering that women pay more attention to cash on delivery and express lower confidence related to online payment methods than men. in accordance with all the above, we have formulated the following hypotheses: h1: there is a significant difference between men and women in owning a financial institution account globally h2: there is a significant difference between men and women in saving money at a financial institution globally h3: there is a significant difference between men and women in borrowing from a financial institution globally h4: there is a significant difference between men and women in owning credit card globally h5: there is a significant difference between men and women in using a mobile phone or the internet to access an account globally h6: there is a significant difference between men and women in using the internet to pay bills or to buy something online globally h7: there is a significant difference between men and women in making or receiving digital payments globally methodology we used the global findex database 2017, including 144 countries worldwide. the survey related to this dataset was conducted during 2017, but data collection dates differ among countries. as we tested for differences among different segments, we used the definitions of terms 86 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 79-96) presented in table 1. before testing the hypotheses, we tested data normality using kolmogorov-smirnov and shapiro-wilk tests. both tests showed that data distribution in our sample is not normally distributed. in addition, we tested the symmetry of the distribution of the differences among defined pairs. finally, as all conditions were fulfilled, we applied a nonparametric wilcoxon signed-ranks test to confirm our hypotheses, using the statistical package spss 25 and a 95% confidence interval. table 1: definitions of terms used in this research term definition of term owning a financial institution account ” the percentage of respondents who report having an account (by themselves or together with someone else) at a bank or another type of financial institution.” saving at a financial institution ” the percentage of respondents who report saving or setting aside any money at a bank or another type of financial institution in the past 12 months*.” borrowing from a financial institution ” the percentage of respondents who report borrowing any money from a bank or another type of financial institution in the past 12 months*.” owning a credit card ” the percentage of respondents who report having a credit card.” using a mobile phone or the internet to access an account ” the percentage of respondents who report personally receiving money from their business, from selling goods, or from providing services (including part-time work) in the past 12 months*.” using the internet to pay bills or to buy something online ” the percentage of respondents who report using the internet to pay bills or buy something online in the past 12 months*.” making or receiving digital payments ” the percentage of respondents who report using mobile money, a debit or credit card, or a mobile phone to make a payment from an account, or report using the internet to pay bills or to buy something online, in the past 12 months. it also includes respondents who report paying bills, sending or receiving remittances, receiving payments for agricultural products, receiving government transfers, receiving wages, or receiving a public sector pension directly from or into a financial institution account or through a mobile money account in the past 12 months*.” source: demirgüç-kunt, klapper, singer, ansar & hess (2018) * in the past 12 months from the day of the global findex survey marija antonijević, isidora ljumović, đina ivanović 87 table 2 shows descriptive statistics of paired samples related to the males and females. males, on average, outperform females in all matched pairs. men more likely than women had a financial institution account (61% vs 55%), saved (26% vs 22%), borrowed (13.5% vs 11%), and owned a credit card (21% vs 17%). analysing the segments of digital financial inclusion, we can conclude that men more likely than women used a mobile phone or the internet to access an account (28% vs 23%); used the internet to pay bills or to buy something online (23.44% vs 20%); and made or received digital payments (57% vs 50%) in the past 12 months from the day of the survey. presented data on the sample of 144 countries indicate that men are more financially included than women. table 2: descriptive statistics (in percentage) variables related to the financial inclusion mean median std. deviation men women men women men women owning a financial institution account 61.30 54.95 59.20 52.24 28.01 30.85 saving at a financial institution 25.55 21.69 17.64 13.47 19.92 19.65 borrowing from a financial institution 13.50 10.88 16.82 13.76 7.48 6.83 owning a credit card 20.72 17.43 12.31 9.64 21.27 20.72 variables related to the digital financial inclusion using a mobile phone or the internet to access an account 27.95 23.19 23.12 15.58 22.17 21.47 using the internet to pay bills or to buy something online 23.44 19.83 13.15 7.90 23.74 22.93 making or receiving digital payments 57.15 50.28 50.70 44.09 27.00 29.81 n=144 source: authors' calculation based on the global findex database 2017 turkey has the greatest disparity between men and women in terms of having a financial institution account (men lead by 29 percentage points) and having a credit card (men lead by 18 percentage points). the highest difference in saving at a financial institution is recorded in trinidad and 88 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 79-96) tobago (men lead by 18 p.p.), while the highest difference in borrowing from a financial institution is recorded in bahrain (men lead by 12 p.p.). bangladesh represents the country with the biggest difference in using a mobile phone or the internet to access an account (men lead by 22 p.p.). men also dominate in using the internet to pay bills or to buy something online as well as in making or receiving digital payments. the biggest difference in both segments is recorded in saudi arabia, i.e., 22 p.p. and 32 p.p., respectively. results a wilcoxon signed-ranks test confirms significant differences among all analysed parameters related to financial inclusion (table 3). there is a significant difference between males and females in owning financial institution account, i.e., men lead (mdn=59.2%) compared to women (mdn=52.2%). a wilcoxon signed-rank test indicated this difference as statistically significant (z = -8.514, p<0.05). parallel to this, men (mdn=17.6%) to a greater extent than women (mdn=13.5%) saved at financial institution (z = -8.079, p<0.05), and borrowed from financial institution (mdn=16.8% for men, opposite to mdn=13.8% for women); (z = -8.320, p<0.05). a wilcoxon signed-ranks test indicated that men own credit card more often (mdn = 12.3%) than female (mdn = 9.6%), z = 8.320, p<0.05). in the segment of digital financial inclusion, there are statistically significant differences between male and female in using a mobile phone or the internet to access an account (mdn=13.2% for men contrary to mdn=7.9% for women); (z = -9.038, p<0.05), using the internet to pay bills or to buy something online (mdn=23.3% for men vs mdn=15.6% for women); (z = -9.173, p<0.05) as well as in making or receiving digital payments (mdn=50.7% for men opposite to mdn=44.1% for women); (z = -8.705, p<0.05). marija antonijević, isidora ljumović, đina ivanović 89 table 3: wilcoxon signed-ranks test results pair no. z asymp. sig. (2-tailed) results 1 -8.514a 0.000 accepted 2 -8.079a 0.000 accepted 3 -8.320a 0.000 accepted 4 -8.164a 0.000 accepted 5 -9.038a 0.000 accepted 6 -9.173a 0.000 accepted 7 -8.705a 0.000 accepted source: authors' calculation based on the global findex database 2017 a. based on positive ranks note: pair 1 owning a financial institution account, male owning a financial institution account, female; pair 2 saving at a financial institution, male saving at a financial institution, female; pair 3 borrowing from a financial institution, male borrowing from a financial institution, female; pair 4 owning a credit card, male owning a credit card, female; pair 5 using a mobile phone or the internet to access an account, male using a mobile phone or the internet to access an account, female; pair 6 using the internet to pay bills or to buy something online, male using the internet to pay bills or to buy something online, female; pair 7 making or receiving digital payments, male making or receiving digital payments, female. the possible reasons for these results could be differences in the following segments: access to financial resources, level of financial literacy, technical conditions and required digital skills, and attitudes towards digital technologies. results of the gender gap in owning a financial institution account are consistent with findings by demirgüç-kunt, klapper & singer (2013). these authors claim that women are less likely to own an account because of the legal restrictions on theirs right to work and hold property and inherit. a statistically significant difference between women and men in saving at a financial institution is confirmed by hasler & lusardi (2017). their findings indicate that men prefer to save at a financial institution, i.e., men more than women prefer a formal method of saving. in the case of borrowing from financial institution results are in line with the previous findings by harten & buri (2014), who stated that women prefer an informal method of borrowing (family members, friends etc.). in addition, some studies revealed that there are different borrowing conditions among genders (harten & buri, 2014; mascia & rossi, 2017) which consequently contributed to women's reduced access to a bank loan. results related to credit card ownership are confirmed by gan, maysami & koh (2008) who revealed that credit card usage is influenced by gender, but contrary to the findings by çankaya, ucal & o'neil (2011), who pointed out that there is no significant gender 90 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 79-96) difference. the existence of disparities between men and women when it comes to utilising a mobile phone or the internet to access an account is consistent with data that suggest men have an advantage over women when it comes to owning a smartphone and accessing the internet, especially in lmics (rowntree & shanahan, 2020). in the case of using the internet to pay bills or buy something online, results are confirmed by awan and ho (2018), who found that gender influences attitudes toward payment methods. according to these authors, women, compared to men, pay more attention to cash on delivery, and they also express lower confidence when using online payment methods. results related to making or receiving digital payments coincide with the previous studies which found that men are more inclined to use digital banking services (abu-assi, al-dmour & al-zu'bi, 2014; lee et al., 2021), but contrary to the findings of bamoriya & singh (2012) and ameme (2015) who claimed that gender does not have a significant influence on adopting digital banking services. in this regard, the gender gap in financial inclusion can be closed by establishing appropriate financial inclusion strategies that include gender differences related to financial and socio-cultural aspects (alliance for financial inclusion, 2017). policy initiatives need to provide a gendersensitive approach (kulkarni & ghosh, 2021), while policymakers need to take the measures to enhance women’s financial inclusion, i.e., to reform regulatory frameworks; provide a collection of gender disaggregated data on the financial sector; promote financial education and financial literacy; examine women-specific needs and develop suitable financial products and services; relax financial rules and procedures; make support programmes for women’s entrepreneurship; to promote women’s leadership and strengthen their organisations (finnegan, 2015). conclusion financial inclusion has become an essential issue for all economies, especially emerging ones. the significance of financial inclusion is reflected in the fact that it reduces income inequality and poverty in emerging countries (omar & inaba, 2020). also, it contributes to economic growth (cuéllar, 2021) and economic development (demirgüç-kunt, klapper & singer, 2017). however, despite the progress in financial inclusion, there is still a financial inclusion gender gap. (trivelli et al., 2018). the data from the latest global findex database from 2017 show that, on average, men marija antonijević, isidora ljumović, đina ivanović 91 more often than women have a formal financial account, access an account via telephone or the internet more frequently, own credit cards, save at and borrow from a financial institution, use the internet to pay bills or to buy something online, and make or receive digital payments. this paper aimed to examine whether there are statistically significant differences between men and women in observed segments related to financial inclusion. we used the global findex database 2017 to analyse and examine gender differences in all the mentioned segments. using a sample of 144 countries worldwide, we concluded that there are statistically significant differences between men and women in all the following segments related to financial inclusion: 1) owning a financial institution account; 2) saving at a financial institution; 3) borrowing from a financial institution; 4) owning a credit card; 5) using a mobile phone or the internet to access an account; 6) using the internet to pay bills or to buy something online; 7) making or receiving digital payments. on average, men dominate in all the mentioned segments. the most significant differences between men and women are in the segments related to making or receiving digital payments (men lead 6.87 percentage points over women) and owning an account with a financial institution (men lead 6.35 percentage points over women). the possible reasons for these differences could be a different distribution of financial resources by gender, different levels of education, digital skills and financial literacy, different technical conditions (having mobile devices and internet access), as well as differences in attitudes towards digital technologies (lack of trust, compatibility, feeling anxiety, etc.). considering the results which indicate that men are more financially included than women, policymakers of individual countries, especially saudi arabia, kenya, turkey, hong kong, italy, spain, trinidad and tobago, and bahrain, should take appropriate measures to encourage women’s financial inclusion and thus reduce the gender gap. also, it is crucial to provide a gender-sensitive approach (kulkarni & ghosh, 2021) when developing financial inclusion strategies. further research should focus on examining and determining factors and the extent of their influence on the gender gap in financial inclusion. also, the analysis should consider the impact of economic development and cultural differences among countries. 92 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 79-96) acknowledgements this paper is supported by the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic of serbia. references [1] abu-assi, haneen a., hani h. al-dmour, and zu'bi al-zu'bi. 2014. 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[57] world bank group. 2018. women, business and the law 2018. washington, dc: world bank. article history: received: october 24th, 2021 accepted: april 28th, 2022 https://ourworldindata.org/economic-inequality-by-gender 14_jwe_1-2 udc: 339.13:305-055.1/.2(6-15) jel: 017, j6 id: 207722764 scientific review gender dimensions of informal cross border trade in west-african sub-region (ecowas) borders olabisi yusuff1 lagos state university, department of sociology, lagos, nigeria a b s t r a c t the aim of this paper is to examine the dynamics of women in cross border trade along ecowas sub region. west african region is noted significantly for high volume of trade that goes on within its borders on daily basis, and it involves formal and informal trade. however, informal trade is an integral, but unrecognized component of ecowas economic activities. over, sixty percent of women are into informal trading across ecowas sub region, yet, there is gap in literature on the dynamics of these regional women traders across subecowas region. using qualitative method of data collection, a significant number of women traders in informal cross border in sub ecowas region were interviewed on their motivations, trade operations, challenges, and coping strategies. the findings reveal that there are several insecurities posed by informalities of women trading practices. these insecurities are associated with activities of lawenforcement agents and touts coupled with the facts that women traders are not knowledgeable about the procedures that guide international trade. despite several challenges posed by informal cross border trade, women traders had devised coping strategies to negotiate these challenges as majority of women are using the income to support themselves, their spouses, training their children and above all enabled them to live above poverty level, which is one of millennium goals. the paper recommend that informal economic activities of women in cross border trade needs to recognized for holistic policy to be formulated and, women need vigorous education on the law that guide the rules and procedures of regional trade. 1 e-mail:soyusuf@yahoo.co.uk olabisi, y., west-african sub-region (ecowas), jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) 133 key words: dynamics, informal, cross border, women, subecowas region introduction formal and informal cross-border trade in west africa has increased since the 1990s because of economic liberalization policies, population growth, and urbanization. this expansion has been credited with deepening regional integration, improving economic growth and benefiting the population through employment, market and product diversification, increased outlets for goods produced and manufactured in the region and improvements in food availability (morris & saul, 2000). it has been suggested that trade in non-traditional exports such as agricultural products, livestock, fish, handicrafts, and manufactured goods will increasingly drive sustained economic growth in west africa. this implies the importance of strong connections between trade and other sectors of west african economies, particularly agricultural production and processing, fisheries and manufacturing (ecowas-waemu, 2006). informal trade is an integral, but unrecognized component of africa’s economy. although the informal sector has been characterized by several attributes (yusuff, 2013), noncompliance with the legal and administrative regulations is often regarded as its most important characteristic. (ezema, 2011) informal trade in africa has persisted despite the effort to graft it into formal economy in developing countries (olutayo, 2005). evidence shows that, on average, sixty percent of trade is informal trade (macamo, 1990, ackello-oguta, 1998). goldberg and pavenik (2003) define informal as the sector of the economy that does not comply with the labour market legislation and does not provide worker’s benefits. informal trade here means trade that is not recorded officially by customs at the border and does not necessarily mean illegal trade. the history of cross border trade exchange is tied up with emergence about twenty years ago of floating exchange rates and the eurobond market (chichilinsky, 2003). the current economic and socio political environment of sub saharan africa has an increasing percentage of sub-saharan african’s seeking alternative livelihood strategies, some of which include high-risk activities, often time, these alternatives include crossborder trading and migration to neighbouring states (iom south africa newsletter, 2010). 134 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) cross border trade cuts across all ages, religion, ethnic groups, and gender. the main type of cross border trade practiced across west african border among women is informal cross-border trade (icbt). icbt plays a vital role in poverty reduction, employment, and income opportunities (kabira, 2006, cagatay & ozler, 1995). it is a vital source of livelihood for the poor and an important component of africa’s economy contributing immensely to the economy of africa, particularly, in terms of economic upliftment of women status, food security, regional economic trade and social integration (matsuyama, 2011). icbt does not occur in vacuum as it takes place within the broader trade and developmental context internationally, regionally and nationally. there is a direct link in west africa between cbt, trade openness and regional economic growth (morris and saul, 2000). informal crossborder traders import essential and scare commodities into their countries (mijere, 2006). it is estimated that cross border women traders in west africa employ one or two people and support average of 3.2 children, in addition to 3.1 dependants who are not their children or spouses (unifem, 2008). radovic-markovic and all (2010) noted that women in developing countries did not obtained an equal standing to men with respect to job opportunities , wage, ownerships of real estate and decision making positions in government. therefore, unifem, (2008) reports show that women constitute between seventy to eighty percent of people that are engaged in cross – border trade. they are mostly actively involved in border trading activities such as moving goods through border crossing points as trade is one-activity women can take-up with little or no resources. however, women had been engaged in longdistance trade before this time and had been earning incomes for household support. but aftermath of 1980’s economic crisis, informal cross border trade becomes a safety net for the unemployed in african, providing sources of income without formal education (mijere, 2006). by ignoring women’s informal trading activities, african countries are neglecting a significant proportion of their trade ironically, the perception of icbt is often illegal dealing in stolen goods, banned goods, or illegal drugs. this perception has unfortunately resulted in most countries focusing only on formal international trade with complete disregard of the informal aspects of the trade despite the significant contributions that the trade makes to the overall national economy. informal cross border trade is coming under the spotlight in connection with the need to alleviate poverty in general and feminized olabisi, y., west-african sub-region (ecowas), jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) 135 poverty in particular. for this to happen effectively and efficiently, policy and institutional reforms should create an enabling environment for cross border women trader. challenges to free and profitable participation in trade have to be identified and documented. this study draws attention to the circumstances of women traders across west african borders within the context of the evolving policy that must take full cognizance of the situations of women and their small-scale crossborder trade activities. the findings in this study will lay basis for efforts by individual countries to offer concessionary facilities to women traders so that they can realize their full potential, ultimately enabling them to take advantage of west african economic liberation policy. this study focuses on women’s capacities, their contributions to intra-west african trade, and particularly on crossborder trade and its constraints. brief literature review and theoretical framework since the colonial period, west african women have been involved in trade, both in their own countries and across the borders, particularly in the distribution of food and small consumer items and trade services. their active involvement in small –scale trade is linked with the gendered construction of the colonial economy and society, which allowed male access to formal education and employment in the colonial bureaucracy and other forms of formal employment. residential regulations during this period restricted women’s access to urban areas and confined them to rural areas under the jurisdiction of chiefs. these circumstances resulted in the gender segmentation of the labour force, requiring women to restrict themselves to the margins of the colonial order, delivering muchneeded services to male migrants and establishing themselves in the informal distribution of goods and services. these colonial patterns have persisted into postcolonial period, reinforced by continuing gender discrimination in terms of access to education and formal employment and growing in formalization of work due to economic liberalization policies (tsikata, 2009). many women have entered the informal economy owing to lack of other opportunities for them. women traders have used global economic openings to become cross border traders. traditionally, women cross border traders were engaged in the sale of unprocessed and processed food such as fish, salt, and foodstuffs. because of the segmentation of labour in 136 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) production and distribution, men and women have traded in distinct products in the market places (economic commission for africa, 2010). originally, women are confined to jobs such as food selling and shop assistance in businesses at border crossing, they are now involved in cross border trade, involving a range of goods and services, which has resulted in new transnational networks, supported by commonalities in language, culture and kinship system (economic commission for africa, 2010). wcbts are now more diverse and engage in a higher value and volume of goods than the stereotypical market selling few items on every market day (morris & saul, 2000). wcbts trade in agricultural produces, agricultural processed goods, and light manufacturing commodities (dejere, 2001). cross border trade has enabled many women to become financially independent (desai, 2001). many female household heads have break out of poverty through cross border trading (muzvidziwa, 1998). many women opted for cross border trade as a strategy to ease competition and cope with poverty (shamu, 2005). wcbt, path is strewn with difficulties and danger (kabira, 2011) as icbt is a risky business for women (matsuyama, 2011). wcbts are open to economic and personal risks such a robbery and harassment (iom zimbabwe newsletter, 2011). according to matsuyama (2011), wcbt do not benefits from preferential tariffs, and face risks of abuse, harassment, exploitation and are exposed to extreme vulnerability. they are vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and health risks (matsuyama, 2011). despite the fact, wcbts make huge contributions to africa’s economy. they are neglected by mainstream trade policies and institutions and as such undermining the profitability of their activities (mzizi, 2010). mazinjika (2009) discovered that most wcbts have little knowledge of their countries customs. protocol and the few that knows it have little motivation to use it to facilitate trading activities. many researches on wcbts have identified a lot of challenges and constraints encountered by wcbts, the most common constraints include: inadequate public and private transportation, multiple control posts, multiple and arbitrary taxation of goods, insecurity and harassment, limited market information, communication costs, language barriers and problem of exchange (dejene, 2001; mzizi, 2010; njikam&tchouassi, 2010). problem of exchange rate; mainly between the cfa, france and nigerian currency the naira. due to lack of formal exchange bureaus, most traders go to informal (black) market exchange where premium is often high and volatile. olabisi, y., west-african sub-region (ecowas), jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) 137 from 2007-2009 of the 2000 wcbt surveyed by unifem a great majority stated that the proceeds from trading is the main source of income for their families (south africa, 2009). wcbts’ address vital issues of livelihoods such as food and income security (mzizi, 2010). they contribute to food security, by trading in food products from areas of surplus to areas of deficit (dejene, 2001). because women cross border trading is carried out informally, measuring their contributions to national and regional economic development is difficult (dejene, 2001). rational choice theory the basic principles of rational theory are derived from neo-classical economics. based on a variety of different models, freidman and hechter (1988) put together what they describe as „sketal“ model of rational choice theory (ritzer, 1996). the focus of rational choice theory is on actors. actors are seen as being purposive, or as having intentionality. that is, actors have ends or goals toward which their actions are aimed. actors are also seen as having preferences (values, and utilities). the main assumption of this theory is that any action by an individual is a purposive behaviour, which will hold benefits for the actor in some ways. rational choice theory sees individuals behaviour as motivated by their wants, needs and goals and that individuals acts with specific given constraints that are based on the information they have about the conditions under which they are acting. the relationship between individuals’ wants and constraints in achieving them can be seen in the pure technical terms of relationship of a means to an end and since it is not possible to achieve all their desires and goals and they must make choices in relation to both their goals and the means of achieving them. rational choice theory holds that individuals usually anticipate the outcomes of alternative courses of action and calculate that which will be best for them. rational individuals are believed to choose the alternative that is likely to grant them their goals at minimal cost. there are two types of decision-making identified by rational choice theorist, namely involvement decisions and event decisions. involvement decisions are those in which choices are made to become involved in an act or behaviour, and the continuity or retreat from such behaviour depends on the weight of costs and benefit of it, while event decision are those in which the strategies of carrying out an action are determined. if these strategies are difficult, such course of action or behaviour will not be taken. 138 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) the argument of this research is anchored on the notion that economic activity of cross-border trading is rooted in rational choice theory as any individual before opting for cross-border trading will have to weigh the pros and cons of such decision, and since cross-border trading does not require much capital, it is an easy option for women as a means of easing economic repression. along the line as cross-border trader realizes that the rewards/profits accrued from cross-border trade far out weight it costs, they develop tactics to cope and minimize whatever costs and difficulties associated with the trade. it goes a long way in explaining why there is a steady increase in women’s involvement in icbt in recent times by bring to fore the fact that an activity become attractive if its potential benefits outweighs the potential danger and cost associated with it. that is, it adequately explained why women persist in icbt despite the challenges and difficulties associated with the trade. method of data collection this research work utilized only qualitative method of data collection, because of the itinerary nature of informal trade, there is no available data based for informal economic actors. qualitative methods of data collection were therefore found appropriate for this type of work. the method of data collection includes the following a. unstructured observation, b. focus group discussion (fgds), c. in-depth interviewing (idi) and d. key–informant interviewing (kiis). the essence of triangulating the method of data collection is that one method strength will cover the weakness of another method. unstructured observations were carried out at seme border, iyana-iba and miletwo motor parks. these are motor parks were utilized for conveying of goods coming from abdijan, through ghana, togo and benin republic to various destinations in nigeria. the essence of unstructured observation was to get familiar with the operations of women traders coming from various west – africa countries. two focus – group discussions each was carried out at iyana-iba and miletwo motor parks. it was virtually impossible to conduct fgd at seme border because of visible fear of uniformed personnel expressed by women olabisi, y., west-african sub-region (ecowas), jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) 139 traders. focus group discussions were carried out with women traders at iyana-iba and mile two motor parks while waiting for their goods to arrive or while waiting for boarded vehicle to fill up. the researcher and research assistants had to go to the parks to wait for the women to arrive. however, the consent of women to participate in fgds were sought through the contact persons (drivers). there is no specific day that the interviews were carried in-depthinterviewing (idis) were carried out at various times and at different places. sometimes, the researcher and research assistant had to follow the women in a cap in order to get them interviewed. the purpose of the interview was normally explained to them in order to get their consent for interview. the key informants include the custom officials, immigration and police officers and the drivers at the motor parks where the women board vehicle to their destinations. women involved in cross border trade were interviewed for the period spanning over eight months. the data was analyzed through content analysis and ethnographic summaries. results and critical discussion motivation and social networking among women traders in informal cross border trade in general, a person will never start a business without motivation (robertson, 2003). motivation is an important factor in the decision to start a business. there are various and possible motivational factors that could influence women entrepreneurial behaviours despite the fact that culturally women are expected to stay at home, take care of children, and play other social roles. women are the first primary agent of socialization as it has been posited that absence of mothers at home over a long period often lead to deviance behaviour among children (olutayo, 2005). despite the culturally approved roles of women in society, majority of the women were engaged in cross border trading as means of survival, for economic reasons and to supplement the family income.one important finding on motivating factor is the “quick returns on investment and location opportunity”. for some women, informal cross border trading (icbt) was added to their jobs because of proximity of border (seme border) to their residence. the 140 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) proximity enables them to do quick trading before returning home at the close of work. some of the respondents illuminate on this issue. there is no other means to support my husband, who had been retrenched from his place of work. icbt brings in quick money and it has helped us to live above poverty level in my household (female / 35 years/ idi/ february, 2013). there is no other way to generate income to train my children and support my husband. i will continue to remain a crossborder trader because it generates quick money. since there is no other means to get money to feed, the only means i know is what i will stick to (fgd/ 40years/ april 2013). i live not far from seme border. most times, i travelled to cotonou to purchase some goods for sale at the office .i added icbt to my job because my salary is not sufficient to meet my financial burdens, i will continue as a cross border trader until my financial burdens decreases (idi/ 38years/ april 2013). the location opportunity/ advantage taken by the respondent above was collaborated by the custom personnel. a key-informant, informed us that, there are usually inter marriage between nigerians and beninois and some of them live around the border town. the dual citizenship gives them advantage in crossing from one country’s border to another. this has been one of the obstacles in preventing immigration officials from enforcing the law, as people will always claim they are in their countries. findings in this study reveal the social networking of women informal cross border traders are involved in. majority of women’ traders are introduced to this informal trading by friends and other relatives. these friends and relatives taught them the rules of the game, that is, how to cope and succeed in spite of difficulties associated with the trade. trading activities across ecowas sub region borders known and unknown risks the main findings show that women in informal cross border trade engage in sales of different and diverse commodities, which are, categorize differently. the categories include agricultural products like rice, pastry, cooking oil, beef and chicken and different kind of fruits. other category is textile materials, which include the new textile materials like ankara, guinea brocade, lace materials among others. old second –hand materials olabisi, y., west-african sub-region (ecowas), jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) 141 called „okirika“. okirika includes different types of wears, shoes and bags and bed spreads . all these items are categorized as banned goods. in sourcing for all these materials, the findings reveal that women in informal cross border trading had to travel to various markets in benin republics to buy all these commodities. some went as far as to other countries like ghana, togo, and cote-d’ivoire to purchase some commodities if such commodities are not available in benin republic. the findings reveal that women traders in informal crossborder trade across sub-ecowas region do not use available formal systems and structures for their transactions, which exposes them to known and unknown risks along the region. in addition to this, their mode of operations makes it difficult for regional trade policy initiatives to have any significant impact on their business. some key informants were apt on this: there are policies that guide international trade that, anyone who engages in it must comply with. the status of women had been raised from an ordinary woman to international trader immediately she makes a decision to leave her country and cross to another country to trade. however, most of the women in informal trade are not knowledgeable about the law that guides international trading. they do not know how to be a cross border trader. most of them are not registered to advantage the full advantages of ecowas liberalized policy (kii/59years/ march, 2013). all kinds of women on daily basis ply lagos seme border en-route to other towns in nigeria. it is observed for several years that crossborder traders do not have legal documents needed to facilitate such trade. most of them do not have ecowas passport and international identity. majority of the women in crossborder trade are illiterate, but have business initiatives and are so desperate while engaging in the business. the literate ones among them are very few (kii/55years/ march, 2013). ironically, women traders show little knowledge about policies guiding crossborder trading except the fact that they had to carry their international passport when crossborder which most of them claimed they do not possess. few of them that possess international passport believe that they will be delayed at the transit point and would be asked to pay a fee of two thousand naira before they could enter. most of the women show little motivation to register and pay little tax on their goods. they are not aware of the fact that they can go to purchase goods with minimum of $500 if they are registered, and without going through the bush-parts, or exposing their goods to seizure. women traders largely want to continue with the old way 142 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) of trading they have been socialized into and had practiced for many decades. the preference for the old ways had been evident in the manner women traders had been operating along ecowas-sub region borders. in addition to this, even those who had never been exposed to trading but had taken advantage of social networking they are involved in to get into informal cross border trade operate in the same. women traders gave several reasons for not been motivated or confident that registrations will assist them in crossborder trading. women advance cultural reasons as to the fact that they are women who are taking initiatives to train, cater for their children, and assist in house hold economy. in so doing, they are helping themselves, helping families, their communities, and society in general. the general perception of women in informal cross border trade is that they are contributing significantly towards the development of nations, through provision of scare items, therefore they should not be hindered in conducting their business successfully. women traders also look at the issue of time and believe that they need to conduct their business quickly in order to return home to take care of their children and spouses. going through formal process of registrations will affect the time they need to conduct their businesses and return home. a key –informant collaborate on this when an immigration officer on guard prevent some of these women traders, from entering the border, they are always ready to beg and plead with us ,appealing that they had to take care of their families. while we allow the policy regulation to override the sentiments expressed by these women, some of them find their ways through the push paths with the assistance of (beninois). however, i believe that women traders should show themselves to immigration officer and registered because of their safety and inherent danger associated with travelling to another country (kii/ 45years/ june, 2013). some of the women believed that they small scale traders that operate with small capital ranging from thirty thousand naira to hundred thousand naira. women traders also expressed the fear of tax payment. they believe that they might not be to afford payment of taxes, since they operate at the small-scale level. payment of taxes will eat deep into their profits. they also expressed doubt if custom personnel will ask them to pay appropriate tax. to women respondents, custom officials are not sincere, they will always find faults with the hope to extract more money from them than the exact olabisi, y., west-african sub-region (ecowas), jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) 143 amount they are to pay if they truly registered as traders. a woman respondent in fgd expresses her fear: i doubt if official rate of taxation will be applied. we all knew from experience that customs, immigration, and other security men will always find reasons to demand more money in their individual capacities (fgd/ 47years/ may 2013). women generally were of the opinion that any policy that appears to make it difficult for customs, immigration and security officials to receive bribe from women traders is bound to fail because the officials will not allow it to operate smoothly. challenges of women in informal cross border trade several challenges have been associated with cross border trading, more so with the informality associated with women traders’ work. obstacles do not necessarily stem from policy regulation, but from informality of women’s work. several obstacles expressed by women traders range from attitude of uniformed personnel, to language barriers, sexual harassment, fluctuating exchange rate, vulnerability to hiv/aids and inadequate transport facilities. one of the obstacle women trade perceived as the most serious challenge they face is the attitude of uniformed personnel. their responses is not surprising considering the fact that uniformed personnel activities are based on formal procedure of operation, which contradicts informality of women traders’ activities. informalities of women’s work in crossborder trading prevent necessary revenues in form of taxes that might have been accrued to government purse. findings reveal that women in cross border trading are perceived as smugglers (fayawo). smuggling of banned goods into country is seen as detrimental to national productivity and economic growth. it is posited therefore that women in informal cross border trading are perceived as „enemy of nations“. this perception brings constant acrimony between uniformed personnel and women in informal crossborder trading. in one of the unstructured observation at customs’ checkpoint, the researcher witnessed a scuffle ensued between a custom officer and a woman trader which eventually resulted in custom officer physically assaulting the woman. one of the respondents says: 144 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) custom is the main challenge wcbt encounter and some people have had hypertension because of custom officials’ attitudes of seizing their goods. police, immigration officers are also part of the challenges of wcbt. due to desperations by police and customs officers to get money, even when a vehicle is not carrying any contraband goods, they will still attempt to seize goods and demand for money before they can return the goods or detain the vehicle until he pays them (fgd/38years/ may 2013). drivers’ theft, robbery, and fraud in the market the findings show that majority of the women were particular about the cases of robbery by hooligans and sometimes by drivers in an attempt to help them load their goods. this problem expressed by women respondents has to do with the problem of insecurity at the border. unstructured observation at the border reveals that the border is porous. people from various ethnic backgrounds are within the border engaging in conducting one business or the other, more so, there are no officials on patrol to check their activities. another observation made at the seme border shows that many of the wcbts are not usually at peace until the crossers (people helping transporting goods from another country) or truck man brings their goods and even after that, they monitor the drivers of the buses they are boarding like a mother hen’ until the vehicle is on the move. observation reveals that hooligans/ touts (agbero) always charge women traders some amount on their goods known as „land money“. scuffle usually ensues which sometimes may lead to stolen goods if the women trader refuses to pay land charges to „agbero“. the reasoning behind this was the perception that women in informal cross border trading are engaging in illegal business as they do, therefore, little choice is left to them than to obey the hooligans. it is reasoned that hooligans do not tamper with the women in formal cross border trading, money paid to hooligans could have been used for taxes if women in informal cross border trading as been properly registered. the problem of driver’s theft, robbery, and fraud is illuminated by the response of a woman in focus group discussion there are many people at this border. many of them are theft waiting to steal the goods of anyone who is not watchful. if one is not watchful, the hooligans at the garage will steal one’s goods. again, the „agbero“ will come and charge owoile (land charges) as if the land belongs to them. olabisi, y., west-african sub-region (ecowas), jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) 145 moreover, if one refuses to pay, they will start dragging your goods with you. they even prefer to steal your goods than collecting owoile (land charges) from you. one needs to be very smart in this border (fgd/ 47yrs/ april 2013) in this era of hiv/aid, the finding reveals that none of the women respondents claimed to have contacted the disease. for sexual harassment by the uniformed personnel, there was unanimous opinion that custom personnel usually harass women sexually. however, there was no one among the respondent who claimed to have been harassed before by custom personnel. their claim was understandable bearing in mind that within yoruba culture or any other culture in nigeria, women cannot come out boldly that she has been harassed sexually because of stigmatization involve. ironically, there was sort of subtle approval and emotions expressed by women traders that sometimes, for a woman to prevent seizure of her goods, she might comply with the demands of custom men. the reason was that if she loses her goods through seizure, how would she cope and take care of her family. it is posited that apart from perception that women traders engage in smuggling of banned items into country, the fear of women losing their goods might also accounts for incidence of sexual harassment at borders. however, a key informant explains the situation on sexual harassment in another dimension harassment occurs at most routes of the border both legal and illegal routes. border officials spearheaded some, while women themselves engineer some. the women who ply these illegal routes while transacting business are at the mercy of themselves when caught by patrol officers on duty. however, 90% of harassments that occurred at the border areas were usually fashioned by these women. since women traders traded in contraband goods, when they are caught and the goods are seized, they chose to entice border officials on duty as a means to liberate their goods. they are ready to give anything (kii/55years/ may 2013). another challenge that is worth noting is the health challenges associated with crossborder trading. one of the health challenges expressed by women respondents that cut across everyone of them is the issue of stress. majority of women traders experience stress in the course of travelling to another country for several reasons, one reason is the fear of seizure of goods by custom officials. other reason includes thefts by drivers or touts at the motor parks, and extortion by different uniformed men. a woman respondent explains this: 146 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) though, the gain of cbt is high, but it is too stressful because of the challenges we normally experience on this route. however, if god has not opened another one, i will continue with this. the problem and stress associated with this trade tells on one’s health, it is not a trade one should do for a long time, if one wants to enjoy. the problem of cbt at seme border is much, if you see my picture, you will realize that the stress of cbt is not good for the health (idi/ 39years/ june, 2013). despite the apparent challenges majority of the respondents say they will remain a cross border traders, because they have no other means of income, to train their children. it is pertinent that point out that because of insistence of women in informal cross trading to continue with the trading, majority of them had devised several coping strategies negotiate these challenges that are worthy noting. coping strategies of women traders in informal cross border trade in ecowas su-region coping strategy is important effort or plan devised by a person or a group to achieve any laudable objectives. women in informal cross border trade have devised various coping strategies to negotiate challenges associated with informality of trading. among the notable one is what is known as „settling drivers“. settling drivers is a means where the drivers conveying their goods act as intermediary between women in informal cross border trading and the custom officials. the findings reveal that drivers conveying goods for women traders usually charge women with loads higher amount than those without loads. for instance, before the removal of fuel subsidy, a bus fare from seme border to iyana –iba cost two hundred naira for people without loads, while those with loads pay as much as two thousand naira to three thousand naira depending on the quantity of goods. the extra amounts are used to settle the uniformed personnel. majority of the women prefer to pay the drivers such amount in other for the drivers to settle all the uniformed personnel. a respondent says: if you have paid the driver sufficiently, the driver will settle the officers, so once i pay; the customs are no longer my problems (idi/35yeras/ february, 2013). the finding also reveals that in a situation where customs officers demand for more money the driver cannot afford, the wcbt contribute olabisi, y., west-african sub-region (ecowas), jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) 147 more money among them to settle such officers. significantly, all wcbt employ this strategy, they differentiated between „seizure“ and „seizure“. when one’s goods is „seized“, there is still hope of recovering such goods. but when it enters „seizure“, it cannot be recovered. thus most women bribe customs officials, in other to avoid their goods from entering „seizure“ and these money is accompanied with lots of pleas. it was also reveals that wcbt are sometimes charge a particular amount to bail their goods. a respondent says: customs have specific period for specific goods, for examples, if it is the era of rice seizure, one will be billed two thousand naira for a bag of rice and one thousand five hundred to bail a cartoon of turkey. this implies that the number of bags of rice or cartoons of turkey one can afford to bail is what one takes home; as such, it will affect the profit margin. the moment we bail out goods, such trip will yield no profit, for all the profits have been given out to custom to bail out the goods (idi/ 32years/january, 2013). a significant proportion of wcbt employ this strategy. however, some women go to the market every day to buy in small quantities, the rationale behind this is to avoid seizure by custom officials. apart from settling the drivers to act as intermediary between them and the custom officials, some women also divide their goods into different parts with the belief that if they carry their goods in one vehicle, custom officials are likely to seize them. nevertheless, if the goods are divided and send in different vehicles, it is not likely that all the goods will be sized. conclusions poverty traps women in multiple layers of discrimination and hinders their abilities to claim their rights. for countries to successfully achieve the mdgs by 2015, they must tackle mdg 3, because gender equality and women empowerment in society is essentials in addressing environmental, economic and societal problems and the exclusion of gender in policy creation can seriously damage the efficacy of the mdgs implementations (ibeh, 2009). informal cross border trade is a vital part of the nations’ economy that cannot be ignored. icbt has provided jobs for significantly number of people particularly women. it has provided easy entry for the unemployed, and the retrenched. it has helped many people especially women to train their children and support both their spouses and provide for household 148 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) economy. it has enable people to live and rise above poverty level. the findings from this study shows that majority of women are into this trade to support family income, to train children and support their spouses. however, despite the significant advantages that informal cross border trading has provided for women in particularly, much needed to be done on the part of government and nongovernmental organization in educating women on the continuous inherent dangers associated with informalities of their trading activities. of importance to this issue is the the known risks associated with informalities. cross-border trade involves high levels of insecurity related to both persons and goods from corrupt law-enforcement agencies and touts. traders carrying money run the risk of having money seized. this study collaborate the study carried out by (ibeanu, 2007) that one in two respondents had experienced some form of harassment during their current trip. the nigeria-benin border is considered particularly problematic and has defied solution in spite of joint border patrols organized at the behest of their presidents. the insecurity of traders is compounded by the fact that they often do not have valid travel documents and do not always know whether they need to pay taxes on the goods they are carrying. many traders had devised strategies to cross borders with their goods. the situation at the borders fuels extortion. not surprisingly, extortion by law enforcement officials is the most frequently mentioned problem by those interviewed. significantly, majority of women reported that their businesses had been adversely affected .it also reasoned that unknown risks might occur at any time when one travels outside one’s country, and without the knowledge of immigration officers, government might not be in position to take any diplomatic decisions. recommendation 1. there is need to address the issue of informality in mainstream trade policy making and to strengthen the notion that women informal traders are also an important client of ministries of trade and regional economic communities. every effort should be made to enable women to build trust in formal crossborder trading structures rather than continuing with the old practice of conducting which may be regarded as costly illegal trade. apart from the fact that the illegality poses unpredictable costs that make planning difficult, it prevents them from securing recognition from olabisi, y., west-african sub-region (ecowas), jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) 149 formal government structures as important traders which leaves their contributions unrecorded and therefore not recognized or documented. 2. more researches should be conducted to document the experiences of women traders at all border points and within their business premises. while it will be important to find ways of quantifying their participation, it would be better from a strategic viewpoint to use qualitative methods to assess their experiences and learn from them about their experiences, knowledge and constraints involve in regional trade 3. the use of mass media for dissemination of information concerning trade-policy on subecowas region should be encouraged. national government, regional bodies, and most civil society organizations should educate or empower these women with knowledge on how they can participate meaningfully in regional trade wcbt. often these women rely on each other for socioeconomic support and information. 4. policy implementation should include production and dissemination of innovative knowledge products to: (i) ensure visibility of the contributions of women cross border traders to wealth creation, poverty reduction, employment creation and regional integration; (ii) disseminate best practices in supporting women informal cross border traders; (iii) fight stigmatization and violence against women informal cross border traders. references [1] ackello-ogutu, c. (1997). “unrecorded cross-border trade between kenya and uganda: implications for food security.” sd publication series, office of sustainable development bureau for africa, usaid, technical paper 59, july. [2] cagatay, n. & ozler s. (1995). feminization of the labour force: the effects of long term development and structural adjustment. world development 23.11. 1883-1894. [3] chichilinsky, g. (2002). globalization and cross border exchange. available at www.amalik.iijournals.com. (accessed march, 2012). [4] dejene, v. (2001). women’s cross – border trade in west – africa. available at www. widetech.org. (accessed february, 2012). [5] desai, m. (2009). women cross border traders rethinking global trade. available at www.pelgrave.journals.com. (accessed february, 2012). [6] economic commission for africa, (2010). gender and intra africa trade: the case of west-africa. available at www.unesca.org. (accessed march, 2012). [7] ecowas-waemu. (2006). “regional integration for growth and poverty reduction in west africa: strategies and plan of action.” regional strategy paper 150 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) prepared by the waemu commission and the ecowas executive secretariat, abuja and ouagadougou. [8] esema-isiaka, e. (2011). „women’s participation to self-employment and informal sector.” journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, (1-2): 108-116. [9] goldberg, p.k., pavenik, n.l. (2003). „the response of the informal sector to trade liberalization“. j. dev. econ., (72): 463-496. [10] ibeanu, o. (2007). “beyond declarations: law enforcement officials and ecowas protocols free movement of persons and goods in west africa.” cleen foundation. available at www.cleen.org. (accessed march 2012) [11] ibeh, e. (2009). „factors affecting performance of women entrepreneurs.“ journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, (1-2): 39-50. [12] iom southern africa newsletter, (2010). informal cross border trade. eye issue on migration health. available at www. iomzimbabwe. org. (accessed march 2012). [13] kabira, w.m. (2006). women and cross border trade in east africa. available at www.library.fes.de. (accessed march, 2012). [14] matsuyama, r. (2011). risky business of informal cross border trade. available at www.afronews.com. (accessed april, 2012). [15] mijere, n.j. (2006). informal cross border trade in the south african development. available at www.ossrea.com. (accessed april, 2012). [16] morris, g.& saul, m. (2000). women’s business links; a preliminary assessment of women cross border traders. available at www. pdf.usaid.gov. (accessed april, 2012). [17] muzvidiziwa, v. (1998). cross border trade: a strategy for climbing out of poverty. available at www. digital.lib.msu.edu. (accessed april, 2012). [18] njikam, o. & tchouassi g. (2011). „women in informal cross-border trade: evidence from the central african region.“ academic journals, 6.5.22-31. [19] olutayo, o. (2005). „women in informal long-distance trade: the family and rural-urban market nexus in southwestern nigeria.“ ibadan journal of the social sciences, 3.2:67. [20] radović-marković, m., beraha, i., jaško, a. (2010). „female employment in formal and informal sectors of the serbian economy“. journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, (3-4): 18-27. [21] ritzer, g. (2013). sociological theory. fourth edition. mcgraw hill international editions. sociology series [22] robinson, s. (2003). an examination of entrepreneurial motives and their influence on the way rural women small business owners manage their employees. journal of developmental entrepreneurship, 6.2: 151-167. [23] shamu, s. (2005). gender and entrepreneurship: survival strategies of tanzania-bound zimbabwean informal women cross border traders. available at http://www.ossrea.net. (retrieved april, 2012) [24] tsikata, d. (2009). “informalization, the informal economy and urban women’s livelihoods in sub-saharan africa since the 1990s.” in s. razavi (ed.), the olabisi, y., west-african sub-region (ecowas), jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) 151 gendered impacts of liberation: towards “embedded liberalism”?. routledge, new york. [25] unifem, (2008). unleashing the potential of women in informal cross border traders to transform intra-african trade. available at www.unifem.org. (accessed may, 2012). [26] yusuff, s.o. (2013). “social organization of textile – trading among yoruba women textile traders: implication towards entrepreneurial development in informal economy in nigeria.” journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education, (1-2): 36-61. rodna dimenzija neformalne prekogranične trgovine u zapadno-afričkom regionu (ecowas) a p s t r a k t cilj ovog rada jeste da ispita dinamiku žena u prekograničnoj trgovini ecowas pod region. u zapadno afričkom regionu je zabeležena visoka dnevna frekvencija formalne i neformalne trgovine koja se dešava u okviru granica. medjutim, neformalna trgovina je deo, ali nepriznati deo ecowas ekonomskih aktivnosti. preko 60% žena je uključeno u neformalnu trgovinu u ecowas pod regionu, ali, ne postoji dovoljno literature o dinamici žena trgovaca iz ecowas podregiona. koristili smo kvalitativni metod prilikom prikupljanja podataka, i značajan broj žena trgovaca, koje učestvuju u neformalnoj trgovini u ecowas podregionu, je intervijuisan u vezi sa njihovom motivacijom, poslovanjem, izazovima i strategijama održavanja posla. istraživanja nam otkrivaju da postoji par neizvesnosti kada je u pitanju praksa ženske trgovine. ove neizvesnosti su povezane sa aktivnostima od strane policije i agenata zajedno sa činjenicom da žene trgovci nisu priznate u procedurama vezanim za internacionalnu trgovinu. uprkos izazovima koje postavlja neformalna prekogranična trgovina, žene trgovci su razvile strategije za prevazilaženje ovih izazova pošto većina žena izdržava ovim prihodom i svoje muževe, dalje ga koristi za obučavanje dece i iznad svega ovaj prihod im omogučava da žive iznad granice siromaštva, što je jedan od ciljeva ovog milenijuma. ovaj rad predlaže da se te neformalne ekonomske aktivnosti žena u pograničnim krajevima priznaju i da se formuliše zakon, jer je ženama neophodno obrazovanje iz oblasti zakona koji uredjuju pravila i procedure regionalne trgovine. 152 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 132-152) ključne reči: dinamika, neformalno, prekogranična, žene, pod ecowas region article history: received: 11 february, 2014 accepted: 28 april, 2014 doi: 10.28934/jwee22.12.pp1-18 jel: l29, h12 original scientific paper 0bwomen's ventures resilience and covid19 crisis: a lesson to success in time of crisis yousef mohammadkarimi0 f1 university of payame noor, faculty of business management, tehran, iran hemn karimi1 f2 university of ferdowsi, faculty of business management, tehran, iran solyman iranzadeh2f3 university of islamic azad university, tabriz branch, faculty of business management, tabriz, iran a b s t r a c t we complement this research by addressing the question of how entrepreneurial ventures can be resilient in the face of adversity in times of crisis. first, we conducted a comprehensive web search to find women's entrepreneurial ventures. based on web search results, we conducted online interviews with 90 women entrepreneurs working in many types of ventures. second, we surveyed innovative actions that help women's entrepreneurial ventures resilience. building on these insights, we identified a variety of innovative actions to help women's entrepreneurial ventures resilience in times of crisis. we identify five specific types of innovative actions to address venture resilience: preventive and supportive, analytical, financial risk management, collaborative competition, and effectual entrepreneurship. we aim to further nuance our understanding of the covid-19 1 corresponded author, e-mail: y.mk954@gmail.com, tel. +98 912 855 6640 2 e-mail: hemn.karimi@hotmail.com, tel. +989120646992 3 e-mail: iranzadeh@iaut.ac.ir, tel. +989141147553 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 1-18) crisis results as a challenge for women's entrepreneurial ventures. we suggest key insights on ventures resilience for entrepreneurship policymakers. key words: women entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial ventures, resilience, covid-19 crisis introduction today, we are facing a situation in the world that is undoubtedly unprecedented since world war ii (huang et al., 2020). covid-19 is a crisis with profound implications for society and the economy, including for its entrepreneurs (brown & rocha, 2020; giones et al., 2020; scheidgen et al., 2021; zahra, 2021). while covid-19 may not have been entirely unanticipated in the epidemiological community (prah & sibiri, 2020; subbaraman, 2020), no one in the business community appears to have anticipated it (foss, 2020). given the unparalleled shock triggered by covid‐19, hard to predict as a 'black swan event' (yarovaya et al., 2020). there is a need for a better understanding of factors to help ventures women managers better identify looming challenges and make sense of their environments and make quality decisions. consequently, businesses must strive to overcome the current situation with fewer challenges and become resilient (han et al., 2020). resilience is an essential concept in entrepreneurial crisis management that describes an organization's ability to continue functioning throughout a disruptive event (dahles & susilowati, 2015; kuckertz et al., 2020). resilience in the organizational sense means the ability to withstand crises and risk factors (alberti et al., 2018). business resilience is the structural and systemic capabilities that enable companies to have the capacity to deal with crises (sullivan-taylor & branicki, 2011). also, it creates opportunities for entrepreneurial ventures to survive despite adverse conditions and return to growth (ortiz‐de‐mandojana & bansal, 2016). while this crisis will change the expectations, priorities, and lifestyles of people in society, entrepreneurial ventures that act with foresight adapted to lifestyle changes and community attitudes will be more successful (haase & eberl, 2019). while the resilience strategy view offers a unique insight into decision making in times of crisis, few ventures can demonstrate resilience by sustaining high performance during a crisis time (ketchen jr & craighead, yousef mohammadkarimi, hemn karimi, solyman iranzadeh 3 2020; välikangas & romme, 2013). as the ground rules shifted like never before, some ventures failed, and many struggled to survive (ketchen jr and craighead, 2020). we aim to further nuance our understanding of the covid-19 crisis results as a challenge for women's entrepreneurial ventures and address the question: how women's entrepreneurial ventures can resilient in the face of adversity in times of crisis? more precisely, we focus on how women's ventures overcome the disruptive consequences of crises and covid-19 in particular. crisis, entrepreneurial ventures and resilience crises affect entrepreneurial ventures by leading to resource constraints, business contraction, or even closure (thorgren & williams, 2020). at the same time, entrepreneurial ventures engage with crises, for instance, by establishing stronger links to local communities (wry & haugh, 2018). we analyzed how women's entrepreneurial ventures reacted to the pandemic offers a unique opportunity to build knowledge. as many researchers (haase & eberl, 2019; muñoz et al., 2020; nummela et al., 2020; patel & rietveld, 2020; scheidgen et al., 2021) highlight in their review, the majority of previous studies focused on how crises challenged entrepreneurship. we examine how crises also offer opportunities for entrepreneurial ventures to resilience. resilience in times of crisis the covid-19 pandemic has had an uncertain impact on entrepreneurial ventures that have suffered significant consequences. however, resilience has emerged as an entrepreneurial skill that allows ventures to adapt and grow stronger in the face of challenges (vatansever & arun, 2016). resilience is a relatively entrepreneurial topic in entrepreneurship and has been discussed concerning entrepreneurial ventures, small businesses, and in the contexts of disruptive business model innovations, economic recessions, and other external shocks (blatt, 2009; saridakis, 2012; smallbone et al., 2012; williams & vorley, 2014). resilience is hastening the speed of recovery from a crisis. this refers to the efficient utilization of resources for repair and reconstruction (rose & krausmann, 2013). entrepreneurial ventures are generally regarded as less resilient than old and large businesses because they have fewer resources, 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 1-18) less bargaining power, and are less able to spread risk over a larger customer base or product line (smallbone et al., 2012). women’s entrepreneurial ventures resilience in times of crisis covid-19 is unique in the severity of its impact as it is a humanitarian disaster that has caused both a supply and a demand shock to the global economic system. it has disproportionately affected women, entrepreneurs, as their firms are younger and smaller (manolova et al., 2020). women's entrepreneurial ventures need to pay attention to various innovative actions in a time of global crisis (ghosh et al., 2018). it is important to understand how women entrepreneurs survive during uncertainty and what drives entrepreneurship during challenging times (ligthelm, 2011). decisionmaking by women entrepreneurs often comes with errors and misjudgments because the information available is either ambiguous or incomplete. women entrepreneurs have to continually keep up with changing contingencies by adjusting their goals and actions (fatoki, 2018). therefore, we examine the resilience actions for iranian women's entrepreneurial ventures in times of a crisis. material and methods to explore how women's entrepreneurial ventures can be resilient in the face of adversity in times of crisis, we chose a qualitative approach investigating such entrepreneurial activities in iran. field study since early 2020, many countries around the world have implemented infection control measures to mitigate the spread of covid-19. as the first country in asia to do so, iran declared a national lockdown on april 8th. on may 15th, iran closed many of its borders. one day later, schools and kindergartens had closed. restaurants and coffee shops, hotels, shops, and businesses had all closed. many women entrepreneurs became active in recognition resilience actions to tackle the consequences of this crisis. yousef mohammadkarimi, hemn karimi, solyman iranzadeh 5 data collection and analysis our data collection and analysis proceeded in three phases, as fig.1 illustrates. first, we conducted a comprehensive web search to find women's entrepreneurial ventures established three years ago in iran. based on web search results, we identified 1412 women's entrepreneurial ventures (please contact the authors for an overview). altogether, we conducted online (by skype) interviews with 90 women entrepreneurs working in four types of ventures: it services, health, handicraft, and food products. interviews began broadly and then converged on specific issues, as noted in the literature on this research method (sridharan et al., 2014). we applied corbin and strauss (2014) data analysis approach, including data analysis for concepts, data analysis for context, incorporating the process into analysis, and combining classes around the central variables. we used the grounded theory method to analyze the interviews to provide an in-depth understanding of the main actions that help women's entrepreneurial venture's resilience (fig. 2) (ganglmair-wooliscroft & wooliscroft, 2017). 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 1-18) data collection: identifying 1412 women's entrepreneurial ventures via web search. sampling criteria: women's ventures have been established since 3 years ago. 1412 women's entrepreneurial ventures were classified into four types of activities. 90 women entrepreneurs from four types of ventures (it services, health, handicraft, and food products). data analysis: we applied corbin and strauss (2008) data analysis approach expletory coding: identify different actions related to entrepreneurial ventures' resiliency. developing first-order categories: e.g. sorting some socio-economic actions that help women's entrepreneurial ventures resilience developing second-order themes: e.g. identify strategies that help women's entrepreneurial ventures resilience. primary insights: e.g. five types of actions: preventive and supportive actions, innovative actions, financial risk management, collaborative competition, and effectual entrepreneurship help to women's entrepreneurial ventures resilience in figure 1: methodological approach source: authors’ compilation yousef mohammadkarimi, hemn karimi, solyman iranzadeh 7 figure 2: themes tree source: authors’ compilation 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 1-18) results: empirical insights preventive actions our findings reveal that preventive and supportive actions play an important role in women's entrepreneurial venture's resilience in iran. interviewee -111 has highlighted the point. she said: "…one of the tasks for ventures’ managers in the face of a crisis is to create a safe and healthy work environment and to act in a way that employees continue to feel valued by the organization…." they believed manpower is a technical and communication source of competencies. employee support in these situations has a positive effect on employees' long-term commitment. in our data, ventures encouraged employees to initiatives and their active participation to mitigate the consequences of the crisis. the interviewees' views on human capital strategy initiatives show that health and wellness in the workplace have a higher rating. issues related to succession planning and performance in the workplace, such as the formation of teams, are highly important. marketing actions interviewee -22 says that "…entrepreneurial venture executives need to be seen more than ever in innovative ways in the community and show how your business is changing the community…." also, interviewee -3 states that "…in times of crisis, such as covid-19, the resilient of a venture depends not on improving its performance but on the company's ability to define innovative actions and develop capabilities to take advantage of opportunities for innovation…." as the covid-19 outbreak progressed, we indicated ventures that sought innovative and creative opportunities to curb crisis damage and create entrepreneurial opportunities to monetize and meet the needs of society. interviewee -49 said: "…with the onset of the covid-19 crisis, our venture has suffered psychologically and economically, […] our customers to adapt to the crisis have changed their buying habits and behavior, […] our venture in this period to adapt to market changes and adapt to entrepreneurial consumer behaviors has taken appropriate measures…." interestingly, 98% of the customers of the ventures we studied during the covid-19 crisis stopped or postponed their purchases. therefore, women’s ventures should pay attention to marketing actions that are directly related to yousef mohammadkarimi, hemn karimi, solyman iranzadeh 9 competitive advantage and can directly help increase liquidity in times of crisis. also, these ventures must intelligently apply innovative actions to the venture's marketing mix (location, product, price, and promotion). interviewee -85, for instance, said: "…to understand the impact of covid19 on our venture, first, we examined the impact of covid-19 crisis on the value chain of our venture…”. in our data, many interviewees believed the impact of the covid-19 crisis on the downstream value chain was enormous. because customers have stopped buying, they buy less or else go shopping channels. the shift from offline shopping to online shopping is a good example that most venture executives are looking for these days. in this regard, interviewee 64 says: "…customer-centric creativity is the key to creating entrepreneurial innovations, and my venture needs to be creative in presenting entrepreneurial actions and solving entrepreneurial problems to be aware of changing customer needs and behaviors...". therefore, entrepreneurial ventures can respond to changing and emerging customer needs through innovative actions and identifying entrepreneurial opportunities with creative destruction and creative accumulation techniques. cash management actions in our sample, the covid-19 crisis, it was hindering the cash flow of entrepreneurial ventures and necessitated a focus on financial resource management and financial discipline. interviewee -78, for instance, said: "…the corona crisis has reduced demand and consequently reduced our venture sales. in times of crisis, smart financial management ensures ventures resilience..." many interviewees believed reducing unnecessary costs, increasing the time to repay debts and accounts payable, assessing liabilities, and maintaining liquidity are high priorities for an entrepreneurial venture's resilience. collaborative actions we have identified many ventures that entered the collaborative competition relationship and provided entrepreneurial value through cooperation. interviewee -90 who works in the it business, says: "…i have achieved higher levels of joint r&d resources, joint procurement specialized knowledge and advanced technology, joint marketing and 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 1-18) branding, and entrepreneurial product development through collaborative competition...". interestingly, 58% of ventures that have worked in the service industry, developed a collaborative competition strategy and took advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities by sharing and collectively using their resources and capabilities for their venture's resilience. our study found that collaborative competition, when it lasted from two to three years, had more chance of mutually reducing venture costs. interviewee-80 says: "…entrepreneurial ventures tend to face similar markets and use similar resources and technologies. entrepreneurial ventures typically have to deal with similar challenges at large. thus, with rising costs of r&d and competition, it often makes sense to collaborate with competitors on entrepreneurial opportunities development and innovation...". while interviewee-10 says: "…the risks of collaborating with competitors might seem daunting...". effectual logic actions in this study, we identified that entrepreneurs' effectual logic and making decisions is dramatically different from typical enterprise managers. "…in our venture, we emphasize the creation of innovative actions using existing resources. we are planning on available resources...", said interviewee-111. effectual entrepreneurship places great emphasis on innovative learning method for encouraging sustainable entrepreneurship, and it stresses the leveraging of contingencies. interviewee-12 says: "…when i started my business' […] i knew what my risk was at each step...". in our data, 78% of ventures routinely created innovative actions to address sudden needs. we indicated that women’s ventures often constitute sources of innovation despite their newness and smallness. such ventures are rarely able to invest informal processes, following alternative pathways to develop innovation instead. discussion: implications and research outlook we illustrate how entrepreneurial women create innovative actions for their ventures to resilience in times of crisis. also, we identify innovative actions for venture's resilience that are shaped by a thorough emphasis on innovative learning methods in goal setting, risk-taking, resource selection, and gathering, dealing with setbacks, building networks, and management control (deligianni et al., 2020; jin et al., 2018). yousef mohammadkarimi, hemn karimi, solyman iranzadeh 11 figure 3. innovative actions model source: authors’ compilation our findings thus contribute to women entrepreneurship and crisis research and relate to concerns around venture resilience in times of crisis, by the negative consequences of crises (lee & wang, 2017; prah & sibiri, 2020), as summarized in our framework presented in fig. 3. in the following, we briefly outline the implications of our findings as well as directions for future research. our study indicates that preventive and supportive actions play an important role in women's entrepreneurial venture's resilience in iran. in the face of a covid-19 crisis, entrepreneurial women's task is to create a safe and healthy work environment and act in a way that employees continue to feel valued by the organization (foss, 2020; ortiz‐de‐mandojana & bansal, 2016). in times of the covid-19 crisis, a venture’s survival depends on the 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 1-18) company's ability to define actions and develop capabilities to take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities for innovation. we found that entrepreneurial ventures sought innovative and creative opportunities to curb crisis damage and create entrepreneurial opportunities to monetize and meet the needs of society (thorgren & williams, 2020). with the onset of the covid-19 crisis, customers to adapt to the crisis have changed their buying habits and behavior. therefore, entrepreneurial ventures to adapt to market changes and entrepreneurial consumer behaviors must take appropriate actions (giones et al., 2020; ratten, 2020). we also contribute to the issue of competitive advantage in addressing venture resilience through paying attention to innovative actions. this implies that entrepreneurial ventures must intelligently apply adventure marketing (bachmann et al., 2021; cai et al., 2017; erikson, 2002; lechner et al., 2016). while some innovation actions may be restricted in relevance to the crisis and thus ephemeral, others may create value in the downstream value chain in the long run, and thus have an enduring impact (scheidgen et al., 2021).in times of crisis, customer-centric creativity is the key to creating entrepreneurial innovations, and entrepreneurial ventures need to be creative in presenting entrepreneurial actions and solving entrepreneurial problems to be aware of changing customer needs and behaviors (inversini et al., 2020; selden and macmillan, 2006). we find that negative results of the covid-19 crisis may be buffered by shifts in women entrepreneurs' strategic orientation (grimes, 2018). while the entrepreneurial ventures have achieved higher levels of joint r&d resources, joint procurement of specialized knowledge and advanced technology, joint marketing and branding, and entrepreneurial product development through collaborative competition (prasad & tanase, 2021; sekhavat, 2020). also, our findings indicate that entrepreneurial ventures which started with predominantly commercial motives may engage in collaborative competition in the face of external pressures, such as covid19 (lópez-torres et al., 2021). as these ventures may thus become hybrids businesses, this shift also has key implications in terms of antecedent processes of hybrid entrepreneurship (pollack et al., 2019). hence, we see a link between research on women's entrepreneurial ventures and crisis and research on hybrid entrepreneurship. yousef mohammadkarimi, hemn karimi, solyman iranzadeh 13 implications for policymakers our findings have implications for practitioners and policymakers. first, they suggest that women entrepreneurs need to invest continually in innovation resources to prepare for the unexpected, not just in the aftermath of a crisis. these innovation resources can buffer against the loss and stress that may follow crises and help them acquire entrepreneurial capabilities. our findings encourage women entrepreneurs to ask policymakers for help and draw on the support provided, and importantly, to move on quickly to minimize stress and other losses to the venture. this implies that policymakers need to act promptly to support entrepreneurial ventures affected by a crisis, particularly covid-19 crisis with significant social and economic repercussionsproviding financial assistance, advice, and emotional support. conclusions our study makes contributions to our understanding of resilience in entrepreneurship. first, it identifies different kinds of actions that entrepreneurial ventures adopt following a crisis, the resources these actions serve to protect or build, and the role they play in making ventures resilient. the covid-19 crisis changed the venture's strategic orientation, which results in entrepreneurial new opportunities and innovative actionswith important implications for women's entrepreneurial ventures. we are hopeful that our work offers insights that further advance understanding of the key issues at the intersection of entrepreneurship, crisis, women entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurial ventures and inspires scholars to deliver more deeply into crisis research from an entrepreneurial opportunity and entrepreneurial ventures resilience. references [1] alberti, f.g., ferrario, s., pizzurno, e., 2018. resilience: resources and strategies of smes in a new theoretical framework. international journal of learning and intellectual capital 15(2), 165-188. 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[52] zahra, s.a., 2021. international entrepreneurship in the post covid world. journal of world business 56(1), 101143. 18 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 1-18) appendix. participants table 1: participants *all businesses from the business groups are anonymized. article history: received: november 1st, 2021 accepted: april 10th, 2022 b usiness g roups interviewees number products/services it services 4 job search, online resume maker, job search, advertisement 11 online or offline advertising service, site design, online education 8 smart investment network, iran stock exchange information, an integrated environment for sharing ideas 6 find jobs, create cv, find the best employers, opportunities for students and fresh graduates to gain business exposure. 11 behdokht is a website for young iranian girls and women handicraft 3 introducing and selling original iranian handicrafts 7 rural products development and sales platform 8 specialized store selling carpets and home decoration items health 8 medical consultation, trip planning, vip hospital services, medical and beauty services 7 providing online medical and health services, improving people's awareness of health food products 9 manufacturer and distributor of cakes and pastries, including cakes, crumbles, brownies and bases 8 homemade food ordering site, finger food, house food and corporate food microsoft word 09_jwe_3-4.doc udc: 005.64, 305-055.2(678)(663) jel: b54, l26, n37 scientific report processes of incubating african female entrepreneurs: some evidences from senegal and tanzania kyaruzi imani silver*, university of birmingham, school of geography, earth and environmental sciences (graduate), edgbaston, birmingham hales chantal ahoefa, university of birmingham, school of geography, earth and environmental sciences, edgbaston birmingham a b s t r a c t this paper seeks to examine the processes of incubating african female entrepreneurs. it is observed that despite the growing interest and large volume of literature on business incubation and their role in local economic growth, theories have been silent on explaining the role(s) of “female incubatees” within this process. the particular focus of this paper is on our current understanding of the nature of the complex processes of providing business support services to female entrepreneurs in africa, an analysis of how incubation might address those challenges, and some tentative lessons drawn from our empirical research and entrepreneurs` own experiences. therefore, this paper includes information and analysis on a number of business incubation initiatives, but its goal is to provide an understanding of what might work in the incubation industry and, in particular, why in specific circumstances female-owned businesses fail or succeed in the competitive business environment, which is often dominated by men. its focus, therefore, is on incubation as means, not ends, as policies that enable businesses to overcome barriers during both pre and post-establishment. the local policies, enterprises and institutions form a significant part of this paper. although it has been well documented that african female entrepreneurs are constrained by structural, cultural and institutional barriers (spring and macdade, 2005; kyaruzi and hales, 2006), the solutions to overcoming such barriers remain problematic. also, their roles in the incubation processes are rarely mentioned in most policies on entrepreneurship in africa. in an attempt to * address: birmingham b15 2tt, e-mail: boraimani@yahoo.com or kyaruzis@adf.bham.ac.uk kzaruyi, i.s., et. al., processes of incubating, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 43 understand the mysterious concepts behind this one sided view, this paper draws its conclusions from studies conducted in senegal and tanzania to examine the role(s) of female entrepreneurs within the incubation process. data was drawn from 160 in dar es salaam, tanzania firms and 40 female-owned businesses in dakar, senegal. the findings suggest that in most cases, the theories appear to treat the incubators and the business incubation processes as unproblematic institutions or policy tools for creating businesses and stimulating local economic growth through employment creation and taxes generated from new ventures. the conclusions suggest a need for more empirical studies on incubation processes and calls for new ways of incubating female entrepreneurs to realise their potential contributions to local economic growth. since they have social and economic roles to play in contributing to local economic growth, our paper suggests that it is of significant importance to understand the processes and policies that are directed towards nurturing and supporting their ventures. this, and other elements that have been mentioned in this paper will enable policymakers and bilateral institutions to direct resources where they are mostly needed i.e. training, empowerment, capacity building and backup support. introduction as we stand on the verge of globalisation and the enterprising world, the implications of social, economic and business incubation processes are mostly idolized – and mostly unknown! entrepreneurship policies are now forming an economic agenda in most developing countries. such policies have been followed by establishment of different business support mechanisms to support the newly-adopted entrepreneurship processes. although the policies seem to target both men and females alike, the entrepreneurial participation and experience have been shown to differ across genders. however, this does not suggest that men are more privileged than women, but the argument presented here seeks to develop a debate on specific support for female entrepreneurs to appreciate their contributions in local economic growth. in recent years, women have been playing an increasing role as drivers of growth in many of the world’s economies (jalbert, 2000; unido, 2001; greene et al., 2003; minniti et al., 2005), however, little is known about the gendered influences on the experiences and the subsequent contributions of growth-oriented female entrepreneurs at country level (brush et al., 2006). women’s participations and contributions in economics activities are also limited to specific sectors. for instance, in africa most female entrepreneurs are particularly found in agriculture and informal businesses (charmes, 2000; chen, 2001; stevenson, 2005) and their contribution to the local economy difficult to journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 44 measure (charmes, 2000). their ability to establish businesses and grow new ones, generate employment and improve productivity is often hampered by formal and institutional constraints governing their societies (rogerson, 2000). despite such realisation, these institutions are rarely explored and, in most cases they are treated as unproblematic sites that exist to manufacture businesses (kyaruzi, 2008). the local policies and programmes aimed at providing an enabling environment capable of solving these critical issues are often problematic. whilst there appears to be a number of initiatives (both governmental and non-governmental) aimed at providing both financial and non-financial support to women’s enterprises, evidence has shown women still lack the vital ingredients to develop successful and sustainable businesses. business incubation has emerged as a cost-effective contributor to local economic development (albert and gaynor, 2001), so that, incubating female enterprises from early stage can give the businesses credibility; increase the likelihood of their survival and their abilities to build effective networks and access critical resources such as finance (shahidi, 1999). while most of the studies on female entrepreneurs in africa have investigated the entrepreneurs, their enterprises and the entrepreneurial environment (spring and mcdade, 2005), there is a little mention on how these ventures are incubated and nurtured throughout their life cycles. concerning the environment, the studies, though not deliberately, have either ignored or failed to identify the roles of female entrepreneurs in the incubation processes. others have paid too much attention to the social and economic contributions of females’ enterprises therefore obscuring their views on the day to day experiences of these firms. in an attempt to understand the mysterious concepts behind this one sided view, this paper has the following objectives: − to explain why we need female entrepreneurship − to explain the significances of business incubation processes on female entrepreneurship. − to address the issues within the incubation programs and develop a framework for nurturing females` ventures for local economics growth. this paper is divided into four parts. the first part provides a literature review on female entrepreneurship and incubation. the second part provides some empirical evidences collected from senegal and tanzania. the third part offers discussion that link theories and practices. kzaruyi, i.s., et. al., processes of incubating, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 45 the final part forms a conclusion to this study as well a pointing to the direction of future research on the subject. research on female entrepreneurship there is a growing body of literature on female entrepreneurship. the literature has been centred on three specific areas – the geographical origin, gender issues and economic development schools. first, much of the initial research on female entrepreneurs was carried out in developed countries, such as the usa, canada, the uk, and australia (belcourt, 1990; lerner et al, 1997; hisrich and ozturk, 1999; carter et al., 2001). second, traditionally the field of entrepreneurship has been seen as a male activity in terms of access, control and remuneration (spring and mcdade, 1998; de bruin et al., 2007). the theories of entrepreneurship were developed using samples of men; were tested on men; hence they did not “fully capture women’s entrepreneurial traits and behaviour” (de bruin et al., 2006). however, significant advances have been made in the field within the last two decades with considerable attention devoted to the identification of differences between male and female entrepreneurs and the importance is attributable to the knowledge that women are engines of economic growth (buttner and moore, 1997; carter et al., 2001; ahl, 2002; gatewood et al., 2003; greene et al., 2003; winn, 2005). research on female entrepreneurship has centred on themes such as start-ups (the entrepreneurial process, the motivation (buttner and moore, 1997), characteristics and experience of the entrepreneur (mcclelland, 1987; stanley and gilad, 1991), the finance-related issues (carter et al., 2003; verheul et al., 2004; minniti et al., 2005), business networks (renzulli et al., 2000; johannisson et al., 2002; greve and salaff, 2003), the management, performance and growth of the enterprise (birley and weasthead, 1990; moore and buttner, 1997; gundry and welsh, 2001) and policy issues (greve, 1996; stevenson and lundstrom, 2001). the push towards an understanding of female entrepreneurialism has led to the realization that there are differences in the social structures and the organizational life of female entrepreneurs in developed and developing countries (singh et al., 2001; lingelbach et al., 2005), and subsequently has resulted in more attention been paid to entrepreneurship in developing nations (mead, 1999; charmes, 1999; jalbert, 2000; fonjong and endeley, 2004; guerin, 2006). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 46 third, on economic development, in africa, the increasing interest on entrepreneurship emerged from the sheer realisation that entrepreneurial activities help achieve the ultimate goal of economic development (spring and mcdade, 1998; richardson et al., 2004). in west africa, earlier studies focused on individual entrepreneurs, on informal sector traders and micro enterprises with recent approaches targeting some smes (fafchamps, 1999; charmes, 2000; bar, 2000; chen, 2001; fick, 2002). however, there remains a residual concern that studies that identify the factors driving entrepreneurship in africa are still lacking (sriram and mersha, 2006), particularly the view that there is a lack of focus on important variables such as the entrepreneurial environment; how the local policies and support system spawns entrepreneurs and generates new businesses (thornton and flynn, 2005); and in particular the role of female entrepreneurs in the incubation process. this paper aims to tackle these gaps in the literature by investigating the environment for female entrepreneurs in dakar (senegal) and dar es salaam (tanzania). defining female entrepreneurship and incubation for the purpose of this paper some key terms and concepts needs to be defined at the outset: an entrepreneur is an individual who creates and grows businesses; and a female entrepreneur is “a women who has initiated a business, is actively involved in managing it, owns 50% of the firm, and has been in operation for one year or longer” (buttner and moore, 1997, p.13). entrepreneurship is the process through which entrepreneurs create and grow businesses; it is concerned with the discovery and exploitation of profitable opportunities (shane and venkataraman, 2000), “drives innovation and technical change and therefore generates economic growth” (shanea et al., 2003, p.3). entrepreneurship as a dynamic process of creating firms requires constant development. in this paper we define entrepreneurship development as the infrastructure of public and private policies and practices that foster and support entrepreneurship. this provides justifications for merging female entrepreneurship development with business incubation processes. “incubation” is defined as a process of assisting new and growing businesses to become established and profitable by providing them with premises, support and advisory services, networking and access to finance. these are places where professionals offer organised resource-rich and support services dedicated to start ups [and established businesses], to kzaruyi, i.s., et. al., processes of incubating, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 47 strengthen their development (albert and gaynor, 2001:2). in the african context, incubators have not been successful. a number of factors have contributed to the slow growth of business incubators. first, incubation theories appear to treat the incubators and incubation processes as unproblematic institutions or policy tools for creating businesses (kyaruzi, 2006; 2008). second, the main focus of most theories has been on volumetric measures or outputs such as; number of businesses created, employment generation, taxes and regional economic growth (aernoudt, 2002; lalkaka, 2003). these measures are short of giving a clear indication as to whether the incubation process is there to nurture businesses (enterprises) or entrepreneurs (the human side). it is the latter that this study seeks to address. current situation: supporting african female entrepreneurship senegal senegal is the 25th most populated country in africa with an estimated 11,987,121 (july 2006 est.) inhabitants, and ranks 157th out of 177 countries in terms of poverty (united nations human development report, 2004). the population is quite young with over 40% aged 14 years or younger; the majority is muslim and 5%, christian, but there is clear tolerance and respect between the groups. estimates show that one in two senegalese dwell in the city and one city dweller out of five lives in dakar, with the consequence that many senegalese are unable to provide for themselves and their families (duffy-tumasz, 2005), and the establishment of informal neighbourhoods (poor housing, crowding, unemployment and increased urban poverty). with a population approaching three millions (afbd/oecd, 2004) and accommodating about 55% of senegal’s urban population, dakar is the capital city and the country’s main commercial port. it is known as the gateway to senegal, a zone producing cotton par excellence (waemu), a trade hub and a real asset for textile export companies (usaid, 2005). additionally, over 80% of businesses in senegal are located in dakar, making this city one of the most vibrant cities in the country. the support system entrepreneurship is the backbone of most economic societies and it is very important for countries to formulate strategies and policies for journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 48 supporting entrepreneurial endeavour and supporting female entrepreneurs in acquiring the technology and resources to manage and develop their businesses. these policies are implemented in financial and non-financial incentives. across the world there are hundreds of initiatives underway offered by the local government and non-governmental institutions in the form of local and national community initiatives, network initiatives (through business and professional associations meetings and conferences) and large international initiatives funded by donors and through antipoverty projects such as those by the usaid, oecd and the united nations (briges.org, 2002). the senegalese business environment is the product of substantial reforms such as the saps, the prs, the ags and other changes in the private sector, which make the business climate enabling or disabling. in a country, while the business environment does not have to be perfect, it must be good enough on a number of dimensions to stimulate enough investment and competition, and be efficient to allow different enterprises and industries to operate (eifert et al., 2005). in senegal, the management of smes is assumed by the ministry of smes, female entrepreneurship and micro finance and its sub-departments which include the sme headquarters (direction des pme), and the sme support institution adepme). the main role of the sme headquarters is to promote smes and to provide a strategy for the development of this economic segment. it also aims to generate a favourable environment for smes through better control of the judicial, financial, and regulatory aspects of the segment. in 2003, an sme charter, which provides a classification of smes in senegal, was drafted by the direction des pme. the charter also provides a list of programmes and advantages (access to finance, to public market, export support and exemption from tax), which enterprises recognised by the charter benefit from. in line with the charter, adepme has been “following up” enterprises through training, credit repayment and compliance with smes laws and regulations. accessing support institutions access to business development services (bds) (general advice, information, training and technology programmes) and support in securing finance is often important for an enterprise establishment, survival and growth (stevenson and st-onge, 2005). however, lack of education among some women can have significant impacts on access to training support, as some training materials are only available in french. in agribusiness, kzaruyi, i.s., et. al., processes of incubating, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 49 training provided in national languages is not always successful due to supporting documents being only available in french, and hence limiting the effectiveness of training programmes. much of the bds training is provided by donors, and in some cases, in conjunction with financial support. in agribusiness bds is often provided by institutions such as the technical development centres for women (cretef-cetf)1, the national vocational training office (onfp)2 and the institute of food technology (ita). donor organisations also offer training to reinforce the capacities of female entrepreneurs in terms of commercialisation of the finished products, hygiene and the quality of processed food. entrepreneurs who receive such training then must, under some donors’ rules, train other entrepreneurs to share skills. here the trainees must mobilise women within their cooperatives or groups and disseminate the programme through other forms of training. the empirical evidence gathered for this study has shown that in both sectors most respondents (55% in agribusiness and 50% in textile) appear to be receiving non-financial support. depending on the donor institution, however, some women have to pay up to 20% of the training fee. evidence of increasing training support was reported in the agribusiness sector (tandia et al., 2002). in the textile sector, however, limited support appears to be available, as nine out of the twenty entrepreneurs (45%) do not get access to any support and only one is able to access both financial and nonfinancial support. the situation appears to be different in the agribusiness sector where all the entrepreneurs at some point in their business life, had access to financial support (10%), non-financial support (55%) or both (7%). a significant proportion of entrepreneurs (43%) in the textile sector did not have access to any support, and claimed that they either did not know where to go for help, had been unsuccessful, or were discouraged 1 cretef stands for centre régional d'enseignement technique d'economie familiale and cetf stands for centre technique d’enseignement feminin. both centres are funded by the government and the training is often delivered by graduates from the the school of family and social economics (enfefs). 2 the office national de la formation professionnelle (onfp) is an entity that assists the senegalese government in determining training priorities and targets, in carrying out labour market studies, in formulating policies and coordinating training efforts, in financing training programmes and in supporting training institutions in conducting relevant training programmes in both the public and private sector. its funding is provided by company tax, revenues from services provided to firms, and private or public organisations, state subsidies and donor funds (han and serriere, ilo, 2002). journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 50 from seeking assistance having heard about other entrepreneurs’ negative experiences. some entrepreneurs were seeking basic business management skills to enhance the running of their business while others required marketing skills to raise their business profile and to compete better. accessing start-up capital support for accessing start-up finance is very important and can have a significant impact on the performance of the enterprise (marlow and patton, 2005). literature on female entrepreneurship has documented women’s difficulties in accessing start-up finance (carter et al., 2001; eastwood, 2004). in this research, a significant majority (85% in agribusiness and 90% in textile) of respondents in both sectors had enormous difficulties raising start-up finance from mainstream banks and had to turn to their personal savings in the establishment of their businesses. only one entrepreneur was able to access a bank loan, funding from an ngo and from a mutual saving and credit institution (msci) of which she is a member. unsurprisingly, the entrepreneur who managed to obtain a loan from a bank is a portfolio entrepreneur who has been involved in economic activities for over 35 years, and would have established relationships with financial institutions; evidence supported by a study on ghanaian and zimbabwean entrepreneurs (see aryeetey et al,1994)3. in this study, very few female entrepreneurs were able to access a bank loan, and are now planning to expand their ventures further. the majority of those who have attempted to get a bank loan were turned down because of a lack of collateral or guarantee to secure funding. while microfinance is another way of getting access to finance to start a microbusiness, most entrepreneurs argued that micro finance institutions (mfis) are inappropriate to their needs and do not always provide sufficient funds to finance their businesses. start-up capital in both sectors was as small as 100,000 fcfa (about £103.13) or even less for some survivalist 3 the study was carried out in africa by aryeetey et al. (1994) on ghanaian and zimbabwean entrepreneurs, which reveals that the record of accomplishment of entrepreneurs in their previous business, together with the savings that they have accumulated, may be important in giving them greater access to external finance, which in turn allows them to establish larger businesses. while aryeetey et al.’s (1994) research was on manufacturing enterprises, they seem to stress the fact that most small enterprise owners use their personal savings to set up their business. kzaruyi, i.s., et. al., processes of incubating, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 51 entrepreneurs. what became clear from the empirical evidence was that access to finance for entrepreneurial start-up is difficult for most entrepreneurs in both sectors; however extensive experience in the business may allow some entrepreneurs to build trustful relationship with some support institutions, which may eventually enable them to funding from mainstream banks. accessing enterprise management training acquisition of the appropriate skills is vital for entrepreneurs, because they require the business and management skills to run their business, and the lack of these skills at the start-up stage and throughout the process can have a significant impact on performance (loscocco and robinson, 1991). jalbert (2000, p.29) argues that in developing countries where business and managerial skills are often lacking access to training is even more important as it can “prevent women from reaching their profitability potential”. evidence from the interviews reveals that access to training was the second most important barrier in both the agribusiness and textile sectors, hence indicating that government policies should be directed at minimising them. some respondents recognised that while some training may already be offered by the senegalese government, it is not always adapted to the needs of all entrepreneurs. they argue that they had attended entrepreneurial training courses where they were provided with many documents but found them hard to understand because they used unfamiliar business terms and expressions. to add to this it appears that due to limited resources, there is often not enough time for the trainers to work through all the training pack with the trainees. as a result, entrepreneurs are left with packs of documents that they do not understand and the training tasks are seen as a waste of time, which could be better used on other work, or to run their businesses and make money. the respondents who have been unable to access governmental and ngo’s training schemes argue that it is due to the lack of information about how and where to access the schemes and a lack of time to attend the courses. social responsibilities and the burden of having to cope with work inside and outside the home has prevented some women from obtaining vital entrepreneurial skills that may be helpful for starting a business and developing it into a successful growth orientated enterprise. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 52 accessing business premises accessing an appropriate and affordable business premise was a key challenge for most entrepreneurs in dakar when setting up their businesses because of land legislations and the ongoing problems of urbanisation in dakar, which makes access to land very expensive and hence difficult for women. due to the lack of this critical resource, small-scale female entrepreneurs initially operate their businesses from their homes until they can find appropriate premises. in food processing, access to affordable premises, which meet food regulations is difficult for most respondents, and many claim to pay very high rent when operating from dedicated business premises. being close to customers and finding a cheap location were the two most cited reasons behind the locational decision in both sectors. others location decisions have been made to reflect health and safety regulation (mostly in food processing businesses), or simple because there was no other alternative. in the latter case, premises were offered by the government and there was no other alternative. membership of business associations as a last resort female entrepreneurs in dakar have an interesting way of organising themselves into business associations, an economic interest group (eig), an umbrella association or an ngo. to cope with the difficulties accessing critical resources to start and develop enterprises, dakaroise4 entrepreneurs would join several business and trade associations because they believe that they can have positive impacts on the development of their enterprises and on the procurement of support services. evidence from the study suggests that the majority of the female entrepreneurs would join up three associations simultaneously. however, they are increasingly lacking trust in the associations and leaving them as they believe that they are not ripping the expected benefit; they claim that the association management team keep the benefits for their own businesses. despite their difficulties accessing support, the majority of the female entrepreneurs appear to have acknowledged the role of the government in their effort to provide an enabling environment within which female entrepreneurs can develop and grow their business. 4 women in the dakar region are often referred to as dakaroise. kzaruyi, i.s., et. al., processes of incubating, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 53 perceived role of the government based on current government support available to smes, respondents were asked to comment on the perceived role of the senegalese government in providing an enabling environment for them, and to suggest measures that could be taken in the future to provide better support. their responses clearly suggested that they are aware of the government’s effort to help women, although there is a small minority who are unaware of the support provided to entrepreneurs through government and non-government incentives. the well-established entrepreneurs are fully informed of the role of the government, and the existence of donor institutions and providers of sector-specific training. for many entrepreneurs, there is a strong conviction that “since the arrival of president wade, many changes have taken place to help women”. nevertheless, those who are supportive of the government’s policies and programmes still believe that much more can be done to help them, including the “need to facilitate access to resources for mass production; to help and facilitate export of processed products by improving packaging; and to improve processing units”. tanzania the business support environment in tanzanian is different from that of many african countries dues to her socialism past. as (treichel, 2005:4) puts it: “…tanzania, unlike many other african countries [including senegal], was a highly state controlled economy engaged in the pursuit of socialist objectives. as a result, it had an inflexible economic system that was characterized by monopolistic and heavily regulated production structures in all sectors of the economy. [pre-structural adjustment programmes] tanzania’s rigid economic system of state-interventionist policies…external shocks during the late 1970s resulted in major macroeconomic imbalances, economic stagnation, and a decline in per capita income that lasted over 15 years”. the country is still in transition from a centrally-planned to a marketled economy. however, the postsocialist policies have been plagued with ineffective economic growth strategies that rely on foreign aids (bigsten et al, 1999). for most postsocialist countries a search for best ways of stimulating local economic growth till continues. as one of the solutions, some practitioners have pointed towards the direction of policy journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 54 formulation and deregulation. for instance, odling-smee (2002)5 suggests that the key to unlocking the long-run growth potential of postsocialist countries is to push forward with structural reforms. these include: further reducing the role of the state; maintaining hard budget constraints on all enterprises; correcting price distortions, and fostering competition and a conducive business environment; improving the social safety net; developing financial markets; and building institutions to promote good governance (see also dawson, 2003). in tanzania, the transition to a fully market-led economy has not been smooth (wangwe, 1997; 2001). however, there is a positive sign that processes of business incubation and clustering have potential to offer postsocialist countries with solutions. lalkaka (1997) warns that, in the postsocialist countries, much should not be expected within a short period of time, he believes that “the process of technological transformation is even more complex and painful due to the legacy of systemic problems…[as a result]…these countries are in a situation of massive budget cuts, exodus of talented scientists, shortages of research equipments and supplies, absence of finance, regulatory barriers and painful process of reconversion. institutional reforms are believed to be essential in postsocialist countries (dawson, 2003). however, it is argued that the knowledge of how to transform institutions especially in the sub-saharan countries remains weak (henisz, 2002). according to a world bank study (1997b) there are five crucial functions that are the domain of the state because market and private institutions cannot secure them. in particular these functions are related to (a) legal foundations; (b) performing macroeconomic policy framework; (c) investments in fundamental social services, human capital, and infrastructure; (d) comprehensive safety net for vulnerable strata of society; (e) protection of the natural environment. however, tanzania, like many other post socialist states like ghana and mozambique, has struggled to put their social and economic reform programmes in place due to the pace of change around the world. the functions suggested above by the world bank were aimed at laying a foundation for the introduction of the market economy as opposed to the 5 press briefing on developments in baltic and cis countries, opening remarks by john odling-smee, september 28, 2002 (http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2002/092802.htm). kzaruyi, i.s., et. al., processes of incubating, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 55 previous state economy. but, the achievability of these programmes appears to need more work than words only could describe. the institutional arrangements are the most important factor for progress toward durable growth. it is argued that unlike certain liberalization measures, institutionbuilding by its nature must be a gradual process (dawson, 2003). we could agree with such views as tanzania is still in transition and rushed programs that led to duplication of economic activities in the past could be avoided (see also cooksey et al, 2001). does this suggest the potential of incubation programs? the support system while smes and entrepreneurship are making headlines in tanzania, less has been said on the role of support institutions and the policies that govern them, by treating them as unproblematic sites (temu and due, 2000). the findings from this study suggest that tanzanian institutions are highly centralised with poorly qualified personnel who are incapable of coping with modern businesses` demands. in essence, previous empirical research on how the regulatory environment affects the growth of micro and small businesses is rare (massawe and calcopietro, 1999). recently, “institutional theories6in developing countries have begun to draw attention to the institutional or contextual – cultural, social, political and economic factors as determinants of entrepreneurship” (veciana et al, 2002:2), and especially in developing countries like tanzania where “statism”7 has dominated almost all major economic decisions for over four decades. absorption of business support a large section of businesses (68.8%) did not seek business support. only 31.3% of the survey businesses sought some sort of support. follow up interviews suggested that, entrepreneurs only approach business agencies if they offer what they are looking for to meet the specific needs of their businesses and they are accessible. as one interviewee explained: “i decided not to approach business agencies...the reason being that, i have had bad experiences with banks. they do not seem to understand my business needs. anyway, i managed to raise money from friends and here i am” (case 5) 6 “a theory that seeks an understanding of the relationships between institutions, behavior, and outcomes” (diermeier and krehbiel, 2002:7) 7 the idea that a centralized government could somehow be better than private initiative. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 56 to almost all local entrepreneurs, finance is preferred to other types of services. further analysis will attempt to establish the alternative sources of support adopted by entrepreneurs as well as reasons for their (the entrepreneurs) reluctance to seek support. nature of support sought in most african countries, where the private sector is well established, business support institutions are still rare (or at an embryonic stage) (see brautigam et al, 2002) and entrepreneurs tend to use different sources of support. as the empirical findings of this research indicate, the choice of support depends on the nature of businesses, size and accessibility factors (influence if one knows someone in the organisation/agency). some issues were explained by one interviewee: “no. i am not receiving any support now [at this moment]. firstly, for me to receive support it would take a very long time as my businesses is too small to be recognized…also there is a lot of paperwork involved. i have to leave my business to deal with all that [meaning filling in the forms] secondly, i may not get anything in the end… but some of my sales might be affected in the process…so well… now you know the reasons why we decide to stay away from these organizations”. (case 25) the survey data suggest that the majority of the surveyed firms (69% of the total population) did not used external business support during the start up phase of their businesses, some out of choice and others not so. for those who received support (n=50), the majority received family support followed by private support agencies. government support was the leastsought support raising issues of accessibility to government institutions and the availability, provision and accessibility of business support services in tanzania. to explore these possibilities respondents were asked why they used what support they did (family support over private or government support). it appears that those who chose to opt for family support did not have access to other forms of support. but also, failure to seek support could also be attributed to ignorance or lack of awareness on the part of business founders. the tendency of some smes to reject or ignore support has been blamed on their lack of entrepreneurship spirit and culture. but the figures are suggesting that the majority of the firms (39.1%) were not aware of the existing support. this signals an alarm as to why these support agencies still fail to make themselves known to the wider business community. kzaruyi, i.s., et. al., processes of incubating, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 57 other major failures to gain support have been blamed on difficult/denied access (40%). what policy makers could draw from such findings is the fact that business support does exist, but with poor accessibility, bureaucracy and a lack of openness in their dealings with the entrepreneurs. fewer agencies admitted to the fact that the clients do not know their services and organisational objectives they are supposed to serve. for the support agencies it is still the “number game” where agencies are evaluating their success and achievement based on the number of contacts with clients and businesses formed (volumetric measures) rather than the effectiveness or usefulness of support they offer to entrepreneurs. entrepreneurs also have their expectations and rate the received support in terms of the differences made to their businesses` performance. the comments made by an entrepreneur case 18 below confirm the feelings entrepreneurs have. discussions: theory and practices female entrepreneurial businesses in senegal and tanzania can become engine of growth if they operate in an enabling environment and have the right entrepreneurial support to help them grow their enterprises. the process of incubating female enterprises from an early stage of the business process would enable the businesses to grow into sustainable enterprises. incubating senegalese and tanzanian female entrepreneurs would involve providing common facilities such as the physical space, equipment, shared services, enterprise skills training, network, business and legal advice to facilitate the business development through to graduation, when they are able to survive on their own. firm formation in developing countries is now a complex process due to the ever-changing global businesses (change in technology and global business environment). this is true in african smes that seem to lack flexibility and adaptability to cope with the current changes (krugell and naude, 2001). it is also suggested that the “region lacks a base for technical skill formation and its enterprise financed r&d in the productive sector is the lowest in the world” (albaladejo and schmitz, 2000:10). this indicates that african smes are not only suffering from lack of protection due to globalisation but also internal factors (legal, knowledge base, structure, size and management). these problems have been highlighted in journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 58 brink and cant (2003) as internal factors (management skills, financial knowledge, lack of expertise) and marketing factors (poor location, insufficient marketing, inability to conduct marketing research, misreading the market, poor products or service, poor service, misreading customer trends and needs, human resource factors). the advancement and increase in interaction among the world’s countries has meant that third world governments have had to adopt new mechanisms of supporting businesses in order to compete with the changing world. the failure rate (lalkaka, 1997) and uncompetitive features of sme`s in developing countries (krugell and naude, 2002) have made it necessary for governments to improve their business support services. in some african countries, the incubation process is still a recent phenomenon (nanyaro, 2001). lalkaka (1997) hints that, although most of the incubators are less than five years old, they are a great potential as they appear to increase rapidly. while the assessment carried out by unido (lalkaka, 1997; unido, 2001) suggests that countries such as brazil, czech republic, p.r. china, mexico, nigeria, poland and turkey have potential to create innovative incubators in other countries in transition (such as senegal and tanzania) this process seem to be slow and difficult to achieve. it is perceived that the process of technological transformation is even more complex and painful due to a legacy of systemic problems. the culture of government intervention to the private sector has been blamed for the centralisation of businesses leading to unnecessary bureaucracy (levitsky, 1996). the lack of capital and entrepreneurial skills are hindering most of the smes’ development in developing countries. the formation of innovative and advanced firms have been made difficult due to the fact that most smes are undercapitalised and usually rely on loan capital (levitsky, 1996). based on empirical evidences from senegal and tanzania, one feature of poor economic growth performance over the past 50 years has been the lack of the private sector to grow fast enough, to create sufficient jobs and to expand exports to the rest of the world (lalkaka, 1997). in some countries, foreign policies (krugell and naude 2002; lalkaka, 1997) have had an impact on the introduction of entrepreneurship and business incubation systems in developing countries. levitsky (1996), believes that the recognition of smes difficulties and weaknesses have led in most countries to the creation and continuous expansion of special institutions kzaruyi, i.s., et. al., processes of incubating, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 59 set up to cater for smes. in this case, the world has witnessed growth and spread of incubators in different developing countries. according to scaramuzzi (2002:6) “there are no comprehensive surveys regarding the current status of business incubation in developing and transition economies”. this study has attempted to collect survey on incubators from 1997, 2002 and the recent figures from lalkaka (2003). a proposed framework for incubating female entrepreneurs a framework for incubating female entrepreneurs source: kyaruzi and hales (2008) senegalese and tanzanian incubation industry could benefit from the israel’s experience. the key notable facts in the israel incubation systems success story include the fact that, the majority of 3,000 entrepreneurial firms did not exist 7 years ago and since 1991, over 600 projects have been accepted on the incubator programme (ukbi, 2002). the research programs have been given a priority and the israel government is still encouraging the co-operation with other countries (uk-israel initiative that regional policies: local infrastructure and resources professional support: accountants, consultants, ict support external support: banks, mfis incubatees graduates universities and science parks innovation and knowledge transfer incubator premises, training, nurturing & consultancy journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 60 encourages joint research between two countries). much of this development is contributed by the government’s initiatives to develop the private sector through improvement in the “enabling environment”. some of the incentives offered to new businesses include, tax rebates and breaks (see roper et al, 2001), encouraging technological innovation and it industries (shefel and modena, 1998; roper, 1999) followed by effective policies on both national (teubal, 1993) and regional (frenkel et al, 2001) innovation systems. however, recent research (see figure 8.46) by lalkaka 92003:2) are suggesting a rapid growth of incubators in developing countries especially asia. description of the framework: in light of the above account, we seek to introduce the following framework that is more culturally specific and focuses on the enabling environment rather than just financial support from higher bodies (institutions, governments, banks and donors). firstly, the approach to incubating female entrepreneurship should focus on identifying women’s needs in geographically specific locations. regions have been known to possess variable resources; this framework put emphasis on designing a set of specific regional policies for supporting entrepreneurs. this will enable policymakers to recognise and respond to both the opportunities and the constraints that regions present. secondly, the proposed framework emphasises provision of effective and continuous entrepreneurial training which is based on the assessment of individual entrepreneurial needs. also, there is a need to establish university-sme links to aid this process. the reason behind this is the fact that, apart from gender issues, the policies aimed at incubating female entrepreneurs in africa appears to suffer from a lack of a serious note on entrepreneurial training. it is proposed here that, there should be a provision of basic business training starting from early stages of business establishment to improve the businesses survival rates. we strongly believe that with effective training, women in africa will be able to acquire and equip themselves with modern skills and knowledge that will enable them to set up competitive businesses that are capable of contributing to the local economic development and growth. thirdly, based on empirical evidences it can be suggested that women need empowering. however, the type of empowerment we are proposing here is one that can enable women to realise their capabilities and their roles in economic development. this could be achieved by setting kzaruyi, i.s., et. al., processes of incubating, jwe (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 61 up effective incubation programs for women to boost their capabilities and business confidence. the literature also suggests that equality can be attained (hill and macan, 1996) but in our views gender empowerment remains a problem in many african countries. therefore the incubation policies should encourage more women to participate in other economic activities that were originally believed to be for men only. this way, women will have more areas to expand upon and hence fully utilise their capabilities upon graduation from the incubators. finally, policy makers should aim at improving the provision of business support services. the entrepreneurship development literature suggests that, enterprises tend to go through different growth stages. therefore, after identifying needs, providing training and empowering women to go beyond their previously assigned statuses in economic activities, we propose that there should be an injection of support at different enterprise development stages from different sources. these sources include the whole business support ecosystem – professional support services, universities and science parks, banks and mfis etc. there are a few successful female entrepreneurs who deserve visibility and recognition. institutional support should focus on assisting them to grow beyond micro‐enterprise levels. this type of continuous growth could be achieved through continuous support receive from the incubators. in this way, women who are about to start‐up businesses will have successful case studies to learn and benchmark from incubator graduates. conclusions this study set out to explore the process of incubating female entrepreneurs in senegal and tanzania. however, as indicated above, specific measures need to be put in place. first, the policy needs to recognise the varieties of businesses that exist in the two countries (including female-owned enterprises). there has been a global consensus that a stable private sector environment and policies are key catalysts for economic growth and development (oecd, 2001, 2002). for an economy to develop there is the need to improve coalitions between the government, private sector and entrepreneurs. the support institutions need to be developed and so do local businesses. for the tanzanian case, since the private sector initiatives have been in place journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2009, no. 3-4, 42-68) 62 for less than fourteen years (since 1992`s trade liberalization policies), little has been written on ways of introducing new methods of stimulating local economic growth through entrepreneurship and sme support. the new mechanisms are essential way of replacing policies that discouraged private sector development (olomi and nchimbi, 2002, p.6). research should seek to explore the existing support mechanisms, and specifically attempt to answer the question “how should support institutions be developed to support senegalese and tanzanian entrepreneurs?” based on incubation literature and empirical evidences provided in this study, there is a need to establish reasons why senegalese and tanzanian female-owned firms choose to seek business support or go through incubation processes. this could be in terms of sustainability, expansion and growth of their entrepreneurial firms. as suggested by baum (1996, p.79): “young organizations are more vulnerable because they have to learn new roles as social actors and create organizational roles and routines at a time when organizational resources are stretched to the limit. new organizations are also assumed to lack bases of influence and endorsement, stable relationships with important external constituents, and legitimacy.” (1996:79). there are different reasons why businesses seek support. the policy should also attempt to empirically explore such reasons. where do african institutions and business incubators go wrong? could we learn anything from local entrepreneurs? as indicated above, business support services and nurturing of firms could improve the survival rate and productivity of female-owned enterprises (and most businesses). this study on senegal and tanzania explores different ways of supporting businesses by looking at different stages of business formation. this involves identifying the effectiveness of the received support both pre-start up and post-start up. it is evident that most incubator models (lalkaka, 1997; kmetz 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"women entrepreneurs: can we remove the barriers?." the international entrepreneurship and management journal 1(3): 381-397 world bank (1996), world development report 1996, washington d. c. world bank (1998), world development indicators 1998 on cd-rom, washington d.c. received: june 2008 article history: accepted: april 2009 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.12.pp212-237 jel: c35, j16, l26, l82 original scientific paper 9ba qualitative approach to the success of iranian women entrepreneurs alireza rajabipoor meybodi3 1f1 department of business administration, faculty of economics, management & accounting, yazd university, iran mohsen brahmi32 f2 department of economics, fem, university of sfax, sfax, tunisia masoumeh mohammadi department of business administration, faculty of economics, management & accounting, yazd university, yazd, iran elahe hosseini33 f3 department of business administration, faculty of economics, management & accounting, yazd university, yazd, iran nguyen thi loan34 f4 department of business administration, faculty of economic and business administration, hong duc university, vietnam. a b s t r a c t women entrepreneurs are those who, alone or with partnership or inheritance, started a business with creativity and innovation and, by accepting social, administrative, financial responsibilities and financial risks, offered new products to dominate the competitors in the market. the purpose of this study was 1 corresponding author, e-mail: rajabipoor@yazd.ac.ir 2 email: brahmi.mohsen@gmail.com 3 e-mail: elahe.hosseini@stu.yazd.ac.ir 4 e-mail: nguyenthiloantn@hdu.edu.vn a. r. meybodi, m. brahmi, m. mohammadi, e. hosseini, n. t. loan 213 to take a qualitative approach to the success of iranian women entrepreneurs. the study is descriptive qualitative, with an inductive approach. the statistical population of the study included women entrepreneurs in iran who have faced a crisis in the last 5 years and managed to succeed, and the research sample was drawn from a pool of 11 people using the purposive sampling method. the interview tool was used to collect the qualitative data, and the thematic analysis technique was used to analyze the interview data. the results of the data analysis showed that seven factors affecting the success of women entrepreneurs in iran’s country are strategic thinking, social capital, ethical characteristics, personality traits, brand management, comprehensive quality, and human resource management procedures. also, the results showed that women share a high degree of future orientation and do not act opportunistically in order to maintain mutual relationships. therefore, committed women play an important role in the survival and success of the company. key words: women, entrepreneurship, success, thematic analysis, qualitative approach introduction the world is moving toward an information-centered society based on a universal economy; hence, dramatic changes are observed in economics (rajabipoor meybodi et al., 2018). as a developing economy, iran has experienced different variations recently. according to salamzadeh et al. (2018), the startup community is evolving and prominent figures are dealing with this ecosystem these days (salamzadeh et al. 2018). while a few startups have been established self-reliantly, the majority have been supported by principal mechanisms. thus, the fast growth of this economic market has attracted diverse stakeholders to scrutinize and contribute to this ecosystem (rezaei et al. 2017). meanwhile, given that women make up half of the active population in societies, women's entrepreneurship can lead to increased production and sales, capital increase, economic prosperity, competitiveness and export, and overall economic development (ge et al., 2022). it can also aid in the growth and prosperity of women (kan & mukhopadhyay, 2022). a society that seeks holistic development must allow for the development and flourishing of talents for all members of society, including women (rabiee & sarabi, 2013). on the other hand, according to statistics, women's economic activities account for 25-30% of global economic activity (kantor, 2001). as a result, it can be stated that women's entrepreneurial activities have become 214 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 212-237) increasingly important globally in recent decades (hannington et al., 2022). according to the reports in 2016, iran has been the most populated nation in the middle east, considering a population of around 80 million people. also, the gdp was measured at $387.6 billion at the time. the opec estimates revealed that iran ranked second in producing oil and exporting gas. meanwhile, iran has an expanded multidimensional economy compared to its oil-rich neighbors (salamzadeh et al., 2017). moreover, the world bank (2019) reported that iranian women’s contribution to entrepreneurship has risen from 12% to 24 %, which was ranked 30th in the world. besides, iranian entrepreneurial business development has followed the recent global trend regarding the initial stages of entrepreneurship activities (salamzadeh et al., 2014). therefore, given the significant increase in iranian women's educational and employment levels in society, paying attention to entrepreneurial activities in this part of the population can lead to economic growth and development (mirghofouri et al., 2009). women can also demonstrate their abilities through entrepreneurship, overcome barriers to their talents, and increase their courage on a daily basis (mcelwee et al., 2011), create new business opportunities, earn income, and contribute to their financial independence and job creation. iranian women respond to professional segregation by highlighting self-employment and tend to take active roles in economic development accordingly. for instance, the younger generation follows higher university degrees despite the traditional basis of the community (radovic-markovic et al., 2013). with more job opportunities for women, society's culture and education are improving. women achieve self-sufficiency while the family's health and nutrition improve (arora, 2022). thus, women's entrepreneurial success benefits societies economically as well as socially and culturally (cowling & taylor, 2001). it is mainly due to restricted resources, market timing, and intensive competition. meanwhile, female entrepreneurs are constantly dealing with the extent of support, along with their practical market experience and management capabilities (salamzadeh & kawamorita kesim, 2017). even today, women's participation in the labor force and in social and economic activities has become a critical indicator of human development because women's economic activity is directly linked to poverty and social wellbeing (movahedi & yaghoubiafrani, 2017). despite all of the above and the fact that women are no longer housewives or skilled applicants with a university degree, they account for a relatively small share of the iranian a. r. meybodi, m. brahmi, m. mohammadi, e. hosseini, n. t. loan 215 labor market. as a result, despite accounting for 49.6 percent of the country's population, women's economic participation rate stands at 11.4 percent (iran statistics center, 2011). considering that the study of women entrepreneurs has been carried out on specific issues, but as far as the authors have investigated, no research has been done on the success factors of women entrepreneurs in iran. therefore, the current study examined and analyzed the factors affecting the success of women entrepreneurs in iran because the existing literature on the success of women entrepreneurs in this country lacks a comprehensive theoretical framework that is agreed upon by all. thus, the central question of this research is as follows: what factors contribute to the success of women entrepreneurs in iran? the paper is outlined to present the literature review and the research method, which is followed by the findings section. lastly, conclusions and suggestions for further studies are introduced. literature review expectations and standpoints of the business environment have been affected by women’s involvement in developing business training models and promoting practical proficiency to meet the organizations’ and the respective employees’ demands. consequently, women are increasingly establishing businesses in various industries, such as biotechnology and financial services (moletta et al., 2023). in addition, women’s entrepreneurship is significant because some women can secure this business route for themselves as well as provide this opportunity for other employers or employees (bouzari et al., 2021). women generally run a business and establish a company, which belongs to the women enterprise business regarding the products and services that are commonly shared between them (salamzadeh et al., 2022). on the other hand, ribes-giner et al. (2018) conducted a study to investigate the social and economic dimensions of women’s entrepreneurship in oecd countries. different scholars argued that entrepreneurship has increased among women, which is majorly interrelated with their minor contribution to power positions in companies as well as the country’s high risk (salamzadeh, 2018). bouzari et al. (2021) concluded that women entrepreneurship was substantially associated with facebook compared to other social networks in hungary, highlighting that over 95% of these women used facebook. 216 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 212-237) however, instagram has proved the most popular and effective among female entrepreneurs in iran, where over 92% of the respective participants owned a business instagram page. thus, the community context can determine the differences between the applicability and popularity of social networks in business affairs. salamzadeh et al. (2021) also argued that greater opportunities have been developed as a result of such entrepreneurial activities (gem report, 2014). hence, startup activities are more likely to expand, which leads to higher women contribution and collective startup ideas. apparently, the startup system is prosperous and promising in some particular regions. radovic markovic et al. (2016) argued that women do not contribute to executive business activities adequately, although there is a number of competent women to take charge of such responsibilities. therefore, research findings have highlighted the necessity for systematic methods to contend with business inequalities. according to longoria (2018), women are more likely to demonstrate entrepreneurial orientation in developing countries mainly due to disappointment with their current employment, limited support in terms of education and profession-related activities, fewer working opportunities, and issues regarding supporting their own families. moreover, panda (2018) conducted a literature review and concluded that an unstable business, economic, and political (bep) environment, gender discrimination, and improper education and training are among the major causes of the promotion of women entrepreneurship in emerging economies. on the other hand, women entrepreneurship is highly popular in developed economies because of a more innovative environment, access to higher education courses, greater employment opportunities, adequate business-establishment support, and prior managerial experiences. according to crittenden et al. (2019), social capital (constant interactions, educational chances, and social collaboration) has led to an enhancement in women’s entrepreneurship behavior in the developing economy of south africa. consequently, these entrepreneurs perceived the support and were inspired to establish new occupations. in addition, the findings of another study by neumeyer et al. (2019) in the us illustrated that both men and women would experience success and prosperity in their entrepreneurial activities with promoted social associations and proper allocation of social capital. while men are more likely to establish social capital in managedgrowth project networks, female entrepreneurs are inclined toward survival a. r. meybodi, m. brahmi, m. mohammadi, e. hosseini, n. t. loan 217 project networks. besides, raimi et al. (2023) argued that experience and race could affect women entrepreneurs’ ability to deal with social capital and networking, where white and experienced women are more likely to succeed (raimi et al., 2023). research findings demonstrate that womenowned businesses have recorded lower success rates despite the assumed scenario that female entrepreneurs will receive great socioeconomic support (radović marković, 2013). gupta and mir-chandani (2018) argued that it could be explained by the following reasons: limited cultural and social freedom, gender stereotypes, low career experience, inadequate financial support (bank loans), and bureaucratic barriers (gupta & mir-chandani, 2018). jagtap (2020) examined the entrepreneurial abilities of women entrepreneurs in rural india, focusing on the country's 50 most successful entrepreneurs. the purpose of this study was to look more closely at how rural entrepreneurial women define the benefits and limitations of their goals and perspectives in the face of starting a business, both in the real and potential sense. the findings of this study revealed that the structural factors that women require (competence/unemployment experience and family support) enable them to achieve their business goals and make decisions. this research also found that studying marketing, strategic thinking, conscientious planning, and timely decision-making helped women entrepreneurs succeed. baharudin et al. (2020) investigated the competencies that affect women entrepreneurs' success in "entrepreneurial competencies and business success among women entrepreneurs: social capital as a moderating effect." according to this study, the six competencies that contribute to the success of women entrepreneurs are the following: strategic competencies, relationship competencies, organizing competencies, commitment competencies, opportunity competencies, and conceptual competencies. the findings of this study also demonstrated the role of social capital as a moderator. topimin (2020) investigated women's entrepreneurship from a gender perspective. a semi-structured interview with successful female entrepreneurs was used to conduct this study qualitatively. this study aimed to determine the factors that contribute to entrepreneurs' success. this research established that one of the critical components of their success is power. rekarti et al. (2019) examined the factors that lead women to become business owners in a study titled "the sustainability of muslim women entrepreneurs: a case study in malaysia." a semi-structured interview with 15 eminent women 218 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 212-237) entrepreneurs from malaysia's successful businesses was used to collect qualitative data. the purpose of this research was to discover the factors influencing the success of a typical woman entrepreneur in this country. the findings indicated that the emergence of four factors — initial financial capital, human capital, family experience, and honesty as a spiritual and affective dimension of other factors — played a significant role in these entrepreneurs' success. gomathy and aruna (2019) examined the impact of entrepreneurial women's leadership skills on their success in a study titled " role of leadership skills in success of women msme entrepreneurs of chennai" using a statistical sample of 130 people and structured questionnaires. the factor influencing entrepreneurs' success in this study, according to these researchers, should be found in their leadership skills. ugwa et al. (2019) also discovered a positive and significant relationship between the culture of women entrepreneurs and their success in ango state, nigeria. the study "policy support for women entrepreneurs' access to financial capital: evidence from canada, germany, ireland, norway, and the united states" was conducted by coleman et al. (2018). this study aimed to look into the success of female entrepreneurs who received government assistance. according to the feminist theory, financial capital is the most effective factor in the success of women entrepreneurs. indrasari et al. (2018) used a phenomenological approach to investigate the structural factors influencing the decision to start a quality entrepreneurial women's business by interviewing ten successful women entrepreneurs. the purpose of this study was to look into the personality traits that influence their success. the findings revealed that sustainability and dynamism at work are determinants of success among women entrepreneurs' personality traits. rahim et al. (2017) conducted a study to determine women entrepreneurs' motivations and challenges titled "motivations and challenges of women entrepreneurs." the researchers' findings showed that factors such as family ties, interest in work, education, work experience, dynamism at work, and opportunities for motivation are among the factors influencing the entire women entrepreneurs' entrepreneurship. aston and martino (2017) examined the factors that affect the success of women entrepreneurs' entrepreneurship. this study discovered that entrepreneurs' attitudes toward risk, management styles, and risk-taking were all significant factors in determining women entrepreneurs' success in the united kingdom. a. r. meybodi, m. brahmi, m. mohammadi, e. hosseini, n. t. loan 219 maden (2015) examined women's entrepreneurship from a gender perspective in turkey. the study used a semi-structured interview with successful female entrepreneurs in turkey to collect qualitative data. the interviews focused on four key areas: the profile, key drivers, challenges, and support mechanisms. this study discovered that turkish women entrepreneurs share several personality traits or characteristics. in turkey, successful female entrepreneurs have been recognized for their persistence and determination, patience, mental fortitude and vision, and innovation. additionally, the interviews revealed that capitalizing on unique business opportunities, working for the greater good of society, and exercising independence in one's decisions and actions are significant factors in turkish women entrepreneurs' decision to become entrepreneurs. on the other hand, despite the existence of mechanisms, obtaining and managing capital emerged as the most significant challenge for women entrepreneurs in turkey. finally, the findings show that the majority of women entrepreneurs in turkey obtain financial support through traditional methods (i.e., governmental, non-governmental, and banking support mechanisms). other sources of support, such as family members and business partners, may provide moral support to the entrepreneur. mohammadi (2018) conducted a study titled "determinants of female entrepreneurship in iran: an institutional approach" in order to examine the challenges and opportunities faced by female entrepreneurs in iran. their findings reflected the interaction between informal factors (entrepreneurial abilities and risk-taking) and formal factors (education and examining the success of women entrepreneurs in iran. according to davari et al. (2014), environmental factors such as cultural, social, political, and technological factors are determinants of entrepreneurial development in iran. women entrepreneurs' success in iran is affected by factors such as social, cultural, legal, economic, political, technological, competitive, and natural factors. according to a study of 188 women entrepreneurs in lorestan county, economic, social, and educational factors, all have an impact on women entrepreneurs in this country. salamzadeh et al. (2017) investigated normative factors affecting the entrepreneurial technology sector. "family concept," "social norms and beliefs," "women's expectations," and "country's technological growth" all play a role in the entrepreneurial performance of women entrepreneurs in the information technology sector in iran. zarandi (2012) identified the factors that affect women's employment in small and medium-sized businesses. their findings indicate that the economic element 220 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 212-237) (environmental factor), the need for success (individual factor), and positive reinforcement (organizational factor) all have an impact on the success of such businesses. gerard mcelwee et al. (2011) studied 247 rural women from gilan, mazandaran, and golestan in northern iran. according to the results of this study, educational, motivational, economic, and psychological/cognitive factors all influence rural women entrepreneurs' success. individual skills, psychological characteristics, and entrepreneurial skills are regarded as the three most important factors affecting rural women's entrepreneurial skills in ilam, iran (lashgarara et al., 2011). besides, radovic-markovich et al. (2013) argued that female entrepreneurs are more likely to succeed because of their leadership style. a review of the entrepreneurial women's research literature revealed that several studies had emphasized the importance and necessity of implementing women's entrepreneurship programs. for instance, according to baharudin et al. (2020), cultures where women entrepreneurs must consider their competencies and act are more profitable and successful than cultures where women entrepreneurs lack specific competencies and engage in less activity. additionally, gomathy and aruna's (2019) findings, as well as radovich-markovich et al. (2013), indicated that leadership development and women entrepreneurs planning should be prioritized. on the other hand, some studies indicate that women entrepreneurs require various capital to succeed. for instance, rekarti (2019) and gerard mcelwee et al. (2011) discovered a positive correlation between financial, human, social, and psychological capital and women entrepreneurs' success. additionally, davari et al. (2014) and asgari (2014) indicated that environmental factors influence the success of women entrepreneurs. in general, the review of domestic studies (women entrepreneurs in iran) reveals a dearth of research on women entrepreneurs in iran. one could argue that the majority of research on the factors affecting women entrepreneurs' success has been conducted in other countries, with only a small portion of the research literature review focusing on iran and its women entrepreneurs. while there is research identifying educational barriers to the development of entrepreneurial spirit among girls and boys at the university of iran (soleimanpour et al., 2012), the authors were unable to locate research indicating the success factors for female entrepreneurs in iran. foreign studies (women entrepreneurs outside iran) have a greater range of research topics and titles than domestic studies. one reason for this a. r. meybodi, m. brahmi, m. mohammadi, e. hosseini, n. t. loan 221 is that international studies have a long history of entrepreneurial research. extensive research has been conducted in virtually every sector of public, private, and family business. according to the authors' research, no qualitative study examining the factors affecting the success of women entrepreneurs has been conducted. nevertheless, one study examined the motivations and challenges faced by women entrepreneurs (rahim et al., 2017). another study, women's entrepreneurship in the united kingdom (stone and martino, 2017), examined risk, success, and failure, while another study emphasized the sustainable development of women entrepreneurs (rekarti, 2019). methods the present study was applied, and its method was qualitative and had an inductive approach. the thematic analysis technique was used to analyze the data from the interviews and identify the model. the statistical population of the study included nurses who work in iran. sampling in this study was purposeful and theoretical. sample selection was also ongoing to the extent that data was adequate, and researchers found that subsequent samples would not provide distinct information. finally, the study was theoretically completed by 11 interviews. in general, given the time and the available resources, ten to fifteen samples would be sufficient for the interview (kvale, 1996). table 1 shows the demographic characteristics of the statistical sample. table 1: demographic characteristics of the interviewees education education level gender 4 management 6 graduate 7 female 7 non-management 5 post-graduate 4 male given the study's central issue, the research question is: what factors affect women entrepreneurs? validity and reliability in qualitative research are subject to a variety of theories and approaches. validity is defined in quantitative research as the research establishing the precise amount that will be quantified. however, this definition has little application to qualitative research, as the objective is not to evaluate or quantify anything. rather than that, it is to comprehend 222 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 212-237) and identify a topic. theorists believe that instead of the two terms validity and reliability, the term trustworthiness should be used in qualitative research. validation and reliability of the findings are critical components of the interview process. the term "reliability" refers to the consistency of interview results, as well as the interview's validity and ability to measure the intended outcomes. validity refers to a method's ability to measure the study's objective accurately. the reliability of the interviews was calculated in the current study using the inter-coder agreement method (reliability between two coders/evaluators). to this end, a university lecturer knowledgeable about the research subject was invited to collaborate on the research as a research collaborator (coder). the researchers coded three interviews in collaboration with a research collaborator and calculated the percentage of inter-coder reliability agreement to be used as a research reliability index using the following equation. percentage of inter-coder reliability agreement = number of agreements ×2 total number of codes × 100% table 2: calculate the reliability between the two coders item interview code number of codes number of agreements reliability between coders (percentage) 1 82 9 22 s3 2 76 11 29 s5 3 89 3 21 s9 total 80 29 72 table 2 shows that using the mentioned equation, the two coders' reliability for the study's interviews is 82 percent. the coding reliability has been confirmed, with a reliability rate of more than 60% (cowell, 1996). it could be argued that the current interview analysis is reliable. results after implementing and typing the interview data, each interview was assigned a number. the text of the interviews was analyzed using the thematic analysis method, which is widely used in qualitative research. based on this, the interviews were read frequently, and the researcher's a. r. meybodi, m. brahmi, m. mohammadi, e. hosseini, n. t. loan 223 relevant and favorite materials were identified, which were, in fact, the answer to the main research question. the qualitative data that had been chosen were then coded. data encoding was carried out in accordance with the interview and the previously defined numbers. after completing the coding step, the researchers used their imagination to choose a tag for each code. they then combined the sub-themes with the greatest semantic and conceptual affinity to create new meanings and words. they organized the sub-themes in the same way they organized the main themes. the answers to the research questions extracted from the qualitative data are the main themes (abedi jafari et al., 2011). figure 1 depicts an overview of the data analysis process. figure 1: data analysis process main themes sub-themes preliminary codes due to the large amount of data, not all of them are provided, and table 3 only contains the method for extracting one of the main themes, as well as other information. table 3: example of the primary themes extraction process the primary purpose of this company is to use technology and up-to-date science in this field. knowledge management strategic thinking one of our company's long-term goals is to achieve and use the latest technology in the world. we need to use the potential within ourselves and our employees to advance the company. creativity and creative destruction one of the main factors in this company's success is the high management's ability to cultivate attractive ideas. one of our company's goals, which the management emphasized, was to take advantage of the market opportunities because opportunities are like the wind, and they need to be exploited quickly. gaining opportunities losing opportunities is a sign of stupidity and causes depression. 224 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 212-237) additionally, because the repetition of the preliminary codes extracted from the interviews primarily indicates their significance, the frequency with which they are repeated is provided. table 4 also includes the final results. table 4: sub-themes and main themes (factors affecting the success of women entrepreneurs) sub-themes main themes social capital social trust, social participation, sense of belonging and responsibility, social commitment, shared values and norms, work links, family ties, managers' support for research projects, social health comprehensive quality. achieving customer mindset, meeting customer needs, the best way to demonstrate and implement management commitment to customers, improving service quality, flawless products, process management, careful daily management of fundamental processes, strong leadership, healthy competition, dynamic planning, direct monitoring of product quality strategic thinking inductive reasoning, creativity, and creative destruction, knowledge management and application of knowledge, knowing the industry, ideal modeling, optimization, systematic attitude, foresight, gaining opportunities, economic thinking ethical characteristics altruism and humanism, value and respect for others, honesty, intimacy, compassion and empathy, transparency, purity of imagination, openmindedness, being honest, talking to people, meditation, attention to human dignity. personality characteristics of women entrepreneurs mind capacity, work dynamism, capital utilization, innovation, resilience, the spirit of initiative, perseverance, dynamic planning, determination, flexibility, foresight, conscientiousness, work conscience a. r. meybodi, m. brahmi, m. mohammadi, e. hosseini, n. t. loan 225 sub-themes main themes human resource management procedures continuous monitoring of the environment, readiness for change in the organization, training, discipline, compensation of employee services, job security, work and literacy, the minimum level of jealousy at work, rewards, salaries and benefits, and justice. discussion given the above findings, it is impossible to say that all seven themes are present in women entrepreneurs. the purpose of this study is not to claim that these are the only factors influencing entrepreneurial behavior. instead, according to the interviewees, these factors are observed more frequently in women entrepreneurs and may not be compatible with one another or overlap to some extent. the following summarizes the findings, which explain the factors that shape women entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial behavior. ethical characteristics of entrepreneurs morality is the principle and standard distinguishing between right and wrong behavior (e.g., honesty and lying). practical ethics, on the other hand, cannot be defined by a set of rules. instead, it is a human issue, with daily innovations and initiatives to address behavioral problems. as a result, managers with ethical characteristics are two sides of the same coin. honesty, altruism and humanism, meditation, and respect for human dignity exemplify managers' moral character. according to the findings of this study, women entrepreneurs who possess qualities such as honesty, altruism, and humanism, as well as an awareness of human dignity, will perform better and more successfully in the collection. it is because, in today's world, no organization can exist without moral principles, the most important of which are honesty and altruism. if ethical principles are followed by the organization, management, and even its employees to avoid harming the organization, it will be beneficial in several ways to the organization's success. the organization's ethical principles will be institutionalized as a value; second, effective, transparent, and friendly relationships between management and employees will be established; and 226 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 212-237) third, the organization's positive performance and success will be witnessed. the statements of the interviewees provide an example of this: "..... honesty has been the first principle in my life, and i have been looking for a healthy life and work because the peace of mind from this experience is commendable …" the research conducted by rekarti et al. (2019) backs up and confirms the findings of this study. according to them, the moral characteristics of entrepreneurs, as a spiritual component, play the most crucial role in women entrepreneurs' organizational success. women will demonstrate fair behavior in response to their responsibilities, even when they are allowed to take advantage. hence, women can focus on particular values and tend to create values accordingly. such values will facilitate standardization and process management, leading to the development of efficient career procedures and the optimization of responsibilities based on priorities. thus, ethics help develop an integrated mental overview of the organization whose output can result in innovation and the perception of inconsistencies within the organization. personality characteristics of entrepreneurs the personality traits of management are another factor influencing success. personality traits are fixed and stable sets in individuals, as well as a unit of relatively stable characteristics that differentiate one person from another. the character is a complex structure on which no agreement has been reached. according to the findings of this study, creativity is one of the manifestations of personality traits. the creative management of an organization is critical to its survival; therefore, when the management is creative in its work, it will present and implement novel and valuable ideas regarding the organization's products, performance, services, or procedures. managerial resilience is also a characteristic associated with success; resilient managers, while determined, loyal, and fearless, are humble in front of others, do not feel helpless in the face of adversity, and appear resilient while achieving the success they envision. conscience is a personality trait that demonstrates dependability by being accurate and responsible in all aspects of one's life. conscientiousness is exhibited by an organization's management and employees because they have perseverance, hard work, and motivation to succeed. due to the cases mentioned above, the management's conscientiousness is considered a factor in the company's success. the statements of the interviewees provide an example of this: a. r. meybodi, m. brahmi, m. mohammadi, e. hosseini, n. t. loan 227 "..... when the company's management, mr. salehi, started working in 2016, after buying the shares of all shareholders, and bought many devices, and made a lot of expenses until today, with his great perseverance, this company is one of the companies that has been able to satisfy its customers.... " to corroborate the findings of this study, jagtap (2020), baharudin et al. (2020), rekarti et al. (2019), coleman et al. (2019), indrasari et al. (2018), mohammadi (2018), rahim et al. (2017), aston and martino (2017), and maden (2015) have addressed several sub-themes of this research, including job dynamics, capital utilization, and decisiveness. according to the findings of the present research, female entrepreneurs’ resilience leads to competitive advantage and creates new sets of values for the organization and stakeholders. hence, women can have a substantial influence on enhancing mutual trust between employees and stakeholders through sharing knowledge and facilitating communications. as a result, it is easier for businesses to acquire new contextual and environmental knowledge from women, integrate such knowledge into the business routine processes, and renovate practical capabilities based on new environmental requirements. therefore, given the entrepreneurship potentials, female entrepreneurs should understand the possible necessity to violate outdated routine regulations, implement new approaches, and integrate diverse patterns and strategies into intuition and innovation. social capital the availability of social capital, another form of capital, has been found to have a positive impact on the company's success (tajpour et al.,2023). in fukuyama's view, social capital is the ability of individuals to work together in groups and organizations to achieve common goals (fukuyama, 1994). individuals do not possess social capital; groups do. according to the findings of this study, social capital is a desirable component of intra-group collaborations because it enables the group to accomplish its objectives more economically. assume that a group lacks sufficient social capital due to a lack of trust, participation, commitment, values, and professional connections. in that case, collaboration costs will rise, and achieving performance will require establishing costly monitoring and control systems. in comparison, adequate and appropriate social capital has resulted in cohesion, participation, commitment, work and family ties, 228 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 212-237) and mutual trust. as a result, group performance improves, resulting in the group's and company's success. this company has a high level of social capital, contributing to its success. one example can be found in the interviewees' statements: "...... there is excellent interaction between the management and the workers and employees, as well as between the employees and the workers themselves, and our work in this company has been based on trusting subordinates and consulting them.... " in support of the findings of this study, baharudin et al. (2020) identified social capital as a factor influencing the success of women entrepreneurs. on the other hand, jagtap (2020), rekarti (2020), rahim et al. (2017), maden (2015), and salamzadeh et al. (2017) identified family ties as one of the sub-themes influencing entrepreneur success. women share high degrees of anticipation, and they do not behave opportunistically so that they can maintain their mutual relationships. it is necessary to develop a constant flow of technical (primary resource materials and information), social (persistent recruitment opportunities and maintaining skilled workforce), and economic (constant business affairs or development through different strategies to access financial assets) resources to deal with various risks. comprehensive quality comprehensive quality is another factor affecting success. quality means everyone in the organization working together to meet the needs of customers and more than their needs. accordingly, companies are required to examine their consumers’ behaviors to observe prosperity and economic growth (guerrero et al., 2015). therefore, organizations can survive in today's world of competition based on the findings of this study. one of the principles that must be observed in the field of business competition is to attract and retain more customers, which will not be possible unless better and more services are provided, as well as paying attention to the needs, demands, and expectations of customers, flawless products, and product quality monitoring. companies have attempted to be as informed as possible about customers' needs, demands, and expectations by providing goods or services based on customer needs and expectations and adhering to the principles of responding quickly to their needs and demands. the company has retained current customers and added new customers by using direct a. r. meybodi, m. brahmi, m. mohammadi, e. hosseini, n. t. loan 229 supervision of the work process, one of the basic principles of customer management, to improve the quality of goods or provide services. customer management and providing products and services of the desired quality are two keys to the company's survival. the following is an example taken from the interviewees' statements: "..... we have seen positive feedback from our customers in this collection, for example, a sample of our products was not available for two weeks; during this time, our customers called and asked for the product. two weeks later, when our product was ready, and i called them, they said that they had not purchased the required product from another place and were waiting for our call ...." the findings are consistent with the findings of baharudin et al. (2020), gotami et al. (2019), aston and martino (2017), and radovich-markovich et al. (2013). brand management brand management is the process of preserving, enhancing, and promoting a successful brand. this dimension encompasses indicators of brand trust, brand performance, brand success, and brand reputation. according to the study's findings, organizations that use a brand performance index are more successful because brand performance is determined by consumer awareness of the brand, employee attitudes toward the brand, and the brand's financial value. the consumer mentality of a brand indicates its existence and performance, as well as a stable and unrelated mindset to temporal and spatial requirements. thus, when the organization, its employees, and management genuinely believe in the brand's performance, they can deliver on their external promises. as a result, they succeed, just like the business in question. on the other hand, trust is widely recognized as a necessary condition for marketing to maintain customer-business relationships successfully. according to the research presented in this article, brand trust and brand reputation have been critical to kashmar company's success as a result of its commitment to providing superior service and quality. the following is an example from the interviewees' statements: ".... the company seeks to meet the needs of customers at different times and has been able to do so efficiently; we have always tried to be in line with the needs of our 230 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 212-237) customers and owe our success to the trust we have created among our customers… " it should be noted that the statistical sample used in the research has an effect on the factors affecting brand management. human resources management procedures (components) another factor affecting saleh kashmar company's success is its resource management practices. according to the findings of this study, effective human resource management procedures result in organizational success. material and welfare benefits, particularly salaries and wages, are not the most critical factor in successfully completing assigned tasks; employees are, however, the most tangible factor. indeed, in most disputes and strikes, wages and bonuses can be viewed as significant factors in deciding to leave the service. thus, by implementing appropriate compensation policies and incentives, it is possible to increase employees' readiness and enthusiasm to perform their duties in order to help the organization achieve its goals and mission and find a way to succeed. on the other hand, when an organization intends to compensate its employees, it must consider factors other than wages. job security is a non-financial benefit designed to enrich employees' lives and reassure them about their future careers. because the implementation of these policies fosters a desire among employees, both external and internal, to attract and retain the best talent. as a result, the company's management can leverage this issue to reap the benefits of attracting and retaining talented and capable employees, ultimately leading to success. the findings of this study demonstrate that organizational fairness results in organizational success. when employees believe that organizational interests and resources are allocated fairly, that the procedures for allocating these resources are also fair, and that supervisors treat subordinates fairly, they will be encouraged to express their views and ideas to improve and benefit the organization, thereby contributing to its success. an illustration of this is found in the interviewees' statements: "... all the workers in this complex are insured. their salaries are also credited to their accounts before the tenth of each month, and a shuttle service is provided for them, and there is a dining room for lunch... " commitment creates a collective sense of identity among company members that leads to different social behaviors, such as sharing ideas a. r. meybodi, m. brahmi, m. mohammadi, e. hosseini, n. t. loan 231 voluntarily. committed female employees can play a crucial role in the survival and success of an organization. in other words, women’s commitment to their job refers to particular attitudes toward loyalty, which is realized as a continuous process highlighted by contributing to business decisions and focusing on organizational objectives. it will result in business accomplishment. it is necessary for organizations to review and pay attention to female employees’ demands as well as seek and implement their opinions in order to achieve organizational commitment. otherwise, the entire business process and organizational commitment would be exposed. strategic thinking another factor affecting the company's success is strategic thinking. strategic thinking is defined in this research as a method for solving strategic problems that combines a rational and convergent approach with creative and divergent thinking processes. this way of thinking is not about forecasting the future but anticipating market changes and identifying opportunities that others miss. strategic thinking entails being innovative, copying successful organizations, seizing opportunities, and applying cutting-edge knowledge and technology to achieve organizational success. an example of this is stated in the interviewees' statements: "...within two decades, our company was able to turn the livestock factory complex into a commercial complex in the first decade, which includes five production sections. in the second decade, it was able to become a chain and take a long way from our competitors and achieve success ...” the findings of baharudin et al. (2020), abdolrahim et al. (2017), and maden (2015) all corroborate the findings of this study. strategic thinking is regarded as an understanding at the large-scale level. accordingly, female employees should focus on such understanding to identify environmental realities and respective norms and regulations accurately, particularly in complicated competitive conditions. they can also perceive new competitive characteristics quickly. in addition, these employees are more likely to implement environmental opportunities to obtain a competitive advantage and change environmental threats into opportunities through strategic thinking. they will develop innovative solutions and values to respond to environmental flips. therefore, strategic thinking can lead to appropriate changes and enhancement of organizational flexibility. 232 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 212-237) conclusion the purpose of this study was to ascertain the factors influencing the success of iranian women entrepreneurs. in-depth interviews were used to collect data, and thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. as a result, this research was conducted to address the central question of the research, "what factors influence the success of women entrepreneurs?" the study findings indicate that comprehensive quality, moral and personality traits, and social capital all contribute to the success of iranian women entrepreneurs. among the study's limitations is the paucity of research on the subject. the second limitation was that the factors influencing the success of women entrepreneurs were identified solely through interview data. combining qualitative and quantitative methods can help to increase the validity and reliability of certain findings. the impact of comprehensive quality components like meeting customers' mental demands and brand management, such as brand evangelism, was identified and examined for the first time in this research. given the significance of comprehensive quality components, women entrepreneurs should prioritize customer satisfaction and product quality in their efforts. they respond quickly to customer needs and demands by providing goods and services tailored to the customer's expectations because they can be informed about customer needs, demands, and expectations using customer management principles and rules and customer satisfaction measurement models. they can keep existing customers and attract new ones by continuously improving the quality of goods and services, one of the basic principles of customer management. in the brand management section, it is suggested that the research subthemes be considered the criteria for their branding success. also, in the interpersonal communication section of entrepreneurs, their moral and personality characteristics should be the basis for entrepreneurs' success. given the role of social capital in women entrepreneurs' success, it is recommended that in the design of entrepreneurial activities, the sub-themes of social capital, such as trust and social participation, be at the forefront of their work. in the field of human resources management, it is suggested that educational workshops, as well as human resource procedures, be designed and implemented to strengthen entrepreneurial skills. given that strategic thinking components, such as creativity and opportunity hunting, are among a. r. meybodi, m. brahmi, m. mohammadi, e. hosseini, n. t. loan 233 the fundamental components proven in various studies affecting entrepreneurial activities, it is recommended that people who want to succeed in their entrepreneurial activities develop a sense of risk-taking in their creative thinking. overall, it is recommended that managers and policymakers attempt to promote women’s innovative thinking capabilities to have a better understanding of the market and help them out of critical situations, plan training courses for women to improve their skills and overcome diversity issues, identify their major concerns and provide low-cost effective solutions, and motivate women to implement novel approaches at work and acquire new skills. given that the present study was conducted in iran, the results should be generalized to other settings with caution. lastly, researchers are advised to perform similar studies in other countries and compare the findings respectively. references [1] abedi jafari, hasan taslimi, mohammad saeed, abolhasan faghihi and mohammad sheikhzade. 2011. “thematic analysis and thematic networks: a simple and efficient method for exploring patterns embedded in qualitative data municipalities.” strategic management thought, 5(2): 151-198. 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[50] zarandi, maryam .2012. “key-factor analysis of elements affecting women’s employment in small and medium enterprises (sme) among women living in tehran.” management science letters, 2(6): 2041-2048. article history: received: december 17th, 2022 accepted: april 27th, 2023 feminist critique of ghana’s women’s entrepreneurship policies publisher institute of economic sciences 12 zmaj jovina str. 11000 belgrade, serbia editor-in-chief prof. dr. mirjana radović-marković institute of economic sciences, belgrade editorial office journal secretary marija antonijević, ma institute of economic sciences, belgrade dvanaesti jedanaesti a qualitative approach to the success of iranian women entrepreneurs female msme practitioners and digitalization from a feminist perspective using structural equation modeling in the analysis of the relationship between internal and external factors and women entrepreneurs’ success understanding gender approach to educational achievement: perceptions of outstanding female students of university in aceh, indonesia identifying the sources of work-family conflict among women entrepreneurs in iran revamp of tourism industry in nepal: women entrepreneurial orientation, competitive advantage, and firm performance covid-19 and indian women entrepreneurship: factor analysis approach digital competences as a precondition for an inclusive digital economy is there a gender gap among persons with disabilities in serbia? learning model of female entrepreneurship in indonesia: development of learning model based on the characteristics and needs of female entrepreneurs publishing board jovan zubović, institute of economic sciences, serbia mavis serwah benneh mensah0f evelyn derera1f introduction women’s entrepreneurship in ghana overview barriers to women’s entrepreneurship in ghana feminist theories and women’s entrepreneurship policies data and methodology data sources methodology analytical framework results and discussions change of discriminatory social practices gender neutrality/balance in the presentation of policy documents gender awareness training/support change of social structures conclusions and recommendations references widiyanto2f arief yulianto muhammad feriady ahmad nurkhin introduction entrepreneurship learning models characteristics and needs of women entrepreneurs in indonesia research methods research results and discussion research results discussion conclusion reference milena lazić3f valentina vukmirović4f jelena banović5f vladimir simović6f mihailo paunović7f introduction theoretical background research methodology sample description results and discussion conclusion and policy recommendations acknowledgment references ritu yadav8f krishna kumari9f chand prakash saini10f introduction literature review research methodology data analysis finding and discussion conclusion references pratikshya bhandari11f bijay sigdel12f sarana photchanachan kullaya uppapong14f asmita bhattarai15f introduction literature review and hypothesis development the tourism industry in nepal the tourism industry and covid-19 entrepreneurial orientation and firm's performance competitive advantage and firm performance entrepreneurial orientation, competitive advantage, and firm performance methodology data analysis and discussion measurement model path analysis coefficient of determination (r2) effect size (f2) conclusion implication limitations and further research references arghavan rafiaie16f mohsen farhadinejad17f meisam modarresi18f introduction work-family conflict sources in women opportunity and necessity-driven female entrepreneurs conditions of iranian female entrepreneurs sampling and data collection data analysis findings work-family conflicts with socio-cultural origins results and discussion limitations and suggestions for further research references bahrun bahrun19f sanusi sanusi20f taat kurnita yeniningsih21f abu bakar22f amiruddin hasan23f introduction materials and methods design and approach sample and participants interview materials statistical analyses results discussion conclusion finding of research acknowledgments conflicts of interest references sunčica stanković24f slađana vujičić25f mirjana radović-marković26f introduction literature review research methodology data, sample, questionnaire, variables, and model methods results description of the research sample sample adequacy, multicollinearity, and cmv test measurement and structural model analysis references linda dwi eriyanti 27f sus eko zuhri ernada28f honest dody moelasy29f adhiningasih prabhawati30f introduction literature review and theoretical underpinnings the potential of women as business actors feminism intersection methods results gender intersection religion limited living facilities to support business low digital literacy discussion intersection and female msme practitioners women's motivation to do business using digital technology conclusion references alireza rajabipoor meybodi31f mohsen brahmi32f masoumeh mohammadi elahe hosseini33f nguyen thi loan34f introduction literature review methods results discussion ethical characteristics of entrepreneurs personality characteristics of entrepreneurs social capital comprehensive quality brand management human resources management procedures (components) strategic thinking conclusion references xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx note of editor in chief dear authors, journal of women's entrepreneurship and education publishes peer-reviewed articles online in an open access format, after a careful selection through a double-blind peer-review process. the journal encourages both empirical and the theoretical contributions of the approaches to gender. besides the original papers we welcome the papers from other scientific categories position papers, letters to editors, research papers, reviews, and syntheses as well as book and conference reviews. best wishes and thank you in advance for your contribution to the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education. i would like to thank especially the guest editor, ass. prof. aidin salamzadeh, for his endowment to this issue. at last, i can only wish you lots of professional success in new year 2022. yours faithfully, prof. dr mirjana radović-marković, editor in chief doi: 10.28934/jwee22.12.pp170-186 original scientific paper 9bfactors affecting entrepreneurial intention of the female students of business colleges of bhutan: applying the theory of planned behaviour dawa drakpa2 3f1 the royal university of bhutan, faculty of gedu college of business studies, department of management, bhutan sonam loday2 4 f2 the royal university of bhutan, faculty of gedu college of business studies, department of finance, bhutan karma yangchen25 f3 ministry of finance, department of revenue and custom, phuntsholing regional offices, bhutan a b s t r a c t with the increasing number of women participating in entrepreneurship, it has become an area of interest for most researchers. this paper is designed to evaluate the factors influencing entrepreneurial intention among female students of business colleges under the royal university of bhutan based on the tpb model. the data were collected from 230 final year female students through an online survey. regression analysis was applied to test the study’s hypotheses. the result revealed that all the three dimensions of the tpb model have an influence on entrepreneurial intention among female business students. of the three dimensions, the perceived behavioral control has a strong influence, whereas subjective norms with least influence on entrepreneurial intention (ei). 1 corresponding author, e-mail: dawa.drakpa@gmail.com 2 e-mail: sonamloday.gcbs@rub.edu.bt 3 e-mail: yangchey2015@gmail.com dawa drakpa, sonam loday, karma yangchen 171 key words: entrepreneurial intention, female, royal university of bhutan, tpb model, personal attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control introduction both nationally and internationally, it is noticeable that women-owned enterprises are lesser in numbers, yet, and it plays an imperative role in the nation’s economic activities. literature supports that women can substantially contribute to the nation’s economic activities and development (noguera et al., 2013; hechavarria et al., 2018; cardella et al., 2020). observing the women interested in entrepreneurship, government, ngos and private organizations are introducing various initiatives to encourage and support women entrepreneurs. for instance, in 2021, united nations (un) organized the first regional women’s entrepreneurship expo where european and central asia women were provided opportunities to create a network and share entrepreneurial knowledge (un women regional office, 2021). whereas in india, the women entrepreneurship platform (wep) provides an ecosystem for new and existing women entrepreneurs (government of india, 2021). in nepal, the women entrepreneurs association of nepal (wean) is created to increase the capacity of existing women entrepreneurs (wean, 2021). likewise, in bhutan, various initiatives are taken by institutes to create a platform to motivate female youths in entrepreneurship. a few such active institutes are the bhutan association of women entrepreneurs (baowe) which engages in providing financial support, training, mentoring and advocacy to female youths and women to participate in entrepreneurship (baowe, 2021). similarly, respect, educate, nurture, empower women (renew) has a micro finance project (mfp) that provides financial support like micro-loans, insurance, saving, and credit facilities to vulnerable women (renew, 2020). bhutan development bank limited (bdbl) is another that lends credits to rural women entrepreneurs with a minimum of 10 per cent interest (lama, 2018). despite the various initiatives taken by institutes in bhutan, women’s participation in economic activity is lesser than men’s (national statistics bureau, 2020; world economic forum, 2021). according to global gender gap report 2020, bhutan was ranked 117 out of 156 countries in terms of economic participation and opportunity (with a score of 0.954). this indicates that gender disparity exists in terms of women’s participation in 172 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 170-186) economic activities in bhutan (world economic forum, 2021). labour force survey report 2020, the economic inactivity rate26 f4 for women is 36.5%, compared to 27.5% for men. yet, another proof is that women are behind men in economic activity (national statistics bureau, 2020). internationally, it has been found that female participation in entrepreneurship activities is still low as compared to men (pi-shen et al., 2008; kobeissi, 2010; global entrepreneurship monitor, 2020). an entrepreneurial intention of women could be one of the main reasons for lesser women’s participation in entrepreneurial activities. tenzin, (2018) conducted a study on entrepreneurial intention amongst bhutanese university graduates and it was found that 7.1% of female students are less likely to venture into entrepreneurship as compared to their male counterparts. the findings were no different among bhutanese school students (utha et al., 2016). in hong kong, lo et al. (2017) found that male students’ intention to start up was slightly higher than that of female students. a similar result was found with students of south african university students (ndofirepi et al., 2018). therefore, the focus of this research study is on factors influencing entrepreneurial intention (ei) among female students in business colleges of the royal university of bhutan (rub). the basis of the analysis is on the model put forward by ajzen, (1991), theory of planned behaviour (tpb) which emphasizes three factors: personal attitudes (pa), social norms (sn) and perceived behavioral control (pbc). various models have been tried to explain the ei, but in theory-driven research, the tpb model has been widely used by researchers. literature review women entrepreneurship entrepreneurship as a research topic has been receiving greater attention in recent years, mainly due to its positive effect on a nation’s economic development (ahmad et al., 2012; sheriff et al., 2016) in terms of employment creation and economic growth (mirzanti et al., 2015). thus, most countries give importance to the policies related to entrepreneurship and initiate various programs to promote entrepreneurial activities. to 4 it is defined as the proportion of economically active population to working-age population. dawa drakpa, sonam loday, karma yangchen 173 increase participation in entrepreneurial activities, one should know and recognize ways to stimulate entrepreneurial intentions [eis] (turker & selcuk, 2009). with the increasing number of women participating in entrepreneurship, it has become an area of interest for most researchers (malach et al., 2010). women entrepreneurship is viewed as a driving force in the economy (kobeissi, 2010; noguera et al., 2013; hechavarria et al., 2018; cardella et al., 2020) and is considered a must policy in many countries (bosma et al., 2021). in many countries, governments and various institutes are actively taking the initiative to empower women and promote women entrepreneurship. for example, canada adopted women entrepreneurship strategy (wes) to progress women’s economic empowerment (canada association of women executives & entrepreneurs, 2018); the macedonian government has adopted the strategy and action plan for women entrepreneurs 2019–2023 (ministry of economy of the republic of macedonia, 2019). in bhutan, few institutes have supported female participation in entrepreneurship activities for the last several years, yet female participation is still low compared to men (lama, 2018). the number of women who availed funding support from loden foundation27 f5 is 72 out of 200 receivers (loden foundation, 2021); this indicates that women’s involvement in bhutanese economic activity is much lesser than men’s. entrepreneurial intention model eis have been a shared research area for many researchers. since the early 1980s, numerous ei models have been established (shapero & sokol, 1982; ajzen, 1991; krueger & brazeal, 1994). of all, the most widely applied ei models are shapero and sokol's (1982) entrepreneurial intention model and ajzen's (1991) tpb model. both models define intentions as exponents of entrepreneurial behavior. also, these models present a high level of mutual compatibility (krueger et al., 2000). in comparison, the perceived desirability in an entrepreneurial intention model parallels the pa and sn components in the tpb in considering desirability as an outcome of cultural and social influences (krueger, 1993). krueger also compared both the models by taking a sample of 97 american university students and 5 the loden foundation is an ngo in bhutan dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship by providing financial, mentoring and training support to bhutanese start-ups. 174 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 170-186) found that both the models offer researchers a reliable instrument for understanding the ei. in this paper, ajzen’s tpb model (ajzen, 1991) is used to study the factors influencing ei among female business students of rub colleges of bhutan. this theory is considered a highly structured theory of ‘planned behavior’ (liñán, 2004), and it is widely applied in the practical situation as an entrepreneurial career choice (krueger, 1993; krueger et al., 2000). moreover, it is a commonly adopted theory to study the student's ei (aloulou, 2016; costa & mares, 2016; iglesias-sánchez et al., 2016; gorgievski et al., 2018; munir et al., 2019). ajzen’s tpb model identifies three antecedents to measure the intentions (ajzen, 1991); personal attitude (pa) refers to the degree to which the individual holds a positive or negative personal valuation about being an entrepreneur in their lives. in this study, it was emphasized on an individual’s degree of positive or negative opinion about being an entrepreneur. according to iglesias-sánchez et al. (2016), the higher the constructive opinion, the greater probability of the individual indicating ei in the future. subjective norms (sn) refer to the social pressure or influence to undertake entrepreneurship. social pressure or influence emanates from social references such as parents, relatives, tutors and friends or society as a whole. it appraises the perception of individuals’ performing a particular behaviour from the influences of social references group (vamvaka et al., 2020). thus, individuals’ intention to start a business is influenced by social reference groups’ expectations, pressures and approval. the perceived behavioural control (pbc) is personal perceptions of the behaviour’s feasibility (control beliefs) (ajzen, 1991; gelderen et al., 2008). it is an individual’s perception of the level of difficulties in becoming an entrepreneur and willingness to overcome those difficulties at the time of business start-up (iglesias-sánchez et al., 2016). women entrepreneurial intention history depicts that women were deprived of social freedom to participate in economic development (united nations, 2010; kaviarasu & xavier, 2016; shah, 2019), but things have changed now, women are given equal opportunities like men. with this change, many countries have considered female entrepreneurship an important policy objective (global dawa drakpa, sonam loday, karma yangchen 175 entrepreneurship monitor, 2020). despite the various support and initiative from government and social institutes, female participation is still low in entrepreneurship activities compared to men (pi-shen et al., 2008; kobeissi, 2010; global entrepreneurship monitor, 2020), and findings were the same with the undergraduate students in terms of ei. when it comes to the study of ei based on the tpb model, kolvereid, (1996) found out that there is an indirect effect of pa, sns and pbc on female self-employment intention. whereas, results were mixed in the comparative study of students in spain and puerto rico where female students had a positive pa towards entrepreneurship but their sn was not positive and their intentions were relatively low (vamvaka et al., 2020). on the contrary, ferri et al., (2018) found out that tpb factors had a positive impact on female ei whereas sns had a strong influence compared to pa and pbc. according to dabic et al. (2012), it was found that male students had higher confidence in perceived feasibility and desirability compared to female students. on the other hand, female students had higher confidence in their family’s support and were found to have a strong influence on ei than men (karimi et al., 2013). according to the above literature, the following hypotheses were developed: h1: pa towards entrepreneurship has a positive influence on the ei of female students of business colleges in rub. h2. sn towards entrepreneurship has a positive influence on the ei of female students of business colleges in rub. h3: pbc towards entrepreneurship has a positive influence on the ei of female students of business colleges in rub. materials and methods data collection and participants the data were collected using a structured questionnaire from the final year female students of the three business colleges; gedu college of business studies (gcbs)2 8f6, royal thimphu college (rtc)2 9f7 and norbuling 6 gcbs is the only premier college under the royal university of bhutan that offers fulltime contemporary business and management education in the country (https://www.gcbs.edu.bt/). 176 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 170-186) rigter college (nrc)3 0 f8 which is affiliated to rub. the total population for this study was 540 final year female students (gcbs-258, rtc-243 and nrc-39), of which 230 were drawn as a sample size after using yamane taro’s formula (yamane, 1967). of 230 participants, 45.7% are from gcbs, 39.1% are from rtc and the rest are from nrc. all the participants are from bachelor in business administration and bachelor in commerce courses with 17.8% and 82.2% of participants, respectively. the three colleges are selected because the range of entrepreneurial programs offered across these colleges is common and standardized under the rub. the target audiences are the final year female students of three business colleges because considering their options would be much more realistic as they will be in the market for immediate career choices. measures a set of structured questionnaires was developed on the basis of the tpb model (ajzen, 1991). there were four dimensions in this study; pa consisting of three items; sn consisting of three items; pbc consisting of three items and ei with three items. items for these four dimensions are borrowed from research done by liñán and chen (2009); robledo et al. (2015); iglesias-sánchez et al. (2016), whose objectives were similar to this research. to measure each factor, seven points likert scale with 1 expressing the strongest disagreement and 7 the highest level of agreement (likert, 1932) was used. results reliability and validity the items used in the questionnaire were already validated by previous studies (liñán & chen, 2009; robledo et al., 2015; iglesias-sánchez et al., 2016). nevertheless, considering the importance of reliability and validity 7 4rtc is the first affiliated private college to rub. out of two private colleges in bhutan, rtc is the first private college that provides business and management education in the country (https://www.rtc.bt/). 8 nrc is the second and recent affiliated private college to rub. out of two private colleges in bhutan, nrc is the newest private college that provides business and management education in the country (https://www.nrc.bt/ ) dawa drakpa, sonam loday, karma yangchen 177 tests for the instrument, the study has validated the internal consistency of the questionnaire by applying cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability. it is the most commonly used statistical tool for reliability testing (yang et al., 2015; iglesias-sánchez et al., 2016; shah et al., 2020). as shown in table 1, cronbach’s alpha of each construct is between 0.755 to 0.943 and composite reliability is between 0.807 to 0.933, which is higher than the acceptable level of 0.7. the average variance extracted (ave) is used to test the convergent validity. the ave of each construct ranges from 0.584 to 0.821, which is higher than the acceptable level of 0.5. the discriminant validity of the constructs is analysed by verifying that the √ave of the construct is higher than the correlation with other constructs, as recommended by (fornell & larcker, 1981). as shown in table 2, the result supports fornell and larcker’s criteria for discriminant validity. table 1: reliability statistics constructs items composite reliability cronbach alpha factor loadings ave ei 3 0.856 0.866 0.814 0.666 pa 3 0.933 0.943 0.906 0.821 sn 3 0.807 0.755 0.762 0.584 pbc 3 0.900 0.904 0.866 0.750 source: survey data table 2: discriminant validity ei pa sn pbc ei 0.816 pa 0.407** 0.906 sn 0.421** 0.487** 0.764 pbc 0.560** 0.191** 0.349** 0.866 sources: survey data notes: *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001; the diagonal italic values are the √ave of the constructs; the remaining values are the bivariate correlations between constructs. regression analysis the regression result (table 3) depicts that 42% of the variance on ei is due to the pa, sn, and pbc. the relationship between exogenous and endogenous variables was statistically found significant with (p<0.01). 178 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 170-186) among the three dimensions, pbc has a strong effect on ei of three business colleges (β = 0.535, p<0.01), followed by pa (β =0.306, p<0.01) and sn (β = 0.179, p<0.01) with the least effect on ei of female students of business colleges. thus, study’ h1 “pa towards entrepreneurship has a positive influence on ei of female students of business colleges in rub”, h2 “sn towards entrepreneurship has a positive influence on ei of female students of business colleges in rub” and h3 “pbc towards entrepreneurship has a positive influence on ei of female students of business colleges under rub” are supported. table 3: regression of ei independent variable β sig. model pa 0.306 0.000 sn 0.179 0.027 pbc 0.535 0.000 constant -1.124 0.018 notes: r2 = 0.420; adjusted r2 = 0.413; f=54.66; p<0.01 discussion and implication the previous research findings reveal that women are less likely to venture into entrepreneurship as compared to their counterparts (pi-shen et al., 2008; kobeissi, 2010; global entrepreneurship monitor, 2020) and findings were no different from the case of bhutan (utha et al., 2016; tenzin, 2018; lama, 2018). thus, intending to find the factors influencing ei among female students in business colleges of rub, the study has researched with the adoption of ajzen’s (1991) tpb model to measure the female students’ ei. the model comprises three dimensions: pa, sn and pbc. this study has revealed that all three dimensions, pa, sn and pbc have a positive influence on the ei of female students of business colleges in bhutan. these results are very much in line with kolvereid (1996); aeeni et al. (2015); khuong and an (2016); ferri et al. (2018); sarwar et al. (2021) and in general, among university students, the three-dimensions were found to have a positive influence (karimi et al., 2013; iglesias-sánchez et al., 2016; kabir et al., 2017). of the three dimensions, the pbc has a strong influence on ei. similar results were with robledo et al. (2015); kusumawardani et al. (2020) but against to iqbal et al. (2012); kautonen et dawa drakpa, sonam loday, karma yangchen 179 al. (2015); ferri et al. (2018); sussman and gifford (2018); vamvaka et al. (2020) findings. whereas sn has the least influence on ei in this study, which is in line with previous studies conducted by liñán (2004); aeeni et al. (2015) but contrary to yang et al. (2015); iglesias-sánchez et al. (2016); aloulou (2016); abdullah et al. (2019) findings. some studies even found that sn has negative influence on ei (iqbal et al., 2012; prajapati, 2019; kusumawardani et al., 2020). ajzen (1991) stated in his theory that pbc depends on an individual’s perception of internal factors such as own ability and determination, and external factors such as the resources and support available to the individual. thus, the strong influence of pbc on female students’ ei indicates that the female students possess confidence in their ability and determination, also, as in the resources and support available for starting a start-up. hence, the study recommends that educators and policymakers should continue and create a female-friendly and supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem, and platform to showcase their business ideas. this would ensure the continuity of the same spirit in female students on their ability and determination towards entrepreneurship. for sn, it has a positive influence on ei among female students of business colleges of rub but with the least effect. however, previous studies found that the sn is an important factor that influences the ei (yang et al., 2015; iglesias-sánchez et al., 2016; aloulou, 2016; abdullah et al., 2019; iqbal et al., 2012; prajapati, 2019; kusumawardani et al., 2020), it should not be ignored. thus, the study recommends that the support of social reference groups (parents, family, friends and tutors) at the time of career decision will positively influence women. conclusion and limitations this study has evaluated the factors influencing ei among female students of business colleges under the rub with the adoption of the tpb model (ajzen, 1991). the study concludes that all three dimensions (pa, sn and pbc) are predictors of ei among female students of rub. further, it was found that pbc has a strong influence on ei among rub female students, which indicates female students have confidence in their ability and knowledge for starting a start-up. followed by pa, sn has the least influence on ei. overall, the study deduced that all the dimensions (pa, sn, and pbc) have a positive influence on ei of female students of business colleges under the rub, with 42% of the variance in ei. 180 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 170-186) however, the study has some limitations that provide a scope for further research. first, the sample enumerated was specific to business colleges under the rub. thus, the findings cannot be fully generalized. second, the study was limited to the tpb dimensions only. other dimensions, such as prior entrepreneurial exposure, cultural context and personal traits, may have equal influence on ei. references [1] abdullah, al-qadasi nabil, abdo saeed, zhang gongyi, and tesfaye getachew charkos. 2019. “entrepreneurial intentions of undergraduate students in yemen : applying the theory of planned behaviour.” european journal of business and management 11(35):28–34. https://doi.org/10.7176/ejbm/11-35-04 [2] aeeni, zeynab, masoud moradi, and elham yazdani. 2015. “identifying factors affecting entrepreneurial intention in female students.” pp. 1–13 in icsb world conference. washington, dc: icsb. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1826918510?pqorigsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true [3] ahmad, syed zamberi, siri roland xavier, syed zamberi ahmad, and siri roland xavier. 2012. “entrepreneurial environments and growth : evidence from malaysia gem data.” journal of chinese entreprenurship 4(1):50–69. https://doi.org/10.1108/17561391211200939 [4] ajzen, icek. 1991. “the theory of planned behavior.” organizational behavior and human decision processes 50(2):179–211. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-t [5] aloulou, j. wassim. 2016. “predicting entrepreneurial intentions of final year saudi university business students by applying the theory of planned behavior.” journal of small business and enterprise development 23(4):1142–64. https://doi.org/10.1108/jsbed-02-2016-0028 [6] baowe. 2021. “empowerment through entrepreneurship.” baowe 1. retrieved july 3, 2021 (https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/107.nsf/eng/home). https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/107.nsf/eng/home [7] bosma, niels, stephen hill, donna kelley, maribel guerrero, thomas schott, and aileen ionescu-somers. 2021. gem global entrepreneurship monitor 2020/2021. london. https://www.gemconsortium.org/report/gem20202021-global-report [8] canada association of women executives & entreprenurs. 2018. “canada’s first women entrepreneurship strategy.” canada association of women executives & entreprenurs 1. retrieved september 6, 2020 (https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/107.nsf/eng/home). dawa drakpa, sonam loday, karma yangchen 181 [9] cardella, giuseppina maria, brizeida raquel hernández-sánchez, and jose c. sanchez. 2020. “women entrepreneurship : a systematic review to outline the boundaries of women entrepreneurship of scientific literature.” forntiers in psychology 11:1–19. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01557 [10] costa, teresa gomes da, and pedro mares. 2016. “factors affecting students ’ entrepreneurial intentions of polytechnic institute of setubal : a cognitive approach.” revista de administração, contabilidade e economia da fundace 7(1):102–17. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.13059/racef.v7i1.175 [11] dabic, marina, tugrul daim, elvan bayraktaroglu, ivan novak, and maja basic. 2012. “exploring gender differences in attitudes of university students towards entrepreneurship: an international survey.” international journal of gender and entrepreneurship 4(3):316–36. https://doi.org/10.1108/17566261211264172 [12] ferri, luca, gianluca ginesti, rosanna spanò, and annamaria zampella. 2018. “exploring the entrepreneurial intention of female students in italy.” journal of open innovation: technology, market, and complexity 4(27):1–10. https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc4030027 [13] fornell, c., and d. .. larcker. 1981. “evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error.” journal of marketing research 18(1):39–50. https://doi.org/doi:10.2307/3151312. 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99 % are smes, but more than 92% of the total business sector consists of micro enterprises, which employ fewer than 10 persons. the ability of a financial system to reach these small entities is crucial for the achievement of general socio-economic improvement. based on data of eu craft and sme barometer (ueapme), national bank of serbia, interviews of micro enterprises, emn survey report, in the paper are discussed issues of the practice of micro financing and lenders experience, as well as the microfinancial services demand of specific target groups: small enterprises, entrepreneurs, small farmers, social enterprises, and supply potentials, and typical providers. the contribution of the paper are assessments on potential of the serbian banking market, especially when it comes to micro-businesses and farmers in the rural areas which are underserved by other banks, and suggested essentials for a successful further market building in the purpose of smes development. key words: mcrofinancing, social inclusion, institutions, sme 1 corresponding author, email: vladan.kovacevic@tehnicom.com kovačević, v., et al., microfinancing in sme's, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 93 introduction economic literature often discusses that in the area of access to finance for smes, a market imperfection/failure is not only present during a deep recession but also on an ongoing basis as a fundamental structural issue. the reasons for the market failure relate to insufficient supply of capital (debt or equity) and inadequacies on the demand side. this market failure is mainly based on asymmetric information (in the case of debt: information gap between lender and borrower), combined with uncertainty, which causes agency problems that affect debt providers behavior (akerlof, 1970; arrow, 1985). in the microfinance sector there is a trend towards efficiency, professionalization, and selfsustainability. however, without the access to stable funding, the perspectives of the sector with regard to growth and self-sufficiency are limited. this report has reiterated the diversity and heterogeneity of the microfinance sector as current experience on the ground suggests that support measures need to be flexible to fulfill the markets’ needs. while the target groups of intervention measures need to be sufficiently broad in order to provide efficient support, the product range also has to be sufficiently wide in order to meet the target groups’ needs. with regard to this specific mandate, market observers have already begun noting the positive impact of more substantial central eu intervention: “microfinance in europe is gradually being consolidated as an essential tool of social policy, for the promotion of self-employment, micro-enterprise support and the fight against social and financial exclusion. this is demonstrated by the initiatives that the european commission has launched, such as the jasmine initiative and the european microfinance facility for employment and social inclusion (progress microfinance facility), to promote and support the development of this sector.” (jayo et al., 2010). microfinance institutions have been affected by the adverse macroeconomic conditions during the global financial and economic crisis, generally through significantly higher bad debt rates among their clients and in some cases through increased difficulties in accessing external sources of funding. with ongoing problems in the banking sector, the target group for microfinance, namely the financially excluded but economically active, might be faced with tightening credit supply by mainstream banks due to their higher risk aversion and increasing need to de-leverage their balance sheets. 94 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) this reluctance on the part of mainstream lenders creates an opportunity for microfinance but also underlines the paramount importance of credit risk management in an industry that, in western europe at least, continues to be driven by socially motivated investors and entities supporting microfinance as part of their social responsibility initiatives. this realization has a significant impact on the pricing of financing instruments to such types of entities and has arguably served to undermine the development of viable microfinance models in terms of self-sustainability. self-sustainability of microfinance models is critical for the industry to ensure long term availability of microfinance products for microfinance clients. the economic sustainability of microfinance intermediaries comes as a result of the balance between the income and the costs, which in turn are a function of the pricing policy (interest and fees), cost management (operational and financial costs and provisions), economies of scale and level of available subsidies of a particular institution. in addition to the fundamental structural problems of the microfinance sector in europe, public intervention has largely been justified and substantiated with positive externalities, i.e. that social and financial inclusion generates attractive economic and social returns. from an eu policy standpoint, public intervention has traditionally been made conditional upon ensuring “additionally”, i.e. not crowding out private activities, but rather serving as a catalyst for the entry of private capital in order to create a self-sustainable market in the long run. there are wide spectra of final beneficiaries and intermediaries on european microfinance market (kraemer-eis & conforti, 2009)and there is no common microfinance business model in europe. while findings on which is based this paper, suggested that the microfinance market is immature and fragmented, here is pointed its growing importance as a market segment with a potential to counter poverty and unemployment while fostering financial and social inclusion. this paper provides information about the definitions of microfinance and the european microfinance market, and serbian case as south east europe country which is supose to improve its practice and legal framework on its way to eu membership. as the impact of the crisis further increases the market failure – also driven by increased risk aversion on the supply side of microfinance and underlines the need for public support for this emerging sector in europe, some issues are given in discussion part of the paper too. kovačević, v., et al., microfinancing in sme's, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 95 literature overview according to consultative group to assist the poor definition: microfinance is the provision of basic financial services to poor (low income) people (who traditionally lack access to banking and related services). micro-credit is defined by the european commission (european commission, 2010) as a loan or lease under eur 25,000 to support the development of self-employment and micro-enterprises. it has a double impact (sometimes also referred to as ‘the two sides of the microfinance coin’): an economic impact as it allows the creation of income generating activities and a social impact as it contributes to financial inclusion and therefore to the social inclusion of individuals. persons are only counted once even if they are present in several sub-indicators. at risk-of-poverty are persons with an equalized disposable income below the risk-of-poverty threshold, which is set at 60% of the national median equalized disposable income (after social transfers). material deprivation covers indicators relating to economic strain and durables. severely materially deprived persons have living conditions severely constrained by a lack of resources. people living in households with very low work intensity are those aged 059 living in households where the adults (aged 18-59) work less than 20% of their total work potential during the past year (eurostat tables). 1. basic categorization of: non-bank versus bank mfis, can be described as: − non-bank mfis business model matrix has been defined as a function of financial services penetration rates in a given country and the degree of public/third party support to non-bank mfis in a given country. in general, it is assumed that low financial services penetration rates combined with limited public / third party support (e.g. in most of the eastern part of the eu) to individual mfis create an environment where non-bank mfis can deploy a commercially oriented microfinance business with relatively wide product offering alongside banks (figure 1). − bank mfis are banks for which microfinance is a small part of their overall operations. microfinance may be offered either: (i) as part of the financial intermediaries’ social responsibility programme, or (ii) as part of the financial intermediaries’ commercial activities. 96 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) figure 1: non-bank mfi business model matrix source: eif micro-loans are usually offered with a special focus on social inclusion. often, the interest rates on such micro-loans are not priced reflecting all costs and credit risk, and the underlying micro-businesses are not always profitable or viable in a commercial context. this allows the banks to clearly segment their activities and avoid any potential conflicts with its mainstream private banking business (e.g. negative reputational effects by pricing micro-credits high, which may taint the perception of the mainstream customer in relation to the banks’ price competitiveness). 1. categorization of “nature” of the mfis can be done according to the following basic categories: − for-profit small / mid-sized microfinance institutions (‘small / mid-sized mfis’). these intermediaries are privately owned financial intermediaries offering exclusively or mostly microfinance services (typically micro-loans). if the financial intermediary offers products other than microfinance, such would usually be sme lending products (i.e. up scaling). such institutions usually have a balance sheet of less than eur 100m (often no more than eur 10 to 15m; although in exceptional cases it can be up to eur 500m). micro-loans are usually targeted at kovačević, v., et al., microfinancing in sme's, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 97 borrowers that operate profitable micro-enterprises, hence the micro-loans can be offered at commercial terms. − mainstream banks operating microfinance windows (mainstream banks’ or ‘bank mfis’) − public entities operating microfinance windows (‘public entities’), are entities that consider microfinance as part of their public enterprise promotion or social inclusion mandate, in a similar logic as that described in the section ‘bank mfis’. such institutions typically finance these activities with public funds, usually at relatively low margins (particularly if they are government guaranteed). − greenfield entities (greenfield entities). start-up mfis or mfis with little or no track record, sponsored by private individuals or other investors. − dedicated microfinance vehicles often set up for a limited period of time, that invest in (usually small/midsized) in terms of business model and client targeting, the above mentioned types of financial intermediaries can be summarized as follows (table 1). table 1: types of intermediaries type role of microfinance in business model target clients main products s m al l, m id -s iz e m f is main (only) part of business model, possibly complemented by sme lending (i.e. up-scaling) profitable microenterprises, with no or limited alternative access to funding commercially priced microloans m ai ns tr ea m b an ks /b an k m f is small (non-core) part of business model, either (i) as part of its social responsibility programme or (ii) as an extension of its commercial sme lending (i.e. down -scaling) depending on business model, either (i) individuals and microenterprises with certain socioeconomic attributes, may or may not be profitable microenterprises; or (ii) profitable microenterprises with no or limited access to funding depending on business model, (i) soft-priced micro-loans: or commercially priced microloans 98 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) type role of microfinance in business model target clients main products p ub li c e nt it ie s varies varies soft-priced micro-loans g re en fi el d e nt it ie s main (only)part of business model depending on mandate, usually as above (mainstream banks) commercially /soft-priced micro-loans f un ds a nd ve hi cl es main (only)part of business model varies varies, depending on business model of intermediaries pooled i the indirect investment source: eif beside that there are: − senior loans: provided to well establish non-bank mfis and in general to smaller banks active in the field of microfinance with the purpose to grow the micro-credit portfolios of the financial intermediaries over a predefined period of around 2 to 3 years. − subordinated loans are offered to regulated banks active in the field of micro-lending, either as part of their normal sme lending or through a dedicated microfinance down-scaling model. − portfolio risk sharing loans are hybrid instruments that combine the funding component of senior loans with the credit loss protection of guarantees. such product is offered to good quality banks in the context of micro-credit pilot projects. − equity and quasi-equity, through ordinary or preferred shares, is provided to start-up non-bank mfis to strengthen their capital base. − guarantees are provided to bank as well as non-bank mfis. they grant up to 6 years of credit loss protection for new micro-credit portfolios to be originated over a period of up to 24 months. kovačević, v., et al., microfinancing in sme's, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 99 microfinancing early initiatives microfinance has long been recognised by european policy-makers as an instrument to support entrepreneurship and competitiveness on the one hand, but also social inclusion on the other (kraemer-eis&conforti,2009). however, in view of the specific local legal and political environments, the development of the european microfinance sector is still in an early stage with regard to scale and broader impact, and faces a continuing gap between supply and demand.over the past decade, the eu has promoted a series of actions in support of microfinance, among which the following can be highlighted: − risk protection to financial institutions (including banks, guarantee institutions and counter-guarantee institutions) for new micro-credit portfolios, under the growth and employment initiative (1998-2000), the multi-annual programme for the promotion of enterprise and entrepreneurship (“map”, 20012005) and, currently, the competitiveness and innovation framework programme (“cip”, 2007-2013), all managed by the eif (council decision (98/347/ec) of may 1998 on measures of financial assistance for innovative and job-creating small and medium-sized enterprises – the growth and employment initiative. oj l155, 29.05.1998. council decision (2000/819/ec) of 20 december 2000 − the joint european resources for micro and medium enterprises (“jeremie”) scheme, managed by the eif on behalf of the european union for the period 2007-2013, aims at improving access to finance, including micro-credit using european structural funds. a broader eu policy move to use public funds to contribute to the development and long-term sustainability of the sector was initiated with the european commission communication, on a “european initiative for the development of micro-credit in support of growth and employment”. its objective was to promote the development of micro-credit in the european union through actions along the following strands: − improving the legal and institutional environment in the member states; − further changing the climate in favour of entrepreneurship; − promoting the spread of best practices; 100 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) − providing additional capital for micro-credit institutions. motivated by the adverse effects of the financial crisis, the commission directorate general for employment, social affairs and inclusion and the eib made each available eur 100m to the benefit of micro-enterprises and self-employment, with a particular emphasis on social inclusion and groups with limited access to the traditional banking system. progress microfinance represents the first ever eu-wide dedicated financing programme for the european microfinance sector, and in addition to financing capacity it also provided for the structural framework needed to absorb the various smaller microfinance pilot predecessors and evolve towards a much-called for ´one-stop-shop´ for eu supported finance measures. an indicative eu budget of eur 25 million has been allocated to the guarantee instrument. an overview of the development of the eifmanaged programmes and pilot initiatives under a financial product perspective is shown in figure 2: figure 2: development of eif-managed microfinance programmes source: http://www.eif.org/news_centre/publications/eif_wp_2012_13_microfinance.pdf kovačević, v., et al., microfinancing in sme's, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 101 progress microfinance has become the central platform for pan european eu supported microfinance programmes. deeper regional support to microfinance is provided under structural funds through the jeremie mandates to certain member states or regions. the europe 2020 strategy provides the overarching policy framework in which eif’s microfinance strategy is determined for the coming years. formally adopted at the european council in 2010 (european council, 2011), the political and economic objective of europe 2020 is to deliver “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth” for the eu as a response to the crisis and as a means to maintain and strengthen europe’s competitive position in the global economic order. against the backdrop of widely differing national and regional microfinance markets across the eu, central eu support to microfinance can help to build up specific competencies locally which, in turn, are instrumental for further development of a more coherent market. within the eu, the largest aggravation was observed in lithuania and spain. noteable improvements were recorded for bulgaria, romania and estonia, however, they can still be found on the right-hand side of the diagram (meaning higher risk of poverty or social exclusion) which is the case for most parts of eastern europe as well as for those west and south european countries which are suffering most from the impacts of the current sovereign debt crises (greece, ireland, portugal, spain, and italy). smes and micro financing smes constitute the backbone of entrepreneurship in the eu, irrespective of national boundaries. from 22 million enterprises active in the non-financial business sector in the european union, 99.8% were smes. about 92% of the total business sector consists of micro enterprises, which employ fewer than 10 persons. the ability of a financial system to reach these small entities is crucial for the achievement of general socioeconomic improvement. typically, microfinance is provided by either small organizations or bigger institutions (where microfinance represents only a small part of the overall activities). the emn survey reports that 24% of the responding lenders focus only on microfinance; for almost half of the respondents the activity represents only a small portion of the overall activities. in terms of numbers of employees, the biggest organizations are in france, romania, and hungary. 102 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) − 57% of the microfinance organizations provided fewer than 50 loans in 2009 (typically in france, germany, and spain); only 13% provided more than 400 loans (largely in eastern europe, i.e. bulgaria, hungary, romania, poland). − micro-loan sizes vary between eur 220 and eur 37k8 with banks, non-bank financial institutions and government bodies offering larger loans than credit unions, ngos, savings banks, and foundations. the average loan size across the sample in 2009 was eur 9.6k. − 59% of respondent lenders do not require guarantees; the remainder require either collateral or participation in a guarantee programme. − there is a tendency of cross-selling as around 50% of respondents offer other financial services to their microfinance clients (debt counseling, savings, insurance, mortgages, money transfer). − the most pressing problem for the microfinance providers is the lack of access to long-term funding. − the eu microfinance market is immature and fragmented, but of growing importance as a market segment with a potential to counter poverty and unemployment while fostering financial and social inclusion. one reason for the fragmentation is the diversity of underlying regulatory frameworks (see also box 1 below). − the european microfinance market presents a dichotomy between western europe and central/eastern europe in terms of intermediary profile, target beneficiaries, loan size, etc. − in general, there is no common microfinance business model in europe. − lenders which focus on sme support and job creation tend to lend larger sums, whilst those focusing on social and financial inclusion tend to issue smaller micro-loans. − ratings of mfis are gaining importance in the microfinance arena but, so far, with a focus on developing countries. − often, mfis follow a transformation process: they start as ngos and finance their business via donations and/or public money; over time they “grow” towards formal financial institutions and regulated entities. social performance assessments and ratings are also developing, reflecting the growing need (and wish) for accountability of institutions in this field. in the frame of the kovačević, v., et al., microfinancing in sme's, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 103 jasmine technical assistance programme financed by the european union and managed by the eif, financial ratings and assessments of european non-bank mfis have been actively promoted since 2009. on the basis of its success, the programme will be extended until 2013. − not only the financial support of microfinance in europe is crucial – non-financial support measures for mfis and final beneficiaries are important for the sector as well (i.e. mentoring, training, and counseling for final beneficiaries; technical assistance and capacity building for mfis). − the main challenge for mfis in the eu is to develop and maintain a flexible and sustainable funding model for microfinance operations that allows them to realize their individual approach. when looking at the business climate of micro-enterprises, the eu craft and sme barometer (ueapme, 2011) shows that micro-enterprises on balance estimated their overall situation somewhat less favorable than all smes in the first half of this year (figure 3). nevertheless, the weighted difference between positive and negative answers increased, and the outlook for the second half of the year was even a bit better. similar results were reported for the survey questions on turnover, prices, and orders. however, expectations for investments were on balance lower than their actual situation, and employment expectations resulted largely in balance with the current situation. all in all, the figures reveal more difficulties for microenterprises than for other smes. figure 3: overall situation of european micro-enterprises source: ueapme study unit (2011) 104 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) according to the latest ecb survey on the access to finance of smes in the euro area (ecb, 2011), access to finance remained a more pressing problem for euro area smes than for large firms, and the share of enterprises which see access to finance as their most pressing problem is larger among microenterprises than among other smes (figure 4). figure 4: share of enterprises reporting access to finance as their most pressing problem source: european central bank there is also diversity with regard to final beneficiaries: many providers target people excluded from mainstream financial services (47% of respondents of the latest emn survey) and women (44%); moreover, ethnic minorities and/or immigrants (41%), young (29%) and disabled people (21%) are amongst the top ranks (jayo et al, 2010). priority outreach to these specific target groups show the high social focus of microfinance in europe. the causes and consequences of financial exclusion can also contribute to social exclusion: those unable to access finance for enterprise creation/development, have greater difficulty in integrating into the financial system; this reality can also affect their participation in mainstream social activities and events specific to their cultural reference group. on the other hand, those who are socially excluded particularly with respect to networks, decision making, and an adequate standard of living may also become excluded from mainstream financial services in so much as they are unable to provide the types of professional and personal references needed kovačević, v., et al., microfinancing in sme's, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 105 to access finance. in times of personal hardship, socially excluded persons may rely on predatory “door step” lenders, further exacerbating their vulnerability and exclusion. smes microfinancing-evidence from serbia serbian banking sector (with the exception of opportunity bank serbia (obs) and procredit bank), focuses mainly on corporate and retail customers with higher income in urban areas and only rarely reaches micro, start-up entrepreneurs and the vulnerable population who request loans to engage in productive activities; due to high risks and costs associated with serving this type of clients. the branch network distribution of banks in serbia is very uneven, with high a concentration in the towns and cities and an absence in some parts of the countryside (towns of up to 6,000 inhabitants without any bank branch being no rarity). the state-owned banking sector is struggling, with two banks – agrobanka and razvojna banka vojvodine – placed into administration in the past two years. in addition, the market share of assets by greek-owned banks is close to 20%. about half of the banks have a market share of less than 2% each, and belgium owned kbc has sold the banking license and capital in serbia to norwegian telecom company telenor, while the local subsidiary of french bank, société générale, is buying most of the assets and liabilities (client loan portfolio and deposits). funding position is a big challenge for banks in serbia the sector as a whole has a loan-to-deposit ratio of about 125%, and in the absence of a local corporate bond market, most foreign banks are dependent on parent funding for at least some of their business. the exception is italian-owned banca intesa, the country’s largest bank, which enjoyed a 20% rise in deposits in 2012 and has a loan-to-deposit ratio of less than 100%. the existence of financial infrastructure, such as credit bureau of the serbian banking association and the solvency center in the national bank of serbia, has been of major importance to allow the introduction of modern credit risk appraisal techniques into serbian banking. in addition to assistance with risk appraisal, the solvency center has also been used as part of the sme targeting process. the serbian government is allocating government subsidies for entrepreneurs and smes mainly through the ministry of regional development and local self-government. in 2013, a total amount of rsd 106 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 100 million was allocated as support to sme for procurement of necessary equipment, but there are additional smaller projects including start-up businesses, women businesses, returnees into rural areas, etc. ebrd recently announced that they have so far invested more than €3 billion into serbia, mainly focused on rejuvenating the public sector, but that in the future it will switch to private sector and smes. regulatory framework. according to current serbian regulation (law on banks), banks are the only financial institutions allowed to engage in acceptance of deposits and granting loans. as a result of this, there are no non-banking financial institutions, mfis or any other creditors on the market besides the banks. this kind of regulatory approach is a consequence of negative experience from the 1990s and a number of pyramid schemes that were present on the market during that time. in 2005, the republic of serbia adopted three laws that collectively represent major steps forward in the intention to establish a stable and reliable banking sector: law on banks (amended in 2010); law on bankruptcy and liquidation of banks and insurance companies (amended in 2008 and 2010), and law on deposit insurance (amended in 2008 and 2010). opportunity bank j.s.c. novi sad (obs) operates as a fully regulated bank in accordance with the law on banks and with a banking license issued by the nbs. although obs is primarily focused on credit related products, financing small businesses and clients with limited access to financial services, as a regulated banking institution obs is obliged to adhere to all relevant banking standards and regulations including: − capital requirements, bank ownership and control, corporate governance, system of internal controls, external audit, risk management, banking secrecy, preventing money laundering, customer protection, nbs supervision etc. since 2009 and the beginning of the harmonization process with basel ii standards and further harmonization with eu directives in serbia, national bank of serbia (nbs) has been implying the possibility of introducing the new law on credit institutions which would replace the current law on banks and set the regulatory environment for non-banking financial institutions as well. however, in 2013 the nbs and competent ministry have not yet presented even a draft of the new law. until then the law on banks remains the supreme law when it comes to credit institutions i.e. banks and banking business. however, current lack of regulatory framework for non-banking financial institutions restricts possibilities for kovačević, v., et al., microfinancing in sme's, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 107 more efficient financial inclusion process and development of small businesses. microcredit has existed in serbia at a small level for over 10 years, mainly supported by various international donors and social investors. since 2005, serbian organizations involved in providing microcredit have been required to conduct their activities in partnership with a licensed bank, in accordance with the law on banks, which eventually curbed their growth and made traditional microfinance in serbia almost nonexistent. table 2: micro-finance outreach comapred-serbia, montenegro, bosnia and herzegovina scenario-better environment serbia serbia bosnia& herzegovina montenegro no of microcredit clients (2007) 19.600 (0.3% of pop.) 100.000 (1.3% of pop.) 400.000 (10.4% of pop.) 70.000 (10.3% of pop.) size if microcredit portfolios (2007) € 23,4 million (0.01% of gdp) € 185 million (0.6% of gdp) € 1 billion (9.3 %of gdp) € 144 million (7% of gdp) source: authors compilation from nbs data three non-bank microcredit institutions in serbia (agroinvest, microdevelopment fund, microfins) had a combined total portfolio of approximately eur 12 million in loans to over 18,500 borrowers at the end of 2012 (last data available by mixmarket). credit activity of mfi in serbia in last three years were declining mostly due to declining credit activity of agroinvest as the biggest serbian mfi institution. the main problem for mfi in serbia is nbs decision on retail lending which prescribes that retail loan can be given only if the installment is up to certain percentage of registered income (salary, pension, etc.) if loan is given to retail customer without registered income it has to be provisioned 100% unless it is 100% cash covered. in order to bypass strict banking regulations in the country, all three institutions are registered as consulting companies and have contracts with a bank registered in serbia (in all three cases, using privredna bank belgrade – pbb, and during 2012 agoinvest started to also to cooperate with societe general bank) which actually disburses loans to mfi clients, while mfis secures the loan with 100% cash deposit amount and appears on the loan contract between client and pbb as the loan guarantor. banks charge mfis a loan disbursal fee. at one moment 108 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) in 2008 obs was discussing the option to be partner bank for agroinvest, but the further negotiations were dropped due to increased reputational and regulatory risk for obs. mfi nominal interest rates go up to 48% on annual basis. there are three non-bank microcredit institutions in serbia (agroinvest, micro-development fund, microfins) that operate through a local bank. these institutions were founded during the 1999-2002 period with emergency funding from donors (unhcr, icrc, etc.) or international ngos (world vision). their operations are field-oriented and focused on rural areas of serbia but have many regulatory and financing difficulties which make their product expensive. in addition, high interest rates that these organizations are charging clients and the fact that they bypass the laws allowing only banks to disburse loans in serbia has recently attracted attention of the public and national bank of serbia, which has performed several controls of their operations. significant financing gaps most probably exist or where microfinance's intervention have a clear added value in serbia are further taget groups: small enterprises: − starting entrepreneurs and young enterprises (up to 2 years of existence) form the traditional core group in need of finance. one needs to distinguish though between: • entrepreneurs whose development phase or type of activity mainly requires limited working capital; • entrepreneurs whose activity requires investment capital, which itself needs to be distinguished in different risk categories; − the self-employed and all types of non-incorporated enterprises in general who are either categorised by banking regulation as risky (hence requiring high reserves when serviced) or amalgamated to plain consumer needs (likewise highly penalised with high capital ratios). in 2012 there were in serbia micro, (micro: businesses with up to 9 employees, small businesses: 10 – 49 employees, medium businesses: 50 – 249 employees) small and medium-sized businesses (including individual entrepreneurs (entrepreneurs are natural persons who perform business activities as individuals): − 105,000 registered companies + 218,000 individual entrepreneurs kovačević, v., et al., microfinancing in sme's, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 109 − over 95% of these are micro-businesses with less than 10 employees, most situated in belgrade and vojvodina − 7,355 companies and 32,853 entrepreneurs have been closed in 2012 − 8,648 new companies and 30,200 new entrepreneurs have been registered in 2012 − 36,909 companies and 43,900 entrepreneurs are active loan users − 20% of all business loans are npls the main concern of small and medium-sized enterprises (smes) in serbia at the moment is financing their survival, and not investing in development, as they mainly worry how to provide salaries to employees and settle obligations to the state. most new companies are closed within three years from foundation. social groups: − young people in general, but in particular a. university graduates with little alternatives on the job market and likely to leave the country, especially the best among them (brain drain); the new generation, young families, who are newcomers on the credit market and cannot rely on the capital base of their parents (no real estate or other capital as a guarantee); − women in general, whose chances of finding a job are generally lower than men's, but in particular, women (with children) who have the opportunity to launch a home-based business requiring limited working capital, spouses who can develop their small scale activity gradually at low risk, women launching activities in typical service sectors whose financial needs can either be in the form of limited investment capital or working capital, women benefiting from governmental training and support programmes, women's support networks or support from traditional entrepreneurial families to launch a company and in need of addon investment or working capital; − experienced and skilled workers made redundant, usually older workers (45+) living especially in areas of industrial decline, who have professional skills and are home-owners (guarantees) but who lack working capital; − refugees and internally displaced people (idp) who remain a large target group mainly located in urban areas (about 182.000 people 110 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) around belgrade and about 120.000 people around other cities) whose needs, though, go beyond microfinance and inside microfinance go beyond the presently proposed credit services (for entrepreneurship and housing, as delivered by both mdf and mikrofin-s). their economic alternatives are poor, which is why many of them are already involved in economic activities in the grey economy. − ethnic minorities, in particular the roma community which represents 6% of the serbian population (over 500.000 people), are a significant part of the internally displaced people and need very targeted support in addition to finance; − the long term unemployed, representing an impressive 75% of the unemployed, need likewise to be targeted with support going beyond micro-financial services, and whose financial needs require well designed low-risk financial instruments. activity sectors: − the grey economy and informal sector, estimated to be equivalent to a third of gdp is a big reservoir of potential micro-finance demand to which bridges could be built to help them formalise as they develop. this is traditionally considered to be secure market, as there is already a business history with established clients and existing income streams (share of serbia’s informal sector employment is around 30%); − the services sector (neighbourhood services, etc) and know-how based sectors (it, design, etc) that are not based on big material investments are at a disadvantage in the banking sector which looks for formal and conservative guarantees. − flexible and activity-based financial instruments are what is most useful in these cases; − the recycling sector has been identified as one sector with a major development potential in the context of municipality's needs to modernise their waste management systems. this represents a unique opportunity of connection with the informal recycling activities mainly organised by the roma communities. the needs here too go beyond (micro-)financing alone and would require a targeted programme delivering capacity building as well geographical targets: kovačević, v., et al., microfinancing in sme's, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 111 − rural areas in general, as serviced by agroinvest mainly so far, are yet neither covered extensively nor serviced in depth with any proper diversity of financial services. towns with up to 6,000 inhabitants without a single bank branch are reported to be a frequent phenomenon throughout serbia, but in particular in the south of the country. small agro producers (agricultural households): farmland comprises 70% of the total surface area of serbia, 631,000 registered agro households, 99.6% are family households while rest are legal entities/registered entrepreneurs, 48% have less than 2 hectares of land, 17.3% of the total population comprise agricultural labor force (rapidly aging population), 39,513 agricultural households have active loans, 26% of all agricultural loan users are in default over 90 days. agriculture has long been the mainstay of the serbian economy. traditional family-owned small farms and private estates prevail, with the average commercial farm occupying 500-700 ha. family farms consist of small plots and are based on subsistence production, being turned over to commercial use to a smaller degree than european farms. rural mixed-income households (rural areas): 85% of serbia’s territory is classified as rural, 55% of serbia’s population lives in rural areas, the poverty rate in rural areas (9.8%) remains twice the poverty rate in urban areas (4.3%), 86% of villages in serbia are witnessing depopulation, there are about 4,800 villages in serbia, average age in most of them is around 60. − suburban areas or city hinterlands are geographical core areas with entrepreneurial potential and reliable markets but not yet covered appropriately with credit services are recognised to be economically serviceable; − the municipalities identified as the poorest of serbia, mainly located in the south of the country and close to kosovo, with high concentrations of unemployment, poverty (close to 20% of the population) and grey economy (up to 80%) lack most of the basic financial services; − areas with declining industries or areas hit by closures of large enterprises are other areas where there is a potential micro-finance demand, though probably often to be delivered with accompanying services to fledgling activities. 112 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) figure 5: consumer segmentation in serbia (ipsos strategic, 2012) source: authors calculation financial services demand at the end of q2 2013, inter-annual growth of credit activity in serbia barely reached 1%, which brought it very close to the stagnation zone. factors that limit credit activity demand-wise were slow economic recovery, high unemployment and interest rates. at the same time, at the supply side, deteriorated creditworthiness of the private sector and more risk-averse banking behavior coupled with limited funding sources, did not help either. in the first half of 2013, 8% less new loans were disbursed as compared to the same periods in 2012 and 2011 (loans to businesses which have much bigger share in total loans dropped by 15%, while retail loans grew by 20%). total net loans in serbian banking sector at the end of q1 2013 amounted to 1,737 billion rsd, with dominating loans disbursed to stateowned and private companies (share of 53.9%), followed by retail loans including private individuals and farmers (30.3% share). 72% of loans are in foreign currency (of which 62% are eur-indexed). share of loans with remaining term over one year is 62% (28% with term over 5 years). total deposits amounted to 1,677,505 billion rsd at the end of q1 2013, 48.7% of which are retail deposits. 76.9% are foreign currency deposits i.e. 70.1% are eur-indexed deposits. sight and short-term deposits (up to 1 year) represent over 90% of deposit structure in serbian banks, while 7.1% are deposited for periods exceeding one year. kovačević, v., et al., microfinancing in sme's, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 113 table 3: the structure of bank credit clients, 2013 loans no. of active loans outstanding (in mil rsd) average loan amount (in eur) loans to smes 95,183 1,577,460 144,112 loans to entrepreneurs 71,852 111,841 13,535 loans to farmers 54,439 32,437 5,379 retail loans 1,234,229 577,426 4,068 total 1,453,703 2,299,164 13,753 source: serbian credit bureau data, 2013 figures: 6-7 source: nbs there are a significant potential of the serbian banking market, especially when it comes to micro-businesses and farmers in the rural areas which are underserved by other banks: table 4: potential of the serbian banking market no of registered as per official data no of active loan users (as per credit bureau) no of potential clients smes 105,000 36,909 65 68,091 entrepreneurs 218,000 43,900 80 174,100 farmers 631,000 39,513 94 591,487 salary receivers+ pensioners 2,097,103 1,006,126 52 1,090,977 source: serbian credit bureau data 114 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) figure 8: active loans and potential micro credit clients source: authors calculation discssion and conclusions based on the developments and insights into the european microfinance market so far, the following four pillars could be disscused as essential for a successful further market building: 1. availability of financial instruments with a balanced focus on social impact objective and financial sustainability of the intermediaries; 2. non financial technical assistance as well as financial capacity building support to bring the smaller mfis onto the growth curve, and other mfis to enhance their standards, upgrade operational models, expand and improve outreach further; 3. financial education and mentoring of final beneficiaries and entrepreneurs especially in their start-up phase is also key for reducing default rates for mfis. such business services are offered by intermediaries, or in cooperation with dedicated service providers and is also supported by the european commission through the european social funds programmes. kovačević, v., et al., microfinancing in sme's, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 92-116) 115 4. spreading of best practices, standards and transparency to create a basis for informed investor decision-making by allowing to filter the profit-only mfis and, more importantly, predatory lenders from the institutions targeting social impact in a long term sustainability perspective. part of the market building efforts also come from databases and other initiatives enhancing the transparency of the market and the development of a common language and set of performance metrics (caf, 2011). microcrediting can be concered for smes and other mentioned target groups in this paper very good financial support for theri development, especially in balkan countries as serbia. regualtory framework would be very important to be adjusted in this sector to eu legislative, to become an positive precondition for microcrediting potential clients. references [1] akerlof, g. a. 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[13] eurostat internet site on the europe 2020 indicators at: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/europe_2020_indicators/headl ine_indicators. [14] eurostat tableshttp://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&plugin=1 &language=en&pcode=t20 20_50. [15] jayo, b., gonzalez, a. and conzett, c. (2010). overview of the microcredit sector in theeuropean union. emn working paper nr. 6. july 2010. [16] ueapme (2011). the eu craft and sme barometer 2011/h2. http://www.ueapme.com/img/pdf/111011_barometer_2011h2_final.pdf. mikrofinansiranje razvoja malih i srednjih preduzeća, na primeru srbije a p s t r a k t mala i srednja preduzeća čine stub preduzetništva u evropskoj uniji, kao i u zemljama jugoistočne evrope, kao što je srbija, bez obzira na državne granice. od svih preduzeća koja su u nefinansijskom poslovnom sektoru u evropskoj uniji i u srbiji preko 99% su mala i srednja preduzeća, ali više od 92% ukupnog poslovnog sektora se sastoji od mikro preduzeća, koja zapošljavaju manje od 10 osoba. sposobnost finansijskog sistema da dopre do ovih malih preduzeća je krucijalan za postizanje generalnog društveno ekonomskog poboljšanja. na osnovu podataka eu craft-a i barometra malih i srednjih preduzeća (ueapme), narodne banke srbije, dobijenih iz upitnika za mikro preduzeća, emn izveštaj, rad razmatra probleme prakse mikro finansiranja i iskustava pozajmioca, kao i potražnju za uslugama mikro finansiranja od strane posebnih ciljnih grupa: malih preduzeća, preduzetnika, malih farmera, društvenih preduzeća i potencijale ponude i tipične provajdere. doprinos ovog rada su procene potencijala srpskog bankarskog tržišta, posebno kada je reč o mikro biznisima i farmerima u ruralnim oblastima, koje ne pružaju dovoljno druge banke i predlozi neophodnih aktivnosti za dalje uspešno gradjenje tržišta u cilju razvoja malih i srednjih preduzeća. ključne reči: mikro finansiranje, društvena inkluzija, institucije, mala i srednja preduzeća article history: received: 2 december, 2013 accepted: 29 april, 2014 note of editor in chief it is my pleasure to inform you that the journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (jwee) is currently indexed in scopus q3. in this context, please spread the word about this progress and the value of publishing with jwee, encouraging your best colleagues to submit high-quality articles. i must stress that all articles submitted to the journal should be unpublished, and they must not be in the review process by any other journal. once a paper has been reviewed and accepted for publication, you cannot withdraw it and offer it to another journal. the order and number of authors you specified in the cover letter cannot be changed later. original contributions will be accepted on the basis of significance, validity, and described in depth methodology. in turn, is provided a professional, objective, rigorous, and responsible review process. the papers submitted after july 15, 2022, will be charged upon acceptance for publication. it is assumed that by submitting the paper you have accepted all the conditions of publication july, 2022. yours faithfully, prof. dr mirjana radovic-markovic editor in chief doi: 10.28934/jwee21.34.pp22-41 jel: m53, o13, 031,032, 033, 035, q01 scientific review 1bglobal solar energy market and female entrepreneurship after the covid-19 pandemic natalia vukovic1f1 maksim nevalennyi2 f2 department of world economy, faculty of world economy and world policy, higher school of economics, moscow, russia a b s t r a c t the covid-19 pandemic presents multiple challenges for sustainable development, particularly for female entrepreneurship in the renewable segment. solar energy is the most prospective segment of renewable energy resources. the share of global female inventors in energy technologies is less than 30%. this article is devoted to prospects of the development of female entrepreneurship in the solar energy market. we analyzed the global impact of the pandemic on the solar energy markets, and assessed the prospects for their development in the postpandemic period. we used data from leading international analytical agencies, such as iae and bloomberg for 2000-2020. we also used results of international case study analyses of the international energy agency from 2019 on female entrepreneurship in solar energy. in addition, we investigated the russian-french case study of female entrepreneurship in the solar energy segment. based on the results of the analysis, we concluded that the solar energy sector will continue to develop in the future. according to the research results, negative pandemic trends, such as the reduction in the number of commissioned projects and investments in the solar power industry persist in the short term. so far, the pandemic has not had a significant negative impact on the strategic and long-term period, and female 1 corresponding author, e-mail: shpak17121978@gmail.com 2 e-mail: mnevalennyi@yandex.ru natalia vukovic, maksim nevalennyi 23 entrepreneurship will continue to evolve. we argue that it is important to minimize financial barriers currently existing in special funding and grant programs for supporting this trend and increasing the number of women in solar energy entrepreneurship. it is crucial to focus future financial programs for female entrepreneurs in the solar energy sector on rural regions as they are more prospective in terms of solar energy development. in addition, a range of educational programs in soft skills should be developed to strengthen engineering specialists’ background in business and negotiations. the research results can be used in future research in the field of sustainable development, renewables, and female employment in the renewable and solar energy sector. key words: sdgs, low-carbon economy, green economy, renewable energy sources (res), solar energy, female entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurship, women employment, female employment introduction in 2019, the fourth energy transition and the development of solar energy were integral parts of the global economic agenda and scientific research around the world (reagan, et al., 2020). the developed and developing countries focused their medium and long-term strategies on sustainable development (sdg 7 "cheap and affordable energy" and sdg 11 "sustainable cities") and projects dedicated to the transition to renewable energy sources (res) (franco, et al., 2020). the unexpected arrival of the covid-19 pandemic disrupted the usual economic, social, and educational patterns globally (salamzadeh & dana, 2020, pereira et al., 2021) and was discussed in many scientific papers (eroğlu et al., 2020). as the results of the pandemic showed, the economies of all countries of the world have been experiencing a deep economic slump since 2020. the transition of the world economy to a low-carbon model requires systemic changes and time for their implementation. according to grigoriev and kryukov (2009), "shifts in scientific and technological progress and increased production of renewable energy sources cannot occur quickly without large-scale capital expenditures, a major change in the lifestyle of the mass middle class of the developed and growing middle class of developing countries". consequently, the question is whether the transition to a low-carbon economy and the development of renewable energy is possible in the wake 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) of fear, uncertainty, and economic crisis associated with the pandemic? how will it influence female employment and entrepreneurship in the energy sector? before the pandemic, there was a long-term trend of "an increase in the consumption of energy-intensive goods due to a decrease in the poor and an improvement in the global quality of life" (grigoriev et al., 2020.). the question is, did this trend continue in the pandemic-stricken world? there is no clear-cut answer to this question. as the previous history of global economic crises shows, different countries and world regions react heterogeneously to a set of various economic challenges providing conflicting evidence. thus, a comprehensive assessment is necessary, and the purpose of this study was to search, systematize, and analyze analytical data and academic publications on the prospects for the development of the global solar electricity market post 2020. the objectives of our research were to estimate the prospects of development of female entrepreneurship in the global solar energy market. female entrepreneurship in the renewable energy market the share of women's employment in the global labor market is about half (about 48%). however, in the traditional industries and in the energy sector in particular, this share is significantly lower. in the energy sector, women account for only 22% (iea,2020). obstacles to realizing the creative potential of women in the energy sector are similar to other traditional industries. as the world is currently undergoing the fourth energy revolution, the transition to clean energy will require innovative solutions. the number of female inventors is increasing in various technology sectors with the highest rates in health and chemistry. in the classes of patents closely related to the energy sector, such as incinerators, engines, pumps, and energy, women are listed in less than 11% of applications. more than 15% are listed for climate change mitigation technologies, which is comparable to all energy sectors’ technologies, including information and communication technologies1 (figure 1). to improve this situation, the clean energy, education, and empowerment programme (c3e international) was created in 2010 at an initiative of the clean energy natalia vukovic, maksim nevalennyi 25 ministerial (cem). this programme aims to promote the leadership and participation of women in the clean energy transformation. in 2017, a decision was taken to organize the c3e international’s activities as an iea technology collaboration programme (tcp). tcp, c3e international joined a network of 6 000 experts participating in the energy technology network (etn), which engages in energy research and development, and assists with the development of best practice sharing to support the programme’s goals. the 38 tcps operating today involve nearly 300 public and private organizations in 53 countries. all these activities require financial backing and are mainly supported by businesses and governments. the covid-19 pandemic and a series of economic crises triggered by it could further negatively impact the rate of female involvement in the energy sector. the iea gender diversity initiative is determined to strengthen data collection and analysis for better understanding as to why women in the energy sector face additional barriers in employment, leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship (iea, 2020). the main challenge for female entrepreneurship is the access to funding. most of the funding secured by these entrepreneurs does not target women exclusively (iea, 2020). however, targeted funding for women would be very helpful for encouraging their participation in the clean energy sector and for leveling the playing field in entrepreneurship between women and men (iea, 2020). new educational and training programs in these fields will stimulate females’ participation in the energy sector, especially in the greenfield of renewable energy. 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) figure 1: percentage of female inventors in the energy (and control) technologies, 1978-2016 source: iea https://www.iea.org/topics/energy-and-gender global solar market and covid-19 pandemic global forth energy revolution is based on renewables and the transition to solar energy. according to rystad energy (fig. 2), while maintaining a steady trend towards reducing the costs of using renewable energy sources, it is likely that the share of electricity generated from solar generation using photovoltaic systems (pv) and wind generation will exceed the share of electricity generated from traditional energy sources by 2050 (rystad energy. energy transition report, 2020). natalia vukovic, maksim nevalennyi 27 figure 2: rystad energy forecast for global electricity generation source: rystad energy, energy transition report if we analyze the trends in the development of the electric power industry based on renewable energy sources in the shorter term, we can see that, starting from 2020, there is an active commissioning of batteries, solar modules made of polycrystalline silicon (hereinafter polysilicon) for the generation of solar photovoltaic and thermal energy for municipal needs (figure 3). figure 3: rystad energy forecast for new installed capacity for municipal renewable energy generation source: rystad energy (renewable cube) 28 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) however, political uncertainty and the temporary suspension of the supply of components as a result of movement restrictions due to the covid19 may constrain the growth rate of the solar power industry. according to the international energy agency (iea), the commissioning of deferred projects in markets where construction and supply chains have been disrupted, as well as the implementation of previously auctioned municipal solar photovoltaic projects in china, france and germany, can mitigate the negative impact of the covid-19 and increase the total photovoltaic capacity to 150 gw by 2022 (figure 4). figure 4: increasing solar photovoltaic capacity, baseline and accelerated scenarios source: iea. renewables 2020, analysis and forecast to 2025. when comparing the growth rate of solar photovoltaic capacity in 2019 and 2020, it is evident that in the first quarter of 2020 there was an almost 20% reduction in total capacity compared to the same period in 2019. the main reasons for it was a decrease in construction activity and a shortage of labor in china due to restrictive measures in the fight against the spread of covid-19 infection. as the pandemic in china began to recede and preventive measures were relaxed, china was able to restore the pace of commissioning of new municipal photovoltaic capacity to pre-pandemic values (figure 5). natalia vukovic, maksim nevalennyi 29 figure 5: comparison of pv capacity in the first and second quarters of 2019 and 2020 source: iea. renewable 2020, analysis and forecast to 2025. to assess the interest of investors in the implementation of solar energy projects, it is advisable to analyze the dynamics of making final investment decisions (fids), which are the last step before the construction of a power plant or other infrastructure facility. in practice, solar photovoltaic projects usually start operating 6-12 months after a positive investment decision was made. the iea data (figure 6) demonstrates the presence of seasonality in making final investment decisions. during the analyzed time period, investors tend to be more active in the second half of the year, which is due to the necessary condition for passing the qualification of projects the commissioning of objects by the end of the year. figure 6: final investment decisions for new municipal renewable power plants, 2015-2020 source: iea. renewables 2020, analysis and forecast to 2025. 30 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) the initial shock of the covid-19 pandemic in february-march created economic uncertainty, and risk aversion by investors reduced their willingness to invest in new projects, including renewable energy projects. as a result, the first half of 2020 recorded the lowest total quarterly investment volume since 2017. despite the negative trend, the fid for municipal solar photovoltaic and thermal projects was at a fairly stable level, the volume of investment in the first half of 2020 decreased by about 4% compared to the same period in 2019 (iea, 2020). this change in investment activity can be explained by the delay and cancellation of projects in the world's two largest solar energy markets, namely china and india. thus, we see that the covid-19 has a restraining effect on the development of the global solar electricity market. however, it is necessary to study in more detail the factors that affect this segment of the global renewable energy market. growth challenges of global solar power market the development of photovoltaic solar energy is inversely dependent on the world prices for polysilicon, which is the main raw material for the creation of solar modules that convert solar energy into electricity. imports of polysilicon declined in june-august as a result of the temporary blocking of production and the closure of international borders due to the escalation of the covid-19, but in september 2020, the volume of imports almost recovered to pre-pandemic values. an alternative way to convert solar energy into electricity is to use lithium-ion batteries (figure 7). according to the information portal bloomberg, the covid-19 pandemic has not significantly affected the trends towards increasing demand for lithium-ion batteries while reducing the cost of equipment (figure 8). a more detailed analysis of the electric vehicle market as the main source of demand for lithium-ion batteries shows that electric vehicles are currently most popular in china and the united states (figure 9). natalia vukovic, maksim nevalennyi 31 figure 7. impact of the covid-19 pandemic on china's import policy in the polycrystalline silicon (polysilicon) segment) source: compiled by the authors based on bloomberg data figure 8: dynamics of the global lithium-ion battery market source: compiled by the authors based on bloomberg data 0 5 10 15 20 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 u sd / kg т china, polysilicon export (tons) china, polysilicon import (tons) pv grade polysilicon global price (usd/kg; right axis) 2nd grade polysilicon global price (usd/kg; right axis) 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 u sd / kw h g w h electrical vehicles demand (gwh) consumer goods demand (gwh) stationary storage demand (gwh) global lithium-ion battery price (usd/kwh; right axis) 32 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 1-21) the low elasticity of the lithium-ion battery market can be explained by the fact that the supply of lithium-ion batteries for the production of electric vehicles is carried out on the basis of long-term contracts at fixed prices, which allows you to hedge the risks of adverse changes in market conditions. figure 9: the share of countries in the world electricity consumption by electric vehicles, % source: compiled by the authors on the basis of bloomberg data table 1 presents analytical indicators for the solar energy market. it can be noted that in the current unstable epidemiological situation in the world, the growth rate of demand for batteries and electricity consumption by electric vehicles in 2020 decreased, but there was still a positive trend, which indicates the stability of the solar electricity market to short-term supply and demand shocks. 0,00 5,00 10,00 15,00 20,00 25,00 30,00 35,00 40,00 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 % u.s. china japan germany uk france n at al ia v uk ov ic , m ak si m n ev al en ny i 33 ta bl e 1: d ev el op m en t o f s ol ar e le ct ri ci ty m ar ke t i n th e el ec tr ic v eh ic le s se gm en t y ea r u sa c hi na e le ct ri ci ty co ns um pt io n by e le ct ri c ve hi cl es , g w h g ro w th ra te , % l ith iu m io n ba tte ri es de m an d fo r el ec tr ic ve hi cl es , g w h sh ar e in th e gl ob al de m an d, % g ro w th ra te , % e le ct ri ci ty co ns um pt io n by e le ct ri c ve hi cl es , g w h g ro w th ra te , % l ith iu m io n ba tte ri es de m an d fo r el ec tr ic ve hi cl es , g w h sh ar e in th e gl ob al de m an d, % g ro w th ra te , % 20 16 23 60 ,9 3 4, 37 21 ,7 5 16 59 ,0 5 9, 75 48 ,5 4 20 17 32 86 ,7 2 39 ,2 1 4, 52 15 ,1 1 3, 40 32 27 ,3 5 94 ,5 3 17 ,9 2 59 ,9 4 83 ,8 1 20 18 48 69 ,5 9 48 ,1 6 7, 38 15 ,5 4 63 ,2 9 57 75 ,4 5 78 ,9 5 28 ,4 4 59 ,9 0 58 ,7 1 20 19 69 61 ,8 9 42 ,9 7 15 ,9 1 20 ,7 5 11 5, 63 89 29 ,1 6 54 ,6 1 43 ,1 9 56 ,3 5 51 ,8 7 20 20 93 80 ,4 6 34 ,7 4 28 ,1 6 22 ,8 9 77 ,0 1 12 47 5, 52 39 ,7 2 70 ,9 8 57 ,7 1 64 ,3 3 20 21 12 14 1, 2 29 ,4 3 42 ,0 2 21 ,2 6 49 ,2 3 16 60 1, 77 33 ,0 7 11 7, 05 59 ,2 3 64 ,9 1 y ea r g er m an y fr an ce e le ct ri ci ty co ns um pt io n by e le ct ri c ve hi cl es , g w h g ro w th ra te , % l ith iu m io n ba tte ri es de m an d fo r el ec tr ic ve hi cl es , g w h sh ar e in th e gl ob al de m an d, % g ro w th ra te , % e le ct ri ci ty co ns um pt io n by e le ct ri c ve hi cl es , g w h g ro w th ra te , % l ith iu m io n ba tte ri es de m an d fo r el ec tr ic ve hi cl es , g w h sh ar e in th e gl ob al de m an d, % g ro w th ra te , % 20 16 27 1, 15 0, 60 2, 97 34 8, 86 1, 16 5, 78 20 17 45 2, 37 66 ,8 3 1, 02 3, 41 70 ,7 8 54 0, 77 55 ,0 1 1, 20 4, 03 3, 86 20 18 72 9, 72 61 ,3 1 1, 80 3, 79 76 ,8 7 83 5, 00 54 ,4 1 1, 62 3, 42 34 ,6 2 34 jo ur na l o f w om en ’s e nt re pr en eu rs hi p an d e du ca tio n (2 02 1, n o. 3 -4 , 1 -2 1) 20 19 11 62 ,0 5 59 ,2 4 3, 26 4, 26 81 ,1 4 11 56 ,9 4 38 ,5 6 2, 18 2, 85 34 ,6 1 20 20 16 03 ,0 6 37 ,9 5 4, 79 3, 90 46 ,8 7 15 13 ,6 2 30 ,8 3 3, 28 2, 66 50 ,0 8 20 21 20 61 ,3 5 28 ,5 9 7, 34 3, 71 53 ,1 0 19 13 ,2 3 26 ,4 0 5, 42 2, 74 65 ,5 1 y ea r ja pa n u k e le ct ri ci ty co ns um pt io n by e le ct ri c ve hi cl es , g w h g ro w th ra te , % l ith iu m io n ba tte ri es de m an d fo r el ec tr ic ve hi cl es , g w h sh ar e in th e gl ob al de m an d, % g ro w th ra te , % e le ct ri ci ty co ns um pt io n by e le ct ri c ve hi cl es , g w h g ro w th ra te , % l ith iu m io n ba tte ri es de m an d fo r el ec tr ic ve hi cl es , g w h sh ar e in th e gl ob al de m an d, % g ro w th ra te , % 20 16 39 3, 43 0, 67 3, 34 23 0, 66 0, 66 3, 27 20 17 51 4, 78 30 ,8 5 0, 86 2, 88 28 ,6 2 35 7, 87 55 ,1 5 0, 80 2, 68 21 ,6 4 20 18 67 2, 49 30 ,6 4 1, 09 2, 29 26 ,2 9 53 9, 44 50 ,7 4 1, 23 2, 59 53 ,4 7 20 19 85 0, 71 26 ,5 0 1, 52 1, 98 39 ,1 8 75 3, 36 39 ,6 5 2, 18 2, 84 77 ,5 5 20 20 10 52 ,8 3 23 ,7 6 2, 26 1, 84 49 ,1 0 99 0, 75 31 ,5 1 3, 24 2, 64 48 ,8 4 20 21 12 81 ,3 8 21 ,7 1 3, 22 1, 63 42 ,2 8 12 60 ,6 7 27 ,2 4 5, 08 2, 57 56 ,6 0 y ea r r es t o f e ur op e r es t o f w or ld e le ct ri ci ty co ns um pt io n by e le ct ri c ve hi cl es , g w h g ro w th ra te , % l ith iu m io n ba tte ri es de m an d fo r el ec tr ic ve hi cl es , g w h sh ar e in th e gl ob al de m an d, % g ro w th ra te , % e le ct ri ci ty co ns um pt io n by e le ct ri c ve hi cl es , g w h g ro w th ra te , % l ith iu m io n ba tte ri es de m an d fo r el ec tr ic ve hi cl es , g w h sh ar e in th e gl ob al de m an d, % g ro w th ra te , % 20 16 12 53 ,9 0 2, 56 12 ,7 6 62 5, 25 0, 32 1, 58 20 17 18 44 ,7 8 47 ,1 2 3, 11 10 ,4 0 21 ,3 2 80 6, 78 29 ,0 3 0, 47 1, 56 46 ,5 3 n at al ia v uk ov ic , m ak si m n ev al en ny i 35 20 18 29 00 ,9 8 57 ,2 5 4, 51 9, 50 45 ,1 3 10 26 ,0 7 27 ,1 8 1, 41 2, 96 20 1, 76 20 19 42 50 ,1 5 46 ,5 1 6, 68 8, 72 48 ,1 3 14 13 ,1 2 37 ,7 2 1, 73 2, 25 22 ,6 8 20 20 56 94 ,8 1 33 ,9 9 9, 27 7, 54 38 ,7 3 21 71 ,1 1 53 ,6 4 1, 00 0, 82 -4 1, 88 20 21 72 55 ,0 4 27 ,4 0 14 ,7 4 7, 46 58 ,9 3 36 01 ,1 9 65 ,8 7 2, 75 1, 39 17 4, 45 so ur ce : c om pi le d by th e au th or s ba se d on b lo om be rg d at a 36 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 22-41) main barriers for female entrepreneurship in energy sector nowadays, the energy sector’s greenfield is the renewable energy resources market which is rapidly developing. naturally, entrepreneurs have more opportunities for success and development in this part of the energy sector. in 2019, the international energy agency analyzed 7 of the best international cases of female entrepreneurship in the solar energy sector: "they share common key personal characteristics, such as passion and persistence, and face similar barriers in securing funding, building partnerships, and educating stakeholders about the benefits of clean energy technologies. key proposed actions to close the gender gap include targeted funding, access to networks, and supportive policies for gender equality" (iea, 2020). the iea report concluded that: "securing access to funding is the barrier common to each case study. setting up funding or grants specifically for women would be a useful strategy to encourage their productive engagement in the renewable energy sector" (iea, 2020). establishing new funds and financial programs supporting women entrepreneurship in res will provide enormous impetus to the development of women entrepreneurship in res and the solar sector. another challenge for women entrepreneurship is the geography of the solar energy market, because it is mainly located in rural areas. mukhopadhyay (2020) argues that: "the work concludes with an objective to contribute to policy discussions as well as build an empirical knowledge of how women-led solar technology-based enterprises are built, managed, sustained and scaled in rural areas". mahajan and bandyopadhyay (2021) corroborate these conclusions in their research. currently, there are two options to tackle these challenges: to develop rural sustainable entrepreneurship for women who live in these regions, or to financially attract urban female population to establish start-ups in rural areas. entrepreneurship in the solar energy market demands a lot of engineering skills. we argue that solar energy entrepreneurship will require individuals with an engineering educational background. in such cases, it is important to stress the importance of new programs developing soft skills. mingaleva and shpak (2015). pointed out that: "the main tasks in modern education, is to establish the compliance of educational products with the labor market requirements and transform the structure of vocational natalia vukovic, maksim nevalennyi 37 education, providing training for professional specialists required by specific employers. conclusions are drawn about the important role of soft skills for engineering education in industry 4.0." successful international case study of female entrepreneurship in energy sector one of the most successful global cases of female entrepreneurship is the project consisting of 2 start-ups based on heliorec know-how in russia and france. the russian market is very promising due to the existing climate conditions for solar energy projects (mingaleva & shpak, 2015), especially concerning the specifics of heating systems in russia’s eastern regions (mingaleva, vukovic & radovanovic, 2017). the climate conditions in france are different from those in russia, but promising for solar energy generation (kabir, et al., 2018, fontaine, 2020). polina vasilenko’s start-up with heliorec know-how is implemented in the field of the floating solar power plant. polina has many international awards. the most significant, in the context of female entrepreneurship, was awarded in december 2019, “women in tech, global movement” (s.petersburg, russia). figure 10: heliorec testing its floating solar system at ecole centrale de nantes (screenshot/video by heliorec) sources: https://www.offshore-energy.biz/heliorec-crosses-another-milestone-on-its-wayto-floating-solar-commercialisation/ 38 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 22-41) in her interview vasilenko said that typical problems in female industrial entrepreneurship in russia and france are the same, and sometimes connected with the existing gender stereotypes in the energy sector (daily, 2020). despite facing traditional conservative problems compounded by the covid-19 pandemic, vasilenko continues developing her start-ups in russia and france successfully. in 2020, she started a new project in rural russia (dagestan region) and continued her urban project in france (nantes). it is important to point out that heliorec project was supported by the start-up financial accelerator in france and by innovative center skolkovo fund in russia, corroborating the iea research conclusion concerning the existing barriers and challenges for female entrepreneurs in the energy sector. conclusion based on the results of our analysis, it can be concluded that renewable energy and solar power will continue to develop despite the many challenges presented by the covid-19 pandemic. however, negative trends towards a reduction in the number of commissioned projects and investments in the solar power industry will persist in the short term period. so, the pandemic has not had a significant negative impact on the dynamics of the global renewable energy and solar markets. female participation in the global solar energy market will remain consistently low unless the current conditions change. according to our case study and iea international case study research, the main barrier for female entrepreneurship in the solar energy market is the shortage of financial funding. so, to increase the overall female involvement in the solar energy sector, it is important to continue the development of new supportive financial programs, grants, and funds. it is also pivotal to implement future programs for rural regions. these areas are the most prospective in terms of solar energy entrepreneurship. also, it is important to develop new educational programs that incorporate elements of soft skills because they contain an enormous potential for the success of future startups. renewable and solar energy sources markets offer multiple opportunities for female entrepreneurship as the iea’s 2019 international case studies demonstrated. this sector is less competitive and has not been monopolized to such an extent as the traditional energy sources market. this sector has demonstrated sustainable natalia vukovic, maksim nevalennyi 39 growth in the past thirty years and it demands flexibility, innovativeness, and agility from state and business actors alike. naturally, female entrepreneurs will be a valuable asset as they also possess these highly demanded and competitive skills. we plan to further research these topics in our future academic endeavors. acknowledgements this article was prepared within the framework of the research grant "the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the development of the global digital economy in the res segment" of the faculty of world economy and world politics of the higher school of economics. references [1] eroğlu h. 2020. effects of covid-19 outbreak on environment and renewable energy sector. environment, development and sustainability. conference paper. p. 1-9. 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[26] daily, 2021 interview of polina vasilenko. accepted from https://daily.afisha.ru/relationship/20940-kak-rossiyanka-pereehala-vofranciyu-i-stroit-ekologichnye-elektrostancii-navode/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=by la-situatsiya--kogda-pri-otsenkesvoego&utm_content=54535549&fbclid=iwar3lsuzsa5d_dpapez0kfk rb0zddoanb0nxxak_s-opudziawiuhg6y0uam article history: received: may 28th, 2021 accepted: november 16th, 2021 https://daily.afisha.ru/relationship/20940-kak-rossiyanka-pereehala-vo-franciyu-i-stroit-ekologichnye-elektrostancii-na-vode/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=byla-situatsiya--kogda-pri-otsenke-svoego&utm_content=54535549&fbclid=iwar3lsuzsa5d_dpapez0kfkrb0zddoanb0nxxak_s-opudziawiuhg6y0uam https://daily.afisha.ru/relationship/20940-kak-rossiyanka-pereehala-vo-franciyu-i-stroit-ekologichnye-elektrostancii-na-vode/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=byla-situatsiya--kogda-pri-otsenke-svoego&utm_content=54535549&fbclid=iwar3lsuzsa5d_dpapez0kfkrb0zddoanb0nxxak_s-opudziawiuhg6y0uam https://daily.afisha.ru/relationship/20940-kak-rossiyanka-pereehala-vo-franciyu-i-stroit-ekologichnye-elektrostancii-na-vode/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=byla-situatsiya--kogda-pri-otsenke-svoego&utm_content=54535549&fbclid=iwar3lsuzsa5d_dpapez0kfkrb0zddoanb0nxxak_s-opudziawiuhg6y0uam https://daily.afisha.ru/relationship/20940-kak-rossiyanka-pereehala-vo-franciyu-i-stroit-ekologichnye-elektrostancii-na-vode/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=byla-situatsiya--kogda-pri-otsenke-svoego&utm_content=54535549&fbclid=iwar3lsuzsa5d_dpapez0kfkrb0zddoanb0nxxak_s-opudziawiuhg6y0uam https://daily.afisha.ru/relationship/20940-kak-rossiyanka-pereehala-vo-franciyu-i-stroit-ekologichnye-elektrostancii-na-vode/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=byla-situatsiya--kogda-pri-otsenke-svoego&utm_content=54535549&fbclid=iwar3lsuzsa5d_dpapez0kfkrb0zddoanb0nxxak_s-opudziawiuhg6y0uam https://daily.afisha.ru/relationship/20940-kak-rossiyanka-pereehala-vo-franciyu-i-stroit-ekologichnye-elektrostancii-na-vode/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=byla-situatsiya--kogda-pri-otsenke-svoego&utm_content=54535549&fbclid=iwar3lsuzsa5d_dpapez0kfkrb0zddoanb0nxxak_s-opudziawiuhg6y0uam doi: 10.28934/jwee21.34.pp96-112 original scientific paper 5bcan social enterprises create holistic women empowerment? – a case of indian artisan women shalaghya sharma1 2f1 iilm graduate school of management, greater noida, india amit kumar amity university, india a b s t r a c t world leaders across the globe are focusing on issues of women empowerment through the creation of equal opportunities in education, work, and society. the indian artisans are being exposed to several interventions that aim at creating empowerment for these women from the rural underprivileged social strata. social entrepreneurship has been considered as a driver of women's empowerment; hence it also becomes important to assess its potential to empower women in indian rural artisan communities. the study was conducted in rural villages of one of the most underdeveloped states of india. woman empowerment was measured on indices proposes by oxfam. 130 women engaged with a social enterprise, and 127 women who were part of an ngo were compared with a base group of 130 women untouched by any intervention. we found that both social entrepreneurship and non-governmental organizations had the potential to influence women's empowerment, but social enterprises performed better on most of the indexes. the women working with the social enterprise have stronger financial independence that may be attributing to better self-confidence, autonomy, individual capability, opinion towards women’s economic role, greater control over household decisions and assets. while the environmental level indicators are slightly improved for ngo-based women, most probably due to their unity and 1 corresponding author, e-mail: shalaghya.sharma@hotmail.com shalaghya sharma, amit kumar 97 psychological effect of being in a group. social enterprises provided these women with hassle-free earnings and were accepted by the patriarchal social structure. key words: women artisans, women empowerment, social entrepreneurship, skill development introduction throughout the history of humankind, men have been found to have greater access to power. it has been found through research that power has a strong influence on gender. men have been found to have greater access to power, greater access to resources, and control over these resources. they also have fewer social obligations and cultural values that are more advantageous for them. (cuddy et al., 2015). this gender inequality can be observed in several aspects of daily life, such as access to education, job opportunities, and economic resources (qadir, 2015). diverse interventions have been developed and implemented to strengthen the position of women across the world, such as health, educational or financial. (un women, 2016) it becomes essential to understand empowerment before focusing on the arena of women's empowerment. when empowerment is generated, one or the other of the following activities should at least happen i.e. you helped them recognize the already existing power in them, you help them recover the power that they had in the past but had lost, or give power to them that they never had. (ciulla, 2020). several non governmental organizations and social enterprises are contributing towards women's empowerment. hence, it is very important to determine whether these interventions are capable of creating holistic women empowerment. through this study, we intend to assess the potential of social entrepreneurship as a driver of women's empowerment. this leads to framing the basic objectives that this research tries to achieve rq1: do these interventions empower women? what has been the impact of these projects on women’s empowerment? rq2: if yes, then which indices of women empowerment are influenced by a certain intervention? the field of entrepreneurship has been focusing on the contributions of social enterprises to business and society. (de, brush, & welter, 2007) 98 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 96-112) this research draws upon and aims to make valuable contributions to the emerging field of social entrepreneurship. through these efforts, the doubts about the need and scope of social entrepreneurship will get addressed. (austin, stevenson, & wei-skillern, 2006; zahra et al., 2009). this article proceeds as follows. first, we frame our study in the existing literature related to women’s empowerment and social entrepreneurship. second, we explain the scenario under which the study was conducted and why is it important to conduct the study. thirdly the methodology we have used to conduct our study. fourthly, we outline our research findings and compare them to findings by other researchers in the field; finally, we conclude with implications for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners while offering recommendations for future research. women empowerment – a basic understanding of the term empowerment aims at removing the barriers social, political, or legal that may be working against a particular group and help in building the assets of the underprivileged to help in their effective market engagement. (world bank, 2006) empowerment falls into three categories, i.e. removal of social barriers, creation of responsiveness among the institutions, and creation of social institutions and capital (grootaert, 2005). women's empowerment is instrumental to achieving progress in all spheres of society. (sharma and varma, 2008). while there is no one overall agreed definition of women’s empowerment in the sector, a significant body of the literature points to (kabeer, 2001) who defines empowerment as ‘the expansion in people’s ability to make strategic life choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them’, and to (narayan, 2005) who defines empowerment as ‘the expansion of freedom of choice and action to shape one’s life. women empowerment can be seen as a process through which women challenge the existing norms to improve their status within their families and in society as well (upadhaye and madan, 2012). economic empowerment has been defined as financial independence or strength of the individual, while personal empowerment involves an increase in selfsufficiency and development of inner strength that gives them the power to make their own choices (moser,1989). in almost all cultures, women have traditionally been less powerful than men, with lower wages and less control shalaghya sharma, amit kumar 99 over resources. they are regarded as an “invisible” workforce, and their ability to grow, excel, and develop is limited (sharma and varma, 2008). the key ability to make choices is the true measure of a women’s empowerment (kabeer, 1999). three interrelated dimensions are required by women for making key decisions in their lives. firstly, access to resources that also includes preconditions; secondly, agency that includes processes; and thirdly, achievements that include outcomes. women face several obstacles in their path of getting empowered, like traditional and patriarchal attitudes, budget restrictions affecting healthcare, the right to maternity leave, childcare, and retirement. apart from this, they also face a conflict between work and family (radovic et al., 2012). women’s access to resources and jobs is limited in the formal economy due to cultural prejudices that limit the role of women (goyal et al., 2020). there is a direct single-domain condition existing in india, leading to the subordination of women from the poorer socio-economic sections is their lack of skills. these macro technical skills need to be imparted in school or vocational training (ahmed-ghosh, 2002), but girls are often inhibited from getting the skill-based training due to family choice or due to social norms. lack of these skills prevents women from getting engaged in livelihood generation to contribute to household income. she also needs to do double the work as she has to manage both family and work. women empowerment helps in social growth as well as economic development through various innovative and entrepreneurial activities. (agarwal and lenka, 2015). women empowerment and economic development are complementing each other. (duflo, 2012). if the economic conditions of a country like poverty, the standard of living, access to resources health, and education can be improved, then women will get empowered. while the policymakers argue that if women get empowered, they will contribute to the economic and social growth of the country that would, in turn, lead to a reduction in poverty, betterment of education, and improvement of health conditions. women empowerment has the potential to change the gender-related issues prevalent in indian society. patriarchal decision-making or the ability to impose decisions can directly or indirectly affect their skill gain and ability to work. if a father or husband does not agree to the idea of their daughters or wives gaining certain skills, it will not be possible for women to engage in skill development. this hinders her ability to pursue economic opportunities and achieving her possibilities (mishra and tripathi, 2011). 100 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 96-112) hence, it is also a challenge to measure the women's empowerment that has been achieved through several interventions. it is important to understand that increasing an opportunity is different from ensuring that a woman can make her own choices (williams, 2005). it is also important to measure a woman’s perception of her ability to make her own decisions. real achievements or outcomes are critical to developing an understanding of women's empowerment. the always evolving nature of power dynamics in society poses a challenge towards measuring empowerment. (kabeer, 1999) women empowerment, non-government organizations and social enterprises the government of india has initiated several projects for social and economic empowerment of rural like beti bachao beti padhao 2015, mahila-e;haat 2016, mahila shakti kendra 2017, sukanya samridhi yojana 2018 and several others, but little has been achieved through these projects till now. (balakrishnan, 2019). women empowerment via entrepreneurial efforts has always been neglected by society due to its patriarchy (singh et al., 2013). apart from that, various ngos and self-help groups (shgs) are also empowered for the growth and development of women in underprivileged areas of rural india. the ngos provide this advantage of groups to these women who alone are incapable of fighting patriarchy alone. the social learning theory cites how interactions among individuals within and outside their communities help them in discussing and solving their problems. artisans and art entrepreneurs play a significant role in promoting the culture but are more emotional and less business-oriented (salamzadeh, 2021). hence, it becomes important to assess their level of empowerment achieved through their entrepreneurial ventures. due to their low financial status, women have weaker powers of bargaining. micro finance reinforces their confidence and self-esteem, which further leads to active participation in household and community decision-making processes. (annim and alnaa, 2013). women attach more importance to social networks and work more diligently in their creation. more freedom and flexibility in learning can help these women to achieve critical milestones of self-confidence and development. (salamzadeh et al., 2013). the impact and success of the social enterprises are dependent on shalaghya sharma, amit kumar 101 their idea of the market and their insight into their customers (salamzadeh et al.,2017) research methodology the villages in the muzaffarpur district of bihar are known for their exquisite embroidery work known as sujani. the women make sujani embroideries using old clothes and transform them into colorful pieces of art. this art form is passed on from mothers to daughters, and women take extreme pride in their embroidery skills. through our survey across these villages, we could identify 130 women who were actively engaged with the social enterprise and 127 women who were part of the ngo. to carry on the study, it was essential to identify a base group that was untouched by any of the above-identified interventions. so, a group of 130 women who were residents of these villages and non-members of any group at present was identified. we also identified a group of another 130 women who could be their replacement if they were not available for the survey. all these women were being exposed to the same cultural and social conditions as the other women of these villages. these formed the comparison group. the main purpose of this study is to assess the impact of different interventions by non-governmental organizations and social enterprises on women empowerment and provide insights on how the different interventions can influence women empowerment among rural women. the questionnaire was converted into the regional language, it was translated back into english and compared to the original one developed by the researchers to ensure that it does not lose meaning. it was tested on a group of 10 women respondents to check whether they could understand the context of the questions. the first reliability test was conducted to check the internal consistency of the questionnaire. then, anova was used to identify whether any significant differences exist between the groups on the women empowerment dimensions. a thorough review of the previous studies on women empowerment based on oxfam indicators was carried on in order to identify the dimensions of women empowerment and relevant questions. the first draft of the questionnaire was prepared to measure the 1. demographics of the respondents and 2. the women empowerment dimensions. the questionnaire was revised after administering three pilot tests. the final version was distributed among the sample groups. this study 102 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 96-112) intends to understand women empowerment created through the various interventions at the personal, relational and environmental levels. oxfam recognizes women’s empowerment as a multidimensional context-specific concept (oxfam, 2016). it is ‘multidimensional’ because women who may be empowered in one area of life may not be in others (malhotra and mather 1997; alkire et al., 2013), and ‘context-specific because behaviors or attributes that might signify empowerment in one context may have different meanings elsewhere (malhotra and schuler 2005). to ascertain that the group under study was homogenous they were compared on social and economic parameters. to carry out the study, a fivepoint likert scale was used to design the questionnaire where 1 represented strongly disagree and 5 represented strongly agree. as opposed to weai, where the cut-off was dual (either 0 or 1), we chose to evaluate the responses on a likert scale as we do not aim to calculate the index but compare it on several parameters to draw an understanding of empowerment at personal, relational and environmental levels. as the questionnaire of this study was developed as per the clear guidelines of wei dimensions developed by oxfam, the validity analysis for systematic errors was not required. however, reliability analysis to check random errors, which lead to fluctuation of values around the exact value, was carried on. measurement reliability is the measure of the extent to which the data produce consistent measures. internal reliability was measured through cronbach alpha, which was used to measure the degree of relatedness of individual items. table 1: test of reliability dimensions of women empowerment items alpha value self-confidence i am equal to others 0.722 i have good qualities i am proud of myself opinion towards women’s economic role women can be a leader just like any men women should be trained to keep financial records women need education more than marriage 0.753 shalaghya sharma, amit kumar 103 dimensions of women empowerment items alpha value acceptability of genderbased violence i should be beaten if i disobey my husband 0.832 if he suspects me of unfaithfulness, he can beat me if i neglect children, he can beat me if i spend money without his permission, he can beat me if i do not help in livestock and agriculture activities, he can beat me if i visit my family without permission, he can beat me individual knowledge i have no right to alimony 0.781 i have no right to my children's custody i have no right if my husband remarries individual capability i am willing to support other women, if they have any problem 0.737 i am willing to report and go to court for the rights personal autonomy i can travel to meet friends, family in other cities or states 0.725 i can participate in community groups i can use money at my own will group participation and degree of influence in a group i attend women’s association meetings 0.783 i participate in credit groups i attend religious group meetings i am part of civic groups for improving community leadership and degree of influence in a group i contribute in making important decisions in the women's association 0.759 i contribute to making important decisions in the credit groups i contribute to making important decisions in the religious groups i contribute to making an important decision in the community group control over household assets i decide or help to decide on whether to buy /sell cattle in my household 0.785 104 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 96-112) dimensions of women empowerment items alpha value i decide or help to decide on whether to buy /sell goats in my household i decide or help to decide on whether to have a gas stove in my house or not involvement in household decision making i decide or help to decide what part of the crops should be kept for consumption 0.699 i decide or help to decide how to spend the money from the sale of crops i decide or help to decide about money earned by me i decide or help to decide about what foods to buy and consume i decide or help to decide about buying furniture for the house i decide or help to decide about buying livestock i decide or help to decide about buying land i decide or help to decide about buying utensils i decide or help to decide about getting a loan i decide or help to decide how to use the loan money i decide or help to decide about gifts to relatives i decide or help to decide about children education i decide or help to decide about having children i decide or help to decide about the transfer of property i decide or help to decide about housework and care of family gender-based violence my husband or in-laws can humiliate me in front of others 0.734 husband/in-laws can threaten to hurt me or someone i care about shalaghya sharma, amit kumar 105 dimensions of women empowerment items alpha value husband/in-laws insult me, push me, shake me, slap me or punch me husband/in-laws threaten to attack with knife or weapon contribution to household income i contribute to my household income 0.897 safety of movement i feel safe walking alone in the village 0.824 social norm and stereotypes women are just as capable as men of contributing to household income 0.763 a man's job is to earn money, and women's job is to look after the house and children women are able to be good leaders as well as men table 2: test of homogeneity of respondent groups base group ig1 ig2 diff1 diff 2 household size 4.652 4.997 5.112 -0.345 -0.46 household income above line bpl 0.283 0.165 0.167 0.118 0.116 respondent is able to work 0.938 0.871 0.872 0.067 0.066 head of household is a male 0.776 0.829 0.831 -0.053 -0.055 head of household is able to work 0.233 0.312 0.297 -0.079 -0.064 respondent has more than primary education 0.235 0.285 0.273 -0.05 -0.038 head of household has more the primary education 0.265 0.312 0.274 -0.047 -0.009 respondent is married 0.579 0.635 0.564 -0.056 0.015 the marriage has no troubles 0.374 0.484 0.497 -0.11 -0.123 husband's age 42.05 42.32 41.76 -0.27 0.29 respondent's age 35.89 35.87 35.01 0.02 0.88 each indicator was further disintegrated into measurable items. every item was considered to be of equal weightage, a group mean was calculated for every indicator, revealing the empowerment value for every indicator under study. 106 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 96-112) table 3: women empowerment indicators personal level indicators relational level indicators environment level indicators • self-confidence • opinion towards women’s economic role • acceptability of gender-based violence • individual knowledge • individual capability • personal autonomy • group participation and degree of influence in a group • leadership and degree of influence in a group control over household assets • household decision making • contribution to household income • safety of movement • social norms and stereotypes of women’s economic role source: (lombardini et al. ,2017) analysis table 4: results of anova test results of anova test sum of square df mean square f sig self confidence btw grps33.534 within grps – 235.816 2 387 8.364 39.962 0 opinion towards women’s economic role btw grps31.534 within grps-237.819 2 387 8.563 29.256 0 acceptability of gender based violence btw grps31.534 within grps – 132.814 2 387 7.567 28.936 0 individual knowledge btw grps93.534 within grps-235.813 2 387 23.476 39.958 0 individual capability btw grps31.534 within grps -234.816 2 387 8.634 39.745 0 personal autonomy btw grps36.534 within grps232.823 2 387 7.899 28.992 0 group participation btw grps33.534 within grps -232.876 2 387 8.542 39.993 0 leadership and degree of influence in a group btw grps32.534 within grps -235.816 2 387 8.364 34.928 0 control over household assets btw grps33.512 within grps-235.826 2 387 7.325 39.918 0 household decision btw grps31.534 2 8.368 39.925 0 shalaghya sharma, amit kumar 107 results of anova test sum of square df mean square f sig making within grps-235.816 387 contribution to household income btw grps34.534 within grps-235.71 2 387 8.364 39.929 0 safety of movement btw grps33.534 within grps – 237.814 2 387 8.368 39.928 0 social norms and stereotypes of women’s economic role btw grps31.534 within grps-232.8 2 387 8.643 39.642 0 the preliminary analysis shows that all the three groups involved in this study are similar in terms of socio-economic background as there is no significant difference in the mean values. so, it can concur that coming from a similar social and economic background, all three groups under the study have an equal probability of getting empowered through the interventions under study. further on analysing the indices of women empowerment for the base group and for intervention group 1 (an ngo involved in generating women empowerment) and intervention group 2 (a social enterprise involved in generating empowerment through a market-based model). it is clear from analysing the values that both interventions have a substantial effect on women empowerment as the base group shows low mean values. table 5: results of comparisons personal level indicators self confidence se > ngo opinion towards women’s economic role se > ngo acceptability of gender based violence se < ngo individual knowledge se < ngo individual capability se > ngo personal autonomy se > ngo relational level indicators group participation and degree of influence in a group se < ngo leadership and degree of influence in a group se < ngo control over household assets se > ngo 108 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 96-112) household decision making se > ngo contribution to household income se > ngo environment level indicators safety of movement se > ngo social norms and stereotypes of women’s economic role se > ngo in totality, it was observed that whether it be the ngo or the social enterprise, they were able to empower women, as compared to women who did not get exposed to either of the interventions, showed low value on all the indices. women respondents from intervention 1 showed higher mean values for individual knowledge, individual capability, group participation, and lower tolerance towards gender-based violence, while respondents from group 2 showed higher mean values for self-confidence, opinion towards women’s economic role, personal autonomy, leadership, influence on decision making in groups, control over home assets, the women working with the social enterprise find this engagement better than a commercial enterprise as well as an ngo. this can majorly be attributed to the availability of work throughout the year and ease of work. while the ngos create an additional challenge of marketing products by themselves, the social enterprise provides them with regular work without the hassle of going out to sell their products. this serves as an innovative solution for women's empowerment as it takes into consideration the challenge of patriarchy too. this solution addresses the core of the social problem, i.e. patriarchy. previously men were not letting women learn the skills as they were not comfortable with women making groups that interfered with their family lives and travelling outside the village, but now when these skills are giving these women the ability to earn livelihood in the comfort of home, men are happy too. many times, an intervention that is aimed at solving an issue may create additional challenges for some other issue faced by the group (aisa, 2014). in this case, while women empowerment through nongovernment organizations led to women empowerment but it can also alter power relations within the households, and men may try to assert control through domestic violence or forceful detachment from the ngo. conclusion considering these findings, it can be inferred that intervention 2, i.e., involvement with social enterprise, fairs better on a majority of the indexes shalaghya sharma, amit kumar 109 so, they are better at creating an overall sense of women empowerment (datta and galley, 2012). the ngo-based intervention is better at creating knowledge about their individuality, fewer acceptances towards genderbased violence, group participation, and leadership skills. this has a plausible explanation in the training provided by the ngos and the sense of strength that being part of a group provides to these women. the women working with the social enterprise have stronger financial independence that may be attributing to better self-confidence, autonomy, individual capability, opinion towards women’s economic role, greater control over household decisions and assets. while the environmental level indicators are slightly improved for ngo-based women, most probably due to their unity and psychological effect of being in a group. the social enterprises should consider the inclusion of more training and self-help group formation so that the sense of unity and power is increased in these women, which may lead to a wholesome increase in all the indexes of women empowerment. several other studies have also highlighted the creation of social and economic benefits for local underprivileged groups through social entrepreneurship. (rosca et al., 2020). this study has offered insights to non-profit practitioners on how the inclusion of a revenue model can improve the empowerment indices for poor, illiterate rural women. this is also a learning for the for-profit sector that how social entrepreneurial models can successfully create and nurture women empowerment. increasingly stakeholders are challenging organizations to look beyond profits and work for sustainable social impact creation. this study once again has highlighted the role of social entrepreneurship in solving social problems. it further creates scope for further study, i.e. is financial independence leading to empowerment among the women involved with the social enterprise? references [1] agarwal, s., & lenka, u. (2018). why research is needed in women entrepreneurship in india: a viewpoint. international journal of social economics. [2] ahmed-ghosh, h. 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(2009). a typology of social entrepreneurs: motives, search processes and ethical challenges. journal of business venturing, 24(5), 519-532. article history: received: may 19th, 2021 accepted: november 29th, 2021 14_jwe_1-2 udc: 005.96:640.432(624-13) ; 005.966-055.2(624-13) jel: d72, h11, j16 id: 207724300 scientific review skills development training among women hospitality industry entrepreneurs in south sudan brown desmond, university of kentucky, united states of america a b s t r a c t this paper examines a women’s skills development training program in basic hospitality skills that was designed and facilitated with the cooperation of a multinational donor and its partners with an objective of promoting entrepreneurship among women in post war south sudan. a brief review of the entrepreneurship development literature from an international d o n o r perspective is conducted along with a discussion of the entrepreneurship program as a targeted approach for empowering and sustaining women's economic situation in south sudan. emphasis is placed on women small scale enterprises (sse) entrepreneurs and current involvement of multinational assistance agencies to regenerate hospitality skills training in a poor country after decades of devastation civil political conflict. key words: hospitality, restaurant, women, south sudan, africa, small scale enterprises, skills development training, multinational introduction the general literature on economic development in africa is replete with prognosis on the continent’s future regarding poverty eradication. for example, it has been suggested by (somavia, 2007) that the number of people working in extreme poverty in africa will increase by 20% by 2015. in sub-saharan africa, 55% of the population lives on less than $1 a day and 80% on less than $2 a day (somavia, 2007). given these grim economic 174 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 173-187) predictions, entrepreneurship has been identified as one solution to improving economic conditions (nieman, 2001). however, as previous research has shown, women are very often excluded from participation in entrepreneurial activities. on the african continent, there is currently a growing recognition that in the current urgent pursuit of development, women, although still a minority in the business world, possess real entrepreneurial potential and are an important resource for economic growth and job creation. further, there is growing awareness that the development process can be significantly enhanced if more women could be encouraged to become entrepreneurs and need to be supported. however, the issue of skills shortage has been central to these discussions. while many other factors such as credit constraints, business environment and infrastructure bottlenecks have dominated the discussion on obstacles facing new firms in africa, skill shortages (both on the side of workers and entrepreneurs) have received less attention. (brixiova, 2010) while there are there are many cottage and small scale industries existing in africa today (see table 2), the hospitality/tourism industry exhibits tremendous potential as a means of achieving poverty reduction is related since very few of the least developed countries in the world have significant levels of receipts from international trade (blake, et.al, 2008). this is especially the case in sub saharan africa where most of the main generators of gnp businesses are classified as small scale enterprises (sses) officially defined as having less than fifty employees (hansom, 1992). some qualitative characteristics that define this sector include: justin-time production for direct sale of product to consumers, lack of specialization in the labor force, poor or non-existent book keeping and heavy employment of family members (hansom, 1992). it is estimated that the number of sses in many developing countries far exceed the number of medium or larger firms and accounts for between 40 and 90 percent of nongovernment employment (gartner, 1999). further, in the majority of these countries (which are mainly in sub-saharan africa), receipts from these activities are less than 5% of gdp (world bank, 2010). purpose this paper examines a post war women’s skills development training program in basic hospitality skills that was designed and facilitated by the brown, d., skills development training, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 173-187) 175 author with the cooperation of a multinational donor and its partners with an objective of promoting entrepreneurship among women in post-war southern sudan. a brief review of the literature pertaining to skills development and women’s entrepreneurship development from an international donor perspective is conducted along with a discussion of the skills training program as a targeted approach for empowering and sustaining women’s’ entrepreneurship in south sudan. gender considerations in development in africa while there are variations of gender disparities in many developing countries around the world, the gender gap in africa is even wider and the situation is more complex due to the cultural and traditional context which is anchored in beliefs, norms and practices which breed discrimination and “feminized” poverty (drine & grach, 2011). thus, the importance of taking gender into account in the continent’s development cannot be overemphasized an assertion that has been supported by research. for example, a recent study by the organization interaction found that “… gender mainstreaming confirmed that addressing the issues of both men and women can directly confront poverty and bring about profound cultural change in gender roles, labor distribution, and harmful practices. in its proven ability to dramatically improve the lives of both women and men, gender mainstreaming can lead to tangible, enhanced, and more sustainable outcomes for women – and men – in resource poor communities with conservative religious and cultural traditions that oppress women and girls.”(http://www.interaction.org). barriers to women in south sudan’s development south sudan, officially the republic of south sudan and previously known as southern sudan, is a landlocked country in east-central africa that is part of the united nations sub region of eastern africa, bordered by ethiopia to the east, kenya to the southeast, uganda to the south, the democratic republic of the congo to the southwest, the central african republic to the west and the republic of sudan to the north (www.wikipedia.com). prior to obtaining formal independence in july, 2011, sudan had been in a protracted civil war for over 40 of the past 50 years of its independence 176 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 173-187) from britain. although there was a brief truce from 1972-1983 due to the addis ababa peace accord, the next civil war broke out in 1983 and lasted for over 21 years, after which another peace accord between the sudan people’s liberation movement army (splma) and the government of sudan (gos) was signed on january 9th, 2005 in nairobi, kenya. the impact and consequences of the civil war have been destructive and distressing to sudan in general and south sudan and other war-affected regions in particular. due to the war, national resources had been diverted to war efforts and as a result, socio economic destitution and disrupted administrative and governance structures and systems in the region have emerged. given the fact that women constitute over 50% of the south sudan population, their participation in leadership and decision-making process of the country is very meager. the low level of female education, lack of confidence and self-esteem as well as cultural norms and unwritten laws that discriminate against women and their reproductive roles overburden their active productive capacity and participation. in addition, access to and control of resources are among the reasons that hinder women’s participation in decision making and their participation in the overall leadership procedures at all levels. community organizations and civil society groups that advocate for women’s participation in leadership have their own leadership structures that are male dominated or managed by men. as a result, most do not have adequate capacity and skills to increase the participation of women in the decision making either. table 1 highlights some of the actual and potential constraints faced by women in many sub-saharan countries in general and in south sudan in particular. although the post-war constitution of the south sudan has an affirmative action clause that allows for the full participation of women at all levels, the institutional apparatus do not have the necessary capacity, skill and resources to advance women’s development issues. strong institutions such as network and lobby groups that should advocate and strengthen women’s leadership roles do not exist and if they do, they have no capacity to manage the situation in south sudan, and as a result there is a general lack of public awareness about women’s capability and productivity. brown, d., skills development training, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 173-187) 177 table 1: barriers to participation of women in economic activities in south sudan lack of human capital lack of finance, credit lack of organization. exclusion by organized formal sector interests location – far from tourism sites lack of market power. no ownership/control over resources of market value. no bargaining power with investors regulations and red tape. exclusion from registered and promoted categories of tourism facility/service inadequate access to tourist market limited capacity to meet requirements of tourism market under-development of domestic/regional/independent tourism by comparison with international tourism government support targeted to formal sector new tourism opportunities conflict with existing livelihood strategies source: adapted from ashley, (2000) skills development, hospitality & tourism capacity building of sses the issue of skills shortage and development has been central to the discussions on economic growth and development in africa. although tourism is increasingly viewed as a means to generate foreign exchange (richter, 1985), promote employment development and ultimately, stimulate economic growth, the issue of skills and lack thereof in the tourism and hospitality industry has attracted some considerable attention among researchers. many scholars, for example, (baum et al. 1997; thomas & long, 2001; szivas et al., 2003; kaplan, 2004a, b; marchante et al., 2005) are in general agreement that there is a shortage of skills in the tourism and hospitality industries and that the labor supply and development of skills are critical for the development and growth of the tourism industry. however, the issue of skills shortage assumes paramount importance for african countries in particular that are currently recognizing that tourism can be an important driver of poverty reduction and economic growth for their economies. various researchers have extolled the value of entrepreneurial skills training as a precursor to successful tourism industry development and local economic regeneration. for example, thomas and long (2001) have argued 178 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 173-187) that the supply and utilization of skills development for the hospitality is an issue of key importance. the crux of their argument centers around the fact that many small enterprises (particularly in developing countries) operate in ‘low skill/low quality’ equilibrium. the authors conclude that for regeneration to be fully realized, providers must provide appropriate skills as well as the infrastructure to deliver them. since the percentage of hospitality industry jobs filled by women in developing countries varies from over 60% in some countries to under 10%, it can be argued that the service nature of the industry and high proportion of low-skilled domestic-type jobs can help to increase accessibility to women. often, women are most involved in informal sector activities, particularly hawking (shah, 2000). consequently, the sole purpose of the training delineated in this paper was to empower women and enable them to play a more active and effective role in entrepreneurship and decisionmaking process in small scale hospitality business levels south sudan. multinational organizations and development in sudan a host of multinational institutions exist today that support tourism development in one form or another (hawkins and mann (2006). one of the most common sources of multinational assistance for sses is the united states agency for international development (usaid), which is focused mainly on productive investment, infrastructure and sse development in least developing countries. usaid has undertaken approximately123 projects in 72 countries since 2000—that support agency objectives of conserving natural resources, stimulating economic development, and alleviating poverty (www.usaid.gov). in addition, many of the subcontracting agencies of the usaid do currently or at some point have some component of hospitality/tourism development as part of their portfolio – for example, international relief and development (ird), international business & technical consultants, inc. (ibtci), winrock international and volunteers for economic growth alliance (vega). the latter is implementing agriculture market and development program in south sudan. the aim of the program is to support private sector development in post-war sudan as well as build the capacity of the infant government of south sudan (goss) to create enabling environment that would facilitate private sector development and reintegration of persons affected by the 21 year conflict. brown, d., skills development training, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 173-187) 179 category of sses current type comments handicraft hand craft work is limited. lots of handicraft items from ugandan and kenya are being offered in the market � opportunities exist to develop the following handicraft products from within: baskets, hats, mats, kitchen accessories, and novelty items. this is an industry with potential to benefit women woodcraft (wood carving) a good number of furniture cottages exist in the town. major products are house, office and school furniture few produce religious status � demand for wood products is huge due to surging demand for materials for construction. metal craft/ metalworking/fabricating shops traditional kitchen accessories, architectural products (gates, window frames, window rods, metal sign post) generally metal preparation, welding and assembling works are on rise according to sources � demand for metal craft is high but supply is limited due to availability of scrap metals, high cost of production and limited technical know-how are some of the problems identified. this industry has the potential to employ returnees and persons affected by war garments/embroidery there are small group of women who are involved embroidery that the team visited. their products include sweaters, hats, sacks, african wears � this is another sector with potential to benefit women. production is small often based on demand. quality is an issue. lack of product development and competition from products from uganda impedes development domestically tourism/ hospitality guest houses, restaurant and bars � management is a crosscutting problem. tourism/hospitality sector employs many women compared to other enterprises to achieve its strategic objectives, the program draws expertise from its consortium members and past experience and relies on volunteer assignments from within the region and overseas, as well as sudanese in 180 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 173-187) diaspora. since its commencement, vega/amed program has facilitated numerous volunteers from us, australia, canada and other nations of africa who have provided valuable technical assistance to the government, as well as public and private institutions in south sudan. currently the program covers the geographical towns of juba, wau and malakal which are considered returnee hot spots. the project the south sudan skills training program was a multi-year technical assistance grant made possible through a grant from the u.s. department of international development (usaid), aimed at providing structural support and understanding of effective training for improving female entrepreneurship after the civil war. the training primarily aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of those women leaders who were already in leadership/management positions and at the same time build the confidence of those aspiring for leadership positions in the hospitality sector, particularly the restaurant industry. in addition, this training was to groom young women to become leaders in order to be able to champion the women’s cause and eventually boost the overall percentage of women participation in sses decision making in the hospitality and tourism tertiary sector in the country. table 2 highlights some of the potential positive impacts of this sector on aspects of livelihoods, especially for women. table 2: existingcottage and small-scale industries in south sudan category of sses current type comments handicraft hand craft work is limited. lots of handicraft items from ugandan and kenya are being offered in the market � opportunities exist to develop the following handicraft products from within: baskets, hats, mats, kitchen accessories, and novelty items. this is an industry with potential to benefit women woodcraft (wood carving) a good number of furniture cottages exist in the town. major products are house, office and school furniture few produce religious � demand for wood products is huge due to surging demand for materials for construction. brown, d., skills development training, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 173-187) 181 status metal craft/ metalworking/fabricating shops traditional kitchen accessories, architectural products(gates, window frames, window rods, metal sign post) generally metal preparation, welding and assembling works are on rise according to sources � demand for metal craft is high but supply is limited due to availability of scrap metals, high cost of production and limited technical know-how are some of the problems identified. this industry has the potential to employ returnees and persons affected by war garments/embroidery -there are small group of women who are involved embroidery that the team visited. their products include sweaters, hats, sacks, african wears � this is another sector with potential to benefit women. production is small often based on demand. quality is an issue. lack of product development and competition from products from uganda impedes development domestically tourism/ hospitality guest houses, restaurant and bars � management is a crosscutting problem. tourism/hospitality sector employs many women compared to other enterprises the project consisted of a collaboration that included winrock international and volunteers for economic growth alliance (vega) and women leaders from the women self help development organization (wshdo) a grassroots organization with multiple partners in several projects, including operation of three restaurants. the first phase of this project included the establishment of an advisory board in south sudan as a point of reference for program planning and management. the board consisted of community representatives from the previously mentioned women self help development organization (wshdo) and local staff of the vega office in south sudan. the initial task was to develop a protocol for interviewing and selecting participants for the training program that would include women entrepreneurs from the preidentified geographic areas of towns of juba, wau and malakal which were considered returnee hot spots by the government. a selection committee interviewed more than thirty five candidates who represented a cross-section of women working in the three restaurants owned by wshdo. from this 182 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 173-187) process, twenty individuals were chosen to participate in the training program in juba. the second phase consisted of on-site visits by the trainer and the program organizers with the objective of apprising participants an opportunity to closely examine the facilities being used for business operations as well as observe them in action in order to determine the handicaps that existed so that proper development training tools and topics could be developed to meet those needs. since a lack of sustainable financing mechanism was deemed to be part of the constraints to developing entrepreneurial talent among women in post-war sudan, a corollary objective was to assess the financial needs of the selected women who intended to seek funding for owning and operating their own personal restaurants as well as those who were employed in wshdo owned restaurants. the visit uncovered other cross-cutting observations such as product development constraints, lack of entrepreneurial and managerial skills and access to market and market information. however, lack of entrepreneurial and managerial skills were cited by most respondents as the two main major factors contributing to business failures in the areas visited. specifically, the consensus was to build capacity among the twenty women leaders by offering practical training in hospitality management skills to enable them to operate locally owned restaurants and future guest houses in a profitable manner. thus, in addition to learning about the various guiding principles of operating a successful restaurant, they had several opportunities to join actual training sessions for prospective entrepreneurs. phase three of the project entailed the actual training process, which consisted of classroom meetings, and field trips. the topics covered and approaches used during the three weeks of intensive training are listed in table 3. table 3: training methodology for skills training in south sudan activity approach topics one-day orientation workshop with 20 restaurant workers/entrepreneurs from the three pilot areas) juba, wau and malakal) discussion & identification of current project needs and discuss topics to be covered during the training process 1. overview of the hospitality services in south sudan brown, d., skills development training, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 173-187) 183 activity approach topics week 1 class meeting use of a paid interpreter to translate lecture and demonstrations from arabic to english 2. safety and sanitation issues: • identification of factors that affect the growth of pathogens • identification of methods for preventing biological contamination. • steps to proper hand washing, and when hands should be washed. • identification of proper personal cleanliness practices and appropriate work attire. • identification of ways to handle ready-to-eat food safely. • discussion of proper procedures for storing food. • discussion of proper procedures for holding, cooling, and reheating food. • identification of ways to handle food ready for service. • outlining proper procedures for preparing and serving food for off-site service. • discussion of proper procedures for cleaning and sanitizing tools and equipment week 2 use of a paid interpreter to translate lecture and demonstrations from arabic to english 3. customer service • explanation of the importance of customer service to the restaurant and foodservice industry. • greeting guests • how to make a good first impression on customers. • identification of ways to identify customer needs. • service set up • taking food orders • serving the meal 4. cost control in restaurant operations • identification of types of costs 184 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 173-187) activity approach topics incurred by a foodservice business • purposes of a budget. • identification of cost control week 3 field trips to 3 internationally operated restaurants in juba program evaluation use of a paid interpreter to translate lecture and demonstrations from arabic to english 5. entrepreneurship and business skills training • basics of business planning, • budgeting • how to analyze food & beverage business opportunities in the area. impacts as previously stated, the skills development training among women hospitality industry entrepreneurs in south sudan consisted of three week training in juba, sudan. the training included 20 participants representing several grassroots women’s organizations represented by leaders from the women self help development organization (wshdo). during the last day of training, the participants were given a program evaluation to assess the immediate impact of the program. the evaluation included four closedended questions using likert-type scaled responses. as illustrated in table 4, the final evaluation was completed by all participants (n =20). table 4: pre and post hospitality skill levels (n = 20) pre-hospitality skill level n % very poor poor average good excellent 10 3 3 2 2 50 15 15 10 10 total 20 100 brown, d., skills development training, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 173-187) 185 post-hospitality skill level very poor poor average good excellent 1 1 3 9 6 5 5 15 45 30 total 20 100 prior to the implementation of this project, the aspect that was missing from business development dimensions for women was a clear understanding basic hospitality skills suitable to operate small restaurants as workers and entrepreneurs. as table 4 indicates, prior to the training, over 50% of the participants rated their ability to operate a restaurant as either very poor or poor, whilst another 25% self-rated themselves as possessing good to excellent basic skills. however, by the end of the training, over 70% of the participants rated their ability to successfully implement the newly acquired training skills at between good and excellent. these statistics underscore a significant change in the participants' self-rated ability before and after the training. discussion and conclusion aside from the immediate impacts observed from the training exercise and described above, after an analysis of the core problems identified by the research team, an integrated intervention approach that took into consideration the diversity and magnitude of the challenges faced by sses in the region culminated in technical and financial involvement of usaid through the implementing sub agency of vega. as in most businesses, appropriate training provides a very important contribution factors to success and growth. given the service nature of the industry and high proportion of low-skilled domestic-type jobs among many women in africa and other developing countries, this type of skills training can help to increase accessibility to women and overcome one of the major barriers to growth and entrepreneurship. hence the need for the design and delivery of specific business and technical training programs by national and regional institutions responsible for fostering the growth of womenowned businesses in developing countries. as this project has 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(2001). ‘tourism and economic regeneration: the role of skills development’. international journal of tourism research 3: 229-240 [21] world bank (2005). world development indicators cd-rom. washington, dc: world bank treninzi za razvijanje veština među preduzetnicama u ugostiteljskoj industriji u južnom sudanu a p s t r a k t ovaj rad ispituje trening program razvijanja osnovnih ugostiteljskih veština kod žena. ovaj program je dizajniran i sproveden u saradnji sa multinacionalnim donatorima i njihovim partnerima sa ciljem promocije preduzetništva medju ženama u posleratnom južnom sudanu. dat je kratak pregled literature na temu razvoja preduzetništva iz perspektive internacionalnog donatora kao i diskusija o programu preduzetništva koji za ciljnu grupu ima žene i osnaživanje i održavanje ekonomske situacije žena u južnom sudanu. akcenat je stavljen posebno na preduzetnice malih preduzeća i trenutnu ulogu multinacionalnih agencija za pomoć u sprovođenju treninga za razvijanje ugostiteljskih veština u siromašnoj zemlji nakon decenija razarajućih civilnih i političkih konflikata. k ljučne reči: ugostiteljstvo, restoran, žene, južni sudan, afrika, mala preduzeća, trening za razvoj veština, multinacionalna article history: received: 12 novemebr, 2013 accepted: 14 april, 2014 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.12.pp72-88 original scientific paper 3bcovid-19 and indian women entrepreneurship: factor analysis approach ritu yadav8 f1 department of management, gurugram university, gurugram, india krishna kumari9f2 world college of technology and management, farrukhnagar, india chand prakash saini1 0f3 school of management and commerce, manav rachna university, faridabad, india a b s t r a c t women's entrepreneurship is an emerging issue that captures the attention of researchers and policymakers. women's entrepreneurship is the source of making women financially independent, socially connected, and mentally healthy. women entrepreneurship is the way to empower women to utilize their skill set to earn profit from small-scale businesses and create jobs for many people. however, women's entrepreneurship still gets attention in a sociocultural country like india. women are facing tremendous challenges in the way to pursue their business idea. this paper explores the drivers of entrepreneurial intention among indian women during the covid-19 crisis and measures the influence of location (rural or urban) on their entrepreneurial intention. the study used a semi-structured questionnaire of 27 statements of entrepreneurship motives for data collection. through the snowball sampling technique, primary data from 535 respondents were collected from rural and urban areas in haryana (india). the final sample comprised 528 1 e-mail: rituyadav49@gmail.com 2 e-mail: krishna.parihaar711@gmail.com 3 corresponding author, e-mail: chandsaini03@gmail.com ritu yadav, krishna kumari, chand prakash saini 73 women. data has been analyzed through spss. the study has used descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and independent sample t-test as statistical tools. the study identified knowledge, financial motivation, family responsibility, and under-employment as determinants of indian women's intention towards entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid-19 crisis. key words: women entrepreneurship, knowledge, financial motivation, family responsibility, under-employment, covid-19 introduction covid-19 has influenced all aspects of human life around the world. it caused mass unemployment, productivity loss, and economic setback; however, it opened up new entrepreneurship opportunities in developing countries like india. the indian government found that self-reliance is the need of the hour, and every state must be independent in economic development to face such pandemic effects on the economy in the future. entrepreneurship is one of the ways that make people financially independent and self-reliant. it not only provides employment opportunities to people but also helps in innovation and economic advancement. entrepreneurship is the practice and activity of creating something new and innovative by accepting the reward and risk related to it (hisrich, peters & shepherd, 2005). for developing countries, entrepreneurial activities act as a catalyst for the economic growth of developing nations by generating job opportunities and reducing poverty (anggadwita et al., 2017). the more significant benefit of self-reliance comes for women if they pursue entrepreneurship as their career. self-cognition or self-understanding by women has a significant correlation with their entrepreneurial intent (manjaly et al., 2022). women entrepreneurship also works as women empowerment in india, providing greater control and authority for women's decision-making. as per the government of india, women entrepreneurship represents women's participation in equity and employment of a business enterprise. men dominate india's society, and women struggle to secure their place in all spheres of life (nirola, 2017). women are there in almost all economic activities, but women are still underestimated in their contribution to economic growth. the right to knowledge, women's right to vote, and other fundamental rights are equal to the county's men. over the years, women' s knowledge and economic status have changed tremendously. however, this is just one side of the coin; women's position is 74 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 72-88) not as good in entrepreneurship as in other professions (ilahi, 2012; kumar, 2014; rathee & yadav, 2017). according to the sixth economic census released by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, women's participation is only 14 % of the country's total entrepreneurs. various factors motivate a business start-up. davidsson (1995) grouped entrepreneurial motives into general attitude and domain attitude. general attitude refers to the general psychological disposition that includes change, competitiveness, money, independence, etc., while domain factor focuses on the entrepreneurial attitude that covers social orientation, know-how factors, payoff, etc. prakash et al. (2021) investigated that financial well-being, competitiveness, achievement, change and autonomy were career aspirations that increased entrepreneurial intention. financial independence, innovation, family responsibility, unemployment, etc., also contributed to entrepreneurial intention. unemployment has become an important driving factor for the entrepreneurial intention in the wake of covid-19, leading many people to pursue entrepreneurship as a career option. various government initiatives such as skill india, make in india, and financial assistance like mudra yojna also motivate individuals to go for entrepreneurship. covid 19 crisis leaves most economic activities at a standstill. disturbed supply chain, closure of various economic operations and unemployed workforce give a chance to think of entrepreneurship as a career option and income generation source. considering the importance of entrepreneurship for economic and social upliftment, this study is concerned with two points: the first is to identify the drivers of women entrepreneurship among indian women in the wake of the covid-19 crisis, and the second concern is to determine whether the location (rural or urban) influences the entrepreneurial motives of indian women. literature review covid -19 had been an unexpected shock for the world, and it has badly hit individuals' physical, mental, emotional, and financial health (qiu et al., 2020). the pandemic chained the world in the year 2019. the problem was identified as a virus disease named corona and later on covid – 19 or coronavirus disease – 19. covid–19 impacted economies and adversely impacted humans in the form of lost lives, broken families, injured hearts, and fewer pockets (khanuja, 2020). the uncontrolled spread of the virus forced many economies to make hard decisions to shut down businesses and ritu yadav, krishna kumari, chand prakash saini 75 non-government organizations, and later on, a harsher decision to apply complete lockdown led to many economies' downfall. as a developing economy, india took a very strong stand to control this virus's impact; most economic activities were standstill. the covid19 pandemic situation provides an opportunity for individuals to think about entrepreneurship as their career option. jalbert (2000) explained that women's entrepreneurship significantly contributes to the country's economic growth. malhotra et al. (2002) explained that women's entrepreneurship is essential to women's empowerment. starting and running their own business leads to women's social and economic growth in the country. lall and sahai (2008) found that although the number of women joining the family business has increased over the years, women's role in these family businesses was not so important. women face many difficulties in implementing their ideas in the business operation of family businesses. many researchers, including eagly (2007); oakley (2000) and phillips and imhoff (1997), found that women employees, even with the same qualification and capabilities, could not make many careers progress due to the glass ceiling effect. research on women entrepreneurs sharif (2015) found that the glass ceiling was the crucial driving factor for women's entrepreneurial intention. a study conducted in malaysia found that women employees left their profession as lawyers due to the glass ceiling and started their businesses. mattis (2004); buttner and moore (1997) and sharif (2015) explained that the glass ceiling refers to the unobservable barriers originating from attitudinal and institutional prejudices that hinder qualified individuals from advancing within their organizations and reaching their full potential. sharif (2015) explained that the glass ceiling was associated with gender inequalities. surti and sarupriya (1983) found that unmarried women entrepreneurs faced less stress and self-rule distance than married women entrepreneurs. they also found that women entrepreneurs in joint families face less stress due to the shared burden of work and family problems. das (2000) explained that women entrepreneurs in india face many work-family conflicts that are different from the western countries women entrepreneurs face. singh et al. (2011) explained that women start their businesses for various reasons, such as to keep themselves busy, pursue their hobbies, and earn money due to outside factors pushing women to entrepreneurship. cohoon, wadhwa and mitchell (2010) found that willingness to build 76 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 72-88) wealth, desire to capitalize on a business idea, the appeal of start-up culture, a long-standing desire to own a company, and not work under others' control all motivate women to start their businesses. singh and sengupta (1985) explained that knowledge qualification significantly affected women’s orientation towards entrepreneurship. women with more knowledge qualifications choose entrepreneurship as a challenge and ambition to grow, but less qualified women rely on entrepreneurial training to earn money through their business ventures. darrene, harpel and mayer (2008) found that self-employees are more willing to gain and implement that knowledge than the women on the job. dhar et al. (2022) highlighted that economic freedom, personal development, higher income, self-fulfillment and achievement were the pull motivators while lack of career prospects and job dissatisfaction were push drivers for entrepreneurship among women with disabilities. a study of ihejiamaizu and inyang (2022) highlighted that rather than profit earning, social entrepreneurship was an outcome of a desire to solve a social problem in their community. bulsara, chandwani and gandhi (2014) found that there were many challenges in front women to start their businesses, such as lack of confidence to present their business idea, social pressure, family burdens, lack of freedom to move to another place, lack of encouragement from the financial organization for women entrepreneurship. all these factors lead to unwillingness on the part of women to start their businesses. singh and belwal (2008) found that women's entrepreneurship was not getting much attention because there was a lack of interaction with successful entrepreneurs. lack of social acceptance of women entrepreneurs, undeniable family responsibility, gender discrimination, an inadequate network of women entrepreneurs, and low priority of banks and other financial intuition to provide loans to women for business start-ups. goyal and parkash (2011) explained various factors that become an obstacle to women entrepreneurs' success. these factors include gender discrimination in a dominant man society; women are not treated like men in a sociocultural environment. female entrepreneurs are getting tough competition from male entrepreneurs who are more wealthy and competent due to their business network and market. other barriers to women entrepreneurs were lack of confidence, willingness to start a business, family and society critics, etc. ritu yadav, krishna kumari, chand prakash saini 77 mahajan (2013) explained that society needs to change its attitude toward women to promote women's entrepreneurship. while creating policy for women's progress, it should be kept in mind that they have unique identities and must acknowledge their capabilities. mahajan also recommended that the knowledge curriculum be improved, along with theoretical knowledge, and the practical implementation of that knowledge needs to be covered. agarwal and lenka (2014) explained that negative perception of financial institutions and banks becomes the biggest obstacle for women when they need finance for their business. this situation can be sorted out if non-government organizations, self-help groups promote women's entrepreneurship. also, women must maintain a balance in the work family that builds confidence. goyal and parkash (2011) explained that urban women nowadays have become more powerful as they are more qualified and have all the skill sets to balance personal and professional life. these all are possible due to technological advancement, social ideology, changed mindset towards women empowerment, and excellent career opportunities. sahoo (2020) found that lack of finance, market accessibility, family ties, and male dominance criticism were some of the leading causes hindering women from pursuing entrepreneurship as a career. mansour and abdo (2020) found that women were highly motivated toward entrepreneurship due to self-fulfillment, necessity, and the need for more income. as per census data 2021, india is predominantly rural, as more than 50% population lives in rural areas. regardless of entrepreneurial intention, rural women faced the challenges of starting their businesses due to a lack of resources and location barriers (monnaf & rahman, 2022). among the rural population, social, financial, technology, and marketing challenges were the major hurdles for the entrepreneurs, while in urban areas, financial, personal, competition and marketing challenges were the major ones in india. (kani & helen, 2019).the second wave of covid-19 resulted in more adverse impacts on semi-urban and rural area entrepreneurs (mulla, 2021). for rural people, family occupation, need for additional income, success stories of friends and relatives, government policies and procedures etc., and for urban entrepreneurs, self-identity & social status, innovative thinking, freedom to make own decisions, etc., were the major reasons for opting for entrepreneurship as a career option (kani & helen, 2019). 78 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 72-88) research methodology the study focuses on entrepreneurship motives among indian women in the wake of the covid-19 crisis. this study is descriptive cum exploratory, where those drivers are explored, which motivate women to pursue entrepreneurship as a career among indian women in the wake of the covid-19 crisis. further, this study also attempts to find whether women's entrepreneurial motives are affected by location like urban and rural. as the research was conducted during the covid-19 crisis, online responses were taken to maintain social distancing using snowball sampling techniques from january 2022 – april 2022. a google form was generated for collecting the data. the survey instrument comprised 27 statements based on a five-point likert scale and was designed based on an extensive literature review (prakash et al., 2021; goyal & parkash, 2011; kani & helen, 2019; anggadwita et al., 2021). a pilot study has been conducted with over 35 women entrepreneurs in rural and urban areas. expert opinion has also been taken for measuring face validity. the survey instrument was reliable (α= 0.963) and valid based on pilot study results. a total of 535 respondents responded to the google form. out of 535 respondents' data, 528 respondents' data were considered for final analysis as 7 were found incorrectly filled. sampled respondents included 280 urban and 248 rural respondents from haryana (india). data has been analyzed through spss. the study used descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and an independent sample t-test as statistical tools for data analysis. the sample size of 535 fulfilled the minimum required criteria of 300 sample size for applying factor analysis (malhotra & dash, 2016). data analysis the collected data was entered in spss 21 for further processing. initially, an exploratory factor analysis approach has been followed to identify the drivers of women entrepreneurship among indian women in the wake of the covid-19 crisis. data adequacy was checked through kmo and bartlett's test. table 1 shows that kmo and bartlett's test value is 0.940, representingmarvelousdata to run exploratory factor analysis (kaiser, 1974). bartlett test of sphericity also supported the factor analysis approach ritu yadav, krishna kumari, chand prakash saini 79 as the data didn't produce any identity matrix (p= 0.000) (george & mallery, 2000). table 1: kmo and bartlett's test kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy. .940 bartlett's test of sphericity approx. chi-square 12459.635 df 351 sig. .000 source: primary data table 2 shows each variable's rotated component matrix and factor loading to their respective factor. the most commonly used methods of extraction and rotation, named principal component analysis and varimax rotation, have been applied for the extraction and rotation of factors (kinnear & gray, 2010; cooper & schindler, 2008). twenty-seven variables were grouped under four factors: under-employment (9 variables); financial motivation (6 variables); knowledge (6 variables), and family responsibility (6 variables). all variables' factor loading was significantly higher than the threshold value of 0.5 (malhotra & dash, 2016). furthermore, the reliability and validity of each construct were evaluated (table 2). cronbach's alpha (α) value for each construct: underemployment (α = .931); financial motivation (α = .914); knowledge (α = .905), and family responsibility (α = .923) was found to be greater than 0.7 and denied any reliability issue. (field, 2009). construct validity was assessed using average variance explained (ave) and composite reliability (cr) using the recommended criteria of malhotra and dash (2016). as per the recommended criteria, ave for each construct must be greater than 0.5, and composite reliability must be greater than 0.7. finally, cr must be greater than ave to prove to construct validity. table 2 depicted that all constructs fulfilled the recommended criteria and proved their validity. 80 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 72-88) table 2: factor extraction; reliability and validity assessment constructs items loadings ave cr is cr>av e cronba ch's alpha (α) f1 under-employment 0.586 0.926 yes .931 ue1 during covid-19 times i felt underemployed. .764 ue2 i feel my talent can better be utilized in my venture. .752 ue3 during the pandemic times, i realized to be an entrepreneur. .747 ue4 i always wanted to start my venture covid-19 proved to be a catalyst. .691 ue5 my family members and reference group made me realize my entrepreneurial bent. .673 ue6 the salary deductions during the pandemic made me realizing underemployed. .632 ue7 i read stories where the underemployed did wonders in the field of entrepreneurship. .620 ue8 i want to prove myself a better entrepreneur than my employer. .615 ue9 the decisions of my employer during covid-19 strengthen my decision to entrepreneurship. .587 f 2 financial motivation .710 .936 yes .914 fm1 the financial crunch during the tough time of covid-19 motivated me to be an entrepreneur. .820 ritu yadav, krishna kumari, chand prakash saini 81 constructs items loadings ave cr is cr>av e cronba ch's alpha (α) fm2 i felt the need to contribute to finances during covid-19. .817 fm3 whatever i need financially can be achieved through entrepreneurship. .771 fm4 the financial independence of entrepreneurs during covid-19 has motivated me to go for entrepreneurship. .752 fm5 i was left with no choice other than entrepreneurship during covid-19. .750 fm6 i tried entrepreneurship parallel to my job during covid-19 to attain financial independence. .662 f3 knowledge .644 .914 yes .905 k1 i believe that i possess the knowledge required for entrepreneurship. .849 k2 i have recently added to my knowledge of entrepreneurship. .763 k3 i will attain the required knowledge in due course of entrepreneurship. .729 k4 my skill set is more suitable for entrepreneurship. .704 k5 entrepreneurship provides an opportunity to think about growth during unprecedented times like this. .687 k6 collaborating with knowledgeable people is easier in entrepreneurship. .554 82 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 72-88) constructs items loadings ave cr is cr>av e cronba ch's alpha (α) f4 family responsibility .584 .892 yes .923 fr1 my family responsibilities motivate me to go for entrepreneurship. .766 fr2 my role in the family and covid-19 collectively motivate me to go for entrepreneurship. .757 fr3 i feel i will be able to fulfill my family's needs through entrepreneurship only. .685 fr4 the present situation of my family during the pandemic can be sorted with entrepreneurship only. .659 fr5 as an entrepreneur, i will have more time to bear my family's responsibilities. .615 fr6 the flexibility offered by entrepreneurship motivates me to opt for entrepreneurship. .558 (note: ave – average variance explained; crcomposite reliability, ue underemployment; fmfinancial motivation; kknowledge; frfamily responsibility) source: primary data the contribution of each factor in total variance for indian women's intention toward entrepreneurship in the wake of the covid-19 crisis was displayed in table 3. it was found that a total of four factors, namely, underemployment, financial motivation, knowledge, and family responsibility, explained 70.01 %of entrepreneurship motive, representing a significant percentage of variance explained by entrepreneurship motive. variance explained more than 50% is considered a good value (malhotra & dash, 2016). ritu yadav, krishna kumari, chand prakash saini 83 table 3: percentage of variance explained s.no. factors % of variance explained cumulative % 1 under-employment 21.29 21.29 2 financial motivation 17.20 38.49 3 knowledge 16.90 55.40 4 family responsibility 14.60 70.01 source: primary data furthermore, the study targeted to determine any significant impact of location, i.e., rural and urban, on entrepreneurship motives among indian women in the wake of the covid-19 crisis or whether women in urban and rural significantly differ in their entrepreneurship motives. table 4 shows the results of the independent sample t-test to measure the entrepreneurship motives for rural and urban indian women. an independent sample t-test is considered an appropriate statistical tool for comparing the means of two groups (malhotra, 2009). results of the independent sample t-test (table 4) highlighted that all the entrepreneurial motives, knowledge (t= 3.742; p = 0.000), financial motive (t = 2.466; p = 0.014), family responsibility (t = 4.315; p = 0.000); underemployment (t = 4.814; p = 0.000) were significantly different among rural and urban women population. table 4 further depicted that knowledge as an entrepreneurial motive works more on urban women as the urban women's mean score of 2.7905 was higher than rural women's score of 2.4583. the second factor, financial motivation, was also a strong motivator for urban women, as their mean score of 3.2250 was more significant than the 3.0175 mean scores of rural women. the third motive, family responsibility, was a motivator for urban women as the mean score of urban women was 2.8595, which seems higher than that of rural women's mean score of 2.5067. finally, the fourth motive, under-employment, was also considered a significant motivator for women entrepreneurship among urban women (x̅ = 3.1825) compared to rural women (2.8038). thus, financial motivation was found to be the strongest motive for rural and urban women, followed by unemployment, family responsibility and knowledge. it was found in the study that the mean value of all factors was higher among urban women compared to rural women. that implied that urban women were highly motivated by all these factors to choose entrepreneurship as a career compared to rural women. 84 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 72-88) table 4: entrepreneurial motives among rural and urban women determinants area n mean std. deviation t – statistic df signifi cance (2-tailed) knowledge urban 280 2.7905 1.05643 3.742 526 0.000 rural 248 2.4583 .97255 financial motivation urban 280 3.2250 1.03444 2.466 526 0.014 rural 248 3.0175 .87983 family responsibility urban 280 2.8595 1.02522 4.315 526 0.000 rural 248 2.5067 .82782 underemploy ment urban 280 3.1825 .96673 4.814 526 0.000 rural 248 2.8038 .82352 (note: results of lavene's test for homogeneity of variances (p>0.05) supported the equal variance assumed between both conditions) source: primary data finding and discussion the study explored factors that motivate indian women to choose entrepreneurship as a career in the wake of the covid-19 crisis. this study identified four motivators: knowledge, financial motivation, family responsibility, and under-employment, that motivated women during the covid-19 crisis to start a business and choose entrepreneurship as a career among rural and urban populations. all these factors collectively explained more than 70% of entrepreneurship motives. previous research of singh and sengupta (1985); darrene, harpel and mayer (2008) also accepted knowledge as a significant motivator for self-employment through innovative ideas. research by prakash et al. (2021); singh et al. (2011) favored financial motivation as a significant predictor of entrepreneurial intention. family responsibility is also considered a significant determinant of women's entrepreneurship intention in the previous research of singh et al. (2011). conversely to the study's results, previous research by singh and belwal (2008) considered family responsibility a barrier to women's entrepreneurship. research by anggadwita et al. (2017) considered underemployment as an entrepreneurial motive during the covid-19 pandemic. entrepreneurial motivators were found to be significantly different among ritu yadav, krishna kumari, chand prakash saini 85 rural and urban populations in the study of kani and helen (2019) and mulla (2021). conclusion the study found that indian women are motivated to start a business due to four reasons mainly a) they have the relevant knowledge to start a business, b) they want to earn financial motivation through the profit of running their own business, and c) they have family responsibility and d) face the difficulty of underemployment due to covid-19 crisis. covid-19 has deeply impacted ordinary people's lives in developing countries as it caused job loss during the country's lockdown. women have found entrepreneurship an essential career as it makes people self-reliant and provides more significant opportunities for women’s empowerment. the indian government has taken up many initiatives to boost the entrepreneurial spirit among people. it is required that women-specific small businesses be supported by financial assistance, technical know-how, and market promotion. women's entrepreneurship requires serious consideration from the government and policymaking. while designing industrial policy or economic policy, the government needs to promote women's participation in economic activities. this can be done when women are given proper financial and marketing management training to help their businesses. also, banks and other financial institutions need excellent financial provisions for women entrepreneurs. references [1] agarwal, s., and lenka, u. 2014. “a conceptual framework for women entrepreneurs: problems and prospects.” advances in economics and business management, 1(3): 155-159. 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[44] surti, k. and sarupria, d. 1983. “psychological factors affecting women entrepreneurs: some findings.” indian journal of social work. 44(3): 287– 295 article history: received: june 25th, 2022 accepted: march 9th, 2023 https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/215739 https://doi.org/10.1108/17542410810858321 https://doi.org/10.1108/17542410810858321 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.12.pp110-130 jel: j60, o150 original scientific paper 5bidentifying the sources of work-family conflict among women entrepreneurs in iran arghavan rafiaie16 f1 mohsen farhadinejad1 7f2 meisam modarresi1 8f3 faculty of economics, management and administrative sciences, semnan university, semnan, iran a b s t r a c t the purpose of this paper is to identify the sources of work-family conflict among iranian women entrepreneurs and bridge the academic gap in this area. in this regard, the paper tries to employ opportunityand necessity-driven entrepreneurship theory. the qualitative approach was used by conducting 15 indepth interviews with iranian women entrepreneurs in the semnan province. according to the results, sources of work-family conflict for iranian women entrepreneurs were categorized into: social, cultural, family, and personal categories. these sources are different from opportunityand necessity-driven iranian women entrepreneurs. key words: work-family conflict, sources of work-family conflict, iranian 1 e-mail: arghavanrafi@yahoo.com 2 e-mail: farhadi@semnan.ac.ir 3 corresponding author, e-mail: mmodarresi@semnan.ac.ir arghavan rafiaie, mohsen farhadinejad, meisam modarresi 111 introduction entrepreneurial activities were dominated by men in the past. until the late seventies, women did not occupy managerial or entrepreneurial positions. with changes that revolutionized the male-dominated workplace, women entered the market in developing countries (agarwal & garg, 2017). as a result, special attention has been paid to women entrepreneurs in many developing countries, such as pakistan, india, malaysia, indonesia, etc., who in turn have played a significant role in increasing national income, prosperity and improving the economic situation of these countries (adrien et al., 1999). the conditions under which iranian women live can be one of the main causes that give rise to less reliable businesses compared to men. for example, if a man feels that his wife will soon become financially and emotionally independent as a result of establishing a business, this might affect their marital relationship. today, it is fairly easy for a man to accept that his wife works outside the home, but owning a business is another matter. money, independence, control, and many of the resulting challenges cause different obstacles and conflicts for women entrepreneurs (ling & kim, 2001). in fact, one of the issues that has surfaced with the increase in women's participation in entrepreneurship is increased conflict in workfamily responsibilities as the most important challenge facing these women (boz et al., 2015). stressful conflicts between work and home may cause the individual to experience stress, which may affect their participation at work. this interference is usually known as an excessive negative feeling of one domain that is carried over to the other one. for example, the anxiety and burnout caused by playing a role in one area make it difficult to correctly play a role in another area. work environment and home features can be major sources of conflict (demerouti et al., 2007). despite the expansion of women's entrepreneurial activities in recent years, entrepreneurship rates for women and the growth rate of businesses run by women are very low. according to the global entrepreneurship monitor, the proportion of women entrepreneurs to men in iran is 54 (kelley et al., 2015). this indicates that entrepreneurial activities by iranian women are almost half of their male counterparts. business stabilization rate for women is 5% compared to men, which is 23% (kelley et al., 2015). one of the causes of this is the institutional norms of the iranian society because, like some societies, family responsibilities in iran are generally borne by women, and men rarely take part in activities such as cooking or parenting. in addition to 112 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 110-130) causing worries and work-related stress, these tasks and roles can limit the time dedicated to a business (modarresi et al., 2017). despite the significance of the issue and the focus of previous studies (arasti, 2006) on the identification of increasing conflict between the work and family of iranian female entrepreneurs, the issue has been neglected so far. so, this research seeks to answer this question: what are the sources of work-family conflict among iranian female entrepreneurs from the perspective of female entrepreneurs? work-family conflict sources in women work-family conflict is one of the major challenges facing female entrepreneurs. work-family conflicts are defined as conflicts in which the prerequisites of family roles are incompatible with the requirements at home, and participation in one distracts the other (higgins et al., 1992). one of the topics of interest to researchers was psychological issues that arose because of these conflicts, which tell us about individual problems in balancing and reducing the conflict between work and home (sheikh et al., 2018). the most important effect of these conflicts is on the satisfaction of working women (erkmen and esen, 2014). work and life satisfaction are two components of individual health that affect a female entrepreneur’s behavior, such as depression, dysthymia, anxiety, stress, mental health (parasurman & simmers, 1995), and their children's life and education (ahmad, 1996). individual perfectionism is another component that has been considered a lot. the tendency of a working woman to be the best employee, best wife and/or best mother is one of the effects of perfectionism, which is closely related to the level of work-family conflict (burns & deuling, 2017). in recent years, with changes in economic growth and more familiarity with entrepreneurship, and the increase in the number of women entrepreneurs in communities, work-family conflicts have come to be considered as one of the barriers to entrepreneurial business growth. with more women entering the realm of entrepreneurship, its concept has also been categorized according to gender because, compared to men, women entrepreneurs always face various limitations and problems. research on obstacles facing women entrepreneurs in different countries shows that there are three barrier categories. the first category consists of barriers that any entrepreneur may experience, irrespective of gender. the second category consists of barriers that are more severe for women entrepreneurs due to family, social and legal conditions. in addition, the arghavan rafiaie, mohsen farhadinejad, meisam modarresi 113 third category includes barriers that only female entrepreneurs may experience (hughes et al., 2012). obviously, these obstacles are more intense for women entrepreneurs in developing than in developed countries. in this regard, studies have investigated the role of various factors such as culture, social values and beliefs, religion, social norms and state-supportive laws in reducing work-family conflict as one of the most important obstacles for women entrepreneurs (roomi et al., 2009). in the study of the sources of work-family conflict for women entrepreneurs, a number of factors have been investigated, such as working hours, the flexibility of work schedule, occupational stress (kim & ling, 2001), ethnicity, age, the type of business (mahpul & abdullah, 2011), investment size, education (heilbrunn & davidovitch, 2011), number and age of children (abdullah&mahpul, 2005; heilbrunn & davidovitch, 2011; aycan, 2011) and housework (kim&ling, 2001). opportunity and necessity-driven female entrepreneurs in 2001, the global entrepreneurship monitor defined two distinct groups for the concept of entrepreneurship: necessity and opportunitydriven entrepreneurship. the distinction between the two groups is the motivation to start a business (reinold et al., 2002). opportunity-driven entrepreneurs establish a business to monetize an opportunity and make a profit, i.e., motivations such as income, independence, etc., are the starting point of their business. on the other hand, necessity-driven entrepreneurs establish a business based on needs or push incentives such as financial and unemployment problems. based on the motivation to enter a business, entrepreneurial women fall into the same two groups of opportunity and necessity-driven entrepreneurs, and the above definitions are independent of gender (block & wagner, 2010). it is considered one of the appropriate theories to explain the state of women's entrepreneurship (dhar et al., 2022). due to the economic conditions and sanctions imposed on iran, the annual rate of opportunity-driven entrepreneurship has been constant. on the contrary, necessity-driven entrepreneurship has had an increasing trend. the opportunity-driven entrepreneurship rate for women is almost twice the rate for necessity-driven entrepreneurship (70.5 versus 38.2). while the overall entrepreneurship rate for women is less than half the entrepreneurship rate for men, the gap is significant compared to many other countries (zali, 2015). 114 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 110-130) conditions of iranian female entrepreneurs according to the latest census in iran in 2016, iran's population is 79 million, of which 51 percent are male, and 49 percent are women (iran's statistical yearbook, 2016). meanwhile, the latest statistics on university admissions in 2018 show that 59% of the applicants were female, compared to 40% male. changes in lifestyle and the self-assurance of iranian women today have increased women’s desire to have higher education and accept roles other than motherhood. despite their efforts, their economic participation rates are still far lower than men’s. in recent years, the country has witnessed a massive wave of women seeking to engage in entrepreneurship in pursuit of financial and social independence, selfreliance, and being in charge of the household, and the use of online social networks has helped a lot to improve their business (bouzari et al., 2021). moreover, some women entrepreneurs have entered new areas of digital businesses (salamzadeh & ramadani, 2021). however, due to the economic conditions of the society and sanctions, the rate of entrepreneurship, including the rate of start-ups in iran, declined from 13% in 2017 to 10% in 2018. however, this culture of entrepreneurship among young people, especially those with a university education, has attracted a lot of attention. having an average level of income in the world, iran has an entrepreneurial activity rate of 6.6 and ranks 32nd among 48 countries. meanwhile, with respect to entrepreneurship opportunities for women in 2018, iran ranks 30th among 48 countries (bosma & kelly, 2019). these statistics show that despite the efforts of women to have higher education and presence in society and the role they play in the economy, there are still many problems on their way that prevent them from exploiting increasing entrepreneurial opportunities. a survey of the gender gap index in countries shows that iran ranks last among 149 countries. in iran, the pressure posed by these challenges is very high for female entrepreneurs. house chores and the disapproval of family members about working outside are among the most important challenges for iranian female entrepreneurs (modarresi et al., 2017). methodology the present research is applied in terms of purpose and uses a qualitative methodology for data collection. therefore, the following question aims at identifying the sources of labor-family conflict for iranian arghavan rafiaie, mohsen farhadinejad, meisam modarresi 115 women entrepreneurs as a topic that has been neglected in iran. so, interviews were conducted with iranian female entrepreneurs. interviews are a common tool for collecting information through direct verbal interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee (cohen & manion, 1986). thus, we can attain a deeper understanding of the subjects (here female entrepreneurs), attitudes, behaviors, value systems, concerns, motivations, cultures and lifestyles (modarresi et al., 2016). sampling and data collection the statistical population of the research includes female entrepreneurs in the semnan province engaged in industry, economics, knowledge-based firms, services, agriculture, animal husbandry, tourism, manufacturing and handicrafts. they had established their entrepreneurial efforts in different cities and villages of the semnan province, which were especially related to agriculture, husbandry and handicrafts. they had a minimum of 3-5 years of experience "from the start of the business”, which is the length of time needed for a business to grow, according to the criterion defined by gem. this criterion for business growth was considered because female entrepreneurs who own growing businesses are more likely to experience work-family conflict than their counterparts. therefore, they were assumed to provide more and better information in this regard. the characteristics of the statistical population are presented in table 1. table 1: demography of the interviewees frequency age below 30 1 30-40 6 40-50 2 over 50 6 education under high school 4 high school 3 undergraduate & graduate 6 phd 2 marital status single 1 married 11 divorced 3 widowed 116 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 110-130) frequency children none 2 one 7 two 2 more than two 4 work type handcraft 5 services 1 agriculture & animal husbandry 2 production & industries 6 knowledge-based 1 data analysis in this research, semi-structured and purposeful interviews (15 interviews) were conducted for data collection. the interview questions were extracted based on the statement of the problem and the related literature in order to formulate a framework for the interviews. the process of data collection was stopped when theoretical saturation was achieved and similar qualitative findings were found (rao & perry, 2003). the analysis of the interviews and data was done using coding and content analysis. to achieve qualitative validity, the coding was reviewed and approved by several individuals. findings the findings from interviews were coded and classified into three stages: 1) identification of evidence and summarization of qualitative evidence, 2) identification of the basic concepts, and 3) identification of the categories. as a result, 201 open codes were identified that were categorized into four main sources of conflict: occupational, family, personal and sociocultural. table 3 shows the findings at this stage. work-family conflict with occupational sources one of the common sources of conflict for women entrepreneurs pertains to their jobs, which may entail long working hours and not having enough time for attending to personal matters, stress caused by responsibilities entrusted to them, working on holidays, and financial arghavan rafiaie, mohsen farhadinejad, meisam modarresi 117 disputes in families who have established family cooperatives. long working hours that result in self-sacrifice by the female entrepreneur and dedication of all the time that is left to her for children and her husband is one of the sources of conflict for female entrepreneurs. despite financial success, female entrepreneurs have no time for themselves. zahra, a 37year-old entrepreneur, who spent six years in business, points this out: “i am a very disciplined person. i am a planner. my husband admits that i have managed to do all house chores like a homemaker. but in the end, i put myself last. when other ladies are shopping and hanging out, i dedicate my time to my family and doing unfinished house chores. however, numerous other women mentioned a lack of time to help their children with school homework and doing house chores, which is a result of their long working hours. moreover, the differences and conflicts at work affect their mood at home and may change their behavior with their husbands and children. stress from work responsibilities is another source of conflict faced by female entrepreneurs. soheila, a fifty-two-year-old entrepreneur, and the head of a manufacturing and industrial factory says: “being an entrepreneur requires a lot of patience. i myself was more good-tempered 10 years ago. now i know what stress we, entrepreneurs, go through. on the 26th day of every month, all i’m worried about whether i will be able to pay my employees or not. for me, it's all stress.” maryam, 28, mother to a child, and an entrepreneur in the field of agriculture and animal husbandry, commented on the allocation of holidays to work: “i study and take care of my child. so, holidays are a good time to work. my husband can help me with the technical stuff." the most important area of conflict for women, who create family cooperatives for some reason (e.g., lack of financial and/or family support), is family disputes over work and financial issues. maryam, 28, who has made a family cooperative on agricultural land and animal husbandry through family support, states: “as a family-run cooperative, we are always on the lookout for a series of family frustrations related to financial matters. we try to always keep squabbles to the least, but there is always something. for example, my 118 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 110-130) father is old. he says something, then i say, for example: “dad, it’s not like this”, and he gets upset. he says he has the experience, and he knows what to do. but we want to do something modern, to do something new." work-family conflicts with familial sources family is the source of many conflicts, including the loss of many job opportunities because family members put family before work. on the other hand, the spouse, children and their age, and the family's disapproval at the outset of the work are other sources for this type of conflict. while many female entrepreneurs face a lot of difficulties and hardships to keep their business up and running, in many cases, for example, by spending more time with family, they lose opportunities. monireh, a fifty-nine-year-old mother with three children and an entrepreneur in the field of handicrafts, says: "once, there was a fair in oman and they [cultural heritage, handicrafts and tourism organization of iran] said that they could make arrangements for me to go there and sell my products. i said that it was the new year holidays and that i could not leave the kids and go. pity... i lost it." the examination of the sources of conflict related to the spouse is widespread and significant. this research classified them into: a) the conditions of the husband, which caused problems for women entrepreneurs, and included his addiction, unemployment, behavioral issues, and illness. many of these lead to financial and livelihood problems; b) husband’s dissatisfaction or verbal confrontation about home grooming and meal preparation and childcare, or behavioral and mental problems as a result of the achievements of the women and their financial independence and positions. fahimeh, 27, an industrial sector entrepreneur with two children under 10 states: “i didn’t find my own way. please tell me if you found a solution! when a woman is successful, becomes the center of attention, and earns a higher income, etc., her husband begins to envy her, and this causes problems. when you start to earn more income, they just stop being supportive! when a man is successful, his wife is proud of arghavan rafiaie, mohsen farhadinejad, meisam modarresi 119 him, and she supports him. but i don’t know why when a woman is successful, her husband cuts off his support.” according to numerous women, young children are with their mothers at work for some hours of the day. at first glance, it might be easy to neglect this issue. however, after some questions into the interview, it became evident that this occasionally causes stress for mothers and leads to incidents for children and, hence, the husband's dissatisfaction. this kind of conflict was, of course, not observed with women whose children were older. on the contrary, women with adult children benefit from their support and assistance in house chores and even in business (interviewee 4). however, younger children are a major concern for women. with women who had begun their entrepreneurial efforts before marriage, part of the conflicts was related to their families. these women argued that, in addition to long hours of work, among other issues, families believe most businesses take so long to become profitable and prefer a job with fixed working hours and a specific salary. this goes against the concept of entrepreneurship, where a reliable income is not ensured. of course, this is true in the early years of work when the entrepreneur has not achieved profitability yet. this conflict can also be categorized under cultural conflicts. however, as the main pressure here was from the family, the author considered it a family conflict. work-family conflicts with a personal origin all the female entrepreneurs interviewed ranged in age from 28 to 60 years. for people over 50, the inability to work due to physical issues and overwork was the main personal conflict. monireh, 59, said: “i have sciatica and a herniated disk. although i like to do the tasks myself, i have to suffice to only manage the work. i try to train young women to learn the weaving profession to help preserve it. would be a pity if it died away." on the other hand, in terms of behavior, female entrepreneurs in the industry have acquired a violent and masculine temperament. their children sometimes compare their mothers’ behavior with the softer behavior of other mothers and complain. soheila, an entrepreneur in the industry, believes: “this environment has made me a more violent and more serious person than my sister. this change naturally affects my family, too; i’d say 120 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 110-130) the way my sister deals with her daughter is different than the way i do, and this is because of what i do." work-family conflicts with socio-cultural origins some women argue that family support is highly influenced by their gender perspective. a son is provided with various types of support, while it is very limited with daughters. if i hadn’t insisted, if i was not determined, i’m sure my family would have stopped me from doing what i was doing because i was a girl. when you're a boy, they support you. maybe, they even give you some money to start. if you fail as a boy, they back you because you have to provide for a family. but for a woman, entrepreneurship is baseless! (interviewee no. 5) insecurity at work is another problem, which is the result of the discriminatory view of society towards women. insecurity occurs in the forms of verbal abuse, harassment at work, creating obstacles, and leaving women out of deals and contracts. a single mother with one child and recently divorced because of her husband's addiction and violence, somayeh runs her own bakery. she says, "before starting my business, i worked with lots of men in a company. their behavior was not new to me. but in a company like that, you deal with at most 20 men a day. today, i'm dealing with 1,000 people every day. some men flirt and say unpleasant things to you and it's hard. after a while, i got accustomed to it. i thought to myself that there is no shame in working. i just ignored them.” another woman working in the industrial field, the ceo of a large factory, said: it was hard for me because they hardly accepted me as their ceo or as an artisan. a week ago, a colleague brought me a letter from the industrial managers association. i knew they had our names, but in the letter, they had addressed me with the title “mr.”. in meetings, if they realize that the manager or ceo of a firm is a woman, they will not even consider the quality and blatantly ignore your product because they prefer to talk and do business with men. (interviewee no. 6). arghavan rafiaie, mohsen farhadinejad, meisam modarresi 121 table 3: coding of the comments obtained from the interviews sources of work-family conflict main codes open codes interviewee code occupational sources the negative effect of occupational issues 1,4,5,6,13,14 not dedicating time to oneself 2,3,4,5,6,7,14,15 having a busy schedule 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,13,14 work stress resulting from workplace tasks 4,5,6,7,15 working at holidays 2,3,10,13,14 financial disputes in family businesses 3,11 differences of opinion in family businesses 3 family sources losing a work opportunity to stay with family 1,14 spouse's dissatisfaction with work conditions 7,14 spouse's special conditions 2,5,12,13,14 children's condition during work hours 2,7,8,9,11,12,14 not being accepted and/or supported by family at the beginning 5 personal sources old-age-related loss of physical functions 1,9 adopting fierce masculine behavior 4,6 socio-cultural sources discrimination of the family towards family members when supporting their businesses 2,5,6,7,14 insecurity resulting from living in a maledominated society and facing unconventional behavior from men 2,3,4,5,6,14,15 diagram 1. the model extracted from the qualitative data occupational sources: long work hours inflexible work schedule work stress family business family sources: having too many children parenting younger children not being supported by family personal sources: entrepreneur’s age marital status education fierce masculine work environment workfamily conflicts socio-cultural sources gender discrimination by family and friends discriminative beliefs in society insecurity of women in society 122 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 110-130) results and discussion to identify the sources of work-family conflict among the iranian female entrepreneurs, 15 semi-structured interviews were done with the respondents. according to the results, work-family conflicts were classified into four groups: occupational, family, personal, and socio-cultural. occupational conflicts, long working hours, not dedicating enough time to oneself, and occupational stress were mentioned by most interviewees. financial and personal differences with family members were among the identified codes in this part, not mentioned by women. in the case of familyrelated matters, the most important factor leading to a conflict was children. young children and parenting issues were the most important challenge for women, and then factors related to the spouse played a significant role. in the family dimension, dissatisfaction of the husbands and families with the women entrepreneurs’ work was another case mentioned by the women, which was much less mentioned by the respondents. in the social dimension, societal insecurity and unconventional behavior by men were the main sources of conflict. it seems that this is affected by the patriarchal culture of society. and finally, in the personal dimension, the impact of a male-dominant work environment, having a harsh disposition, old age, and reduction in activities were the codes that were much less mentioned. the results of this research can be used to contrast the necessity-driven entrepreneurship theory with the opportunity-driven entrepreneurship theory. accordingly, in the first group, in the case of women whose husbands were addicted, unemployed, or sick, financial problems were initially a major factor in self-employment. divorced women or women whose spouses are imprisoned for some reason fall in this group, too. in this group, there were fewer women with higher education, and they mostly held a high school diploma or lower educational degrees. these results are in line with the results of robichchard et al. (2010) and nasiri and hamelinfar (2018). despite the great difficulty, dedication, and long working hours, these women were highly satisfied, and this satisfaction arose from proper living conditions for the growth and education of their children. most of these necessity-driven female entrepreneurs had family businesses. in the second group, i.e., the opportunity-driven entrepreneurs, women had higher education and were engaged in entrepreneurship after registering a patent, offering an applied thesis, being interested in a particular field and being trained in the related courses, having experience in an area, or being retired. arghavan rafiaie, mohsen farhadinejad, meisam modarresi 123 the impact of education on women's growth has been emphasized in previous studies (wenzel & beck-peter, 2020). the same as necessitydriven entrepreneurs, this group of women had a high level of job satisfaction. however, the nature of satisfaction was different; it was the result of gaining a high status in society. robichaud et al. (2010) found similar results in the survey of female entrepreneurs in canada. the greatest difference between the two groups of iranian female entrepreneurs was family conflicts and those related to the spouse. the husbands' dissatisfaction with necessity-driven entrepreneurs was mainly related to not doing house chores and parenting duties. however, in the second group, husbands were not dissatisfied and, in many cases, husbands supported their entrepreneur wives. in the second group, i.e., the opportunity-driven entrepreneurs, when the husband is dissatisfied, there is usually a psychological issue involved. this issue has roots in the wife’s accomplishments and her high income, which lead to behavioral stress. in the beginning, when women start a business, their husbands are supportive. in some cases, men had temporarily left their jobs for parenting. however, husbands may behave differently when female entrepreneurs make a profit and obtain a decent position. it seems that, psychologically, men are not capable of bearing the notable success and income of their wives. that is, men prefer to be the ones with higher incomes and better job positions than their wives. therefore, despite initial encouragement and financial and emotional support, women believe their husbands are dissatisfied with the above condition in cases where they work in the industrial sector and reach high levels of social and financial status. apparently, the idea that women are responsible for housekeeping and childcare is as universal. despite running a business and having an income, married women are still responsible for everything at home. this has been studied in many developing and muslim countries, such as sri lanka, which highlights the lack of cooperation by sri lankan men (kailasapathy & metz , 2011). in the study of iranian female entrepreneurs, women always have the primary responsibility for doing the housework and parenting duties in both groups of opportunityand necessity-driven entrepreneurs. however, in the case of opportunity-driven entrepreneurs, support and engagement of the husband are pointed out to reduce work-family conflicts. in sweden, fathers try to spend more time with their children (hagqvist et al., 2017). this is the case in other developed countries in the arctic circle. although women and men have an equal role to play in terms of income generation, women are responsible for doing the housework (hagqvist et al., 2017). 124 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 110-130) iranian female entrepreneurs have family support in childcare. except for women who were away from their families, other women pointed out that their little children stayed with their parents for some hours of the day. also, 2.38% of turkish female entrepreneurs referred to the role of grandmothers in taking care of their children (aycan & eskin, 2005). this highlights the interplay between family and culture. hill brown and davidovic (2011) compared arab female entrepreneurs with jewish female entrepreneurs and found that arab women, as a result of lower education levels, are more engaged in housework, but have fewer family conflicts. in contrast, jewish female entrepreneurs lack these sources of support and thus experience more conflicts. on the one hand, this shows the role of families in iran. on the other hand, iranian society does not trust strangers to babysit their children at younger ages. therefore, the age of children itself is one of the important factors influencing the level of conflict for women. consistent with the above findings, padma and reddy (2013) found the role of younger children in conflicts to be much more significant than adult children. younger women have younger children and, therefore, need to dedicate more time to them. meanwhile, women in their 40s and above generally have adult children and believe that it has a role to play in experiencing less or no work-family conflicts. the age of children is one of the main parameters studied by hill brown and davidovic (2011). alam et al. (2011), in a study on the sources of work-family conflict for female managers in bangladesh, found that long working hours, therefore, not dedicating time to themselves, and working during holidays are the sources of conflict for bangladeshi women, which is consistent with results found for female entrepreneurs. one of the sources of socio-cultural conflicts shared by all female entrepreneurs is social insecurity. necessity-driven female entrepreneurs complain about the poor opportunist manners of men and their verbal abuse. on the other hand, opportunity-driven female entrepreneurs complain about gender discrimination at work, particularly in industrial occupations, transactions, tenders, etc. the significance of conflicts arising from occupational issues (such as work stress, position and the sensitivity of women) has roots in the earnestness and high sense of responsibility of female entrepreneurs. while caring for children, these women focus on their profession. the examination of the sources of conflict highlights the role of occupational stress in the occurrence of conflicts and not having time for doing housework. kim and ling (2001) found a significant relationship between flexibility and the number of work hours in the occurrence of work arghavan rafiaie, mohsen farhadinejad, meisam modarresi 125 family conflicts among singaporean female entrepreneurs. for women with family-owned cooperatives, the role of financial and subjective conflicts was significant. for other women, this was less significant. in a study on turkish female entrepreneurs, welsh et al. (2016) highlight the key role played by families in supporting women. however, in most cases, particularly in family businesses, this role becomes a matter of decisionmaking, bringing about bigger challenges for women. it seems that the greatest external factors for creating conflict for women are the conditions and the common culture of society. women with different educational levels and occupations (except for home-based businesses) complain about sexual inequality, male harassment and, even in some cases, about families. husbands’ role and their support are highly important in reducing conflicts. men’s role in creating conflicts starts from not supporting their wives emotionally and intellectually. aycan and eskin (2005) also found a negative correlation between spouses’ support with work-family conflicts. the results show that, according to spouses, motherhood duties and childcare should be given preference to household chores. among women over 50 years old, age-related decline in physical function plays a more crucial role. except for women working in industrial sectors, in other cases, the effect of the workplace environment on women’s behavior is insignificant, indicating women’s role at home. as discussed earlier, necessity-driven female entrepreneurs with lower levels of education are involved in entrepreneurship as a result of the financial problems of their spouses. therefore, the main source of conflict in the family dimension is the special conditions of their spouse. in the same vein, the mean conflict level for women with lower levels of education is higher than other women in occupational, family and personal dimensions. only in the socio-cultural dimension, the mean conflict level is higher for women with higher levels of education. the reason is clear; high activity level of home-based businesses for women with lower levels of education and, thus, not having enough relationship with society and men. for other women, however, this is not significant. conflicts for this group of women are changed into financial and intellectual support from their spouses. for this group, i.e., opportunity-driven female entrepreneurs, occupational problems are more significant. the mean conflict level for divorced women is higher for all dimensions. the reason might be caring for children and providing for the family. it is only in the personal dimension that the mean is higher for married women. this might be due to women's responsibilities towards their spouses. while, according to our research, children are an 126 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 110-130) important contributor to conflicts, the number of children can also play a significant role; the mean conflict level is higher in all dimensions for women with more than two children. however, the dominant population of the respondents in this study had only one or two children. limitations and suggestions for further research − the present study has examined iranian women entrepreneurs. it is suggested that this research be conducted in other cultural contexts in the middle east, such as the arab states of the persian gulf. as the middle east is home to ethnic groups with different cultures and traditions, further research could compare the results of similar studies conducted in other countries to achieve a better understanding of the effect of culture, ethnicity, race and religion on work-family conflicts of female entrepreneurs. − moreover, the study of work-family conflicts of female entrepreneurs from a psychological perspective could be the subject of further research. one of the issues pointed out by some women was the support of their spouses at the beginning of their business and the lack of support when the business was growing. this issue can also be examined with a deeper look. based on the results of the research, the following general strategies are presented for reducing work-family conflict for women entrepreneurs: − most of the conflicts of female entrepreneurs is a result of not being capable of differentiating between workplace tasks and house chore. public institutions or ngos could curb this cognitive conflict. − with the increase in the education level of societies, the mindset that house chore has to be done solely by women is fading into irrelevance. however, raising awareness about sharing household chores seems necessary. achieving this in a community requires more attention from public institutions, especially the media and educational bodies. arghavan rafiaie, mohsen farhadinejad, meisam modarresi 127 references 1. adrien, marie-hélène, suzanne kirouac, and alicia sliwinski. 1999. 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"educating girls, educated women, dehomogenizing the impact of education in development" journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 1-2: 103-124. article history: received: february 13th, 2022 accepted: april 12th, 2023 https://www.library.ien.bg.ac.rs/index.php/jwee/issue/view/189 https://www.library.ien.bg.ac.rs/index.php/jwee/issue/view/189 doi: 10.28934/jwee22.12.pp39-60 original scientific paper 2bevaluating the influence of digital technology on the performance of femaleowned enterprises in nigeria habiba shamaki5f1 umar abbas ibrahim6 f2 department of business administration, nile university of nigeria, abuja nnanna azu philemon7f3 department of economics, air force institute of technology, kaduna, nigeria a b s t r a c t the strategic contributions of digital technology in the operations and performance of entrepreneurial ventures are a profound phenomenon, involving continual adaptation to a constantly evolving business environment. this paper examines the influence of digital technology on female-owned enterprises based on customers’ satisfaction in federal capital territory (fct), abuja, nigeria. survey research was employed to derive primary data through the use of structured closed-ended questionnaires from 113 selected female-owned enterprises registered with neca's network of entrepreneurial women (nnew). adopting digital orientation, digital capability and digital transformation as dimensions of the digital technology which is the independent variable, multiple regression was used to measure its impact on customer satisfaction as the dependent variable. findings revealed that the awareness of digitalisation does not suffice to influence business performance, but adopting and adapting to new technology is crucial in creating value addition to meet and exceed customers’ expectations. conclusively, this research establishes the requisite for female-owned enterprises to embrace and exploit the vast potential and significant role that digital technology plays in the 1 corresponding author, e-mail: hshamaki@gmail.com 2 e-mail: abbas.ibrahim@nileuniversity.edu.ng 3 e-mail: phil4azu@yahoo.com 40 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 39-60) enhancement of business performance, for improved strategic competitive advantage and economic development. key words: customer satisfaction, digitalisation, digital capability, digital orientation, digital technology, digital transformation, female enterprises introduction the application of digital technology (dt) in the operations of entrepreneurial ventures across different industries all over the world is a rapidly growing phenomenon (riyanto, primiana, & azis, 2018). as tayibnapis, wuryaningsih and gora (2018) stated, this has become an inevitable tool for increasing the competitive advantage of enterprises, especially in digital economies. globally, the number of internet users tripled in a decade from 1 billion in 2005 to about 3.2 billion in 2015 and 4.66 billion in 2021 (getahun, 2020; siregar & sobari, 2021). in nigeria, as of 2018, the number of internet users had reached 111.6 million out of about 200 million population (abdulkareem, bello, ishola et al., 2020). this figure grew so rapidly that as of 2020, about 143.7 million nigerians were already using the internet (joshua & king, 2020; fadeyi, 2021). this highlights the compelling need for nigerian firms to digitalize their operations in order to access opportunities of the emerging digital economy, where information and business transactions have evolved from physical to virtual (tehubijuluw, 2017). an example of rapid adoption of dt by nigerian firms can be seen in the banking sector where business operations are now rapidly changing from physical cash handling, use of cheques and bank tellers to a cashless system of using debit/credit cards, automated teller machines (atm), electronic funds transfer (eft) and internet banking (castro, 2019). it is also seen in construction management through the use of automated and digital fabrication, digital imaging, sensor technology and digital project management (puolitaival, kestle & kahkonen 2018; meena & parimalarani, 2020). all these are aimed at improved value creation with speed and, ease of doing business (azu et al., 2021). dt leads to digital innovation, which according to khin and ho (2019) is defined as the creation of market offerings, business processes or models that result from the use of dt. according to eremina, lace and bistrova (2019), firms who use dt (that is, digitalisation) easily manage to enhance their competitive habiba shamaki, umar abbas ibrahim, nnanna azu philemon 41 advantage, while those who lag in terms of digitalisation face difficulties in sustaining their marginal profitability. adoption of dt by entrepreneurial firms has led to major improvements such as enhanced customer satisfaction through improved quality of products/services, simplified transactions and payment systems, enhanced communication system and increased profitability (khin & ho, 2019). despite these huge benefits of dt to entrepreneurial firms, studies have highlighted that it is a complex and challenging phenomenon as it involves a continual adaptation to a constantly changing environment (hess, myers & chanias, 2019; kane, 2017). furthermore, digital transformation (integration of digital technology into all operations of an enterprise) is usually confronted with some challenges which include: financial constraints, employees' resistance to change, dearth of professionals to lead the digitisation initiatives, risk-averse culture to change, and the threat of cyber security (kane, 2017; zomer, neely & martinez, 2020). these challenges threaten effective digital transformation (kane, 2017; zomer, neely & martinez, 2020). additionally, female entrepreneurs are faced with some peculiar challenges hindering them from adopting dt, they include: gender stereotyping; exposure to gender-based violence and discrimination, and lastly limited access to financial services (zomer, neely & martinez, 2020; ong et al., 2020). these challenges could slow down the growth rate and customer satisfaction of female-owned enterprises. customers' satisfaction increases as more of their expectations are met, leading to customer loyalty (nowicka, 2020). with the current digital awareness in society, consumer behaviour is rapidly changing with increased expectations of value for money amongst customers (lam & law, 2019; nowicka, 2020). meeting these expectations competitively has become problematic owning to the myriad of challenges confronting the significantly growing number of female entrepreneurs (lam & law, 2019; guinan, parise & langowitz, 2019). in view of the above and considering the strategic contributions of female-owned enterprises to the economic development of abuja, nigeria, it is deemed necessary to investigate the phenomenon of how dt impacts the performance of selected female-owned enterprises, using customer satisfaction as the indicator for measuring performance. to achieve this broad aim, this study formulated three specific objectives as follows: i) to determine the impact of digital orientation on customer satisfaction; ii) to ascertain the impact of digital capability on customer satisfaction and; iii) to establish the impact of digital transformation on customer satisfaction. furthermore, this study's research 42 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 39-60) questions intended to be answered by the researcher include the following: i) what is the impact of digital orientation on customer satisfaction?; ii) to what extent does digital capability affect customer satisfaction? and lastly; iii) is there any relationship between digital transformation and customer satisfaction? in order to achieve this study’s objectives, the following hypotheses were tested: ho1: digital orientation has no significant impact on customer satisfaction. ho2: digital capability has no significant impact on customer satisfaction. ho3: digital transformation has no significant impact on customer satisfaction. the remaining part of this study is structured to begin with review of related literature which presents the various ways that prior studies have conceptualised the main variables of this study, “digital technology” and “firm performance” in the context of female entrepreneurship including a description of the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of the study. this was followed by research methodology, presentation of results and discussion of findings, and then conclusion. literature review concept of digital technology digital technology (dt) is defined from a broad perspective as computer-based systems with the purpose of handling digital information (idris, 2019). according to abbott (2015) and castro (2019), dt involves the process of creating, collecting and processing of digital information. khin and ho (2019) also submitted that dt represents any device that functions using a binary computational code (as in laptops, computers and smartphones) as well as in other related services like the internet, social networking and wi-fi (idris, 2019; castro, 2019). some examples of dt have been highlighted to include computer programs and software, web pages and websites, including social media, data and databases (idris, 2019; khin & ho, 2019). the application of dt cuts across different industries and aspects of human endeavours, making it possible for the same technology to be adopted for different purposes depending on the users' needs; the peculiarity of industry is therefore key in conceptualising dt. for example, puolitaival et al. (2018) while defining dt came to the conclusion that there is no consensus within the construction management discipline on the definition of dt. however, the study added that there is a long list of digital technologies used in the discipline which includes digital imaging, habiba shamaki, umar abbas ibrahim, nnanna azu philemon 43 mobile solutions, monitoring and control technology, sensor technology, automated and digital fabrication, and digital project management (puolitaival et al., 2018). puolitaival et al. (2018) further highlighted the fact that the application of all these technologies and many more is what defines dt in the industry. similarly, in the field of education, dt is seen as the process whereby the teacher or learner uses digital equipment such as a computer (laptop, mobile phones, televisions, mp3 player or tablet) in accessing digital tools (like learning platforms and virtual learning environments) to improve their knowledge and skills (sharif & senin, 2020). the digital tools (used to promote e-learning) when effectively used assist in building such skills as interactivity, critical thinking and collaboration among teachers and learners in the field of education (sharif & senin, 2020). in the context of this study, dt is conceptualised as the electronic tools, systems and resources (like computers, social media, mobile phones and internet) that are used to increase the internal capabilities of an enterprise in executing its core operations (sharif & senin, 2020). in today's competitive business environment, delivering value to customers and meeting their expectations competitively requires the adoption of some level of digital technology (sharif & senin, 2020). similarly, for businesses to be able to integrate digital technologies into their operations, they need to have three things (which have been adopted as the dimensions of digital technology in this study), they include: digital orientation (do), digital capabilities (dc) and digital transformation (khin & ho, 2019). these dimensions are discussed below. digital orientation digital orientation is generally the willingness and ability of an enterprise to acquire a reasonable technological background and to use it in the development of new products (khin & ho, 2019; elnagar, aronovich & kusnoto, 2020). such enterprises welcome new technologies that help to improve their efficiency and productivity (aboobaker & zakkariya, 2019; elnagar et al., 2020). in the context of this study, digital orientation is defined as an enterprise’s commitment towards the application of digital technology in achieving innovative products, services, and solutions (aboobaker & zakkariya, 2019; elnagar et al., 2020). effective digital orientation does not only guarantee increased responsiveness to technological changes, but also ignites the awareness and willingness to 44 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 39-60) create innovative digital solutions. studies have found that enterprises that have superior digital orientation achieve a greater level of products/service innovation because they are more disposed to using new technologies (alam, erdiaw-kwasie, shahiduzzaman & ryan, 2018; khin & ho, 2019). digital capability this study defines digital capability as a business enterprise’s talent, skill and expertise deployed to manage digital technologies for new product development and other operations of the enterprise (levallet & chan, 2018; yasa, ekawati & rahmayanti, 2019). according to sandberg, mathiassen and napier (2014), the digital capability of a firm refers to the firm's routine strategies that create differential values using digital assets. digital assets in this context refer to the available information technology (it) resources, knowledge of it design and competencies to effectively implement itdriven operations (sandberg, mathiassen and napier, 2014). two critical digital capabilities have been identified as critical for a successful digital transformation, they include: i) a well-developed information management capability and ii) a flexible it infrastructure (levallet & chan, 2018; yasa et al., 2019). digital transformation generally, digital transformation involves the adoption of new digital technologies to enable major business improvements in such areas as: organisational structure and processes, value creation, enhanced quality of products and services and better customer experience (heavin & power 2018; maiwald, 2020). there are two perspectives to digital transformation, the first is migration from a manual or analog process to a digital process, while the second involves upgrading an existing digital process to a new one (heavin & power 2018; maiwald, 2020; fachrunnisa et al., 2020). in view of the foregoing, digital transformation is conceptualised in this study as the adoption of digital technologies (smartphones, computer systems, internet and social media platforms) to businesses, through replacing manual processes with digital processes, or replacing older digital technologies with newer ones (heavin & power 2018; fachrunnisa et al., 2020; lee & cho, 2020). for enterprises to acquire a strategic advantage in an emerging digital economy like that of nigeria, digital transformation is an important requirement as it brings about: improvement in employee speed of habiba shamaki, umar abbas ibrahim, nnanna azu philemon 45 performance through automated processes, increased productivity, informed decisions based on accurate data, time-saving, cost reduction and, innovative products and services (shash & pshembayeva, 2019; kretschmer & khashabi, 2020; maiwald, 2020). female entrepreneurship and digital technology globally, there is a growing involvement of women in entrepreneurial activities cutting across various aspects of human endeavour. different scholars have therefore defined the concept of female entrepreneurship from different perspectives; for example, female entrepreneurship has been defined as the processes by which women start and/or run their businesses (kirobo, 2015; zizile & tendai, 2018). however, other scholars give a more expanded definition by highlighting two major criteria for identifying women entrepreneurial activities, namely: the extent of women contribution to equity and, the employment positions of the enterprise occupied by women (kirobo, 2015; zizile & tendai, 2018; deng, et al., 2020). this second group of scholars, therefore, defined female entrepreneurship as an enterprise owned and controlled by a woman having a minimum financial interest of 51 per cent of the capital and giving at least 51 per cent of the employment generated by the enterprise to women (kapur, 2016; deng et al., 2020). the focus is not only on the ownership and control of the enterprise but also on the workforce, stressing that at least 51 per cent of the enterprise’s workforce must be made up of women (kapur, 2016; deng et al., 2020). in the context of this study, female entrepreneurship is conceptualized as the establishment and running of enterprises owned, managed and controlled by women who deploy resources (including digital technology) to create value for their customers in a creative and innovative manner (sharma & kulshrestha, 2019). in view of the above, female entrepreneurs are those women or groups of women who initiate, organise and run a business enterprise creatively and innovatively (kapur, 2016, sharma & kulshrestha, 2019). they bear the financial, administrative and social risks of an enterprise and they also sometimes take part in the day-today management of the enterprise (kapur, 2016; deng et al., 2020). digital technology is a global phenomenon that has now become a critical success factor for the advancement of female entrepreneurship (pergelova, et al, 2019). it provides female entrepreneurs with the strategic advantage of overcoming a range of challenges that are peculiar to them (pergelova et al., 2019). according to popovic-pantic, semenčenko and 46 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 39-60) vasilic (2020), united nations conference on trade and development (unctad) identified some benefits that dt bring to female-owned enterprises, they include the fact that dt: reduces transaction costs through electronic platforms; increases access to market information; facilitates improved communication in the value chain; and guarantees better customer satisfaction (unctad, 2014; pergelova et al., 2019; popovic-pantic et al., 2020). furthermore, despite the identified huge benefits of dt to female entrepreneurs, there is a striking gender imbalance between male and female entrepreneurs in terms of access to, and adoption of dt, with the men having more access (unctad, 2014; popovic-pantic et al., 2020; felstead, 2019). a recent study by unctad in the context of selected african countries (tanzania, uganda and nigeria) identified a few factors as being responsible for the gender imbalance in dt access and adoption, they include: the social status of women compared to men; traditional roles of women in the society, ability to own property and other legal rights and poor access to business support services for female entrepreneurs (unctad, 2014; popovic-pantic et al., 2020). in nigeria, most female entrepreneurs (especially those in the rural areas) have identified dt as an opportunity, but lack the digital literacy to exploit it (felstead, 2019; rai, 2019). this is a result of poor representation of women in disciplines that facilitate functioning in the digital world (felstead, 2019; rai, 2019) firm performance firm performance measures the overall outcome and goal achievement of a firm both in financial and non-financial terms over a particular period of time (kegoro, akoyo & otieno, 2020; husnain, islam & ali, 2020). it also refers to the extent of success or the degree to which an organization achieved its objectives with minimum efforts by employees and also with limited resources of the firm (kegoro, akoyo & otieno, 2020; husnain, islam & ali, 2020). the contention amongst scholars is exactly how the "extent of success or the degree to which firm objectives are achieved" is measured. for example, several financial and non-financial indicators have been used by various studies to measure firm performance including firms' profitability, market share, annual sales turnover, customer satisfaction and the number of employees (joensuu-salo et al., 2018; hamdani & herlianti, 2019; khin & ho, 2019; bouwman, nikou & de-reuver, 2019; yasa et al., 2019). a review of studies that measured "firm performance" in the context of how it is influenced by dt revealed that the studies can be categorized habiba shamaki, umar abbas ibrahim, nnanna azu philemon 47 into two groups on the basis of the source of information about the firm performance, they include the objective approach (oa) group and the subjective approach (sa) group (joensuu-salo et al., 2018; yasa et al., 2019. studies in the oa group are those that obtained firm performance information from verifiable sources (financial statements, annual reports and balance sheets), while those studies in the sa group generated firm performance information by asking firm managers/owners and other stakeholders to provide their perception/opinion regarding the past or future performance of their firms (hamdani & herlianti, 2019; khin & ho, 2019). for this study, the subjective approach to measuring firm performance was adopted because of the following reasons: i) researchers find it difficult to access the financial and non-financial records of small and medium-sized enterprises (smes) because of their poor record keeping culture; ii) business owner/managers are usually not willing to provide researchers with sensitive information about their business for fear of it being used against them by competitors or the government for tax purpose; iii) respondents are generally more willing to give a subjective evaluation of their firms' performance as it allows them to provide a more holistic measure of their firms' performance and; iv) not all performance indicators can be easily measured using an objective approach, for example, customer satisfaction, employee skills or motivation can only be best measured using subjective approach (ezeagba, 2017; musah, 2017; nicoletta, 2018; chappel & jaffa, 2018). the focus of this study is on the customer, using the subjective approach to measuring customer satisfaction of female-owned enterprises in the fct. customer satisfaction refers to a customer's overall evaluation of the performance of an enterprise’s offering, it includes the measurement that determines how happy or not customers are with a firm's products/services (hayati et al., 2020). in research, most of the non-financial kpis are measured using subjective means by relaying on the perception/opinion of the respondents under investigation, this study is not an exception (yildiz & amin, 2020). conceptual/theoretical framework as can be seen in figure 1, achieving effective application of digital technology in business operations requires that the firm has digital orientation, digital capabilities and digital transformation. these three critical requirements when properly applied to business operations lead to 48 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 39-60) increased firm performance. firm performance in the context of this study was measured using a non-financial indicator (customer satisfaction). this study adopted the dynamic capabilities theory to underpin the study as the theory broadly focuses on not only the resources and capabilities of the firm, but also the firm's ability to adapt to rapidly changing business environments. applying the dynamic capabilities theory; digital capability, digital transformation and digital orientation all endow the selected femaleowned enterprises in fct with dynamic capabilities, which in turn helps them achieve superior firm performance in terms of customer satisfaction (chuang & lin, 2015; plattfaut et al., 2015; lichtenthale, 2015). the dynamic capabilities theory was developed by three american economists, david teece, gary pisano and amy shuen in 1997 (teece, 2018; laaksonen & peltoniemi, 2018). the theory assumed that a firm's ability to react effectively and timely to rapidly changing business environments requires a combination of manifold capabilities, explaining that these capabilities offer such firms sustainable competitive advantages and superior performance (teece, 2018; laaksonen & peltoniemi, 2018). it is believed that a firm’s dynamic capabilities are the firm’s ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly changing environments (teece, 2018; laaksonen & peltoniemi, 2018). dct suggests that firms who reconfigure their competencies to cope with changing business environment would offer new services, enhance existing service delivery and improve overall firm performance through increased profits and customer satisfaction (chuang & lin, 2015; plattfaut et al., 2015; lichtenthale, 2015). scholars have however argued that the dynamic capabilities theory is vague, tautological and not easy to understand, adding that while the theory remains useful in addressing the quick response to the business changing environment, it failed to describe exactly how (plattfaut et al., 2015; lichtenthale, 2015). despite these criticisms, dct is very much suited for competitive survival in response to the rapidly changing contemporary business environment, hence its adoption as the lance through which the two variables of this study are examined. figure 1 describes the relationship between digital technology adoption and firm performance among selected female-owned enterprises in abuja. habiba shamaki, umar abbas ibrahim, nnanna azu philemon 49 figure 1: conceptual/theoretical framework methodology this study adopted the survey research method which is characterized by quantitative means of data collection and analysis. this method involved collecting and analyzing quantitative data generated using carefully drafted closed-ended questionnaires which were distributed online through survey planet. the population of this study comprises all the 158 female-owned enterprises registered with the neca's network of entrepreneurial women (nnew) in abuja, nigeria as of january 2021. nnew is a gender-based network of the nigeria employers’ consultative association (neca), the umbrella body of employers in the organized private sector of nigeria (ademokun & ajayi, 2012; taiwo, feyisayo & abosede, 2020). a total of 113 sample size of this study was determined using the taro yamane statistical formula. however, a convenience sampling technique was used to select the 113 respondents from the population. the convenience sampling technique is a non-probability sampling method that allows a researcher to draw samples from that part of the population that is readily available for participation in the study (suyanto & trisnawati, 2016; garaika & margahana, 2020). the instrument for data collection (questionnaire) was subjected to a face and content validity by scholars. the scholars were requested to make necessary corrections, especially on content, grammar, wording and organisation of questions on the questionnaire. the feedback obtained was used to modify the questionnaire before it was administered to respondents. the researcher also made sure that the questions adequately cover the various dimensions of the variables under investigation. similarly, reliability of the research instrument (questionnaire) followed a statistical dynamic capabilities digital technology digital capability digital orientation digital transformation 50 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 39-60) approach through the use of cronbach’s alpha (α) test for reliability as can be seen in table 1. table 1: reliability statistics sources: author’s computation cronbach’s alpha, α (or coefficient alpha), developed by lee cronbach in 1951, estimates the reliability, or internal consistency. cronbach’s alpha tests to see if multiple-question likert scale surveys are reliable. these questions measure latent variables -hidden or unobservable variables. these are very difficult to measure in real life. cronbach’s alpha tells if the test designed has accurately measured the variable of interest. table 2: inter-item correlation matrix 𝑿𝑿𝟏𝟏,𝒊𝒊 𝑿𝑿𝟐𝟐,𝒊𝒊 𝑿𝑿𝟑𝟑,𝒊𝒊 𝒀𝒀𝒊𝒊 𝑋𝑋1,𝑖𝑖 1.000 0.497 0.513 0.244 𝑋𝑋2,𝑖𝑖 0.497 1.000 0.503 0.378 𝑋𝑋3,𝑖𝑖 0.513 0.503 1.000 0.523 𝑌𝑌𝑖𝑖 0.244 0.378 0.523 1.000 source: author's computation the estimated cronbach's alpha for pilot testing with 30 random respondents is reported in table 2. the reported cronbach's alpha is the average of each variable which includes; customer satisfaction (0.788), digital orientation (0.745), digital capability (0.787) and digital transformation (0.812). each of the reported cronbach's alpha is within the acceptable level and therefore is used for the estimation. variables cronbach's alpha cronbach's alpha based on standardized items no. of items customer satisfaction 0.788 0.804 30 digital orientation 0.745 0.814 30 digital capability 0.787 0.833 30 digital transformation 0.812 0.818 30 habiba shamaki, umar abbas ibrahim, nnanna azu philemon 51 model specification to establish a scientific inference, it is pertinent to establish a working model that will be estimated. given the framework established in subsection 2.3 and demonstrated in figure 1, applying the dynamic capabilities theory; chuang & lin (2015), plattfaut et al. (2015), and lichtenthale (2015) noted that digital capability, digital transformation and digital orientation will endow the selected female-owned enterprises in fct with dynamic capabilities, which in turn will help them achieve superior firm performance in terms of customer satisfaction. thus, the working model for this research is as follows; 𝑌𝑌𝑖𝑖 = 𝜑𝜑0 + 𝜑𝜑1𝑋𝑋1,𝑖𝑖 + 𝜑𝜑2𝑋𝑋2,𝑖𝑖 + 𝜑𝜑3𝑋𝑋3,𝑖𝑖 + 𝜑𝜑4𝑋𝑋4 + 𝜇𝜇𝑖𝑖 (3) where; 𝑌𝑌𝑖𝑖 represents a measure of customer satisfaction in i women-owned firms 𝑋𝑋1,𝑖𝑖 stands for digital orientation in i women-owned firms 𝑋𝑋2,𝑖𝑖 represents digital capability in i women-owned firms 𝑋𝑋3,𝑖𝑖 represents digital transformation in i women-owned firms 𝜑𝜑0 stands for the constant 𝜇𝜇𝑖𝑖 stands for the white noise error term in i women-owned firms 𝜑𝜑1, 𝜑𝜑2, 𝜑𝜑3 , 𝜑𝜑4 are the parameters to be estimated data analysis the primary data collected was measured using a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 point for "strongly disagree" to 5 points for "strongly agree". a likert scale is a rating scale used to assess the opinions, perceptions, attitudes or behaviour of respondents (abidin, suryanto, & utami, 2020; oktaviani & mandasari, 2020). it allows the respondents to express the extent to which they agree or disagree with a particular statement (abidin et al., 2020; oktaviani & mandasari, 2020). this study’s quantitative data was analysed using multiple regression analysis to determine the extent to which digital capability, digital orientation and digital transformation would explain the variations in customer satisfaction among the female-owned enterprises that will be surveyed for this study. the significant value determined the significance of the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable, while the coefficient of determination 52 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 39-60) (r2) reveals how well each independent variable can predict the dependent variable. results and discussion pre-estimation tests and correlation the pre-estimation test reported in this research work is the correlation coefficients, descriptive and reliability statistics. table 2 reports the correlation. it is established that none of the variables is highly correlated with each other, hence, can be estimated simultaneously in the model. in other words, azu et al. (2020) have noted that when independent variables are correlated, this is a likelihood of multicollinearity issues in the model. this has been avoided in the given correlation matrix reported in table 2. table 3: descriptive and reliability statistics panel a: descriptive statistics mean std. deviation n 𝑋𝑋1,𝑖𝑖 4.412136536030340 0.433539324194425 113 𝑋𝑋2,𝑖𝑖 4.030341340075850 0.713124394566593 113 𝑋𝑋3,𝑖𝑖 4.054203539823010 0.646694053840820 113 𝑌𝑌𝑖𝑖 4.202433628318580 0.405156007785585 113 panel b: reliability statistics cronbach's alpha cronbach's alpha based on standardized items n of items n 0.748 0.761 4 113 source: author's computation the study conducted the descriptive statistics and reliability test for the overall response of the questionnaire. these results were posted in table 3 reveals the summary statistics (panel a) and reliability test (panel b) of the relevant variable included in the research. in panel a of table 3, the dependent variable is represented by 𝑌𝑌𝑖𝑖 which is a measure of customer satisfaction in i women-owned firms and the mean value is reportedly 4.20 while the standard deviation is approximately 0.41 which yield a variance of 0.168 approximately. the independent variables include 𝑋𝑋1,𝑖𝑖 which stands for digital orientation in i women-owned firms; table 3 shows that the mean value is 4.41 while the standard deviation is 0.434 which will give a habiba shamaki, umar abbas ibrahim, nnanna azu philemon 53 variance of 0.1875 approximately. another independent variable is 𝑋𝑋2,𝑖𝑖 which represents digital capability in i women-owned firms. the mean is reportedly 4.03 while the standard deviation is 0.713 which yields a variance of 0.508 approximately. the third independent variable 𝑋𝑋3,𝑖𝑖 which stands for digital transformation in i women-owned firms. the means of these variables is 4.05 and the standard deviation is 0.647 which give a variance of 0.419 approximately. finally, the cronbach's alpha for the four variables is 0.748 which is above the minimum requirement. therefore, the questionnaire passed the reliability test for both the pilot test and the entire questionnaire reported herein. discussion of results the estimated regression was used to test the hypothesis to ascertain the effect of digital technology on the performance of selected femaleowned enterprises in federal capital territory (fct), using customer satisfaction as the performance indicator. the variables selected include a measure of customer satisfaction in i women-owned firms (𝑌𝑌𝑖𝑖) as the dependent variable. the independent variables include digital orientation in i women-owned firms (𝑋𝑋1,𝑖𝑖), digital capability in i women-owned firms (𝑋𝑋2,𝑖𝑖) and digital transformation in i women-owned firms (𝑋𝑋3,𝑖𝑖). the rsquare indicates that these independent variables could influence the dependent by 67.8 per cent. the durbin watson (dw) statistic test reveals there no autocorrelation in the residuals from the statistical regression analysis. this is evident with the value of 2.045 which is above 2.0 that reveals no autocorrelation detected in the selected sample. the first objective of this research is to determine the impact of digital orientation on customer satisfaction in selected female-owned enterprises in abuja. this forms the first independent variable of the research. from table 4, the coefficient for digital orientation is -0.086 which is not statistically significant. therefore, the first hypothesis (ho1): digital orientation has no significant impact on customer satisfaction in the selected female-owned enterprises in the fct cannot be rejected. the result is contrary to khin and ho (2019) and elnagar et al., (2020) which reasoned that for businesses to be able to integrate digital technologies into their operations, they need to have digital orientation (do). they reasoned that business enterprises take advantage of the opportunities presented by digital technology through an attitude and behaviour that supports proactiveness and openness to new 54 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2022, no. 1-2, 39-60) ideas in order to cope with the current global business challenges and opportunities. in other words, digital orientation could improve performances. table 4: regression analysis on impact of digital technology on performance unstandardized coefficients variables φ std. error significance level constant 2.948 0.335 0.000 𝑋𝑋1,𝑖𝑖 -0.086 0.092 0.355 𝑋𝑋2,𝑖𝑖 0.104 0.056 0.044 𝑋𝑋3,𝑖𝑖 0.299 0.062 0.000 r-square 0.678 durbin-watson 2.045 adjusted r-square 0.596 source: author's computation on the other hand, the second objective of this research is to ascertain the impact of digital capability on customer satisfaction in selected femaleowned enterprises in abuja. digital capability forms the second independent variable of the research. from table 4, the coefficient for digital capability is 0.104 and statistically significant at 5 per cent. thus, a unit increase in digital capability will cause 0.104 units to increase in performance (customer satisfaction), all things being equal. therefore, the second hypothesis (ho2): digital capability has no significant impact on customer satisfaction in the selected female-owned enterprises in the fct is hereby rejected. this result is consistent with khin and ho (2019) and yasa et al. (2019) which explains that the impact of digital capabilities on business performance is positive. it, therefore, implies that being aware of digitalisation is not enough to influence business performance but adopting and adapting to the new norms. on the other hand, the third objective of this research is to establish the impact of digital transformation on customer satisfaction in selected femaleowned enterprises in abuja. digital transformation forms the third independent variable of the research. from table 4, the coefficient for digital capability is 0.299 and statistically significant at one per cent. this is to say a unit rise in digital transformation will cause 0.299 units to increase in customer satisfaction, all things being equal. therefore, the third hypothesis (ho3): digital transformation has no significant impact on customer habiba shamaki, umar abbas ibrahim, nnanna azu philemon 55 satisfaction in the selected female-owned enterprises in the fct is hereby rejected. this result is in line with khin and ho (2019), kretschmer and khashabi (2020), and maiwald (2020), which emphases the influence of digital transformation on business performance. conclusions the influence of digitalisation on female enterprises was assessed with three concepts: digital orientations, digital capability and digital transformation. it was revealed that the effect of digital orientation on customer satisfaction in selected female-owned enterprises in abuja is negative but not statistically significant. on the other hand, this research can also conclude that the impact of digital capability on customer satisfaction in selected female-owned enterprises in abuja is positive and statistically significant. in other words, a unit increase in digital capability will cause 0.104 units increase in customer satisfaction, all things being equal. finally, this research established the impact of digital transformation on customer satisfaction in selected female-owned enterprises in abuja is positive and statistically significant. that is to say, a unit rise in digital transformation will cause 0.299 units to increase in customer satisfaction, all things being equal. it, therefore, implies that being aware of digitalisation is not enough to influence business performance but adopting and adapting to the new technology is the ultimate. conclusively, this research establishes the requisite for female-owned enterprises to embrace and exploit the vast potential and significant role that digital technology plays in the enhancement of business performance, for improved strategic competitive advantage and economic development references [1] abbott, d. 2015. “digital curation and doctoral research”. international journal of digital curation, 10(1), 1-17. 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[65] zomer, t., neely, a., & martinez, v. 2020. “digital transforming capability and performance: a micro-foundational perspective.” international journal of operation and production management. doi: 10.1108/ijopm-06-2019-0444. article history: received: november 26th, 2021 accepted: may 8th, 2022 13_jwe_3-4 final udc: 005.966-055.2 ; 331.1-055.2(497.11) ; 305-055.2 jel: l26; b54 id: 203436044 professional paper the position of women leaders and managers in serbia tošković jelena1 faculty of bussines economy, educons university, sremska kamenica, serbia a b s t r a c t this paper describes the current situation of women leaders in the serbia. women throughout history have never been free and liberated as today, both in western societies and serbia, where the actual reality that a woman is entitled to all the rights that are regulated by national legislation, taking into account the principle of gender equality. the position of women in the labor market is one of the key aspects of gender equality in the society. however, by the time they follow the invisible barriers that prevent women from achieving leading positions in corporate leadership, which is now called the "glass ceiling." the aim of the research is to describe and analyze the current situation of women managers and discover the causes and factors limiting their professional recognition. the research results make it possible to describe and see two models of the behavior women managers in the current situation in serbian economy, which is a basic criterion for the dominance of the identified factors: factors barriers and support factors to the advancement of women in professional careers. specifically we are talking about the behavior patterns that women managers as points of support combine its own strengths and supportive environment and a model of behavior that women managers as a point of support using its own forces key words: woman, leaders, serbia, behavior model 1 jovana cvijića, 9/8, 15000 šabac, e-mail: toskovicjelena@yahoo.com 138 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) introduction the woman has always been an interesting topic. therefore, the impact on operations its extremely large. this paper focuses on women leaders in the serbian economy, where we tried to explain the current situation and behavior of women as leaders. the work consists theoretical, methodological work and conclusion. in the theoretical part of the paper describes the movement of women through time from ancient times to the present day. it was described a process of emancipation of women and their willingness to move forward. it is also explained the position of women in the territory of operation. the position of women in the labor market is one of the key aspects of gender equality in society, so the standing in the sphere of labor is of extreme importance for the overall socio-economic status of women. however, women often face invisible barriers that prevent them from reaching leading positions in corporations. this phenomenon is also known as the glass ceiling, which marks the emergence of unwritten inability of women to thrive in the business hierarchy to the highest positions of authority. at the end of the theoretical part we talk about women managers and major problems encountered on the way to the top or leading position. in the methodological part of the research are described an object and problem, objectives, tasks and methods, techniques and tools that have been used in research, and statistical analysis of sample data. in fact, all of these categories will be discussed in this paper. it should be noted that the second part of the methodological research related to the research results, we obtained based on a sample, questionnaires and echniques. the conclusion is the last part of the paper, which enables us to see two models of behavior of women managers in the current situation in the serbian economy, and where is initial dominance criterion identified factors: factors barriers and support factors to advancement of women in professional careers. theoretical background: women and work across ttime throughout history women have never been so free and liberated as is the case today in western societies, where the actual reality is that a woman is entitled to all the rights that are regulated by national legislation, taking into account the principle of gender equality. tošković, j., the position of women managers, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) 139 the process of women's emancipation has gained momentum in the second half of the twentieth century, which was marked by great changes in the labor field. one of the major changes at this time, whose protagonists are women is a progressive feminization of the labor market. women entrepreneurs, ubiquitous in developed economies, along with the expansion of small and medium-sized enterprises, gaining momentum in countries in transition such as serbia. today, in europe and america as well as in the majority of women are employed, and that brings its own income. beside that they apply to men in many positions, including leadership positions within the organization. new understanding of entrepreneurship is based on the fact that manager isthe holder of an idea, market researcher and new business organization and management. the development of the market and market relations is increasingly moving away from the property manager's job, so that managers have become respected and well-paid profession. through time, once dominant, pyramid principle of management changes and the company moved from an authoritarian management, which operates on the principle of command execution control, towards a new leadership which aims at flexibility, rapid response to change and individual motivation in achieving the proclaimed goals of the organization, where these changes open doors for women. thanks to the traditional role of mother and pillar of the family, the woman incorporated in her mindset several significant assumptions that form the backbone of a new management style. based on the aforementioned cultural heritage, women develop the skill of employing its "team", task scheduling, good time management and personal motivation, briefly what is now called the theory of democratic management style or orientation towards people. on the other hand, the results of many studies show women preference manager democratic style of management, which are prerequisites for achieving quality in new tasks. however, an inevitable fact is that the unemployment phenomenon primarily affects women. recognizing the significant statistical indicators of labor participation of women, we can not ignore the fact that, although since 1990 in the u.s., women make up 46% of total employees, they still hold lower-level positions. a very small number of women is in top management of large companies, where men occupy 90% and women 10% highest paid executive of directorships. 140 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) the position of women in the labor market judging by the various indicators, the social position of women in today's unfavorable in various aspects, and in some areas showing specific disadvantage compared to men. the position of women in the private sphere is marked by a patriarchal division of roles and high abundant violence. maintenance of patriarchy within the household and the family leads to unequal division of labor in which women perform most of the unpaid household work, and in many cases have limited access to financial resources. the position of women in the labor market is one of the key aspects of gender equality in society, and standing in the sphere of labor is of extreme importance for the overall socio-economic status of women. according to the structure of employment by gender in 2004., female employment rate is lower (44%) than the rate for men (63.1%), while the unemployment rate was higher in women (24.1%) than men (15.9 %). in serbia in privatization time has been a movement of labor in the private sector, so that about half of all employees, both women and men working in the private sector. according to data from the labour force survey of 2005. year, 62% of employed men work in private sector, while in the same sector is 57% of employees are women. gender segregation in the labor market by occupation and branch of activity is still present, but not at a high level. women face significant obstacles in their vertical mobility in senior management positions in companies, and the gap in wages between men and women is maintained and can not be explained by differences in the characteristics of employees, but for the most part attributed to discrimination. it should be noted that women are much less likely to be self-employed and are included in entrepreneurial activities. thus, according to data from 2004., male managers was 73.2%, and women maanagers 26.8%. two years later, women director was 20.8%, and men 79.2% (babovic, 2007). it should be noted that according to the world bank to overcome gender inequality in employment of women can raise the u.s. gdp by 9% and europe by as much as 13%. the division of labor and power relations in the household the division of work roles in the household is important from the point of view within the family organization, and in terms of global trends tošković, j., the position of women managers, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) 141 to labor market. one of the important dimensions of the interactions between social organization, social change and the structure of demand for labor is the organization of working time. individuals not only need to adjust their working hours in household responsibilities and vice versa, but they must be consistent with the patterns of working time with other family members. all forms of social organization in the household, the household division of labor to leisure activities, depending on the structure of the interference patterns of working time, but social organization in the household in turn influenced in the structure of the labor force available in the labor market. data on the distribution of household work indicate extreme domination like patriarchal model of division of labor in the household where the majority of household work is performed by female members of the household (figure 1). figure 1: patriarchal division of household labor women hold performed by men performing together other in total cooking 80,9 2,6 6,0 10,4 100 washing 80 2,8 7,1 10,1 100 cleaning 75,9 3,4 9,7 10,9 100 ironing 80,5 2,6 5,8 11,1 100 care of young children 72,9 2,6 20,8 3,8 100 taking care of school work 72,2 9,3 14,1 4,4 100 source: transformation strategies of social groups in serbia, isiff uneven load on working men and women is not only a feature of the activities of serbian households, who mostly shaped by patriarchal model of gender roles, but households in the advanced of the west societies. the findings of this study indicated that although there is a steady increase in the participation of men in housework, it is still the reduction of women's participation in household work is insufficient to compensate for their 142 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) greater involvement in paid work, and married working women do not carry proportionately higher burden of paid and unpaid work. at the beginning of the new millennium, people in serbia are willing to work longer, more intense, to switch jobs according to the requirements of the labor market than they were accustomed to in the socialist regime, protected employment. women of medium and high levels of education are very willing to work longer than normal hours. also, highly educated women are the only majority willing to work several jobs in several companies simultaneously. glass ceiling the term "glass ceiling" first appeared in the 1985th , introduced by the newspaper "wall street journal" stating that they are "invisible barriers that prevent women from achieving leading positions in corporate leadership." this phenomenon indicates the occurrence of unwritten inability of women to thrive in the business hierarchy to the highest positions of authority. the glass ceiling is a result of economic and social inequality that is reflected in particular by: (smiljanić, 2006) − entrenched attitudes about male and female roles in society, which often determine the level and direction of the education of young women, − segregation (subordination) occupations by gender, − unequal pay between men and women for equal work for men, regardless of the legislation, − participation in different unpaid (household) activities (2/3 of the total unpaid work of women's and men's 1/3) and − women difficulties in aligning business and personal obligations. as an example in literature, it can be mention, the united states in which women make up 46.5% of the labor force, and among the highest paid managers of u.s. firms in 2010. it is only 7.6% and 14.4% at places of women executives 500 largest companies in the united states. for comparison we note that in 1999. percentage of women among the highestpaid managers in the u.s. was 5%, and women on average earned only 72% of the salary they received their male counterparts. the situation is similar in europe, where the 25 highest-paid ceos no female. according to the magazine "the economist", the three main reasons why there is a glass ceiling phenomenon: exclusion of women from informal networks in tošković, j., the position of women managers, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) 143 companies, which are important for the development; constant bias on the prevalence of disability for women's leadership, where men, who normally make the most of the boards of companies, are reluctant to set up more women and more responsible positions; lack of role models, because the high-level corporate roles not many womens that show how others might do the job. it is crucial to note that one of the main reasons why women give up their development career is the family. most women throughout their career make a break for children and families, after which, primarily due to strong competition, very hard to get back into the company and pursue a career in the same place where they broke off. that is why more and more women instead of continuing careers in a particular company, decided to start their own businesses, which leaves more time for family responsibilities. greater role for women has a state. companies and states must take appropriate measures to ensure the gap between women and men in gaining high positions (in the hierarchy of the company) and gone, to retain women in the workplace, and developed further. lack of flexibility at work is the next moment that makes a woman to successfully reconcile the two roles. companies that want to attract and retain talented women need to think about the various kinds of flexibility that will help them to balance work and family life. enable women to realize and professional, but also as a mother is not just a way to attract and retain them within the company, but also socially responsible behavior. therefore care on birth of a country should not only be the responsibility of government and the country, but should be part of every company's social responsibility. politics birth rate is one of the very important macroeconomic policies of each country, which should become an important part of the strategic objectives of each kompanije.the best example is norway, which has since 2003. changed the quota for women in the boards of large companies, where the percentage of women in the highest positions, at the highest in the world at around 40%. this scandinavian country is legally bound to large companies by the end of 2007, increase the percentage to 40% of women in their governing boards. in the world have already tested techniques that apply to specific companies to reduce the effect of the glass ceiling, when their leadership recognizes the importance of the problem and demonstrate the willingness to solve it. some of these techniques, mentioned in literature are: 144 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) − the fight against stereotypes and prejudices. the workshop is jointly involving both women and men (provided that the women are isolated and not seen as enemies) in order to improve the climate and culture of the company, through improving relationships, increasing sensitivity to stereotypes and prejudices and work together to address them. − professional development. constantly motivating and encouraging women to education and training by the management company, which is a necessary step in order for women in general come into consideration for the top management positions. without a sufficient number of qualified and experienced business women will increase their numbers among top managers. − assertiveness training (measures in behavior between passive and aggressive) for women. their goal is "psychological" preparing women for leadership positions, through increased self-confidence and practice of effective and non-aggressive styles of not defensive communication at work. − adjustment of the position. increasing the flexibility of working hours and workplace (teleworking) managers to facilitate the reconciliation of family and business commitments. this includes support and finding help at home, as well as the organization of child care in the workplace. − networking (networking). the importance of informal networks and personal contacts have been invaluable, even in the leading position rarely leads stranger. due to lack of time, women rarely have time to socialize after work and the directors are perceived as "invisible". companies may promote the formation of such relationships among women that way they can gain important information about the possibilities and ways of improving. − utabavanje career (career tracking). this includes always known method of "nurturing" young and promising personnel, which helps in gaining experience and fame by being entrusted challenging and important tasks (training and advice and experienced senior colleagues). − mentoring. with this technique the company a young woman, assigned a potential, older and more experienced managers who sometimes may not be from the same institution. involves the tošković, j., the position of women managers, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) 145 provision of professional assistance in information, knowledge and contacts, easing her path to leadership positions. women managers − today, more and more talk about the need for change in managerial style in the direction of so-called "feminine" qualities such as less aggressive, more cooperation, an agreement on orientation and resolution, support and more. these are all qualities that contribute to a higher degree of integration of the company. however, there are still a number of women in leadership positions is relatively small, especially looking at the top positions in large corporations where women's representation is only 3%. therefore, it is failing to press for talent among the women who make up nearly half the workforce is inadmissible luxury, and it is certain that companies that do not see it, lose a significant number of talented managers. also, it is unacceptable to have only men in the executive team, because the team is losing time on the complementarity exercised by members of both sexes, and instead of walking with both feet company is jumping on one. according to a study conducted by catalyst 2003rd in the united states that included 100 fortune companies, the greatest obstacles to the advancement of women to top positions are seen in: − the fact that women lack the previous management experience at the lower, middle and line management positions, − exclusion from informal channels of communication, and a network within which it takes place is important exchange of information inside the organization. − prejudices about the role that women should play in society and the family, − stereotypes in way how are women as leaders, are also strong barriers to the advancement of women at work, and what is particular interest such entrenched attitudes difficult to change. there are studies that have shown that women managers see it differently than men who are managers. women are perceived as less confident, less emotionally stable, less analytical, less coherent, less capable of leadership than men. typical 146 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) assumptions underlying the negative stereotypes of women as heads of the women put family above work, due to concerns about children losing interest in the job, not to provide a basic, but additional income for their families which do not have a strong incentive to succeed at work , experiencing negative criticism personally, and because of its pronounced lack of emotion and aggressiveness is definitely not suitable for executive positions. perhaps these conditions are in some cases true, but in terms of women who choose managerial careers are certainly not. based on above, economist baum expressed a critical position in the form of a study that was conducted among women executives, which showed that approximately half of them are not married or even divorced, and of those who had married a third of them do not have children. recent study has escorted 2003rd on a sample of 1,200 executives including an equal number of men and women showed that 32% more women are delaying marriage and childbearing for managerial careers than men of the same group. the wives of most men's executives did not have full-time employment, 75% of them, while the spouses of women executives without permanent employment was only 26%. these percentages tell us how men compared with women are not prepare to give up her career for the sake of professional success spouse. percentage of executives who decided not to have children because career is far higher among women, 12%, compared with 1% of men. also, much higher percentage of men executives have had both and family life and career, 90%, which was significantly higher compared with 65% of women executives who have had both. methodology research the aim of the research is to describe and analyze the current situation of women managers and discover the causes and factors limiting their professional recognition. the task was: 1. present and analyze family, professional and personal characteristics of the sample 2. identifying factors barriers within each aspect (family, professional and personal) lives of women managers and tošković, j., the position of women managers, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) 147 3. to identify potential factors support the further development of the careers of women managers. research methods: we used the method of theoretical analysis and descriptive methods. theoretical analysis method was used to create the theoretical basis of research, in order to clarify the problem and theoretically subject research, defining the basic concepts, identify goals, objectives and research hypotheses. descriptive method was used for the analysis and interpretation of the data in order to describe the phenomena studied, and draw conclusions. research techniques and instruments: for the purpose of this study was formulated, a questionnaire consisting of two parts. the first part of the questionnaire relates to collect general information about the sample: age, level of education, occupation, years of service, first job, current employment, leadership positions, battery life, time schedules at work, marital status, educational level of the spouse, number and age of children and tangible benefits. the second part of the questionnaire consisted of 20 questions. the questions were designed to apply to obtain information on the factors and support factors barriers to the three aspects of the lives of women managers. to identify these factors in the formulation of family conditions are the questions 1 to 4 and 8 question. to identify the factors listed under professional conditions examined women formulated nine questions (5, 6, 7, 9, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19). questions 10 to 14 and 20 refer to the identification of these factors in the personal characteristics of the respondents. sample: the study was conducted on a sample of twenty highlyeducated women, who are leaders in private enterprise ownership structure. the survey was conducted on a sample of women intentionally selected from the immediate business environment authors. the interviewees responded to the electronic questionnaire roads. statistical data analysis: from statistical methods for quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data obtained were used in research: percentage of all responses to the questionnaire and calculate the average properties of the mark and ranking in twenty questions. the research results are presented in tables and then analyzed. 148 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) the research results the study included 20 women who are currently managers at various levels of management in working organization. analysis of personal characteristics indicate that the majority of women (90%) of 30 to 50 years of age and realized that most of the 20 years of service (75%). their level of education (100% and more university degrees, master's or doctor of science) indicates that all of them are highly educated. half (50%) of women are in the field of occupational and other social professions in the field of technical (35%) and natural profession (15%). most women have achieved their first job before having a family and the birth of children (70%). currently the majority of women (90%) are employed in the private ownership and all are in leadership positions. most of them have managerial tenure of 5 years or more (55%). spend at work more than eight hours (85%) 55% of daily and occasional (flexible, if necessary) another 30% of women. the analysis of family conditions examined women indicates that slightly more than half of them (55%) are married and their spouses are highly educated. also the majority of women (15 75%) have a family (spouse and children 50%, only a spouse 5%, only children 20%). so most of the women (70%) have children and one (30%) or two children (40%). most of their children's high school age or older. also the majority of women (65%) estimated that their average tangible are benefits. age 20-30 1-5% 31-40 840% 41-50 10-50% 51-60 and more 1-5% level of education secondary education college degree 1-5% bachelor 18-90% ma and phd 1-5% interest technical sciences 7-35% social science 10-50% life sciences 3-15% years of service up to 10 years 5-25% up to 20 years 11-55% up to 30 years 3-15% more than 30 y. 1-5% first job prior to founding family 12-60% before the birth of the children 2-10% after founding family 3-15% after giving birth 3-15% tošković, j., the position of women managers, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) 149 current employment in a private company 18-90% state institution self-employed 2-10% managerial position and duration no yesup to 5 years 9-45% yes-up to 10 years 8-40% yes up to 20 years and more 3-15% opening hours at work less than 8 hours 8 hours 3-15% more than 8 hours 11-55% flexible as needed 6-30% marital status i'm not married 9-45% married 11-55% others educational attainment spouses secondary education 3-15% college degree 1-5% bachelor 8-40% ma and phd number of children child less 6-30% one child 6-30% two children 8-40% three or more children age of your children preschool 2-10% primary school 4-20% high school / college 6-30% adults 2-10% assess your tangible benefits insufficient 2-10% modest 2-10% average 13-65% above average 3-15% 1. in the work related to home and family participate equally with husband (if you are married). a b c d e not participate noit is my obligation 1-5% yesto a small extent equal 4-20% yeslargely equal 3-15% yesequal 3-15% of the 11 respondents who were married most of them (6 54%) say that largely or completely equally shared with his wife while they porodčne liabilities 5 (46%) say that equality in the division of duties is not present, or present to a small extent. so subsample of women who are heads of marital status are roughly divided on the issue of equal participation of spouses in family responsibilities. 2. for work related to home and family i hire a third party a b c d e no 12-60% yesperiodically 6-30% yesoften 1-5% yesnormally 1-5% on this question answered all respondents in the sample. data in the table shows that the largest number of female managers (12 60%) did not 150 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) engage a third party for matters related to home and family and another 6 (30%) of women managers do only occasionally. a more detailed analysis of the responses indicates that of the 18 women tested, 13 (65%) had a family (husband and / or children), and assume greater family responsibilities and thus greater need to hire some sort of help at home. finally, a very small percentage of women managers (10%) often or regularly engage a third party for the home and family affairs. 3. thanks to the support of technology (laptop, internet, mobile phone ...), some tasks are performed at home. a b c d e no 1-5% yesperiodically 9-45% yes-often 7-35% yesnormally 3-15% the responses to this question indicate that most respondents (18 95%) of the individual performing work duties at home and only one respondent does not. half of women managers (50%) is in a position to regularly or frequently performed tasks at home using modern technology. adding these data that the majority of these women spend at work more than eight hours can be assumed that perfect emen technology instead of acting as a factor supporting rather acts as a push factor in the life and work of women managers. 4. assess whether the next business commitments have enough time to focus on family? a b c d e no 4-20% yesto a small exten 10-50% yesto a large degree 6-30% yes-totally data in the table indicate that the majority of respondents (14 70%) estimated that there is (4 20%) or a little bit of time (10 50%) to be paid to the family. a more detailed analysis of the responses indicate that respondents estimated that they have quite a time for the family (6 30%) or married without children or with older children. these data allow us to assume that children at the age of mothers increased their commitments and that with increasing age children responsibilities of women-mothers is somewhat less. finally, none of the women have not been evaluated head to have enough time for his family. tošković, j., the position of women managers, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) 151 5. what do you think is encouraging factor for further career advancement? * a b c d e material motives 4-20% professional ambitions 6-30% supporting the family 6-30% support in the workplace 6-30% social status and privileges * this question two interviewees gave two answers. the responses to this question, there are three equal factors that women managers assess as incentives for career advancement such as: professional ambitions (30%), family support (30%) and support in the workplace (30%). finally, set aside as a present material factor (20%) and social status and privileges as a factor of progress is not elected. 6. what in your opinion is the limiting factor for further career advancement? * a b c d e political affiliation parenting and family obligations 5-25% poor recognition of knowledge 10-50% lack of family support 2-10% lack of ambition * this question two interviewees gave two answers. as the most limiting factor in career advancement stands out poor evaluation skills (10 50%). in addition to this as equal factors were found to be lack of ambition (5 25%) and family responsibilities and parenting (5 25%). lack of support for violence as an aggravating factor in career advancement opted by the two respondents and the factor of political affiliation was not elected. it is interesting to political affiliation does not appear as a factor in the advancement of women in the private sector. 7. do you think were the leading positions available to both women and men? a b c d e no 1-5% yesto a small exten 12-60% yesto a large degree 6-30% yes-totally 1-5% the responses to this question indicate that over 60% woman considers managerial positions in less available to women than to men. but a significant number (7 35%) of respondents considered that the availability of management positions for womwn is large or complete. analysis of the 152 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) data showed that in this case, we mostly have women with longer managerial tenure. 8. our society is loaded prejudiced that man provides to an existence and the woman takes care of the house. a b c d e no 2-10% yesto a small exten 5-25% yesto a large degree 13-65% datotally the responses to this question, we see that the majority (13 65%) of the respondents largely agreed with the statement that our society is prejudiced man to an existence and the woman takes care of the house. the analysis shows that majority (7 35%) of women that this conclusion does not agree or disagree to a small extent, women who are not married. 9. women to advance in career should be: * a b c d e women more than men proves 6-30% she acts like a man relies on the knowledge and experience 5-25% it relies on the female advantage 1-5% adjusts to operating conditions 9-45% * this question was one of respondents gave two answers. the answers to this question as a condition of progress in women during his business career, stand out: 1. a woman needs to adapt to business conditions (9 45%), 2. a woman needs to prove herself more than a man (6 30%) and 3. women should rely on their own knowledge and experience (5 25%). reliance on female preference or behavior characteristic of a man is not estimated to be significant for the advancement of women in her career. 10. when your ambitions come into play? a b c d e during school 5-25% when hiring 1-25% during his business career 12-60% prior to starting a family 1-5% after starting a familyi have no ambition 1-5% * this question also added one women with answer "i have no ambition." the responses to this question, we see that most of the respondents incidence of occupational ambitions related to education and career but not for the family. so the majority of women managers (12 60%) business tošković, j., the position of women managers, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) 153 ambitions have occurred during his business career. so it seems important to the business environment created by the factors supporting the advancement of women to leadership positions. 11. is your business status in accordance with their personal ambitions? a b c d e yes 11-55% noambitions are obsolete no ambitions have not been realized 4-20% no but i expect to accomplish them 4-20% i have no ambition 1-5% * and the question is one of respondents also added answer "i have no ambition." the responses to this question indicated that the majority (11 55%) of women leaders aligned status and professional ambitions and those that have not yet achieved their ambition expected to be realized in the future (4 20%). only 4 (20%) respondents felt that the ambitions are not realized. 12. have you continued employment after training? * a b c d e no 1-5% to learn a foreign language 9-45% yesin the sense of specialization 5-25% yesin order to change profession 3-15% yes in order to advance on the job 6-30% * this question three respondents gave two answers. most patients continued permanent employment after training. most of them are developing in the field of foreign languages (9 45%) and the level of specialization (5 25%) with a view to career advancement or to change jobs (3 15%). 13. what motivates you to continue to develop professionally? * a b c d e advancement in the workplace 3-15% scientific career 1-5% the desire to be informed 14-70% increase household budget 4-20% obligations of the employer 3-15% * this question two respondents gave six answers. 154 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) the responses to this question indicate the motives that drive women managers in further education. as the dominant motive stands out the desire to be in (14 70%) and then followed motives a household budget increase (4 20%), career advancement (3 15%) and obligations to the employer (3-15 %). 14. what distracts you from continuing professional development? a b c d e poor recognition of knowledge 4-20% family responsibilities 3-15% lack of free time 12-60% spend their free time 1-5% as a major factor which hindering continuous professional development of women leaders is singled out the lack of free time (12 60%). other factors: poor knowledge assessment (4 20%), family obligations (3 15%) and on other way i spend free time (1 5%) are less dominant. 15. during yours business career, you had a break? a b c d e no 9-45% yes for parenting 7-35% yes because of family obligations 1-5% yes because of job changes 2-10% yes for a different reason 1-5% the majority of respondents (11 55%) during carier had commercial break. the main reason for this are: parental and family responsibilities (8 40%). analysis of the data indicated on patients who did not made pause in his business career, or do not have children or have found employment after the birth of children. 16. continued career after the break was: a b c d e without success burdened with family responsibilities 2-10% no problems 4-20% with success and before the break with greater success than before the break 5-25% for women leaders who have had a break in career (11 55%) of its continuation is passed without major problems (4 20%) or more successfully than before the break (5 25%). in only two (10%) women continued his career was burdened with family responsibilities. tošković, j., the position of women managers, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) 155 17. in overcoming difficulties at work after a break, you had the support of: a b c d e colleagues 3-15% families 9-45% friends 2-10% * on this question one of respondents gave two answers. in overcoming difficulties in the workplace after the break women managers were distinguished as the most family support (9 45%). only three women (15%) stated that they had received the support of colleagues in the workplace. 18. my professional career experience i see as: * a b c d e achieving ambitions satisfaction 5-25% certificate for the effor 7-35% permanent responsibility 7-35% the constant pressure 4-20% * on this question 3 respondents gave two answers detailed analysis of these responses indicate that most his professional career women managers is seen as a confirmation and satisfaction for the work (12 60%). other respondents (8 40%) experienced a career as a permanent responsibility and constant pressure. his professional career as a fulfillment of ambitions is not seen no woman. 19. except for the fact that i have achieved professional and family life as i experience: * a b c d e additional stimulus 6-30% satisfaction 4-20% certificate for the effor 5-25% permanent responsibility the constant pressure * this question corresponded to only patients who have a family (15 75%) the experience of achievement and family life for women leaders provides an additional incentive (6 30%), a certificate for the effort (5 25%) and satisfaction (3 15%). only one respondent in connection with the experience of a constant commitment. 20. in the twentieth questions women managers are evaluated (scale from 1-not important / present to the full 4-important / present) offered 15 personality traits in relation to their level of importance to the professional career of top managers as well as the degree of their presence in the personal career every woman. analyzed responses are presented in tables. 156 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) important % of grade 3 +4 (largely and fully) present rank features as rank features as 1/2 persistence in achieving goals 3,90 100% 1/2 organization 3,90 3 commitment to work 3,83 4 determination 3,79 5/6 willingness to cooperate 3,63 7/8 confidence 3,61 5/6 hustle 3,63 95% 2 determination 3,53 7/8 planning and compliance plans 3,61 3/4 willingness to cooperate 3,42 9 enthusiasm 3,56 5 confidence 3,38 10 courage 3,39 11 helping others – 3,18 90% 1 commitment to work 3,56 3/4 persistence in achieving goals 3,42 6 organization 3,32 7 helping others 3,29 8 enthusiasm 3,28 85% 10/11 courage 3,11 12 kindness to everyone 3,11 80% 75% 9 hustle 3,16 12 planning and compliance plans 3,00 70% 13 competitive spirit 2,72 65% 10/11 kindness to everyone 3,11 60% 14 people's belief 2,47 55% 50% 45% 13 people's belief 2,53 40% 14 competitive spirit 2,44 35% 30% 15 aloofness towards colleagues 2,00 25% 15 aloofness towards colleagues 2,05 for the purposes of this study all of these features are classified into three groups. in the first group are classified as properties: persistence in achieving the goals, organization, dedication, planning and compliance tošković, j., the position of women managers, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) 157 plans, and features a business orientation. the second group are classified as properties: the willingness for cooperation, assistance to others, enthusiasm, kindness, believing people, the spirit of competition and distance to colleagues. these are the qualities of interpersonal communication. the third group consists of senior oriented features: self-confidence, energy, courage, and determination. according to data from the table it is evident that 90 100% of women estimated 11 properties as important to a great extent or completely. the same characteristics were 65 95% of women given assessment largely or fully present. we can say that the tests of the following 15 traits, 11 traits as important in managerial practice. but these qualities are not present to the same degree in the practice of women liders . data range and average scores for each evaluated trait shows that there are differences in terms of sequence and properties sorted by relevance and presence. the most important (first three ranks) were estimated business oriented features: persistence in achieving the goals, organization, and commitment. planning and compliance plans that belongs to the same group took is 7/8 range. managerial orientation properties are located between the 4 and 9 rank. of 11 to 15 level properties are located interpersonal communication traits other than willingness to cooperate (5/6) and enthusiasm (9). so we can say that the tests to evaluate the practice of managing the most important features of business orientation and leadership qualities and that less attention is paid to features of interpersonal communication. as most present estimated (first rank) is just one feature of business orientation: dedication and other characteristics of this group are located from 3/4 to 12 rank. planning and compliance plans (12) is at least present the characteristics of business orientation. managerial orientation properties are located from the 2 to 11 rank. the usual feature of determination (2). feature of interpersonal orientation highest ranking by the presence takes the willingness to cooperate (3/4), and other properties are located on 7 to 15 rank. we can say that women managers are not unique in the assessment of the presence of these characteristics and in their practice give equal weight to all three traits orientation. 158 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) conclusion the research results allow us to describe the behavior of the two models of women managers in the current situation in which the serbian economy. for both models describe the initial criterion is the dominance of the identified factors: those obstacles and factors supporting the advancement of women in professional careers. 1. model behaviors that women managers as points of support combine its own strengths and supportive environment. − highly educated and have above-average incomes. − she has a family but is equally successful when she is not married or when she is alone with the children. − do not recognize prejudices about male-female duties in the family. because family responsibilities equally shared with her husband and regularly as a home help engage a third party. − there is enough time for the family as a rational and flexible use of time in which it aids the modern technology. − she is convinced that her leadership like as men of equally available, realizing its ambitions relying on the support factors for career advancement including: own ambition, knowledge and experience, continuing professional development and customization of business, family support and support to the workplace. − a break in career for parenthood beyond with the help of family, colleagues and friends and have no problems with even greater success on the job. finally a professional career is seen as a further satisfaction and compliance profesionslnog family life, as well as their own additional stimulus check. − manages to find the time for continuous professional training, because of a desire to keep up but also in order to progress at work. − from professional competence has developed business oriented features. dedicated to the work plan and adhere to the plans, organized and persistent in achieving goals which allows it to easily make decisions. the capacity management is characterized by selfconfidence, energy and bravery. in interpersonal communication authority built on trust, cooperation, and her enthusiasm, kindness and willingness to assist other commands respect. tošković, j., the position of women managers, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) 159 2. model behaviors that women managers as a point of support uses its own power − highly educated and have average incomes. − she have a complete family or is alone with the children. − burdened with prejudice that has been her family responsibilities and concerns itself mainly jobs with little help of his wife and little involvement of a third party. it is often in a position to perform their assignments at home. as radon her time at work takes more than eight hours, with all other obligations is not surprising that there is not enough time for the family. − it is convinced that the leadership of women is often unavailable and if she becomes manager believes she must prove more than the male counterpart. often fails to achieve its ambitions for stating that the cause of such factors as: poor recognition of knowledge, lack of ambition, family obligations, lack of support in the family and at work. − continue career after a break caused by parenting laden flows family responsibilities. only with the increasing age of the children this kind of load is reduced. due to the lack of free time continuing education courses only when is necessary (obligation to their employer). − her career experiences she see as a permanent responsibility, constant pressure , compliance work and family life is estimated as a confirmation for the effort. − has less developed business orientation. dedicated to her work, but the planning and the rational use of time not heavy. this is reflected in its organization and other organization, decision-making and persistence in achieving goals. its capacity to manage and control lacks vigor and courage as a result of lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. in interpersonal communication authority is not built on trust, cooperation and enthusiasm, but rather relies on the power that gives the functions and forces the spirit of competition and distance to colleagues. both models described behavior provide women managers to identify factors support further progress and points of support in their own professional career. also the results of this study suggest the possibility of their practical application especially in companies that want to pay attention to the problem of strengthening the 160 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) competencies of women in managerial positions. in this sense, the organization of continuing professional development in work organizations therefore focus on capacity building of women managers in planning and organizing as well as the development of communication skills, particularly in the area of assertiveness and constructive resolution of conflicts. therefore,paying attention to improving skills of entrepreneurs and their education is necessary to increase their competencies (radović marković, 2007) . in addition, forming an international learning network of women may enhance entrepreneurship opportunities in serbia as well as in countries that are developing or in transition (radović marković, 2006). as part of further research on problems of development of professional career women should examine the impact of factors barriers and factors supporting the advancement of women within the various levels of management. specifically investigate the invisible factors barriers to the advancement of women across levels and the possibility of overcoming them. referensces [1] babović m. (2007). položaj žene na tržištu rada, program ujedinjenih nacija za razvoj, beograd : premis [2] lukić, m., jovanović s. (2003).“o ravnopravnosti žena i muškaraca na tržištu rada”, socijalna misao, vol. 37, 1. [3] [3] radović marković, m. (2006). women entrepreneurs and managers in serbia, received march 27, 2009, from http://www.ien.bg.ac.yu/download/wp06-4.pdf [4] radović marković, m. (2007). entrepreneurship for women. belgrade, serbia: magnus, 157 [5] radović-marković m., beraha i., jaško a. (2010b). female employment in formal and informal sectors of the serbian economy, accepted: 8 september 2010, from: http://www.ien.bg.ac.rs/images/stories/.pdf [6] smiljanić, j. (2006). “faktori karijere žena menađžera”, from: http://www.ejednakost.org.rs/.pdf [7] šimková h. (2010a). the women in science in the countries of european union, received: 6 january 2010, from http://www.ien.bg.ac.rs/images/stories/.pdf tošković, j., the position of women managers, jwe (2013, no. 3-4, 137-161) 161 položaj žena rukovodilaca u srbiji a p s t r a k t u ovom radu opisana je trenutna situacija žena rukovodilaca u srbiji. žene kroz istoriju nikada nisu bile slobodne i emancipovane kao danas, kako u zapadnim društvima tako i srbiji, gde je aktuelna stvarnost da žena ne ostvaruje sva prava koja su regulisana državnim zakonodavstvom, uvažavajući princip rodne ravnopravnosti. položaj žene na tržištu rada predstavlja jedan od ključnih aspekata rodne ravnopravnosti u društvu. međutim, kroz vreme ih prate nevidljive prepreke koje sprečavaju žene u dostizanju čelnih pozicija korporacijskog vođstva, koje se danas nazivaju “staklenim plafonom”. cilj istraživanja je da opiše i analizira aktuelan položaj žena rukovodilaca i otkrije uzroke i ograničavajuće faktore njihove profesionalne afirmacije. rezultati istraživanja omogučavaju da opišemo i uvidimo dva modela ponašanja žena rukovodilaca u aktuelnoj situaciji u kojoj se nalazi srpska privreda, gde je polazni kriterijum dominacija identifikovanih faktora: faktora prepreka i faktora podrške napredovanju žena u profesionalnoj karijeri. naime govori se o modelu ponašanja žene rukovodioca koja kao tačke oslonca kombinuje sopstvene snage i podršku okoline i model ponašanja žene rukovodioca koja kao tačku oslonca koristi sopstvene snage. ključne reči: žena, rukovodilac, srbija, model ponašanja article history: received: 25 march, 2013 accepted: 25 october, 2013 doi: 10.28934/jwee21.34.pp134-150 jel: i23, l26 original scientific paper 7bthe entrepreneurial intention of algerian women (a sample study of skikda university female students) ayoub messikh16 f1 university of skikda, faculty of economic, commercial and management sciences, department of management sciences, laboratory of economic, finance& management (ecofima), skikda, algeria a b s t r a c t entrepreneurship is currently occupying a significant space due to its positive effects on the economic and social levels and its consideration as an important source of wealth, creativity, and job opportunities. moreover, given that both the public and private sectors cannot absorb the huge numbers of university graduates in terms of employment, especially girls in developing countries, this group must be directed towards self-employment. governments, on their part, must enhance the entrepreneurial intent of students through universities. the main purpose of this paper is to measure the level of entrepreneurial intention among algerian women by investigating the importance and impact of the most important factors affecting entrepreneurial intention (according to the majority of previous empirical studies) in motivating algerian female students to create their own business. the primary data are collected through a self-prepared questionnaire to assess the role of explanatory factors such an attitude to entrepreneurship, parental influence, selfefficacy, entrepreneurial education and governmental support with “entrepreneurial intentions”. 254 female students from skikda university have participated in the survey. the data are analyzed using spss program. the results have shown that female students who are about to graduate have a considerable 1 address: zaghdoud madjidelhadaiek, skikda, algeria, e-mail: messikhayoub@gmaill.com, tel. +213661734535 ayoub messikh 135 (high) intention to start an entrepreneurship project. the entrepreneurial intent among female students are strongly affected by parental and governmental support and the rest of the factors come to a lesser degree (acceptable) of influence (selfefficacy, entrepreneurial education and attitude to entrepreneurship). key words: algeria, entrepreneurial intention, girl student, university, women introduction over the past decade, entrepreneurship has emerged as one of the most important forces in the global economy, business and management studies (messikh, 2018). as one of the important types of entrepreneurship, we find female entrepreneurship, which is considered as a fundamental factor in the creation, operation and the growth of businesses and hence in the socioeconomic growth. the author brush confirms this in his statement: "women-owned businesses are among the fastest growing entrepreneurial populations in the world" (brush et al, 2006). female entrepreneurship has evolved since the early of the 1990s. this goes back originally to the essential role that women entrepreneurs play in contributing to socio-economic development, country’s prosperity and to the global market in general (achakpa and radović-marković, 2018). in addition to that, the most significant sentence of winn "women are changing the face of modern business," sums up this new perception of the current place of female in the development of entrepreneurship (winn, 2005). women entrepreneurs are increasingly taking an important part in the economic world. when it comes to engagement in entrepreneurial activities, men constitute 52% while women 48% of all entrepreneurial activities (bouguerra, 2015). oecd shows that women constitute, depending on the country, within 27% of business creators. for the year 2020, chile has the highest percentage of women entrepreneurs among the oecd countries, with 32.4 percent of females having started their own business (oecd, 2020). in the light of the transformation of the algerian economy from a directed economy to a free one and the global economic openness, the wheel of establishing private institutions moved, as entrepreneurship became an effective solution to the problem of unemployment (badraoui and kaddouri, 136 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 134-150) 2021). the change that the socioeconomic and educative development has played in changing social attitudes towards women's work has greatly contributed to the strengthening of women's entrepreneurship in algeria (boufeldja, 2014). regarding the graduation of university students, the statistics indicate that algerian university women are the most affected by unemployment with 21.8% for women against 9.9% for men (hammouda and medjoub, 2014). on another note, data from the gem algeria survey show that the entrepreneurial activity (ea) is still dominated by men, even if the women have recorded a significant increase in the recent years. the national average female ea rate is 5.7, compared to the male rate of around 12.3 (gem, 2011). in this context, female entrepreneurship is a new phenomenon in the algerian society that needs to be encouraged (boufeldja, 2018), and it is one of the most prominent types of entrepreneurship that the government seeks to develop by encouraging entrepreneurial orientation of women in general and female university graduates, in particular. development strategies adopted by the government today is a part of a logic of economic diversification. the political orientations take into account the need to increase the number of real programs aimed at promoting female entrepreneurship (metaiche and bendiabdellah, 2016). indeed, compared to those in other countries, female entrepreneurship in algeria remains an epiphenomenon. in morocco and tunisia, for example, this phenomenon seems to have undergone a much more favorable development than in algeria and that only explains the advanced stage of its development in these neighboring countries. aim of the study: the objective of this study is to know the entrepreneurial intent level of our university female students in light of discouraging and negative societal ideas prevailing algeria about women’s establishment and management of the private enterprise. moreover, this study aims to identify the most prominent motivational factors that can support women students in algeria to become entrepreneurs. research questions: the major question of this research work revolves around what is the reality and the level of the entrepreneurial intention among university women students about to graduate in skikda (algeria), and which factors can motivate the entrepreneurial intentions in this community? ayoub messikh 137 literature review entrepreneurial intention much of entrepreneurial activities are an intentionally planned behavior considering that the entrepreneurial intention is the main indicator of the subsequent entrepreneurial behavior, in addition to being one of the basic conditions for an individual to establish an entrepreneurial project. many academic studies have highlighted that most entrepreneurial institutions always proceed from the entrepreneurial intention to start on a personal work by trying to embody creative ideas in a project form (davidson et al, 2003). ajzen (1991) defines intent as an indication of willingness to try and effort indicating willingness to agree to act in a certain way. however, if individuals find themselves in encouraging positions for some behaviors, this does not mean that pre-intentions are the main determinant of their behavior, but their desire to engage in the behavior is the main determinant (ajzen, 2011). entrepreneurial intention represents the first step in the entrepreneurship process and this intention is the main pre-determining factor for the performance of entrepreneurial behavior (henri, 2005). it is also defined as the totality of the motivating factors that affect individuals to pursue entrepreneurial results for launching a project (hisrich et al, 2010). bird also defines it as the state of mind that directs people towards developing and implementing new business concepts (hattab, 2014). it is the conscious state of mind that directs personal interest, experience and individual behavior towards planned entrepreneurial behavior (martin et al, 2010). female entrepreneurship the participation of women in the labor market has received a special attention at the global level. its share in the percentage of owners of entrepreneurial enterprises is clearly increasing, and in this framework, researchers see that the definition of women entrepreneurship is not different from the concept of entrepreneurship for a man. in this regard, adrian and her research colleagues defined women entrepreneur as: “a person who takes financial risks in order to start up or acquire a business, and who directs it in an innovative and creative way by developing new products and conquering new markets” (adrian et al, 1999). with regard to the status of women's entrepreneurship in algeria, the percentage is still 138 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 134-150) very weak. as shown in the report of mastercard female entrepreneurship index (miwe) 2019, the presence of women entrepreneurs at the national level is estimated at 7.3%, which is one of the lowest rates of the algerian total companies that are owned by women in the world (mastercard, 2019). the ilo report (2017) presents the most prominent challenges facing women entrepreneurship in algeria, which were represented in the lack of actual support for projects (in terms of specialized advice in marketing, law, finance and tax, in addition to the lack of training as well as the absence of support from the family in some areas). furthermore, the cultural environment and the role of women in algerian society along with the constraints related to reconciling work, family responsibilities and stress of traditional society all impede the development of women's activity. in addition to the difficulty of accessing information and markets, there is the difficulty of obtaining land and industrial real estate as well as the difficulty of access to funding. entrepreneurial intentions among university students many studies that have examined the intention of entrepreneurship among students show that the levels of this latter vary from one country to another. lim and pathak (2006) studies point out that entrepreneurial intentions of students in the us, korea, and china were at varying levels. luthje and franke’s (2003) study at mit reveals that only 3.4% of engineering students were currently self-employed during their studies and 54.6% of the students had intentions to be self-employed after graduation. fatoki (2010) also finds that entrepreneurial intentions of final year students in a south africa university were weak (chuks and chishuvo, 2015). as observed in the previous studies, the obtained results in a specific country cannot be used as a premise for estimating the state of entrepreneurial intentions in other countries. this is due to environmental nuances, which may be of a social, political or cultural nature amongst others. the individual chooses the entrepreneurial career path due to his positive outlook and desire for entrepreneurship, his expectations on exploiting opportunities, and some other individual tendencies towards this work (dave, 2015). the following factors represent the most important influences on the intention to initiate entrepreneurial work, according to the majority of previous studies: 1. attitude towards entrepreneurial work: it plays an effective role in shaping the students’ intention towards entrepreneurship. this ayoub messikh 139 view is supported by a study on a sample of students at the higher school of commerce in sfax: the individual's behavioral attitudes towards entrepreneurship are of great importance in the student's orientation at graduation towards the entrepreneurial field (boudabbous, 2011). 2. influence of parents and relatives: social pressure (paternal support) exerted on the individual pushes him to adopt a certain behavior. this view is supported by kolvereid (1997) study of a group of norwegian students, it shows that entrepreneurial intent is highly correlated with social norms and the influence of friends and family (tounés et al, 2014). 3. self-efficacy: it refers to the subjective beliefs that people have a special ability to perform a particular task and then it reflects the individual's confidence in his thinking about his ability to achieve a particular behavior (warren et al, 2013). zaidatol (2009) study, through a sample of 1554 students in malaysia, demonstrates that the student's perception of his entrepreneurial self-efficacy significantly affects his career orientation. 4. the extent to which the university student is exposed to studying topics related to entrepreneurship: the studies have shown that students studying topics related to the establishment of small and medium enterprises or entrepreneurial projects have better intention and entrepreneurial orientation than others. through a study on a selected group of students who followed five distinct programs in three colombian universities, varela and jimenez prove that the highest results extracted regarding indicators of entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial career orientation are at the universities that invested in training and entrepreneurial support and offered and taught leadership programs business for students (alain et al, 2015). vasiliadis and poulios study also shows that entrepreneurial education creates a positive outlook for individuals and even entrepreneurs, in addition to its contribution with the idea that entrepreneurship can be a good alternative career option for university graduates (verni et al, 2015). 5. government support: which plays a huge role in creating intention towards entrepreneurial businesses. (israr and saleem, 2018) assume that governmental support in this field may be in a support form of new business start-ups or more business growth for existing projects. this is realized by providing financial support 140 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 134-150) schemes and incubation workspace, with entrepreneurship education schemes, in addition to subsidizing enterprise advice and training (malebana, 2014). in this regard, henley (2005) spells out in his study that potential entrepreneurs without entrepreneurial support will not be able to translate their intentions into new ventures. research methodology the study seeks to measure the level of entrepreneurial intention among algerian women by investigating the importance and the impact of the most important factors affecting entrepreneurial intention. moreover, it examines the hypothetical relationships between entrepreneurial intentions and the factors of attitude to entrepreneurship, parental support, selfefficacy, entrepreneurial education, government support. the population of this study represents the female students at skikda university who are about to graduate from all scientific and social faculties. the requests were randomly selected to ensure that each unit in the community has an equal opportunity to be selected as a sample for this study. data for this study are collected using a self-administered questionnaire. the questionnaire, which contains 23 questions (the three questions on personal information: age, specialization, and university year are not counted in), is divided into five sections. the first section contains three questions about attitude of the female student towards entrepreneurial work. the second section contains six questions about support of family, relatives and friends. the third section contains six questions about the extent to which the student knows about entrepreneurship through the university. the next section contains five questions, which included items of undergraduate women student self-efficacy. the final section includes three questions about other external factors such as governmental support. a self-developed, randomly distributed questionnaire is utilized as the instrument of data collection and 254 of the returned questionnaires were considered as satisfactory and therefore analyzed in the study. the reliability of the analysis has been done using cronbach’s alpha method to test the instrument for internal consistency. the test returned a result of 0.810, which was acceptable. this indicates that the questionnaire has a high degree of stability and thus reassures the researcher of its application to all the study sample. ayoub messikh 141 table 1: reliability statistics cronbach’s alpha number of elements ,810 27 source: spss outputs the method of the pearson correlation coefficient was used in order to verify the validity of the construction between the averages of the axes and the total mean of the tool as it shows that the value of pearson's correlation coefficients is acceptable for the axes and the tool as a whole. the correlation coefficients are significant at the 5% level of significance, where the significance reaches p≤0.05. the distribution of the respondents according to demographic variables shows an examined range of demographic characteristics commonly used in such studies among the 254 respondents received in this sample. on the issue of age, the sample was predominantly less than 25 years with 87.4%. it is followed by the category between 26 and 30 years, with a rate of 10%. for the age 31 -35 years, it is 1.6%. it remains only 0.8% for the respondents over 35 years old. this distribution can be explained simply by the fact that the majority of university students are young women. given that the algerian educational system requires entry to school for six years and that the total years of educational stages before university (primary, preparatory, secondary) is twelve years, so the age of entering the university is 18 years. by adding five years to it in order to obtain a master's degree, it will be twenty-three years in total. in terms of specialization range, it shows that the majority of the respondents were from human and social specialization (law and politics, humanities and sociology, literature and languages, management and economics) representing 62.6 %. scientific disciplines (science and technology) come in the next rank with a percentage of 32.4%. this was due to the random distribution of the questionnaire. the respondents’ university year (graduation level) show that a large number (about 78.3%) are bachelor's, while only 21.7% are master‘s students. this was again due to random distribution of the questionnaire. the study formulates six hypotheses that are tested. the hypotheses are based on knowing the entrepreneurial intent level of girls who are about to graduate by studying the most important influencing and motivating factors for this intention. in this section, the hypotheses are stated in the null form in which they are tested and the results thereof are presented. 142 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 134-150) test of hypotheses 𝐻𝐻01: the university female student in skikda does not have the intention of starting an entrepreneurial project upon graduation, but rather prefers to work for others. the outcome of the analysis as presented in the following table: table 2: one sample ttest test value = 3 n mean standard deviation t df sig. attitude to entrepreneurship 254 3,8671 ,50717 27,248 253 ,000 source: spss outputs we note from the table above, that the arithmetic mean of the sample answers regarding the extent to which the female student at skikda university has the intention to create an entrepreneurial work amounted to 3,8671. we can also see a standard deviation of 0, 50717, and that the calculated (t) value (27,248) is statistically significant with a level of p≤0.05 between the actual and theoretical averages. thus, the null hypothesis is rejected and then the alternative hypothesis is accepted: there is a considerable intention among the female students from the university under study to start their own business and to establish a small business after graduation. 𝐻𝐻02: the university female student is not affected by the social environment (parental support) in order to move towards entrepreneurial work. the outcome of the analysis as presented in the following table: table 3: one sample ttest test value = 3 n mean standard deviation t df sig. parental support 254 4,0276 ,60765 26,951 253 ,000 source: spss outputs ayoub messikh 143 as shown in the table above, the arithmetic mean of the sample’s answers regarding the extent to which the female student at skikda university is affected by the social environment (parental support) to move towards the entrepreneurial work is 4.0276. we can also see a standard deviation of 0.60765 and that the calculated (t) value (26,951) has statistical significance at the level of p≤0.05 between the actual and theoretical averages. thus, we reject the null hypothesis and we accept the alternative one, which says that the female students of the university under study are strongly affected by the social environment to move towards entrepreneurial work. 𝐻𝐻03: the university does not affect the creation of entrepreneurial intention among female student who are about to graduate. the outcome of the analysis is presented in the following table: table 4: one sample ttest test value = 3 n mean standard deviation t df sig. entrepreneurial university education (university support) 254 3,9469 ,67168 22,466 253 ,000 source: spss outputs the table above demonstrates the arithmetic mean of the sample’s answers regarding the impact of the university (skikda) in the creation of the entrepreneurial intention of the female students is 3,9469. the standard deviation is 0.67168 and the calculated (t) value (22,466) has statistical significance at the level of p≤0.05 between the actual and theoretical averages. thus, the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative one that says: skikda university affects the creation of the entrepreneurial intention of the women students at an acceptable level, is accepted. 𝐻𝐻04: female university students do not feel the desire and ability to initiate and control their own (entrepreneurial) project (self-efficacy). the outcome of the analysis as presented in the following table: 144 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 134-150) table 5: one sample ttest test value = 3 n mean standard deviation t df sig. self-efficacy 254 3,9669 ,62580 24,625 253 ,000 source: spss outputs we note from the table above, the arithmetic mean of the sample’s answers regarding the extent to which the student feels the desire and ability to initiate and control an entrepreneurial activity (self-efficacy) amounted to 3,9669, with a standard deviation of 0.62580. the calculated (t) value (24,625) is significant. there is also a statistical level of p≤0.05 between the actual and theoretical averages. thus, the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative one confirming that the university female students at the university under study feel the desire and ability to start an entrepreneurial project and to control it at an acceptable level (self-efficacy). 𝐻𝐻05: the supporting factors provided by the state do not affect the creation of an entrepreneurial intention for female students to launch an entrepreneurial work. the outcome of the analysis is presented in the following table: table 6: one sample ttest test value = 3 n mean standard deviation t df sig. government support 254 4,0748 ,71135 24,080 253 ,000 source: spss outputs the table above shows that the arithmetic mean of the sample’s answers regarding the impact of the external supporting factors provided by the government in creation an entrepreneurial intention of the female student under study to launch an entrepreneurial work amounted to 4,0748. the standard deviation is 0.71135 and the calculated (t) value (24,080) is significant. there is a statistical level of p≤0.05 between the actual and theoretical averages. thus, we reject the null hypothesis and we accept the alternative one confirming that the supporting factors provided by the state ayoub messikh 145 strongly affect the creation of an entrepreneurial intention to female students to launch an entrepreneurial work. 𝐻𝐻06: there are no statistically significant differences about the entrepreneurial intention of university female students at the 5% morale level, due to demographic variables. to test this hypothesis, the mann-whitney and kruskal-wallis tests were used. we considered that the distribution is abnormal, this was confirmed by the kolmogorov-smirnov test which shows that the value of the significance level for each section of the test results (axes) is less than 0.05 (sig < 0.05). this note indicates that the data do not follow a normal distribution. we used the mann-whitney test for the variables of specialization and level of study. concerning the age variable, we used the kruskal-wallis test. here, the hypothesis is rejected if the significance level is less than or equal to 0.05. it is clear from mann-whitney test that there are no statistically significant differences (at the level of α≤0.05) in the entrepreneurial intention variable among university female students due to the variables of specialization, as well as the level of study. therefore, this hypothesis is accepted with regard to the variables of specialization, and level of study. it is clear from kruskal-wallis test that there are no statistically significant differences (at the level of α≤0.05) in the entrepreneurial intention variable among university women students due to the age variable. thus, this hypothesis is accepted for the age variable. discussion and conclusion (key findings) in this study, it was found that the female students at the university of skikda have a considerable intention (acceptable level) of starting a private individual work, which was confirmed by the direction of the students' answers "strongly agree", where the average was 3,8671. the results indicate that the entrepreneurial education followed by the female student can affect her choice of the future profession, because it provides the student with great knowledge about this career and its effective role in promoting the major economies of the world. the study shows in this regard that the university of skikda affects (at an acceptable level) the creation of entrepreneurial mindset of the women students under study, which is mainly evident through the arithmetic mean, which amounted to 146 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 134-150) 3,9469 (strong approval). therefore, this result goes hand in hand with the results of the study of hattab (2014), boudabbous (2011), and bouguerra (2015). furthermore, the result of this study has shown that the impact of the paternal support variable for the female students in pushing them to think about establishing their own enterprises is positive. this was mainly confirmed by the answers of the sample, which tended to strongly agree, with an average of 4,0276, which can be explained by the fact of the presence of entrepreneurs in family members. the positive view they have of the entrepreneurial field drives them to try to direct their children towards these kinds of projects. they know that the algerian government pays great attention to entrepreneurship through its establishment of accompanying agencies for entrepreneurial projects such as the national agency for entrepreneurship support and development and the national fund for financing startups. this result joins the results of the study of bouguerra (2015). this study also shows the effective role played by the female student's self-efficacy in creating an entrepreneurial intention, which was demonstrated by the students' tendency to agree strongly with an average of 3,9669. the presence of the female student’s desire for self-realization and independence and the ability to control her project along with her knowledge of the reality of employment in the public and private sectors altogether push her to start her own project, especially in light of the concessions, and aid granted by the government in this field. therefore, this result matches with the results of the study of rome (2014). the study confirms that the support granted by the government, with regard to the establishment of institutions represents a great impetus for the entrepreneurial orientation of the female students at skikda university who are about to graduate. in addition to the fact that the external environment for entrepreneurial work is stimulating the creation of an entrepreneurial intention, which is confirmed by severe approval in the respondents' answers, where the arithmetic mean was estimated at 4,0748. the latter explains that the state tends to support female entrepreneurship and to involve them in the development process. therefore, this result synchronizes with the results of the study of (bouguerra, 2015), which considers that the lack of government support obstructed women in the process of business startup. ayoub messikh 147 the findings show that there are no statistically significant differences about the entrepreneurial intention of the researched female students due to the variables (specialization, university level, and age) and this can be attributed to several reasons related to each variable. the absence of differences with regard to university specialization could be explained by the possibility of establishing enterprises in all fields of study. also, we noticed the absence of statistically significant differences regarding the university level variable due to the presence of the graduation stage for the two levels (bachelor and master), and hence the students of the two levels who are about to graduate. in addition to this, the absence of differences with respect to the age variable can be traced back to the possibility of all age groups to establish private projects. as a conclusion, all relevant parties should contribute to increasing interest in women's entrepreneurship in algeria, especially the university category because it solves the problem of unemployment among this group, on one hand, and it achieves development goals on the other. in this regard, the study recommends the necessity of increasing the entrepreneurial intent in algerian university, considering that the entrepreneurial university, through its creative activities, paves the way for building a global economy based on knowledge and universities have become a natural incubator to revive the spirit of individual initiative. nevertheless, the matter is not confined to entrepreneurial awareness only. it transcends it to financial and technical support. it is important to reconsider the activation of the entrepreneurship houses established at the level of algerian universities. organizing seminars and conferences about entrepreneurship to advisory, financial and marketing support, accompanying the creation and development of projects could help female students to create their own business. especially if it comes to the category of females who receive relative social and cultural discouragement and condemnation in algeria 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[33] winn, j. 2005. “women entrepreneurs: can we remove the barriers?”, international entrepreneurship and management journal, n°1, 381– 397. 150 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 134-150) [34] zaidatol, a, and lope, p. 2009. “entrepreneurship as a career choice: an analysis of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and intention of university students”, european journal of social sciences, 9(2), 338-349. article history: received: november 4th, 2021 accepted: december 7th, 2021 14_jwe_1-2 udc: 305-055.2(6-11) ; 32-055.2(6-11) jel: 072, h11, j16 id: 207723276 original scientific research regional trends for women’s electoral success in the east african legislatures ombati mokua1 moi university, sociology and psychology department, kenya a b s t r a c t without formally enacted methodologies, it is increasingly clear that meeting millennium development goals (mdgs) that stipulate gender equality and promote women’s empowerment would be extremely very difficult. specifically, mdg 3 underlines the fact that women need to be politically empowered by far greater participation if greater equality has to be achieved. under this goal, countries are expected to formulate deliberate policies that ensure equal representation between men and women in all decision-making levels including politics. it is on this note therefore, that countries in the east african region have enacted constitutional, legislative and electoral requirements providing for the principle of gender quotas as a policy measure for boosting women’s access to their legislatures. based on a critical analysis of official reports, related literature and data provided by national parliaments, this investigation examines the gender composition of five legislatures in the east african region namely, rwanda, tanzania, uganda, burundi, and kenya. the study underlines the power of gender quotas in expediting and equalizing significant gender imbalances, and alsocaptures the types and nature of quotas used by individual countries. while appreciating the challenges involved in underwriting the affirmative action mechanisms, the analyses notes that affirmative action is not a slogan for politics but a strategy for development; it is a gigantic plan of action for achieving the desired social change. 1 e-mail: keombe@gmail.com 154 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) key words: electoral gender quotas, women in east african legislatures introduction throughout much of sub-saharan africa, as in other nations of the world, women have had difficulty breaking into the legislative arena. however,the east african countries of rwanda, tanzania, uganda, burundi and kenya have registered substantial numbers of women in their legislatures over the last two decades.the increase in women’s legislative participation in the east african region has been monumentally greater than that experienced at any other time and anywhere else in the world.data provided by the inter-parliamentary union’s (ipu) classification of women in world parliaments, indicates that by mid-2007, 48.8 percent of rwanda’sparliamentarians were female, compared to uganda’s 30.7percent, burundi’s 30.5 percent, and tanzania’s 30.4 percent, placing them above the 30 percent threshold and over position 20 globally. in its parliamentary elections in september 2008, rwanda increased its percentage to 56.3 percentwith the election of 45 women into a legislature of 80 seats.despite being the economic and infrastructural giant of the region, kenya has continuously maintained its historical underdog position with a recorded dismal 7.3 percent women representation in the legislature in its december 2002 elections. this was to marginally improve to a paltry 9.8 percent in the december 2007 elections. rwanda’s supremacyhas continued toreign,both regionally and globally, withan impressive 63.8 percent, afterits september 2013 parliamentary elections. the united republic of tanzania at number 23 worldwide is second in the region with 36.0 percent women representation in the legislature after its elections of october 2010. uganda follows at number 24 globally with 35.0 percent women parliamentarians, subsequent to its successful elections in february 2011. burundi is next at number 36 worldwide with 30.5 percent women parliamentary representation, following itsparliamentary elections of july 2010. despite enacting what was billed as the most comprehensive and progressive constitution in 2010, which stipulates among others, electoral gender quotas, kenya has however, continued to perform poorly and lags behind its neighbours at a dismal19.1 percent women representation after its march 2013 elections. kenya is positioned number 78 on the global ranking of women in parliaments (ipu, 2014). ombati, m., the east african legislatures, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) 155 itisincreasingly clearthat,"with only a handful of women in the legislature”, meeting mdg3–millennium development goal which stipulate gender equality in the political stratum,is extremely very difficult. mdg-3 is one of the eight united nations (un) goals thatseek to promote gender equality and empower women. under this goal, countries are expected to formulate policies and legislation that ensure equal representation between men and women in all decision-making levels including politics. despite the possibility that women’s inclusion in legislatures may have risen for different reasons, a similar set of factors have been identified as accounting for the swelling numbers in women’s legislative presence in the east african parliaments. bauer and britton (2006) and matland (2006), find that women’s successfuloccupation of legislatures in some sub-saharan africa countries share common characteristics: togetherwith matching with the electoral system in practice and level of democracyexisting at agiven country, all these nations have recently experienced a transition of some kind. they have faced periods of enormous political conflict, turmoil, violence and even genocide.notably, new constitutions were drawn up at the conclusion of decades of either civil strife, institutional and/or constitutional transitions.burundi, rwanda, and uganda have survived prolonged civil wars, while kenya and tanzania have experienced long periods of resistance for constitutional liberationand the widening of the democratic pace and space. while the societal costs have been great and cannot be underestimated, the post-conflict setting created unique opportunities to draft new constitutions, establish new electoral rules, and foster new norms of engagement on political leadership. ballington (2004) identifies the use of specific electoral systems and quotas, the strength and cohesion of national women’s movements, pressure exerted by international women’s organizations, and the strategic use of windows of post-conflicttransition opportunity as the factors giving rise to women’s increased political representation. during political transitions in the post-conflict period, women activists and their solidarity organizations inserted themselves into the processes of crafting new constitutions and drafting new laws that provided the legal foundations and political frameworks for the institutions and mechanisms to bring more women into legislative office. women’s movements and organizations exerted pressure on the (usually male dominated and dominant) political institutions to adopt strategies and 156 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) mechanisms that led to women’s increased representation. tripp (2001) argues that as african nations have moved in recent years towards multiparty systems, women began to form political parties of their own, partly because the existing parties were viewed as having inadequately addressed their concerns. a global women’s movement and the adoption of international protocols also played a significant role.international instruments like the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw),the united nations international women’s conferences innairobi, kenya, in 1985 and the 1995 beijing platform for action provided mobilizing opportunities for women (u.n.,2006). the recommendations of these women only solidarity gatherings laid out guidelines for increased representation and called on governments to take meaningful steps to ensure women’s equalaccess to, and full participation in power structures and decision-making foras. perhaps, the most widespread impetus propelling women into political representation in all legislatures of the east african region is the implementation of electoral gender quotas. as of august 2011, all countries in the east african region had adopted some form of quota structure to guarantee women seats in parliament (quotasproject, 2010). kenya, the only country in the region that had adopted but yet to implement the gender quota system, was due to experiment with its electoral gender magic in the march 2013 elections.with re-enacted constitutions and new electoral systems in place, the east african countries adopted electoral gender quotas as the minimum measure of equalizing gender imbalance in their legislatures. quotas are usually easier to implement when the entire electoral system is ‘up for grabs.’ as tripp (2004) contends, it is much harder to implement quotas in an established system, when in fact a quota would be displacing a male office-holder. since these countries were starting from scratch, there were no male-incumbents to displace. the increased use of electoral gender quotas across east africa reflects renewed interest in formal politics and political institutions among women at a time when democratic transitions haveprovided the political opening for such an activity. hassim and meintjes (2005: 4) argue that the efforts to break down the barriers to women’s equal political participation “signal that there is room for women’s agency to shape politics, and that formal political rights are an important precondition for advancing equitable ombati, m., the east african legislatures, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) 157 social policies” for women. bringing women into national legislatures in significant numbers is one part of this effort. it is important to observe that countries in the east african region have undertaken gender quotas, within a broader dynamic of growing international consensus on the need for the adoption of mechanisms that promote women’ participation. this development is part of a global trend whereby women are using electoral gender quotas to take a ‘fast track’ to equal legislative representation (dahlerup&freidenvall, 2005). rather than wait for decades to bring about the desired changes in cultural attitudes and socio-economic and developments, a law of affirmative action is a good mechanism that has proved itself in other countries as a swift and effective remedy to engenderlegislatures, sometimes ‘overnight.’ this ‘fast-track’ has spread throughout the african continent, and increasingly african countries are adopting either mandatory or voluntary electoral quotas of some form. several asian, european and latin american countries have also utilized electoral gender quotas with success, though nowhere in the world has the rate of increase in women’s representation been as fast as in africa (dahlerup&freidenvall, 2005; tripp, 2004; dahlerup&freidenvall, 2005) take a comparative look at the trend to adopt gender quotas worldwide and found that utilizing gender quotas alone is not always an effective means of allowing women’s voices to be heard. without matching appropriate quota configurations with the country’s electoral system and creating rules to enforce adherence to quotas, gender quota provisions may service as merely symbolic.nevertheless, the uneven political playing field on which women and men compete has led to a number of reforms to safeguard the presence of women in parliaments, primarily gender quotas or other positive action strategies. the east african case countries: rwanda, tanzania, uganda,burundi andkenya the east african countries of rwanda, tanzania, uganda, burundiand kenya have all experienced transitions within the last two decades. uganda was first when the national resistance movement (nrm) wrestled power from the last in a series of dictatorial and military regimes in 1986. tanzania followed a more peaceful path to political transition with amendments to its constitution in 1992 that proscribed a one-party political system and commenced the transition to a multiparty political system. after 158 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) a lot of struggle from civil democratic activists (both men and women) but with much procrastination from the political establishment, kenya was to finally follow tanzania’s path two decades later by making a complete overhaul on and rewriting its constitution in 2010. burundi and rwanda’s transitions came on the heels of aborted democratic openings, conflict, war, genocide, drawing up of new constitutions, and the installation of new governments. in these cases too, women’s enhanced participation in the political process in the post-conflict and post-transition period stems in part from their participation in the conflicts/transition and their active mobilization in the pre-conflict/transition period. rwanda in rwanda, women were prominent among the civil society activists who pressured the government for reform beginning in 1989.indeed, they were specifically targeted during the 1994 genocide. women’s groups took a leading role in the post-genocide period helping rwandans to reconstruct their lives. over time, they experienced growing public influence which they were able to translate into political power (longman, 2006). the critical moment for increasing women’s national legislative representation came with the drawing up of a new constitution, adopted in a public referendum in june 2003. rwanda’s constitution provides for two systems for selecting members into the lower house or chamber of deputies. the bulk of members, 53 out of 80, are directly elected to the chamber of deputies using a closed list proportional representation (pr) electoral system. independent candidates are also allowed to compete. seats are allocated according to the system of the largest remainder to parties and independent candidates who obtain at least 5 percent of the total votes cast. in cases where there is only one seat to fill and the lists obtain the same number of votes, using the largest remainder formula, the seat is awarded to the list that receives the largest number of actual votes. vacancies for members elected under the proportional representation system are filled by the "next-in-line" candidate of the same party in cases where the remainder of their term exceeds one year. by-elections are held if seats occupied by independent candidates become vacant. while there are no mandatory party quotas, the constitution requires that party lists take gender equity into consideration. the remaining 27 seats are reserved seats: two seats reserved for the youth and one for the handicapped and 24 for women members (a 30 percent ombati, m., the east african legislatures, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) 159 quota) elected from the provinces and the city of kigali, by an electoral college (www.rwandaparliament.gov.rw/; ipu,2014). in the 2003 election, the first under rwanda’s new constitution, local and regional women representatives and officials gathered in each province and the city of kigali two days after the general election to select the women members of the lower house. in addition to the twenty four (24) women elected into reserved seats, fifteen (15) women members were directly elected to occupy a total of thirty nine (39) of the eighty (80) seats in the chamber of deputies, translating to 48.8 percent female legislative representation globally, the highest percentage among parliaments comprising directly elected members (longman, 2008). in the september 2008 elections, the second to be held after the 1994 genocide, in which over 800,000 people were killed, the rwandan patriotic front (fpr) formed a coalition with six small parties. the rwandan patriotic front (fpr) list comprised eighty (80) candidates (including fourteen (14) from its coalition partners), of whom thirty five (35) were women. the social democratic party (psd) backed thirty two (32) women among its sixty four (64) candidates. in all, 356 candidates, including 196 women, were vying for the fifty three (53) directly elected seats. in addition, 113 women candidates ran for the twenty four (24) reserved seats for women, while eighty three (83) ran for the seats reserved for the youth and the disabled. in all, women won twenty (20) of the fifty three (53) directly elected seats. in addition to the twenty four (24) women elected by virtue of the reserved seats, a woman won one of the seats reserved for the youth. rwanda thus broke its own record of the world's highest percentage of women parliamentarians, by returning 45 women to 35 men to the chamber of deputies, or 56.3 per cent women’s legislative representation, the new chamber elected an independently elected female member for the speakership, becoming the first woman ever to assume the post (ipu,2014). rwandans went to the polls on the 5th of october 2013 in which a record 51 women were elected to its 80 strong membership chamber of deputies.in addition to occupying the twenty four (24) reserved seats, women also managed twenty six (26) of the fifty three (53) openly contested seats and one (1) of the two representative seats reserved for the youth. rwanda, thus, renewed its own record for the highest number of women parliamentarians rising to 64 percent, (a 7.5-point increase from 56.3 percent in 2008), (www.rwandaparliament.gov.rw/).the world and the east african region were led once again by rwanda’s chamber of deputies. 160 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) the massive gains registered by rwanda have been partially credited to the electoral framework adopted after the 1994 genocide which sought to firmly plant women’spolitical representation as one of the pillars of postconflict reconstruction and reconciliation. the reconstructed processes, originally engineered to ensure robust and diverse representation,have ledin practice to a remarkable sharing of leadership between men and women.and owing perhaps, to the socioeconomicand political benefits accrued, women’s leadership have not only been maintained but also exponentially expanded. tanzania in tanzania, not marked by the kind of conflict experienced in uganda, burundi or rwanda, a few special seats for women existed in the pre-transition period, only to be greatly increased in number in the posttransition period, as most recently as the 2005 election. quotas, or ‘special’ parliamentary seats, were introduced in 1985 for women, youth, members of the army and workers. women were to constitute 15 percent of representatives. the small number of ‘special’ seats for women that existed during the single party era were created not for the purpose of compensating and redressing historical imbalances, rather with the goal of enhancing the representation of varied interests in a one-party regime (meena 2004). the underlying principle was to ensure that the voices of special categories of citizens were heard in parliamentthose that were placed at a disadvantage in the normal electoral process. since the political transition in the early 1990s tanzania has continued to set aside reserved seats for women.15 percent of parliamentary seats were reserved for women in 1995, increased to 20 percent for the 2000 election and women were supposed to be not less than 30 percent of all members of parliament for the 2005 election. the move to increase the number of reserved seats for women in 2005 was intended to ensure that tanzania met the southern african development community’s target of 30 percent women in national legislatures target by 2005. for the legislature’s 232 directly elected seats, a first-past-the-post electoral system was utilized. seventy-five (75) additional seats are reserved for women who are elected by their political parties on the basis of the parties’ proportional representation in the national assembly. [in addition, five (5) seats are indirectly elected from zanzibar, of which two (2) must be women and ten (10) appointed by the president of which five (5) must be women, making ombati, m., the east african legislatures, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) 161 for an increased quota for women.] tanzania’s 2005 election brought ninth seven (97) women into parliament in a membership total of 319.out of these women, seventy five (75)were elected into the women only reserved seats, seventeen (17) to the directly-elected seats, two(2) to reserved seats for zanzibar and three (3) appointed by the president. women activists in tanzania have sought to monitor closely the reserved seat system put in place following the 1992 transition for its impact on women legislators and women’s representation (ipu2014; lowe-morna, 2004). the october 2010 polls were the fourth to be held since tanzania introduced multi-party politics in 1992. the legislature has a total of 350 legislators of whom 126 are women. of the women legislators, 102 were elected by political parties in proportion to their share of the electoral vote under the special seats for women, twenty one (21) were elected from constituencies, two (2) were elected from zanzibar and the president appointed one (1) to sum the total women legislators into 126. on 12th november 2010, the newly elected parliament held its first session and for the first time ever elected a woman as its new speaker, becoming the first woman to assume the post, (www.parliament.go.tz/). in the 2010 poll, with 36.6 percent women in her national assembly, tanzania had achieved the highest percentage of women in parliament ever under a majoritarian electoral system. globally tanzania is ranked number 23 on account of the number of women in its parliament and number two (2) in the east african region (ipu, 2014). uganda in uganda, with already existing contacts in the ruling national resistance movement, women activists in the late 1980s were invited by the new president (yowerimuseveni) to identify women leaders for leadership positions in government. sylvia tamale (1999) argues that president yowerimuseveni was receptive to women’s increased participation in politics, in part, because of their participation in the armed struggle that brought him and his movement to power. ottemoeller (1999) and tripp (2000) focus on the pressure exerted by the ugandan women’s organizations and the influence of the worldwide feminist movement.the movement’s important role in the process of revising the 1995 constitution contributed to the rise in female participation in political life in uganda.ottemoeller (1999) argues however, that the change to a multi-party system in uganda placed women as a valuable voting bloc that was often 162 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) brought into politics symbolically in order to assure politically ambitious men the much needed female vote. uganda the first country to use reserved seats for women in africa, utilizesa first-past-the-post electoral system (fptp) for directly elected ‘constituency’ legislators. in addition, reserved ‘district’ seats for women were introduced during the country’s first post-transition election in 1986, by expanding the ugandan parliament to include extra seats for women only (one from each district in thecountry). in 1995, a revised constitution institutionalized the gender quota system by providing for a number of reserved seats in the national parliament equal to the number of districts in the country. the women legislators from the district seats are elected from all-female lists of candidates by male-dominated electoral colleges whose members are drawn from local councils and women’s councils.bycontrast, the ‘constituency’ legislators are elected directly by universal adult suffrage (tamale,2004). the constitution also provides for reserved seats for workers, the youth, the disabled and the army, of which five (5) out of 25 must be women. in addition, the president of the republic is constitutionally mandated to appoint as many ex-officio members as he/she wishes, who may be either women or men. the number of ex-officio members (ministers who do not have voting rights), and thus the statutory number of members, may vary during the course of any legislature. by the time of the 2006 election, there were seventy four (74) reserved seats for women out of a total 322 seats, which indicated a 22.9 percent quota on ipu’s global rankings.of these seventy four (74) reserved seats, sixty nine (69) were district based, and five (5) were from among the twenty five (25) reserved for workers, the youth, the disabled and the army. in addition to those seventy four (74) seats, women were directly elected to 14 constituency seats in the national legislature, and one (1) more woman was elected to an additional seat for the army into a total of eighty nine (89) parliamentary seats for women. this translated to 27.6 percent of the proportion of women in the uganda legislature. subsequent to the february 2006 parliamentary election, 11 more district seats for women were added, though one (1) remained vacant in early 2007, bringing the total number of women in uganda’s parliament to ninth nine (99) or 29.8 percent of the total members (bauer, 2008). in the 2011 parliamentary and presidential elections,1,270 candidates were vying for the directly elected seats, while 443 were running for the special seats reserved for women. at stake were 386 seats in parliament (up ombati, m., the east african legislatures, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) 163 from 332), which comprise 238 directly elected (up from 215),137 indirectly elected and eleven (11) seats which serve special interests.112 seats are reserved for women (up from 79). as in the 2006 elections, there were five (5) additional representatives each for the youth, the disabled and the workers as well as ten (10) representatives for the army. on 19thmay 2011, the newly elected parliament held its first session and elected a female candidate as its new speaker, with men occupying 251 and women 135 seats in parliament, turninga 35.0 percent womenproportion of the total 386 legislators. the 135 legislative seats won by women are distributed intoeleven (11) for constituency representatives, 112 for women only district representatives, two (2) for youth representatives, two (2) for representatives of disabled persons, two (2) for workers' representatives, and two (2) for representatives of the army. the constitution stipulates that at least one (1) person from each of the categories and two (2) from the army must be women (www.parliament.go.ug/). globally, uganda is ranked number 24thand regionally, it is number three(3) on account of its positioning on the number of women parliamentarians (ipu,2014). burundi in the case of burundi, the ‘fast-track’ of quotas was remarkable.burundi emerged from a conflict situation, approving a new constitution by referendum in february 2005 and electing just over 30 percent women to its parliament in july the same year. twenty-four (24) women were directly elected and twelve (12) more co-opted such that 30.51 percent of legislators were women. following the adoption of gender quotas, burundi moved from below 7 percent to the 30 percent club globally. this was a dramatic jump from 1999, when burundi had only 6 percent women in its national assembly and ranked 79th in the world. before the july 2005 elections, burundi had 18.4percent women in the national assembly, and ranked 50th worldwide (ipu,2014). burundian elections are based on a blocked-list proportional representation system. the seats are distributed in proportion to the number of votes obtained by each list after removing the lists that receive less than 2.00 percent of the votes nationwide. in the lower house or national assembly, members are elected directly using a proportional representation (pr) electoral system.each party’s candidate list must have at least 20 percent women with one (1) woman’s name included in every five (5) names on the list. the remaining members are ‘co-opted’ to ensure that the 164 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) 30 percent quota for women has been met. under the 2005 constitution, 60 percent of the seats in the national assembly are reserved for members of the hutu ethnic group and 40 per cent for the tutsis. a further three seats are reserved for the twa ethnic group. senate seats are shared equally between hutus and tutsis. quotas of 30 percent of seats are reserved for women in both chambers. in addition, burundian women have the direct election to the 100 seats in the national assembly (www.assemblee.bi/). the july 2010 elections were the second to be held since the official cessation to the ethnic strife triggered by the assassination of burundi's first hutu president melchior ndadaye in october 1993. in the final results, in addition to the seats won in the main election, other members were coopted, including women.with the adoption of gender quotas, burundi now has thirty four (34) women in its lower house and forty one (41) women in the upper house, making the total number of women legislators to be seventy five (75), both houses combined. this translates to 30.5 percent of female representation in the burundian national assembly. burundi is listed number36thin the global rankings of women in parliament and number four (4) in the east african region(ipu&ballington, 2008). kenya though relatively peaceful than her neighbours, save for tanzania, the road for the clamour for democratic constitutional changes in kenya has been tumultuous, agonizing and painful, especially for the pro-reform advocates who came out to register opposition to the successful postindependence oppressive regimes. it is on the strength of international pressure, and on account of the foundation of the lessons of success learned from her east african neighbours, that kenya was given the impetus to finally introduce and enact legislation on electoral gender quotas, as the only sure instrument of increasing the legislative participation of women. until the constitutional revision of 2010, the nomination, appointment and election of women to the legislature depended on the goodwill of those in power, who more often than not lacked the commitment to enforce any gains for women. for example, an affirmative action bill introduced towards the end of the 9th parliament (2002-2007) was thrown out through a technicality of lack of quorum, all designed by the male legislators who perceived such laws to have a negative effect on them. women’s legislative presence in kenya has historically been the east african region’s lowest despite their active participation for many years at ombati, m., the east african legislatures, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) 165 the political party and voting levels. for example, though an impressive 269 women stood for parliamentary elections, in the 2007 elections, kenyansonly votedtwenty two (22) women into thelegislature, which translated to 9.82 percent of women legislative representation and number 105 in ipu’sglobal rankings. it is on the promulgation of a new constitution that women expecting to join legislative leadership positions in kenya have reason to smile. in august 2010, in a national referendum, kenya created a new constitution, which has been described as a giant leap forward for kenya's womankind. the new constitution provides for a bicameral parliament. articles 81, 97, and 98 of the constitution (2010) institutionalize the gender quota system by providing for a number of reserved seats for women. the provisions pertaining to gender-based quotas and other measures enshrined in the new constitution provides that the electoral system shall comply with the principle that “no more than two-thirds of the members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender” (article 81b). also, candidate lists for certain segments of the lower chambers, senate and county assemblies must alternate male and female candidates in the priority in which they are listed. for the lower house, the constitution reserves forty seven (47) seats for women deputies, each elected from forty seven (47) counties–each county constituting a single-mandate constituency. these seats are contested only by women candidates in each county. in addition, the national assembly has 290 elected members, each elected by voters of singlemandate constituencies, and women are allowed to compete with men in these constituencies. twelve (12) members are nominated by political parties to represent special interests including the youth, persons with disabilities and the workers, whose list must be composed of alternating male and female candidates (article 97). the senate or upper house consists of, a) forty seven (47) members each elected from single-mandate constituencies (counties), and women are allowed to contest together with men in these seats, b) sixteen (16) seats allocated to women members only, as nominated by political parties according party proportional representation in the senate, c) two (2) members representing the youth (one woman and one man), d) two (2) members representing persons with disabilities (one woman and one man) (article 98). subnational assemblies at the county level, consist of members elected by voters in each ward (each constituting a single member constituency) and 166 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) a number of ‘special seat members,’ meant to ensure that no more than twothirds of the memberships of the county assembly are of the same gender. the holders of these special seats are nominated by political parties in proportion to their share of seats in that county (article 177). in addition, thanks to the new constitutional reform, changes to the kenyan electoral system include a financial incentive to political parties that may encourage and commit them to nominate more female candidates to legislative leadership positions. also, the political parties act of 2011 extends the two-thirds rule to parties’ membership lists and governing bodies. however, the constitution is silent on the legal sanctions to be applied in event of non-compliance. these electoral constitutional requirements were expected to come into force with the election of a new legislature in 2013. however, the supreme court in a landmark ruling which is considered a major setback to the empowerment of women declared that the constitutional provision calling for a mandatory one-third gender representation would not be implemented in the upcoming 2013 elections but would be achieved progressively. the court argued that the historical marginalisation of women in elective politics would not be resolved by the principle of gender quotas but would only be realised over time and in stages. fearing a constitutional crisis that if the number of elected legislators of either gender hits above the two-thirds majority mark, then the legislature so formed would be “unlawful”, the attorney-general of kenya had appealed for a constitutional determination to the supreme court in the lead to 2013 elections. the ruling left critics pointing an accusing finger at the government’s underhand interference in the conduct of independent institutions including the courts. for this, critics have denouncedthe intransigence of a patriarchal government fearful of women’s legislative empowerment. the ruling effectively denied women their constitutional right to fair representation. the ruling was an affront to the sovereign will of the people of kenya who voted overwhelmingly for the constitutional change in which the principle of gender parity was firmly enshrined. if the controversial ruling is left uncorrected, it would widen the inequality gap between men and women in leadership positions. indeed, by maintaining the status quo the ruling was the ultimate regression on the path to kenya’s growing allinclusive participatorydemocracy. many had hoped that the parliament to be formed after the 2013 elections would be more broadly representative of the gender and ethnic ombati, m., the east african legislatures, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) 167 composition of the country. however, the election managed to post only 19.1 percent women legislators in the lower house, and kenya is ranked number seventy eight (78) globally (ipu 2014). in the elections, a total of 2,392 candidates competed for parliamentary seats in both houses, out of which 445 were women. of the 2,089 candidates who competed for the 290 constituency seats, 152 were women. and finally, 303 women candidates competed against each other for the forty seven (47) women only representative seats (www.parliament.go.ke). when fully enforced, these constitutional and electoral laws have the potential to finally put the representation of women in legislative leadership positions in kenya on the right pedestal of take-off to equity. and this will have significant ramifications not just for women but the kenyan society as a whole. gender quotas that produce higher numbers of women in parliament will result in greater diversity in the type and quality of women elected, as well as their commitment to policy changes on behalf of women as a group and society as a whole. by adopting a quarter or one third of either gender as the lower limit for representation at all elective public positions in kenya, the quota system as constructed by the constitution is gender-neutral, meaning it aims to correct the under-participation of both women and men. choice of quota type electoral gender quotas may take different forms including legal candidate quotas (which ensure that a certain proportion of candidates for election must be women), voluntary gender quotas (where parties voluntarily aim to have a certain proportion of women candidates), and reserved or appointed seats (where at least a minimum threshold of seats are set aside in the legislature for women only) (tripp, 2004). gender quotas in the form of reserved seats are the most common quota type used in east africa. they are the only ‘best fit’ for a first-pastthe-post (fptp) electoral system, as used in the east african region. reserved seats (a tier for women candidates only) are ‘guaranteed to work’ and a ‘best fit’ for use with any type of electoral system (laserud &taphorn, 2007, p. 28). constitutional gender quotas are enshrined in a country’s constitution, while legislative quotas are enshrined in the electoral law, political party law or other comparable law of a country. by definition, both forms are based on 168 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) legal provisions, obliging all political entitiesparticipating in elections to apply them equally. non-compliance with legislative or constitutional quotas can result in penalties for political entities who do not apply them. examples of sanctions issued by the legal authorities of a country can range from disqualifying candidates, to the imposition of fines, up to disqualification of the entire party. voluntary gender quotas are adopted voluntarily by political parties. they are set by the parties themselves to guarantee the nomination of a certain number or proportion of women. in voluntary quotas, most often, political parties choose to reserve seats for women in parliament or on their pre-election party lists. as the name reveals, voluntary quotas are not legally binding and there are therefore no sanctions to enforce them. for example, in their yet unmet campaign to have 50 percent women on the lists, women in south africa use the phrase “zebra list” to indicate that women should be placed in every other seat on the list.when the opportunity for a mandatory quota seems unlikely, individual political partiescan still move ahead with their voluntary gender quotas agenda for increasing women’s representation. challenges evidence from these case studiesreveals that, while important, gender quotas in themselves are insufficient (tamale,2004; kanakuze,2004; longman,2008). secondly, their enforcement can prove extremely difficult, as identified in the kenyan case,and the consequences of implementation can be quite devastating. specific historical circumstances and the electoral system in practice, contribute immeasurably to the success of electoral gender quotas, even though they could be constitutionally mandated. also, ambitious measures to achieve them must be accompanied by sanctions for non-compliance. the government’ political commitment is of particular significance to the realization of electoral gender quotas. this is because political goodwill most likely reflects a political calculus where reserved seats are ‘dished-out’ in exchange for loyalty to the nominating authority or ruling party (tripp et al., 2006; longman, 2008). indeed, as matland (2006: 287) suggests, reserved seats are used to substantially increase the ruling parties’ voting strength in parliament. in her study of uganda, goetz (2003) argues that legislative members’ ability to successfully advocate for reform of issues important to women is hindered by powerful incumbents, whose patronage is needed to obtain and keep quota seats in parliament. when elected or ombati, m., the east african legislatures, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) 169 appointed quota members owe their place and allegiances in parliament to personal networks and patronage, they may not, like their male counterparts, be able or willing to challenge the status quo. further, the male-dominated legislative institutions may seek to boost their international image by enhancing the descriptive representation of women, even while their commitment to substantive women’s issues may be limited (dahlerup&drude,2008). the male gatekeepers can use gender quotas to show that women are a subject that is en vogue, and that they are a modern party and country. at times, therefore, while gender quotas may be intended to promote women’s empowerment, they may instead serve to strengthen the authoritarian status quo and be used to reinforce the clientelistic political structure of a country (bauer & britton, eds., 2006). finally, as with any affirmative action policy, the fairness, impartiality, appropriateness, and consistency of quotas with democratic principles has been questioned. some argue that giving opportunities to women at the expense of men violates the principle of equal opportunity for all and is undemocratic (dahlerup & drude,2006). the others believe that it is unfair and demeaning to choose candidates because of their gender, even if, in practice, women candidates are often more highly qualified than their male colleagues. however, it should be noted that gender quotas are about compensating a group that has faced an historical injustice over time. they are meant to right an historical wrong. lessons it is clear from these case analyses that, despite the significant increase in the number of women legislators, a more targeted approach needs to be taken to change the status quo on women’s legislative participation. in terms of electoral systems, proportional representation with its use of party lists remains the best system for enforcing quotas.although, the east african countries do provide a sample upon which to base strong conclusions about regional sub-saharan africa trends on the choice, type and application of electoral gender quotas,many questions remain unanswered.what benchmarks can be identified to measure the gender sensitivity of theseparliaments? how far has gender affirmative action mechanisms been used as a slogan for politics and/or as a strategy for development? after all is said and done,gender quota mechanisms are a deliberate and calculated course of action for achieving the desired social change. 170 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) referensces [1] ballington, j. 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(2006). „sub-saharan africa: on the fast track to women’s political representation.“ in: dahlerup (ed.) women, quotas and politics. london: routledge. [31] uganda national assembly website available at www.parliament.go.ug. accessed 6th february 2014. [32] u.n. (2006). human development report: towards the rise of women in the sub-saharan africa: united nations development programme. 172 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 153-172) [33] tripp, a. (2006). „uganda: agents of change for women’s advancement?“ in: bauer and britton (eds.) women in african parliaments. boulder: lynne rienner publishers. [34] tripp, a., konate, d. & lowe-morna, c. (2006). „sub-saharan africa: on the fast track to women’s political representation.“ in: dahlerup (ed.) women, quotas and politics. london: routledge. [35] u.n. (2006). human development report: towards the rise of women in the sub-saharan africa: united nations development programme. regionalni trendovi izbornih uspeha žena u istočno afričkom zakonodavstvu a p s t r a k t bez formalno usvojenih metodologija, sve je jasnije da bi na sastanaku milenijumski razvojni ciljevi (mrc) utvrđivanje rodne ravnopravnost i promovisanje osnaženja žena, bilo jako teško. mrs 3 ističe činjenicu da žene moraju biti osnažene politički većim učešćem ako želimo da postignemo veći kvalitet. sa ovim ciljem, od zemalja se očekuje da formulišu zakone koji omogućavaju jednaku zastupljenost žena i muškaraca u svim procesima donošenja odluka na svim nivoima uključujući u politiku. iz ovog razloga zemlje regiona istočne afrike su donele ustavne, zakonske i izborne zahteve obezbedjujući time princip rodnih kvota, mere za povećanje prisutnosti žena u zakonodavnim telima. na osnovu kritičke analize zvaničnih izveštaja, i relevantne literature i podataka datih od strane nacionalnih parlamenata, ovaj rad ispituje rodni sastav pet zakonodavnih tela u regionu istočne afrike to jest u keniji, tanzaniji, ugandi, ruandi i burundiju. studija naglašava moć rodnih kvota u ujednačavanju važnih rodnih disbalansa i takođe ukazuje na tipove i prirodu kvota koje koristi odredjena zemlja. ova studija shvata izazove afirmativne akcije mehanizama i ističe da afirmativna akcija nije politički slogan već strategija razvoja; ona je gigantski plan za postizanje željene društvene promene. ključne reči: izborne rodne kvote, žene u istočno afričkom zakonodavstvu article history: received: 4 march, 2014 accepted: 12 may, 2014 14_jwe_1-2 udc: 331.1-055.2(540) ; 305-055.2(540) jel: j16, j7 id: 207718924 original scientific research problems of women employees in private shops and business enterprises, kerala kurian dolly research scholar, karpagam university, coimbatore, tamil nadu, india kumar saleel school of social work, marian college kuttikkanam, kerala, india a b s t r a c t india is the first among countries to give women equal franchise and has a highly credible record with regard to the enactment of laws to protect and promote the interests of women, but women continue to be denied economic, social and legal rights and privileges. though they are considered to be equal partners in progress, yet they remain subjected to repression, marginalization and exploitation. this study is based on a research conducted on women's employment in private sector. the objective of this paper is to analyze the various problems faced by women in private sector and factors affecting women in their work environment. this paper builds upon existing literature by integrating research on women and employment, and the issues pertaining to it. data was gathered using in-depth and face to face interviews and the sample consisted of 700 women employed in the private sector at different occupational levels in the 14 districts of kerala. the study is exploratory cum descriptive in nature. the study was designed to provide a rich and detailed description of women's accounts of their employment attitudes, decision-making, and experiences in the workplace. this study provides a brief review of the prevalence and consequence that women face, work–family conflicts, economic precariousness, social constrains, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, occupational health and psycho social problems relating to their work and outlines social policy implications for research, legislation, and primary prevention. kurian, d., et al., kerala, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) 39 key words: women employees, psycho social problems, gender discrimination, sexual harassment and private sector introduction women are poised to play a significant role in the global economy in the present decade. in the male dominated indian context, women in the earlier era were engaged with domestic works. the dynamics of the society in the modernized era have liberated them and as a result they have started engaging themselves in all realms of microenterprises. they started competing with men in terms of bringing about social and economic development to the country. a significant change in the role of women affecting the indian culture has emerged thus moving away from their traditional roles of home maker and child rearing to social and business solutions. a huge volume of employment opportunity has been created to women in the micro-enterprises sector. as there is reasonably good proportion of population in women entering into the microenterprises sector, problems affecting them also continue to multiply. shortcomings exist in the body of knowledge regarding the problems of women employed in the microenterprises sector. hence, this present study is an effort put in by the researcher to understand various problems affecting life of women employees in the microenterprises sector in the state of kerala. position of women in the indian society the role of women in indian society has undergone immense change with acceptance of their roles as professionals, as bread earners in families and as independent thinking individuals. the traditional indian women has evolved to prove her equal in many professions as well as proved better suited than men in others. this changing role of women is improving rapidly. on the other hand, incidences of female feticide, dowry deaths, domestic violence, and abuse continue to provide a macabre background of primitive barbarism (aamjanata, 2014). many times women entering in the commercial sector undergo threats of women rights violation, abuse, rape, discrimination and harassment at work places. the male dominated society continues to affect the rights of women in the indian society and ensuring to suppress the powers of women. inequality still continues to affect indian women to a larger extent. 40 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) however, equality can be achieved when women are empowered economically. economic empowerment is the capacity of women and men to participate in, contribute to and benefit from growth processes in ways which recognize the value of their contributions, respect their dignity and make it possible to negotiate a fairer distribution of the benefits of growth (eyben et al., 2008). economic empowerment increases women’s access to economic resources and opportunities including jobs, financial services, property and other productive assets, skills development and market information is increased. women’s economic participation and empowerment are fundamental to strengthening women’s rights and enabling women to have control over their lives and exert influence in society (swedish ministry for foreign affairs, 2014) for creating just and equitable societies. women often face discrimination and persistent gender inequalities, with some women experiencing multiple discrimination and exclusion because of factors such as culture or caste. issues affecting women employed in the microenterprises sector are not an exemption to these kinds of women rights violation. researches dealing with the problems of women employed in the microenterprises sector are scanty. a need for research especially in the area of employed women and their problems need to be understood in the indian society for making any kind of progressive change. status of indian women in employment the female employment in india grew by 9 million between 1994 and 2010, but the ilo (international labour organisation) estimates that it could have increased by almost double that figure if women had equal access to employment in the same industries and occupations as their male counterparts. according to the ilo’s global employment trends 2013 report, india’s labor force participation rate for women fell from just over 37 per cent in 2004-05 to 29 per cent in 2009-10. out of 131 countries with available data, india ranks 11th from the bottom in female labour force participation. “despite very rapid economic growth in india in recent years, a declining female labour force participation rates is observed across all age groups, across all education levels, and in both urban and rural areas,” (ilo, 2013). "failure to allow women full access to the labour market is an underutilization of human resources that holds back productivity and economic growth," (kapsos, 2007). strengthening anti-discrimination legislation in kurian, d., et al., kerala, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) 41 employment across all occupations will be essential for expanding employment opportunities for women. in addition, reducing the large gaps in wages and working conditions, often observed between women and men, could help provide a boost to the number of women seeking employment. these low rates are largely due to cultural attitudes and social norms about women in the workplace. in terms of declining employment opportunities, occupational segregation appears to play an important role in holding women back. women in india tend to be grouped in certain industries and occupations, such as basic agriculture, sales and elementary services and handicraft manufacturing. the female employment is high in the private sector like food and textile industries and service sectors. the majority in the female labor force is both mothers and housewives. specific psycho-social problems and health problems are accompanying the women in the working environment. workers at these workplaces are exposed to hazards including long standing work, long sitting work, use and various chemicals which may have deleterious effects on their health, affecting fertility and pregnancy outcomes in women. hence they carry a heavy burden with serious repercussions on their health. many women workers continue to suffer the worst abuses due to stress, manual handling, repetitive strain injuries as well as violence and sexual harassment at work. the situation is even more worrisome in this age. the fact is that women are economically productive, but they are not getting the provisions of the law or acts and policies. this study focuses on the problems of woman in private sector and business enterprises. the researcher explores the various problems encountered by woman who are working in private sector and business enterprises with special reference to kerala. the researcher tries to analyze the job satisfaction and the performance level of the women employees in the private sector, gender discrimination in work and wage market, various health problems of the women employees, psycho-social problems faced by the women workers and occurrence of sexual harassment of woman in work place. these problems have adverse physical and mental health consequences on women and it results into a feeling of low control, helplessness powerlessness. so this study explores the various problems faced by the woman from the private sector and suggests a new environment measures to solve their problems in order to make the ‘work place climate’ which supports and cope up with work and family responsibilities, they may experience higher levels of work or family enrichment as well as work and family satisfaction. 42 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) position of women in kerala in kerala, where women are relatively more educated than all other states in the country, experience relatively low female work participation (sebastian, 2008). the national sample survey, reports 22.9 percent of women participating in work force in kerala. this is much less than the work participation rate of women in other indian states with far lower levels of literacy. states like madhya pradesh, gujarat, karnataka and maharastra with around 50 percent of female literacy rate, report double the female work participation rate of kerala. in the light of this contradiction, the study attempts to identify the factors that influence women’s employment in private sector. the issues relating to female employment are qualitatively different from those of male employment. this makes the study of work participation by women more complex. the researcher explores the various problems woman who are working in private sector and business enterprises with special reference to kerala. the researcher tries to analyze the job satisfaction and the performance level of the women employees in the private sector, gender discrimination in work and wage market, various health problems of the women employees, psycho-social problems faced by the women workers and occurrence of sexual harassment of woman in work place. these problems have adverse physical and mental health consequences on women and it results into a feeling of low self control, helplessness powerlessness. research hypothesis this scientific research paper explores the problems that women employees engaged into job force in private shops and business enterprises and aims to answer the following questions. � ‘incidences of sexual harassment is higher in young women and lower among older women’. research approach and method the primary objective of this study is to understand the problems encountered by the women employees in private shops and business enterprises. the research design adopted to carry out this research is exploratory cum descriptive in nature. the choice of selecting all districts of kerala emerged due to the reason of higher educational status and their kurian, d., et al., kerala, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) 43 perceived problems in engagement in employment force in the private shops and enterprises. in depth interviews and closed-ended questionnaires were used for a number of compelling reasons, including that these are the preferred research instrument for studies of this kind. kumar. s., et. al. (2011) used the same technique based on their belief that interviews guided conversations designed to elicit rich, detailed information particularly when attempting to access information regarding sensitive areas of study. the intent of the interviews was to elicit personal narratives of problems faced by the women employees in private shops and business enterprises. sample selection and size the sample for this study consisted of women employed in the petty shops and business enterprises. in selecting the sample no particulars emphasis was placed on the nature of business that accommodated these women in the job force. in terms of sample size, cluster random sampling design is used. a total of 700 samples are drawn from various districts of kerala to form the unit of analysis. a total of 50 samples from each district were chosen. these approaches helped the researcher to elicit important dimensions that may go unnoticed when using other research designs such as self administered questionnaires only. key findings our analysis sample includes private sector employees between the ages of 20 and 45 years. this age restriction was made in order to exclude individuals in study-to-work and work-to-retirement transitions. the study also excludes the self-employed and those drawing a salary from their own business. the analysis of responses from the in-depth, face-to-face interviews conducted with women employees in private sector, it was found emerged that most employees do not get adequate rest, nor refreshments, have limited facilities including the basic amenities, have stressful environment at work, need to make family adjustments, do not get any recognition at work, have to encounter gender and wage discrimination, get sexually harassed, and face various other health problems during their work. the study shows that 82 percent of working women in private sector are not getting the transportation facility from the shop. they are travelling 44 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) more than 15 km per day to house and work place, but the employers do not arrange any necessary transportation arrangements for the employees. it is observed that 64.3 percent of the women in working private sector have not safety to work in the night. this shows that most of the women employees in private sector are aware of the fact that they there is no safety to work at night and is risking their life, yet they are forced to work due to their varying situations in their life. the factories (amendment) act 2005, suggests if woman works in the night shifts, adequate transportation facility, protection of honor, and safety should be arranged. the researcher concludes that majority of the respondents do not get these provisions, hence it is evident that the employers are violating this act and legal authorities having power to enforce these acts are ignorant to this. the kerala shops and commercial establishments act, 1960 guarantees “every person employed in shops or commercial establishments to be allowed in each week a holiday of one whole day. the study reveals that 10 percent of the women working in private sector did not get a single day as holiday in a week. this means a small group of working women in private sector still not covered by getting the provisions of this act. figure 1: rest provided for an hour after every four hours of continuous work it is observed from the observe graph that 41 percent of the respondents reported of getting an hour rest sometimes after working continuously for four hours, while 7 percent of them reported of getting one hour rest occasionally and 40% of them reported of not getting rest for an kurian, d., et al., kerala, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) 45 hour after a continuous work of long four hours. this we can summarize that, majority of the respondents do not get one hour rest after every continuous four hour work. the kerala shops and commercial establishment act, 1960 guarantees the interval for at least one hour for every continuous work of four hours. hence this reveals the violation of legal provision given in the act prescribed for employees. this study shows that 24 percent of the women in working private sector sometimes have the provision to sit and take lunch and 4percent of them do not have the facility to sit and take lunch. the factories act suggests every factory should provide to all workers obliged to work in a standing position should be provided facilities for sitting, but this provision is not accessed by the women those who working in private sector keeping themselves in standing position in kerala. it is observed that 83 percent of the working women in private sector are not insured by the company. this finding depicts that the working women in the private sector have no access to the insurance benefits that should be necessarily provided by the company. this is a clear indicator that the company takes no initiative in the welfare of its employees. psycho-social problems the second main theme, the paper discuss was about the psychosocial problems of the women in working private sector. as a human being everybody have their own inherent worth and dignity. the acceptance of worth and dignity from others is a right for each individual. the study reveals 40percent of the working women in private sector face the humiliation sometimes during work and 10 percent of the working women in private sector always suffer humiliation in work. this study shows that 64 percent of the women in working private sector deserve recognition from customers or authorities. this shows that every human being longs for recognition and encouragement for the work they do, but many a time they receive criticism for their hard work and labour which is very pathetic. family is the backbone of every human being. from this study, it is inferred that, 62 percent of the working women in private sector never get time to take care of their families needs and also 72 percent of the working women in private sector did not get time to spend time with children or family members. this will in fact create more problems in the life of the working women and will affect the bond between family members. 46 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) it is observed that among 50 percent of the working women in private sector that the amount of work and wage is not proportionate which means they are doing more work than the salary or wage they are getting. this is a clear indicator that there is exploitation with regard to the wage and hours of work. results indicate that 45 percent of the working women in private sector experience stress in their life due to their work. this is because of the stressful environment they have at work place. gender discrimination the third main theme the paper discusses is about gender discrimination at work place. gender equality has always been seriously discussed, but in contrast, it still remains in the ‘papers’. in this study 73 percent of the women in working private sector agreed that men are given more priority than women when they do the same kind of job. and 35 percent of the working women said that this discrimination always existing on the base of salary while they perform same job. 33 percent of the working women in private sector opined that men get more priority than woman in job. this is a clear indictor of gender discrimination at work place. thus the overall picture that emerges from the data is that gender is an important factor that determines the status of women and their nature of job. the equal remuneration act, 1976 provides for the payment of equal remuneration to men and women workers for same work or of similar nature work and for the prevention of discrimination on the ground of sex against women in the matter of employment. health problems another emergent factor the paper outlines is the health of the women employed in private sector. this study shows that 70 percent of the women in working private sector have been diagnosed with one or the other form of health problems after joining this job. the reason for this can be the type of job they are engaged and the work load they have to bear, both at work and family. the typical indian background for women is one reason. the women in the family had to do all the chores like making food for the family and taking care of the children and the old. of this 55 percent of the working women in private sector believe that their health problems are an after effect of their job. the health problems can be summarized that, the major diseases kurian, d., et al., kerala, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) 47 like back pain (49 percent) and neck pain (47 percent) is the common problems to around half of the women working in private sector in kerala. figure 2: availability of sanitary latrine at work place this study reveals that 9 percent of the women working in private sector reported of having no sanitary latrine facility at their work place. the study further reports that 79 percent of the respondents opined that they have no separate sanitary latrine facility for the woman employees in private sector. women must be provided with quality health care in the work place. the long work hours, extensive travel, repetitive work, poor sanitation at work place may cause serious health hazards to women in private sector. any policy for improving the quality of life of women at work place must, therefore, start with improvement in the basic facilities for women and the nature of their work. occurrence of sexual harassment the fifth main theme discussed in this research was about the sexual violence that take place in the worksite. this study shows that 43 percent of the working women in private sector have been sexually harassed or teased while on duty. this is a clear indicator that there is still prevalence of sexual abuse taking place at work sites. and 8 percent of the women in working private sector agreed that they always suffer sexual harassment at work in order to retain their work or job, 24 percent of the working women said they encounter sexual harassment sometimes in order to retain their work or job. this clearly indicates the less percentage of women is suffering due to fear 48 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) of losing their job and subsequently their income. again 44 percent of the working women opined that they always, sometimes or occasionally face unwanted sexual teasing, jokes, remarks or questions during work. it was seen from the study that 19 percent of the women working in private sector suffer sexual harassment at work place from the customers, while 13 percent of them suffer sexual harassment from co-workers and 26 percent of them suffer sexual abuse from the management itself. from this it can be concluded that a large majority of the working women in this study are encountering this problem. this study reveals that 24 percent of the working women have to approach nobody for the grievance when they face difficulties and other sexual harassments at work place. only 2 percent of them approached to the police when they faced difficulties at work place. table 1: cross tabulation for age and approach to handle grievances related to sexual harassment cross tabulation regarding the approaches adopted by the respondents with regard to handling grievances relating to sexual harassment, the study reveals that the highest rate of sexual harassment takes place at the age of 18-25 (38 percent) and 26-30 (25 percent). the study further reveals that age grievances lodged total family members co-workers management police nobody 18-25 517.3% 55 7.9% 90 12.9% 2 0.3% 65 9.3% 263 37.6% 26-30 314.4% 38 5.4% 58 8.3% 3 0.4% 42 6.0% 172 24.6% 31-35 25 3.6% 20 2.9% 39 5.6% 2 0.3% 28 4.0% 114 16.3% 36-40 25 3.6% 15 2.1% 25 3.6% 4 0.6% 21 3.0% 90 12.9% 41-45 13 1.9% 12 1.7% 18 2.6% 3 0.4% 15 2.1% 61 8.7% total 145 20.7% 140 20.0% 230 32.9% 14 2.0% 171 24.4% 700 100.0% kurian, d., et al., kerala, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) 49 sexual harassment is prevalent among those younger than those older women. hence the research hypothesis ‘incidences of sexual harassment is higher in young women and lower among older women’ is proved by this. conclusion this paper analyses the source of the problems of women employees in private-sector employment in kerala. our results suggest that, majority of the respondents hide the incidences of sexual harassment due to fear of losing their job as in most cases the violator himself might be the owner of the shop. these findings indicate the importance of implementing a national employment strategy designed specifically for women offenders. women themselves acknowledged the importance of having their employment related needs met in order to prevent reoffending. the analysis is also based on the lives, work and struggles of women in the private sector. the analysis provides strong evidence that there are gender differentials at workplace. this paper explores the key issues relating to gender and in particular it studied the discrimination of women based on the salary, promotion, working hours etc. the results also show that the monotonous tasks women had to encounter everyday in their work place lead them to many health related problems. in particular, the psycho social problems like anxiety and stress relating to family and work, is high among women workers. to summarize, the findings of this study convey that people make a lot of personal and career sacrifices when confronted with challenges. sleep deprivation, physical exhaustion, vulnerability to anxiety, delayed career advancement, were among the personal and career sacrifices that study participants indicated they had made. the study suggests that the government need to strictly enforce the legal provisions made available to working women through various acts and this is the means to end all such issues affecting women in the globalised era. references [1] sebastian, a., & navaneetham, k. (2008). gender, education and work: determinants of women's employment in kerala. 50 journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) [2] eyben, r., t. kidder, j. rowlands, and bronstein, a. (2008) thinking about change for development practice: a case study from oxfam gb. development in practice, 18(2): 201-212. [3] nationalencyklopedin (in swedish). swedish ministry of foreign affairs, retrieved 30 january 2014. [4] the role of women in indian society, http://aamjanata.com/the-role-of-womenin-indian-society/retrieved on 30 january 2014. [5] ilo’s global employment trends 2013 report, international labour organisation, india: why is women’s labour force participation dropping? http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/commentanalysis/wcms_204762/lang--en/index.htm analysed on 13 february 2013 and retrieved on 30 january 2014. [6] kapsos, s. (2007). “the employment intensity of growth: trends and macroeconomic determinants”, ilo employment strategy paper 2005/12, geneva, ilo. http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/strat/download/esp200512.pdf. [7] kumar. s., dhas. a., and sheeba (2011) a study of women entrepreneurs in tamil nadu, unpublished working report. problemi žena zaposlenih u privatnim radnjama i firmama, kerala a p s t r a k t indija je prva medju zemljama koja je dala ženama jednake franšize i ima visoko pouzdane rezultate kada je u pitanju donošenje zakona o zaštiti žena i promovisanju njihovih interesa ali ženama se i dalje uskraćuju ekonomska, društvena i zakonska prava i privilegije. iako se one smatraju jednakim partnerima u napretku, i dalje su podvrgnute represiji, marginalizaciji i eksploataciji. ova studija se temelji na istraživanju koje je sprovedeno na ženama koje rade u privatnom sektoru. cilj ovog rada jeste da analizira razne probleme sa kojima se žene u privatnom sektoru suočavaju i faktore koji utiču na žene u njihovom radnom okruženju. rad se zasniva na postojećoj literaturi u koju integriše istraživanje o ženama i zaposlenju, i problemima koji u toj oblasti postoje. podaci su sakupljeni koristeći dubinske i intervjue uživo, a uzorak obuhvata 700 žena koje su zaposlene u privatnom sektoru na različitim nivoima i zanimanjima u 14 oblasti kerale. studija je istraživačkog i deskriptivnog tipa. napravljena je tako da može da pruži detaljne opise iskustava žena i njihovih stavova ka zapošljavanju, donošenju odluka i iskustvima na poslu. ova studija pruža kratak pregled prevalenci i posledica sa kojima se žene suočavaju, konflikt posla i porodice, ekonomske kurian, d., et al., kerala, jwe (2014, no. 1-2, 38-51) 51 nesigurnosti, društvenih stega, rodne diskriminacije, seksualnog uznemiravanja, psiho-fizičkih društvenih problema koji su vezani za posao i da ukaže na implikacije društvenih propisa o istraživanju, zakonima i primarnoj prevenciji. ključne reči: žene zaposleni, psihloško društveni problemi, rodna diskriminacija, seksualno uznemiravanje i privatni sektor. article history: received: 2 february, 2014 accepted: 20 may, 2014 doi: 10.28934/jwee21.34.pp113-133 original scientific paper 6bexploring possibilities of integrating version control platforms in higher education through github data analysis ana milovanović13 f1 university of belgrade, faculty of organizational sciences, belgrade, serbia danijela stojanović1 4f2 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia dušan barać1 5f3 university of belgrade, faculty of organizational sciences, department of e-business, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t working in the software development industry in the modern world cannot be imagined without integration with version control platforms. in addition to allowing copies of the code to be kept, the code versioning platforms provide the ability to control changes that occur in the code itself, so it can be determined which member of the development team made the change and when. this article aims to determine the possibilities of using code versioning platforms in an educational context to provide insights into the students' collaboration and dynamics of developing a software solution. data was collected on the github platform using the api of a public github organization. social coding activities performed on the github platform were analyzed using the concepts of social network analysis (sna). the results of the analysis indicate that the teachers can use data generated on the code versioning platforms o better understand the 1 jove ilića 154, 11000 belgrade, serbia, e-mail: am20205027@student.fon.bg.ac.rs 2 corresponding author, address: zmaj jovina 12, 11000 belgrade, serbia, e-mail: danijela.stojanovic@ien.bg.ac.rs, tel. +381 641380905 3 address: jove ilića 154, 11000 belgrade, serbia, e-mail: dusan@elab.rs 114 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 113-133) learning process and monitor the dynamics of project work. in this way, it is possible to follow how each team member contributes to the solution, understand the individual student activities, and monitor the state of the entire project. key words: github, sna, education, version control, software development introduction one of the challenges that teachers are facing while conducting software engineering courses is monitoring students and their efforts while they work on developing software solutions. one approach to monitoring the collaboration and the results of software projects developed in teams of students relies on the integration of code versioning systems into the teaching flow. one of the most frequently used code versioning systems is git, while the github platform has already been used in software engineering courses (calatrava arroyo et al., 2020; beckman et al., 2021). further, github enables gathering data for learning analytic through an api (application programming interface), giving teachers insights into individual and collaborative performance. the collected data can be programmatically analyzed to investigate the possibility of applying the results to monitor the students' progress and collaboration. el mezouar et al. (2019) has already shown that sna can be applied to github data. in their analysis, by using the concept of the pull-based network presented as a directed and weighted graph, network metrics were used to identify existing development team structures in 7,850 most popular projects on github. therefore, it is expected that sna can be used to analyze github data in education and provide data valuable insights into the learning process. the goal of this research is to provide evidence and a concrete example of how the concepts of social networks analysis can be applied for the analysis of github data to improve the educational process in the field of software development. version control platforms and sna version control represents a system that tracks changes to user files. files could be documents, layouts, images, files containing source code, etc (chacon & straub, 2020). version control system (vcs) allows users to control versions of a single file, multiple files, or an entire software project ana milovanović, danijela stojanović, dušan barać 115 by monitoring changes, as well as restoring them to one of the previous versions (chacon & straub, 2020). the basic functionality of git is related to version control. each time a user commits or saves the state of their project, git takes a snapshot of the entire file system and keeps a reference to that snapshot. if the files have not changed, git will not save and store them again but create the reference to the files that have already been saved, thus showing the efficiency (chacon & straub, 2020). git is based on git commands for various operations (somasundaram, 2013). the commands that are often used are (blischak et al., 2016): − pull: for retrieving commits from a remote repository and merging with a local repository, − push: for sending commits from a local to a remote repository, − merge: for updating files to include changes made in the new commits, − stage: for preparation of files to be covered in the next commit and − commit: for saving all changes made to staged files. the git repository is a database that contains all the information about the project and keeps a copy of it throughout its lifetime (loeliger & mccullough, 2012). github is a platform through which users can upload an online copy of their git repository. hence, review, control, and cooperation with other users on a project are facilitated (beer, 2018). almarzouq et al. (2020) classify github as a cloud platform for hosting floss community software (free and open-source software). also, they point out that researchers can observe the collaborative behavior of developers using github. git itself can provide data on changes in the source code, which lines of code have been modified, when and by whom. to get the metadata, git commands are used: git log, git blame, and git diff. however, as stated by almarzouq et al. (2020), git does not provide data on social coding interactions. github uses git functionality and supports tools that turn coding into a social activity (almarzouq et al., 2020). users represent sources of social coding content. they can be organizations or individuals. the social coding functionalities that can be found on the github platform and which are listed in (almarzouq et al., 2020) are repositories where the shared code is located, pull requests, starring repositories, watching repositories, following 116 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 113-133) users, comments, discussions, bug reports, notifications, as well as code copy operations such as branching, forking, and cloning repositories. many of the aforementioned social coding functionalities that are characteristic of the github platform can be observed. based on that, it is concluded that sna, i.e. social networks analysis, can be carried out over different entities that can be represented using graph theory, also known as network theory (camacho et al., 2020), as nodes or relations of graphs (jamali & abolhassani, 2006). literature review there are numerous scientific papers on the improvement of the learning process in higher education through the application of modern information technologies and collaborative forms of learning (radovićmarković et al., 2009; bjelica & pavlović, 2018; stojanović et al., 2020; slavinski et al., 2020; radović-marković et al., 2021; stojanović & domazet, 2020). moreover, there are numerous research papers and experiments where the integration of a code versioning platform into the teaching flow has been tried and successfully implemented. one of the studies was conducted at the universitat politècnica de valència (upv) from 2019 through 2020, where 28 students in the electronic and automatic engineering degree (eaed) participated (calatrava arroyo et al., 2020). a new solution called actaas (assessment of computational thinking as a service) was developed and applied while conducting the computer science course. the solution is based on cloud technology. code versioning, automatic testing of the code, as well as continuous integration and continuous deployment (ci/cd) tools, were used. among other things, the solution included configuring jenkins, creating a github organization, and creating tasks in the github classroom environment that is part of the github education program. the github classroom assignment may contain an initial set of code with instructions. the invitations to accept assignments were available to students through an lms (learning management system) called sakai. after accepting the assignment, a copy of the repository is created on the student's account. task progress analysis is performed automatically by calling jenkins unit tests after students push their code into their repository (calatrava arroyo et al., 2020). ana milovanović, danijela stojanović, dušan barać 117 the university courses conducted by beckman et al. (2021) covered the study program in the field of data science. to begin with, the lecturers created github pro organizations (github education) where they added students as members of the organizations. in 2019, while teaching introduction to r programming course at penn state university, lecturers began using the github classroom. the integration with the github platform is similar to the one described in (calatrava arroyo et al., 2020). a git repository has been created containing the initial setup where source code, instructions, grading tables, and documentation can be included (beckman et al., 2021). the study concludes that students quickly master the basics of code versioning and individual tasks, but that creating group tasks, which can also be created via the github classroom platform, is difficult due to conflicts when merging code. numerous students solved the problem by working on one computer showing that collaboration through github was challenging for students who had just started working in the collaborative environment (beckman et al., 2021). to track student activity on a joint project, many instructors used each student’s commit history. the authors point out that although the number of commits itself does not indicate the quality of the code, the lack of commits may indicate that the student did not participate in the work. the authors further suggest a combination of peer evaluation with commit history to obtain a complete picture (beckman et al., 2021). the study further addresses the issue of choosing the appropriate code versioning platform. the three most popular (beckman et al., 2021) stand out: github, gitlab, and bitbucket. the reasons for choosing github are the fact that it is used by most companies and organizations, rich api, and tools like github classroom. in the study described in (feliciano et al., 2016), it was decided that github course materials and student papers would be publicly available, unlike the previous two cases (calatrava arroyo et al., 2020; beckman et al., 2021). the advantages of the approach are the interactions and suggestions of people who were not working on the project. however, a group of the students did not consider the work on the repository to be good enough to be publicly available, and there were also concerns that such work was not of interest to the community (feliciano et al., 2016). although course materials were publicly available, moodle lms was used for 118 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 113-133) additional materials, such as grades and additional courses (feliciano et al., 2016). zagalsky et al. (2015) point out an important difference between the github platform and lms systems such as moodle and sakai. github was used as a submission platform and as a way to host course content, features that were otherwise available in standard lms systems. the difference was in the number of interactions supported by the github platform. while traditional systems support reading and access to materials, github provides the opportunity for active participation (zagalsky et al., 2015). there are different workflows that github can support, and they differ in which users have a push privilege in the repository, i.e. which users can directly make changes to the repository code, and which must require permission to do so. the latter must fork a repository, work on the copy created on their account, and if they want the changes to be included in the main repository code, they must create a pull request in the main repository (almarzouq et al., 2020). pull request stands out as a central functionality that enables social coding. changes to the code can be included (merge) in the repository code only after the owners of that repository, or users authorized to do so, have approved changes via the github platform (almarzouq et al., 2020). further communication takes place through comments resulting from the code review action performed by contributors involved as reviewers (open source guide 2021a). el mezouar et al. (2019) investigate in detail the structure of teams that base their work on a pull-based development model. they researched the 7,850 most popular projects on github. investigating the efficiency of the procedure of reviewing pull requests, it was determined that the efficiency depends on technical, but also social factors. from the technical factors, the quality of the code stands out, while from the social ones, the connection that the project contributor has with the programmer who has the role of integrator and who is in charge of project maintenance can be singled out (el mezouar et al., 2019). the concept of pull-based networks is used when two programmers are connected when one of them integrates a pull request (integrator) created by the other (contributor) (el mezouar et al., 2019). the pull-based network is presented as a directed and weighted graph, and network metrics can be used to identify existing development team structures. the three most influential network metrics have been singled out that have the following ana milovanović, danijela stojanović, dušan barać 119 interpretation in the context of the pull-based model (el mezouar et al., 2019): 1. out-degree centralization measures the importance of contributors to the level of activity. the number of created pull requests can be taken as an example of activity levels. a high level of the beforementioned metric indicates that there are base contributors, and a low level indicates that all contributors participate equally. 2. density indicates the connection of team members. if the density is higher, the team members are more strongly connected, i.e. have previous interactions with most other team members. 3. reciprocity indicates the probability that the developer has both roles in the project, both the integrator and the collaborator. the high value of the beforementioned metric indicates that the programmer is more likely to have both roles. the relationship between a collection of network metrics derived from pull-based networks (e.g., reciprocity, centralization, etc.) and a collection of performance metrics (e.g., response time) can be analyzed using linear regression. the results of previous studies have shown that network metrics can partly explain performance metrics (el mezouar et al., 2019). over onethird of the teams are dominated by a loosely connected structure where members have one role (single-role developers). it was found that the betterranked teams were the more interconnected ones. there was a centralization of the team around key contributors and developers could be found both in the role of integrator and in the role of contributors. thus, the existence of central programmers having both roles was associated with the closure of more pull requests (el mezouar et al., 2019). methodology there are various ways to collect data from the github platform. in addition to the github api (application programming interface) analyzed in this paper, there are external repositories that take snapshots of data that the github api has access to, which allows the user to freely search the data without the api's limitations. examples of external repositories are ghtorrent and gharchive (almarzouq et al., 2020). the two stable versions of the github api that are publicly available are: the github rest api and the graphql api. for the research, the github rest api will be examined. further analysis will aim to 120 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 113-133) investigate the possibility of applying the results that the api returns to monitoring the work of students working together on the project. the axios api client was applied to obtain the data. appropriate graphs were illustrated using the react js library and react google charts data visualization library. also, the postman tool was used for endpoint calls testing. the tool is used in industry and education in various phases of api development and testing. endpoints provide real-time data on how to use the github platform. in addition to different data on the number of commits and pull requests related to repositories, as well as the number of bytes of code written in different programming languages within the repository, user data can be obtained at different time intervals. by combining different calls made to the github api and the data obtained in the response, different conclusions can be generated that are important for understanding the dynamics of joint work. the limiting factor is the rate limit of 5000 requests per hour for an authenticated user, while for a non-authenticated user the number is significantly lower and amounts to 60 requests per hour. in the second case, the requests are related to the ip address and not to the user (github docs 2021b). as an example of a github organization, the public github organization contentful was used to collect the data returned by the github api, which is needed for further analysis. research results on a sample of 40 repositories, the commits endpoint is called. the endpoint returns data on the commit of a particular repository, with the maximum number of commits that can be obtained by a single call to the endpoint being 100. by further processing of the data, all commits were counted according to the repository to which they belong, and the data thus obtained was used to make a histogram from the image below (figure 1). the range of the number of commits is shown on the x-axis, and the number of repositories belonging to a particular range is shown on the y-axis. of the 40 repositories considered, four repositories have a range of 020 commits, 10 repositories have a range between 20-40 commits, and three repositories are in the range of 60-80 commits. the repository named contentful-resolve-response has 91 commits (figure 1) and is the only one ana milovanović, danijela stojanović, dušan barać 121 in the range of 80-100 commits. the remaining 22 repositories have 100 or more commits. one of them is the form-36 repository, which is analyzed in more detail. one way to examine the structure of the repository itself is to determine which programming languages are used. calling the languages endpoint gives a json object where the key is the name of the language, and the value is the number of bytes of code written in that language. for example, a repository named form-36 was selected. the data obtained as output parameters are shown using a pie chart. from the figure 2, it can be seen that the most represented languages in the selected repository are: typescript (736,407 bytes, 80.3%), followed by css (88,672 bytes, 9.5%), javascript (85,377 bytes, 9.3%), scss (5,644 bytes, 0.6%) and handlebars (2536 bytes, 0.3%). shell (96 bytes) and html (71 bytes) are represented in a negligibly small percentage. figure 1: the sector of the business operations source: authors 122 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 113-133) figure 2: languages distribution in the repository source: authors to monitor the activity of participants in group work on a repository, the contributors endpoint can be called. form-36 was again selected as the example repository. the endpoint returns contributors sorted by the number of commits per contributor in descending order. as github identifies collaborators by the author's email address, the endpoint groups collaboration numbers by github user (github docs 2021c). there are currently a total of 60 collaborators in the observed repository. from the results obtained after the call of the endpoint, a tabular presentation was made containing three columns (figure 3). the first column of username contains the github username of the contributor, which is applied to the generic name user-number to protect the privacy of the users. the second column, the number of commits, contains the number of commits per contributor. the third column active user (figure 3) has a true/false value that is the result of a condition, which is added by application processing of the data. the value of the variable, i.e. the symbol in the table changes depending on whether the contributor has more than 10 commits or not. if the value is less than 10, the symbol “x” will appear showing that the user is less active (figure 3). the number of 10 commits was chosen to highlight those contributors who contribute the most to the solution. the number depends on the sample to which the check is applied. figure 3 shows a sample of 30 contributors that are important for further analysis. ana milovanović, danijela stojanović, dušan barać 123 as the number of commits is often not a good indicator of contributor activity, and to obtain time-dependent data, another endpoint (stats endpoint) concerning contributors will be tested using the same repository as in the previous case. the endpoint also returns the total number of commits for each contributor and the weekly hash that contains the following information (github docs 2021c): − w – a unix timestamp representing the beginning of the week − a – the number of added or modified lines of code (additions) − d – the number of deleted lines (deletions) − c – the number of commits figure 1: number of commits per contributor source: authors 124 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 113-133) from several values returned by the endpoint, one contributor was randomly selected. the analysis of the contributor's weekly hash is further approached. if in seven days, starting from the day representing the beginning of the week (mark w), there were no commits (c has a value of zero), the marks for the number of added and deleted lines also have a value of zero. to preview data more clearly, zero values have been removed from the weekly hash, leaving only those that have relevant data for further analysis. figure 4 illustrates the values that the weekly hash has for the selected contributor. the columns contain the values: w, c, a, and d, respectively. if we take into account the first row from figure 4, the interpretation of the data obtained is as follows: in the week that started on december 2, 2018. the contributor made one commit in which the number of added or changed lines of code was equal to 109 and the number of deleted lines was 492. figure 2: weekly hash of chosen contributor source: authors ana milovanović, danijela stojanović, dušan barać 125 by displaying data that represent many added and deleted lines of code in different time intervals on the column graph, the relationship between the numbers can be easily observed. added lines of code are marked in black, and the number of deleted lines is marked in gray (figure 5). it can be seen that the largest number of deleted lines of code, approximately 9000 (8,895), occurred in the week that began on 3.1.2021. it is also noticeable that the largest number of added or changed lines of code (8,022), occurred in the week that started on february 10, 2019. figure 5: column chart of weekly hash source: authors to conduct the sna over data from github, it is necessary to take into account social coding (almarzouq et al., 2020), i.e. social interactions among users that take place on the platform. the pull-based model as a way of integrating code stands out for its ability to analyze social activities. from creating a pull request, code review and commenting, to approving or rejecting the request and finally closing and integrating it (merge) or 126 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 113-133) deleting it, each of the mentioned activities involves several participants collaborating, exchanging opinions, making suggestions, and working together to solve problems or to make new functionalities of the software solution. such interactions have been noted in the form-36 repository of contentful's github organization. github pulls api was used to obtain relevant data. as it was noticed, some pull requests were made by bot programs that perform various tasks of code analysis and editing. such requests were excluded from the data set in further analysis. the state field value of each analyzed pull request was open or closed, depending on whether the request was already integrated (closed) or still open for collaboration (open). the user field contains information about the user who created the pull request. the value of the author_association field is contributor, collaborator, or member, depending on whether the user is, respectively, an associate who is part of the main development team, an associate who is not part of the team, or a member of a given organization. to obtain all review activities for a particular pull request, the reviews endpoint is called. the result is a series of json objects, and each object corresponds to the activity of one user that is related to a given pull request. in the state field, the user activity can be seen. among the analyzed data, the following stand out: approved indicates that the user has approved the changes contained in the request, commented indicates that the user has left a comment (the user can also be the creator of the pull request) and changes_requested indicates that changes need to be made. users who found themselves on a pull request as requested reviewers, but didn’t have any activity on it were excluded from the analysis. it was determined that there were 756 closed and seven open requests. after sorting the data, i.e. removing those requests made by bot programs, there were 695 requests left. seventeen pull requests were singled out for the sna. an overview graph was illustrated and centrality measures were applied. the total number of contributors within the analyzed repository is 60, while the total number of members of the organization is 34 at the time of analysis. the undirected graph illustrated in figure 6 was used for display. the relations in the graph are symmetrical (cangalovic et al., 2014), it does not matter which node is the source and which the target. graph nodes represent users who participated in social activity on the analyzed pull requests. nine ana milovanović, danijela stojanović, dušan barać 127 nodes, i.e. nine users were obtained after analyzing 17 pull requests. graph branches were created for each activity between the user who created the pull request and the user in the reviews overview (commenting requests, approving requests, or setting changes_requested status). the graph is represented by the cytoscape.js package, which in addition to options for a visual representation of graphs, also supports metric calculation options such as those for centrality measures. figure 6: undirected graph of sna analysis source: authors from the very appearance of the graph, it can be concluded that the user with the username "user-8" (figure 6) is in the center of the structure. the node corresponding to that user has a direct interaction with all nodes but one. thus, it can be concluded that the user actively participates in pullbased social activities. to better understand the position of the nodes in the graph, three measures of centrality are applied (jovanović, 2017): degree centrality, closeness centrality, and betweenness centrality. 128 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 113-133) degree centrality indicates the degree i.e. the number of branches that are acquired in a given node for which centrality metric is calculated (cangalovic et al., 2014; jovanović, 2017). as the graph is not directed there is only one measure, the degree. the measure was normalized in the range 0 to 1 to make it easier to compare the values obtained. as expected, according to the appearance of the graph (figure 6), the largest number of branches is acquired in the node that is marked with the ordinal number one in the table below (figure 7). the node has the highest value of the degree centrality metric’s range. a node with the ordinal number nine has the lowest value of the metric because it is connected to the neighboring node using only one branch. based on the degree centrality metric, it is possible to determine which members of the development team are the centers of the network, although the number of connections/branches often does not indicate the quality of contribution (jovanović, 2017). figure 7: centrality measures source: authors closeness centrality represents the average distance of the node from all other nodes of the network. the higher the value of the metric is, the closer the node is to the center of the graph. the metric was also normalized in the range from 0 to 1. the node with ordinal number one has the highest value of the metric in the graph as well (figure 7). nodes with a high value of the closeness centrality metric (figure 7) can be classified as influential members of the local group that affect the rapid dissemination of information in the network observed (jovanović, 2017). the high value of the betweenness centrality metric indicates that nodes often appear as intermediaries in the mutual communication of other nodes in the network (jovanović, 2017). the node with ordinal number one ana milovanović, danijela stojanović, dušan barać 129 in the table has the highest value of 46 (figure 7). it is followed by a node with ordinal number four whose value of the metric is 14, and then nodes with the ordinal number two and three whose value of the metric is one. thus, the closeness centrality metric identifies potential burst points (jovanović, 2017) of the network. conclusion the paper discusses the possibility of using version control platforms in education while teaching courses that require the collaboration of several participants in the group projects, as well as individual activities. also, the paper contributes to the field of learning analytics and presents a possible application of data science in the field of collaborative learning. github increases the possibility of collaboration and interaction, both among students and professors. instead of submitting a ready-made solution at the end of the project completion deadline, students can solve the tasks iteratively. the iterative approach gives professors a better insight into the work and contribution of each student in group projects, but also when solving individual tasks. hence, students achieve greater confidence and learn about the use of code versioning platforms that are widely used in the industry, while collaborating with their colleagues. one way to achieve github integration is the solution already mentioned in (calatrava arroyo et al., 2020; beckman et al., 2021). github classroom environment within the github education program offers professors more control over the tasks they assign to students. after creating the organization and connecting it with the github classroom environment, it is possible to create a task that can be individually done or done in a group, and thus engage more students. the tasks themselves can have an initial repository setup and a description of the requirements. the assignment request can be set within the course on the lms platform. by accepting the request, the repository that was previously added to the organization is automatically cloned to the student's account (calatrava arroyo et al., 2020). the possibility of integrating the github solution with learning management systems such as the moodle platform needs to be further explored. zagalsky et al. (2015) explore the possibility of replacing lms platforms with version control platforms like github. however, it is necessary to find a way to integrate them to benefit from both platforms. 130 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 113-133) possible ways of employing the github api are illustrated using the existing public github organization, to analyze the work dynamics in group projects. conclusions can be applied to monitoring the work dynamics of students that collaborate on group projects. the importance of the api is reflected in the flexibility it offers to the user. the user chooses data by calling on different endpoints and then processes and filters it according to specific needs, draws conclusions, or displays the data. thus, the github api tested in the paper has a role in collecting data on student activity. it is possible to perform an analysis of different groups of data and thus contribute to a better understanding of the state of individual activity, but also the state of the entire project. data that indicates the state of the entire project are the number of commits and pull requests associated with the repository, as well as the number of bytes of code written in different programming languages within the repository. data such as the number of commits, the number of added lines of code, and the number of deleted lines of code in time intervals can be good indicators of the participation of each student in group activity and act as one of the factors of forming student grades. as the social coding functionalities are supported by the github platform, the data are also suitable for sna analysis. students are represented as nodes in the graph, and the interactions they make on the github platform can be represented by links. the pull-based model (el mezouar et al., 2019) is of particular importance in the analysis, where interaction between students is achieved in the process of creating a pull request and the review process of that request. by applying different measures of centrality, nodes (i.e. students) that are in the center of the graph can be obtained and thus show the importance of their contribution to the project. the possible recommendations for lecturers on how to use learning analytics: − include vcs into the teaching flow. one way to do it is by using the github platform and github classroom environment. − communicate with the students about the new way of conducting the course. teach about git and the use of the github platform. especially take into account the pull-based model. − use the number of commits combined with the number of added and deleted lines of code to determine students’ activity. ana milovanović, danijela stojanović, dušan barać 131 − in order to apply sna over the students’ data from github, social coding interactions of students in the platform should be considered, and measures of centrality applied. − include the data in the grading process, while evaluating student efforts e.g. by giving extra points to students with the high value of metrics; the possibility of integrating platforms like github into the teaching flow opens the door to new research in the field of education. the analysis conducted in the paper indicates that the data generated on code versioning platforms can be used to better understand the learning process and the dynamics of project work. also, it is important to emphasize that a learning analytics approach developed in the paper can be employed in software development companies to assess the communication, collaboration, and contributions of developers. as for future research, the application of machine learning can be considered, in order to better analyze the data about students, identify their characteristics, develop personalized e-learning environments or improve the monitoring of students' progress and results. acknowledgements the paper is financed by the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic of serbia. references [1] almarzouq, m., alzaidan, a., aldallal, j. 2020. mining github for research and education: challenges and opportunities. international journal of web information systems 16:451–473 [2] beckman, md., çetinkaya-rundel, m., horton, nj., et al. 2021. implementing version control with git and github as a learning objective in statistics and data science courses. journal of statistics and data science education 29:. https://doi.org/10.1080/10691898.2020.1848485 [3] beer, b. 2018. introducing github: a non-technical guide. o’reilly media [4] bjelica, d., pavlović, d. 2018. web based project management education in student population. in: digital transformation: new challenges and business opportunities. silver and smith publishers, london, pp. 189-213. isbn 978-1-9993029-4-8 http://ebooks.ien.bg.ac.rs/1283/ http://ebooks.ien.bg.ac.rs/1283/ 132 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 113-133) [5] blischak, jd., davenport, er., wilson, g. 2016. a quick introduction to version control with git and github. plos computational biology 12:. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004668 [6] calatrava arroyo, a., ramos montes, m., segrelles quilis, jd. 2020. a pilot experience with software programming environments as a service for teaching activities. applied sciences 11:. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11010341 [7] camacho, d., panizo-lledot, á., bello-orgaz, g., et al. 2020. the four dimensions of social network analysis: an overview of research methods, applications, and software tools. information fusion 63:. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inffus.2020.05.009 [8] cangalovic, m., manojlovic, v., baltic, v. 2014. diskretne matematicke strukture. fakultet organizacionih nauka, newpress [9] chacon, s., straub, b. 2020. pro git. apress, berkeley, ca [10] el mezouar, m., zhang, f., zou, y. 2019. an empirical study on the teams structures in social coding using github projects. empirical software engineering 24:3790–3823. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-019-09700-1 [11] feliciano, j., storey, m.a., zagalsky, a. 2016. student experiences using github in software engineering courses. in: proceedings of the 38th international conference on software engineering companion. acm, new york, ny, usa [12] jamali, m., abolhassani, h. 2006. different aspects of social network analysis. in: 2006 ieee/wic/acm international conference on web intelligence (wi 2006 main conference proceedings)(wi’06). ieee [13] jovanović, j. 2017. softverska analiza drustvenih mreza, prezentacija „analiza drustvenih mreza (2. blok)“, fakultet organizacionih nauka, beograd [14] loeliger, j., mccullough, m. 2012. version control with git: powerful tools and techniques for collaborative software development. o’reilly media [15] radović-marković, m., nelson-porter, b., omolaja, m. 2009. the new alternative women’s entrepreneurship education: e-learning and virtual universities. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education, 1(1-2), 112. [16] radović-marković, m., vučeković, m., nikitović, z., lapčević, g. 2021. learner creativity among entrepreneurship students in higher education through e-learning. international journal of entrepreneurship 25 (3), 1-7 [17] slavinski, t., todorović, m., vukmirović, v., montenegro, a.м. 2020. women, entrepreneurship and education: descriptive bibliometric analysis based on scopus database. journal of women's entrepreneurship and education (3-4). pp. 181-201. issn 1821-1283 javascript:void(0) javascript:void(0) http://ebooks.ien.bg.ac.rs/1531/ http://ebooks.ien.bg.ac.rs/1531/ ana milovanović, danijela stojanović, dušan barać 133 [18] somasundaram, r. 2013. git: version control for everyone beginner’s guide. packt publishing [19] stojanović, d., bogdanović, z., petrović, l,. мitrović, s., labus, a. 2020. empowering learning process in secondary education using pervasive technologies, interactive learning environments, issn:1049-4820 [20] stojanović, d., domazet, i. 2020. use of information technologies in educational purposes – case from serbia, economic analysis, 53(2), pp. 6878 issn 1821-2573 [21] zagalsky, a., feliciano, j., storey, m.a., et al. 2015. the emergence of github as a collaborative platform for education. in: proceedings of the 18th acm conference on computer supported cooperative work & social computing. acm, new york, ny, usa [22] open source guide. 2021a. anatomy of an open source project. in: https://opensource.guide/. https://opensource.guide/how-tocontribute/#anatomy-of-an-open-source-project. accessed 8 may 2021 [23] github docs. 2021b. resources in the rest api. in: https://docs.github.com/. https://docs.github.com/en/rest/overview/resourcesin-the-rest-api. accessed 8 may 2021 [24] github docs. 2021c. repositories. in: https://docs.github.com/. https://docs.github.com/en/rest/reference/repos. accessed 8 may 2021 article history: received: july 7th, 2021 accepted: november 9th, 2021 https://docs.github.com/en/rest/overview/resources-in-the-rest-api.%20accessed%208%20may%202021 https://docs.github.com/en/rest/overview/resources-in-the-rest-api.%20accessed%208%20may%202021 https://docs.github.com/en/rest/reference/repos.%20accessed%208%20may%202021 doi: 10.28934/jwee21.34.pp184-198 jel: l26 original scientific paper women's entrepreneurship in organic production in serbia ana milojević1 agricultural university plovdiv, faculty of economics, plovdiv, bulgaria sladjana vujicic2* faculty of business, economics and entrepreneurship, belgrade, serbia zorana nikitović3 faculty of business, economics and entrepreneurship, belgrade, serbia mirjana radović marković4 institute of economic sciences, belgrade, serbia a b s t r a c t in this short study, an analysis of the position of women's entrepreneurship in the field of organic food production in serbia was performed, with an indication of the general relationship in employment and permanent gender inequality, both in our country and in the world. considering digitalization and automation in many spheres of life in the modern world, a review of trends and competitiveness of women in the labour market is given and the analysis of data provided by the ministry of agriculture, forestry and water of the republic of serbia (annual reports) shows the number of female entrepreneurs in organic production as a promising branch of economy, with an overview of all aspects that have slowed down, reduced, or prevented better results in this area. 1 e-mail: ana89milojevic@yahoo.com 2 corresponding author, e-mail: sladjana.vujicic@vspep.edu.rs 3 e-mail: zorana.nikitovic@vspep.edu.rs 4 e-mail: mirjana.radovic@ien.bg.ac.rs ana milojević, sladjana vujicic, zorana nikitović, mirjana radović marković 185 key words: gender equality in employment, women's entrepreneurship in organic production in serbia, transitional challenges, covid-19 global pandemic introduction viewed throughout history, rightly or wrongly, the different status and position of women in relation to men has been clearly emphasized, in almost all social forms. they were natural partners in creating a family, hard workers in preserving the household, but they were also an object of the acquired right by purchase or kidnapping. one possible way out of such inequality is the branch in which women are traditionally involved, and that is domestic food production. with the growing development of organic food production, its role becomes unavoidable. this topic has emerged in recent years, in our country and in the world, as very important, because in several aspects it can affect the structure and development of society, and studies on the position of women entrepreneurs in the region clearly indicate opportunities but also partial inequality in relation to men. many things were also influenced by the appearance of the global covid-19 pandemic. the pandemic severely affects such sectors of the economy as tourism, logistics and transport, the restaurant and hotel business, the leisure industry and a large number of industrial sectors other than agriculture (petrunenko et al., 2021). agriculture remains a relevant branch that can bring prosperity to the women of our climate. the position of women in the labour market the ways of women empowerment and reducing gender disparity regarding the adoption of modern agricultural technologies has been widely investigated in the literature (radovic markovic, kabir & jovicic, 2020). in the modern world, with technological development, science and education, position of women has absolutely changed, but still, at least in many backward environments, they are not of an equal status with men. in general, women are facing more difficulties in running their businesses than men (ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management, 2020). although it cannot be said publicly and legally that a woman is in a subordinate position, it is tacitly implied that she cannot compete on an equal footing with male representatives in difficult jobs, especially in industry. so, in those areas, men's incomes are usually higher. in many 186 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 184-198) industries, especially in recent years, the transition to automated and digitalized processes, for which both sexes compete equally, has been gaining momentum, but there is still a need for manual interventions on robust installations that require strength, so it is usually more flexible for man. given its multiple usability, it is obvious that when hiring in such companies, preference is given to the stronger sex. only greater digitalization, which offers both sides jobs they can do successfully, provides an opportunity to achieve gender equality, precisely according to the goals of women's empowerment, as one of the 17 un sustainable development goals (2021), because the global report of the world economic forum for 2020 clearly indicated that this problem will not be eliminated in the next period for almost a century. a study on the rapid forced replacement of workers in jobs that require routine work and movements, repeating the same tasks, shows that men do it easier, so automation in production has brought an undoubted advantage to this persistent category. but when it comes to work tasks that initially require greater and faster flexibility, reasoning and common sense, women demonstrate undoubtedly better adaptability, i.e. “show faster growth in the share of non-routine, analytical and interpersonal tasks” (piasna & drahokoupil, 2017). optimal organizational and managerial measures for the successful implementation of the digital transformation of individual work organizations must bring as little movement and loss of the status of protected citizens, and their implementation is necessary because it is part of the development of society that cannot be stopped. in the cases where the information system cannot adapt to the new requirements, companies have to establish new business functions (erceg & zoranović, 2020). with the digitalization of work, the business environment and working conditions have changed (radovic markovic m., vučekovic & markovic, 2021). given the forecasts of the dismissal of an increasing number of manual workers (due to the digitalization of the process), analytical and consulting agencies give moderate forecasts. 6% of employees are expected to be laid off by 2025, while research on the future of the work indicates that “by 2025, 85 million jobs could be abolished due to a change in the division of labour between humans and machines’’ (world economic forum, 2020). analyses conducted by bain & company in 2020 predict that 20 to 25% of existing jobs will be eliminated by the end of this decade. 1. the arrival of the global covid-19 pandemic stopped many upward trends; however, the need for healthy food and the desire ana milojević, sladjana vujicic, zorana nikitović, mirjana radović marković 187 to know the origin of foods is likely to be even greater. thus, organic food is a promising business. organic farming responds to a specific consumer demand for sustainable food products, promoting more sustainable farming practices and contributing to the protection of the environment and improved animal welfare. this growing demand for organic products is matched by a rapidly growing production: eu organic area increased by 70% from 2007 to 2017, and organic retail sales reached eur 34 billion in 2017, providing farmers with further added value on their production (european commission, 2019). nowadays, consumers of agro-food products around the world are demanding a better quality of products, which represents a major market challenge (milanovic, nikitovic & vujicic, 2020). support for organic food production and women in business must be done by the state. without state assistance and good promotion, it is very difficult to raise citizens' awareness of organic food, as well as to increase the number of women entrepreneurs. in countries where there is a significant amount of public promotion of women entrepreneurs, the environment for women entrepreneurs tends to be more munificent. this supportive environment is extremely important in enabling women to mobilize the resources and networks they need to create and grow viable enterprises. public messages reinforcing the role of women as entrepreneurs and the promotion of role models serve to raise the visibility, credibility, and legitimacy of women’s economic activity (stenevson & lundstrom, 2002). analysis of the participation of women entrepreneurs in organic production in serbia agricultural production is one of the oldest industries and it has a particularly significant social role to feed the world's population, which is experiencing a steady increase (lapcevic & nikitovic, 2020). the agricultural sector in the republic of serbia has a very high economic and social significance, since it has a substantial share in creating the gross domestic product and employing a large number of people (milanovic, nikitovic & vujicic, 2020). organic production is regulated by law and includes control and certification of processes and products. unlike the conventional one, the aim is to improve the health and productivity of land, 188 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 184-198) plants, animals, and people, as well as to create general harmony. care is taken to preserve ecosystems, maintain and increase soil fertility, as well as reduce pollution (mirecki, wehinger & jaklič, 2011). the meaning and purpose of this study is to point out the position of women entrepreneurs in serbia. given the high unemployment of the female population, especially those with lower and secondary education, there is a chance that organic production sector will contribute to a rapid increase in living standards in the country, as well as the balance in gender equality in employment. in view of the unstoppable growth of automation and digitalization in business, and thus the threat of job losses, two logical hypotheses are imposed: − h1. automation and digitalization of jobs will not significantly affect the sector of organic food production in serbia, since such cultivation requires a lot of manual labour, and the participation of women will increase from year to year. − h2. with the opening of small and medium-sized rural farms for organic food production of plant and animal origin, in which greater involvement of women entrepreneurs is expected, the existing gender gap in income (earnings) will be significantly reduced. in 2017, serbia had 15,298 ha on which organic production takes place, or 0.44% of the total area. compared to previous years, that is an exceptional growth of 62%, but in relation to the world and the potential we have, that is insufficient (tabaković et al., 2017). from 2013 until today, when more serious records are kept, the number of certified companies for participation in organic food production has grown from 258 (2013) to 573 (2020), (ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management, 2021) but these figures must be taken carefully, because there are not only organic food producers, but in this list also contains the entrepreneurs engaged in import, export, trade. in any case, apart from entrepreneurial companies that are titled with words, then ltd, the list also includes those with personal names. the number of women among them can be seen in the following table. table 1: the number of certified companies for participation in organic food production (2013-2020) year total company, ltd men women % women 2013 258 119 103 36 13.95 % 2014 291 122 125 44 15.12 % 2015 334 143 146 45 13.47 % 2016 390 189 145 56 14.36 % 2017 434 203 174 57 13.13 % 2018 500 246 190 64 12.80 % 2019 513 246 205 62 12.09 % 2020 573 249 240 84 14.66 % sources: author's own calculations based on data from ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management. organic production. http://www.minpolj.gov.rs/organska/ the numbers in table 1 do not have to say much about the engagement of women in the production of organically treated food, since there are many married couples, and even entire families who unite their work in this business but are more an indicator of the number of certified companies owned by woman. although the total number of female certificates is growing permanently from year to year (except in 2019), the percentage in relation to the total of certified entrepreneurs, subcontractors, and associations for activities in the organic production is mostly equal: from 13.5 to 15%. in 2020, when the global covid-19 pandemic appeared, which did not bypass our country either, the total number increased by 60, and the number of female entrepreneurs by 22. the reasons for this increase lie in the tendency to work as much as possible from home, with little interference with people, due to fear of infection, then due to the reduction of the labour market in public institutions (except health care), or direct job losses. in fact, turning to mini-farms and plant processing, poultry farming, beekeeping, then collecting forest fruits and processing organically produced food (for use, further distribution, and export) is a path that better situated countries have already gone through, and where many female entrepreneurships has found realistic chances for work and decent earnings. even the following table 2 cannot fully reproduce the picture of the type of activity in organic food production occupied by women, because here too most of the work is done as a team, as a family, but it gives indications of the work in which women are more engaged. it is noticeable that the largest part of their employment is in plant production, mainly in vegetables, and in crops where there is a need for constant processing (often 190 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 184-198) related to exports). however, it is possible to single out the main occupations from the certificates themselves, and that is engaging in pure plant organic production, especially related to the seasonal production of vegetables and berries, occasionally combined with livestock production, mainly poultry. in the case of organic plant production, the number of women participants slowly but permanently grew, so from 29 (2013) it reached the number of 60 (2020), which is an increase of over 100% in 8 years. in trade, both domestic and cross-border, many certified companies with a common name have many women behind as owners, or only as employees, but these data are not transparent. table 2: number female entrepreneurs in organic plant production (2013.-2020) y ea r t ot al fe m al e en tr ep re ne ur s p la nt pr od uc ti on p la nt pr od uc ti on an d ex po rt c ro p an d liv es to ck pr od uc ti on p la nt a nd liv es to ck pr od uc ti on an d ex po rt s p ro ce ss in g p ro ce ss in g an d ex po rt 2013 36 31 5 2014 44 35 7 2 2015 45 37 8 2016 56 48 6 2 2017 57 49 6 2 2018 64 54 7 3 2019 62 52 6 4 2020 84 64 10 5 4 1 source: author's own calculations based on data from ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management. organic production http://www.minpolj.gov.rs/organska/ the following table 3 shows that the nominal number of women entrepreneurs in the production of organic food (by category) is increasing from year to year (except 2019), but in the percentage of certified producers on an annual basis, this growth is quite slow. the great impact on the branches that require a clean environment (water, air, vegetation), such as honey and bee products, along with collecting activities (forest fruits and plants) in recent years is in absolute stagnation, which refers to the engagement of women entrepreneurs in these activities. the most probable stagnation is due to the inadmissible attitude of society (state) towards environmental standards because the state's orientation in energy is focused on the use of low-calorie coal, which increases the carbonization of the environment and inevitably pollutes air, water, and soil. the economic ana milojević, sladjana vujicic, zorana nikitović, mirjana radović marković 191 power of the state does not provide significant opportunities to avoid that or at least reduce the harmful effect. in fact, harmful particles penetrate into groundwater, so from sources that have been abundant and clean for centuries, healthy drinking water cannot be expected in the future. the worst thing about that is the fact that such damages cannot be eliminated in any way, regardless of possible future large investments. it is important for this study that the changed ecological conditions of our climate directly affect all activities of organic production, especially those that require maximum clean unpolluted forest, water, and air, because these are the prerequisites for the development of beekeeping and collecting activities (mushrooms, berries, and herbs). table 3: relations between main activities and total number of certified woman manufacturers for 2013-2020 source: author's own calculations based on data from ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management. organic production. http://www.minpolj.gov.rs/organska/ by analysing the graph below, we can conclude that organic beekeeping in serbia, where women entrepreneurs had a significant initial 192 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 184-198) share, has completely dried up, just like the organic products collection activities (unpolluted forest and mountain berries, mushrooms, aromatic herbs, and medicines grass). and all these healthy products are in great demand in the demanding market of western europe, precisely because our climate is still relatively unpolluted, due to the slower development of the country's industrialization. some of the reasons for this situation are increased engagement of foreign investors in the field of mining, metallurgy, and then uncontrolled carbonization of the sky over us, because the electrical sector relies heavily on the use and burning of fossil fuels. all this directly affected the employment of women in the field of organic production, which certainly eliminates the possibility of proving hypotheses about the permanent growth of women's entrepreneurship in serbia, and reducing the gender pay gap, i.e., significant arrival of female employees with average male incomes. graph 1: main activities of certified female manufacturers in period 2013 to 2020 source: author's own calculations based on data from ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management. organic production. http://www.minpolj.gov.rs/organska/ ana milojević, sladjana vujicic, zorana nikitović, mirjana radović marković 193 next graphs clearly show that the share of female entrepreneurship in the production of food of organic origin in serbia has changed considerably in these seven years, because, apart from plant production (vegetables and fruits, since cereals are on larger plots that have been converted, they are mostly reserved for associations, companies and men, heads of family households), women took part in livestock, poultry (meat and eggs), livestock (lambs, calves and pigs), beekeeping (honey, royal jelly, propolis), as well as in larger processing of organic products. like any other country, ours should increase incentive measures, which could be very important for reducing general female unemployment (especially from the aspect of automation and digitalization of jobs, as well as due to the covid-19 pandemic). improvement of domestic competitiveness of healthy items in the market, with an emphasis on exports, could significantly increase the standard of citizenship of the country in general. graph 2: female manufacturers in organic production in serbia for period 2013-2020 source: author's own calculations based on data from ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management. organic production. http://www.minpolj.gov.rs/organska/ 194 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 184-198) graph 3: plant organic production in serbia by female manufacturers for period 2013-2020 sources: author's own calculations based on data from ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management. organic production. http://www.minpolj.gov.rs/organska/ graph 4: plant & livestock organic production in serbia by female manufacturers for period 2013-2020 sources: author's own calculations based on data from ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management. organic production. http://www.minpolj.gov.rs/organska/ ana milojević, sladjana vujicic, zorana nikitović, mirjana radović marković 195 graph 5: poultry & eggs organic production in serbia by female manufacturers for period 2013-2020 sources: author's own calculations based on data from ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management. organic production. http://www.minpolj.gov.rs/organska/ graph 6: processing of organic product in serbia by female manufacturers for period 2013-2020 sources: author's own calculations based on data from ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management. organic production. http://www.minpolj.gov.rs/organska/ the strong growth rates in eu, both of the production and consumption indicate that the organic market has not yet reached its maturity stage and further growth can still be expected. organic farming is already responding to further emerging consumer trends such as veganism and demand for locally produced food products, turning these challenges into opportunities [7]. although serbia lags behind the developed eu countries, there is still progress and generally constant growth in organic production, and if we 196 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 184-198) follow the example of eu countries, we will give a chance to women entrepreneurs. conclusion considering all aspects of the above analysis, hypothesis 1 (automation and digitalization of jobs will not significantly affect the sector of organic food production in serbia, as such cultivation requires manual labour, and women's participation will increase from year to year), despite the real expectations, has not been fully proven. in fact, other circumstances in the country (economic stagnation, indebtedness to foreign investors and the emergence of the global covid-19 pandemic) have conditioned that only expectations in the first part (about the minor impact of automation and digitalization on organic production) were justified. only by stabilizing the country's economy and overcoming the pandemic crisis will we be able to relevantly measure this impact, because a healthier situation could lead to a more significant participation of women in this area. uncertainty of business (regardless of gender) at the global level, and therefore in serbia, made it impossible to prove the hypothesis 2 (by opening small and medium-sized rural farms for organic food production of plant and animal origin, in which greater involvement of women entrepreneurs is expected, the existing gender gap in income (earnings) will be significantly reduced), because in recent years in this sector, mainly due to the pandemic and economic stagnation, is the status quo. the aim of this research was women's entrepreneurship in the production of organic food in serbia, from the aspect of domestic market development, but also in cross-border exports, because it could significantly increase the standard of serbian citizens. using public data on the participation of women entrepreneurs in organic production, an attempt was made to prove (or refute) the hypotheses about the minor impact of automation and digitalization of jobs on the sector of organic food production in serbia and women's participation in it. it was also investigated whether the opening of small and medium-sized rural farms for organic food production, through greater engagement of women entrepreneurs, will significantly reduce the existing gender gap in income (earnings). unfortunately, various factors prevented a clearer insight into this area, so attitudes remained questionable until some more stable, healthier times. ana milojević, sladjana vujicic, zorana nikitović, mirjana radović marković 197 the unquestionable results of the conducted analysis are the fact that incentive measures for women's entrepreneurship in the field of organic production can bring multiple benefits to society and the state, so they should be improved in all segments. only greater and more transparent incentives to expand in this area, with an emphasis on women's employment, easier credit routes, a grace period during land conversion, can make significant progress in solving the problem, with benefits for the whole society. while in the more developed and economically stable countries of western europe, women have support for the development of their own entrepreneurship in this area, in our country it is still at the beginning. although it is well known that every type of independent business frees women from discriminatory and inequality, no significant investment for this purpose has been made so far. the biggest challenges for this study on women entrepreneurs in organic production in serbia were the shortcomings and non-transparency of data, which indicates the attitude of the state towards this development opportunity. however, based on the available information, there is a large backlog of women's engagement in this area as well. the study failed to directly point to the permanent growth of women's entrepreneurship, nor to the ways in which greater participation of women in organic food production in serbia should be developed, but it marked the existing difficulties that hinder this development and focused on the plan and how attention should be paid to professional knowledge and managerial skills to work in these small family companies, but also potentially large businesses. references [1] erceg v., zoranović t. 2020. ,,kompetencije potrebne za uspešno sprovođenje digitalne transformacije ,,ekonomika, vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 47-54 [2] lapcevic g., nikitovic z. 2020. ,,upravljanje ljudskim faktorom u poljoprivredi motivacija i kontrola,, trendovi u poslovanju, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 57-67 [3] milanovic m., nikitovic z., vujicic s. 2020. ,,the importance of the quality of the agricultural product for sustainable success of agricultural holding,, international review, no. 3-4, pp. 105-112 [4] ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management. 2020 organska proizvodnja. http://www.minpolj.gov.rs/organska/. 198 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2021, no. 3-4, 184-198) [5] mirecki n., wehinger t., jaklič m. 2011. ,,prirucnik za organsku proizvodnju,, biotehnički fakultet podgorica. https://www.fao.org/3/an443sr/an443sr00.pdf [6] european commission, 2019. organic farming in the eu. a 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[15] world economic forum. 2020. global gender gap report 2020. www.weforum.org/reports/gender-gap-2020-report-100-years-pay-equality. article history: received: november 29th, 2021 accepted: december 24th, 2021 doi: 10.28934/jwee23.12.pp1-31 scientific review 0bfeminist critique of ghana’s women’s entrepreneurship policies mavis serwah benneh mensah0f1 university of cape coast, school of business, centre for entrepreneurship and small enterprise development, cape coast, ghana evelyn derera1 f2 university of kwazulu-natal, school of management, it & governance, pietermaritzburg, south africa a b s t r a c t women’s entrepreneurship is an important medium for poverty reduction, economic growth and development. nonetheless, it faces critical challenges that limit it from realizing its full potential. feminist theories bring to the fore the diverse conundrums of women’s entrepreneurship and how to address them. this paper aims to examine ghana’s women’s entrepreneurship policies from feminist theoretical perspectives to determine how the policies address gendered barriers and support women’s entrepreneurship efforts. premised on the transformative research paradigm, the paper involves content analysis of 14 purposively-sampled ghana’s public policy documents. consistent with policy expectations of the feminist theories, it was found that there are policies that seek to address gendered discourses, promote change of social structures in support of women’s venturing and enhance women entrepreneurs’ access to resources. nonetheless, there are still areas that need further attention in all three theoretical perspectives, particularly in pursuit of change in social structures and gender equality in access to resources. although the policies justifiably tilt more towards the informal sector, 1 corresponding author, e-mail: mmensah@ucc.edu.gh and mbennehmensah@ucc.edu.gh, tel. +233 245 093 600 2 e-mail: dererae@ukzn.ac.za, tel. +27 33 260 5781 2 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) inadequate attention to women operating in the formal sector could serve as a disincentive to the growth and development of their ventures and a deterrent to the graduation of more informal enterprises into the formal economy. key words: barriers, entrepreneurship, feminist theories, ghana, policy, transformative research, women introduction women’s entrepreneurship is an important medium for poverty reduction, economic growth and development (world bank, 2022). it employs an estimated 252 million women who head various entrepreneurial projects worldwide and contributes to household welfare through enhanced expenditure on food, health and education (adom & anambane, 2019; bosma et al., 2020; silva et al., 2021). nevertheless, women’s entrepreneurship faces numerous obstacles that limit it from achieving the desired outcomes (silva et al., 2021; world bank, 2018). feminist theories bring to the fore the diverse conundrums of women’s entrepreneurship and how to address them through public policy. the theories, specifically liberal feminist, feminist standpoint and poststructuralist feminist, share a common stance on gender inequality, female subordination and oppression as fundamental to the socio-economic plight of women (fischer, reuber & dyke, 1993; harstock, 1997; makarem, metcalfe & afiouni, 2019). this position is well acknowledged by the united nations population fund and the un-women in their global mandates in agreement with the fifth sustainable development goal, which aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. in addition, proponents of the liberal feminist theory highlight women’s unequal and limited access to resources as a bane to women’s entrepreneurship (boohene, 2009; williams & kedir, 2018). on the other hand, the feminist standpoint theory upholds capitalist and patriarchal oppression that limits women’s advancement, and thus, entrepreneurship researchers advocate for change in social structures that will promote women’s entrepreneurship (henry et al., 2017; foss et al., 2019). the post-structuralist feminist theory distinguishes itself by bringing attention to the negative impact of discriminatory social practices, such as gendered discourses, on females' motivation and performance, which mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 3 necessitate a reversal of such practices through women’s entrepreneurship policies (foss et al., 2019). women’s entrepreneurship policies are measures by governments to stimulate more productive entrepreneurial behavior among women in a given geographical jurisdiction (hart, 2003; henry et al., 2017). research by henry et al. (2017) on women’s entrepreneurship policies showed that more policies are embedded in other public policy documents, as is the case of tanzania, while relatively fewer countries, including canada and germany, have separate instruments devoted to advancing women’s entrepreneurship. irrespective of the place of domicile, policies are indispensable in providing the necessary guidance for decision-making, performance monitoring and evaluation (longoria, 2018; scott, 2014). policy documents/instruments, therefore, serve as reference points for public accountability. accordingly, lascoumes and le gales (2007) describe a public policy document as constituting a technical and social device that organizes specific social relations between the state and those it is addressed to according to the representations and meanings it carries. despite the critical role of women’s entrepreneurship policies in personal and national development, it has not received adequate research attention. researchers have noted that women’s venturing and related policy issues are underexplored research fields and that most studies have been atheoretical, leading to disparities between research focus and policy recommendations (foss et al., 2019; henry et al., 2017). in the face of confounding challenges to women’s entrepreneurship in ghana (bamfo & asieduappiah, 2012; boateng & poku, 2019) and the absence of devoted studies on women’s entrepreneurship policies, this paper aims to examine ghana’s women’s entrepreneurship policies from feminist theoretical perspectives to determine how the policies address gendered barriers and support women’s entrepreneurship efforts, and to offer insights for future policy direction. thus, the paper seeks to address the central question: how do ghana’s women’s entrepreneurship policies address gendered barriers and support women’s entrepreneurship efforts in the country? in recognition of the key role of gender in this research and the varied definitions of gender in literature, this study adopts bacchi’s definition of gendering “to describe the active shaping of the categories of “woman” and “man” as kinds of being in a relation of inequality…gendering practices in 4 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) this instance constitute “men” and “women”.” (bacchi, 2017, p. 23); and the roles that society expects of them. thus, fischer et al. (1993) note that one’s gender is based on differences in social experience, usually from childbirth, due to caregivers’ and others’ reactions to the observed sex of the child (fischer et al., 1993). in contrast, a person’s sex is considered to be based strictly on physiological differences that make one either male or female. the main rationale for the choice of bacchi’s (2017) and fischer et al.’s (1993) definitions is that they sit well with the universal interpretation of gender in ghana and ghana’s socio-cultural norms that define women’s and men’s roles in society. for instance, women are expected to be calm and take care of domestic responsibilities such as childrearing, household chores, and the sick and the elderly (adom & anambane, 2019; seshienasser & oduro, 2018). in contrast, men are accorded the accolade of being firm, decisive, and outspoken household heads and should engage in maledominated economic activities outside the home (adom & anambane, 2019; seshie-nasser & oduro, 2018). these gendered roles influence the types and outcomes of women’s venturing (henry et al., 2017; overå, 2017). in that regard, the paper proceeds with a review of women’s entrepreneurship in ghana, followed by an appraisal of feminist theories and women’s entrepreneurship policies. the subsequent section provides an overview of the research methodology underpinned by the transformative research paradigm and a feminist analytical framework of women’s entrepreneurship policies. the remaining sections of the paper comprise the results and discussions as well as conclusions and recommendations for future policy direction. women’s entrepreneurship in ghana overview women’s entrepreneurship constitutes the pursuit of entrepreneurship as a career by women or the ownership and management of businesses by women (terjesen, bosma & stam, 2016). in this paper, this definition extends to women’s venturing into both formal and informal sectors of the economy. similar to senegal (36.8%) and botswana (32.0%), in ghana, more women (38%) start businesses than men (35%) which is higher than women’s venturing in top-performing advanced countries like canada mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 5 (13.3%), australia (11.5%) and the united states of america (10.5%) (herrington & kelly, 2012; pinkovetskaia et al., 2019). women’s entrepreneurship in ghana follows the global pattern whereby most females operate in the informal and low-income sectors such as subsistence agriculture, trading and service (hampel-milagrosa, 2011; overå, 2017; pinkovetskaia et al., 2019). the main reasons women start businesses in ghana are the need for employment, income and financial independence (bamfo & asieduappiah, 2012; hampel-milagrosa, 2011). this contradicts the case of developed countries where research by bosma et al. (2020) showed that motivation to make a difference in the world and earn a living due to job scarcity are the primary reasons for starting a business. econometric analysis by seshie-nasser and oduro (2018) on women’s venturing in ghana revealed that although women’s businesses are 67 percent smaller than those of men, women’s business ownership is associated with improved welfare through contributions to household expenditures like feeding, clothing and education. this buttresses the adage by one of ghana’s illustrious sons, dr. kwegyir aggrey, that if you educate a man, you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation. transposing this axiom to entrepreneurship, the stance of this paper is that if you build a woman’s enterprise, you build a nation. barriers to women’s entrepreneurship in ghana ghana’s women entrepreneurs face sociocultural, economic and personal challenges that affect their performance negatively and explain their lower performance in terms of size, profitability and growth compared to their male counterparts (bamfo & asieduappiah, 2012; seshie-nasser & oduro, 2018). ghana’s national gender policy acknowledges this reality and commits “…to develop a national policy for the informal sector (where women are concentrated), to take account of the challenges that confront women in trade and industry” (ministry of gender, children and social protection, 2015, p. 31). the importance of formalizing enterprises in the informal sector is buttressed by hampel-milagrosa (2011), who found that registered entrepreneurs earned more net profit than informal entrepreneurs. consistent with global patterns, socio-cultural barriers to women’s entrepreneurship emanate from patriarchal discriminatory cultural norms and practices that limit the ability of women entrepreneurs to exercise their entrepreneurial ingenuity and socio-economic rights (adom & anambane, 6 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) 2019; overå, 2003). although ghana’s constitution promulgates equal rights of all citizens, embedded discriminatory socio-cultural practices permeate every fabric of society. a study by chea (2008) revealed that women experienced gender discrimination in terms of government economic policies, statutory and customary laws and administrative hurdles. research by overå (2003), boateng and poku (2019) and adom and anambane (2019) further showed that these barriers are embedded in the ghanaian society and are more entrenched in patrilineal than matrilineal societies. empirical research demonstrates that the gendered barriers negatively affect the performance of female-led enterprises and their ability to access resources (bamfo & asieduappiah, 2012; boateng & poku, 2019) and their chances of venturing into male-dominated sectors (overå, 2017). contrary, a study by overå (2007) showed that men are venturing into traditional female domains such as the food trade due to job losses. researchers have advocated for policies and programs to encourage a cultural paradigm shift, affirmative action for female education, and bridge gender differences and power conflict resulting from the economic empowerment of women entrepreneurs (boohene, 2009; sallah & caesar, 2019; hampel-milagrosa, 2011). economic obstacles to women’s entrepreneurship in ghana are versatile and emanate from the entrepreneurial ecosystem. they comprise inadequate and limited access to resources of all kinds, including financial resources, human resources and social capital (bamfo & asieduappiah, 2012; hampel-milagrosa, 2011; sowatey et al., 2018). other challenges are inadequate customers, non-payment of debts, high taxes and license fees, lack of space to operate, lack of capital equipment and difficulties with existing regulations (bamfo & asieduappiah, 2012; peprah, buor & forkuor, 2019). although research by kuada (2009) and schindler (2009) shows that women entrepreneurs draw heavily on social relationships to access informal credit, schindler (2009) notes that credit involves high transaction costs that prevent the entrepreneurs from growing out of poverty in the long run. therefore, peprah et al. (2019) entreat government to reduce tax rates to moderate levels and increase female access to credit and savings through more accessible and affordable public and private financial mechanisms. personal characteristics of entrepreneurs, namely level of education, training, entrepreneurial experience, self-confidence, communication and mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 7 networking skills, are important determinants of business performance (adom & asare-yeboah, 2016; obeng, robson & haugh, 2014). a study by sallah and caesar (2019) showed that social capital, in terms of networks and memberships, has a positive and significant effect on women’s businesses in ghana. however, research by boohene (2009) revealed that most female entrepreneurs have poor business skills and a lower level of education. lent (2020) identifies additional constraints, including imprecise measurement and recordkeeping, and poor timekeeping. personal limitations have ramifications for access to resources. for example, boateng and poku (2019) found that financial institutions generally consider giving loans to women entrepreneurs as risky due to a lack of codified business strategy and plan, proper costing of business and informational asymmetries about business owners and their businesses. related policy recommendations in the literature include the need to step up female education and skills and entrepreneurial training of women entrepreneurs (adom & asare-yeboah, 2016; seshie-nasser & oduro, 2018). the foregoing review shows that women’s entrepreneurship in ghana constitutes a substantial proportion of the country’s economic activities and contributes to employment and household welfare. nevertheless, women’s enterprises are far smaller in size than men’s enterprises. seshie-nasser and oduro (2018) note that potentials exist for poverty reduction and economic growth if government policy invests in the size of women’s enterprises. moreover, women’s entrepreneurship faces numerous socio-cultural, economic and personal challenges and, as a result, scholars have recommended several policy interventions. the next section of the review looks at the various policy expectations from feminist theoretical perspectives. feminist theories and women’s entrepreneurship policies liberal feminist theory, feminist standpoint theory and poststructuralist feminist theory are three major schools of thought that have emerged over the years to explain women’s subordination and how public policy must address discriminatory practices that discourage women’s advancement in diverse fields, including entrepreneurship. the three theoretical perspectives share a common message of the need to correct structural and institutional patriarchal subordination, which are generally 8 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) fashioned out into gendered roles and enforced through discriminatory social practices (ahl & marlow, 2017; henry et al., 2017). consistent with the stereotype threat theory by steele and aronson (1995), the norms constitute negative stereotypes that adversely affect the motivation and performance of individuals whose social group is negatively labeled through self-characteristics, for example, the female as frail and the weaker sex. the impact of negative self-characterization is a key preoccupation of the post-structuralist feminist theory. ahl and marlow (2017) argue that socially-constructed representations of gendered subject positions are articulated through oppositional categories within the language itself, where the feminine side of the binary reflects and sustains subordination. using gender-neutral language, pursuing mandatory gender awareness creation, and training business advisory officers on gender-related issues are key post-structuralist feminist policy expectations for advancing women and women’s entrepreneurship (foss et al., 2019). empirical feminism, specifically the liberal feminist theory, explains unequal rights to women’s participation in the public sphere beyond the family and the household (fischer et al., 1993). according to the theory, social opportunities are not equitably distributed, and women are disadvantaged with respect to access to resources and opportunities such as education, experience and finance (boohene, 2009; henry et al., 2017). the theory posits a view of women and men as having similar capacities, in other words, being essentially the same (foss et al., 2019). therefore, if women were given the same opportunities as men, they would produce comparable results (foss et al., 2019). henry et al. (2017) argue that limited access to resources influences opportunity recognition, the types of firms that women launch and the subsequent success. they further indicate that limited resources contribute to industry segregation, with women tending to launch firms in highly competitive and less profitable sectors, such as retail and personal services. the core policy expectation is equal access to resources for women entrepreneurs (foss et al., 2019). on the other hand, feminist standpoint theory, according to o’brien hallstein (2000, p. 5), recognizes commonality among women in terms of being disadvantaged compared to men as a group, whereby “…. women occupy a distinct position and potential standpoint in culture because, under the sexual division of labor ensconced in capitalist patriarchy, women have been systematically exploited, oppressed, excluded, devalued, and dominated.” as much as entrepreneurship may be the only avenue for some mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 9 women to earn a living for survival, research shows that public policy must focus on promoting decent work and high-growth or transformational entrepreneurship (esquivel & enríquez, 2020; ratten & tajeddini, 2018). public policy requirements include social structures such as childcare systems and parental leave in support of women (pinkovetskaia et al., 2019; ratten & tajeddini, 2018). the foregoing review necessitates adopting cross-cutting measures in addressing the barriers to women’s entrepreneurship in ghana. in addition, it is evident from the barriers and the corresponding policy demands of the various feminist schools of thought that women’s entrepreneurship policy must be comprehensive in addressing the constraints. data and methodology data sources this study employed qualitative data from 14 purposively-sampled national policy documents. unlike canada or germany, ghana did not have a dedicated women’s entrepreneurship policy document at the time of this research. the selection criteria for the 14 policy documents were a demonstration of commitment to promoting female or women’s entrepreneurship in ghana, including policy instruments that contained specific and general provisions that directly or indirectly support women’s entrepreneurship. two of the policy documents (see table 1) were generic as they contained general policy prescriptions on ghana’s social and economic activities, with some provisions on women’s entrepreneurship. the documents were the co-ordinated programme of economic and social development policies 2017-2024 (cpesdp) and the medium-term national development policy framework 2018-2021 (mtndpf). the other 11 policy documents operationalized the general provisions in the cpesdp and the mtndpf according to the mandate of the government ministries that issued them. 10 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) table 1: ghana’s policy documents addressing women’s entrepreneurship source: authors’ compilation (2020) no. document title year of publication issuing authority 1. national micro, small and medium enterprises (msme) policy 2019 ministry of trade and industry 2. national agriculture investment plan (2018-2021) 2018 ministry of food and agriculture 3. the co-ordinated programme of economic and social development policies (cpesdp) (2017-2024) 2017 office of the president 4. medium-term national development policy framework (mtndpf) (2018-2021) 2017 national development planning commission 5. national science, technology and innovation policy (2017 – 2020) 2017 ministry of environment, science, technology and innovation (mesti) 6. national gender policy 2015 ministry of gender, children and social protection (mogcsp) 7. national social protection policy 2015 mogcsp 8. fisheries management plan of ghana marine fisheries sector 2015-2019 2015 ministry of fisheries and aquaculture development and the fisheries commission 9. national employment policy, volume 1, 2014 2014 ministry of employment and labour relations 10. ghana national climate change policy 2013 mesti 11. national energy policy 2010 ministry of energy 12. medium-term expenditure framework (mtef) for 2019-2022 not specified former ministry for business development 13. ghana industrial policy not specified ministry of trade and industry (moti) 14. ghana trade policy not specified moti mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 11 methodology the transformative research paradigm underpinned this study. the paradigm offers researchers the opportunity to demonstrate the needs of marginalized groups and individuals and to give them a voice, raise their consciousness or advance an agenda for change to improve their lives (creswell, 2014). the premise for this study was that women entrepreneurs constitute a disadvantaged group compared to their male counterparts (seshie-nasser & oduro, 2018; bosma et al., 2020). because of their status and physiology as women, they encounter numerous challenges that impede them from operating in more productive sectors of the economy (hampelmilagrosa, 2011; overå, 2017). the aforementioned obstacles also limit women’s ability to grow their enterprises for personal and national development (adom & anambane, 2019; foss et al., 2019). this qualitative study, therefore, employed feminist theoretical lenses to illustrate the disadvantaged position of women in ghana’s policy instruments and to analyze policy provisions on women’s entrepreneurship. more importantly, it identified policy gaps in addressing gendered barriers and advocated for adequate policies to advance women’s venturing in ghana. content analysis of the 14 purposively-sampled policy instruments was conducted with the help of a document review guide. the review guide consisted of several sections focussing on women’s entrepreneurship policy provisions in ghana. the sections relevant to the aim of this paper were the background information, gender balance and neutrality, and socio-political and economic empowerment of women, and access to resources. a review of the policy documents and data extraction and analysis were performed from november 2020 to march 2021. data were manually coded through open and axial coding, while data analysis and interpretation followed a descriptive approach (creswell, 2014; henry et al., 2017) based on a feminist analytical framework of women’s entrepreneurship policies. to ensure the reliability of the findings, there was a theoretical triangulation of the analytical framework as supported by several theoretical positions contained in the literature review section of the paper (graue, 2015). analytical framework this paper draws upon the literature review on barriers to women’s entrepreneurship in ghana and feminist theories to construct a feminist 12 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) analytical framework of women’s entrepreneurship policies (table 2). anchored on the three main feminist theoretical perspectives and the corresponding policy expectations, the feminist analytical framework of women’s entrepreneurship policies constitutes three indicators for analyzing government policy prescriptions on women’s venturing. table 2: feminist analytical framework of women’s entrepreneurship policies no. feminist theories expected policy focus indicators for analysis 1. post-structuralist feminist theory (post-modern, post-colonial) change of discriminatory social practices 1. preparation and presentation of the policy documents – gender balance in: • the composition of authors/validation team; language used; & human images 1. mandatory gender awareness training for business advisors, etc. (ahl & marlow, 2017; foss et al., 2019; peprah et al., 2019) 2. feminist standpoint theory (radical, socialist) change of social structures 1. publicly subsidized childcare support, paid family leave, maternity/paternity support provisions, equally shared paid parental leave 2. formalization of enterprises through business registration and formation of associations 3. economic incentives such as special tax relief and tax exemptions 4. equally-shared quotas in public purchasing, etc. (harstock, 1997; hampelmilagrosa, 2011; henry et al., 2017; panda, 2018; ratten & tajeddini, 2018) mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 13 no. feminist theories expected policy focus indicators for analysis 3. feminist empiricism (liberal) equal access to resources equal access to: 1. training, mentorship, coaching and other forms of human resource development/capacity building 2. social capital/networking opportunities 3. funding 4. physical capital/infrastructural support, e.g. land, operating space, tools and equipment 5. (foss et al., 2019; sallah & caesar, 2020; seshie-nasser & oduro, 2018) source: authors’ compilation the first set of indicators relates to the tenets of the post-structuralist feminist theory with the primary goal of realizing a reversal of discriminatory social practices against women. within the context of this study, the main indicators for analyzing this policy expectation are gendered discourses that entrench discrimination through the presentation of policy documents (ahl & marlow, 2017; foss et al., 2019). as shown in table 2, the indicators include gender balance, for instance, in the authors’ composition and policy provisions on gender awareness training for business advisors. the feminist standpoint theory recognizes commonality among women in terms of being disadvantaged compared to men as a group; entrepreneurship researchers, therefore, seek to champion changes in social structures that would promote decent work and transformational entrepreneurship for females in the entrepreneurial ecosystem (harstock, 1997; wylie, 2016). the respective indicators (see table 2) comprise publicly subsidized childcare support and paid family leave (henry et al., 2017; ratten & tajeddini, 2018); formalization of women’s enterprises to enhance their access to opportunities in the formal economy (hampelmilagrosa, 2011); economic incentives such as tax rebates or exemptions to bring women entrepreneurs to a level playing field (peprah et al., 2019; foss 14 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) et al., 2019); and promotion of equally-shared quotas in public procurement (foss et al., 2019). empirical research within the liberal feminist theoretical framework (e.g., ali & shabir, 2017; williams & kedir, 2018) shows that women can perform equally as men when given equal access to resources to operate in an environment devoid of discrimination. as a result, the distinguishing policy expectation of this theoretical position is equal access of women entrepreneurs to all forms of resources (boohene, 2009; foss et al., 2019). the primary indicators in the analytical framework include capacity building for women entrepreneurs, which is highly recommended by researchers such as panda (2018) and seshie-nasser and oduro (2018). other indicators are equal and enhanced access to funding (bamfo and asiedu-appiah, 2012; peprah et al., 2018), social capital (panda, 2018; seshie-nasser & oduro, 2018) and physical infrastructure (peprah et al., 2019) (table 2). results and discussions as per the feminist analytical framework of women’s entrepreneurship policies (table 2), the analysis and discussion of policy provisions centered on three key areas: change of discriminatory social practices and social structures, as well as equal access to resources. change of discriminatory social practices the focus of the analysis was gender neutrality or gender balance in the presentation of policy documents and gender awareness training for key officers. gender neutrality/balance in the presentation of policy documents according to the post-structuralist feminist theory, gender is socially constructed, and various forms of gender discrimination must be avoided, including gendered discourses (ahl & marlow, 2017; foss et al., 2019). peprah et al. (2019) identified gendered discourses in the form of language art as a part of the societal or cultural aspect of oppression that provides a clear indication that one social group is placed higher than the other. such oppression and subordination disempower the affected group as its needs are often relegated to the background (adom & anambane, 2019; foss et mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 15 al., 2019). as a result, this research assessed the extent of gender neutrality/gender balance in the language/text of the policy documents, the composition of authors/validation team and human images in the documents under study (see the analytical framework in table 2). the analysis revealed gender balance in the language art of referring to the opposite sex in all the policy instruments. for instance, phrases such as “women and men”, “males and females”, “boys and girls”, and “s/he” were common to the documents. the findings demonstrate a positive stance towards equal recognition of males and females in the codified national discourse. this agrees with post-structuralist feminist expectations expounded by foss et al. (2019) and peprah et al. (2019). in effect, this kind of social transformation enhances the self-worth of females and makes room for due recognition of their necessities. acknowledging the fact that national documents do not necessarily have to contain a list of authors and human images, so long as they were part of the policy documents they were assessed for gender balance. the results showed that all but one of the 14 policy documents did not have authors/validation teams spelled out. the exception was the national employment policy which acknowledged a seven-member technical validation team comprising five males and two females, with only one of the females from ghana and the other from the international labor organisation. the seven-member team included representatives from ministries, departments and agencies but did not involve representatives from the then ministry of women and children’s affairs. although the policy instrument, just like the other 13 instruments, alluded to stakeholder consultations that involved women groups, the lower representation of women in the policy preparation/validation team could limit the extent to which women’s issues are adequately addressed in the document. moreover, nine out of the 14 policy documents did not have human images, while two – the cpesdp and the national gender policy – had only the images of the country’s president at the time of publication of the document. the ghana national climate change policy and the national agriculture investment plan had images of both males and females relatively well distributed in the documents, but the latter gave prominence to the male gender by having the face of a man on the cover page. on the other hand, the fisheries management plan of ghana depicted images that portray segregation in the fishing industry. that is, there were images with only men standing around fishing boats which indicates that fishing is the 16 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) domain of men, while only women appeared in a picture of fish smoking, demonstrating it as the reserve of women. the findings show that ghana is forging ahead in ensuring gender neutrality in presenting policy documents. nevertheless, there are still areas that need further attention, namely ensuring gender balance in the authorship/validation team and human images. gender authorship balance and consultation with women groups are the foundation for ensuring gender-sensitive policies relevant to women’s needs. according to poststructuralist feminism, discriminatory tendencies reflect and sustain the subordination of females and can limit their ability to achieve their full potential (foss et al., 2019; makarem et al., 2019). gender awareness training/support proponents of the post-structuralist feminist theory advocate for gender awareness creation as one of the measures for tackling discriminatory social practices against women (foss et al., 2019; ratten & tajeddini, 2018). as shown in the study’s analytical framework and the domain of women’s entrepreneurship policy, gender awareness training for key officers, including business advisors, is central to the discourse. examination of the 14 policy documents revealed a strong and wide acknowledgment of gender inequality in ghana and the need to address this in all sectors of the economy with anticipation of the passage of an affirmative action bill. as an illustration, the national msme policy identifies with the sustainable development goal (sdg) 5 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. the national gender policy (p. 32) affirmed to: “facilitate sector gender policies to transform gender norms, stereotypes, socialization issues and unequal power relations; focusing especially on educational systems, media, the labor market, and leadership leading to sharing of responsibilities and confronting negative masculine and feminine behavior.” according to the ghana national climate change policy, “…evidence shows that climate change will hit women harder than men because of existing vulnerabilities and gender inequalities, and …there will be no climate justice until gender issues are resolved” (ghana national climate change policy, p. 78). despite the extensive recognition of gender inequality in all the policy instruments, only three of the documents made unequivocal provisions for gender awareness training, sensitization and other related support. these were the mtndpf, the national gender policy and the national mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 17 agriculture investment plan. the mtndpf (p. 71) explicitly communicated the government’s commitment to institute “…genderresponsive budgeting and training on gender equality in civil and public services…”. the national gender policy (p. 32) also pledged to: “facilitate allocation of resources by public and private sector institutions to set up … regular gender awareness and sensitization programs, to improve the culture for understanding gender roles and relationships in formal and informal decision making in homes, in communities and at workplaces.” it is encouraging to have the commitment of the three national policy instruments to address gender inequality that will be beneficial to women entrepreneurs. nevertheless, the mtndpf’s specific reference to civil and public services excludes the private sector, where most women entrepreneurs operate (hampel-milagrosa, 2011; seshie-nasser & oduro, 2018). among the documents under study, the national agriculture investment plan is the only sectorial document that made explicit provisions for the operationalization of interventions aimed at addressing gender inequality in ghana’s agricultural sector by pursuing the: “(a) establishment of a gender desk within cocobod to be responsible for gender-related policy issues; (b) developing institutional capacity for effective gender mainstreaming; (c) integrating gender in extension programming to ensure relevance of the information to men and women and equitable access to services; (d) sensitization of traditional authorities and smallholder farmers on gender equality to enable them to appreciate and overcome barriers to social exclusion in the cocoa value chain.” (national agriculture investment plan, p. 64). the interventions for the agriculture sector are very timely for addressing gender discrimination and inequality at the formal and informal levels and in all parts of ghana. this is in recognition of research by chea (2008), which revealed that women experienced gender discrimination in terms of government economic policies, statutory and customary laws and administrative hurdles. boateng and poku’s (2019) and adom and anambane’s (2019) research further showed that not only are these barriers present in ghana but are more entrenched in patrilineal societies than 18 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) matrilineal societies, heightening the need to pay attention to patrilineal societies. change of social structures feminist standpoint theories bring to the fore the disadvantaged position of women as a group relative to men (harstock, 1997; wylie, 2016). women’s entrepreneurship policy expectations, outlined in the analytical framework (table 2), hinge upon expectations for change in social structures supporting women entrepreneurs’ dual role of motherhood and entrepreneurship (esquivel & enríquez, 2020; foss et al., 2019). analysis of the policy documents in this study yielded three main findings. firstly, two out of the 14 policy instruments, the national gender policy and the cpesdp, made explicit provisions to enhance social structures that can benefit women’s entrepreneurship if implemented. the national gender policy encapsulates maternity/paternity provisions, childcare support and a fight against harmful social practices (see table 3). these policy provisions are critical to creating the necessary space and support for women, especially in ensuring that they undergo adequate recuperation after childbirth and benefit from financial relief from childcare support. table 3: excerpts of policy provisions for changing social structures as contained in the national gender policy no. policy prescriptions 1. “in addition to waivers for services covered under the nhis and ssnit, other relevant initiatives include: …free healthcare for pregnant women…” (p. 23) 2. “engender employment policies in ghana for greater inclusion, visibility and equal voice of both women and men in employment and the labor market in general…promote and regulate job security for women/men on maternity leave.” (p. 26) 3. “facilitate advocacy groups to promote legislation enabling fathers to be granted paternity leave.” (p. 27) 4. “…implement the affirmative action policy for the realization of the at least 40% representation of women in all structures, while advocating for the passage of an affirmative action legislation…review and promote leadership development channels for women across the regions.” (p. 29) 5. to transform inequitable gender relations in order to improve women’s mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 19 no. policy prescriptions status relative to that of men; to influence state policy in all areas and to identify strategies to facilitate equitable relations between women and men…liaise with labor market leaders to facilitate balancing of life responsibilities, including financial support to caregivers by providing child-friendly facilities at the workplaces…promote and accelerate the implementation of unpaid work modules…facilitate the implementation of gender mainstreaming in accordance with the terms contained in the 4th women’s conference in 1995 in beijing.” (p. 32) however, it is justifiable to question the validity of such interventions for women entrepreneurs because most of them operate in the informal sector, where the interventions do not mostly apply. insights from research by neergaard and thrane (2011) demonstrate the importance of ensuring that policies have dual goals of stimulating female employment and personal welfare by providing adequate social interventions, such as personal/family allowances during maternity leave to ensure the continuity of women’s enterprises. the second policy document, the cpesdp, sought to champion the course of the vulnerable, including women entrepreneurs in government purchasing/procurement. according to the cpesdp (p. 108) “government… will pass legislation to require that, over time, a substantial proportion of all government projects and procurement is executed by local corporations and enterprises, with special attention to entities owned by women, persons with disability, and those established under the youth enterprise fund (yef), among other initiatives.” it is important to note that the attainment of this policy provision is strongly tied to the skills and competency upgrade of women entrepreneurs as well as their access to resources since research by boohene (2009), bamfo and asieduappiah (2012), and lent (2020) established gross deficiencies of the entrepreneurs in these areas. secondly, all the policy documents recognized the existence of a large informal sector and the need to formalize the sector to bring government policy interventions within reach of the vulnerable, including women entrepreneurs. the mtndpf (p. 71) aimed at “encouraging women artisans and farmers to form associations for easy access to information and other forms of support.” the ghana trade policy (p. 28) acknowledged that a “considerable proportion of domestic trade is undertaken on an informal basis which limits the scope for growth, development and efficiency 20 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) gains…” therefore, a key objective of the policy is “to bring traders into the formal sector, broaden the tax base and enable micro and small traders to access formal institutional support to expand their businesses.” (ghana trade policy, p. 28). in that respect, the cpesdp (p. 68) communicated that “formalizing the informal economy is an important medium-term goal of government. the first concrete step to this end is implementing the national identification system as the primary identifier of all citizens.” effah et al. (2020) concluded in their research on ghana’s national identification system that the system has failed in producing the anticipated socio-economic development due to oversight of fundamental institutional requirements such as stakeholder consensus and infrastructure support. this is also supported by thiel’s (2017) analysis of entangled temporalities in the system. a key lesson is a need for active stakeholder involvement, not forgetting women entrepreneurs who constitute a greater percentage of economic actors in ghana’s informal sector. thirdly, a number of the policy documents showed commitment to other interventions crucial to the advancement of women’s entrepreneurship but were silent on specific provisions for women entrepreneurs. for example, as part of the government’s private sector development strategy, the cpesdp (p. 65) aimed at “lowering the overall tax burden on business, and instituting new incentives aimed at rapid industrialization and agricultural transformation, targeted at agro-processing, pharmaceuticals and light manufacturing, especially garments and textiles.” agriculture, garments and textiles are two important sectors of the ghanaian economy where most women entrepreneurs operate in the informal sector, besides trading (ghana statistical service, 2013). however, research by peprah et al. (2019) established high taxes and license fees as major obstacles to women operating in the informal sector. the absence of specific policy interventions to address these barriers will continue to create a huge vacuum that discourages productive women’s entrepreneurship in the country. equal access to resources equal access to resources is the main preoccupation of feminist empiricism, with the liberal feminist theory at the center stage (boohene, 2009; foss et al., 2019). within this theoretical paradigm, researchers have proven that females can perform equally or even better than males if the former receive adequate resources devoid of gender discrimination (ali & mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 21 shabir, 2017; williams & kedir, 2018). entrepreneurial resources come in varied forms, including physical resources, human resources, financial resources, social capital and information. with reference to the study’s analytical framework (table 2), policy provisions that promote women entrepreneurs’ equal and enhanced access to entrepreneurial resources were analyzed. the results showed that all the policy documents admitted to women’s unequal access to resources as a major deterrent to the advancement of women and economic progress in ghana. for example, the national gender policy (p. 30) pledged to “facilitate the provision of economic environments that promote more equitable access to income, resources and social services which accelerate poverty reduction programs addressing feminized poverty.” the ghana industrial policy (p. 38) also stated that “in industry, gender issues have not received the required recognition. this has manifested itself most prominently in the areas of access to credit, education and training and the provision of business development services.” similarly, the national agricultural investment plan noted that: “gender is an important dimension of poverty in ghana where over 51% of the population are women with a gender inequality index (gii) coefficient of 0.54 as of 2017… some of the discriminating factors generally encompass land constraints…, low application of modern inputs … and limited access to advisory service.” (national agricultural investment plan, p. 18). by alluding to the various resource constraints, relatively more policy documents contained provisions for addressing them. the results, as shown in table 4, indicate that policies on access to physical capital, particularly infrastructure, tools and equipment, were mainly in the domain of promoting equal access to land title; affordable, reliable and decent public transportation; refurbishing and retooling rehabilitation centers for persons with disabilities; and encouraging the adoption of new and appropriate technologies for women into micro and small scale production. with agriculture as the backbone of the ghanaian economy, the national agriculture investment plan (p. 60), for example, explained that “the focus in the medium term will be to distribute small handheld machinery and equipment for men and women smallholders… ”. 22 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) table 4: excerpts of policy provisions on improving women entrepreneurs’ access to resources no. policy prescriptions physical and technological resources 1. “introduce interventions to ensure women have equal access to land title” (mtndpf, p. 176) 2. “refurbish and retool the rehabilitation centers and open up other avenues nationwide to provide technical and vocational training for women with disability” (national gender policy, p. 26) 3. “facilitate affordable, reliable and decent transport services and infrastructure for all, particularly women, the vulnerable, the aged and persons with disability.” (national gender policy, p. 27) 4. “special programs will be designed to encourage rural women engaged in microand small-scale production to adopt new and appropriate technologies conducive to their fields of operation.” (nstip, p. 56) financial resources 5. channel all msme-related support and set up an sme fund (strong focus on women and youth) through the ega.” (national msme policy, p. 22) 6. provide special assistance for the development of women entrepreneurship, and improve their access to credit…” (national employment policy, p. 32) 7. “implement a policy of reserving 30 percent of poverty alleviation/credit funds of mmdas to service women’s enterprises...” (cpesdp, p. 6) 8. “ensure at least 50% of masloc funds are allocated to female applicants” (mtndpf, p. 176) 9. “facilitate the creation of women fish processors and traders associations to access micro-credit financial schemes. provide government support to the creation of micro-credit facilities.” (fisheries management plan, p. 31) the aforementioned policy provisions on stepping up women entrepreneurs’ access to physical capital are in the right direction (peprah et al., 2019; sowatey et al., 2018). nevertheless, it is puzzling to recognize the seeming absence of specific policies on physical capital for women entrepreneurs who have boldly ventured into medium and large-scale production activities in the formal sector. overå’s (2017) study on the gendered nature of entrepreneurship in ghana’s oil and gas service sector buttresses the need for special policies that seek to augment women entrepreneurs’ access to physical capital and other forms of resources in male dominated economic activities. mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 23 further assessment of the policy documents also revealed policies on improving women entrepreneurs’ access to finance (see table 4). for instance, the ghana trade policy (p. 20) reiterated that “the government will facilitate the provision of long-term concessionary investment finance facilities to groups currently excluded from, or with limited access to, credit. this will include micro, small and medium enterprises (msmes), exporters, women and rural entrepreneurs ...”. these proposed interventions are consistent with recommendations by seshie-nasser and oduro (2018) and peprah et al. (2019) on the importance of improving women entrepreneurs’ access to finance. it is evident from table 4 that human resource development/capacitybuilding programs were largely in the domain of the informal sector with explicit policy provisions for head porters and women in agriculture. some of the focal points are entrepreneurial training, vocational and technical training, trade and taxation literacy and health and skills training. considering that most women entrepreneurs in ghana operate in the informal sector, with 65.3 percent of ghanaian females in self-employment (ghana statistical service, 2013), these policy provisions are commendable. table 4 cntd. excerpts of policy provisions on improving women entrepreneurs’ access to resources no. policy prescriptions human resource development/capacity building 10. “improve access to education, health and skills training in incomegenerating activities for vulnerable persons including head porters (kayayei).” (mtndpf, p. 176) 11. “support organizations and associations of women entrepreneurs to design programs that account for their specific needs and challenges.” (national msme policy, p. 30) 12. “equip women with entrepreneurial skills linked with start-up capital.” (national gender policy, p. 26) 13. “provide trade and taxation literacy to the informal sector (which is largely women) and ensure their compliance as well as address their basic needs and strategic interests…” (national gender policy, p. 30) 14. “the government is committed to creating sustainable jobs in the agrifood sector for young women and men through access to innovative knowledge and skills... a total of 15,000 youth (at least 40% women) will be targeted for training by 2021.” (national agricultural investment plan, p. 44) 24 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) nonetheless, other capacity-building interventions, such as mentorship and continuous professional development programs for women entrepreneurs in the formal sector and other economic sectors such as manufacturing, tourism, and oil and gas, do not feature prominently in the examined policy documents. prior research by adom and asare-yeboah (2016) and overå (2017) demonstrates the need for capacity development for women entrepreneurs in these and other related sectors. subsequent analysis of the policy documents revealed several policy provisions to build women entrepreneurs’ social capital and facilitate access to information and related services. the national gender policy showed a strong commitment towards this course with policy provisions for women in international trade (see table 4). the mtndpf, the ghana industrial policy and the national agricultural investment plan also sought to promote women’s entrepreneurship through networks and information supply. to illustrate this, the ghana industrial policy (p. 38) noted that the “government will encourage the provision of affordable business development services to female entrepreneurs.” table 4 cntd. excerpts of policy provisions on improving women entrepreneurs’ access to resources no. policy prescriptions social capital, information supply and related services 15. “the e-agriculture system will make knowledge and technology dissemination more effective and readily available to meet the need of value chain players, particularly women. the support for accessing the eagriculture system will be part of the incentives for smallholders to form fbos.” (national agricultural investment plan, p. 44) 16. “government will continue to promote agricultural mechanization hiring enterprises…to provide full range custom hiring services from land development to harvesting for the smallholder farmers. this would include small agricultural machinery and equipment that can be owned and operated by smallholders, including women. … it is expected that institutional framework for custom hiring mechanization services will be in place by 2021.” (national agricultural investment plan, p. 45) 17. “bring ghanaian women entrepreneurs to the negotiation tables on african market issues and marketing linkages…facilitate an enabling environment for women producers and traders to form networks and dialogue for improved cross-border trade procedures and practices…facilitate gender equality and women’s empowerment…such mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 25 no. policy prescriptions as fair trade for african and ghanaian commodities…ensure that women entrepreneurs are involved in the processes and consensus building for exporters of products in the african growth and opportunity (agoa) act/ issues…facilitate the representation of women on boards of regional and international trade organizations.” (national gender policy, p. 31) on the international front, the national gender policy (p. 31) pledged to “ensure that women entrepreneurs are involved in the processes and consensus building for exporters of products in the african growth and opportunity (agoa) act….” a study by sallah and caesar (2019) showed that social capital has a positive and significant effect on the growth of women’s businesses in ghana. extending policy interventions to embrace women in international business is commendable and relevant. however, research by overå (2003), kuada (2009) and schindler (2009) and obeng et al. (2014) showed women entrepreneurs’ higher reliance on informal social networks for financing, business deals and business advice. seshie-nasser and oduro (2018) note that women entrepreneurs in developing countries are confident about their entrepreneurial abilities and less afraid of failure. therefore, designing public policy on networking opportunities to include women in the informal economy will unlock greater opportunities for them to excel. the foregoing presentation of results and discussions on women entrepreneurs’ access to resources demonstrates the ghana government’s commitment to improving access to human resources, social capital, and financial and physical resources. nevertheless, the discussions have highlighted major gaps that need to be addressed in the future policy review. conclusions and recommendations the purpose of this research was to examine ghana’s women’s entrepreneurship policies from feminist theoretical perspectives to determine how the policies address gendered barriers and support women’s entrepreneurship. the research was to offer insights for future policy direction. the study has illustrated ghana’s dedication to advancing women’s entrepreneurship. consistent with theoretical perspectives, ghana has policies that seek to address gendered discourses, promote social 26 journal of women’s entrepreneurship and education (2023, no. 1-2, 1-31) structures in support of women’s venturing and enhance women entrepreneurs’ access to resources. nonetheless, there are still areas that need further attention. the study established gender imbalance in authorship/validation teams and human images in the policy documents as well as limited operationalization of gender awareness training and sensitization of enterprise officers. there was also the seeming confinement of publicly-funded maternity/paternity provisions and childcare support to formal sector workers. these lapses signal discriminatory social practices and social structures that demand close policy attention for the benefit of all women, including women entrepreneurs. other issues of concern are the absence of clear policies on expanding physical infrastructure, such as decent and authorized operating spaces for women’s enterprises in the informal sector. conspicuously missing was the lack of specific policies on physical capital for women entrepreneurs who are into medium and large-scale production activities in the formal sector. there were no clear policies on capacity-building, such as mentorship and continuous professional development programs for women entrepreneurs in the formal sector, especially in manufacturing, tourism and oil and gas, which are emerging strongly in ghana’s economy. although the policies justifiably tilt more towards the informal sector, inadequate attention to women entrepreneurs in the formal sector could serve as a disincentive for the growth and development of their ventures. it could also discourage informal sector operators from seeking to formalize their businesses. in order to consolidate the existing policies for effective implementation, it is recommended that policies, together with the issues raised for inclusion in future policy reviews, should be well addressed in the ongoing design of a national entrepreneurship policy. developing a women’s entrepreneurship policy contributes to entrepreneurship development in a country and places it at the forefront of advancing women entrepreneurs to participate in local and export markets. issuing authorities should aim at gender balance in authorship/validation team and human images to ensure that women entrepreneurs’ issues are well-articulated in the policies. to foster the continuity and growth of women’s enterprises, particular attention should be given to instituting publicly-funded maternity/paternity leave and childcare support that extend to all women entrepreneurs, not forgetting personal/family allowances during maternity leave. mavis serwah benneh mensah, evelyn derera 27 further recommendations include additional policy provisions on skills and competency upgrade of women entrepreneurs and equal and improved access to resources to tap into other opportunities such as public procurement offered by policy and the african continental free trade agreement. while acknowledging recent professional development programs, such as the academy for women entrepreneurs by the united states bureau of educational and cultural affairs, the government must augment such efforts by instituting nationwide capacity-building and professional development programs for women entrepreneurs. in view of the numerous obstacles confronting women’s venturing and to correct structural lapses in the economy, the government should clearly define special tax relief for women entrepreneurs, especially those operating in sectors earmarked for ghana’s industrialization and agricultural transformation. there were other good policies that were silent on specific interventions for women/female entrepreneurs but are critical to the advancement of women’s entrepreneurship in ghana. notable among them are the youth in agriculture program (see the national social protection policy, p. 12; the national agricultural investment plan, p. 34, p. 73), the district industrialisation program and the industrial sub-contracting exchange (see the cpesdp, p. 63). other relevant programs are business incubation and acceleration, and tax incentives (see the cpesdp, p. 110; the medium-term expenditure framework of the then ministry for business development, p. 38-39); and the promotion of leadership development channels for women and political leadership mentorship programs at the tertiary level of education (see national gender policy, p. 29). it is recommended that the issuing authorities make provisions for women entrepreneurs in their subsequent review of the policies. the present research has highlighted policies that support women’s entrepreneurship in 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